Low Interaction Rate Research Articles

Bio-study: Modeling of natural nanomolecules as a nanocarrier surface for antioxidant and glucose biosensor

The nature of nano molecules as a self-assembled nanocomposite surface depends on the nanoparticles of sodium butyrate, cellulose, and pycnogenol; the synthesis is achieved via precipitation and grinding methods. The excellent functionalized surface of nanocomposite (NCP) enables the loading of the selected drugs, where the efficiency of the NCP surface arrived at 92.2 %. The electrochemical behavior emphasized the success of a functionalized NCP surface for incorporation with drugs for the drug delivery system, the results of cytotoxicity detect the effect of NCP on the mouse normal liver (BNL) cells, where the high and low concentrations on the BNL cells have a safe dose. Cell viability with BNL cells was reported at 101.8 % with10 μL and 100.12 % with 100 μL, the interaction between the NCP and the human serum albumin (HSA) at room temperature. The low interaction rate with the glutamate and increased binding with the oxidized glutathione disulfide (GSSG) and reduced glutathione (SGH) reflect the antioxidant activity of NCP. The strong binding of NCP with biomolecules such as glucose is referred to as the biosensor property. The results recommend that NCP is an excellent nanocarrier for drug delivery and glucose biosensors for diabetes.

Uso de lacosamida en pacientes pediátricos con epilepsia refractaria como terapia adjunta, revisión sistemática de la literatura

Objetivo: presentar la evidencia publicada hasta el momento acerca de la utilidad de la lacosamida en población pediátrica con epilepsia refractaria.
 Métodos: se realizaron búsquedas en las bases de datos electrónicas PubMed, Embase, Cochrane y Scielo, encontrando un total de 18 artículos que cumplieron los criterios de búsqueda.
 Hallazgos principales : lacosamida, uno de los fármacos anticonvulsivantes nuevos, ha sido aprobado como terapia adjunta en epilepsias de inicio focal y epilepsias refractarias en pacientes mayores de 16 años, pero existe creciente evidencia de su eficacia y seguridad en población pediátrica desde los 4 años. Los efectos adversos no difieren en gran medida de los demás anticonvulsivantes y su tasa de éxito es de aproximadamente el 8-40% de control total de crisis. Sin embargo, los estudios no tienen un seguimiento a largo plazo que demuestre que se mantiene este mismo control de crisis en el transcurso del tiempo. Adicionalmente, la lacosamida ofrece mejoría clínica independientemente del control de las crisis en cuanto al patrón motor y comportamental.
 Conclusiones: Los estudios muestran que la lacosamida es una opción segura indicada para la epilepsia de inicio focal y epilepsia refractaria en la población pediátrica como terapia adjunta, debido a su efectividad en el control de crisis, perfil de seguridad, baja tasa de efectos adversos e interacción con otros medicamentos; no obstante, se requieren estudios con mayor número de pacientes y con seguimientos más prolongados.

Social networks of reintroduced Przewalski's horses in the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area (Mongolia).

Analyzing social networks is a powerful tool for understanding the ecology of social species. While most studies focus on the role of each group member, few compare groups with different characteristics. The current population of Przewalski's horses Equus ferus przewalskii at the Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area (Mongolia) includes groups of wild-born and captive-bred individuals with different experiences with the area (acclimatizing, long-term reintroduced, and wild-born), therefore serving as an ideal natural behavioral lab. We filmed 11 groups for 141.5 hours in summer 2018 (July), late spring 2019 (May, June), and autumn 2019 (September, October). Affiliative and agonistic interactions were recorded, and social networks were created. We tested the influence of origin, experience, season, sex, age, relative time belonging to the group, relatedness, and dominance rank on different network indices at the individual and group levels. We found that groups with greater experience in the area are generally better connected than members of the newly formed groups. However, these strong networks were created by wild-born individuals with very low interaction rates. On the contrary, inexperienced groups composed of captive-bred individuals displayed many interactions but created weak social networks. The results show a trend of behavioral transition from acclimatizing through long-term reintroduced to wild-born groups, supporting that the newly formed groups of released Przewalski's horses need time to display the typical social behavior patterns of wild-born individuals. Long-term monitoring of released Przewalski's horses is recommended to promote the success of this reintroduction program.

A review of cetacean interactions with longline gear

Fishery-cetacean interactions, including those with longline gear, give rise to economic, ecological and social concerns. This paper reviews problems resulting from cetacean-longline interactions, considers potential strategies to reduce interactions and identifies research priorities and approaches. Depredation by cetaceans (removal and damage of hooked fish and bait from fishing gear) and damage and loss of fishing gear create economic problems; however, the magnitude of this problem is poorly understood. There is also insufficient information to determine whether there are population-level effects resulting from injury and mortality of cetaceans (from incidental entanglement and hooking and from deliberate actions to discourage depredation). Fishery-cetacean interactions may also: change cetacean foraging behaviour and distribution; increase fishing effort to make up for fish taken from gear by cetaceans; and create errors in fish stock assessments that do not account for cetacean depredation. Negative public perceptions of longline fishing can result from news of incidental and deliberate injury and mortality of cetaceans associated with longlining. Information on how to reduce cetacean interactions with longline gear is also limited, as is the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for them. Strategies already employed in some fleets include refraining from setting or cutting sets short when problematic species of cetaceans are observed and fleet coordination of daily fishing times and positions. Many fishermen perceive depredation as an inevitable part of fishing. This paper discusses a number of other possible cetacean avoidance strategies that warrant consideration, including: (1) fleet communication to enable vessels to avoid temporally and spatially unpredictable and sporadic hotspots of aggregations of cetaceans; (2) underwater acoustic masking devices to conceal the sound of the vessel, gear, and setting and hauling activities; (3) quieter vessels to reduce cetaceans’ ability to target longline vessels; (4) encasement of caught fish to reduce cetacean access to or interest in the catch; (5) use of bait or gear with an unpleasant smell or taste to reduce the attractiveness of gear, bait and catch to cetaceans; (6) use of pre-recorded fishing vessel sounds played from stations throughout a fleet’s fishing grounds to distract cetaceans from actual fishing vessels; (7) use of acoustic devices to mask returning cetacean echolocation signals; and (8) use of tethered sonobuoys to track cetaceans and enable fleet avoidance. Vessels with relatively low cetacean interaction rates should be examined for design and operational differences from vessels with high interaction rates, possibly allowing identification of effective avoidance methods. There is a need for experimentation in individual longline fisheries over several seasons to assess fisheryspecific efficacy and commercial viability of cetacean avoidance strategies. This is necessary as different cetacean species likely respond differently to an avoidance method and cetaceans may habituate to an avoidance strategy, especially in fisheries interacting with resident cetaceans.

The Lack of Sexual and Gender Minority Curriculum in U.S. Medical Schools

Health outcomes of sexual and gender minorities are often disproportionately negative compared to their heterosexual counterparts. One reason is that healthcare providers report low confidence treating SGM patients and a low rate of interaction with this population. The curriculum being taught in U.S. medical schools is largely insufficient in teaching the healthcare needs of SGM individuals. Consequently, physicians are underprepared to treat these patients, leading to large health disparities. Physicians show improved levels of knowledge and confidence treating SGM patients after additional educational efforts, showing that adding SGM healthcare modules to medical schools will better prepare physicians to treat these patients. This would decrease health disparities and improve patient experiences and health outcomes. Additional curriculum should be multi-modal and include SGM individuals in their creation and implementation. This method has been shown to encourage the greatest improvement in physician knowledge and confidence working with patients. This paper also includes policy recommendations geared towards policymakers and stakeholders to guide future initiatives to improve the health outcomes of SGM patients. It is crucial that this conversation around social determinants of health leads to policy and structural changes. Future research in this area is needed and future policy changes or initiatives should be studied for their effectiveness.

Online Writing Community: What Can We Learn from Failure?

Peer feedback or peer review has been promoted in the English writing classroom as an effective strategy to improve writing skills. With the popularity of adopting technology in learning, our research introduced participants to an online writing community (OWC) which incorporates the concepts of peer feedback and collaborative learning as an innovative pedagogy to improve writing skills in an autonomous environment. The OWC was created for students in an English Education programme in a Hong Kong university. However, the attempt was a failure given its low participation and interaction rates. A study was subsequently conducted to understand participants’ and non- participants’ perception and behaviour towards the learning environment and activity. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and reflective journals. Non-participants claimed that lack of time, heavy workloads, the non-compulsory and non-credit bearing nature of the course deterred them from joining the OWC. While participants in the OWC did not concur with the claims, they identified factors which might have accounted for the low interaction rate in the OWC. These included: i) commitment of the OWC members; ii) rapport among the OWC members; iii) interactiveness and spontaneity of the platform; and, iv) ease of use. The results suggest ways that innovative pedagogy could be implemented and enhanced for effective learning in the future.

SIMULATION OF GRADIENT-BASED INDIVIDUAL DESIGN BEHAVIOUR IN DISTRIBUTED DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

AbstractAs current vehicle development processes in the automotive industry are highly distributed, the interaction between design teams is limited. In this paper we use a simulation in order to investigate how the rate of design team interaction affects the solution quality and development cost. Results show, that in case of no limiting constraints, a low rate of interaction yields the best results regarding solution quality and development cost. If design activities are affected by constraints, however, the rate of interaction is subject to a conflict between solution quality and development cost.

Efficient bidirectional piezo-optomechanical transduction between microwave and optical frequency

Efficient interconversion of both classical and quantum information between microwave and optical frequency is an important engineering challenge. The optomechanical approach with gigahertz-frequency mechanical devices has the potential to be extremely efficient due to the large optomechanical response of common materials, and the ability to localize mechanical energy into a micron-scale volume. However, existing demonstrations suffer from some combination of low optical quality factor, low electrical-to-mechanical transduction efficiency, and low optomechanical interaction rate. Here we demonstrate an on-chip piezo-optomechanical transducer that systematically addresses all these challenges to achieve nearly three orders of magnitude improvement in conversion efficiency over previous work. Our modulator demonstrates acousto-optic modulation with {V}_{pi } = 0.02 V. We show bidirectional conversion efficiency of 1{0}^{-5} with 3.3 μW red-detuned optical pump, and 5.5 % with 323 μW blue-detuned pump. Further study of quantum transduction at millikelvin temperatures is required to understand how the efficiency and added noise are affected by reduced mechanical dissipation, thermal conductivity, and thermal capacity.

Social Media Strategy Framework Formulation and Implementation: A Case Study of Indonesian Government Organization

This study aims to formulate a social media strategy framework that appropriate in government organisation that has a low interaction rate with public through their social media accounts. The research methods used was qualitative and quantitative on a government organisation which has already use social media however the utilisation was still low. The process of data collection was done by interview, observation and documents studies. The social media strategy was formulated using framework developed by Karl Werder combined with SWOT analysis, PEST analysis and 7S model. The strategy priority was determined by using AHP analysis. Three stages of social media framework formulation have been identified and the implementation results suggest that the organisation need to prioritise the strategies that have the objective to improve the complaint handling and then followed by the strategies related to engagement and awareness.

Social media strategy framework formulation and implementation: a case study of Indonesian Government organisation

This study aims to formulate a social media strategy framework that appropriate in government organisation that has a low interaction rate with public through their social media accounts. The research methods used was qualitative and quantitative on a government organisation which has already use social media however the utilisation was still low. The process of data collection was done by interview, observation and documents studies. The social media strategy was formulated using framework developed by Karl Werder combined with SWOT analysis, PEST analysis and 7S model. The strategy priority was determined by using AHP analysis. Three stages of social media framework formulation have been identified and the implementation results suggest that the organisation need to prioritise the strategies that have the objective to improve the complaint handling and then followed by the strategies related to engagement and awareness.

Interaction Dynamics in a Social Network Using Hidden Markov Model

Agents interactions in a social network are dynamic and stochastic. We model the dynamic interactions using the hidden Markov model, a probability model which has a wide array of applications. The transition matrix with three states, forgetting, reinforcement and exploration is estimated using simulation. Singular value decomposition estimates the observation matrix for emission of low, medium and high interaction rates. This is achieved when the rank approximation is applied to the transition matrix. The initial state probabilities are then estimated with rank approximation of the observation matrix. The transition and the observation matrices estimate the state and observed symbols in the model. Agents interactions in a social network account for between 20% and 50% of all the activities in the network. Noise contributes to the other portion due to interaction dynamics and rapid changes observable from the agents transitions in the network. In the model, the interaction proportions are low with 11%, medium with 56% and high with 33%. Hidden Markov model has a strong statistical and mathematical structure to model interactions in a social network.

Impact of the initial size of spatial fluctuations on the collective flow in Pb–Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV

The Parton–Hadron–String-Dynamics transport model is used to study the influence of the initial size of spatial fluctuations of the interacting system on flow observables in Pb–Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV for different centralities. While the flow coefficients v2, v3, v4 and v5 are reasonably described in comparison to the data from the ALICE Collaboration for different centralities within the default setting, no essential sensitivity is found with respect to the initial size of spatial fluctuations even for very central collisions where the flow coefficients are dominated by the size of initial state fluctuations. We attribute this lack of sensitivity partly to the low interaction rate of the degrees-of-freedom in this very early phase of order fm c−1 which is also in common with the weakly interacting color glass condensate or glasma approach. Moreover, since the event shape in the transverse plane is approximately the same for different size of spatial fluctuations very similar eccentricities are transformed to roughly the same flow coefficients vn in momentum space.

Measurements of γ-ray sensitivity of a GEM based detector using a coincidence technique

Gas Electron Multiplier based detectors have been recently used for neutron measurement at spallation sources and for fusion relevant applications. The present work is meant to characterize the detector sensitivity to γ-ray background which often can represent the main background source associated to neutron measurements. The γ-ray sensitivity has been measured as a function of detector gain and it has been found to be lower than 10−7at the typical gain used for neutrons detection. Coincidence measurements, giving the possibility to select mono-energetic photons and to suppress background events, allowed to measure the absolute sensitivity at a well defined γ-ray energy and at low interaction rates. The mechanism of interaction and energy deposition of γ-rays in the detector has been studied using MCNPX Monte Carlo simulations.

Structural features of high-n gravitational eigenstates

This paper extends the theoretical development of a quantized Newtonian-gravity model of gravitational eigenstates based on the application of Schrodinger’s equation to the weak regions of deep gravitational wells such as those of galaxies and galactic clusters. We present quantitative results from the mathematical techniques that were derived to deal with high-n, high-l states, that have interesting astronomical properties, including extremely long lifetimes and low interaction rates with photons and localized particles. Other factors that contribute to the weak-interaction properties of certain eigenstates are the effective wavefunction amplitude, and the spatial oscillation frequency (SOF). It is seen that, for the weakest interacting states, the mechanisms preventing a transfer to an eigenspectral state mix appropriate to visible particles fall into two categories: 1) the lack of a suitable overlapping state and 2) differences in the SOF and amplitude of the initial and final state.

Chimpanzee interactions with nonhuman species in an anthropogenic habitat

Interactions between wildlife species are numerous and diverse, ranging from commensalism to predation. Information on cross-species interactions in anthropogenic habitats are rare but can serve to improve our understanding of animal behavioural and ecological flexibility in response to human-induced changes. Here we report direct observations of interactions between chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and wild and domesticated species in a forest-farm mosaic at Bossou, Guinea, recorded between 1997 and 2009. The low diversity and abundance of wildlife, in particular typical chimpanzee prey species, are reflected in both the low interaction rates (one interaction per 400 observation hours) and the low number of species with which chimpanzees interacted (nine species, mostly mammals, but also birds and reptiles). Chimpanzees generally chose either to make direct physical contact with a species or not; interactions that involved direct contact lasted longer than noncontacts. Interactions with mammals showed the greatest diversity in nature and duration. Adults most often consumed a captured animal, while immatures most often engaged in playful behaviours with other species. Immatures also exhibited distinctive accompanying behaviours whereas adults rarely did so. Species-specific behaviours that depend on the age-class of the interactant are consistent with the idea that chimpanzees categorise different animals. We anticipate that chimpanzee interactions with sympatric species inhabiting humanised habitats will change over time to include more domesticated species. Conservation management strategies should anticipate behavioural flexibility in response to changing landscapes.

Effect of Spatial Segregation on Commensalistic Cultures—Series Reactors

A comprehensive analysis of static and dynamic behavior of a mixed culture in two bioreactors in series is presented considering anaerobic digestion involving acidogens (X) and methanogens (Y) as the example bioprocess. A single continuous culture may operate at up to seven steady states, including up to four coexistence steady states, with only one coexistence steady state being locally stable. The bioreactors in the two-reactor system are identical in terms of composition of and dilution rate with respect to fresh feed. A two-reactor system may admit up to forty nine steady states, which are comprised of up to forty coexistence steady states, at least at very low interaction rates (R). When physically realizable, up to five coexistence steady states are locally stable. The static and dynamic analysis of the two-reactor system is facilitated by appropriate grouping of large number of steady states arising for very low R into nine clusters and grouping of the clusters into three cluster groups. Numerical ...

Fate of commensalistic cultures in identical coupled bioreactors

A comprehensive analysis of static and dynamic behavior of a mixed culture in two identical coupled bioreactors is presented considering anaerobic digestion involving acidogens (X) and methanogens (Y) as the example bioprocess. A single continuous culture may operate at up to seven steady states, including up to four coexistence steady states, with only one coexistence steady state being locally stable. The one-way interaction between X and Y allows for compartmentalization of the system for a stand-alone bioreactor and two coupled bioreactors into two subsystems, which facilitates the analysis of steady state types and stability characteristics of these and classification of dynamic behavior. The bioreactors in the two-reactor system are identical only in terms of feed composition and reactor space time. A two-reactor system may admit up to forty nine steady states, which are comprised of up to forty coexistence steady states, at least at very low interaction rate ( R). The static and dynamic analysis of the two-reactor system is facilitated by appropriate grouping of large number of steady states arising for very low R into nine clusters. Numerical illustrations reveal the rich steady state structure of the bioprocess in coupled bioreactors. While a single bioreactor can operate at only one locally stable coexistence steady state, the coupled bioreactors can operate at up to five locally stable coexistence steady states over certain ranges of R. The two-reactor system is operationally more flexible and more robust vis-a-vis single reactor as concerns maintenance of mixed culture. Emergence of four additional steady state clusters and additional coexistence and partial washout steady states at intermediate R reveals that the coupled bioreactors are an example of a complex system.

Cryogenic composite detectors for the dark matter experiments CRESST and EURECA

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are candidates for non-baryonic dark matter. WIMPs are supposed to interact with baryonic matter via scattering off nuclei producing a nuclear recoil with energies up to a few 10 keV with a very low interaction rate of ∼10 −6 events per kg of target material and day in the energy region of interest. The dark matter experiment cryogenic rare event search with superconducting thermometers (CRESST) and the European underground rare event calorimeter array (EURECA) project are aimed at the direct detection of WIMPs with the help of very sensitive modularised cryogenic detectors that basically consist of a transition edge sensor (TES) in combination with a massive absorber crystal. In the CRESST experiment the search for coherent WIMP-nucleon scattering events is validated by the detection of two processes. In the scintillating absorber single crystal, CaWO 4, heat (phonons) and scintillation light are produced and detected with two independent cryogenic detectors: a phonon channel and a separate light channel. The development of such cryogenic detectors and the potential ton-scale production are investigated in this paper. To decouple the TES production from the choice of the target material in order to avoid heating cycles of the absorber crystal and to allow pretesting of the TESs, a composite detector design (CDD) for the detector production has been developed and studied. An existing thermal detector model has been extended to the CDD, in order to investigate, understand, and optimize the performance of composite detectors. This extended model, which has been worked out in detail, can be expected to provide a considerable help when tailoring composite detectors to the requirements of various experiments.

Early Evolution of Stellar Groups and Clusters: Environmental Effects on Forming Planetary Systems

This paper studies the dynamical evolution of young stellar clusters with $N$ = 100 - 1000 members. We use N-body simulations to explore how evolution depends on system size $N$ and the initial conditions. Motivated by recent observations of extremely young systems, this study compares subvirial and virial starting states. Multiple realizations of equivalent cases (100 simulations per case) are used to build up a robust statistical description of these systems, e.g., distributions of closest approaches, mass profiles, and distributions of radial locations. These results provide a framework from which to assess the effects of these clusters on star and planet formation. The distributions of radial positions are used in conjunction with distributions of FUV luminosities (also calculated here) to determine the radiation exposure of circumstellar disks. The distributions of closest approaches are used in conjunction with scattering cross sections (calculated here from $10^5$ scattering experiments) to determine the probability of solar system disruption. We also use the nearby cluster NGC 1333 as a test case. Our main conclusion is that clusters in this size range have only a modest effect on forming planetary systems: Interaction rates are low so that the typical solar system experiences a single encounter within 1000 AU. Radiation exposure is low, with median FUV flux $G_0$ = 900, so that photoevaporation of disks is only important beyond 30 AU. Given the low interaction rates and modest radiation levels, we suggest that solar system disruption is a rare event in these clusters.

Antitrombinas orales y predicciones para el futuro antitrombótico

The coagulation cascade leads, via thrombin activation, to the formation of fibrin (from its precursor fibrinogen) and platelet thrombus. Several drugs are able to interfere with some of the enzymatic factors involved in thrombin activation, but thrombin inhibitors (heparin, hirudin and hirulog [bivalirudin]) are of particular interest because they disrupt the coagulation cascade by acting upon one of its final steps. Among the thrombin inhibitors, oral antithrombins (ximelagatran) appear to hold great promise for the control of thrombogenicity in a number of clinical contexts. Oral antithrombins do not require the participation of cofactors to exert their action, and in contrast to thrombin inhibitors administered parenterally, they bind specifically to the active site of thrombin without interfering with other portions of the molecule. Their specificity makes these drugs safe and obviates the need to monitor coagulability. Moreover, they show a low rate of interaction with other drugs or with foods, and the response to fixed doses is predictable. A number of clinical studies have investigated antithrombins for prophylaxis prior to orthopedic surgery, in the prevention of cerebrovascular accidents associated with atrial fibrillation, and in the control of coronary artery disease. These studies have shown that antithrombins are superior to other habitually used treatment options. Surprisingly, their use in long-term studies has not been associated with an increased rate of bleeding events. Their interesting molecular characteristics and considerable therapeutic efficacy and safety suggest that oral antithrombins will in the near future become a valuable therapeutic option.