Reactive hyperemia (RH) in forearm muscle or skin microcirculation has been considered as a surrogate endpoint in clinical studies of cardiovascular disea e. We evaluated two potential confounders that might limit such use of RH, namely laterality of measurement and intake of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). Twenty-three young non-smoking healthy adults were enrolled. In Experiment 1 (n=16), the RH elicited by 3 min of ischemia was recorded in the muscle (strain gauge plethysmography, hand excluded) and skin (laser Doppler imaging) of both forearms. In Experiment 2 (n=7), RH was determined in the dominant forearm only, one hour following oral acetylsalicylic acid (1 g) or placebo. In Experiment 1, peak RH was identical in both forearms, and so were the corresponding durations of responses. RH lasted significantly less in muscle than in skin (p=0.003), a hitherto unrecognized fact. In the skin, acetylsalicylate reduced duration (43 vs. 57.4 s for placebo, p=0.03), without affecting the peak response. In muscle, duration tended to decrease with acetylsalicylate (21.4 vs. 26.0 s with placebo, p=0.06) and the peak increase in blood flow was blunted (27.2 vs. 32.4 ml/min/100 ml tissue with placebo, p=0.003). We conclude that, when using RH as a surrogate endpoint in studies of cardiovascular disease, a confounding by laterality of measurement need not be feared, but NSAIDS may have an influence, although perhaps not on the peak response in the skin., G. Addor, A. Delachaux, B. Dischl, D. Hayoz, L. Liaudet, B. Waeber, F. Feihl., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Members of the clade Trichophora (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomomorpha) have trichobothria on their abdominal sterna. There is no comparative study of the fine structure of abdominal trichobothria in the group and until now the trichobothria of their immatures were virtually unknown. The fine structure of the abdominal trichobothrial complex (= the trichobothrium and its associated structures) of adults of 98 species belonging to 25 families in 5 superfamilies and larvae of 7 species belonging to 7 families in 2 superfamilies of Trichophora were examined using scanning electron microscopy. This study indicates that the fine structure of the abdominal trichobothria is very variable and useful for determining evolutionary lineages within the clade. Six types of bothria, three of trichomes and three of microtrichia are recognized and their evolutionary transformations discussed. Changes in the size of trichomes, and density and size of the microtrichia during the postembryonic development of selected species are discussed.
The macrophage cell-line J774.E1 and Leishmania m. mexicana infection was used to investigate the uptake of liposomes, which differed in their bulk phospholipid: ester- or ether-analogue of phosphatydilcholine (PC). The receptor-mediated uptake of both species of liposomes, containing native or acetylated LDL as ligands was also evaluated. Uninfected and infected J774.E1 cell-line accumulated more ester- and ether-liposomes alone than mixed type (50:50, ester/ether). The utilization was significantly enhanced when both types of liposomes contained native LDL. The highest uptake was recorded for liposomes bearing acetylated LDL by infected J774.E1 cells. Accumulation of ester- and ether-liposomes with the same ligand was not markedly affected by different chemical nature of PC. Finally, ether-liposomes alone possessed certain activity against Leishmania m. mexicana amastigotes. The results presented here demonstrated the usefulness of ether-liposomes with specific ligands in site-specific delivery of antileishmanial compounds in vitro.
Studied are differences of two approaches targeted to reveal latent variables in binary data. These approaches assume that the observed high dimensional data are driven by a small number of hidden binary sources combined due to Boolean superposition. The first approach is the Boolean matrix factorization (BMF) and the second one is the Boolean factor analysis (BFA). The two BMF methods are used for comparison. First is the M8 method from the BMDP statistical software package and the second one is the method suggested by Belohlavek \& Vychodil. These two are compared to BFA, especially with the Expectation-maximization Boolean Factor Analysis we had developed earlier has, however, been extended with a binarization step developed here. The well-known bars problem and the mushroom dataset are used for revealing the methods' peculiarities. In particular, the reconstruction ability of the computed factors and the information gain as the measure of dimension reduction was under scrutiny. It was shown that BFA slightly loses to BMF in performance when noise-free signals are analyzed. Conversely, BMF loses considerably to BFA when input signals are noisy.
The study aimed to investigate the role of aggression and impulsivity in smoking among male adult students. It was hypothesized that there would be significant difference between smokers and non- smokers on the traits of aggression and impulsivity. The sample of two hundred male adult students was selected from different universities of Islamabad. Two subscales of Impulsiveness and Aggression were administered to measure the personality traits of aggression and impulsivity. Descriptive statistics and t-test was calculated for analysis of data. Results showed that there is significant differences in aggression and impulsivity between smokers and non-smokers. The result can be helpful for psychologist and other professionals to plan public health therapeutic and social reengineering interventions for youth., Uzma Zaidi, and Literatura
Obtaining reliable estimates of population abundance is of utmost importance for wildlife research and management. To this aim, camera-traps are increasingly used, as this method has the advantage of being noninvasive and allows for continuous monitoring. Camera traps can be used to estimate abundance in combination with traditional capture-recapture techniques, as well as with estimators that do not require marked individuals. Here, we investigated the use of camera-based mark-recapture methods applied to an Alpine marmot (Marmota marmota) population in the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino Natural Park (eastern Italian Alps). We compared abundance estimates derived from a traditional capture-mark-recapture (CMR) framework and camera trap mark-resight (CTMR) over three consecutive years. CMR models estimated a population size of n = 19 individuals (95% CI = 18-27), n = 15 (14-22) and n = 24 (22-32) in 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively. CTMR returned an estimated population size of n = 24 (95% CI = 18-30), n = 20 (17-24) and n = 22 (21-24) for the same years. The difference between the estimate of these two methods was significant only in 2020, with CMR returning a lower estimate than CTMR (95% CI = –9.4-–0.6). This difference was not significant for 2019 (95% CI = –10.9-0.9) and 2021 (95% CI = –1.8-5.9). Based on our results, the use of CTMR techniques is promising in the estimation of absolute population size of marmots, and the estimator was slightly more precise than CMR. Further studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of CTMR with reduced capture effort.
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that more recently developed rubber dam systems (OptraDam ® Plus and OptiDam™) are faster and easier to handle, and that the quality of isolation is not decreased. The rubber dam systems were applied in standard conditions on a dental simulator in several model clinical situations. The time of preparation, application and removal were measured and the quality of isolation was evaluated. The median time of rubber dam placement was 51 s (Q1 = 38 s; Q3 = 79 s). The shortest median time of application was with OptiDam™ (42 s), followed by a conventional rubber dam (53 s), and finally the longest was with OptraDam® Plus (58 s). The median volume of fluid remaining in the isolated space after 5 minutes was 9.5 mL (Q1 = 8 mL; Q3 = 10 mL). The largest median volume of remaining water was with OptiDam™ (10 mL), followed by a conventional rubber dam (9.5 mL) and the least with OptraDam® Plus (8.5 mL). The afore-stated hypothesis about the advantages of modern rubber dam isolation systems was accepted for OptiDam™, but rejected for OptraDam® Plus. The results could contribute to decision-making concerning the choice of rubber dam system. and Martin Kapitán, Zdeňka Šustová, Romana Ivančaková, Jakub Suchánek
Several counterparts of Bayesian networks based on different paradigms have been proposed in evidence theory. Nevertheless, none of them is completely satisfactory. In this paper we will present a new one, based on a recently introduced concept of conditional independence. We define a conditioning rule for variables, and the relationship between conditional independence and irrelevance is studied with the aim of constructing a Bayesian-network-like model. Then, through a simple example, we will show a problem appearing in this model caused by the use of a conditioning rule. We will also show that this problem can be avoided if undirected or compositional models are used instead.
This paper pursues the effect of changes in distance and vibration frequency on the vibration velocity amplitude. As an example, we used the vibrating sheet piles at the cons truction of a new multi-functional FEI building on the premises of VŠB - TU Ostrava, at 17 listopadu street. The effect of these changes is monitored both in in-situ measurements and in a simulated real-life situation. The calculation software Plaxis 2D is used for creation of numer ical models. At the close, the results from in-situ measurements are confronted with those achieved from the models., Tomáš Petřík, Eva Hrubešová and Markéta Lednická., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy