The Impact of Head Model Choice on the In Vitro Evaluation of Aerosol Drug Delivery

There are variations in the values reported for aerosol drug delivery across in vitro experiments throughout the published literature, and often with the same devices or similar experimental setups. Factors contributing to this variability include, but are not limited to device type, equipment settings, drug type and quantification methods. This study assessed the impact of head model choice on aerosol drug delivery using six different adults and three different paediatric head models in combination with a facemask, mouthpiece, and high-flow nasal cannula. Under controlled test conditions, the quantity of drug collected varied depending on the choice of head model. Head models vary depending on a combination of structural design differences, facial features (size and structure), internal volume measurements and airway geometries and these variations result in the differences in aerosol delivery. Of the widely available head models used in this study, only three were seen to closely predict in vivo aerosol delivery performance in adults compared with published scintigraphy data. Further, this testing identified the limited utility of some head models under certain test conditions, for example, the range reported across head models was aerosol drug delivery of 2.62 ± 2.86% to 37.79 ± 1.55% when used with a facemask. For the first time, this study highlights the impact of head model choice on reported aerosol drug delivery within a laboratory setting and contributes to explaining the differences in values reported within the literature.

Evidence for exon shuffling is sensitive to model choice

The exon shuffling theory posits that intronic recombination creates new domain combinations, facilitating the evolution of novel protein function. This theory predicts that introns will be preferentially situated near domain boundaries. Many studies have sought evidence for exon shuffling by testing the correspondence between introns and domain boundaries against chance intron positioning. Here, we present an empirical investigation of how the choice of null model influences significance. Although genome-wide studies have used a uniform null model, exclusively, more realistic null models have been proposed for single gene studies. We extended these models for genome-wide analyses and applied them to 21 metazoan and fungal genomes. Our results show that compared with the other two models, the uniform model does not recapitulate genuine exon lengths, dramatically underestimates the probability of chance agreement, and overestimates the significance of intron-domain correspondence by as much as 100 orders of magnitude. Model choice had much greater impact on the assessment of exon shuffling in fungal genomes than in metazoa, leading to different evolutionary conclusions in seven of the 16 fungal genomes tested. Genome-wide studies that use this overly permissive null model may exaggerate the importance of exon shuffling as a general mechanism of multidomain evolution.

Role Model Choice Habits of Primary School and University Students in An International Perspective

By the XXI century, we are always online thanks to the available modern telecommunication tools, so certain concepts, results, and value systems are therefore revalued. This change, which involves loss of value as well, is present in all areas of life and has an impact on the morality and value perception of the growing generation. The purpose of the study is on the one hand to present and analyse the changes in values of today's society. On the other hand, its purpose is to give a picture of the role model choices of today's young people. As a test method, we used a questionnaire survey method besides exploring the domestic and international literature. A total of 687 people participated in the survey. The study was conducted with the participation of six countries, including four in Europe - Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia - and two outside Europe - Malaysia and Kenya. Our hypotheses were: H1: It is assumed that most of the young people have an athlete role model; H2: It is assumed that in Kenya and Malaysia there is a significantly higher proportion of those who choose athlete role models and they are chosen along with positive values; H3: It is assumed that, due to social, economic, and cultural disparities, I can show significant differences in the choice of role models for young people surveyed in Central and Eastern European and non-European countries. As a result, the habits of athlete role model choice among the interviewed young people of six countries become comparable. We get a clearer picture of the values along which young people choose an orientation person

The Effects of Business Model on Bank’s Stability

The literature shows little evidence of the effects of business models upon the volatility of banks in developing and fast-growing economies. Hence, this study examines the effects of business model choice on the stability of banks in ASEAN countries. Using GMM and other robust econometric methods on the sample of 99 joint stock commercial banks, we find significant and negative impacts of a diversification model in which banks shift toward non-interest and fees-based activities. We also find that the impacts are different between two groups of countries. For Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, the diversification entails negative impacts on stability while demonstrating positive impacts for Thailand and Malaysia. Based on these findings, we draw policy implications for more sustainable development in the ASEAN banking business.

Short-term PM2.5 and cardiovascular admissions in NY State: assessing sensitivity to exposure model choice

Background Air pollution health studies have been increasingly using prediction models for exposure assessment even in areas without monitoring stations. To date, most studies have assumed that a single exposure model is correct, but estimated effects may be sensitive to the choice of exposure model. Methods We obtained county-level daily cardiovascular (CVD) admissions from the New York (NY) Statewide Planning and Resources Cooperative System (SPARCS) and four sets of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) spatio-temporal predictions (2002–2012). We employed overdispersed Poisson models to investigate the relationship between daily PM2.5 and CVD, adjusting for potential confounders, separately for each state-wide PM2.5 dataset. Results For all PM2.5 datasets, we observed positive associations between PM2.5 and CVD. Across the modeled exposure estimates, effect estimates ranged from 0.23% (95%CI: -0.06, 0.53%) to 0.88% (95%CI: 0.68, 1.08%) per 10 µg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5. We observed the highest estimates using monitored concentrations 0.96% (95%CI: 0.62, 1.30%) for the subset of counties where these data were available. Conclusions Effect estimates varied by a factor of almost four across methods to model exposures, likely due to varying degrees of exposure measurement error. Nonetheless, we observed a consistently harmful association between PM2.5 and CVD admissions, regardless of model choice.

Mathematical Modelling by Help of Category Theory: Models and Relations between Them

The growing complexity of modern practical problems puts high demand on mathematical modelling. Given that various models can be used for modelling one physical phenomenon, the role of model comparison and model choice is becoming particularly important. Methods for model comparison and model choice typically used in practical applications nowadays are computation-based, and thus time consuming and computationally costly. Therefore, it is necessary to develop other approaches to working abstractly, i.e., without computations, with mathematical models. An abstract description of mathematical models can be achieved by the help of abstract mathematics, implying formalisation of models and relations between them. In this paper, a category theory-based approach to mathematical modelling is proposed. In this way, mathematical models are formalised in the language of categories, relations between the models are formally defined and several practically relevant properties are introduced on the level of categories. Finally, an illustrative example is presented, underlying how the category-theory based approach can be used in practice. Further, all constructions presented in this paper are also discussed from a modelling point of view by making explicit the link to concrete modelling scenarios.