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Topic Review
The Pathogenesis of Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurring spontaneous seizures. Drug resistance appears in 30% of patients and it can lead to premature death, brain damage or a reduced quality of life. The purpose of the study was to analyze the drug resistance mechanisms, especially neuroinflammation, in the epileptogenesis. The information bases of biomedical literature Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar and SciVerse were used. To obtain full-text documents, electronic resources of PubMed Central and Research Gate were used. The article examines the recent research of the mechanisms of drug resistance in epilepsy and discusses the hypotheses of drug resistance development (genetic, epigenetic, target hypothesis, etc.). Drug-resistant epilepsy is associated with neuroinflammatory, autoimmune and neurodegenerative processes. Neuroinflammation causes immune, pathophysiological, biochemical and psychological consequences. Focal or systemic unregulated inflammatory processes lead to the formation of aberrant neural connections and hyperexcitable neural networks. Inflammatory mediators affect the endothelium of cerebral vessels, destroy contacts between endothelial cells and induce abnormal angiogenesis (the formation of “leaky” vessels), thereby affecting the blood–brain barrier permeability. Thus, the analysis of pro-inflammatory and other components of epileptogenesis can contribute to the further development of the therapeutic treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy.
  • 5.5K
  • 26 May 2021
Topic Review
Offshore Wind Turbine Technology
Offshore wind turbines are becoming increasingly popular due to their higher wind energy harnessing capabilities and lower visual pollution. Structural integrity of offshore wind turbine and their blades’ aerodynamics are of particular importance, which can lead towards system-level optimal design and operation, leading to reduced maintenance costs. 
  • 5.5K
  • 20 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Prisoners of War in Islam
The rules and regulations concerning prisoners of war in Islam are covered in manuals of Islamic jurisprudence, based upon Islamic teachings, in both the Qur'an and hadith. The historical legal principles governing the treatment of prisoners of war, in shar'iah, Islamic law, (in the traditional madhabs schools of Islamic jurisprudence), was then a significant improvement over the pre-existing norms of society during Muhammad's time (see Early reforms under Islam). Men, women, and children may all be taken as prisoners of war under traditional interpretations of Islamic law. Generally, a prisoner of war could be, at the discretion of the military leader, freed, ransomed, exchanged for Muslim prisoners, or kept in bondage. In earlier times, the ransom sometimes took an educational dimension, where a literate prisoner of war could secure his or her freedom by teaching ten Muslims to read and write. Some Muslim scholars hold that a prisoner may not be ransomed for gold or silver, but may be exchanged for Muslim prisoners.
  • 5.5K
  • 23 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Deep Reinforcement Learning Applications
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) combines Reinforcement Learning and Deep Learning. It is more capable of learning from raw sensors or images as input, enabling end-to-end learning, which opens up more applications in robotics, video games, NLP, computer vision, healthcare, and more. A milestone in value-based DRL is employing Deep Q-Networks (DQN) to play Atari games by Google DeepMindin 2013.
  • 5.5K
  • 02 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Henderson–Hasselbalch Equation
In chemistry, the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation describes the derivation of pH as a measure of acidity (using pKa, the negative log of the acid dissociation constant) in biological and chemical systems. The equation is also useful for estimating the pH of a buffer solution and finding the equilibrium pH in acid-base reactions (it is widely used to calculate the isoelectric point of proteins). The equation is given by: Here, [HA] is the molar concentration of the undissociated weak acid, [A⁻] is the molar concentration (molarity, M) of this acid's conjugate base and pKa is −log10 Ka where Ka is the acid dissociation constant, that is: In these equations, A⁻ denotes the ionic form of the relevant acid. Bracketed quantities such as [base] and [acid] denote the molar concentration of the quantity enclosed.
  • 5.5K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Food Marketing
It would seem important to analyse the relationships between food marketing and consumer choice, highlighting the role of brands in these frameworks. For this purpose, a literature review was carried out considering 147 documents from Scopus database for the topics of search “food marketing” and“choices” (search performed on 16 October 2020). As main insights, it is worth highlighting that the main issues addressed by the literature, concerning food marketing and consumer choices, are the following: economic theory; label and packaging; marketing strategies; agriculture and food industry; market segments; social dimensions; brand and branding. In turn, food marketing heavily conditions consumer choices; however, these related instruments are better manipulated by larger companies. In addition, this entry highlights that bigger companies have dominant positions in these markets which are not always beneficial to the consumers’ objectives.
  • 5.5K
  • 07 May 2021
Topic Review
Self-confidence
The concept of self-confidence is commonly used as self-assurance in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc. One's self confidence increases from experiences of having satisfactorily completed particular activities. It is a positive belief that in the future one can generally accomplish what one wishes to do. Self-confidence is not the same as self-esteem, which is an evaluation of one's own worth, whereas self-confidence is more specifically trust in one's ability to achieve some goal, which one meta-analysis suggested is similar to generalization of self-efficacy. Abraham Maslow and many others after him have emphasized the need to distinguish between self-confidence as a generalized personality characteristic, and self-confidence with respect to a specific task, ability or challenge (i.e. self-efficacy). Self-confidence typically refers to general self-confidence. This is different from self-efficacy, which psychologist Albert Bandura has defined as a “belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task” and therefore is the term that more accurately refers to specific self-confidence. Psychologists have long noted that a person can possess self-confidence that he or she can complete a specific task (self-efficacy) (e.g. cook a good meal or write a good novel) even though they may lack general self-confidence, or conversely be self-confident though they lack the self-efficacy to achieve a particular task (e.g. write a novel). These two types of self-confidence are, however, correlated with each other, and for this reason can be easily conflated.
  • 5.5K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Bio-Composites
Bio-composites are degradable, renewable, non-abrasive, and non-toxic, with comparable properties to those of synthetic fiber composites and used in many applications in various fields. Naturals fibers are abundant and have low harvesting costs with adequate mechanical properties. Hazards of synthetic fibers, recycling issues, and toxic byproducts are the main driving factors in the research and development of bio-composites. Bio-composites are fabricated by combining natural fibers in a matrix material. The matrix material can be biodegradable, non-biodegradable, or synthetic. Synthetic matrix materials, along with natural fibers, are used to form hybrid bio-composites.
  • 5.5K
  • 09 Mar 2021
Topic Review
HMG-CoA-Reductase
3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoAR) is an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of cholesterol and an important target in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.
  • 5.5K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Quaternary Numeral System
A quaternary /kwəˈtɜːrnəri/ numeral system is base-4. It uses the digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 to represent any real number. Four is the largest number within the subitizing range and one of two numbers that is both a square and a highly composite number (the other being 36), making quaternary a convenient choice for a base at this scale. Despite being twice as large, its radix economy is equal to that of binary. However, it fares no better in the localization of prime numbers (the smallest better base being the primorial base six, senary). Quaternary shares with all fixed-radix numeral systems many properties, such as the ability to represent any real number with a canonical representation (almost unique) and the characteristics of the representations of rational numbers and irrational numbers. See decimal and binary for a discussion of these properties.
  • 5.5K
  • 16 Nov 2022
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