The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori carrier rates among the healthy blood donors in Hong Kong

A serological assay was employed in this study to assess the Helicobacter pylori carrier rates among the healthy blood donors (all Chinese) in Hong Kong. The commercial kit for detecting anti-H. pylori antibody titres was found to have a sensitivity of 84% and a specificity of 85% by using the histochemistry results as the gold standard. Elevated anti-H. pylori antibody titres were observed in 42.4%, 53.2% and 72.2% of the healthy blood donors of age below 20, 21 to 30 and 31 to 40 years respectively. This indicates a steady rise of H. pylori carrier rates with age. The overall H. pylori prevalence rate was 54.9%. The positivity of H. pylori in teenagers appeared to be double that reported in Western countries. Whether this is related to the younger age of peptic ulcer presentation in Hong Kong compared with Western countries is not known. However, there was no significant difference of the H. pylori rates between males and females of each age group although a male predominance has been well established for peptic ulcer in Hong Kong.published_or_final_versio

Effect of sucralfate on gastric mucosal blood flow in rats

Sucralfate possesses site protective and cytoprotective actions and heals ulcers effectively, but its effect on gastric mucosal blood flow is unknown. Using an ex vivo gastric chamber preparation, we studied the effect of sucralfate on gastric mucosal blood flow in rats by laser doppler flowmetry. Under both fasting and fed states, measurements of gastric mucosal blood flow and damage were made in rats after topical application of absolute ethanol alone or after pretreatment with sucralfate. Gastric mucosal damage was assessed by measuring the total area of haemorrhagic mucosal lesions. Ethanol induced gastric mucosal lesions were significantly less with sucralfate pretreatment than without (p less than 0.008). Mucosal blood flow significantly fell after ethanol application (p less than 0.001). The fall was significantly less in fed than in fasted rats (p less than 0.05), and after pretreatment with sucralfate 100 mg or 200 mg than without in both fasted (p less than 0.0008 and 0.00001, respectively) and fed (p less than 0.002 and 0.001, respectively) rats. Graded doses of sucralfate (25-400 mg) resulted in an increase in gastric mucosal blood flow in a dose dependent manner (r = 0.731, p less than 0.001). In conclusion that sucralfate increases gastric mucosal blood flow in rats and lessens the fall in blood flow in rats treated with ethanol, and this action may contribute to its protection against the vascular damage of mucosa by ethanol.published_or_final_versio

Effect of sucralfate on gastric mucosal blood flow in rats

Sucralfate possesses site protective and cytoprotective actions and heals ulcers effectively, but its effect on gastric mucosal blood flow is unknown. Using an ex vivo gastric chamber preparation, we studied the effect of sucralfate on gastric mucosal blood flow in rats by laser doppler flowmetry. Under both fasting and fed states, measurements of gastric mucosal blood flow and damage were made in rats after topical application of absolute ethanol alone or after pretreatment with sucralfate. Gastric mucosal damage was assessed by measuring the total area of haemorrhagic mucosal lesions. Ethanol induced gastric mucosal lesions were significantly less with sucralfate pretreatment than without (p less than 0.008). Mucosal blood flow significantly fell after ethanol application (p less than 0.001). The fall was significantly less in fed than in fasted rats (p less than 0.05), and after pretreatment with sucralfate 100 mg or 200 mg than without in both fasted (p less than 0.0008 and 0.00001, respectively) and fed (p less than 0.002 and 0.001, respectively) rats. Graded doses of sucralfate (25-400 mg) resulted in an increase in gastric mucosal blood flow in a dose dependent manner (r = 0.731, p less than 0.001). In conclusion that sucralfate increases gastric mucosal blood flow in rats and lessens the fall in blood flow in rats treated with ethanol, and this action may contribute to its protection against the vascular damage of mucosa by ethanol.published_or_final_versio

Human papillomavirus status in southern Chinese women

1. The overall and type-specific human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence differed between Hong Kong and Guangzhou healthy women. The prevalence of HPV was significantly higher in Guangzhou than Hong Kong women. Younger women had significantly higher risk of HPV infection. 2. HPV16 remained the most common type detected in both regions; the frequency increased with increasing disease severity. The prevalence of HPV58 and HPV52 was relatively high in women with normal cervix and precancerous lesions.published_or_final_versio

Total flavonoid fraction of the Herba epimedii extract suppresses urinary calcium excretion and improves bone properties in ovariectomised mice

2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter