15 research outputs found
Survey on Publicly Available Sinhala Natural Language Processing Tools and Research
Sinhala is the native language of the Sinhalese people who make up the
largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. The language belongs to the globe-spanning
language tree, Indo-European. However, due to poverty in both linguistic and
economic capital, Sinhala, in the perspective of Natural Language Processing
tools and research, remains a resource-poor language which has neither the
economic drive its cousin English has nor the sheer push of the law of numbers
a language such as Chinese has. A number of research groups from Sri Lanka have
noticed this dearth and the resultant dire need for proper tools and research
for Sinhala natural language processing. However, due to various reasons, these
attempts seem to lack coordination and awareness of each other. The objective
of this paper is to fill that gap of a comprehensive literature survey of the
publicly available Sinhala natural language tools and research so that the
researchers working in this field can better utilize contributions of their
peers. As such, we shall be uploading this paper to arXiv and perpetually
update it periodically to reflect the advances made in the field
Therapeutic angiogenesis with intramuscular NV1FGF improves amputation-free survival in patients with critical limb ischemia
This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of intramuscular administration of NV1FGF, a plasmid-based angiogenic gene delivery system for local expression of fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF-1), versus placebo, in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, European, multinational study, 125 patients in whom revascularization was not considered to be a suitable option, presenting with nonhealing ulcer(s), were randomized to receive eight intramuscular injections of placebo or 2.5 ml of NV1FGF at 0.2 mg/ml on days 1, 15, 30, and 45 (total 16 mg: 4 × 4 mg). The primary end point was occurrence of complete healing of at least one ulcer in the treated limb at week 25. Secondary end points included ankle brachial index (ABI), amputation, and death. There were 107 patients eligible for evaluation. Improvements in ulcer healing were similar for use of NV1FGF (19.6%) and placebo (14.3%; P = 0.514). However, the use of NV1FGF significantly reduced (by twofold) the risk of all amputations [hazard ratio (HR) 0.498; P = 0.015] and major amputations (HR 0.371; P = 0.015). Furthermore, there was a trend for reduced risk of death with the use of NV1FGF (HR 0.460; P = 0.105). The adverse event incidence was high, and similar between the groups. In patients with CLI, plasmid-based NV1FGF gene transfer was well tolerated, and resulted in a significantly reduced risk of major amputation when compared with placebo
Women, business and the law 2016
This report measures legal and regulatory barriers to women’s entrepreneurship and employment in 173 economies. It provides quantitative measures of laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunities in seven areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, going to court, building credit and protecting women from violence