Cardiac Auscultatory Skills of Academic Family Physicians: Strength of Association with an Academic Pediatric Cardiologist

Aim. Heart murmur is common in children, and it is one of the main reasons for referral among children in primary care. The aim of this study is to evaluate agreement and consistency of normal, innocent, and pathologic murmur decision between academic family physicians and academic pediatric cardiologist. Methods. Seven hundred fifteen primary school children were examined by family physicians and paediatric cardiologist. Auscultatory examination was performed. Intensity, frequency, duration, quality, location, and radiation of the murmur were described if present. Agreement of normal, innocent, and pathologic murmur classification decision between family physician and paediatric cardiologist was analyzed by using kappa statistic. Results. Normal, innocent and pathologic murmurs were reported for 419, 228, and 54 children in family physicians' reports, respectively. Paediatric cardiologist agreed on 383 (91.4%) children as normal, 191 (83.7%) children having innocent murmur, and 19 (35.2%) children having pathologic murmur among family physician's reports. There was good consistency between family physicians and paediatric cardiologist (κ value = 0.679, 95% CI 0.630–0.727, P < .001). They agreed on the majority of normal and innocent murmur decisions. However family physicians reported pathologic murmur more frequently. Conclusion. Cardiac auscultatory skills of academic family physicians may be concordant with paediatric cardiologist

The effect of endo-mycorrhiza (VAM) treatment on growth of tomato seedling grown under saline conditions

WOS: 000294601400013This study was carried out in order to determine the effects of various study doses of mycorrhiza treatment on morphological characteristics and color quality of tomato seedlings (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) which are grown under 100 nM salinity stress. Two different types of tomatoes "Aspendos F-1" and "Donna F-1" were used in this study. Mycorrhiza treatment was performed by using ROOTS-novozymes endo-mycorrhiza fungus (VAM) to obtain 10, 50 and 100 mycorrhiza plants(-1). VAM treatment prevented the decrease in the length of the plants caused particularly by high level soil salinity, both in Aspendos and Donna species. In both species, the height of the plants which are grown under salt+M50 and salt+M100 conditions became bigger than the control plants and the plants grown under salt conditions. Furthermore, high mycorrhiza treatment also increased the weight of fresh stem and root but had no particular affect on dry stem and root. While chlorophyll a, b and total chlorophyll quantities of the mycorrhiza treatment with M50 and M100 doses grown under salt conditions were found to be high in comparison to control and salt treatment, carotenoid level was found to be low. Conclusively, mycorrhiza treatment to tomato seedlings which are grown under salt conditions was caused to have seedlings grown by preventing negative effects of salt, and provided a high quality growth and which kept the green color of the seedlings

Complementary chemical and biological determination of dioxin-like compounds in sediments of Istanbul Strait.

Bosphorus and Dardanelles form the Turkish Straits System together with the Marmara Sea. The system provides a connection between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Istanbul and its coastal environment have been strongly affected by wastewater discharges, high population and heavy ship traffic. The aim of this study is to provide a comparison between the chemical and biological analysis of surface sediment samples, which were collected from 17 different coastal stations of the Istanbul Strait, to determine the pollutants and comparable effect related data. For the chemical analysis, PAH, PCDD/F and PCB isotope dilution techniques, and for the biological analysis, Micro EROD (24-h and 72-h) assay were employed. Highest values were found at the most polluted sites due to ship traffic and wastewater discharges. Most of the results of chemical analysis were lower or close to biological analysis, except for the samples from two stations where antagonistic modulators are indicated to be present in the Micro EROD assay. This study suggests that the WWTP discharges into Bosphorus and the heavy ship traffic are important sources of pollution in the sediment, as evidenced by high concentrations of toxic and persistent organic chemicals. Local discharges of the megacity should be further decreased

PCB and PCDD/F in sediments and mussels of the Istanbul strait (Turkey).

Sediment and mussel samples collected along the coasts of the Istanbul strait and an island in Marmara Sea (Turkey) were analyzed for six indicator polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), 12 dioxin-like PCB (dl-PCB) and 17 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin/furan (PCDD/F) congeners. Samples contained different concentrations of PCBs and among these, congeners 153, 75, 105 and 118 in sediments and congeners 153, 138 and 118 in mussels were most abundant. The concentration levels of total PCBs and PCDD/Fs in sediments ranged from 17.9 to 539 746 pg g(-1) dm and 2.04 to 60.5 pg g(-1) dm, respectively. The total WHO-TEQ values ranged between 0.01 and 17.8 pg g(-1) dm in sediments, and 0.98 and 1.01 pg g(-1) ww in mussels. None of the sediment and mussel samples analyzed exceeded the limits suggested in the sediment quality guideline and safe values set by the European Community for seafood intended for human consumption, respectively

Biallelic mutations in the 3' exonuclease TOE1 cause pontocerebellar hypoplasia and uncover a role in snRNA processing.

Deadenylases are best known for degrading the poly(A) tail during mRNA decay. The deadenylase family has expanded throughout evolution and, in mammals, consists of 12 Mg2+-dependent 3'-end RNases with substrate specificity that is mostly unknown. Pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 7 (PCH7) is a unique recessive syndrome characterized by neurodegeneration and ambiguous genitalia. We studied 12 human families with PCH7, uncovering biallelic, loss-of-function mutations in TOE1, which encodes an unconventional deadenylase. toe1-morphant zebrafish displayed midbrain and hindbrain degeneration, modeling PCH-like structural defects in vivo. Surprisingly, we found that TOE1 associated with small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) incompletely processed spliceosomal. These pre-snRNAs contained 3' genome-encoded tails often followed by post-transcriptionally added adenosines. Human cells with reduced levels of TOE1 accumulated 3'-end-extended pre-snRNAs, and the immunoisolated TOE1 complex was sufficient for 3'-end maturation of snRNAs. Our findings identify the cause of a neurodegenerative syndrome linked to snRNA maturation and uncover a key factor involved in the processing of snRNA 3' ends