Physicochemical properties of nanostructured lipid carriers as colloidal carrier system stabilized with polysorbate 20 and polysorbate 80

Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC), a colloidal carrier system offer many advantages as drug carrier. Incorporation of liquid lipid can improve the loading capacity of drugs in the NLCs. The NLC20 and NLC80 were produced by high-pressure homogenization technique, stabilized with polysorbate 20 and polysorbate 80, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy showed that these NLCs were spherical. Photon correlation spectroscopy showed that the average size of NLC80 and NLC20 were102.8 ± 0.1 and 261.63 ± 8.56 nm, respectively, and their zeta potentials were -23.93 ± 0.75 and -30.57 ±0.06 mV, respectively. The results suggest that NLC80 is a more stable formulation. X-ray diffractometryand differential scanning calorimetry showed that NCLs were less crystalline than the bulk lipid. The melting point depression of NLC80 was 5.71°C below bulk lipid’s melting point (61.56°C), while NLC20 exhibited two melting points at 54.80 and 59.10°C. These findings suggest that polysorbate 80 was a better dispersing agent for NLC than polysorbate 20. The physicochemistry properties of the NLCs are greatly influenced by the type of surfactant used. The small size and superior particle surface to volume ratio would increase loading efficiency and bioavailability of drugs, thus making NLC a promising drug delivery system.Key words: Nanostructured lipid carriers, colloidal delivery system,   polysorbate 80, polysorbate 20, highpressure homogenization,   physicochemical properties

Intelligent Cooperative Control Architecture: A Framework for Performance Improvement Using Safe Learning

Planning for multi-agent systems such as task assignment for teams of limited-fuel unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is challenging due to uncertainties in the assumed models and the very large size of the planning space. Researchers have developed fast cooperative planners based on simple models (e.g., linear and deterministic dynamics), yet inaccuracies in assumed models will impact the resulting performance. Learning techniques are capable of adapting the model and providing better policies asymptotically compared to cooperative planners, yet they often violate the safety conditions of the system due to their exploratory nature. Moreover they frequently require an impractically large number of interactions to perform well. This paper introduces the intelligent Cooperative Control Architecture (iCCA) as a framework for combining cooperative planners and reinforcement learning techniques. iCCA improves the policy of the cooperative planner, while reduces the risk and sample complexity of the learner. Empirical results in gridworld and task assignment for fuel-limited UAV domains with problem sizes up to 9 billion state-action pairs verify the advantage of iCCA over pure learning and planning strategies

Residency patterns and migration dynamics of adult bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) on the east coast of southern Africa:

Bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) are globally distributed top predators that play an important ecological role within coastal marine communities. However, little is known about the spatial and temporal scales of their habitat use and associated ecological role. In this study, we employed passive acoustic telemetry to investigate the residency patterns and migration dynamics of 18 adult bull sharks (195–283 cm total length) tagged in southern Mozambique for a period of between 10 and 22 months. The majority of sharks (n = 16) exhibited temporally and spatially variable residency patterns interspersed with migration events. Ten individuals undertook coastal migrations that ranged between 433 and 709 km (mean  = 533 km) with eight of these sharks returning to the study site

Neurological manifestations of COVID-19 in adults and children

Different neurological manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in adults and children and their impact have not been well characterized. We aimed to determine the prevalence of neurological manifestations and in-hospital complications among hospitalized COVID-19 patients and ascertain differences between adults and children. We conducted a prospective multicentre observational study using the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) cohort across 1507 sites worldwide from 30 January 2020 to 25 May 2021. Analyses of neurological manifestations and neurological complications considered unadjusted prevalence estimates for predefined patient subgroups, and adjusted estimates as a function of patient age and time of hospitalization using generalized linear models. Overall, 161 239 patients (158 267 adults; 2972 children) hospitalized with COVID-19 and assessed for neurological manifestations and complications were included. In adults and children, the most frequent neurological manifestations at admission were fatigue (adults: 37.4%; children: 20.4%), altered consciousness (20.9%; 6.8%), myalgia (16.9%; 7.6%), dysgeusia (7.4%; 1.9%), anosmia (6.0%; 2.2%) and seizure (1.1%; 5.2%). In adults, the most frequent in-hospital neurological complications were stroke (1.5%), seizure (1%) and CNS infection (0.2%). Each occurred more frequently in intensive care unit (ICU) than in non-ICU patients. In children, seizure was the only neurological complication to occur more frequently in ICU versus non-ICU (7.1% versus 2.3%, P < 0.001). Stroke prevalence increased with increasing age, while CNS infection and seizure steadily decreased with age. There was a dramatic decrease in stroke over time during the pandemic. Hypertension, chronic neurological disease and the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation were associated with increased risk of stroke. Altered consciousness was associated with CNS infection, seizure and stroke. All in-hospital neurological complications were associated with increased odds of death. The likelihood of death rose with increasing age, especially after 25 years of age. In conclusion, adults and children have different neurological manifestations and in-hospital complications associated with COVID-19. Stroke risk increased with increasing age, while CNS infection and seizure risk decreased with age