9,955 research outputs found

    NEPHROPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF ASPARAGUS RACEMOSUS AGAINST CISPLATIN-INDUCED NEPHROTOXICITY AND RENAL DYSFUNCTION IN EXPERIMENTAL RATS

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    Objective: The current study was designed to evaluate the protective effect of standardized hydroalcoholic extract of Asparagus racemosus (AR) against cisplatin (CP)-induced nephrotoxicity in Wistar rats.Methods: AR extract was administered orally at three dose levels (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg). Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) was used as a standard nephroprotective agent. The kidney function test (estimation of serum creatinine, albumin, and blood urea nitrogen [BUN]), oxidative stress study (estimation of superoxide dismutase and malondialdehyde [MDA] activity), and histological examination of kidneys were conducted.Results: The efficacy of AR was compared with CP-treated group. Serum creatinine and BUN were significantly (p<0.001) elevated in CP-treated group compared to control group. Hydroalcoholic extract of AR (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg) and Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.001) decreased the serum creatinine and BUN levels. CP exhibited significant (p<0.001) decrease in albumin when compared to control. Significant (p<0.001) increase in the serum albumin level was found in extract-treated group compared to CP group. Significant (p<0.001) decrease in activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) was observed in the CP group as compared to control. AR (100 and 200 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.01) increased SOD levels. AR (400 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.001) increased SOD levels. AR (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.001) decreased MDA levels as compared to CP group. Histopathological examination of the kidneys showed that AR markedly ameliorated CP-induced renal tubular necrosis. Extract was found effective at all doses, although high dose (400 mg/kg) was found to be more effective and comparable with standard group (Vitamin E 250 mg/kg).Conclusion: The present investigation revealed that AR resulted in dose-dependent attenuation of CP-induced renal damage in rats

    NEPHROPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF PLUMERIA RUBRA AGAINST CISPLATIN INDUCED NEPHROTOXICITY IN EXPERIMENTAL RATS

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    Objective: The current study was designed to evaluate the protective effect of standardized hydroalcoholic extract of Plumeria rubra (HAEPR) against cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity in Wistar rats.  Methods: HAEPR was administered orally at 3 dose levels (100,200,400 mg/kg). Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) was used as a Standard nephroprotective agent. The kidney function test (estimation of serum creatinine, albumin, blood urea nitrogen) oxidative stress study (estimation of superoxide dismutase, malondialdehyde activity) and histological examination of kidneys was conducted. Results: The efficacy of HAEPR was compared with Cisplatin (CP) treated group. Serum creatinine and BUN was significantly (p<0.01) elevated in CP-treated group compared to the control group. HAEPR (100,200 mg/kg) and Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.01) decreased the serum creatinine and BUN levels. CP treated group exhibited significant (p<0.01) decrease in albumin when compared to control. Significant (p<0.01) increase in the serum albumin level was found in HAEPR (100,200 mg/kg) and Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) compared to CP group. Significant (p<0.01) decrease in the activity of SOD was observed in the CP group as compared to control. HAEPR (100 and 200 mg/kg) and Vitamin E (250 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.01) increased SOD levels. HAEPR (400 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.05) increased SOD levels. HAEPR (100,200,400 mg/kg) significantly (p<0.01) decreased MDA levels as compared to CP group. Histopathological examination of the kidneys showed that HAEPR markedly ameliorated Cisplatin-induced renal tubular necrosis. An extract was found effective at all doses, although low dose (100 mg/kg) was found to be more effective and comparable with the standard group (Vitamin E 250 mg/kg).  Conclusion: Present investigation revealed that HAEPR resulted in attenuation of Cisplatin-induced renal damage in rats

    Intelligent Robotic Sonographer: Mutual Information-based Disentangled Reward Learning from Few Demonstrations

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    Ultrasound (US) imaging is widely used for biometric measurement and diagnosis of internal organs due to the advantages of being real-time and radiation-free. However, due to high inter-operator variability, resulting images highly depend on operators' experience. In this work, an intelligent robotic sonographer is proposed to autonomously "explore" target anatomies and navigate a US probe to a relevant 2D plane by learning from expert. The underlying high-level physiological knowledge from experts is inferred by a neural reward function, using a ranked pairwise image comparisons approach in a self-supervised fashion. This process can be referred to as understanding the "language of sonography". Considering the generalization capability to overcome inter-patient variations, mutual information is estimated by a network to explicitly extract the task-related and domain features in latent space. Besides, a Gaussian distribution-based filter is developed to automatically evaluate and take the quality of the expert's demonstrations into account. The robotic localization is carried out in coarse-to-fine mode based on the predicted reward associated to B-mode images. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach, representative experiments for the "line" target and "point" target are performed on vascular phantom and two ex-vivo animal organ phantoms (chicken heart and lamb kidney), respectively. The results demonstrated that the proposed advanced framework can robustly work on different kinds of known and unseen phantoms

    The kidney and the elderly : assessment of renal function ; prognosis following renal failure

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    Optimisation of tennis string production from bovine intestine : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Technology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

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    The collagen and elastin content of the beef thread samples ranged from between 47-70% and 1.2-2.5% respectively. Amino acid analysis showed that the collagen present was probably collagen Type I while the non-collagenous proteins predominantly were globulins with a small amount of albumins. Putative "strong" and "weak" batches of threads could not be differentiated on the basis of collagen content or mechanical properties such as ductility, ultimate tensile strength or Young's modulus. Treatment of "strong" or "weak" threads with three different processes, sodium carbonate, sodium carbonate/EDTA and sodium hydroxide, gave no significant differences in products The sodium carbonate/EDTA process can remove 31.9% of non-collagenous proteins over the three stages of the process. The shrinkage temperature and ductility were lowered while the ultimate tensile strength. Young's modulus and diameter are increased by the processing. Threads given three successive trypsin treatments had 47.4% (2% trypsin) and 36.2% (0.6% trypsin) of non-collagenous proteins had removed. Properties of the treated threads from this treatment gave similar trends to threads from the sodium carbonate/EDTA process except that enzyme treatment resulted smaller thread diameters. Moreover, when the treated threads from the second and third high concentration trypsin treatments were heated, they stretched rather than shrank. This phenomenon was unexpected and apparently has not been previously reported in the literature. On subjecting threads which had had three successive trypsin treatments to the sodium carbonate/EDTA process, the stretch temperature phenomenon was abolished and the normal shrinkage temperature property of collagen was restored. However, the shrinkage temperature of the thread from the integrated trypsin -sodium carbonate/EDTA process was significantly lower than that from the sodium carbonate/EDTA process alone. This integrated process does not affect the tensile strength properties, but the diameter of the treated threads using the higher trypsin rate is significantly smaller than the starting materials. However, threads from the integrated process using lower trypsin seemed to show a trend toward smaller diameters but this observation could not be shown to be statistically significant. It is suggested that two trypsin treatments integrated into a sodium carbonate/EDTA process could be an optimum process provided the smaller diameter trend of wet thread can translate into smaller diameter in dry string

    Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 355)

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    This bibliography lists 147 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during October, 1991. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

    PBPK modelling of inter-individual variability in the pharmacokinetics of environmental chemicals

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    International audienceGeneric PBPK models, applicable to a large number of substances, coupled to parameter databases and QSAR modules, are now available for predictive modelling of inter-individual variability in the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of environmental chemicals. When needed, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and multilevel population models can be jointly used for a Bayesian calibration of a PBPK model, to improve our understanding of the determinants of population heterogeneity and differential susceptibility. This article reviews those developments and illustrates them with recent applications to environmentally relevant questions

    3D virtual histology of murine kidneys-high resolution visualization of pathological alterations by micro computed tomography

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    The increasing number of patients with end stage chronic kidney disease not only calls for novel therapeutics but also for pioneering research using convincing preclinical disease models and innovative analytical techniques. The aim of this study was to introduce a virtual histology approach using micro computed tomography (mu CT) for the entire murine kidney in order to close the gap between single slice planar histology and a 3D high resolution dataset. An ex vivo staining protocol based on phosphotungstic acid diffusion was adapted to enhance renal soft tissue x-ray attenuation. Subsequent CT scans allowed (i) the detection of the renal cortex, medulla and pelvis in greater detail, (ii) the analysis of morphological alterations, (iii) the quantification of the volume as well as the radio-opacity of these portions and (iv) the quantification of renal fibrotic remodeling based on altered radio-opacity using the unilateral ureteral obstruction model. Thus, virtual histology based on PTA contrast enhanced CT will in future help to refine the outcome of preclinical research on kidney associated murine disease models
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