A hidden cause of infertility in hypothyroid patients

Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene mutations could be the cause of infertility in hypothyroid patients. Hence, it is worthy to screen for MTHFR gene mutations in infertile hypothyroid females and their partners if infertility persists after optimizing thyroid function

Inter-observer agreement of the Coronary Artery Disease Reporting and Data System (CAD-RADS^{TM}) in patients with stable chest pain

Purpose: To assess inter-observer variability of the Coronary Artery Disease - Reporting and Data System (CAD-RADS) for classifying the degree of coronary artery stenosis in patients with stable chest pain. Material and methods: A prospective study was conducted upon 96 patients with coronary artery disease, who underwent coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA). The images were classified using the CAD-RAD system according to the degree of stenosis, the presence of a modifier: graft (G), stent (S), vulnerable plaque (V), or non-diagnostic (n) and the associated coronary anomalies, and non-coronary cardiac and extra-cardiac findings. Image analysis was performed by two reviewers. Inter-observer agreement was assessed. Results: There was excellent inter-observer agreement for CAD-RADS (k = 0.862), at 88.5%. There was excellent agreement for CAD-RADS 0 (k = 1.0), CAD-RADS 1 (k = 0.92), CAD-RADS 3 (k = 0.808), CAD-RADS 4 (k = 0.826), and CAD-RADS 5 (k = 0.833) and good agreement for CAD-RADS 2 (k = 0.76). There was excellent agreement for modifier G (k = 1.0) and modifier S (k = 1.0), good agreement for modifier N (k = 0.79), and moderate agreement for modifier V (k = 0.59). There was excellent agreement for associated coronary artery anomalies (k = 0.845), non-coronary cardiac findings (k = 0.857), and extra-cardiac findings (k = 0.81). Conclusions: There is inter-observer agreement of CAD-RADS in categorising the degree of coronary arteries stenosis, and the modifier of the system and associated cardiac and extra-cardiac findings

Current Services In Cloud Computing: A Survey

Due to the fast development of the Cloud Computing technologies, the rapid increase of cloud services are became very remarkable. The fact of integration of these services with many of the modern enterprises cannot be ignored. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, SalesForce.com and the other leading IT companies are entered the field of developing these services. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of current cloud services, which are divided into eleven categories. Also the most famous providers for these services are listed. Finally, the Deployment Models of Cloud Computing are mentioned and briefly discussed.Comment: 8 page

ClassStrength: A Multilingual Tool for Tweets Classification

In this paper we present our multilingual tweet classification tool. ClassStrength provides a set of classification models in different languages that classify tweets into 14 generalpurpose categories, including: sports, politics, entertainment, comedy, etc. Our classifier uses a distant-supervision approach for creating training data in any available language on Twitter. The classifier uses a soft-classification scheme, where it generates a likelihood score for a tweet to match each of the 14 categories. The initial version of our tool covers five languages, namely: English, Arabic, French, German, and Russian. More languages are to be covered in next releases. The classification model created for each language is generated from hundreds of thousands of training tweets. Our evaluation to the classifier shows superior accuracy compared to standard manual methods. Our reported accuracy is 84% based on crowd preferences over a balanced test set of English tweets covering all 14 classes

Exploring the Mechanism of Biocatalyst Inhibition in Microbial Desulfurization

Microbial desulfurization, or biodesulfurization (BDS), of fuels is a promising technology because it can desulfurize compounds that are recalcitrant to the current standard technology in the oil industry. One of the obstacles to the commercialization of BDS is the reduction in biocatalyst activity concomitant with the accumulation of the end product, 2-hydroxybiphenyl (HBP), during the process. BDS experiments were performed by incubating Rhodococcus erythropolis IGTS8 resting-cell suspensions with hexadecane at 0.50 (vol/vol) containing 10 mM dibenzothiophene. The resin Dowex Optipore SD-2 was added to the BDS experiments at resin concentrations of 0, 10, or 50 g resin/liter total volume. The HBP concentration within the cytoplasm was estimated to decrease from 1,100 to 260 μM with increasing resin concentration. Despite this finding, productivity did not increase with the resin concentration. This led us to focus on the susceptibility of the desulfurization enzymes toward HBP. Dose-response experiments were performed to identify major inhibitory interactions in the most common BDS pathway, the 4S pathway. HBP was responsible for three of the four major inhibitory interactions identified. The concentrations of HBP that led to a 50% reduction in the enzymes' activities (IC[subscript 50]s) for DszA, DszB, and DszC were measured to be 60 ± 5 μM, 110 ± 10 μM, and 50 ± 5 μM, respectively. The fact that the IC[subscript 50]s for HBP are all significantly lower than the cytoplasmic HBP concentration suggests that the inhibition of the desulfurization enzymes by HBP is responsible for the observed reduction in biocatalyst activity concomitant with HBP generation.National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Biotechnology Training Progra

Validation of the surface downwelling solar irradiance estimates of the HelioClim-3 database in Egypt

International audienceHelioClim-3 (HC3) is a database providing time series of the surface downwelling solar irradiance that are computed from images of the Meteosat satellites. This paper presents the validation results of the hourly global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI), i.e., beam irradiance at normal incidence, of versions four and five of HC3 at seven Egyptian sites. The validation is performed for all-sky conditions, as well as cloud-free conditions. Both versions of HC3 provide similar OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 9270 performances whatever the conditions. Another comparison is made with the estimates provided by the McClear database that is restricted to cloud-free conditions. All databases capture well the temporal variability of the GHI in all conditions, McClear being superior for cloud-free cases. In cloud-free conditions for the GHI, the relative root mean square error (RMSE) are fairly similar, ranging from 6% to 15%; both HC3 databases exhibit a smaller bias than McClear. McClear offers an overall better performance for the cloud-free DNI estimates. For all-sky conditions, the relative RMSE for GHI ranges from 10% to 22%, except one station, while, for the DNI, the results are not so good for the two stations with DNI measurements

Rate-limiting step analysis of the microbial desulfurization of dibenzothiophene in a model oil system

A mechanistic analysis of the various mass transport and kinetic steps in the microbial desulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) by Rhodococcus erythropolis IGTS8 in a model biphasic (oil–water), small-scale system was performed. The biocatalyst was distributed into three populations, free cells in the aqueous phase, cell aggregates and oil–adhered cells, and the fraction of cells in each population was measured. The power input per volume (P/V) and the impeller tip speed (v[subscript tip]) were identified as key operating parameters in determining whether the system is mass transport controlled or kinetically controlled. Oil–water DBT mass transport was found to not be limiting under the conditions tested. Experimental results at both the 100 mL and 4 L (bioreactor) scales suggest that agitation leading to P/V greater than 10,000 W/ m3 and/or v[subscript tip] greater than 0.67 m/s is sufficient to overcome the major mass transport limitation in the system, which was the diffusion of DBT within the biocatalyst aggregates.National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Biotechnology Training Program (Grant T32GM008334)Saudi Aramc