Study of quality of life and its determinants in patients after urinary stone fragmentation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study was designed to evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients who had undergone lithotripsy for treatment of urinary stones and to identify factors that significantly affect the HRQOL of these patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A comparative cross-sectional study was performed at the main university and main Ministry of health hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All patients admitted to the urology service and who underwent lithotripsy for urinary stones during a 9-month period were included in the study. An observation period of 3-15 months following the last treatment was allowed before patients completed the QOL questionnaire. Information on socio-demographic, and medical characteristics, and number and type of lithotripsies were collected. The Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36-item survey (SF-36) was used to assess HRQoL. For comparison, the HRQoL in an equal number of healthy individuals was investigated; multivariate analysis of variance was used for comparisons between groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared with healthy subjects, lithotripsy patients had significantly higher mean scores in the different subscales of the SF-36 questionnaire such as physical functioning, vitality, role-physical, role-emotional and mental health, indicating a better HRQOL. Compared with patients who underwent ureteroscopic or extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsies, those who underwent percutaneous lithotripsy had significantly worse mean scores for all the SF-36 scales, except for body pain. Factors impacting HRQOL of the patients were age, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and stone characteristics such as localization (in the kidney) and recurrence (multiple lithotripsies).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Post-lithotripsy, patients have a favorable HRQOL compared with healthy volunteers. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm these results owing to the inherent limitations of the cross-sectional design and backward analysis of this study.</p

The Foundation of the Right Bank in Wadi-Zarat Dam

The geotechnical engineering characteristics of a calcareous crust formation are evaluated in order to determine the feasibility of its stability under the right bank of Wadi Zarat Dam. The crust is a rock similar, extremely heterogeneous, material with location of collapsing susceptibility when saturated. The formation is caverned and locally very permeable and can present a risk of losing the reservoir water, dissolution, settlement, and piping. In this case study, several alternatives to treat the crust formation are presented, discussed, and compared. Rational justifications for the adopted solution are given and the predicted performance during operation of the dam is provided in order to be compared with the observed behaviour

In vitro antibacterial activity of Pituranthos scoparius from Algeria

Traditional medicine has a key role in health care worldwide; the search for antimicrobial agents from plants has been a growing interest in the last few decades. In the present study, antibacterial properties of Pituranthos scoparius were explored. Aerial and root parts of the plant were extracted with a series of solvent of varying polarity including water, methanol, acetone and chloroform. The antibacterial activity of extracts was assessed by agar disc diffusion method and broth microdilution method against 14 Gram positive and Gram negative pathogenic bacteria. The extracts from the aerial parts have shown a better antibacterial activity than the root extracts. The acetone aerial part extract showed the highest activity (about 22 mm inhibition zone) against Proteus mirabilis, and a MIC of 1.04 mg/mL against Salmonella Typhimurium, followed by the methanolic aerial part extract (about 15mm inhibition zone), with a MIC of 1.56 against Enterococcus faecalis. The values of MIC obtained show that the extracts have weak activities since all MIC values are greater than 1 mg/ml, comparing with the references antibiotics. The findings of the study indicate that Pituranthos scoparius could be a new source of antibacterial natural drugs. In vivo studies remain necessary to ensure the antibacterial efficacy of the plant.Keywords: Pituranthos scoparius, medicinal plants, extracts, disk diffusion method, minimum inhibitory concentration

DESIGN AND ELECTROMAGNETIC MODELING OF INTEGRATED LC FILTER IN A BUCK CONVERTER

This paper presents the design and electromagnetic modeling ‎of a new structure of integrated ‎low-pass LC filter in a buck converter. This micro-filter consists of a planar circular coil ‎placed between two Mn-Zn ferrite substrates. Mn-Zn ferrite has been chosen because of its high permeability and permittivity. In this micro-filter substrates act not only as a magnetic core but also as a capacitor. A modelling of the electromagnetic and electric behavior of the integrated filter, we have simulated with the help of the ‎software PSIM 9.0 on the equivalent electrical circuit of the dimensioned filter. A ‎visualization of the different electromagnetic phenomena that appear during the ‎operation of the filter is determined in 3D space dimension using the finite element ‎method.

On exact controllability of linear time delay systems of neutral type

The problem of exact null controllability is considered for linear neutral type systems with distributed delay. A characterization of this problem is given. The minimal time of controllability is precised. The results are based on the analysis of the Riesz basis property of eigenspaces in Hilbert space. Recent results on the moment problem and properties of exponential families are used

Salvia fruticosa Induces Vasorelaxation in Rat Isolated Thoracic Aorta: Role of the PI3K/Akt/eNOS/NO/cGMP Signaling Pathway

Salvia fruticosa (SF) Mill. is traditionally used for its antihypertensive actions. However, little is known about its pharmacologic and molecular mechanisms of action. Here we determined the effects of an ethanolic extract of SF leaves on rings of isolated thoracic aorta from Sprague-Dawley rats. Our results show that SF extract increased nitric oxide production and relaxed endothelium-intact rings in a dose-dependent (0.3 µg/ml–1 mg/ml) manner, and the maximum arterial relaxation (Rmax) was significantly reduced with endothelium denudation. Pretreatment of endothelium-intact rings with L-NAME (a non-selective inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, 100 µM), or ODQ (an inhibitor of soluble guanylyl cyclase, 10 µM) significantly diminished SF-mediated vasorelaxation. Furthermore, SF induced Akt phosphorylation as well as increased cGMP levels in rings treated with increasing doses of SF. Prior exposure to PI3K inhibitors, wortmannin (0.1 µM) or LY294002 (10 µM), decreased cGMP accumulation and attenuated the SF-induced vasorelaxation by approximately 50% (Rmax). SF-evoked relaxation was not affected by indomethacin, verapamil, glibenclamide, tetraethylammonium, pyrilamine or atropine. Taken together, our results indicate that SF induces endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation through the PI3K/Akt/eNOS/NO/sGC/cGMP signaling pathway. Our data illustrate the health-orientated benefits of consuming SF which may act as an antihypertensive agent to reduce the burden of cardiovascular complications.Scopu

Autonomous Moving Target-Tracking for a UAV Quadcopter Based on Fuzzy-PI

Moving target-tracking is an attractive application for quadcopters and a very challenging, complicated field of research due to the complex dynamics of a quadcopter and the varying speed of the moving target with time. For this reason, various control algorithms have been developed to track a moving target using a camera. In this paper, a Fuzzy-PI controller is developed to adjust the parameters of the PI controller using the position and change of position data as input. The proposed controller is compared to a gain-scheduled PID controller instead of the typical PID controller. To verify the performance of the developed system and distinguish which one has better performance, several experiments of a quadcopter tracking a moving target are conducted under the varying speed of the moving target, indoor and outdoor and during day and night. The obtained results indicate that the proposed controller works well for tracking a moving target under different scenarios, especially during night