Development Of Formulated Eurycoma Longifolia And Phyllanthus Niruri Extracts For Pharmacokinetic And Bioavailability Studies

The lignan-rich extract of Phyllanthus niruri (PNF5) normalises the plasma uric acid of hyperuricemic rats, and its effects are comparable to those of clinically used allopurinol. The quassinoid-rich extract of Eurycoma longifolia (TAF2) significantly improves the sperm count of male rats, and may be potentially suitable for managing male infertility. However, the oral bioavailability of the bioactive lignans, phyltetralin (PT) and phyllanthin (PL), in PNF5 and the quassinoids, 13α(21)-epoxyeurycomanone (EP) and eurycomanone (EN), in TAF2 were low due to the low aqueous solubility of the lignans and poor membrane permeability of the quassinoids. The present study led to the improvement of the oral bioavailabilities of PT and PL in PNF5, and EP and EN in TAF2 through incorporation in a Gelucire®44/14-based solid dispersion (SDC). In vitro studies, which were dissolution test and everted rat gut sac method indicated that PNF5-SDC formulation resulted in higher release of PT and PL, and TAF2-SDC resulted in higher permeation of EP and EN compared to the conventional powder-filled capsules (PFC) formulations. The pharmacokinetic parameters of PT, PL, EP and EN indicated that the rate of these compound movements from the central compartment to peripheral compartment were slow compared to the rate movement from the peripheral compartment to the central compartment (P < 0.001)

On the bifurcation of a Dirac point in a photonic waveguide without band gap openning

It is well established that a Dirac point of a periodic structure can bifurcate into in-gap eigenvalues if the periodic structure is perturbed differently on the two sides of an interface and if a common band gap can be opened for the two perturbed periodic structures near the Dirac point. This paper addresses the less-known situation when the perturbation only lifts the degeneracy of the Dirac point without opening a band gap. Using a two-dimensional waveguide model, we constructed a wave mode from the bifurcation of a Dirac point of a periodic waveguide. We proved that when the constructed mode couples with the Floquet-Bloch modes of quasi-momentum away from the Dirac point, its associated eigenvalue has a negative imaginary part and the mode is a resonant mode that can radiate its energy into the bulk. On the other hand, when the coupling vanishes, the imaginary part of the eigenvalue turns to zero, and the constructed mode becomes an interface mode that decays exponentially away from the interface. It is believed that the developed method can be extended to other settings, thus providing a clear answer to the problem concerned with the bifurcation of Dirac points

The application of insulin interviews toolkit in health education for patients with diabetes mellitus

目的   探讨使用胰岛素访谈工具包在糖尿病患者健康教育中的应用效果，使患者能正确认识胰岛素，提高使用胰岛素的依从性。方法  将72例糖尿病患者应用胰岛素访谈工具包对患者进行一对一式健康教育。结果  患者健康知识知晓率从原来的82%提高到现在的97.3%，患者对护士工作的满意度由96%提高到98.7%。结论  糖尿病患者在治疗过程中使用访谈工具包进行健康教育可显著提高疗效，丰富了健康教育模式，对患者健康行为的建立和疾病的康复起到了有益的作用，取得了较好的护理效果。Objective: To investigate the effects of insulin interviews toolkit application on diabetes patients in health education, to enable patients to have a better understanding towards insulin, and to improve the compliance of insulin. Methods: 72 cases of diabetes patients was educated respectively by the insulin interviews toolkit. Results: The awareness rate for health knowledge increased from 82% to 97.3%; patients satisfaction towards nurses increased from 96% to 98.7%. Conclusion: It can significantly improve the therapeutic effectto to use interviews toolkit in health education for diabetes patients. It enriches the methods of health education, is conducive to the establishment of patients’ health behavior and recovery, and achieves good nursing effect

Numerical study on steel-concrete composite floor systems under corner column removal scenario

[EN] This paper evaluates the robustness of steel-concrete composite floor systems subjected to Corner Column (CC) removal scenario based on numerical simulations. Firstly, a FE model is statically analysed subjected to a CC removal scenario, yielding the static load-displacement curve, the failure mode and load-transfer mechanisms. These results are compared with those of composite floor systems under an Internal Column (IC) removal scenario. Besides, the FE model was dynamically analysed by six times under the respective six levels of loads by suddenly removing the corner column. The dynamic displacement-time responses under all levels of loads were obtained. Six pairs of load versus peak displacement constitute the pseudo-static response, to assess the load-carrying capacity and ductility of this composite floor system subjected to a sudden corner-column-removal scenario. Lastly, dynamic increase factors (DIFs) are obtained through comparing the quasi-static and pseudo-static responses, which is further compared with DIF under IC scenario.Fu, QN.; Tan, KH. (2018). Numerical study on steel-concrete composite floor systems under corner column removal scenario. En Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Steel-Concrete Composite Structures. ASCCS 2018. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 897-904. https://doi.org/10.4995/ASCCS2018.2018.6941OCS89790

Inertial Sensor Based Fall Risk Assessment andSystem Development for the Community-dwelling Older People

Department of Human and Systems EngineeringAlong with the global trend of population ageing, falls present a substantial public health problem among elderly people over the age of 65. The objective of this research was to develop a low-cost, portable and inertial sensors based tool for assessing falls risk in the older people. To achieve this goal, three stages of studies have were conducted. The first stage aimed to design a test protocol based on the human balance system for assessing the risk of falling. The test protocol consisted of seven main tests, i.e., sensory integration test, limits of stability test, sit-to-stand five times test, timed up and go test, motor function test, reaction test, and short falls efficacy scale international. Another study was also conducted to examine the effectiveness of developed reaction test APP (application) on assessing cognitive function and fall risk in elderly people. The second stage aimed to conduct large-scale experimental studies to examine the effectiveness of the test protocols on classifying fallers and non-fallers and identifying the underlying causes of high risk of falling. The final stage aimed to develop an inertial sensor-based fall-risk assessment prototype system to assess fall risk for future use with elderly people. In terms of classifying fallers and non-fallers, we found that the fallers had worse performances than non-fallers on physiological, psychological and integrated functions of the human balance system. Among all fall-risk measures, ten most important measures were the information processing speed in the reaction test, short falls efficacy scale international score in fear of falling test, power density spectral (PSD) of acceleration medio-lateral (ML) for the vision system, angular velocity anterior-posterior (AP) for the vision system, PSD of angular velocity AP for postural stability, sit-stand jerk in the sit-to-stand five times test, PSD of angular velocity AP for the vision system, sit-stand duration in sit-to-stand five times test, angular velocity AP in timed up and go test, and maximal turning angular velocity in timed up and go test. Furthermore, six typical models were developed to classify fallers and non-fallers based on significant measures, including logistic regression (LR), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), classification and regression tree (CART), boosted tree (BT), random forest (RF), and support vector machine radial basic function (SVMRBF) models. The results indicated that the BT, RF, and SVMRBF models had excellent accuracy (>85%). The CART model had good accuracy (>75%), but the LDA and LR models had relatively low accuracies of about 70%. In order to identify the underlying causes of high fall risks, the CART-PA method, which integrated the CART model and profile assessment method, was proposed to identify the factors of high risks of falling. The CART-PA method could generate reinforced results from these two methods, which not only identifies the main factors but also possible factors of high fall risks. Therefore, the CART-PA method could be a useful complementary tool for identifying underlying causes of high fall risks. Fall assessment prototype system included two parts, i.e., hardware and software. The hardware contained five wireless inertial sensors and one wireless data transmission device. The software was developed to filter and process the data, derive the measures, and assess the risk of falling. Compared with available systems in the market, our inertial sensor based prototype system was very promising in terms of powerful functions, portability and low-cost on assessing fall risk of the older people. The findings from this study and the developed prototype system could be incorporated into clinical practice to reliably identify ???at-risk??? individuals and to diagnose the underlying risk factors of falls in advance so that appropriate interventions can be implemented to reduce elderly people???s risk of falling. Such a system could improve their quality of life and reduce costs in the healthcare system.ope

Investigation on the changes of corneal curvature after non-phacoemulsification in small-incision cataract surgery with intraocular lens implantation

AIM: To investigate the changes of corneal curvature after non-phacoemulsification in small-incision cataract surgery with intraocular lens implantation and discuss the essence of iatrogenic astigmatism. <p>METHODS: In this study, the horizontal corneal curvature(HCC)and vertical corneal curvature(VCC)of 99 patients(116 eyes)were documented before and after cataract surgery,with the postoperative follow-up of 3d; 1, 2wk; 1, 3, 6mo; 1, 2, 3a. The difference value of the HCC and the VCC between preoperation and postoperation were calculated and statistically analyzed. <p>RESULTS: The VCC was deceased by 2.01D, while the HCC was increased by 1.62D on the 3d after surgery; the difference value of the HCC and VCC were both decreased acutely in the 3mo postoperationly(the difference value of the VCC was -0.52D and HCC was 0.46D); the difference value of the HCC and VCC both were decreased mildly after 3mo of postoperation, There was no significant difference between the difference value of HCC(0.29D)and VCC(-0.29D)at 6mo(<i>P</i>=0.801); VCC was still smaller than that of preoperation(-0.26D), and HCC was larger than that of preoperation(0.25D)at the 3a. Paired <i>t</i> test was performed in these curvature differences, which both decreased apparently from 3d to 6mo after surgery(<i>P</i><0.001), while they stayed still from 6mo to 3a postoperatively(VCC: <i>P</i>=0.284; HCC:<i>P</i>=1.000). <p>CONCLUSION: It remains astigmatism for a short time after small-incision cataract surgery and the treatment requires improvement so as to minimize the astigmatism as much as possible