Endogenous digoxin-immunoreactive substance in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies

PubMedID: 7905428AIMS: To determine the potential use of a digoxin-immunoreactive substance in the prediction of preeclampsia, to study the relationship between serum levels of this substance and gestational age, and to evaluate the correlation between this substance and blood pressure findings in preeclamptic pregnancies. METHODS: Serum digoxin-immunoreactive substance concentrations were measured by RIA (double antibody, radioimmunoassay) in normotensive (n = 14) and preeclamptic (n = 17) pregnant women in their third trimesters. Statistical evaluation was performed with the Mann-Whitney U-test and correlation-regression analysis. RESULTS: The mean (± S.E.) digoxin-immunoreactive substance levels in the normal and preeclamptic patients were 0. 29 ± 0.06 and 0.31 ± 0.05 ng/ml, respectively, the slightly higher level in the hypertensive group being statistically nonsignificant. Serum digoxin-immunoreactive substance levels did not demonstrate good correlation with gestational age and systolic blood pressure in preeclamptic pregnancies. CONCLUSIONS: An endogenous digoxin-immunoreactive substance is present in the sera of third trimester pregnant women, but it does not contribute to the pathogenesis or prediction of preeclampsia. © 1993

Electromechanical effects of protamine and verapamil in rat papillary muscle

The electromechanical effects of protamine sulfate and the calcium channel blocker verapamil on rat cardiac and skeletal muscles were studied using isolated left ventricular papillary muscle and phrenic nerve- hemidiaphragm preparations. Protamine produced significant decreases in isometric force in the cardiac tissue and contracture developed at concentrations of 40 and 80 mg · L-1. Isometric force also decreased significantly with verapamil at concentrations of 0.757 and 7.57 mg · L-1. Both drugs caused significant decreases in the contractile force of hemidiaphragm muscle when the tissue was stimulated indirectly. Protamine and verapamil caused the resting membrane potential and the amplitude of the action potential to decrease in cardiac tissue and overshoot failed to develop with 80 mg · L-1 of protamine or 7.57 mg · L-1 of verapamil. These bioelectrical changes developed in a dose-dependent manner. It was concluded that protamine had a similar effect to that of calcium channel blockers and it may act through a reduction of cellular calcium. This effect on cardiac tissue may be mediated through the sarcolemmal ion pumps or channels, leading to changes in calcium homeostasis

Analysis of non-traumatic elderly patient presentations to the emergency department [Acil servise başvuran travma dişi geriatrik olgularin demografik özelliklerinin incelenmesi]

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the demographic and clinical outcomes of elderly patients that presented to the emergency department (ED). Methods: Patients that were 65 years and older that presented to the Mersin University Medicine Faculty ED between December 1, 2011 and November 30, 2012 made up the study sample. From this pool of potential study subjects, trauma patients were excluded and then 10% of the remaining patients were randomly selected to form the final study sample. A retrospective chart review was performed. Results: A total of 949 elderly ED patients were studied of which 53.7% were between the ages of 65 to 74 years, 37.6% were 75 to 84 years, and 8.6% were 85 years and older. Compared to elderly patients that were 85 years and older, patients in the 65-74 years and 75-84 years age groups both had significantly greater usage of antiplatelet drugs (p=0.029) and medications that treat neurological disorders (p=0.014). From the ED, cardiology was the most commonly consulted at 15.2% followed by internal medicine at 13.7% and pulmonary medicine at 7.4%. Moreover, the number of consultations significantly increased with older age (p=0.003). For elderly patients that were discharged, the average length of stay in the ED was 162.7 minutes, whereas patients that were admitted into the hospital stayed in the ED over an average of 220.6 minutes (p<0.001). Patients 85 years and older that were admitted into the hospital from the ED were found to have a hospital stay that was 4 ± 6.6 days longer than the other age groups (p<0.001). Conclusions: Elderly patients presenting to the ED tend to be medically complicated, and so it is imperative that health providers are adequately trained and experienced in delivering medical care to geriatric populations

SHREC'16 track: Shape retrieval of low-cost RGB-D captures

RGB-D cameras allow to capture digital representations of objects in an easy and inexpensive way. Such technology enables ordinary users to capture everyday object into digital 3D representations. In this context, we present a track for the Shape Retrieval Contest, which focus on objects digitized using the latest version of Microsoft Kinect, namely, Kinect One. The proposed, track encompasses a dataset of two hundred objects and respective classification.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio