Fluctuations in Serum magnesium and Systemic Arterial Blood Pressures during the Menstrual Cycle in young reproductive women

Introduction: The menstrual cycle involves a sequence of structural, functional, and hormonal changes in the reproductive system. This is linked and controlled by cyclical fluctuations in the levels of FSH, LH, estrogen, and progesterone. Because of these cyclical fluctuations, there might also be associated cyclical changes of magnesium and systemic arterial blood pressures during the menstrual cycle. Purpose: To assess the changes in serum magnesium level and systemic arterial blood pressures during the menstrual cycle in young reproductive women. Methodology: the sample population is 40 apparently healthy young reproductive-aged 18- 25years female students from the University of Medicine, Magway participated in this study. Systemic arterial blood pressures were measured by indirect method. The serum magnesium level was measured by spectrophotometry. These measurements were done in the early follicular phase (EF), the peri-ovulatory phase (PO), and the midluteal phase (ML) of the menstrual cycle. The serum magnesium levels were significantly (p <0.001) lower, and the systolic blood pressures were significantly higher (p <0.05) in the PO than the EF and the ML. In the EF, there was a significant negative correlation between serum magnesium level and diastolic blood pressure (r= - 0.374, p <0.05) and mean arterial pressure (r = -0.354, p < 0.05) but no significant correlation with systolic blood pressure. In the PO, there was no significant correlation between serum magnesium level and systemic arterial blood pressures. In the ML, there was significant negative correlation between serum magnesium level and systolic blood pressure (r = -0.651, p <0.001), diastolic blood pressure (r = -0.607, p <0.001), and mean arterial pressure (r = -0.661, p <0.001). Conclusion: The study concludes that serum magnesium level has a negative effect on blood pressure changes and the blood pressure-lowering effect of magnesium. These changes are related to the fluctuation of estrogen levels during the menstrual cycle. KEYWORDS: Serum magnesium, systemic arterial blood pressures, menstrual cycle reproductive syste

Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Agriculture: Cases from Southeast Asia

Climate change has become apparent and been threatening more and more in Southeast Asia. Its impacts on agriculture and adaptation strategies at household level in farming systems areas are explored. The study focused on better understanding of climate change impacts and adaptation practices in four villages of Myanmar and Cambodia. Household questionnaire survey, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were used for data collection at household and community level supplemented with secondary data. Dry Zone farmers of Myanmar reported increase in crop diversity while in the Kampong Speu province in Cambodia, the number of rice growing farmers increased together with cultivation of other crops, such as cassava, palm fruit, sugarcane, mangoes, watermelons and vegetables. Farmers changed their cultivation practices as adaptation strategies in various ways: change in cropping calendar, crop varieties, machinery for cultivation practice, and change in area for cultivation. The shift in cropping calendar has occurred from two weeks to one month. Diverse strategies were reported in adapting to water scarcity in agriculture, such as system of rice intensification and water pumping. Farmers also adopted strategies for coping with declining soil productivity. These include animal manure application, compost making and application, crop rotation and crop residues retention. In particular, Dry Zone farmers prefer to apply animal manure rather than other practices because of its vast benefits, such as buffering capacity, effectiveness for plant growth and cheaper price. Cooperative actions are becoming increasingly needed when an individual could not afford adaptation strategies. However, barriers to adaptation strategies are to be reduced to promote climate adaptive practices in agriculture

Bites by Russell's viper (Vipera russelli siamensis) in Burma: haemostatic, vascular, and renal disturbances and response to treatment.

Of 123 patients with proved Russell's viper bite, 28% showed no evidence of envenoming, 28% had local swelling alone, but 44% had systemic envenoming manifested by incoagulable blood (100% of those admitted before treatment), thrombocytopenia (26%), spontaneous systemic bleeding (20%), hypotension (35%), evidence of increased capillary permeability (24%), and oliguria (44%). Patients with systemic envenoming usually had more local swelling than those without, but 5 had no local signs. Snake length correlated with the amount of local swelling, but snakes causing systemic envenoming were no longer than those causing local or no envenoming. Burma Pharmaceutical Industry monospecific antivenom was rapidly effective in restoring blood coagulability but did not prevent the development of renal failure even when given within 4 h of the bite. Hypotension responded to volume expanders (11/19 cases) and dopamine (6/7 cases) but not to naloxone (0/3) or high-dose methylprednisolone (0/5). The 10 deaths (8%) were attributed to hypotension, pituitary haemorrhage, and renal failure

Contribution of focal haemorrhage and microvascular fibrin deposition to fatal envenoming by Russell's viper (Vipera russelli siamensis) in Burma.

In Burma, clinicopathological studies were carried out in three young farmers who died 15, 52 and 36 h after being bitten by Russell's vipers. Clinical features included local swelling, spontaneous systemic bleeding, defibrination, shock, cardiac arrhythmia, hypoglycaemia, coma and oliguria. On admission to hospital, 15, 48 and 21 h after the bites, serum venom antigen concentrations ranged from 50 to 130 ng/ml. Autopsies revealed widespread congestion and bleeding in the lungs, gastrointestinal and renal tracts, adrenals, heart, brain and anterior pituitary. There was histopathological evidence of focal haemorrhage and fibrin deposition at the site of the bite and in the pituitary, lungs and kidneys and acute tubular necrosis. Deposition of fibrin microthrombi results from the action of venom procoagulants. Shock was attributed to increased capillary permeability, revealed clinically by conjunctival oedema. Acute pituitary/adrenal failure in one case was explained by fibrin deposition and haemorrhage in the anterior pituitary--resembling Sheehan's syndrome. Acute tubular necrosis resulted from ischaemia caused by fibrin deposition and to prerenal factors. An intractable cardiac tachyarrhythmia may have been caused by subendocardial and myocardial haemorrhages

The January 11, 2018, Mw 6.0 Bago-Yoma, Myanmar earthquake : a shallow thrust event within the deforming Bago-Yoma range

On January 11, 2018 (18:26 UTC), a Mw 6.0 earthquake occurred approximately 30 km west of the Sagaing Fault in the Bago-Yoma Range (BYR). Using a local broadband seismic network and regional seismic stations, we refine the locations and moment tensors of the earthquake sequence. We relocate 98 earthquake epicenters and determine the focal mechanism and centroid depth of the mainshock and 20 aftershocks with Mw > 4. The relocated epicenters cluster in a NW-SE direction that is consistent with the strike of the mainshock fault plane solution and the slip distribution derived from ALOS-2 interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations. Most of the aftershocks have a pure thrust focal mechanism similar to the mainshock, except for four strike-slip aftershocks. The refined locations and moment tensors of the thrust events clearly delineate a fault dipping ∼40° to the southwest at a depth range of 3–7 km, indicating that the earthquake sequence ruptured a previously unmapped, active fault. We interpret the earthquake sequence to be associated with pre-existing faults within the BYR anticlinorium. This earthquake sequence and historical seismicity indicate that the upper crust of the BYR is highly stressed, resulting in ongoing distributed deformation between the oblique Rakhine megathrust and the dextral Sagaing Fault. The seismic hazard posed by these active faults has been increasing with the development of infrastructure such as dams within the BYR. Our study highlights the need for high-resolution earthquake source parameter and strong ground motion attenuation studies for further understanding of the neotectonics of Myanmar and its related seismic hazard.Ministry of Education (MOE)National Research Foundation (NRF)Published versionThis research study was supported by the Earth Observatory of Singapore via its funding from the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence initiative

Late Middle Eocene primate from Myanmar and the initial anthropoid colonization of Africa.

International audienceReconstructing the origin and early evolutionary history of anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) is a current focus of paleoprimatology. Although earlier hypotheses frequently supported an African origin for anthropoids, recent discoveries of older and phylogenetically more basal fossils in China and Myanmar indicate that the group originated in Asia. Given the Oligocene-Recent history of African anthropoids, the colonization of Africa by early anthropoids hailing from Asia was a decisive event in primate evolution. However, the fossil record has so far failed to constrain the nature and timing of this pivotal event. Here we describe a fossil primate from the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation of Myanmar, Afrasia djijidae gen. et sp. nov., that is remarkably similar to, yet dentally more primitive than, the roughly contemporaneous North African anthropoid Afrotarsius. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Afrasia and Afrotarsius are sister taxa within a basal anthropoid clade designated as the infraorder Eosimiiformes. Current knowledge of eosimiiform relationships and their distribution through space and time suggests that members of this clade dispersed from Asia to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene, shortly before their first appearance in the African fossil record. Crown anthropoids and their nearest fossil relatives do not appear to be specially related to Afrotarsius, suggesting one or more additional episodes of dispersal from Asia to Africa. Hystricognathous rodents, anthracotheres, and possibly other Asian mammal groups seem to have colonized Africa at roughly the same time or shortly after anthropoids gained their first toehold there