• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.4341-4347
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• 2016

Background: Patient safety is one of the key components of nursing care for cancer cases. Valid and reliable context-based instruments are necessary for accurate evaluation of patient safety in oncology units. The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Patient Safety Violation Scale in medical oncology units in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this methodological study, a pool of 58 items was generated through reviewing the existing literature. The validity of the 58-item scale was assessed through calculating impact score, content validity ratio, and content validity index for its items as well as conducting exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by assessing its internal consistency and testretest stability. Study sample consisted of 300 oncology nurses who were recruited from thirteen teaching hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Results: Sixteen items were excluded from the scale due to having low impact scores, content validity ratios, or content validity indices. In exploratory factor analysis, the remaining 42 items were loaded on five factors including patient fall, verification of patientidentity, harm during care delivery, delay in care delivery, and medication errors. These five factors explained 62% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale and the test-retest interclass correlation coefficient were equal to 0.933 and 0.92, respectively. Conclusions: The 42-item Patient Safety Violation Scale is a simple and short scale which has acceptable validity and reliability. Consequently, it can be used for assessing patient safety in clinical settings such as medical oncology units and for research projects.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.116-124
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• 2015

Background: Ginseng, the root of Panax ginseng (PG), is used widely as a herbal medicine to prevent and treat various diseases. Panax ginseng has pharmacological effects on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The present study evaluated the neuroprotective effects of PG and its possible neuroprotective mechanisms in advanced glycation end product (AGE)-induced AD in a rat model. Methods: Advanced glycation end products were injected bilaterally into the CA3 region of the rats' brains. The Morris water maze test and step-down type passive avoidance test were performed to evaluate their memory and cognitive abilities. The oxidation indexes in the hippocampus were detected. Immunohistochemistry was conducted to visualize the receptors for advanced glycation end products (RAGEs) and nuclear factor-kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cell (NF-${\kappa}B$). Results: Behavioral results showed that PG (1 g/kg, 0.5 g/kg, and 0.25 g/kg) significantly shortened the escape latency, remarkably increased the number of crossing times, significantly decreased the number of errors, and prolonged the latency in rats with AGE-induced AD. Panax ginseng also significantly reduced the malondialdehyde level, increased the glutathione content, and increased superoxide dismutase activity in the hippocampus. Panax ginseng significantly decreased the expression of RAGE and NF-${\kappa}B$. The blockade of anti-RAGE antibody could significantly reduce AGE-induced impairments and regulate these expressions. Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that PG significantly inhibits AGE-induced memory impairment and attenuates Alzheimer-like pathophysiological changes. These neuroprotective effects of PG may be associated with the RAGE/NF-${\kappa}B$ pathway. Our results provided the experimental basis for applying PG in preventing and treating AD.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.527-536
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• 1993

The characteristics of the controlled drug release were studied for biodegradable transdermal drug delivery system. A biodegradable polymeric matrix was prepared from chitosan, silver sulfadiazine, and glycerine. The release behavior of silver sulfadiazine from chitosan matrix was consistent with the Higuchi's diffusion controlled model. The release time was delayed by increasing the content of silver sulfadiazine and thickness of the matrix, whereas decreased as glycerine concentration increased. The apparent constant (K) of release rate was proportional to the content of drug or glycerine and the thickness of chitosan matrix. These results indicated that chitosan matrix shows some potential as a drug delivery system for transdermal therapeutic application.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.211-215
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• 2010

Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanocomposite hydrogels were prepared by freezingthawing method for the electro-responsive transdermal drug delivery. MWCNTs were used as the functional ingredient to improve both mechanical and electrical properties of MWCNT/PVA nanocomposite hydrogels. The morphology of nanocomposites revealed the uniform distribution of MWCNTs and the good interfacial contact. The compression moduli of hydrogel matrices increased greatly from 40 to 1500 kPa by forming MWCNT/PVA nanocomposites. The swelling ratio of MWCNT/PVA nanocomposites decreased as the content of MWCNTs increased under no electric voltage applied. However, the swelling ratio of MWCNT/PVA nanocomposites increased as the content of MWCNTs increased under electric voltage applied and the applied electric voltage increased. The drug was released in the electro-responsive manner through the skin due to the electro-sensitive swelling characteristics of MWCNT/PVA nanocomposite hydrogels.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.341-353
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• 2016

Papermaking reconstituted tobacco is an important strategy for recycling the waste tobacco residues. To indentify the influences of the inorganic components on harmful components delivery in cigarette smoke, a self-made electrodialysis stack was assembled to desalt the tobacco extract. The influences of the applied current and extract content on the removal rate of the inorganic ions were investigated. Results indicated that the applied current was a dominant impact on the desalination performance. High currents lower than the limiting current density could accelerate the desalting efficiency but cause higher energy consumption. A current of 2 A, or current density of ${\sim}11mA{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, was an optimal choice by considering both the energy consumption and desalting efficiency. A 20% tobacco extract was an appropriate content for the electrodialysis process. More than 90% of inorganic ions could be removed under the optimum condition. The preliminary result indicated that removal of inorganic components was beneficial to decrease the harmful component delivery in cigarette smoke. Naturally, ED is an environmentally friendly and high-effective technology for desalting the tobacco extract.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.165-171
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• 2005

Itraconazole is a triazole antifungal agent to inhibit most fungal pathogens. However, it is difficult for itraconazloe to be delivered by topical system due to its poor aqueous solubility. First, niosomes containing drug were prepared with span 60, cholesterol. tocopherol and poloxamer 407 as vesicle forming agents in an effort to increase solubility of itraconazole. And then prepared niosomes were dispersed in O/W creams (containing xanthan gum, glycerin, vaseline, glyceryl monostearate and $Cerix^{\circledR}-5$) or gels (containing xanthan gum and poloxamer 407). Both creams and gels were evaluated with respect to their rheological properties, in vitro permeation through excised skin of hairless mouse. Creams or gels containing niosome showed pseudoplastic flow and hysteresis loop. For both creams and gels, viscosity was increased with increasing the content of glycerine or vaseline and the content of gel forming polymer, respectively. In creams, the permeability of drug to skin was decreased with increasing the viscosity of cream. The permeability of drug was affected by pH as well as viscosity of gel. In vitro permeation test results demonstrated that cream formulations showed better permeability than gels. In conclusion, these results suggest that creams formulation containing niosome can be useful for the topical delivery of intraconazole.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.175-184
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• 2006

Poly(D,L-lacic acid)(PLA) microshperes containing loazepam were prepared by a solvent-emulsion evaporation method and their release patterns were investigated in vitro. Various batches of microspheres with different size and drug content were obtained by changing the ratio of lorazepam to PLA, PLA concentration in the dispersed phase and stirring rate. Rod-like lorazepam crystals on microsphere surface, which were released rapidly and could act as a loading dose, were observed with increasing drug content. The release rate was increased with increase in drug contents and decrease in the molecular weight of PLA. The release rate of lorazepam for long-acting injectable delivery system in vitro, which would aid in Predicting in vivo release Profile, could be controlled by properly optimizing various factors affecting characteristics of microspheres.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.377-382
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• 2010

For business purposes, it is important to identify diffusion power users, a group of users who have big influence on other users in diffusing content. In this paper, we use the independent cascade model for determining diffusion power users, and to do so, we need a method for calculating the assimilation probability between users. This paper proposes the concepts of user delivery power and a way to quantifying the value of this. User delivery power is used to compute the assimilation probability with user content power. We analyze the proposed method by comparing its performance with those of existing methods through experiments using a real blog network data.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.129-135
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• 1997

This study was carried out to investigate the influence of triacetin(TA) on some phisico-chemical properties of cigarette filter rods. To find the effect of TA on physical properties, we made six kinds of filters varying the TA levels(0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%) and measured the hardness, resilience and roundness. The hardness of filter rods was increased from 83.2% to 94.6% with increasing the TA level hut the roundness was not affected by TA levels. After manufacturing the cigarette with the filters, we have analysed the delivery amount of phenol and TA with the content of TA. The amount of phenol was decreased from 20.6$\mu\textrm{g}$/cig. to 12.0 $\mu\textrm{g}$/cig. with increasing the TA level of the filters. The decreasing of phenol amount was thought to be caused by solution effect. Also the TA delivery of TPM was increased from 0% to 5% of TPM with increasing the amount of TA. We have found the interesting phenomena that ventilation rate was also decreasing up to 6oye with increasing TA. It seemed to be due to the encapsulated pressure drop and the reduction of the plugwrap porosity which also caused by the smear with TA on the surface of plugwrap. From this results, we could find that not only the hardness, resilience and ventilation rate but also the contents of phenol and TA in cigarette smoke was affected by the TA levels on the cigarette filter rods.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.86-94
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• 2003

Certified e-mail system guarantees that recipient will get mail content if and only if mall originator receives a receipt. Unlike previous schemes, Optimistic protocols recently published generate a receipt when it meets the condition that the mail content can be accessed by recliner at any time. So originator cannot assure the delivery of e-mail although he can get a receipt. In this paper, we show some flaws in optimistic protocols and propose improved schemes using delivery deadline. Modified protocols guarantee proof-of-receipt and eliminate the problem mentioned above. Furthermore, proposed modification technique can be applicable to most optimistic protocols and is efficient in the sense that modified schemes do not increase the number of messages.