Effect of Feeding Pellets Containing Different Concentrate to wheat Straw Ratios on the Rumen Fermentation Characteristics of Awassi Lambs

اجريت الدراسة في منطقة السياحي- محافظة بابل للتحري عن تأثير تغذية نسب مختلفة من العلف المركز الى تبن الحنطة على خصائص تخمرات الكرش. حضرت خمسة علائق خليطة كلية تضمن تركيبها 30:70 و40:60 و 50:50 و 60:40 و 70:30 من العلف المركز الى تبن الحنطة كبست بصورة مكعبات وقدمت بصورة حرة الى الحملان العواسية. اظهرت النتائج ان زيادة نسبة العلف المركز الى الخشن قد ارتبطت بانخفاض معنوي (P<0.01) في الاس الهيدروجيني في سائل الكرش وسجلت اقل القيم,  6.60و 6.50 و 6.53 في النماذج المسحوبة من مجموعة الحملان المغذاة على المكعبات الحاوية على العلف المركز الى التبن بنسبة 50:50 و 60:40 و 70:30 على التوالي. كما تميزت تلك النماذج باقل (P<0.01) تركيز نيتروجين الامونيا,  4.85و 4.45 و 4.35 ملغم/100  مل, وأعلى (P<0.01) تركيز للأحماض الدهنية الطيارة الكلية.This study was carried out in Alsiyahii area– Babylon Province to investigate the effect of feeding Awassi lambs different ratios of concentrate: wheat straw (C: R) on rumen fermentation characteristics. Five pellets of total mixed rations (TMR) containing 30:70, 40:60, 50:50, 60:40 and 70:30 of C: R ratios were prepared and offered to lambs ad libitum. Results revealed that increasing C: R ratio was associated with a significant (P<0.01) reduction in pH, lower values of 6.60, 6.50 and 6.53 were recorded in samples of rumen liquor collected from lambs fed pellets containing C: R ratios of 50:50, 60:40 and 70:30, respectively. Those samples were also characterized with lower (P<0.01) concentration of ammonia nitrogen, 4.85, 4.45 and 4.38 mg/100 ml, and higher (P<0.01) concentration of total volatile fatty acids.&nbsp

Investigating the mechanism of acoustically activated uptake of drugs from Pluronic micelles

BACKGROUND: This paper examines the mechanism of ultrasonic enhanced drug delivery from Pluronic micelles. In previous publications by our group, fluorescently labeled Pluronic was shown to penetrate HL-60 cells with and without the action of ultrasound, while drug uptake was increased with the application of ultrasound. METHODS: In this study, the amount of uptake of two fluorescent probes, Lysosensor Green (a pH-sensitive probe) and Cell Tracker Orange CMTMR (a pH-independent probe), was measured in HL-60 and HeLa cells. RESULTS: The results of our experiments show that the increase in drug accumulation in the cells as a result of ultrasonication is not due to an increase in endocytosis due to ultrasonication. CONCLUSIONS: We hypothesize that sonoporation plays an important role in the acoustically activated drug delivery of chemotherapy drugs delivered from Pluronic micelles

Pregabalin Misuse and Abuse: A Scoping Review of Extant Literature

Prescribing of pregabalin is increasing worldwide with public health concerns centering on misuse and abuse of prescribed and diverted pregabalin. To describe and map what is known about misuse and abuse of pregabalin, a scoping review of available published literature was undertaken. A scoping review methodology was used to identify and map available literature on misuse and abuse of prescribed and diverted pregabalin. Four themes emerged on the misuse and abuse of pregabalin: (a) abuse potential, (b) prevalence of abuse, (c) risk and predisposition, and (d) consequences of abuse. Fifty-four records were reviewed and charted. Of note was the dearth of research on the topic prior to 2005, with increased interest in pregabalin abuse potential from 2010 onward. Available literature supports concern around abuse potential of pregabalin, especially among patients with a history of substance abuse. Prescribers should adopt more rational prescribing. © 2018, The Author(s) 2018

Maternal serum screening of Palestinian women in the West Bank

ABSTRACT An audit was made of laboratory records of triple test results from 943 Palestinian women residing in the West Bank from 2000-03. The mean expected age at delivery of the subjects was 25.5 years; 12% were 35 years old or above. Age was the main factor associated with an abnormal calculated risk score. The frequency of elevated serum alpha-fetoprotein was 1.3%, abnormal human choriogonic gonadotropin (elevated or reduced) was 1.9% and reduced unconjugated estriol was 0.3%. Dépistage sérologique maternel chez des Palestiniennes en Cisjordanie RÉSUMÉ On a procédé à un audit des dossiers de laboratoire pour les résultats du triple test de 943 Palestiniennes résidentes en Cisjordanie durant la période 2000-2003. L'âge moyen des sujets prévu à la date de l'accouchement était de 25,5 ans ; 12 % étaient âgés de 35 ans ou plus. L'âge était le principal facteur associé à un score de risque calculé anormal. La fréquence du taux élevé de l'alpha-foeto-protéine sérique était de 1,3 % ; pour la gonadotropine choriogonique humaine anormale (élévation ou diminution), la fréquence était de 1,9 %, et pour le taux diminué de l'estriol non conjugué de 0,3 %

Thresholds of socio-economic and environmental conditions necessary to escape from childhood malnutrition: a natural experiment in rural Gambia.

BACKGROUND: Childhood malnutrition remains highly prevalent in low-income countries, and a 40% reduction in under-5 year stunting is WHO's top Global Target 2025. Disappointingly, meta-analyses of intensive nutrition interventions reveal that they generally have low efficacy at improving growth. Unhygienic environments also contribute to growth failure, but large WASH Benefits and SHINE trials of improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) recently reported no benefits to child growth. METHODS: To explore the thresholds of socio-economic status (SES) and living standards associated with malnutrition, we exploited a natural experiment in which the location of our research centre within a remote rural village created a wide diversity of wealth, education and housing conditions within the same ecological setting and with free health services to all. A composite SES score was generated by grading occupation, education, income, water and sanitation, and housing and families were allocated to 5 groups (SES1 = highest). SES ranged from very poor subsistence-farming villagers to post graduate staff with overseas training. Nutritional status at 24 m was obtained from clinic records for 230 children and expressed relative to WHO Growth Standards. RESULTS: Height-for-age (HAZ) and weight-for-age (WAZ) Z-scores were strongly predicted by SES group. HAZ varied from - 0.67 to - 2.23 (P < 0.001) and WAZ varied from - 0.90 to - 1.64 (P < 0.001), from SES1 to SES5, respectively. Weight-for-height (WHZ) showed no gradient. Children in SES1 showed greater dispersion so were further divided in a post hoc analysis. Children resident in Western housing on the research compound (SES1A) had HAZ = + 0.68 and WAZ = + 0.36. The residual gradient between those in SES1B and SES5 spanned only 0.65 Z-score for HAZ (- 1.58 to - 2.23) and was not significant for WAZ or WHZ. CONCLUSIONS: The large difference in growth between children in SES1A living in Western-type housing and SES1B children living in the village, and the very shallow gradient between SES1B and SES5, implies a very high SES threshold before stunting and underweight will be eliminated. This may help to explain the lack of efficacy of the recent WASH interventions and points to the need for what is termed 'Transformative WASH'. Good quality housing, with piped water into the home, may be key to eliminating malnutrition

Immune targets for therapeutic development in depression: towards precision medicine.

Over the past two decades, compelling evidence has emerged indicating that immune mechanisms can contribute to the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD) and that drugs with primary immune targets can improve depressive symptoms. Patients with MDD are heterogeneous with respect to symptoms, treatment responses and biological correlates. Defining a narrower patient group based on biology could increase the treatment response rates in certain subgroups: a major advance in clinical psychiatry. For example, patients with MDD and elevated pro-inflammatory biomarkers are less likely to respond to conventional antidepressant drugs, but novel immune-based therapeutics could potentially address their unmet clinical needs. This article outlines a framework for developing drugs targeting a novel patient subtype within MDD and reviews the current state of neuroimmune drug development for mood disorders. We discuss evidence for a causal role of immune mechanisms in the pathogenesis of depression, together with targets under investigation in randomized controlled trials, biomarker evidence elucidating the link to neural mechanisms, biological and phenotypic patient selection strategies, and the unmet clinical need among patients with MDD.Johnson and Johnso

Grading Loss: A Fracture Grade-based Metric Loss for Vertebral Fracture Detection

Osteoporotic vertebral fractures have a severe impact on patients' overall well-being but are severely under-diagnosed. These fractures present themselves at various levels of severity measured using the Genant's grading scale. Insufficient annotated datasets, severe data-imbalance, and minor difference in appearances between fractured and healthy vertebrae make naive classification approaches result in poor discriminatory performance. Addressing this, we propose a representation learning-inspired approach for automated vertebral fracture detection, aimed at learning latent representations efficient for fracture detection. Building on state-of-art metric losses, we present a novel Grading Loss for learning representations that respect Genant's fracture grading scheme. On a publicly available spine dataset, the proposed loss function achieves a fracture detection F1 score of 81.5%, a 10% increase over a naive classification baseline.Comment: To be presented at MICCAI 202