Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is a key regulator for the development and function of melanocytes in skin, eye, and plumage pigmentations. Thus, the MITF was selected as a candidate gene associated with plumage coloration in ducks. This study analyzed the mRNA expression, promoter methylation, and polymorphisms in the MITF gene in ducks with different plumage colors (Putian Black, Putian White, Liancheng White, and Longsheng Jade-green). No expression of the MITF melanin-specific...
17h
Lovastatin Enhances Cytotoxicity of Temozolomide via Impairing Autophagic Flux in Glioblastoma Cells
Drug resistance to temozolomide (TMZ) contributes to the majority of tumor recurrence and treatment failure in patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Autophagy has been reported to play a role in chemoresistance in various types of cancer, including GBM. The anticancer effect of statins is arousing great research interests and has been demonstrated to modulate autophagic function. In this study, we investigated the combinational effects of lovastatin and TMZ on treating U87 and U251 GBM cell...
17h
Objectives. Chronic total occlusion (CTO) is prevalent in patients with prior coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). However, data available concerning the prevalence of new-onset CTO of native vessels in patients with prior CABG is limited. Therefore, the objective of the study is to determine predictors for new native-vessel occlusion in patients with prior coronary bypass surgery. Methods. 354 patients with prior CABG receiving follow-up angiography are selected and analyzed in the present study,...
18h
Purpose. To compare the preoperative measurements of the anterior chamber depth (ACD) by the IOLMaster and Catalys; additionally, to compare the accuracy of the IOL power calculated by the Barrett Universal II formula using the two different measurements. Setting. University of California, Irvine, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute in Irvine, California. Design. Retrospective comparative study. Methods. This study included 144 eyes of 90 patients with a mean age of 72.0 years (range 40.8 to 92.1 years)...
18h
Background. Pneumonia causes about two million under-five deaths each year, accounting for nearly one in five child deaths globally. Knowing the determinants of under-five pneumonia is useful for prevention and intervention programs that are aimed to control the disease. Thus, the main aim of this study was to assess the determinants of under-five pneumonia at Gondar University Hospital, Ethiopia. Methods. An institution-based unmatched case-control study was carried out from April 1 to April 30,...
20h
Primary chordoma of the nasopharynx is an extremely rare malignant tumor of notochordal origin in the extra-osseous axial skeleton. It presents as a soft tissue mass without involvement of the skull base bone (clivus) and may mimic other lesions of the nasopharynx. A 26-year-old male patient is presented with nasal obstruction and congestion for the last 3 years. Physical and radiological examination revealed a mass in the naso-oropharyngeal region. It was suspected to be a cystic mass or abscess...
20h
A framework for clinical diagnosis which uses bioinspired algorithms for feature selection and gradient descendant backpropagation neural network for classification has been designed and implemented. The clinical data are subjected to data preprocessing, feature selection, and classification. Hot deck imputation has been used for handling missing values and min-max normalization is used for data transformation. Wrapper approach that employs bioinspired algorithms, namely, Differential Evolution,...
21h
Complement-mediated thrombotic microangiopathy is a rare form of thrombotic microangiopathy but has high rates of mortality and morbidity. Effective treatment exists with eculizumab for this condition, but administration of treatment is often delayed because of overlapping symptoms with other causes of thrombotic microangiopathy. We present a case of a 78-year-old male who was eventually diagnosed with complement-mediated thrombotic microangiopathy. We also discuss the use of the PLASMIC scoring...
21h
Various colloids are present in the natural groundwater environment, and colloids act on the processes involved when radionuclides leak from a repository in a high-level waste disposal site. This paper investigates the effect of colloidal silicate in natural groundwater environments on the migration behaviour of Sr(II). Three different experimental cases have been designed: (1) effect in the presence of colloidal silicate, (2) effect in the presence of a porous medium, and (3) effect in the presence...
21h
Masonry structures without effective reinforcement are vulnerable to seismic excitation. An innovative strengthening technique was proposed for damaged and undamaged masonry walls. Six confined masonry units with two aspect ratios were tested under in-plane lateral cyclic loading, which consisted of two control walls, two original walls strengthened with reactive powder concrete (RPC-1), and two damaged walls repaired with RPC (RPC-2). The results of the specimens retrofitted with RPC demonstrated...
21h
This paper describes the experimental studies on Mode I fracture of parallel strand bamboo (PSB) by the double cantilever beam (DCB) test. R-curves based on the elementary beam theory and specimen compliance are proposed in order to overcome the difficulties to monitor the crack propagation during experiments. The results demonstrate that the energy release rate (ERR) is influenced by the specimen geometry, i.e., the specimen width and initial crack length. The ERR at the plateau level is similar...
21h
Hospital-acquired Infections (HAIs) surveillance, defined as the systematic collection of data related to a certain health event, is considered an essential dimension for a prevention HAI program to be effective. In recent years, new automated HAI surveillance methods have emerged with the wide adoption of electronic health records (EHR). Here we present the validation results against the gold standard of HAIs diagnosis of the InNoCBR system deployed in the Ourense University Hospital Complex (Spain)....
21h
Interdependency of critical digital services can be modeled in the form of a graph with exactly known structure but with edge weights subject to estimation errors. We use standard and custom centrality indexes to measure each service vulnerability. Vulnerability of all nodes in the graph gets aggregated in a number of ways into a single network vulnerability index for services whose operation is critical for the state. This study compares sensitivity of various centralities combined with various...
21h
Purpose. To determine and compare OHRQoL (oral-health-related quality of life) using the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI-12) and Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) among patients receiving hemodialysis (HD). Methods. Face-to-face interviews and intraoral examinations were conducted among 70 patients. Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis test were used to compare each item score with demographics and dental and overall health status. Results. The mean number of years on dialysis...
22h
Purpose. To compare the clinical outcomes of echelette extended range of vision (ERV) and diffractive bifocal intraocular lenses (IOLs). Methods. This is a prospective, consecutive, nonrandomized clinical trial. Seventy-three eligible patients (109 eyes) received the implantation of echelette ERV IOL (Tecnis Symfony ZXR00) or diffractive bifocal IOL (Tecnis ZMB00). 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after surgery, visual acuities at different distances were examined. At 3 months, defocus curves, contrast...
22h
Isolated bilateral periorbital edema with negative serology is an extremely rare presentation of cutaneous lupus erythematosus that may lead to eyelid scarring, infection, or even corneal involvement. The treatment usually comprises a combination of hydroxychloroquine and a tapering dose of systemic steroids. Patients require long-term follow-up as they may develop systemic lupus erythematosus with positive serology later in life. We report a case of a 32-year-old female who presented with chronic...
22h
Studying the relationship between energy consumption and crushed size of shale under different loading conditions is the key to efficient shale cracking. The split Hopkinson pressure bar system was used to study the dynamic mechanical properties of shale under parallel- and vertical-bedding loading, and energy dissipation in the impact tests was calculated. Relationships between the average crushed size of shale fracture products and energy dissipation and between the fractal dimension and dissipated...
22h
Introduction. Low muscle strength is common and important in geriatric syndromes including frailty and sarcopenia. The epidemiology of grip strength of older people under long-term care facilities has been little explored. Purpose. The aim of this study was to assess handgrip strength of older women and men covered by institutional care and to analyse the associations between HGS and mobility, leg strength, flexibility, and postural balance. Materials and Methods. This is a cross-sectional study...
22h
Ready-mixed concrete has been used as a support in mine roadways, where the impact load of blasting excavation can cause damage to the concrete support of the roadway. However, limited studies are available on the effect of water content, storage period, and impact pressure on dynamic mechanical properties of ready-mixed concrete in uniaxial load and passive confining pressure states. To investigate the effect of water contents (0%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0% by mass of dry sand), storage periods (0 d,...
23h
In this paper, we are investigating the interaction between different passive material models and the mechano-electrical feedback (MEF) in cardiac modeling. Various types of passive mechanical laws (nearly incompressible/compressible, polynomial/exponential-type, transversally isotropic/orthotropic material models) are integrated in a fully coupled electromechanical model in order to study their specific influence on the overall MEF behavior. Our computational model is based on a three-dimensional...
50m
BackgroundEndothelial dysfunction contributes to the pathophysiology of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Allogeneic but not autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) improve endothelial function in DCM patients. We hypothesized that these effects are modulated by release of stromal derived factor-1α (SDF-1α).MethodsPlasma TNFα and endothelial progenitor cell-colony forming units (EPC-CFUs) were assessed at baseline and 3-months post-injection in a subset of POSEIDON-DCM patients that received autologous...
50m
The aim of this paper is to analyze muscle load-sharing in patients with Lateral Epicondylitis during dynamic endurance contractions by means of non-linear prediction of surface EMG signals. The proposed non-linear cross-prediction scheme was used to predict the envelope of an EMG signal and is based on locally linear models built in a lag-embedded Euclidean space. The results were compared with a co-activation index, a common measure based on the activation of a muscle pair. Non-linear prediction...
50m
BackgroundThe aim of presented cross-sectional study was to determine the association of different types of physical activity (PA) with metabolic control in people with type 1 diabetes.Materials and MethodsA total of 109 adult subjects with type 1 diabetes were asked to complete the non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) questionnaire, the hypoglycemia questionnaire, and the World Health Organization Global PA Questionnaire (GPAQ) which was used to assess moderate PA (MPA) and vigorous PA (VPA).ResultsNEAT...
50m
One of the central issues of the whole process of biogenesis is how to understand the progressive constitution of a large (in spatial and temporal terms) system that transcends the individual sphere of proto-metabolic organizations and includes collective networks, both synchronous (i.e., proto-ecosystem webs) and asynchronous (i.e., trans-generational protocell populations). This paper analyzes the appearance of a minimal form of reproduction in the process of biogenesis from an organizational perspective....
50m
Oxidative stress and inflammation are key pathways responsible for the pathogenesis of asthma. Aquatic exercise (AE) has been proven to elicit a variety of biological activities such as anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. However, although proper forms of AE provide beneficial health effects, incorrect forms and types of AE are potentially injurious to health. Several studies have investigated AE, but the relationship between types of AE and asthma has not been fully elucidated. This study...
50m
Eryptosis is the suicidal destruction-process of erythrocytes, much like apoptosis of nucleated cells, in the course of which the stressed red cell undergoes cell-shrinkage, vesiculation and externalization of membrane phosphatidylserine. Currently, there exist numerous methods to detect eryptosis, both morphometrically and biochemically. This study aimed to design a simple but sensitive, automated computerized approach to instantaneously detect eryptotic red cells and quantify their hallmark morphological...
50m
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a pulmonary vascular disease characterized by increased pulmonary artery pressures. Long standing pulmonary arterial pressure overload leads to right ventricular (RV) hypertrophy, RV failure, and death. RV failure is a major determinant of survival in PH. Oxidative stress has been associated with the development of RV failure secondary to PH. Here we summarize the structural and functional changes in the RV in response to sustained pulmonary arterial pressure overload....
50m
BackgroundThe improvement of strength and athletic performance during a competitive season in elite soccer players is a demanding task for the coach.AimsAs whole-body electrostimulation (WB-EMS) training provides a time efficient stimulation potentially capable in exerting skeletal muscle adaptations we aimed to test this approach over 7 weeks in trained male soccer players during a competitive season.HypothesisWe hypothesized that a superimposed WB-EMS will increase maximal strength and type I and...
15h
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου