Study on the Dynamics of Cortisol Secretions in Hypertensive Elderly Patients

Ageing is defined as a slow, irreversible process of cellular changes, that are due to a lack of balance between degradation and repair, a continuous interaction between physiological and pathological processes. Physiological aspects in elderly people are often confused with disease. Given these general considerations, we would make observations about the dynamics of cortisol secretion in healthy elderly subjects and patients with a diagnosed cardiovascular disease, more precisely hypertension. The study was conducted during 2003–2010, on a number of 135 patients older than 65 years of age, who were divided into two groups: one group counting 66 patients and consisting of healthy elderly controls (without systemic disease, renal, endocrine, or cardiovascular known issues) and group 2 who consists of 69 elderly patients who associate known hypertensive and other cardiovascular issues

Autonomous Vehicles Down Under: An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Sentiment

Of the many issues surrounding the potential introduction of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), consumer response remains unclear. The current paper presents an empirical investigation of consumer sentiment towards AVs based on an online survey of 455 Australian adults. Market segmentation procedures are used to cluster participants according to their attitudes and concerns towards AVs with clusters then profiled according to demographics, personality traits and contextual/situational factors. Results suggest unsurprisingly that attitudes and concerns are a useful predictor of the likelihood of purchasing an AV. More favourable attitudes towards AVs are associated with younger, male respondents, those who drive less currently and those more open to sharing their car. More negative attitudes prevail with older, female respondents, those who drive more, and those less open to sharing their car. Results have important implications for policy-makers and researchers alike

PRODUCTION OF MURINE POLYCLONAL ANTI FtsZ P.aeruginosa ANTIBODIES

Summary In order to overcome the crisis of antibiotic resistance, there is an urgent need for alternative antibacterial agents that have novel mechanisms of action. FtsZ is an attractive target for antibacterial drug discovery because of its widespread conservation in the bacterial kingdom, its absence in the mitochondria of higher eukaryotes and its known biochemical activity and molecular structure. FtsZ plays an essential role in prokaryotic cell division machinery in which undergoes GTP-dependent polymerization midcell and assembles into the dynamic Z-ring at the site of division. The Z-ring acts to initiate Z-ring contraction to form bacterial daughter cells. Although FtsZ shares structural and functional similarity with eukaryotic tubulin, most of the tubulin/microtubule targeting agents do not affect the dynamic assembly of FtsZ, indicating that FtsZ can be a selective antibacterial target. In this study, we evaluated the immunogenicity in mice of FtsZ protein from Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium, which is a well-known opporthunistic human pathogen. We were interested in the degree of affinity and titer dynamics of polyclonal antibodies synthesized against Pseudomonas aeruginosa FtsZ by mice reimmunization and also, in antiFtsZ antibodies reactivity with their specific protein, FtsZ Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Primary cutaneous aggressive epidermotropic cytotoxic T-cell lymphomas: reappraisal of a provisional entity in the 2016 WHO classification of cutaneous lymphomas.

Primary cutaneous CD8-positive aggressive epidermotropic T-cell lymphoma is a rare and poorly characterized variant of cutaneous lymphoma still considered a provisional entity in the latest 2016 World Health Organization Classification of Cutaneous lymphomas. We sought to better characterize and provide diagnostic and therapeutic guidance of this rare cutaneous lymphoma. Thirty-four patients with a median age of 77 years (range 19-89 years) presented primarily with extensive annular necrotic plaques or tumor lesions with frequent mucous membrane involvement. The 5-year survival was 32% with a median survival of 12 months. A subset of 17 patients had a prodrome of chronic patches prior to the development of aggressive ulcerative lesions. We identified cases with lack of CD8 or αβ T-cell receptor expression yet with similar clinical and pathological presentation. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation provided partial or complete remissions in 5/6 patients. We recommend the term primary cutaneous aggressive epidermotropic cytotoxic T-cell lymphoma as this more broad designation better describes this clinical-pathologic presentation, which allows the inclusion of cases with CD8 negative and/or αβ/γδ T-cell receptor chain double-positive or double-negative expression. We have identified early skin signs of chronic patch/plaque lesions that are often misdiagnosed as eczema, psoriasis, or mycosis fungoides. Our experience confirms the poor prognosis of this entity and highlights the inefficacy of our standard therapies with the exception of allogeneic stem cell transplantation in selected cases

An Evaluation Exercise for Romanian Word Sense Disambiguation

This paper discusses an evaluation exercise for Romanian word sense disambiguation

Immunohistochemical and Molecular Features of Melanomas Exhibiting Intratumor and Intertumor Histomorphologic Heterogeneity

Melanoma is a heterogeneous neoplasm at the histomorphologic, immunophenotypic, and molecular levels. Melanoma with extreme histomorphologic heterogeneity can pose a diagnostic challenge in which the diagnosis may predominantly rely on its immunophenotypic profile. However, tumor survival and response to therapy are linked to tumor genetic heterogeneity rather than tumor morphology. Therefore, understating the molecular characteristics of such melanomas become indispensable. In this study, DNA was extracted from 11 morphologically distinct regions in eight formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded melanomas. In each region, mutations in 50 cancer-related genes were tested using next-generation sequencing (NGS). A tumor was considered genetically heterogeneous if at least one non-overlapping mutation was identified either between the histologically distinct regions of the same tumor (intratumor heterogeneity) or among the histologically distinct regions of the paired primary and metastatic tumors within the same patient (intertumor heterogeneity). Our results revealed that genetic heterogeneity existed in all tumors as non-overlapping mutations were detected in every tested tumor (n = 5, 100%; intratumor: n = 2, 40%; intertumor: n = 3, 60%). Conversely, overlapping mutations were also detected in all the tested regions (n = 11, 100%). Melanomas exhibiting histomorphologic heterogeneity are often associated with genetic heterogeneity, which might contribute to tumor survival and poor response to therapy

Separarea şi caracterizarea principalelor fracţiuni de proantocianidine din seminţele de struguri

Grape seeds, as waste products of the winemaking industry, contain large amounts of monomers, oligomers and more highly polymerised proanthocyanidins (PA), being a good source of phytochemicals for the production of antioxidative dietary supplements. PA from defatted grape seeds were extracted by precipitation with diethyl ether from the crude alcoholic extract and fractionated into monomers (FI), oligomers (FII) and polymers (FIII) of flavan-3-ols by their separation on C18 Sep-Pak cartridges. FIII was the predominant class of proanthocyanidins (82.22%), while monomeric PA has only 5.71% of total. The ratio PA (by vanillin assay) / tannins (Bate-Smith assay) indicates the highest degree of polymerisation (DP) in FIII fraction (1.28). Thin layer chromatography (TLC) confirmed the presence of monomers in FI, the DP increasing significantly for the next two fractions. Oligomeric and polymeric PA showed the highest antioxidant activity (% scavenged DPPH), but the synergic antioxidant effect of PA classes was also observed