Actual Interest Research Articles

Transdermal skin patch based on reduced graphene oxide: A new approach for photothermal triggered permeation of ondansetron across porcine skin

The development of a skin-mounted patch capable of controlled transcutaneous delivery of therapeutics through thermal activation provides a unique solution for the controlled release of active principles over long-term periods. Here, we report on a flexible transdermal patch for photothermal triggered release of ondansetron (ODS), a commonly used drug for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and used as model compound here. To achieve this, a dispersion of ODS-loaded reduced graphene oxide (rGO-ODS) nanosheets were deposited onto Kapton to produce a flexible polyimide-based patch. It is demonstrated that ODS loaded Kapton/rGO patches have a high drug delivery performance upon irradiation with a continuous laser beam at 980nm for 10min due to an induced photothermal heating effect. The ability of ODS impregnated Kapton/rGO patches as transdermal delivery scaffolds for ODS across the skin is in addition investigated using porcine ear skin as a model. We show that the cumulative quantity and flux of ODS passing the skin are highly depending on the laser power density used. At 5Wcm−2 irradiation, the ODS flux across pig skin was determined to be 1.6μgcm−2h−1 comparable to other approaches. The use of tween 20 as skin enhancer could significantly increase the ODS flux to 13.2μgcm−2h−1. While the skin penetration enhancement is comparable to that obtained using other well-known permeation enhancers, the actual superiority and interest of the proposed approach is that the Kapton/rGO photoactivatable skin patch can be loaded with any drugs and therapeutics of interest, making the approach extremely versatile. The on demand delivery of drugs upon local laser irradiation and the possibility to reload the interface with the drug makes this new drug administration route very appealing.

Selection of Specialty and its satisfaction in Medical graduates

Background: Selection of specialty in medical graduates is a challenging job. Consultants and residents are suffering from some unknown discomfort. The aim of this study was to survey the resident’s selection and their wish to change it and analyze the factors responsible for this wish.Methods: Cross sectional survey was done on residents of different specialty working in different hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad (Pakistan) with the help of self-made questionnaire from 2012 to 2014. SPSS 21 was used to analyze the result.Results: We gave a total of 1200 questionnaires out of which 946 questionnaires were completely filled. Out of 946 residents, 48.5% (459) were male residents whereas 51.5% (487) were female residents. Majority of residents 75.4% (713) did not want to change their specialty whereas 24.6% (233) wanted to change their specialty if they would have been provided with such opportunity. Patient Contact, Interesting Diseases and Hospital based careers were the 3 main reasons for selecting a particular specialty. Night duties, Clinical Work and heavy work load were the 3 main causes for having the desire to leave their current specialty.Conclusion: Awareness should be given to medical students during their MBBS program about the challenges they would face in different specialty. Proper sessions should be arranged to help students realize their actual interest and identify field which would suit their temperament.Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.15(3) 2016 p.385-391

Viscosity of liquid Ag-In-Sb-Te: Evidence of a fragile-to-strong crossover.

The temperature-dependent viscosity η(T) is measured for the equilibrium liquid of the chalcogenide Ag-In-Sb-Te (AIST), the first time this has been reported for a material of actual interest for phase-change memory. The measurements, in the range 829-1254 K, are made using an oscillating-crucible viscometer, and show a liquid with high fragility and low viscosity, similar to liquid pure metals. Combining the high-temperature viscosity measurements with values inferred from crystal growth rates in the supercooled liquid allows the form of η(T) to be estimated over the entire temperature range from above the melting point down to the glass transition. It is then clear that η(T) for liquid AIST cannot be described with a single fragility value, unlike other phase-change chalcogenides such as liquid Ge-Sb-Te. There is clear evidence for a fragile-to-strong crossover on cooling liquid AIST, similar to that analyzed in Te85Ge15. The change in fragility associated with the crossover in both these cases is rather weak, giving a broad temperature range over which η(T) is near-Arrhenius. We discuss how such behavior may be beneficial for the performance of phase-change memory. Consideration of the fragile-to-strong crossover in liquid chalcogenides may be important in tuning compositions to optimize the device performance.

Policy Stability and Economic Growth: Lessons from the Great Recession

The recovery from the recession after the financial crisis, in both the UK and the US, has been very slow compared with other similar events in history. During the period before the financial crash and afterwards, monetary policy deviated from the very effeective rules-based approach of the previous two decades. In 2003-5, there was a huge gap between actual interest rates and the level suggested by the Taylor rule. This was at least partly responsible for the crash and the following slow recovery. Other areas of policy also became erratic. Unconventional monetary policy was followed and there were fiscal stimulus packages with changes in taxes and special subsidies offered to particular types of economic activity. In the US, there has been an enormous increase in the number of federal workers engaged in regulatory activity. Between 2006 and 2012, the number grew from around 180,000 to nearly 240,000 (excluding those employed in national security). In the 1980s, the reverse happened. In the 20 years or so before the run-up to the financial crash, there had been adherence to stable, rules-based policy combined with good economic performance. In the period since, there has been more discretion, and bad results have followed. In order to return to success we need to ensure that ‘the wind of freedom blows’ (in the words of the motto of Stanford University).

The knowledge and awareness on research methodology among dentists in Telangana region, India

Introduction: In this era of scientific advancement, research is vital and forms the heart of the knowledge expansion. Dentistry is one the fastest evolving branches of science in today's world and needless to say, it is centered on research. In India, research is a part of postgraduate curriculum. Many research works are conducted by postgraduates as a necessity, but very few do it with actual interest. Hence, in this study, we plan to conduct a survey on the awareness of dentists toward research in Telangana region. Aim: To assess the knowledge and highlight the need to learn research methodology for dentists in Telangana region. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted with 15 close-ended questions to know different ideologies among dentists for planning a research and to correlate opinions from dentists of various regions of Telangana state. A total of 115 participants took part in the study. They gave their consent for the study and gave their opinions with their free will. We categorized our results according to the designation of the participants and the answers that were given for each question. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 22. Results: A statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) of opinions was obtained with regards to the type of study that was preferred, type of analysis that was done, and obtaining a statistically significant value for their results. Conclusion: There is considerable variation when it comes to planning minor steps of study with few basics being overlooked. There is a need for establishing a standardized protocol for planning a study.

Microstructure and rheology of magnetic hybrid materials

In this paper, an overview on a class of materials with high actual research interest will be given. Magnetic hybrid materials, i.e. liquid or elastic matrices filled with magnetic nano- or micro-particles provide the possibility to influence their mechanical behaviour by application of technically easily realizable magnetic fields. In particular, the viscous and elastic behaviour of magnetic hybrid materials can be influenced by magnetic fields. The physical reason for these changes are field-induced reconfigurations of the microstructure formed by the magnetic particles. Experimental techniques to observe these changes and their relation to changes in the mechanical behaviour of magnetic hybrid materials will be in focus of this review.

Secular Drivers of the Global Real Interest Rate

Long-term real interest rates across the world have fallen by about 450 basis points over the past 30 years. The co-movement in rates across both advanced and emerging economies suggests a common driver: the global neutral real rate may have fallen. In this paper we attempt to identify which secular trends could have driven such a fall. Although there is huge uncertainty, under plausible assumptions we think we can account for around 400 basis points of the 450 basis points fall. Our quantitative analysis highlights slowing global growth as one force that may have pushed down on real rates recently, but shifts in saving and investment preferences appear more important in explaining the long-term decline. We think the global saving schedule has shifted out in recent decades due to demographic forces, higher inequality and to a lesser extent the glut of precautionary saving by emerging markets. Meanwhile, desired levels of investment have fallen as a result of the falling relative price of capital, lower public investment, and due to an increase in the spread between risk-free and actual interest rates. Moreover, most of these forces look set to persist and some may even build further. This suggests that the global neutral rate may remain low and perhaps settle at (or slightly below) 1% in the medium to long run. If true, this will have widespread implications for policymakers — not least in how to manage the business cycle if monetary policy is frequently constrained by the zero lower bound.

Extracting environmental histories from sclerochronological structures — Recursive partitioning as a mean to explore multi-elemental composition of fish otolith

During the last decades, ecologists have paid a great deal of attention to the proper techniques to track fish movement in the wild. In this context, otoliths have proved useful and were increasingly used in a wide range of species worldwide. Otolith material incorporates elements from the surrounding water in a layered manner that preserves the timing of deposition. Elemental composition along otolith centre-edge transects thus represent a permanent record of the growing habitats experienced by the fish throughout its entire lifetime. While the analysis of these elements is of primary importance in fishery management and population ecology, the traditional approaches mostly fail to capture the multivariate nature of structural change in time series data. In this paper, I propose a simple approach aiming at coping with the multi-elemental compositional otolith transect in a multi-scale quantitative manner. More specifically, the proposed recursive partitioning method tries to bias the chronological clustering process by accommodating some form of user-specified constraints based on both intra- and inter-groups characteristics. This allows researchers to focus on biologically relevant information (i.e. the one researcher look for and can interpret). The finding of this study may be considered from the more general perspective of the utility of chronological clustering study of multivariate time series. Chronological clustering based on recursive partition is easily interpretable and directly applicable to detection of hidden discontinuities in any multivariate time series. In a multi-proxy context, it also provides a powerful exploratory tool for assessing the relative importance of cross-correlated variables in structuring the environmental histories, as well as the congruency between variables. Ultimately, this approach demonstrates the actual interest in using advanced processing techniques to fully exploit the rich potential of individual biological archives, such as fish otoliths, to characterize individual life history. This appears as a promising new tool for ecologists wishing to extract environmental histories from dendro- and sclerochronological structures and would be a great help for practitioners working with chemical fingerprints. New functions for recursive partitioning using the R software environment are provided in a package and in the online Supplementary material together with a complete tutorial using full worked examples.

Dulzor, género e identidad en el arte culinario de Japón

A pesar de ser una parte sumamente popular y altamente elaborada del rico arte culinario de Japón, a los dulces se les ha ignorado ampliamente en la mayoría de las referencias a la comida japonesa. Diferentes análisis del arte culinario de Japón, tanto en la literatura académica como en la imaginación popular, tienden a estar enfocados estereotípicamente en dos alimentos básicos de la dieta y la alta cocina japonesa.

A Note on Julia and MPI, with Code Examples

This note explains how MPI may be used with the Julia programming language. An example of a simple Monte Carlo study is presented, with code. The code is intended to serve as a general purpose template for more relevant applications. A second example shows how the template code may be adapted to perform a Monte Carlo study of the properties of an approximate Bayesian computing estimator of actual research interest. All of the code is available at https://github.com/mcreel/JuliaMPIMonteCarlo .

Does Central Bank Capital Matter for Monetary Policy?

This paper examines empirically whether central bank capital influences the conduct of monetary policy. To this end, we estimate interest rate rules for a sample of 41 countries and employ linear and non-linear regression methods to test if a measure of central bank financial strength can explain deviations of actual interest rates from those predicted by the estimated interest rate (Taylor-like) rules. Our results suggest that central bank capital is indeed a relevant factor behind interest rate policy decisions.

El carcinoma in situ y la radioterapia

El interés real de carcinoma in situ se debe al progreso relativo en porcentajes de supervivencia a pesar de grandes avances en métodos de tratamiento en los últimos años, y para posibles grandes avances en la detección temprana de los métodos citológicos. La actitud del radioterapeuta depende de la respuesta dada a 2 preguntas fundamentales: si el carcinoma in situ es, o no es un verdadero cáncer, y si se trata de un cáncer, ¿cuál es el mejor tratamiento. Se puede demostrar, que los argumentos a favor de un tratamiento quirúrgico no son más fuertes que los argumentos de la radiación, y esto se demuestra. No hay duda de que, en casos especiales cirugía, así como la radioterapia tienen cada uno sus indicaciones absolutas y ventajas muy particulares.

Is it really more dispersed? Measuring and comparing the stress from the common monetary policy in the euro area

The ECB’s one size monetary policy is unlikely to fit all euro area members at all times, which raises the question of how much monetary policy stress this causes at the national level. I measure monetary policy stress as the difference between actual ECB interest rates and Taylor-rule implied optimal rates at the member state level. Optimal rates explicitly take into account the natural rate of interest to capture changes in trend growth. I find that monetary policy stress within the euro area has been steadily decreasing prior to the recent financial crisis. Current stress levels are not only lower today than in the late 1990s, they are also in line with what is commonly observed among U.S. states or pre-euro German Lander. JEL Classification Codes: C22, E53, E58

Is it really more dispersed?

The ECB’s one size monetary policy is unlikely to fit all euro area members at all times, which raises the question of how much monetary policy stress this causes at the national level. I measure monetary policy stress as the difference between actual ECB interest rates and Taylor-rule implied rates at the member state level. These rates explicitly take into account the natural rate of interest to capture changes in trend growth. I find that monetary policy stress within the euro area has been steadily decreasing prior to the recent financial crisis. Current stress levels are not only lower today than in the late 1990s, they are also in line with what is commonly observed among U.S. states or pre-euro German Lander.

Property relationships in virtual worlds – A return to the feudal system?

There are a number of ways to explain how the property system in a virtual world works. Various explanations are proposed in this paper to explain this phenomenon. Some people argue that property in virtual worlds is purely based on contract and as such can be explained as merely licensing players to use the virtual worlds. Other explanations include the arguments that virtual property is based purely on intellectual property, actual (real) property or even does not exist at all. However, one alternative to accepting that virtual property is actual property, is by viewing the property relationship as a system as feudal ownership or estates. This model of explaining virtual property manages to incorporate many, if not all of the current explanations for the existence of virtual property. As such, it can be argued that even if virtual property is based solely on contract and that the developer therefore maintains his or her position as owner, the player in fact, also has a stake in the virtual property. The developer can be regarded as lord with the user’s interest being regarded as seisin rather than ownership. Alternatively, the developer is regarded as having dominium directum, while the player is regarded as having dominium utile, due to the fact that in most cases the developer has little or no actual interest in the ownership of a specific object of virtual property. This paper will analyse the possibilities of this explanation.

Influence of Special Tool Geometry in Drilling Woven CFRPs Materials

Machining processes of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) are commonly required in order to achieve final assembly specifications. Despite the good mechanical properties of this kind of materials, they are hard to be machined due to the presence of hard particles; delamination, fiber pull-out and matrix thermal degradation are usually observed during its machining. Drilling operations are required before mechanical joining of the CFRP components. The actual interest in reducing delamination rests in the fact that it is the most serious damage found during drilling. In this work, a comparative study of three special geometries under different cutting conditions is presented. Thrust force and torque were monitoring during drilling tests and delamination extension was quantified. Results showed that a good drill tip geometry and feed rate selection is fundamental to reduce delamination damages.

Inferring unsecured interbank loans and interest rates from interbank payments: an evaluation

We identify overnight loans and interest rates among interbank payments for eleven banks in Norway and compare them with the banks' actual overnight loans and interest rates over the period October 4, 2011-July 31, 2012. We find that interbank payments provide reliable information about overnight lending and overnight interest rates at the market level and even at the bank level for relatively small overnight lenders and large overnight lenders that mostly lend on their own behalf.

O crédito como mecanismo de transmissão da política monetária: aspectos teóricos e evidências empíricas para o Brasil

Este trabalho analisa a operacionalidade e a eficiência do canal de crédito como mecanismo de transmissão da política monetária no Brasil, para o período de janeiro de 2001 a setembro de 2011. Com esse fim, estimaram-se duas equações IS, com diferentes especificações para a taxa de juros real, com e sem crédito, a fim de medir a intensidade e o timing de resposta de variações da taxa de juros no produto. Para tanto, utilizou-se como metodologia o modelo de Vetor de Correção de Erros (VEC). Os resultados para as duas equações corroboram a eficácia do canal do crédito no Brasil, já que os efeitos negativos do choque na taxa de juros real sobre o produto são mais intensos e o afetam com mais rapidez, ao incluir a variável crédito.

Metrology for New Generation Nuclear Power Plants–MetroFission

Metrology for New Generation Nuclear Power Plants–MetroFission

Investigation on identification of practice teaching by the students of preventive medicine in Jiangsu

Objectives To learn the identification status for the practice teaching among the students majoring in preventive medicine in Jiangsu. Methods 832 students majoring in preventive medicine were randomly selected from 5 universities of Jiangsu province in clustering（Nanjing Medical University, South-East University, Suzhou University, Nantong University, Xuzhou Medical College）. They were investigated by the self-designed questionnaire about the recognition of significance and effect as well as the absent reasons for the discussion in class, research work and social practice. The data were calibrated and input into the database with Epidata 3.1, then were analyzed with SPSS 16.0. The identification status was described with constituent ratio, and the proportion of the students were analyzed with Chi-square test, in which it was recognize as of significant difference if the P value was less than 0.05. Results It was thought by the students that the ways to increase the interest were research work（757students, 91.0%）, discussion in class（507, 60.9%） and social practice（360, 43.3%）, the ways to increase the ability were social practice（494, 59.4%）, research work（122, 14.7%） and discussion in class（109, 13.1%） successively. But the actual effective ways to increase their interest were social practice（360, 43.3%）, discussion in class（128, 15.4%） and research work（100,13.2%）, the effective ways to increase the ability were social practice（615, 73.9%）, research work（97,11.7%） and discussion in class（92, 11.1%） successively. Only 50.0%of the students agreed with the effect of social practice because they were unable to play a major role, while the recognition of the effect of class discussion and research was also low（less than 20.0%） among some students who were unwilling to participate in class discussion and research work because of their lack of confidence, actual interest or time. Conclusions The identification rate is low among the students. It is suggested that the social practice should be based on the knowledge of the students and the class discussion or research work be designed or arranged carefully so that predicted goal can be achieved. Key words: Students; Study interest; Social practice; Discussion in class; Research work; Preventive medicine