Stereospermum fimbriatum as a potential source of phytochemicals: a review of stereospermum genus

Stereospermum fimbriatum is one of the medicinal plants that has been claimed to be used traditionally to treat several illnesses such as stomachache, ear-ache, skin irritation and postpartum illness. The genus of this plant is known to pos-sess medicinal properties in every part of the plant. Therapeutic potential of S. fim-briatum is anticipated based on numerous previous studies that documented variety of phytochemical contents and bioactivity of the genus. The most reported bioactiv-ities of its genus are antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, anti-diarrheal and analgesic activities. S. fimbriatum is a rare species that has not been discovered yet. Thus, this review aims at highlighting the potentials of S. fim-briatum by collecting available data on the bioactivities of its genus and set the di-rections for future research on this plant

Role of rapid urease test and histopathology in the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection in a developing country

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of commonly self-prescribed proton pump inhibitors (PPI) on the results of rapid urease test and histology for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection. METHODS: One hundred-nine consecutive patients with dyspeptic symptoms attending the endoscopy suite were enrolled in this study. Antrum biopsy specimens were collected at endoscopy for the rapid urease test (Pronto Dry, Medical Instrument Corp, France) and histopathology. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and like-hood ratio of a positive and negative of Pronto Dry test were compared against histology. The gold standard test for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection was histopathology. RESULTS: Sixty-one percent (66/109) patients were males with mean age of 43 ± 14.1 years and age range 17–80 years. Fifty-two percent (57/109) were not on any medications while 48% (52/109) used PPI before presentation to the outpatients. Pronto Dry was positive in 40% (44/109) and negative in 60% (65/109). Histopathology was positive for H. pylori in 57% (62/109) and negative in 43% (47/109). The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and like-hood ratio of a positive and negative Pronto Dry test with and without PPI were 43.3%, 86.4%, 81.3%, 3.18, 0.656 and 52.8% vs 71.9%, 80%, 82.1%, 69%, 3.59 and 0.35. CONCLUSION: This study shows that the sensitivity, specificity, NPV and PPV of rapid urease test was reduced in patients who are on PPI. The exclusive use of the rapid urease test for the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori cannot be recommended in patients with prior PPI use

Towards quantified Measures of Agility for agile Information System for Production Lines

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Towards quantified measures of Agility for Production Line Information Systems (PLIS)

International audienceThe agility in enterprise information (EIS) and business intelligence (BI) systems is summarized as content and structural agility due to changing business requirements. We argue that production lines are key enablers in organizational agility and any hostile and drifting behaviour could turn potential opportunities into losses besides the fact that an agile EIS is well integrated. There are many ISs developed to control and monitor the drifting behaviour of production lines like fault detection and classification (FDC), statistical process control (SPC) and automation systems. These offer excellent detection mechanisms against known drifts; however, real challenge lies in carrying out root-cause analysis for unknown drifts. Therefore, in this paper we propose a new category of IS for production lines as agile PLIS, capable to control, detect, assess and predict the potential drifts for proactive measures. The definition of an agile IS for production line is proposed with quality attributes selected from literature, ISO 91261 software quality standard and specificities of the production line. Further, generic measures of production line agility as local (LAI) and global (GAI) agility indices are proposed to measure the agility drifts for a production line. The agility in an IS is built and not designed: therefore, we also present a compliance matrix of most widely used information system architectures (ISA) against proposed agile PLIS with quality attributes. This paper concludes by validating the proposed quantified measures of agility for agile PLIS using data from reputed semiconductor manufacturer. (C) 2016, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Satiety drinking tests: Effects of caloric content, drinking rate, gender, age, and body mass index

Objective: To compare the maximum tolerated volumes (MTVs) of drinking water and a nutrient liquid at different rates of drinking and to assess the best drinking test correlating with the symptom scores. Material And Methods: Healthy volunteers were requested to drink water at a rate of 10 ml/min or a nutrient liquid drink at 100 and 20 ml/min on three separate occasions. Symptoms of bloating, nausea, and abdominal pain were assessed 30 min after the cessation of drinking using visual analogue scales. Results: The MTV of water was 1595405 in males and 1327308 in females (p0.05). In rapid nutrient drinking, the MTV was 945376 ml in males, whereas females tolerated 760174 ml (p0.05). In slow nutrient drinking, the MTV was 692184 ml in males and 594131 ml in females (p=0.051). Multiple regression analysis showed no influence of body mass index (BMI), age, or gender in slow nutrient drinking. However, drinking capacity was significantly influenced by gender, age, and BMI in rapid water drinking and by gender in rapid nutrient drinking. When the tolerated volumes for satiety drinking tests were compared, only males showed some significant positive correlations. Symptom scores were higher after slow nutrient drinking compared to the other two drinking tests. Conclusions: The rate of drinking and the caloric content affect the MTVs in satiety drinking tests. Slow nutrient drinking appears to be the best choice among the different satiety drink tests, as MTV in this test was not influenced by BMI or age and was associated with higher symptom scores

A Bayesian Network based approach to improve the effectiveness of maintenance actions in Semiconductor industry

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Towards proactive maintenance actions scheduling in the Semiconductor Industry (SI) using Bayesian approach

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Experts' Knowledge Renewal and Maintenance Actions Effectiveness in High-Mix Low-Volume Industries, Using Bayesian Approach

International audienceIncreasing demand diversity have resulted in high-mix low-volume production where success depends on our ability to quickly design and develop new products. This requires sustainable production capacities and efficient equipment utilization which is ensured through appropriate maintenance strategies. At present, these are derived from experts' knowledge, capitalized in FMECA (Failure Mode, Effect and Criticality Analysis) and/or maintenance procedures. (Abu-Samah et al. 2015) found increasing unscheduled breakdowns, failure durations and number of repair actions in each failure as the key challenges while sustaining production capacities in complex production environment. This is an evidence that maintenance based on the historical knowledge is not always effective to cope up with an evolving nature of equipment failure behaviors. Therefore, in this paper, we present an operational methodology based on Bayesian approach and an extended FMECA method to support experts' knowledge renewal and maintenance actions effectiveness. In the proposed methodology, we capitalize and model experts' existing knowledge from FMECA files as an operational Bayesian network (O-BN) to provide real time feedback on poorly executed maintenance actions. The accuracy of O-BN is monitored through drift in maintenance performance measurement (MPM) indicators that results in learning an unsupervised Bayesian network (U-BN) to discover new causal relations from historical data. The structural difference between O-BN and U-BN highlights potential new knowledge which is validated by experts prior to modify existing FMECA and associated maintenance procedures. The proposed methodology is evaluated in a well reputed high-mix low-volume semiconductor production line to demonstrate its ability to dynamically renew experts' knowledge and improve maintenance actions effectiveness

Association of phosphodiesterase 4D gene with ischemic stroke in a Pakistani population

Background and Objectives— Identification of STRK1 locus by the deCODE group followed by the discovery of phosphodiesterase 4D (PDE4D) gene in strong association with ischemic stroke patients has provided useful insights toward understanding the genetic etiology of the disease. In this study, we aimed at investigating the association between 3 polymorphisms of the PDE4D gene and ischemic stroke in the Pakistani population. Methods— Three polymorphisms in PDE4D gene were analyzed in 200 patients of ischemic stroke and 250 controls of Pakistani origin using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Data were coded and entered in SPSS Windows (version 12.0). Odds ratios and 95% CIs were calculated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results— Marker SNP83(rs966221) was found significantly associated with ischemic stroke on univariate and multivariate analysis (PConclusion— The association of PDE4D variation with ischemic stroke extends to the Pakistani population and supports a role for phosphodiesterases in stroke pathogenesis

Factors predicting in-hospital mortality in patients with cirrhosis hospitalized with gastro-esophageal variceal hemorrhage.

AIM: To identify factors at the time of admission that predict in-hospital mortality in patients with gastro-esophageal variceal hemorrhage. METHODS: Case records of patients admitted with gastro-esophageal variceal hemorrhage between January 1998 and October 2003 were retrospectively analyzed. Relevant clinical and laboratory parameters and their relationship to mortality, were studied. Clinical parameters assessed included Child-Pugh class, ascites, portosystemic encephalopathy (PSE) and occurrence of rebleed within 24 hours of esophago-gastroduodenoscopy. The laboratory parameters assessed were: hemoglobin, prothrombin time, serum bilirubin, creatinine and albumin. RESULTS: Of the 343 patients admitted during the study period, 30 (8.7%) died in hospital. Serum bilirubin (2.4 versus 1.6 mg/dL) and serum creatinine (2.1 vs 1.1 mg/dL) levels were higher among non-survivors than among survivors. Non-survivors were also more likely to suffer from PSE (53%) than survivors (17%), while re-bleeding within 24 hours of endoscopy occurred in 40% and 5% of these groups, respectively. On multivariate analysis, serum creatinine \u3e 1.5 mg/dL at the time of admission (p \u3c 0.001), serum bilirubin \u3e 3 mg/dL (p \u3c 0.001), presence of PSE (p = 0.003) and rebleed within 24 hours of endoscopy (p \u3c 0.001) were significant predictors of mortality. CONCLUSION: Serum creatinine and bilirubin levels, presence of PSE and re-bleeding within 24 hours of initial endoscopy are independent predictors of mortality in patients with gastro-esophageal variceal bleeding