158 research outputs found
Effect of prostaglandin F2α and methylxanthines on enzymic release of bull epididymal spermatozoa in vitro
No full textEffect of sildenafil citrate (Viagra®) on trace element concentration in serum and brain of rats
No full textReno-protective effect of Roflumilast against kidney injury induced by ischemia/reperfusion in rats: Evidence from biochemical and histological investigations
No full textOxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis are major contributors to renal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. This study aimed to investigate the effects of pretreatment with the PDE4 inhibitor roflumilast (Rof) on renal I/R and its underlying mechanisms. Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to 30 minutes of unilateral renal ischemia followed by 45 minutes of reperfusion. Rof (1.5 and 3 mg/kg) was administered for seven days prior to I/R induction. The findings showed that Rof significantly and dose-dependently attenuated kidney damage by reducing blood urea nitrogen and creatinine levels. Rof also exhibited antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, as evidenced by improved glutathione and malondialdehyde levels and decreased proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-α). Furthermore, Rof prevented the downregulation of HO-1 and Nrf2 expression. These results suggest that Rof therapy could protect the kidneys from I/R-induced injury through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, providing a potential therapeutic approach for the management of renal I/R damage
Nrf2/HO-1, NF-κB and PI3K/Akt signalling pathways decipher the therapeutic mechanism of pitavastatin in early phase liver fibrosis in rats
No full textLiver fibrosis is a common chronic hepatic disease. This study aimed to investigate the effect of pitavastatin (Pit) against thioacetamide (TAA)-induced liver fibrosis. Rats were divided into four groups: (1) control group; (2) TAA group (100 mg/kg, i.p.) three times weekly for 2 weeks; (3 and 4) TAA/Pit-treated group, in which Pit was administered orally (0.4 and 0.8 mg/kg/day) for 2 weeks following TAA injections. TAA caused liver damage manifested by elevated serum transaminases, reduced albumin and histological alterations. Hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) was increased, and glutathione (GSH) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were decreased in TAA-administered rats. TAA upregulated the inflammatory markers NF-κB, NF-κB p65, TNF-α and IL-6. Treatment with Pit ameliorated serum transaminases, elevated serum albumin and prevented histopathological changes in TAA-intoxicated rats. Pit suppressed MDA, NF-κB, NF-κB p65, the inflammatory cytokines and PI3K mRNA in TAA-intoxicated rats. In addition, Pit enhanced hepatic antioxidants and boosted the nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) mRNA. Moreover, immunohistological studies supported the ability of Pit to reduce liver fibrosis via suppressing p-AKT expression. In conclusion, Pit effectively prevents TAA-induced liver fibrosis by attenuating oxidative stress and the inflammatory response. The hepatoprotective efficacy of Pit was associated with the upregulation of Nrf2/HO-1 and downregulation of NF-κB and PI3K/Akt signalling pathways
Radio-clinical assessment of crista fenestra during pediatric cochlear implantation
No full textObjectives: This study aimed to assess the ability of preoperative computed tomography (CT) to predict the crista fenestra (CF) type during cochlear implantation and correlate these types with intraoperative findings. This may allow for precise preoperative planning with better surgical outcomes. Study design: A prospective observational study. Settings: The study was done in multiple tertiary centers between September 2021 and March 2024. Method: ology: We correlated the preoperative radiological type of the CF with the intraoperative CF type to evaluate the accuracy and sensitivity of the HRCT to predict the CF type. We also assessed the need for CF drilling in each case. Results: Our study included 154 patients who underwent CI. They were 90 (58.4 %) males and 64 (41.5 %) females with ages ranging from 2.1 to 7.6 years, with a mean of 4.69 ± 1.19. The intra-class correlation coefficient between both radiological evaluators was 0.985, which indicated a high agreement between them. The intraoperative surgical types of CF were significantly related to the radiological types as the Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.976, and the P-value was <0.001. Conclusions: Our study revealed that preoperative CT is a precise tool for predicting the intraoperative type of CF during cochlear implantation type with a sensitivity of 96.67 % and an accuracy of 94.17 %. Moreover, drilling of the CF is recommended in type A3 and type B
An Intelligent System For Arabic Text Categorization
No full textText Categorization (classification) is the process of classifying documents into a predefined set of categories based on their content. In this paper, an intelligent Arabic text categorization system is presented. Machine learning algorithms are used in this system. Many algorithms for stemming and feature selection are tried. Moreover, the document is represented using several term weighting schemes and finally the k-nearest neighbor and Rocchio classifiers are used for classification process. Experiments are performed over self collected data corpus and the results show that the suggested hybrid method of statistical and light stemmers is the most suitable stemming algorithm for Arabic language. The results also show that a hybrid approach of document frequency and information gain is the preferable feature selection criterion and normalized-tfidf is the best weighting scheme. Finally, Rocchio classifier has the advantage over k-nearest neighbor classifier in the classification process. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed model is an efficient method and gives generalization accuracy of about 98%
A Hybrid Feature Selection Approach for Arabic Documents Classification
No full textText Categorization (classification) is the process of classifying documents into a predefined set of categories based on their content. Text categorization algorithms usually represent documents as bags of words and consequently have to deal with huge number of features. Feature selection tries to find a set of relevant terms to improve both efficiency and generalization. There are two main approaches for feature selection, local and global. In Arabic text categorization it was found that using global feature selection gives higher results but may affect some documents in a way so that they do not show any terms in the set of selected features. On the other hand local feature selection is used to overcome this problem but gives lower classification rate. In this paper a hybrid approach of global and local feature selection technique is proposed and compared with both local and global feature selection techniques. Results are reported on a set of 1132 document of six different topics showing that the proposed hybrid feature selection overcome the disadvantages of both of feature selection approaches
The smart safety Shoe: A new type of safety shoe that helps prevent lower back problems and opens the door to a new era of preventive safety footwear
No full textThe smart safety shoe is a concept safety shoe that has been in development as a collaboration between Allshoes safety footwear and TU Delft since 2020. Previous work on the shoe consisted of 2 graduation projects and a student course which resulted in the current concept of an injury preventing safety shoe focused on preventing lower back pain in the logistics sector. The shoe works by using pressure sensors and machine learning to detect unhealthy postures while its wearer has to lift various objects as part of their job (manual handling). This project focused on further developing the concept of the smart safety shoe and evaluating the prototypes from the last two projects. Previous projects provided two different pressure sensor layouts which are evaluated using a high-end pressure sensing insole. A manual handling experiment was set up and performed on 16 different participants from a lab and a warehouse. During testing participants were instructed to perform manual handling while holding 5 different postures. It was possible to train a machine learning model using the various pressure profiles gathered from the experiment. Using this model, the two sensor layouts from the previous projects were evaluated for their ability to detect the 5 predetermined postures. It was found that the latest layout outperformed the previous one and was therefore selected for further development of the smart safety shoe.The integration of various other sensors and actuators was evaluated, and the core functions of the shoe were defined with an indication towards future improvements of the smart safety shoe.The shoe has now been publicly presented by Allshoes and the goal is to have the product on the market by the end of 2025. In order for this to happen further prototyping is needed to create an improved machine learning model based on the selected sensor layout. The shoe shows promising responses from current safety shoe clients. When finally launched it will be part of a new type of protective equipment focused on prevention.Design for Interactio
Artificial Intelligence for marketing plan: the case for e-marketing companies
No full textУ статті узагальнено аргументи та контраргументи в рамках наукової дискусії щодо застосування штучного інтелекту
(ШІ) при підготовці маркетингового плану в Інтернеті. Систематизація літературних джерел та підходів до вирішення
проблеми застосування маркетингових інструментів засвідчила, що ШІ дозволяє підвищити ефективність проведення
аналізу конкурентоспроможності компаній, оцінювання стратегій конкурентів, планування маркетингового бюджету та
моніторінгу його виконнання тощо. Виявлено проблеми ШІ, які можуть вплинути на ефективність діяльності компаній.
Метою роботи є дослідження можливостей використання ШІ при підготовці маркетингового плану компанії. Для досягнення
поставленої мети, дослідження проведено у наступній логічній послідовності: 1) формування стратифікованої вибірки
дослідження на основі статистичних даних 141 компанії в різних галузях; 2) аналіз даних за допомогою програмного
забезпечення SPSS; 3) аналіз можливостей застосування ШІ при підготовці маркетингового плану; 4) визначення етапів
процесу підготовки маркетингового плану на основі можливостей ШІ. Об’єктом дослідження є компанії Королівства
Саудівської Аравії. Практичну реалізацію всіх етапів дослідження здійснено з використанням статистичних методів
множинної регресії та тесту Фрідмана. Дослідження емпірично підтверджує та теоретично доводить, що ШІ має суттєве
значення у процесі розробки маркетингових планів завдяки можливостям аналізу зовнішнього середовища та стратегій
конкурентів, а також формування маркетингових цілей компанії. При цьому ШІ може застосовуватись у підготовці та оцінці
бюджету та маркетингового плану, а також здійснювати подальший моніторінг їх виконання. У ході дослідження автор
приходить до висновку, що ШІ сприяє кращому розумінню цільових ринків та аудиторії, дозволяє підготувати відповідні
стратегії. Наведено практичні рекомендації щодо особливостей застосування ШІ при підготовці маркетингового плану
компанії.This paper summarises the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on
artificial intelligence (AI) in preparing a marketing plan for e-marketing organizations. This research aims to identify
the extent of the contribution of AI in preparing the marketing plan. The author noted that intended to know how emarketing companies could use AI techniques in situation analysis, analyze competitors' strategies, strategic goals,
preparing marketing strategies, preparing an estimated marketing budget, and control a marketing plan.
Systematization of the scientific background and approaches on preparing a marketing plan for e-marketing
organizations indicates that many companies, especially small companies, marketing their products via the Internet,
cannot develop a successful marketing plan. In turn, it could be solved through the use of AI techniques. The study
was conducted on a group of companies that market their products via the Internet in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
To gain the research goal, this study was carried out in the following logical sequence: 1) developing the stratified
sample by collecting statistical information for 141 company in a variety of fields; 2) analyzing the data using SPSS;
3) predicting how AI could be used in preparing the marketing plan; 4) identifying the arrangement of the steps for
preparing the marketing plan in terms of the ability of AI techniques. The methodological tools of the study were
methods of the multiple regression analysis and the Friedman test. The study empirically confirms and theoretically
proves that AI contributes significantly in developing marketing plans through its great contribution to environmental
analysis and analysis of competitors' strategies and setting marketing goals. Besides, AI contributes to preparing the
budget and appreciating the marketing plan, to its evaluation and control. The author mentioned that AI provides
understanding and selecting target markets and sectors, targeting customers, and preparing appropriate marketing
mix strategies for each market sector. Therefore, the study provides recommendations to online organizations to
use AI in preparing their marketing plan because of its great ability to contribute to this
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