Selective immunoglobulin M deficiency in an adult with miliary tuberculosis: A clinically interesting coexistence. A case report and review of the literature

AbstractSelective immunoglobulin M (SIgM) deficiency is a rare form of dysgammaglobulinemia. Here we are reporting a 31year old man with multiple cervical and testicular abscesses who was investigated and found to have miliary tuberculosis (MTB) with primary SIgM deficiency (Serum IgM: 17.4mg/dL) and was treated aggressively with anti-tuberculous treatment

Healthcare Personnel Opinion and their Implementation Obstacles

Context: Hemodialysis HD patients, as well as the dialysis staff, are vulnerable to contracting health-care-associated infections (HAIs) due to frequent and prolonged exposure to many possible contaminants in the dialysis environment. Aim: Assess healthcare personnel's HCP opinion and their implementation obstacles regarding standard precautions (SPs) in the hemodialysis unit. Methods: The study was conducted at the hemodialysis unit at Al Mouwasat University Hospital, Alexandria, Egypt. A descriptive research design was used to collect data for this study. All healthcare personnel working in the setting mentioned above were included. Two tools were used. The first tool is a standard precautions practices in hemodialysis observational checklist: The second tool is a structured interview questionnaire to assess the opinion of healthcare personnel regarding the applicability of standard precautions in the hemodialysis unit and their implementation obstacles. Results: The standard precautions practice score showed unsatisfactory practice among HCP. Regarding their opinion, the majority of HCP disagreed to follow the five moments and reported that the WHO technique of hand hygiene is so sophisticated and time-consuming; they disagreed with changing gloves between patients and considering gloves as a substitute to hand hygiene. The majority recap the needle by two hand techniques disagreed with following respiratory hygiene, and color-coding was accepted only by nurses. Also, it was found that there was a positive correlation between years of experience, infection control training programs, and the level of SPs practice score. Conclusion: Unsatisfactory SPs practices showed a high percentage of HCP. Healthcare personnel tends to agree to certain infection control practices over other practices. Availability and accessibility of equipment and supplies that interfere with the application of SPs practices and lack of knowledge concerning infection prevention and control were considered as implementation obstacles of SPs practices. Education and training of HCP on SPs, together with consistent and robust management support, are recommended. In addition to the development of national precautions after conducting researches that confirm its effectiveness

Osteoarthritic Synovial Derived Stem Cells Augmented with Subchondral Drilling for Repair of Large Osteochondral Defects in Rabbit Model

This study showed the effectiveness of combination therapy of osteoarthritic synovial derived stem cells (OA-SDSCs) with subchondral drilling for large osteochondral defects repair in mature rabbit model. The defect was created at load-bearing area of the medial femoral condyle of both knees (6 mm length × 3 mm width). Then, mature rabbits were separated randomly into 2 groups: 3 subchondral holes were penetrated the subchondral bone in the defect site (drilled group), and then an intra-articular injection of one million OA-SDSCs into the knee joint was performed (combined group). After two months, rabbits were euthanized to perform histological assessment of the repaired tissue using safranin O stain. Repaired tissue was visually more whitish in the drilled group than in the combined group. Histologically, repaired tissue almost revealed fibrocartilage with subchondral repair in the combined group. However, fibrous tissue was represented in the drilled group. On Pineda score, the combined group was significantly better than of the drilled group (P = 0.001). Finally, using of OA-SDSCs with subchondral drilling promotes better cartilage repair than using subchondral drilling alone

Academic writing challenges faced by chemistry doctoral students: A self-study informed by three writing theories

This research investigated the challenges faced by chemistry Ph.D. candidates writing in English as a second language. Drawing from Second Language Writing, Genre Theory, and Academic Writing Instruction and Support, we investigated the linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary factors that might affect these students' writing development. Nineteen doctoral students participated in the study, which relied on a self-study methodology. Attitudes towards writing, idea generation, revision, criticism, cooperation, and writing process awareness were only some topics covered in a seven-part online survey on academic writing. Language, method, outcomes, style, and substance were found to be the most salient aspects of academic writing as seen by graduate students. There were five major classes of issues with academic writing, including text, errors, competence, support, and dissemination medium. By drawing on the fields of Second Language Writing, Genre Theory, and Academic Writing Instruction and Support, we propose strategies for enhancing students' abilities in academic writing. These strategies range from providing more detailed instructions on the writing process to emphasizing the importance of close communication between faculty advisors and their students. The ramifications of these results for graduate education programs that want to help their students with their academic writing are substantial

Quadrature Frequency Synthesis for Wideband Wireless Transceivers

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2014. Major: Electrical Engineering. Advisor: Ramesh Harjani. 1 computer file (PDF); xi, 112 pages.In this thesis, three different techniques pertinent to quadrature LO generation in high data rate and wideband RF transceivers are presented. Prototype designs are made to verify the performance of the proposed techniques, in three different technologies: IBM 130nm CMOS process, TSMC 65nm CMOS process and IBM 32nm SOI process. The three prototype designs also cover three different frequency bands, ranging from 5GHz to 74GHz. First, an LO generation scheme for a 21 GHz center-frequency, 4-GHz instantaneous bandwidth channelized receiver is presented. A single 1.33 GHz reference source is used to simultaneously generate 20 GHz and 22 GHz LOs with quadrature outputs. Injection locking is used instead of conventional PLL techniques allowing low-power quadrature generation. A harmonic-rich signal, containing both even and odd harmonics of the input reference signal, is generated using a digital pulse slimmer. Two ILO chains are used to lock on to the 10th and 11th harmonics of the reference signal generating the 20 GHz and the 22 GHz quadrature LOs respectively. The prototype design is implemented in IBM's 130 nm CMOS process, draws 110 mA from a 1.2 V supply and occupies an active area of 1.8 square-mm. Next, a wide-tuning range QVCO with a novel complimentary-coupling technique is presented. By using PMOS transistors for coupling two VCOs with NMOS gm-cells, it is shown that significant phase-noise improvement (7-9 dB) can be achieved over the traditional NMOS coupling. This breaks the trade-off between quadrature accuracy and phase-noise, allowing reasonable accuracy without a significant phase-noise hit. The proposed technique is frequency-insensitive, allowing robust coupling over a wide tuning range. A prototype design is done in TSMC 65nm process, with 4-bits of discrete tuning spanning the frequency range 4.6-7.8 GHz (52% FTR) while achieving a minimum FOM of 181.4dBc/Hz and a minimum FOMT of 196dBc/Hz. Finally, a wide tuning-range millimeter wave QVCO is presented that employs a modified transformer-based super-harmonic coupling technique. Using the proposed technique, together with custom-designed inductors and metal capacitors, a prototype is designed in IBM 32nm SOI technology with 6-bits of discrete tuning using switched capacitors. Full EM-extracted simulations show a tuning range of 53.84GHz to 73.59GHz, with an FOM of 173 dBc/Hz and an FOMT of 183 dBc/Hz. With 19.75GHz of tuning range around a 63.7GHz center frequency, the simulated FTR is 31%, surpassing all similar designs in the same band. A slight modification in the tank inductors would enable the QVCO to be employed in multiple mm-Wave bands (57-66 GHz communication band, 71-76 GHz E-band, and 76-77 GHz radar band)

Parasagittal Meningioma surgery

Background: meningioma in parasagittal location represent between 20%-30% of meningioma in the cranial cavity. The close relation of it with Superior Sagittal Sinus make its surgical resection is a great challenge to the surgeon to get a good result.Patients & method: we collected 23 cases of Parasagittal Meningioma cases medical records (including pre-& postoperative clinical pictures, images plus operative details and complications post operatively) who admitted to neurosurgery dept., Mansoura University Hospital and underwent surgical resection in the period that began in 2010 and ended in 2016. We followed up the cases at least for 6 months.Results: the patient’s age varied between 64-35 years. 16 female & 7 males. The presenting symptoms was headache (11 patients), fits (6 patients), motor weakness (5 cases), abnormal gait (1 patient) and dizziness (1 case). 15 cases had gross total tumor excision while 8 cases showed partial tumor removal. Recurrence rat was in 4 cases (17.4%) plus two mortality cases.Conclusion: through our series we could detect cardinal factors in prognosis of these cases which included: tumor size, histology, preoperative identification of the venous collateral and preservation of it in the surgical maneuver. The meticulous microscopic surgical technique can augment this goal

ASSOCIATION GENETICS APPROACHES FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF GENES ASSOCIATED TO BARLEY AGRONOMIC TRAITS IN A MEDITERRANEAN ENVIRONMENT

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is one of the four most economically important cereal crops worldwide. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. Among environmental factors influencing barley production, drought is recognized as the most common in the Mediterranean area and this problem is expected to worsen with on-going climate changes. Breeding for drought resistance is therefore an important objective to ensure stable crop yields. In this context, genetic and molecular dissection of drought tolerance is expected to lead to the identification of key genes/loci and favourable alleles through exploration of biodiversity. Association genetics focuses on the identification of links between phenotypic traits and genetic markers with the aim to identify QTLs and locate the underlying genes in the genome. In general, different barley genotypes are expected to carry different loci at genomic regions of interest. The probability of chromosomal recombination between two loci is proportional to the physical distance between those loci. General objective of this project was the identification of loci subtending major agronomic traits under different water regimes, using an association genetics approach. To this end, we considered a phenotypic panel consisting of 83 barley cultivars representing European diversity for drought tolerance. This germplasm collection included 2 and 6 rows winter and spring barleys, that were previously evaluated for plant height, flowering time and yield under irrigated and rainfed conditions over three successive years (Rizza et al., 2004). At the beginning of this project, an initial objective was to evaluate the potential association between allelic variants of candidate genes (CGs) selected for their known roles in drought responses and phenotypic variation for barley grain yield under different watering regimes. Thus, we re-sequenced an initial set of 3 CGs -HvCbf2, HvCbf4a and HvCbf7- and we identified 4 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in the coding region of HvCbf4a. In parallel, we tried to assess the genetic diversity and structure of our barley panel by utilizing the low cost molecular marker approach of Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP). Incorporation of structure information in association analysis is important to prevent recovery of false associations. However, when we run structure analyses using our AFLP data, we failed to recover the classical barley subdivisions reported in the literature indicating that these markers may not be reliable for our purposes. For this reason and considering the limited chances of detecting association with few CGs, we took advantage of the recently established iSELECT Infinium\uae Illumina 9k SNP platform (Comadran et al., 2012) to carry out a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) on our barley panel. Filtering out the monomorphic and failed-genotyped markers resulted in the identification of a total of 4,661 SNPs distributed over the 7 barley chromosomes. Population stratification was investigated with a subset of 260 SNPs selected as highly informative using admixture model implemented in Structure software. Accordingly, three main subgroups were identified corresponding to winter-2rows, winter-6rows and spring-2rows barleys, respectively. Association between barley genotypic data and flowering date (FD) was processed using general linear model and afterward compared with mixed linear model. Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) controlling grain yield (GY), flowering date (FD), and plant height (PH) were identified using the general linear model. Our results provide a starting point for the identification of potentially useful genes and markers for future applications in barley breeding schemes

Germination Characters as Affected by Salinity Stress and Soaking Grain Sorghum Genotypesin Humic acid

In order to investigate salinity stress on sorghum germination indices, an experiment conducted in the Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University from June and July 2017 in Agronomy Department, Seed Science Laboratory. The goals of the investigation aimed to screening for five (Sorghum bicolor L.(Moench) cultivarsviz. Dorado, hybrid 306, Giza 15, Mecca hybrid and H-305 under salinity stress, sodium chloride (Na Cl) at the levels of 0 (as control), 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 dS/m-1 and soaking in humic acid. The results showed that soaking seed in humic acid exceeded percentage of germination, germination rate, germination index, energy of germination and chlorophyll content by 5.2, 7.7, 17.1, 65.8 and 17.8 %, respectively. The highest germination percentage (91.9 %), germination rate (3.08), germination energy (59.7), seedling vigor index (1483.7) and chlorophyll content (2.88) were obtained from sown Mecca hybrid. The maximum germination index (117.22) was obtainedfrom sown Giza 15 cultivar.The results point out that cumulative salinity level from 3 to 15 dSm-1condensedall studied germination characters. Accumulative salinity levels to 15 dSm-1condensedpercentage of germination, germination rate, index of germination, germination energy and seedling vigor index by 15.9, 15.0, 30.0, 35.9 and 37.6 %, respectively compared without salinity application. It could recommended that soaking sorghum seed of Meeca hybrid with humic acid for 12 h under salinity of concentration of 6 dSm-1 enhanced germination characters compared with other cultivars and salinity concentrations, it mean cultivated it under reclaimed saline soil in Egypt

Corporate governance mechanisms and asymmetric information : an application on the U.K. capital market

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