1,731 research outputs found
Evaluation of different setups for the measurement of drug penetration into the nail
The aim of this study was to conduct permeation using 3 different setups: Franz diffusion cells, wet cotton ball, and agar gel to investigate whether the same permeation results would be obtained with a nail lacquer formulation. Subsequently, 4 nail lacquers were used in 2 of permeation setups to detect whether the order of best to worst formulation was the same in the different setups
A Quantitative Review on Language Model Efficiency Research
Language models (LMs) are being scaled and becoming powerful. Improving their
efficiency is one of the core research topics in neural information processing
systems. Tay et al. (2022) provided a comprehensive overview of efficient
Transformers that have become an indispensable staple in the field of NLP.
However, in the section of "On Evaluation", they left an open question "which
fundamental efficient Transformer one should consider," answered by "still a
mystery" because "many research papers select their own benchmarks."
Unfortunately, there was not quantitative analysis about the performances of
Transformers on any benchmarks. Moreover, state space models (SSMs) have
demonstrated their abilities of modeling long-range sequences with
non-attention mechanisms, which were not discussed in the prior review. This
article makes a meta analysis on the results from a set of papers on efficient
Transformers as well as those on SSMs. It provides a quantitative review on LM
efficiency research and gives suggestions for future research.Comment: 29 pages, 24 table
Embedding Mental Health Discourse for Community Recommendation
Our paper investigates the use of discourse embedding techniques to develop a
community recommendation system that focuses on mental health support groups on
social media. Social media platforms provide a means for users to anonymously
connect with communities that cater to their specific interests. However, with
the vast number of online communities available, users may face difficulties in
identifying relevant groups to address their mental health concerns. To address
this challenge, we explore the integration of discourse information from
various subreddit communities using embedding techniques to develop an
effective recommendation system. Our approach involves the use of content-based
and collaborative filtering techniques to enhance the performance of the
recommendation system. Our findings indicate that the proposed approach
outperforms the use of each technique separately and provides interpretability
in the recommendation process.Comment: Accepted to the 4th workshop on Computational Approaches to Discourse
(CODI-2023) at ACL 202
An investigation into correlations between onycheal antifungal drug flux and resulting fungal inhibition in in vitro assays
Effects of elevated ambient temperature on embryo implantation in rats
Implantation is a crucial step in mammalian reproduction as it is a gateway to further embryonic development and successful pregnancy. Changes in the environmental factors, such as temperature have adverse effects on reproduction. However, the impact of elevated temperature on the implantation process is not well defined. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible effect of elevated ambient temperature on implantation time and rate. The results revealed that exposure to elevated ambient temperature leads to a delayed implantation and reduced number of implantation sites in Sprague Dawley rats. Moreover, the exposure to elevated temperature resulted in change in the progesterone and estradiol patterns during the implantation time. These findings indicate that elevated temperature disturbs the implantation process.Key words: Elevated temperature, implantation time, number of implantation sites, progesterone and estradiol
Carbon Nanofibers-Based Nanoconfined Liquid Phase Filtration for the Rapid Removal of Chlorinated Pesticides from Ginseng Extracts.
A rapid nanoconfined liquid phase filtration system (NLPF) based on solvent-confined carbon nanofibers/carbon fiber materials (CNFs/CFs) was proposed to effectively remove chlorinated pesticides from ginsenosides-containing ginseng extracts. A series of major parameters that may affect the separation performance of the CNFs-NLPF method were extensively investigated, including the water solubility of nanoconfined solvents, filtration rate, ethanol content of the ginseng extracts, and reusability of the material for repeated adsorption. The developed method showed a high removal efficiency of pesticides (85.5-97.5%), high retainment rate of ginsenosides (95.4-98.9%), and consistent reproducibility (RSD < 11.8%). Furthermore, the feasibility of the CNFs-NLPF technique to be scaled-up for industrial application was systematically explored by analyzing large-volume ginseng extract (1 L), which also verified its excellent modifiable characteristic. This filtration method exhibits promising potential as a practical tool for removing pesticide residues and other organic pollutants in food samples to assure food quality and safeguard human health
Smad3 promotes cancer progression by inhibiting E4BP4-mediated NK cell development
published_or_final_versio
Comparison of techniques for handling missing covariate data within prognostic modelling studies: a simulation study
Background: There is no consensus on the most appropriate approach to handle missing covariate data within prognostic modelling studies. Therefore a simulation study was performed to assess the effects of different missing data techniques on the performance of a prognostic model.
Methods: Datasets were generated to resemble the skewed distributions seen in a motivating breast cancer example. Multivariate missing data were imposed on four covariates using four different mechanisms; missing completely at random (MCAR), missing at random (MAR), missing not at random (MNAR) and a combination of all three mechanisms. Five amounts of incomplete cases from 5% to 75% were considered. Complete case analysis (CC), single imputation (SI) and five multiple imputation (MI) techniques available within the R statistical software were investigated: a) data augmentation (DA) approach assuming a multivariate normal distribution, b) DA assuming a general location model, c) regression switching imputation, d) regression switching with predictive mean matching (MICE-PMM) and e) flexible additive imputation models. A Cox proportional hazards model was fitted and appropriate estimates for the regression coefficients and model performance measures were obtained.
Results: Performing a CC analysis produced unbiased regression estimates, but inflated standard errors, which affected the significance of the covariates in the model with 25% or more missingness. Using SI, underestimated the variability; resulting in poor coverage even with 10% missingness. Of the MI approaches, applying MICE-PMM produced, in general, the least biased estimates and better coverage for the incomplete covariates and better model performance for all mechanisms. However, this MI approach still produced biased regression coefficient estimates for the incomplete skewed continuous covariates when 50% or more cases had missing data imposed with a MCAR, MAR or combined mechanism. When the missingness depended on the incomplete covariates, i.e. MNAR, estimates were biased with more than 10% incomplete cases for all MI approaches.
Conclusion: The results from this simulation study suggest that performing MICE-PMM may be the preferred MI approach provided that less than 50% of the cases have missing data and the missing data are not MNAR
Nucleation of dislocations and their dynamics in layered oxide cathode materials during battery charging
Defects and their interactions in crystalline solids often underpin material
properties and functionality as they are decisive for stability, result in
enhanced diffusion, and act as a reservoir of vacancies. Recently, lithium-rich
layered oxides have emerged among the leading candidates for the
next-generation energy storage cathode material, delivering 50 % excess
capacity over commercially used compounds. Oxygen-redox reactions are believed
to be responsible for the excess capacity, however, voltage fading has
prevented commercialization of these new materials. Despite extensive research
the understanding of the mechanisms underpinning oxygen-redox reactions and
voltage fade remain incomplete. Here, using operando three-dimensional Bragg
coherent diffractive imaging, we directly observe nucleation of a mobile
dislocation network in nanoparticles of lithium-rich layered oxide material.
Surprisingly, we find that dislocations form more readily in the lithium-rich
layered oxide material as compared with a conventional layered oxide material,
suggesting a link between the defects and the anomalously high capacity in
lithium-rich layered oxides. The formation of a network of partial dislocations
dramatically alters the local lithium environment and contributes to the
voltage fade. Based on our findings we design and demonstrate a method to
recover the original high voltage functionality. Our findings reveal that the
voltage fade in lithium-rich layered oxides is reversible and call for new
paradigms for improved design of oxygen-redox active materials
Protective effect of wild Corni fructus methanolic extract against acute alcoholic liver injury in mice
Background: In Chinese folk medicine, Corni fructus (C. fructus) has traditionally been used to improve liver function, although the mechanism underlying its activity remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the protective effects of wild C. fructus methanolic extract against acute alcoholic liver injury.Methods: Alcohol was administered to mice for three consecutive days, either alone or in combination with C. fructus methanolic extract (50, 100, or 200mg/kg body weight/d). Serum and liver tissue were collected from the animals and subjected to biochemical and histopathological analyses.Results:C. fructus significantly alleviated alcohol-induced liver injury by reducing serum alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and thiobarbituric acid reactive species, inhibiting hydroxyl radicals (center dot OH), and increasing total superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione in the liver (P<0.05). In addition, the C. fructus treatment inhibited the expression and activity of cytochrome P450 2E1 (P<0.05)Conclusions:C. fructus could be a promising natural substance for ameliorating acute alcohol-induced oxidative stress and hepatic injury.- This work was supported by the Construction Project of Shaanxi Collaborative Innovation Center (2015, Shaanxi Sci-tech University); High-End Foreign Experts Recruitment Program [Grant GDW20146100228]; and Key Construction Program of International Cooperation Base in S&T Shaanxi Province, China [Grant 2015SD0018].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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