Evolutionary Computation in Coded Communications: an Implementation of Viterbi Algorithm

Non

Calcium Channel Blockers

Vasospasm refers to a condition in which an arterial spasm leads to vasoconstriction. This can lead to tissue ischemia and necrosis. Coronary vasospasm can lead to significant cardiac ischemia associated with symptomatic ischemia or cardiac arrhythmia. Cerebral vasospasm is an essential source of morbidity and mortality in subarachnoid hemorrhage patients. It can happen within 3–15 days with a peak incidence at 7 days after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Calcium channel blockers are widely used in the treatment of hypertension, angina pectoris, cardiac arrhythmias, and other disorders like SAH vasospasm related and Migraine. The specific treatment of cerebral vasospasm helps improving cerebral blood flow to avoid delayed ischemic neurologic deficit by reducing ICP, optimizing the rate of cerebral oxygen demand, and enhancing cerebral blood flow with one of the following approaches: indirect pharmacological protection of brain tissue or direct mechanical dilation of the vasospastic vessel. Nimodipine is the standard of care in aneurysmal SAH patients. Nimodipine 60 mg every 4 hours can be used for all patients with aneurysmal SAH once the diagnosis is made for 21 days

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Philadelphia-Negative Myeloproliferative Neoplasms.

Philadelphia-negative (Ph-) myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are a group of hematopoietic malignancies identified by clonal proliferation of blood cell lineages and encompasses polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF). The clinical and laboratory features of Philadelphia-negative MPNs are similar, making them difficult to diagnose, especially in the preliminary stages. Because treatment goals and progression risk differ amongst MPNs, accurate classification and prognostication are critical for optimal management. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms provide a plethora of possible tools to clinicians in general, and particularly in the field of malignant hematology, to better improve diagnosis, prognosis, therapy planning, and fundamental knowledge. In this review, we summarize the literature discussing the application of AI and ML algorithms in patients with diagnosed or suspected Philadelphia-negative MPNs. A literature search was conducted on PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science databases and yielded 125 studies, out of which 17 studies were included after screening. The included studies demonstrated the potential for the practical use of ML and AI in the diagnosis, prognosis, and genomic landscaping of patients with Philadelphia-negative MPNs

Phenolic compounds, antioxidant and antibacterial activities of the methanolic extracts of Euphorbia resinifera and Euphorbia echinus

Euphorbia resinifera and Euphorbia echinus are Moroccan endemic plants that are used in traditional medicine for their therapeutic properties. The aim of this research is to study the phenolic compounds content, the antioxidant and the antibacterial activities of two Euphorbiaceae species: Euphorbia resinifera and Euphorbia echinus, which were collected in Béni-Mellal and Agadir regions, respectively. The current study involved determining the concentration of phenolics, flavonoids, and tannins of our spieces using spectrophotometry. To test the antioxidant activity of the two methanolic extracts, the DPPH° technique was used.Also, the antibacterial activity against three microorganisms was tested in vitro. The quantification of phenolic compounds revealed that Euphorbia resiniferamethanolic extract had the highest concentration of phenolics. The methanolic extract of Euphorbia resinifera and Euphorbia echinus showed a higher antioxidant activity than Ascorbic acid.The antibacterial analysis showed a positive correlation between antioxidant activity and total phenolic content. Our extracts exhibited antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis. In contrast, it had no inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli

Development and validation of liquid chromatography method for determination of glimepiride in presence of (Vimto®) soft drinks in rats: application to pharmacokinetics studies

Context: Diet and beverages are thought to have notable effects on drugs. Recently, this relationship has received significant consideration. Aims: To develop and validate a simple, rapid, and sensitive method for the determination of glimepiride in rat serum. This will be performed using high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Potential pharmacokinetic interactions between glimepiride and the soft drink, Vimto, will also be investigated in the serum of experimental rats. Materials and Methods: HPLC-MS/MS was constructed and clarithromycin was used as an internal standard. Results: The method was validated in terms of linearity, precision, accuracy, stability, and system suitability parameters. The method was found to be satisfactory and suitable for the determination of glimepiride. The precision of glimepiride was high (coefficient of variation, CV% <15%), the accuracy over all 3 days of validation was within the accepted criteria. Glimepiride peak serum concentration (Cmax) was 126.01ng/mL and was reached within 1h (Tmax) of administration. Mean area under curve (AUC) was 964.70ng/mL and was reached within 24h of administration. The Vimto soft drink significantly (P < 0.050) reduced glimepiride peak serum concentration to 57.87ng/mL and was reached within 2h of administration. AUC was significantly reduced to 335.04 ngFNx01h/mL (P < 0.050). Conclusion: Glimepiride pharmacokinetic parameters such as Cmax and AUC were significantly affected by the Vimto soft drink. Therefore, this study developed a simple, rapid, and sensitive method for validation and determination of the effects of soft drinks on drugs using the LC-MS/MS method

Ear recognition via sparse coding of local features

An efficient scheme for human ear recognition is presented. This scheme comprises three main phases. First, the ear image is decomposed into a pyramid of progressively downgraded images, which allows the local patterns of the ear to be captured. Second, histograms of local features are extracted from each image in the pyramid and then concatenated to shape one single descriptor of the image. Third, the procedure is finalized by using decision making based on sparse coding. Experiments conducted on two datasets, composed of 125 and 221 subjects, respectively, have demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed strategy as compared to various existing methods. For instance, scores of 96.27% and 96.93% have been obtained for the datasets, respectively

Effectiveness of therapeutic heparin versus prophylactic heparin on death, mechanical ventilation, or intensive care unit admission in moderately ill patients with covid-19 admitted to hospital: RAPID randomised clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of therapeutic heparin compared with prophylactic heparin among moderately ill patients with covid-19 admitted to hospital wards. DESIGN Randomised controlled, adaptive, open label clinical trial. SETTING 28 hospitals in Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and US. PARTICIPANTS 465 adults admitted to hospital wards with covid-19 and increased D-dimer levels were recruited between 29 May 2020 and 12 April 2021 and were randomly assigned to therapeutic dose heparin (n=228) or prophylactic dose heparin (n=237). INTERVENTIONS Therapeutic dose or prophylactic dose heparin (low molecular weight or unfractionated heparin), to be continued until hospital discharge, day 28, or death. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcome was a composite of death, invasive mechanical ventilation, non-invasive mechanical ventilation, or admission to an intensive care unit, assessed up to 28 days. The secondary outcomes included all cause death, the composite of all cause death or any mechanical ventilation, and venous thromboembolism. Safety outcomes included major bleeding. Outcomes were blindly adjudicated. RESULTS The mean age of participants was 60 years; 264 (56.8%) were men and the mean body mass index was 30.3 kg/m2. At 28 days, the primary composite outcome had occurred in 37/228 patients (16.2%) assigned to therapeutic heparin and 52/237 (21.9%) assigned to prophylactic heparin (odds ratio 0.69, 95% confidence interval 0.43 to 1.10; P=0.12). Deaths occurred in four patients (1.8%) assigned to therapeutic heparin and 18 patients (7.6%) assigned to prophylactic heparin (0.22, 0.07 to 0.65; P=0.006). The composite of all cause death or any mechanical ventilation occurred in 23 patients (10.1%) assigned to therapeutic heparin and 38 (16.0%) assigned to prophylactic heparin (0.59, 0.34 to 1.02; P=0.06). Venous thromboembolism occurred in two patients (0.9%) assigned to therapeutic heparin and six (2.5%) assigned to prophylactic heparin (0.34, 0.07 to 1.71; P=0.19). Major bleeding occurred in two patients (0.9%) assigned to therapeutic heparin and four (1.7%) assigned to prophylactic heparin (0.52, 0.09 to 2.85; P=0.69). CONCLUSIONS In moderately ill patients with covid-19 and increased D-dimer levels admitted to hospital wards, therapeutic heparin was not significantly associated with a reduction in the primary outcome but the odds of death at 28 days was decreased. The risk of major bleeding appeared low in this trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04362085

Adding colchicine to tocilizumab in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia: An open-label randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Colchicine acts upstream in the cytokines cascade by inhibiting the nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome while interleukin 6 (IL-6) receptor antagonists, such as tocilizumab, block the end result of the cytokines cascade. Hence, adding colchicine to tocilizumab with the aim of blocking the early and end products of the cytokines cascade, might reduce the risk of developing cytokine storm. Methods and analysis: We aim to conduct an open-label randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adding colchicine to tocilizumab among patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia to reduce the rate of invasive mechanical ventilation and mortality. We will include patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia who received tocilizumab according to our local guidelines. Enrolled patients will be then randomized in 1:1 to colchicine versus no colchicine. Patients will be followed up for 30 days. The primary outcome is the rate of invasive mechanical ventilation and will be determined using Cox proportional hazard model. Discussion: Given colchicine's ease of use, low cost, good safety profile, and having different anti-inflammatory mechanism of action than other IL-6 blockade, colchicine might serve as a potential anti-inflammatory agent among patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. This study will provide valuable insights on the use of colchicine in severe COVID-19 when added to IL-6 antagonists. Ethics and dissemination: The Medical Research Center and Institutional Review Board at Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar approved the study protocol (MRC-01-21-299). Results of the analysis will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. 2022 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. All rights reserved.Scopu