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New Approaches to the Prevention and Treatment of Viral Diseases
No full textThe review discusses a new approach to the prevention and treatment of viral infections based on the use of pine needles polyprenyl phosphate (PPP) and associated with the infringement of prenylation process—the attachment of farnesol or geranyl geraniol to the viral protein. Currently, prenylation has been detected in type 1 adenovirus, hepatitis C virus, several herpes viruses, influenza virus, HIV. However, this list is far from complete, given that prenylated proteins play an extremely important role in the activity of the virus. We assume that the interferon produced in response to PPP may suppress expression of the SREBP2 transcription factor. As a result, the mevalonic acid pathway is violated and, as a result, the formation of early polyprenols precursors (geraniol, geranyl geraniol, farnesol), which are necessary for the prenylation of viral proteins, is blocked and the formation of mature, virulent virus particles is broken. As a consequence, the maturation of viral particles is inhibited, and defective particles are formed. Polyprenol was extracted from greenery (pine, fir and spruce needles, mulberry leaves, etc.), purified by chromatography, phosphorylated and identified by HPLC and NMR. Obtained PPP was used as antiviral in some experimental models in vitro and in vivo. During numerous studies, it was found that PPP manifested versatile antiviral effects, both in vitro and in vivo. The maximum effect was observed with viruses in which the presence of prenylated proteins was established, namely influenza A virus, HIV-1, tick-borne encephalitis virus, hepatitis A and C viruses, herpes simplex viruses type 1 and 2, some coronavirus. The available data obtained both in the experimental conditions and during clinical trials allow us to regard PPPs as safe and effective medicine for prevention and treatment of viral diseases
Work in Progress: Designing an Academical Online Course for Technical Students: Structure, Content, Assessment
No full textDistant education and online courses have recently become a part of a new reality, especially in the last four months as many institutes and universities all over the world had to shift most of their educational content online because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It appeared that some higher educational institutions and a certain part of their students were almost ready to go online as these institutions had been developing their online platforms thus integrating traditional face-to-face classes with computer-assisted learning as well as integrating massive open or shared online courses into their curricular. At the same time, many other universities and institutes proved to be absolutely unprepared to shift online as they and their students had neither their own educational environment and online resources developed by their teaching staff nor any experience of working in an external online environment and choosing courses appropriate for their educational purposes. It turned out that most existing online courses could not be successfully used for implementing into most universities curricula and for teaching a majority of technical students as they simply reproduced the traditional classroom learning process and missed all advantages and opportunities afforded by online learning environments. The authors objective for this research in progress is to identify the key features and describe structure, content and assessment specifics of an academical online course for technical students. This paper provides tips on how to organize the course content into a proper structure stressing what types of teaching materials could be uploaded to the educational platform and goes into its assessment specifics. In a long-term perspective the authors aim to design, develop and introduce a modern and progressive constructivist learning environment for teaching business English in technical universities
Assessing challenges and threats for balanced subsoil use
No full textThe article identifies possible challenges and threats to balanced subsoil use, in particular mining, and assesses the danger of effects, which allows to highlight the main ones for elimination. The concept of balanced nature management has been clarified, and evolutionary changes in its content have been found out: from the balance within only the economic subsystem to the balance of all three components: environmental, social and economic. The definition of balanced mining has been formulated. The conceptual and categorical apparatus has been clarified regarding the occurrence of danger to the balanced mining: the definitions of global challenges, internal and external threats and risks, and their relationship to each other. We identify economic, environmental, social and institutional threats, and their structuring in relation to challenges. The methodological foundations of their assessment are developed, which include the fundamental principles of assessment procedures and the methodical tools—guidelines for assessing threats. The assessment procedures involve the calculation of particular indicators for each of the areas of threats; the calculation of general indicators taking into account the weight of particular indicators; and the definition of an integral indicator taking into account the weight of general ones. The classification of the integral indicator has been done with the allocation of four groups of the threats’ danger degrees. The guidelines were tested on the Sverdlovsk region, Russia
“Transformative agency” as an object of sociological analysis: Contemporary discussions and the role of education*
No full textNegative trends of the global social-economic development enhanced by the covid-19 pandemic explain the theoretical and practical relevance of the study of perspectives for structural transformations and their possible sources. In education, this means the need to improve the existing models of institutional practice and to contribute to the development of ‘agency’ that would support positive transformations in all domains of social life. The scientific attention to ‘agency’ and its transformative potential in relation to ‘structures’ is still limited compared to the issues of structures’ reproduction. The so-called ‘new institutionalists’ in sociology (including primarily J.W. Meyer and his followers) provide a promising basis for new theoretical models and empirical studies of the content, factors and effects of ‘transformative agency’. Meyer’s core idea is that social structures can both suppress and support the initiative formation of new social entities and the corresponding new values and modes of action. Further research in education should refer to the concepts of ‘institutional entrepreneurship’, ‘institutional work’ and ‘expanded actorhood’, when using the proposed theoretical framework to empirically study (1) globally and nationally promoted initiatives in entrepreneurship education in universities, and (2) processes of transformation of institutional contexts in education under the continuing global pandemic with an emphasis on the proactive role of students
Semantic Modelling for the Communication Mechanism of the Production System
No full textThe study deals with the application of intelligent management technologies to support communicative mechanisms in the modern production environment based on the analytical tools which apply the cognitive approach, namely, the semantic modelling. It supports the application of the situation analysis for strategic control based on the principle of management metafunctions. The article presents the semantic model of a discrete situational network in the form of a network graph. It is designed to contribute to the implementation of the communicative strategies to facilitate the decision-making under digitalization. The analytical procedure also designed for decision-making on municipal level that is important under tough budget constraints conditioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The main result of the study is the semantic model of the communicative mechanism of the production system. The proposed intelligent solutions are risk-sensitive because it accounts for the significant exposures. The systematization of the order of interaction under implementation of the cyber-physical systems, production cooperation and communication within the specialization network chain allow to apply the system analysis to the communicative processes that enable information transfer. The article is designed to contribute to the system theory and methodology by application of logical-linguistic analysis and modeling as well as by combining adaptive management and semiotic approach in application to the communicative mechanism of production systems
Preperimetric glaucoma
No full textRecently, much literature data is available on the issue of diagnosis of preperimetric glaucoma (PPG), but no recognized algorithms of detecting primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) at this stage have been developed, and there is no general opinion as to what parameters and techniques should be used. The review offers a generalization of the literature data on PPG diagnosing and specifies the main parameters that should be taken into account in testing POAG patients at the early preperimetric stage. As is known, the diagnosis of glaucoma is based on detectable changes in the optic nerve head and visual field, but the onset of the disease occurs long before the above changes. Currently, the approach shifts towards early OCT diagnosis of glaucoma. Cohort studies show that structural disorders are detected 5-12 years earlier than functional ones in 17-60 % patients with POAG
Efficacy and safety of weekly carfilzomib (70 mg/m<sup>2</sup>), dexamethasone, and daratumumab (KdD70) is comparable to twice-weekly KdD56 while being a more convenient dosing option: a cross-study comparison of the CANDOR and EQUULEUS studies
No full textThe regimen of carfilzomib, daratumumab, and dexamethasone (KdD) shows activity in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. KdD at the twice-weekly 56 mg/m carfilzomib dose (KdD56) was used in the randomized phase 3 CANDOR study (NCT03158688), whereas KdD at the once-weekly 70 mg/m carfilzomib dose (KdD70) was used in the phase 1 b EQUULEUS study (NCT01998971). We analyzed efficacy data from comparable CANDOR and EQUULEUS patients using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW)–adjusted models. These weights were calculated from propensity scores derived to balance prespecified baseline covariates. The side-by-side and adjusted comparisons showed similar efficacy for overall response rates and progression-free survival in the two groups, with a series of sensitivity analyses showing consistent findings. Safety data were generally consistent with the known safety profiles of each individual drug. Once-weekly KdD70 is comparable to twice-weekly KdD56 in terms of efficacy and safety while being a more convenient dosing option. 2
Research on the natural language recognition method based on cluster analysis using neural network
No full textWiththe technological advent, the clustering phenomenon is recently being used in various domains and in natural language recognition. This article contributes to the clustering phenomenon of natural language and fulfills the requirements for the dynamic update of the knowledge system. This article proposes a method of dynamic knowledge extraction based on sentence clustering recognition using a neural network-based framework. The conversion process from natural language papers to object-oriented knowledge system is studied considering the related problems of sentence vectorization. This article studies the attributes of sentence vectorization using various basic definitions, judgment theorem, and postprocessing elements. The sentence clustering recognition method of the network uses the concept of prereliability as a measure of the credibility of sentence recognition results. An ART2 neural network simulation program is written using MATLAB, and the effect of the neural network on sentence recognition is utilized for the corresponding analysis. A postreliability evaluation indexing is done for the credibility of the model construction, and the implementation steps for the conjunctive rule sentence pattern are specifically introduced. A new method of structural modeling is utilized to generate the structured derivation relationship, thus completing the natural language knowledge extraction process of the object-oriented knowledge system. An application example with mechanical CAD is used in this work to demonstrate the specific implementation of the example, which confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method
Synthesis and experimental study of liquid dispersions of magnetic fluorescent polystyrene microspheres
No full textMultiplex microsphere-based immunofluorescence assay is a reliable, accurate, and highly sensitive method for the detection of various biomolecules. However, for the moment, the wide application of the method in clinical practice is prevented by the high cost of reagents for analysis-magnetic spectrally encoded microspheres. Therefore, an urgent task is the development of new methods for the synthesis of microspheres with the required properties. The aim of this study was the creation of new magnetic fluorescent microspheres suitable for use in multiplex immunoassay. Samples of magnetic fluorescent polystyrene microspheres were synthesized by dispersion polymerization and two-stage swelling methods. Experimental studies of geometric parameters, fluorescence, magnetic properties of the synthesized microspheres have been carried out. The results of the studies have shown that microspheres synthesized by dispersion polymerization are promising for the use in immunofluorescence analysis. The obtained results can be used for the development of new diagnostic multiplex test systems based on spectrally encoded microspheres
Predictive thermodynamic modeling and experimental measurements on solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredient: Lornoxicam case study
No full textLow solubility of some drugs in water is a challenging issue in pharmaceutical area which should be properly addressed to achieve drugs with high efficacy. The solubility of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) namely lornoxicam in carbon dioxide at supercritical conditions is measured in this work. The experimental measurements were carried out utilizing gravimetric technique, at the pressure and temperature intervals of 120–400 bar and 308–338 K, respectively. The determined mole fraction of solubility revealed that the solubility of this drug is between 3.08 × 10 to 3.54 × 10 . It was perceived that pressure has strong and direct effect on the solubility in which the solubility increases with rising system's pressure. Unlike pressure, the effect of temperature depends on the cross-over point which is between 160 and 200 bar for lornoxicam. Above the cross-over point, the solubility indicated direct relationship with temperature due to improvement of sublimation pressure which is the dominant mechanism. In addition to the experimental measurements, the solubility data are correlated using five semi-empirical correlations namely Mendez-Santiago-Teja (MST), Bartle et al., Chrastil, Kumar and Johnston (KJ) and Garlapati & Madras with minimum average absolute relative deviation (AARD %) 6.2% for Bartle et al. model. −5 −