Sternal nonunion on bone scintigraphy: A case report

Sternal non-union is a severe complication of sternotomy closure following open heart surgeries. Healing problems typically occur in 0.3% to 5% of patients. Technetium-99m methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) bone scintigraphy has been used to assess bone nonunion to predict the healing response for proper management. In this report, we present the case of a marked sternal nonunion following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), using radionuclide bone scintigraphy

Application of PEM Fuel Cell for Stand-alone Based on a Fuzzy PID Control

Due to increasing concerns on environmental pollution and depleting fossil fuels, fuel cell (FC) has received considerable attention as an alternative to the conventional energy systems. Fuel cells have numerous stand-alone and grid-connected applications. This paper presents the control of the stand-alone application based on fuzzy PID (FPID) controller. The aim of the paper is to achieve the control of the fuel cell for stand-alone with suitable power conditioning unit (PCU) that consists of the two stages of DC/DC converter and DC/AC inverter. An analysis of cascade structure based on FPID controller for a single phase inverter is done and comprises two feedback control loops. The inductor current and capacitor voltage are measured and feedback to the inner loop and the outer loop, respectively. The analytical models of the h PEM fuel cells is designed and simulated by developing a detailed simulation software using Matlab, Simulink and SimPowerSystems Blockset for portable applications. The PEM fuel cell model is validated with NexaTM Power Module MAN5100078 by Ballard Power Systems at 80°C. In this paper shown that the proposed controller shows a robust behavior and good transient response

Usage Frequency of Product Configuration Systems Relative to Integrations and Fields of Application

Product Configuration Systems (PCS) are automatic solutions that can support and facilitate the sales and engineering processes. PCSs have recently attracted increased attention both from the researchers and practitioners. There are a variety of challenges reported in the literature as consequences of using PCS, which reduces the usage frequency of the system. To address those challenges, IT integrations can be an effective solution to reduce the number of manual tasks and complexity inside PCSs and make PCSs more user-friendly. However, the influence of integrating PCS to different IT systems on usage frequency has not been addressed in the literature. This paper aims to study the relationship of PCS usage frequency in terms of (1) different application area of the PCSs, and (2) integrations to different IT systems. The research method adopted in the paper is survey-based conducted in one company where the unit of analysis is operating PCS

Declining metal availability in the Mesozoic seawater reflected in phytoplankton succession

Variable trace metal concentrations in the Precambrian ocean were closely linked to oxygen availability, although less is known about the drivers of seawater trace metal chemistry after the spread of complex life into the Phanerozoic eon. A major phytoplankton succession took place at the transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic era (~250 Myr ago), from an ocean dominated by the green Archaeplastida to secondary endosymbiotic algae with red-algal-derived plastids. Here, our comparative genomic analysis of 26 complete proteomes and metal domain analysis of additional 608 partially complete sequences of phytoplankton reveal that groups with different evolutionary history have distinct metal-binding proteins and contrasting metal acquisition strategies, adapted to differing availability of trace metals. The secondary-endosymbiont-bearing lineages are better adapted to well-oxygenated, nutrient-poor environments. This is supported by an enhanced thiol-based binding affinity of their transporters, coupled with minimized proteomic requirement for trace elements such as iron, copper and zinc at both protein and domain levels. Such different metal requirements across these lineages suggest a drastic decline in open-ocean trace metal concentrations at the inception of the Mesozoic, contributing to the shifts in phytoplankton communities that drove major changes in ocean chemical buffering.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Information and The Brukner-Zeilinger Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: A Critical Investigation

In Brukner and Zeilinger's interpretation of quantum mechanics, information is introduced as the most fundamental notion and the finiteness of information is considered as an essential feature of quantum systems. They also define a new measure of information which is inherently different from the Shannon information and try to show that the latter is not useful in defining the information content in a quantum object. Here, we show that there are serious problems in their approach which make their efforts unsatisfactory. The finiteness of information does not explain how objective results appear in experiments and what an instantaneous change in the so-called information vector (or catalog of knowledge) really means during the measurement. On the other hand, Brukner and Zeilinger's definition of a new measure of information may lose its significance, when the spin measurement of an elementary system is treated realistically. Hence, the sum of the individual measures of information may not be a conserved value in real experiments.Comment: 20 pages, two figures, last version. Section 4 is replaced by a new argument. Other sections are improved. An appendix and new references are adde

Plant extract enhances the viability of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Lactobacillus acidophilus in probiotic nonfat yogurt

Citation: Michael, M., Phebus, R. K., & Schmidt, K. A. (2015). Plant extract enhances the viability of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Lactobacillus acidophilus in probiotic nonfat yogurt. Food Science & Nutrition, 3(1), 48-55. doi:10.1002/fsn3.189A commercial plant extract (prepared from olive, garlic, onion and citrus extracts with sodium acetate (SA) as a carrier) was evaluated to extend the viability of yogurt starter and probiotic bacteria as a means to enhance the shelf life of live and active culture, probiotic nonfat yogurt. Yogurts prepared from three different formulas (0.5% plant extract, 0.25% SA, or no supplement) and cultures (yogurt starter plus Bifidobacterium animalis, Lactobacillus acidophilus, or both probiotics) were assessed weekly during 29 days of storage at 5 degrees C. Supplemented yogurt mixes had greater buffering capacities than non-supplemented yogurt mixes. At the end of storage, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and L. acidophilus counts in supplemented yogurts were greater compared with non-supplemented yogurts. Supplementation did not affect Streptococcus thermophilus and B. animalis counts. Hence the greater buffering capacity of yogurt containing plant extract could enhance the longevity of the probiotics, L. bulgaricus and L. acidophilus, during storage

Therapeutic potentials of curcumin in the treatment of glioblstoma

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a greatly aggressive malignancy of the brain, is correlated with a poor prognosis and low rate of survival. Up to now, chemotherapy and radiation therapy after surgical approaches have been the treatments increasing the survival rates. The low efficacy of mentioned therapies as well as their side-effects has forced researchers to explore an appropriate alternative or complementary treatment for glioblastoma. In experimental models, it has been shown that curcumin has therapeutic potentials to fight against GBM. Given that curcumin has pharmacological effects against cancer stem cells, as major causes of resistance to therapy in glioblastoma cells. Moreover, it has been showed that curcumin exerts its therapeutic effects on GBM cells via affecting on apoptosis, oxidant system, and inflammatory pathways. Curcumin would possess a synergistic impact with chemotherapeutic agents. Herein, we summarized the current findings on curcumin as therapeutic agent in the treatment of GBM. © 2020 Elsevier Masson SA

A Prospective Study on Risk Factors for Acute Kidney Injury and All-Cause Mortality in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients From Tehran (Iran)

Background: Several reports suggested that acute kidney injury (AKI) is a relatively common occurrence in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but its prevalence is inconsistently reported across different populations. Moreover, it is unknown whether AKI results from a direct infection of the kidney by SARS-CoV-2 or it is a consequence of the physiologic disturbances and therapies used to treat COVID-19. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of AKI since it varies by geographical settings, time periods, and populations studied and to investigate whether clinical information and laboratory findings collected at hospital admission might influence AKI incidence (and mortality) in a particular point in time during hospitalization for COVID-19. Methods: Herein we conducted a prospective longitudinal study investigating the prevalence of AKI and associated factors in 997 COVID-19 patients admitted to the Baqiyatallah general hospital of Tehran (Iran), collecting both clinical information and several dates (of: birth; hospital admission; AKI onset; ICU admission; hospital discharge; death). In order to examine how the clinical factors influenced AKI incidence and all-cause mortality during hospitalization, survival analysis using the Cox proportional-hazard models was adopted. Two separate multiple Cox regression models were fitted for each outcome (AKI and death). Results: In this group of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the prevalence of AKI was 28.5% and the mortality rate was 19.3%. AKI incidence was significantly enhanced by diabetes, hyperkalemia, higher levels of WBC count, and blood urea nitrogen (BUN). COVID-19 patients more likely to die over the course of their hospitalization were those presenting a joint association between ICU admission with either severe COVID-19 or even mild/moderate COVID-19, hypokalemia, and higher levels of BUN, WBC, and LDH measured at hospital admission. Diabetes and comorbidities did not increase the mortality risk among these hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Conclusions: Since the majority of patients developed AKI after ICU referral and 40% of them were admitted to ICU within 2 days since hospital admission, these patients may have been already in critical clinical conditions at admission, despite being affected by a mild/moderate form of COVID-19, suggesting the need of early monitoring of these patients for the onset of eventual systemic complications