A rare presentation of the Klinefelter's syndrome

A 16 years old boy with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) was not suspected of having Klinefelter's syndrome until he complained of painful gynecomastia. He was under haemodialysis for 2 years. At first, he was in an approximately full pubertal development (P5, G5), but he had a small and a firm testis (length 2.2cm) and some degree of facial male pattern hair. He also had a decreased upper to lower body segment ratio and despite having chronic renal failure, he was taller than his parents and siblings. His laboratory tests showed high levels of FSH and normal levels of LH and testosterone. With regards to all these findings, we suspected that there might be an occult Klinefelter's syndrome. So, we made his karyotype that showed a 47XXY pattern. Because there are only a few number of cases that have occult Klinefelter's syndrome in the basis of chronic renal failure, we decided to report this case

Using THELI pipeline in order to reduce Abell 226 multi-band optical images

In this paper we review THELI (Erben & Schrimer, 2005), an image processing pipeline developed to reduce multi-pointing optical images taken by mosaic CCD cameras. This pipeline works on raw images by removing several instrumental contaminations, implementing photometric calibration and astrometric alignment, and constructing a deep co-added mosaic image complemented by a weight map. We demonstrate the procedure of reducing NGC3923 images from raw data to the final results. We also demonstrate the quality of our data reduction strategy using mag-count and mag-error in mag plots. Emphasis is mainly placed on photometric calibration which is of great interest to us due to our scientific case. Based on the cross-association of the extracted catalogue against a reference catalogue of stellar magnitudes, zero-point calibration is performed. Our data reduction strategy and the method employed for cross-correlating large catalogues is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Teratogenic effects of gabapentin on the skeletal system of Balb/C mice fetuses

Objectives: To evaluate the effects of gabapentin )GBP( administration on mice fetuses. Methods: This study was carried out in Birjand University of Medical Sciences during 2008. Thirty Balb/c pregnant mice were divided randomly into 3 groups: 2 experimental groups that received 25 mg/kg )I( and 50 mg/kg )II( of GBP intraperitoneally for the first 15 days of pregnancy, and a control group that received normal saline. External observations of day 18 fetuses and skeleton double staining were performed. Results: Both experimental groups showed similar disorders that can be categorized as the following: 1( decrease of fetal body weight and increase of fetal resorption, 2( macroscopic malformations, and 3( skeletal malformations. Fetal body weights were significantly lower, and fetus resorptions were significantly higher in both treated groups compared to the control group. Macroscopic malformations included exencephaly, limbs defects, brachygnathia, vertebral column deformity, and fetuses with severe retarded growth. Skeletal malformations included delayed ossification, scoliosis, calvaria deformity, and mandibular hypoplasia. Conclusion: This study revealed that GBP can induce previously unreported severe malformations if it is used continuously during the implantation, neurulation, and organogenesis stages of pregnancy. Therefore, it is suggested that great caution should be exercised in using GBP during the early stages of pregnancy until further studies are performed to better understand these effects

Synthesis of novel azo compounds containing 5(4H)-oxazolone ring as potent tyrosinase inhibitors

Six new azo dyes containing of 5(4H)-oxazolone ring were prepared by diazotization of 4-aminohippuric acid and coupling with N,N-dimethylaniline, 1-naphthol and 2-naphthol and condensation with 4-fluoro benzaldehyde or 4-trifluoromethoxy benzaldehyde. The new compounds were fully characterized by spectroscopic techniques. All synthesized compounds exhibited high tyrosinase inhibitory behavior. The results of mushroom tyrosinase inhibition assays indicate that the 4-trifluoromethoxy derivatives have high degrees of inhibition and N,N-dimethylaniline derivatives are better for tyrosinase inhibition than 1-naphthol and 2-naphthol derivatives. All synthesized azo compounds (4a-4f) showed the most potent mushroom tyrosinase inhibition, comparable to that of Kojic acid and l-mimosine, as reference standard inhibitors. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The effect of 12 weeks Anethum graveolens (dill) on metabolic markers in patients with metabolic syndrome; A randomized double blind controlled trial

Background: The clustering of metabolic abnormalities defined as metabolic syndrome is now both a public health and a clinical problem .While interest in herbal medicine has greatly increased, lack of human evidence to support efficacies shown in animals does exist. This clinical trial study designed to investigate whether herbal medicine, Anethum graveolens (dill) extract, could improve metabolic components in patients with metabolic syndrome. Methods: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial using a parallel design was conducted. 24 subjects who had metabolic syndrome diagnostic criteria (update of ATP III) were randomly assigned to either dill extract (n = 12) or placebo (n = 12) for 3 months. Results: Across lipid component of metabolic syndrome, no significant differences in triglyceride (TG) concentration and high density lipoprotein cholesterol were seen between the two groups. However TG improved significantly from baseline (257.0 vs. 201.5p = 0.01) with dill treatment but such a significant effect was not observed in placebo group. Moreover, no significant differences in waist circumference, blood pressure and fasting blood sugar were seen between two groups after 3 months follow up period. Conclusion: In this small clinical trial in patients with metabolic syndrome, 12 weeks of dill extract treatment had a beneficial effect in terms of reducing TG from baseline. However dill treatment was not associated with a significant improvement in metabolic syndrome related markers compared to control group. Larger studies might be required to prove the efficacy and safety of long-Term administration of dill to resolve metabolic syndrome components. © 2012 Mansouri et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Analysing the effect of lean on the performance of NPD projects using system dynamics modelling

To be able to survive in today’s fast-changing market environment companies are looking for innovative ways to improve the performance of their new product development (NPD) processes. However, uncertainty and rework are among characteristics of NPD which make them difficult to manage. Implementing lean in NPD is an innovative approach to address this issue. Using system dynamics approach to model set-based concurrent engineering as a fundamental element of lean product development, this paper shows the positive effect on of adopting this strategy on the time, cost and quality of NPD projects, in comparison with the traditional point-based design

The effect of Lean implementation on the efficiency and effectiveness of new product development processes

Although increasing the new product development speed and improving its cost effectiveness as well as enhancing the process quality have been at the centre of attention of many companies, there is still significant opposition to the 'better, faster and cheaper' paradigm. Improvement of new product development processes using Lean principles has been claimed to be an effective way to reach to this goal. In this conceptual paper, first the efficiency and effectiveness in new product development processes and the key components of Lean product development has been defined, then, an introduction to modelling the process based on System Dynamics, to develop the interrelationships between Lean components and performance measures, has been discussed

Polystyrene-supported 1-methylimidazolium tetrachloro ferrate: Synthesis, characterization, and application as an efficient and reusable heterogeneous catalyst for one-pot synthesis of 4h-chromene derivatives in aqueous media

Polystyrene-supported 1-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate (PS[mim][FeCl4]) was prepared and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). The catalytic activity of the heterogeneous catalyst was evaluated through one-pot synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromene-3-carbonitriles via the three-component condensation reaction of aromatic aldehydes, malononitrile and dimedone or 2-naphthol in water. The heterogeneous catalyst could be recovered easily and reused five times without significant loss of its catalytic activity.               KEY WORDS: Green chemistry, Heterogeneous catalyst, 4H-chromene derivatives, Multi-component reactions, One-pot synthesis Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2018, 32(3), 531-540.DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v32i3.1