Meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS) is meconium-induced respiratory failure of newborns associated with activation of inflammatory and oxidative pathways. For severe MAS, exogenous surfactant treatment is used which improves respiratory functions but does not treat the inflammation. Oxidative process can lead to later surfactant inactivation; hence, surfactant combination with antioxidative agent may enhance the therapeutic effect. Young New Zealand rabbits were instilled by meconium suspension and treated by surfactant alone, Nacetylcysteine (NAC) alone or by their combination and oxygenventilated for 5 h. Blood samples were taken before and 30 min after meconium application and 30 min, 1, 3 and 5 h after the treatment for evaluating of oxidative damage, total leukocyte count, leukocyte differential count and respiratory parameters. Leukocyte differential was assessed also in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. NAC alone had only mild therapeutic effect on MAS. However, the combination of NAC and surfactant facilitated rapid onset of therapeutic effect in respiratory parameters (oxygenation index, PaO2/FiO2) compared to surfactant alone and was the only treatment which prevented neutrophil migration into the lungs, oxidative damage and lung edema. Moreover, NAC suppressed IL-8 and IL-β formation and thus seems to be favorable agent for improving surfactant therapy in MAS., J. Kopincová, D. Mokrá, P. Mikolka, M. Kolomazník, A. Čalkovská., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH ) is associated with increased production of reactive oxygen species that contributes to the adaptive mechanism underlying the improved myocardial ischemic tolerance. The aim was to find out whether the antioxidative enzyme manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) can play a role in CIH-induced cardioprotection. Adult male Wistar rats were exposed to intermittent hypobaric hypoxia (7000 m, 8 h/day, 25 exposures) (n=14) or kept at normoxia (n=14). Half of the animals from each group received N-acetylcysteine (NAC, 100 mg/kg) daily before the hypoxic exposure. The activity and expression of MnSOD were increased by 66 % and 23 %, respectively, in the mitochondrial fraction of CIH hearts as compared with th e normoxic group; these effects were suppressed by NAC treatment. The negative correlation between MnSOD activity and myoc ardial infarct size suggests that MnSOD can contribute to the improved ischemic tolerance of CIH hearts., P. Balková ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Geiss, Keller and Oppermann (2013) introduced the notion of n-angulated category, which is a “higher dimensional” analogue of triangulated category, and showed that certain (n-2)-cluster tilting subcategories of triangulated categories give rise to n-angulated categories. We define mutation pairs in n-angulated categories and prove that given such a mutation pair, the corresponding quotient category carries a natural n-angulated structure. This result generalizes a theorem of Iyama-Yoshino (2008) for triangulated categories., Zengqiang Lin., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
This paper is a continuation of investigations of n-irmer product spaces given in [5, 6, 7] and an extension of results given in [3] to arbitrary natural n. It concerns families of projections of a given linear space L onto its n-dimensional subspaces and shows that between these families and n-inner products there exist interesting close relations.
An interaction between N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and MK-801 was examined in mice using a modified elevated plus-maze paradigm that allows assessment of the adaptive form of spatial memory. NMDA administered (s.c.) immediately after the acquisition session protected the animals against the amnesia induced by MK-801 given shortly before the retention session. Behavioral performance, expressed as the transfer latency, and therefore spatial memory potency of NMDA plus MK-801 treated animals was comparable with that of both NMDA-treated animals and the controls., Z. Hliňák, I. Krejčí., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Cíl studie: Stanovit koncentraci N-terminálního fragmentu natriuretického peptidu typu B u pacientů s neobstruktivním typem hypertrofické kardiomyopatie (HKM) a zjistit vztah k morfologickým a funkčním parametrům zjištěným echokardiograficky. Typ studie: observační. Název a sídlo pracoviště: I. interní kardioangiologická klinika LF UK a FN, Sokolská 585, Hradec Králové. Metody: Do studie bylo zařazeno 21 pacientů s HKM, u kterých bylo před zařazením do studie provedeno echokardiografické vyšetření. Byly analyzovány plazmatické hladiny N-terminálního fragmentu natriuretického peptidu typu B (NT-proBNP) a jejich vztah k ukazatelům morfologie srdečních oddílů a funkce levé komory srdeční. Výsledky: Hodnoty NT-proBNP byly v souboru pacientů významně vyšší v porovnání s kontrolní skupinou (377,7 ± 317,5 ng/l vs. 91,3 ± 76,6 ng/l, p 0,005). Analýza echokardiografických dat ukázala významnou asociaci NT-proBNP a ejekční frakce levé komory (r = -0,48, p = 0,03), frakčního zkrácení levé komory (r = -0,44, p = 0,05), a indexu masy levé komory (r = 0,52, p = 0,02). Závěry: Hypertrofická kardiomyopatie je provázena vzestupem hladiny NT-proBNP. Tento vzestup koreluje s masou levé komory a její systolickou funkcí. Stanovení těchto parametrů může mít klinický význam pro diagnostiku a stratifikaci rizika těchto pacientů., Objective: To assess plasma N-terminal pro brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentration in patients with nonobstructive cardiomyopathy (HCM) and try to find an association with morphological and functional echocardiographic parameters. Design of the study: observational study. Settings: 1st Department of Internal Medicine - Cardioangiology, University Hospital Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. Methods: 21 patients with HCM was enrolled into the study. Echo and catheterization were performed before enrolment into the study. We analysed plasma NT-proBNP concentrations and their association with morphological and functional parameters. Results: Compared to control group, plasma NT-proBNP was significantly increased (377.7 ± 317.5 ng/L vs. 91.3 ± 76.6 ng/L, p = 0.005). We observed significant association of NT-proBNP and left ventricular ejection fraction (r = -0.48, p = 0.03), left ventricular fractional shortening (r = -0.44, p = 0.05) and left ventricle mass index (r = 0.52, p = 0.02). Conclusions: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is associated with increased plasma NT-proBNP concentration. The increase of NT-proBNP is determined by left ventricle mass and systolic function. We assume that assessment of these parameters could be useful in diagnosis and risk stratification in these patients., Pudil R., Horáková L., Vašatová M., Karešová I., Fučíková A., Praus R., Palička V., and Literatura
Kolmogorov N-widths are an approximation theory concept that, for a given problem, yields information about the optimal rate of convergence attainable by any numerical method applied to that problem. We survey sharp bounds recently obtained for the N-widths of certain singularly perturbed convection-diffusion and reaction-diffusion boundary value problems.