The progression of chronic renal failure: An unmet challenge

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Asthma diagnosis and treatment - 1012. The efficacy of budesonide in the treatmetn of acute asthma in children: a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial.

Background Current evidence suggests that inhaled glucocorticoids (IGC) have a more profound topical none genomic effect on bronchial airways as compared to systemic glucocorticoids. The value of adding IGC to current therapy of acute asthma is not well established. Methods We conducted a double-blind, randomized, two-arm, parallel groups, controlled clinical trial to compare the addition of budesonide 1500 mcg or placebo (normal saline) to standard acute asthma treatment (albuterol and ipratropium bromide) administered in 3 divided mixed doses within 1 hour in the emergency department (ED). Children 2-12 years of age with moderate or severe acute asthma, scoring 8-15/15 on a well-validated scoring system were included. Both groups received a single dose of prednisone 2 mg/kg/day (max. 60 mg) at the beginning of therapy. The primary outcome was admission rate within 2-4 hours from starting therapy. Results A total of 723 children were enrolled in the study over 17 months duration, of whom 139 were allowed to re-enroll and be randomized to constitute 906 randomization assignments (458 on the treatment group and 448 on the control group); with baseline mean + SD asthma score of 10.63 + 1.73; age 5.52 + 2.76 years; 35% girls; 30.8% (16.5%) with baseline severe asthma score of ≥12 (≥ 13). Statistical Analysis plan allowed for the potential dependency in response due to reenrollments of a subset of children, using Generalized Linear Mixed Modeling (GLMM) techniques. Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics were not significantly different between the two randomized groups. Seventy-five out of 458 (16.4%) of the treatment group vs. 82/448 (18.3%) of the control group were admitted, (OR 0.85, CI: 0.59-1.23, p-value=0.39). Among the severe asthmatics with baseline score ≥13, treatment vs. placebo group, GLMM adjusted admission rate was 30% vs. 47%, indicating a 17% difference in admission rate in favor of the treatment group (adjusted OR of 0.49, CI: 0.25-0.95; p-value= 0.035) that indicated a 51% reduction in the risk of admission for the treatment vs. control group. Conclusions Children with baseline severe asthma score ≥13 who were treated with budesonide had a significant reduction in their admission rate

Implementation of Crumb Rubber Modified Binder for Qatar Local Roads Construction Projects

The continuous increase in the pile up of used vehicle tires in Qatar poses a challenge contributing to potential environmental pollution problems. The magnitude of this problem can be drastically reduced by processing and recycling these tire wastes into crumb rubber, obtained from grinding up whole scrap tires, and incorporating into conventional asphalt binder to produce Crumb Rubber Modified Binder (CRMB) for asphalt mixes used in pavement construction. Asphalt mixtures which incorporates crumb rubber have been used in different parts of the world, notably USA since the 1960s, ostensibly to solve the associated environmental problems, but with added advantages of improving the overall performance of the asphalt pavement in terms of rutting and crack resistance, increased flexibility and durability. In 2018, the Roads Project Department (RPD) in collaboration with the Quality and Safety Department (QSD) of the Public Works Authority (PWA) in Qatar, undertook a demonstration project which utilized CRMB in the wearing course, in lieu of Polymer Modified Binder (PMB) originally proposed. Preliminary results from this project showed an encouraging prospect for adopting Crumb Rubber Modified Binder technology on local road projects, and eventually on all other roads in Qatar. Consequently, it became imperative for a tentative specification to be quickly put together for use by suppliers and contractors to achieve this goal. The preliminary results of this demonstration project are promising and the ensuing crumb rubber and CRMB guidelines have been useful

Modification of chitin as substrates for chitinase

Enzymes are able to bind to their substrates specifically at the active site. The proximity and orientation of the substrates strongly increase the likelihood that productive E–S complexes will arise. Treated chitin (powder or flake) is more efficient than crystalline chitin. This is because the latter is less active due to its insolubility. The structure of treated chitin is opened; this facilitates its interaction with the enzyme. The purpose of this research was to create a kind of modified chitin and study the characterization of the different types of chitin including functional groups by IR spectrophotometer, pore size, surface area and crystallinity by X-Ray diffraction. Chitin from shrimp shell was modified into colloidal, bead, amorphous and superfine chitin. The results of the IR spectra of colloidal and bead chitin showed a similar pattern with chitin powder; they peaked at 3447 and 3113 cm-1 (OH and NH2 groups), 1645 cm-1 (amide groups N-H) and 1071 cm-1 (group C-O). Superfine and amorphous chitin had similar absorbance with powder chitin but appeared to peak in the fingerprint region. Characterization of physical properties based on the pore size and surface area of powder, colloidal, superfine, amorphous and bead chitin changed the pore radius of each type of chitin due to the treatment of swelling. Crystallinity showed that specific diffractogram pattern in the three main peaks 2q was 9.5, 19.5 and 26 with varying intensity. Chitinase activity assay using modified types of chitin substrate had higher values than chitin powder. The highest activity was in amorphous chitin with values of 1.858 U/mL. This is because it has chitin chain and the rearrangement of its structure was more open, facilitating its interaction with enzyme.Keywords: Chitin modified, chitinase, substrate.Abbreviation: SDS, Sodium dodecyl sulfate; Ct, chitin powder; Cc, colloidal chitin; Sf, superfine; Cb, bead; Ca, amorphous

Evaluation on Cooling Energy Load with Varied Envelope Design for High-Rise Residential Buildings in Malaysia

With the development of the economy in the recent years, Malaysia is maintaining a high economic growth and therefore, its energy consumption increases dramatically. Residential buildings are characterized by being envelope-load dominated buildings, hence are greatly influenced by the outside climatic conditions. Due to the hot humid climate of Malaysia, air conditioning system accounts for more than 45% of the total electricity used in the residential sector which is required to remove substantial amount of gained heat due to poor thermal envelope performance. This paper uses Ecotect software to analyze the impact of building envelope design on energy cooling load for residential building in Penang, Malaysia, which include area ratio of window to floor, exterior wall thermal insulation, and several kinds of shading system. This paper describes an integrated passive design approach to reduce the cooling requirement for high-rise apartments through an improved building envelope design. Comparing with the other passive strategies investigated in this paper, the results indicated that exterior wall thermal insulation is the best strategy to decrease both annual cooling energy load and peak cooling load which achieved a reduction of 10.2% and 26.3% respectively. However, the other passive strategies applied also have some marginal effect on decreasing the cooling load

Trace elements can influence the physical properties of tooth enamel

In previous studies, we showed that the size of apatite nanocrystals in tooth enamel can influence its physical properties. This important discovery raised a new question; which factors are regulating the size of these nanocrystals? Trace elements can affect crystallographic properties of synthetic apatite, therefore this study was designed to investigate how trace elements influence enamel’s crystallographic properties and ultimately its physical properties. The concentration of trace elements in tooth enamel was determined for 38 extracted human teeth using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The following trace elements were detected: Al, K, Mg, S, Na, Zn, Si, B, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se and Ti. Simple and stepwise multiple regression was used to identify the correlations between trace elements concentration in enamel and its crystallographic structure, hardness, resistance to crack propagation, shade lightness and carbonate content. The presence of some trace elements in enamel was correlated with the size (Pb, Ti, Mn) and lattice parameters (Se, Cr, Ni) of apatite nanocrystals. Some trace elements such as Ti was significantly correlated with tooth crystallographic structure and consequently with hardness and shade lightness. We conclude that the presence of trace elements in enamel could influence its physical properties. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-499) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users