Effect of Palmaris Longus on Handwriting Skills

Background: Kinesiologists, Physical Anthropologists, and Anatomists have all long been captivated by the structure and development of the superficial forearm flexor, the Palmaris longus. Objective: To study the effect of Palmaris Longus on certain handwriting skills. Subjects and Methods: Three Palmaris Longus occurrence tests were conducted on 200 students (100 males and 100 females) affiliated to Colleges of Medicine of Baghdad University then the participants were tested for certain handwriting skills to correlate the presence of Palmaris Longus in the dominant side with handwriting. Results: 89% of all subjects (178 subjects) and 91% of males were right-handed. Dominant Palmaris Longus among males (61%) was significantly higher than that of females (30%). Regarding the Motor assessment scale; female participants achieved good and it was significantly higher than that of males (23%). There was a significant association between left Palmaris Longus only and acceptable horizontal line assessment. Good sentence composition was noticed significantly in dominant Palmaris Longus. Conclusions: Variation of presence of Palmaris Longus in both sexes in the studied group meets with normal recorded variation. Presence of Palmaris Longus in the dominant forearm has correlation with good certain skills of handwriting skills

DIVERSITY OF BACILLUS GENOTYPES IN SOIL SAMPLES FROM EL-OMAYED BIOSPHERE RESERVE IN EGYPT

Sequencing of the 16S rDNA hypervariant region was applied to determine the presence and composition of Bacillus species in 40 soil samples randomly collected from different habitats in El-Omayed biosphere reserve, Egypt. Although purified cultures showed 18 different phenotypes that were morphologically distinct on a sporulation medium plate, only 4 different nucleotide sequences designated Seq A, B, C and D were revealed. Computational analysis of DNA sequence data suggested that 17 of these isolates are closely related members of the Bacillus cereus/thuringiensis group (Seq B, C and D) and one isolate is belonging to the Bacillus subtilis group (Seq A). Further phenotypic investigations confirmed the diversity of the 17 novel Bacillus cereus/thuringiensis isolates and indicated that the new Bacillus subtilis group isolate is a Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain. A simple phenotypic discrimination key that can be applied for distinguishing between such closely related Bacillus cereus/thuringiensis members is presented

Burnout among surgeons before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an international survey

Background: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had many significant impacts within the surgical realm, and surgeons have been obligated to reconsider almost every aspect of daily clinical practice. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study reported in compliance with the CHERRIES guidelines and conducted through an online platform from June 14th to July 15th, 2020. The primary outcome was the burden of burnout during the pandemic indicated by the validated Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. Results: Nine hundred fifty-four surgeons completed the survey. The median length of practice was 10 years; 78.2% included were male with a median age of 37 years old, 39.5% were consultants, 68.9% were general surgeons, and 55.7% were affiliated with an academic institution. Overall, there was a significant increase in the mean burnout score during the pandemic; longer years of practice and older age were significantly associated with less burnout. There were significant reductions in the median number of outpatient visits, operated cases, on-call hours, emergency visits, and research work, so, 48.2% of respondents felt that the training resources were insufficient. The majority (81.3%) of respondents reported that their hospitals were included in the management of COVID-19, 66.5% felt their roles had been minimized; 41% were asked to assist in non-surgical medical practices, and 37.6% of respondents were included in COVID-19 management. Conclusions: There was a significant burnout among trainees. Almost all aspects of clinical and research activities were affected with a significant reduction in the volume of research, outpatient clinic visits, surgical procedures, on-call hours, and emergency cases hindering the training. Trial registration: The study was registered on clicaltrials.gov "NCT04433286" on 16/06/2020

Correlation between adjusted late spermatid score and sperm count in normozoospermic and oligozoospermic men

Objective: To correlate late spermatid score and sperm count in men with normal semen analysis and oligozoospermia undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to set the average threshold of spermatids/tubule of testicular tissue needed for normal sperm count/ml of semen. Material and methods: This study was conducted on 24 normozoospermic subjects and 18 oligozoospermic patients who underwent wide bore needle biopsy because of failed sperm collection at the day of ICSI. Clinical data were reviewed and testicular biopsy slides were examined for Johnson score and adjusted late spermatid score. Results: The optimum cut off value for adjusted late spermatid score in predicting a sperm count >20 million/ml was 20.75 late spermatid per tubule with 100% specificity. Model equations were produced to predict the sperm count using adjusted late spermatid score and vice versa. Conclusion: This work supports the hypothesis that late spermatid score is a simple and reliable method for quantitation of spermatogenesis and it correlates well with the sperm count. The value of late spermatids needed for normal sperm count in this report is different from some other reports. The better standardization of work in this study may help resetting a new late spermatid threshold for normal sperm count

Injection of steroids intralesional in central giant cell granuloma cases (giant cell tumor): Is it free of systemic complications or not? A case report

Central giant tumors commonly occur in long bones. In the oral and maxillofacial region, a counterpart coined with the term Central giant cell granuloma exists. Choung and Kaban classified central giant cell granulomas based on clinical and radiographic findings. The classification includes aggressive and non-aggressive variants. However, to date there has been no molecular method of distinguishing the variants. Different lines of treatment had been reported. The aggressive form showed high recurrence rates with conservative surgical treatment. Intra-lesional steroid, calcitonin, interferon, bisphosphonates and denosumab; have been administered as a treatment lines. Several reports support the injection of intra lesional steroids and its successful outcome. An Egyptian, nine years old female presented with a facial swelling affecting lower left side of the mandible. Biopsy confirmed it to be a CGCG. The treatment plan was intralesional steroid injections to avoid resection of the mandible. The treatment showed acceptable progress but was associated with cushinoid appearance of patient. This forced the operating team to halt the steroid injections and resolute to adjunctive surgical curettage yet sparing the mandible from resection. One-year follow up showed no recurrence, however, the patient still suffers mild cushinoid appearance

Information Nutritional Label and Word Embedding to Estimate Information Check-Worthiness

International audienceAutomatic fact-checking is an important challenge nowadays since anyone can write about anything and spread it in social media, no matter the information quality. In this paper, we revisit the information check-worthiness problem and propose a method that combines the "information nutritional label" features with POS-tags and word-embedding representations. To predict the information check-worthy claim, we train a machine learning model based on these features. We experiment and evaluate the proposed approach on the CheckThat! CLEF 2018 collection. The experimental result shows that our model that combines information nutritional label and word-embedding features outperforms the baselines and the official participants' runs of CheckThat! 2018 challenge

Patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease admitted with acute myocardial infarction carry a better outcome compared to those with obstructive coronary artery disease

Background: The characterization of patients who have acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and insignificant coronary stenosis is unclear. Aim: The present study aimed to investigate the clinical profile, in-hospital and 3-month outcome of AMI patients with insignificant coronary stenosis in comparison with those with significant disease. Methods: This prospective observational study included 200 consecutive patients admitted with AMI. Group I (100 patients) included patients with insignificant CAD (all lesions 70% stenosis. Patients with previous CABG were excluded. Patients with significant CAD had successful total revascularization. Results: Patients with insignificant CAD were significantly younger (61 vs. 67 years, p < 0.001), more likely to be females (41% vs. 23%, p = 0.006), less likely to smoke (p = 0.006), less likely to have diabetes mellitus (p < 0.001), and less likely to have history of CAD (p = 0.042) or prior PCI (p = 0.037). They were also less likely to have typical anginal pain at presentation (61% vs 91%, p < 0.001), less likely to have heart failure at presentation (9% vs 30%, p < 0.001), less likely to have ischemic ST-segment changes on presentation (10% vs 46%, p < 0.001), lower peak troponin (p < 0.001) and CK-MB levels (p < 0.001), with lower LDL-C (p = 0.006), and higher HDL-C level (p = 0.020). They were less likely to be treated with b-blockers (p = 0.002), ACEI/ARBS (p = 0.007), and higher rates of calcium channel blocker therapy (p < 0.001). They had lower prevalence of major adverse clinical events at follow-up (readmission for ACS (p = 0.009), need for revascularization (p = 0.035), recurrent chest pain (p = 0.009), and cardiogenic shock (p = 0.029). Conclusion: Patients with AMI and insignificant CAD have different clinical profile and outcome compared to those with significant disease