A case report of female patient with laryngeal granuloma

© 2017, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. The aim of this case report is to present the laryngeal granuloma in 23 year old female patient. Case outline: The 23 year old female was admitted for examination, because of long lasting, progressive hoarseness. In anamnesis, we found that she has undergone general anesthesia for 8 times, in the early childhood. We performing direct laryngoscopy with complete otorhinolaryngologic examination, rigid endovideostroboscopy and the large granuloma of the larynx was found. Conclusions: Laryngeal granuloma of vocal cords affected mainly men, except for cases associated with laryngeal intubation. We should keep in mind that postintubation laryngeal granuloma might develop after tracheal intubation, so care must be taken to avoid the potential complication

Effects of tibolone on markers of bone metabolic activity in postmenopausal women

Osteoporosis, a systemic disease of the bones, is a serious health and socio-economic problem because of its consequences, i.e. broken bones. It is believed that 10% of the world's population suffers from osteoporosis and it affects mostly postmenopausal women (postmenopausal osteoporosis). Tibolone is a synthetic steroid that has estrogenic, androgenic, and progestagenic properties. It has been used primarily for the prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis and treatment of climacteric symptoms. The research included a group of 40 postmenopausal women with osteopenia treated with tibolone. The control group included 40 postmenopausal women who were not taking any medication. Control group patients were older (54.5 ± 9.84) than the patients treated with tibolone (51.6 ± 6.22). Bone metabolic activity was evaluated using osteocalcin (N-MID osteocalcin) for bone formation and CTX I for bone resorption. Blood samples were taken before therapy was introduced and 3 months after its introduction. The average value of osteocalcin after three months of tibolone therapy was 26.32 ± 3.312 ng/mL compared to the average osteocalcin value prior to therapy of 29.6 ± 3.343 ng/mL. The average value of CTX I three months after tibolone therapy of 0.2870 ± 0.0783 ng/mL was lower compared to the average CTX I value before the therapy of 0.4539 ± 0.1144 ng/mL. Our results show the efficacy of tibolone in preventing bone loss, which was highly statistically significant. They also reveal its suppressive effects on bone formation and resorption, but these effects are statistically less significant. Tibolone significantly reduces the level of bone resorption in postmenopausal women with osteopenia. Its effects on bone formation are less expressed. The parameters of bone metabolic activity are a very useful diagnostic means in the evaluation of tibolone effects on bone metabolic activity and in the prognosis of bone mass loss

Mathematical modelling of polymer trajectory during electrospinning

© 2019 Journal of the Serbian Society for Computational Mechanics. The most important characteristics of the electrospun fibers are their internal morphology and their diameter. They both depend on polymer's parameters, but also on the process parameters. The motivation for this research is therefore to simulate the jet during electrospinning and analyze the effects of some of the parameters on the jet (and implicitly on fibers), without the necessity to perform the experiments each time. The calculations of the polymer's behavior between the electrodes was based on the discrete model of Reneker. Thus, the jet was modeled as a system of beads connected by viscoelastic elements. The results were compared to the results obtained in the literature and showed good agreement. The results showed how the jet shape during electrospinning depends on each parameter. The ultimate goal was to establish the exact influence of the above-mentioned parameters on the fibers' diameter. This would allow to set rough values of electrospinning parameters, which could be further fine-tuned, in order to obtain the fibers with expected characteristics. The beneficial effect of such simulations are time gain, but also reduced material consumption, maintenance costs etc

PIBAS FedSPARQL: A web-based platform for integration and exploration of bioinformatics datasets

© 2017 The Author(s). Background: There are a huge variety of data sources relevant to chemical, biological and pharmacological research, but these data sources are highly siloed and cannot be queried together in a straightforward way. Semantic technologies offer the ability to create links and mappings across datasets and manage them as a single, linked network so that searching can be carried out across datasets, independently of the source. We have developed an application called PIBAS FedSPARQL that uses semantic technologies to allow researchers to carry out such searching across a vast array of data sources. Results: PIBAS FedSPARQL is a web-based query builder and result set visualizer of bioinformatics data. As an advanced feature, our system can detect similar data items identified by different Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), using a text-mining algorithm based on the processing of named entities to be used in Vector Space Model and Cosine Similarity Measures. According to our knowledge, PIBAS FedSPARQL was unique among the systems that we found in that it allows detecting of similar data items. As a query builder, our system allows researchers to intuitively construct and run Federated SPARQL queries across multiple data sources, including global initiatives, such as Bio2RDF, Chem2Bio2RDF, EMBL-EBI, and one local initiative called CPCTAS, as well as additional user-specified data source. From the input topic, subtopic, template and keyword, a corresponding initial Federated SPARQL query is created and executed. Based on the data obtained, end users have the ability to choose the most appropriate data sources in their area of interest and exploit their Resource Description Framework (RDF) structure, which allows users to select certain properties of data to enhance query results. Conclusions: The developed system is flexible and allows intuitive creation and execution of queries for an extensive range of bioinformatics topics. Also, the novel similar data items detection algorithm can be particularly useful for suggesting new data sources and cost optimization for new experiments. PIBAS FedSPARQL can be expanded with new topics, subtopics and templates on demand, rendering information retrieval more robust

Novel seleno-hydantoin palladium(II) complex - antimigratory, cytotoxic and prooxidative potential on human colon HCT-116 and breast MDA-MB-231 cancer cells

Selenium and palladium containing compounds separately exert multifunctional effects on cells. While selenium containing compounds usually exert antioxidative properties, palladium(II) containing compounds are cytotoxic and prooxidative. Here we investigated biological effects of bicyclic seleno-hydantoin cis-7a-ethyl-5-methyl-5-phenylselanylmethyl-tetrahydro-pyrrolo[1,2-c] imidazole-1,3-dione (Hid-Se), and its palladium(II) complex, trans-bis-(cis-7a-ethyl-5-methyl-5-phenylselanylmethyl-tetrahydro-pyrrolo[1,2-c]imidazole-1,3-dionato) palladium(II) chloride ((Hid-Se)2Pd) on human colon HCT-116 and breast MDA-MB-231 cancer cell lines. Hid-Se and (Hid-Se)2Pd showed prooxidative and cytotoxic character. In all performed experiments (Hid-Se)2Pd proved to be more active, i.e. this substance exerted greater prooxidative effect, cytotoxicity and influence on cell migration potential. Even though Hid-Se and (Hid-Se)2Pd enhanced migration of HCT-116 cells, very important feature of these substances is the strong antimigratory potential on metastatic MDA-MB-231 cells

Development of a national index for the purpose of forest fire risk assessments on the example of Southern Serbia

The paper presents the results on the study of the possible application of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index and the Modified Angstrom Index in forest fire risk assessments. The daily values of these indices for the period 2005-2015 were related to the forest fire database. It was found that there is a relatively weak to moderate correlation between forest fires and the values of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index. In order to improve the wildfire risk assessments (including forest fires), the index was modified. The modified index has a significantly greater correlation with the actual events of forest fires and consequently a much wider application in southern Serbia. The modified index can be of great importance in the future concepts of forest fire risk management.</p

Hazards in Karst and Managing Water Resources Quality

The peculiarities of karst environment make it highly vulnerable to a number of geohazards: As concerns the natural hazards, the main categories are sinkholes, slope movements, and floods. To these, anthropogenic hazards have to be added, as pollution events, land use changes resulting in loss of karst landscape, destruction of karst landforms, etc. Even carrying out engineering works without taking into the due consideration, the peculiar aspects of karst can be extremely dangerous and cause risk to the natural environment, as well as to the man-made infrastructures and buildings. In the second half of last century, man has definitely become one of the most powerful factors that can cause changes in the karst environment, produce direct damage, predispose the territory to threatening events, and increase with mismanagement actions the negative effects deriving from natural hazards. In this chapter, the main hazards in karst are briefly described with particular focus on the natural hazards and with the help of some case studies

Ethyl acetate extracts of two Artemisia species: Analyses of phenolic profile and anticancer activities against SW-480 colon cancer cells

© The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Because Artemisia vulgaris L. and Artemisia alba Turra are traditional medicinal plants used for the treatment of different diseases, we evaluated the cytotoxic/apoptotic activity of ethyl acetate extracts from these natural products against human colon cancer cells SW-480. The extracts contained a large amount of the total polyphenols and flavonoids. The phenolic profile showed the presence of phenolic acids (gallic, p-coumaric, vanillic, and ferulic acids) and flavonoids (rutin, myricetin, luteolin, quercetin, and apigenin). 3-[4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay indicated that antiproliferative activities of both A. vulgaris and A. alba extracts increased with the extension of time exposure, with decreasing IC50 values. Mitomycin C (MMC) alone had antiproliferative activity, but in combination with plant extracts caused stronger effect with lower IC50 values. Flow cytometry analyses showed that A. alba extract induced higher percentage of SW-480 cells in the early stage of apoptosis (33.5 ± 1.6 vs 0.7 ± 0.1, P < 0.05), whereas the A. vulgaris extract significantly increased the percentage of cells in necrosis (82.4 ± 5.0 vs 53.9 ± 2.3, P < 0.05). In conclusion, A. alba extract can be considered a potential source of bioactive components with anticancer activity or be used as a dietary food supplement or supplement to chemotherapy due to its synergistic effect with the MMC