Evaluation of the role of the hystrosalpingography in prediction of endometriosis in infertile females

Background: Hysterosalpingography is the testing the patency of the tubes and the uterine cavity by injecting urographin inside them. The purpose in this study was to evaluate 2 signs in hysterosalpingography (higher position of one or both tubes and S or C shape in the course of one or both tubes) in prediction of endometriosis. Methods: This was prospective cohort study that was done in El-Shatby Maternity University Hospital, Alexandria University. The study included eighty six infertile women who were assigned to do laparoscopy.  Recent hysterosalpingography was done within 3 months period before laparoscopy and comments were done on the position and S or C shape in the course of the tube then laparoscopy was done and document all findings including presence of endometriosis and biopsy was taken from atypical lesions.Results: All signs show high specificity in prediction of endometriosis although only 2 signs (higher level of left tube and bilateral tubal S or C shape) showed significantly high sensitivity in prediction of endometriosis.Conclusion: Careful examination of the HSG film and searching for the specific signs of endometriosis is a practical and simple method in prediction of endometriosis. These preliminary data suggest that HSG has a role in prediction of endometriosis

Acceleration of Amphibian Forelimb Regeneration By Polypeptide Growth Factors

Growth factors are potentially important modulators of epimorphic regeneration. This study examined effects of intraperitoneal administration of selected growth factors on limb regeneration of adult newts, Notophthalmus viridescens. These agents stimulated regeneration, producing overlapping but nonidentical effects. Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) stimulated bud emergence (8.3 ± 0.6 and 8.3 ± 0.7 days, respectively, vs 11.4 ± 1.1 days for controls). Progression to the cone stage was enhanced by both FGF-2 and transforming growth factor beta 5 ( TGF-~ 5) ; 14.6 ± 0.5 and 15.4 ± 0.4 days with FGF-2 and TGF-~5 , respectively, vs 16.5 ± 0.5 days in controls. Insulin accelerated attainment of the palette stage, 17.0 ± 0.7 days vs 19.0 ± 0.4 days for controls. No treatments affected attaining the digital stage; means between 22.4 and 23.4 days. Histological analysis revealed changes consistent with gross observations. In addition, regenerates from newts treated with FGF-2, TGF-~5. and insulin displayed signs of greater (or earlier) histogenesis than did control animals. These results are consistent with the notion that FGF-2, TGF-~5. and possibly lGF-I stimulate proliferation of blastema cells and that insulin, FGF-2, and TGF-~5 promote differentiation and histogenesis during forelimb regeneration. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that several polypeptide growth factors positively affect the progress of forelimb regeneration, that different growth factors influence the same or similar events of epimorphic regeneration, and that diverse growth factors have nonidentical effects on regeneration

Mechanisms of resonant low frequency Raman scattering from metallic nanoparticle Lamb modes

International audienceThe low frequency Raman scattering from gold nanoparticle bimodal assemblies with controlled size distributions has been studied. Special care has been paid to determining the size dependence of the Raman intensity corresponding to the quadrupolar Lamb mode. Existing models based on a microscopic description of the scattering mechanism in small particles (bond polarizability, dipole induced dipole models) predict, for any Raman-active Lamb modes, an inelastic intensity scaling as the volume of the nanoparticle. Surprisingly experimental intensity ratios are found to be anomalously much greater than theoretical ones, calling into question this scaling law. To explain these discrepancies, a simple mechanism of Raman scattering, based on the density fluctuations in the nanoparticles induced by the Lamb modes, is introduced. This modeling, in which the nanoparticle is described as an elastic isotropic continuous medium-as in Lamb theory, successfully explains the major features exhibited by low frequency Raman modes. Moreover this model provides a unified picture for any material, suitable for handling both small and large size ranges, as well as non-resonant and resonant excitation conditions in the case of metallic species. Published by AIP Publishing

Improvement of Cell Wall Degrading Enzymes Production by Alginate Encapsulated Trichoderma spp.

Conidia of three Trichoderma isolates were formulated to make alginate pellets with or without 0.5 % chitin or dried fungal mycelium of Fusarium oxysporum as carbon source. The formulations were compared for their ability of in vitro chitinase and β-1,3-glucanase production with free fungal spore suspensions. Conidia entrapped in alginate with or without adjuvant showed high production of enzymes (especially for chitinase) even when repeated 4 times. The addition of chitin or dried fungal mycelium as adjuvant enhanced the enzyme production up to 5 and 2-fold for chitinase and β-1,3-glucanase, respectively. Alginate concentration and surface area of the beads affected the enzyme production. The optimum initial pH, incubation time and temperature were pH=6, 12 days and 40 °C for chitinase, and pH=7, 10 days and 35 °C for β-1,3-glucanase production. The improvement of cell wall degrading enzyme production by alginate encapsulated Trichoderma could explain the in vivo inhibitory effect of such formulations on the target phytopathogenic fungi

The use and trend of emotional language in the banks’ annual reports: the state of the global financial crisis

This study is of an exploratory nature as it seeks to explore the extent to which the language of emotions in the banks’ annual reports is affected by the global financial crisis (GFC). The language of emotions was analyzed using eight categories (trust, anticipation, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise and joy) in annual reports of 12 listed banks from six countries in the Middle East area (namely, Jordan, Kingdom of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) from 2002 to 2017. The final data set consists of 192 bank-year observations. The study time was divided into three periods (pre, during and post GFC). In addition, the study enriches accounting literature by being the first study to test Pollyanna hypothesis using emotion analysis. The results of the study show that the percentage of emotional words in banks’ annual reports (2002–2017) represents almost 22% on average. The trust, anticipation and fear categories were the most affected than other emotional categories during GFC. While the trust category decreased, both the fear and anticipation categories increased. Other findings of the study show that regardless of GFC, emotional words of trust and anticipation categories in banks’ annual reports have dominated the emotional words of the disgust and surprise categories. Therefore, Pollyanna hypothesis is supported. In contrast to the emotional words of the joy category in banks’ annual reports which has not dominated the sadness category. In this case, Pollyanna hypothesis is rejected

The relationship between corporate forward-looking disclosure and stock return volatility

The study assesses corporate forward-looking disclosure by measuring four attributes, namely disclosure quantity, disclosure coverage, disclosure concentration and disclosure quality, through a sample of 34 listed firms in the Bahrain Bourse from 2014 to 2017. The study also investigates the relationship between these attributes and stock return volatility. Regression analysis has been employed with five different models to examine the relationship between the four attributes of corporate forward-looking disclosure and stock return volatility. The main finding of this study agrees with the results of Bravo et al. (2009) who found that the selection of a specific disclosure index could influence crucially the results of the analysis. In addition, stock return volatility has a statistically significant negative association with the three attributes of forward-looking disclosure, namely disclosure quantity, disclosure coverage and disclosure quality. In contrast, it has a non-significant association with the fourth attribute of forward-looking disclosure, disclosure concentration. This study provides a novel contribution to disclosure quality studies by being the first study to examine forward-looking disclosure quality attributes in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Measuring the brightness temperature distribution of extragalactic radio sources with space VLBI

We have used VSOP space very long baseline interferometry observations to measure the brightness temperature distribution of a well-defined sub-set of the Pearson-Readhead sample of extragalactic radio sources. VLBI which is restricted to Earth-diameter baselines is not generally sensitive to emitting regions with brightness temperatures greater than approximately $10^{12}$ K, coincidentally close to theoretical estimates of brightness temperature limits, $10^{11} - 10^{12}$ K. We find that a significant proportion of our sample have brightness temperatures greater than $10^{12}$ K; many have unresolved components on the longest baselines, and some remain completely unresolved. These observations begin to bridge the gap between the extended jets seen with ground-based VLBI and the microarcsecond structures inferred from intraday variability, evidenced here by the discovery of a relationship between intraday variability and VSOP-measured brightness temperature, likely due to the effects of relativistic beaming. Also, lower limits on jet Lorentz factors, estimated from space VLBI observations, are starting to challenge numerical simulations that predict low Lorentz factor jets.Comment: 4 pages + 1 figure, ApJ letters, accepte

Prevalence of concealed and overt chronic renal failure in patients with COPD

AbstractAimTo assess the prevalence of chronic renal failure (concealed and overt) in patients with COPD.Patients and methodsThis study was conducted on 150 patients who were classified into three groups: Group I: 67 patients with COPD, Group II: 33 COPD patients with co morbidities (diabetes mellitus, hypertension and or ischemic heart disease). Group III: (control group): 50 patients with other diseases such as diabetes mellitus, ischemic heart disease and or hypertension. All patients were subjected to: (1) Full history taking. (2) Complete clinical examination. (3) Anthropometric measurements (weight, height and body mass index). (4) Arterial oxygen saturation. (5) Radiological examination (Plain chest X-ray posterior–anterior view and Pelvi-abdominal ultrasound). (6) ECG and Echocardiography. (7) Spirometry. (8) Laboratory investigations (complete blood picture, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, Liver function tests, serum creatinine, blood urea and uric acid and GFR, total cholesterol, sodium, potassium and chloride concentration).ResultsIn group I, there were 8 patients who had CRF (11.94%), 5 patients had overt CRF (7.46%) and 3 patients had concealed CRF (4.48%). In group II, there were 11 patients with CRF (33.33%), 6 patients had overt CRF (18.18%) and 5 patients had concealed CRF (15.15%). In group III, there were 9 patients having CRF (18%), 6 patients had overt CRF (12%) and 3patients had concealed CRF (6%). In COPD (group I and II) the overall prevalence of CRF was 19%.ConclusionCRF either concealed or overt may be associated with COPD patients and should be screened, not only by serum creatinine level but also by the estimated GFR to recognize the cases of concealed CRF who have low GFR despite normal serum creatinine level