Serum Alkaline Phosphatase Levels in Healthy Children and Evaluation of Alkaline Phosphatasez-scores in Different Types of Rickets

Objective: Serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels show great variation with age and sex in children and adolescents. Additionally, different buffers used even in the same method cause variable results. This detail is not usually taken into account in the evaluation. We aimed to study pediatric age- and sex-specific reference ranges for ALP by colorimetric assay using p-nitrophenyl phosphate as substrate and diethanolamine as buffer and also to compare the ALP levels in patients with different types of rickets

Financial development and firm growth in the Turkish manufacturing industry: Evidence from heterogeneous panel based non-causality test

Inspired by the finance-led growth hypothesis at the aggregate level, this study predicates this hypothesis on microfoundations to investigate the causality between financial development and firm growth in Turkish manufacturing industry during the period 1989–2010. To this end, a recently developed non-causality approach proposed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin is applied. Empirical results in which heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence are taken into consideration reveal the validity of a supply-leading hypothesis for the overwhelming majority of the subsectors. This result seems robust across the subsectors, regardless of the financial development proxy. On the other hand, there is also evidence that the results for the proxy of firm growth are not uniform across subsectors

The effect of Misoprostol, a prostaglandin E1 analog, on apoptosis in ischemia-reperfusion-induced intestinal injury

The aim of this study was to investigate whether Misoprostol, a synthetic prostaglandin (PG) E1 analog, has any effect on the prevention of apoptosis in ischemia-reperfusion (I/R)-induced intestinal injury. Thirty adult mate Wistar albino rats were divided into three groups: group I = sham operated+satine; group II = I/R+saline; and group III = I/R+Misoprostol. Misoprostol. (50 mu g/kg/d) was administered as an intragastric meat for 3 days. The terminal ileum was collected for histological and biochemical. investigations. Apoptotic cells were detected by terminal deoxynucteotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labetted (TUNEL) reaction. Immunohistochemical. analysis was performed to determine the distribution of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and endothelial NOS (eNOS). Samples were also analyzed for matondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px). The number of TUNEL-positive cells was higher in group II when compared to the other two groups (p < 0.05). In group III this value was higher when compared to group I, but lower than group II (p<0.05). iNOS immunoreactivity was not detected in ileum sections of group I animals, but moderate immunoreactivity was seen in group II and mild immunoreactivity in group III. The immunoreactivity of eNOS was moderate in ileum sections of all three groups. In ileum tissue, MDA was found to be higher in group II compared to group I (p<0.05), but there was no difference in group III. SOD was not different between groups I and III, but was significantly higher in group II (p<0.05). In our experimental model of I/R-induced intestinal injury, apoptosis is induced in enterocytes, whereas Misoprostol decreases enterocyte apoptosis in this experimental model. Our results indicate that Misoprostol may play a key rote in the pathophysiologic events leading to failure of the intrinsic gut barrier defense mechanisms of intestinal epithelium. (c) 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved

Experimental out-of-plane damage limits of historical stone masonry walls

In stone masonry buildings, failure under strong ground motions usually occurs in the form of out-of-plane overturning of the walls before reaching their in-plane strength, as the walls have long unsupported spans perpendicular to their plane and the lack of slabs ensuring a diaphragm effect. Post-earthquake damage obser-vations reveal this specific weakness of the historic masonry walls. Experimental determination of the out-of -plane damage limits of these walls, emerges as a need for use, especially during numerical evaluations. This article presents the results of static and dynamic testing of double-and three-leaf large-scale U-shaped masonry wall specimens. For this purpose, nondestructive material characterization was conducted on a reference his-torical masonry structure. Large-scale wall specimens were designed considering these findings and material tests performed on mortar samples. Quasi-static cyclic tests and ambient vibration tests for both initial and damaged conditions were performed on these specimens to capture the damage evolution and the corresponding drift limits. Damage limits are suggested to be used in performance-based evaluations of other territorial structures

Hormone receptor status and survival of medullary breast cancer patients

WOS: 000395637900006PubMed: 28133688Objectives: To analyze the relationship between clinical features, hormonal receptor status, and survival in patients who were diagnosed with medullary breast cancer (MBC). Methods: Demographic characteristics, histopathological features, and survival statuses of 201 patients diagnosed with MBC between 1995 and 2015 were retrospectively recorded. Survival analyses were conducted with uniand multivariate cox regression analysis. Results: Median follow-up time was 54 (4-272) months. Median patient age at the time of diagnosis was 47 years old (26-90). Of the patients, 91.5% were triple negative. Five-year recurrence free survival time (RFS) rate was 87.4% and overalll survival (OS) rate 95.7%. For RFS, progesterone receptor (PR) negativity, atypical histopathological evaluation, absence of lymphovascular invasion, smaller tumor, lower nodal involvement were found to be favourable prognostic factors by univariate analysis (p0.05). Conclusion: Turkish MBC patients exhibited good prognosis, which was comparable with survival outcomes achieved in the literature. The PR negativity was related to a better RFS and OS rates

Use of Raman spectroscopy for determining erucic acid content in canola oil

This study presents a novel method to determine erucic acid in canola oil samples by using Raman spectroscopy and chemometric analysis. The oil mixtures were prepared at various concentrations of erucic acid ranging from 0% to 33.56% (w/w) through binary combinations of different oils. In order to predict erucic acid content, Raman spectroscopy and GC results were correlated by means of partial least squares analysis. High coefficient of determination values was obtained for both calibration and validation data sets, which are 0.990 and 0.982, respectively. The results of the present study reveal the potential of Raman spectroscopy for rapid determination (45 s) of erucic acid in canola oil. Further research would be useful to improve the method to put it forward as an alternative to GC in the erucic acid analysis. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved