Ciąża bliźniacza jako czynnik ryzyka wystąpienia krwawienia do komór bocznych mózgu u noworodków

Objectives: The aim of this study was to find the perinatal risk factors of intravenricular hemorrhage in twin neonates. Material and methods: A retrospective analysis of 203 twin pregnancies and deliveries between 2003 and 2009 was performed. Then data according birth state and neonatal complications in 406 twins were analyzed. Twin outcome was compared with the outcome of 105 singletons born at the same time and at the same gestational age as twins. Results: Intraventricular hemorrhage was diagnosed in 116/406 (29%) of twins. IVH was found two times more often in the analyzed group than in singletons born at the same gestational age (29% vs. 18%, p = 0,03). In 96% I and II grade hemorrhage was diagnosed and in 4% III and IV grade hemorrhage in the Papille scale was found. Conclusions: 1) Intraventricular hemorrhage is found more often in twins than in singleton neonates born at the same gestational age. 2) IVH in twins correlate with preterm birth and low birth weight. IVH occur more often in twins with birth weight discordance and with too small maternal weight gain.Cel pracy: Celem pracy było wykrycie czynników ryzyka i powikłań ciąży bliźniaczej, które mogą być przyczyną wystąpienia krwawień około i domózgowych u bliźniąt. Materiał i metody: Retrospektywnie przeanalizowano dane dotyczące 203 ciąż bliźniaczych i porodów z lat 2003 - 2009. Następnie przeanalizowano informacje dotyczące stanu okołoporodowego i powikłań noworodkowych u 406 bliźniąt z tych ciąż. Wyniki bliźniąt porównano z wynikami 105 noworodków z ciąż pojedynczych, urodzonych w tym samym czasie i w tym samym wieku ciążowym co bliźnięta z grupy badanej. Wyniki: Krwawienia do komór bocznych mózgu stwierdzono u 116/406 (29%) bliźniąt. W badanej grupie IVH stwierdzano dwa razy częściej u bliźniąt niż u noworodków z ciąż pojedynczych urodzonych w tym samym wieku ciążowym (29% vs. 18%, p = 0,03). W 96% zdiagnozowano wylewy I i II stopnia w skali Papille’a i w 4% przypadkach III i IV stopnia. Wnioski: 1) Krwawienia do komór bocznych mózgu występują częściej u bliźniąt niż u noworodków z ciąż pojedynczych urodzonych w tym samym wieku ciążowym. 2) IVH u bliźniąt korelują z porodem przedwczesnym i niską masą urodzeniową. Występują częściej u noworodków z ciąż powikłanych rozbieżnym wzrastaniem płodów i zbyt małym przyrostem masy ciała ciężarnej

Myofascial Trigger Points Therapy Modifies Thermal Map of Gluteal Region

Background. (ermal imaging may be effectively used in musculoskeletal system diagnostics and therapy evaluation; thus, it may be successfully applied in myofascial trigger points assessment. Objective. Investigation of thermal pattern changes after myofascial trigger points progressive compression therapy in healthy males and females. Methods. (e study included 30 healthy people (15 females and 15 males) with age range 19–34 years (mean age: 23.1 ± 4.21). (ermograms of myofascial trigger points were taken pre- and posttherapy and consecutively in the 15th and 30th minutes. Pain reproducible by palpation intensity was assessed with numeric rating scale. Results. Progressive compression therapy leads to myofascial trigger points temperature (p 0.02) and surface (p 0.01) in males. In females no statistically significant changes were observed. Manual treatment leads to a decrease in intensity of pain reproducible by palpation in males (p 0.03) and females (p 0.048). Conclusions. (e study indicates that myofascial trigger points reaction to applied therapy spreads in time and space and depends on participants’ sex

Temperature and E-Poling Evolution of Structural, Vibrational, Dielectric, and Ferroelectric Properties of Ba1−xSrxTiO3 Ceramics (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.45)

Poland’s high-performance computing infrastructure PLGrid (HPC Centers: ACK Cyfronet AGH) for providing computer facilities and support within computational grant no. PLG/2022/015969. Innovative research and scientific platform for a new class of nanocomposites, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science, contract number 7216/IA/SP/2021.Lead-free Ba1−xSrxTiO3 (BST) (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.45) ceramics were successfully prepared via the solid-state reaction route. A pure perovskite crystalline structure was identified for all compositions by X-ray diffraction analysis. The basic phase transition temperatures in these ceramics were studied over a wide temperature range. A change in symmetry from a tetragonal to cubic phase was detected, which was further proven by phonon anomalies in composition/temperature-dependent Raman spectra. The incorporation of Sr2+ into BaTiO3 (BT) lead to a shift in the phase transitions to lower temperatures, suppressing the ferroelectric properties and inducing relaxor-like behavior. Therefore, it was reasonable to suppose that the materials progressively lack long-range ordering. The initial second-harmonic generation (SHG) measurements demonstrated that the cubic phase of BST ceramics is not purely centrosymmetric over a wide temperature interval. We discussed the possible origin of the observed effects, and showed that electric field poling seems to reconstruct the structural ordering destroyed by the introduction of Sr2+ to BT. In the first approximation, substitution of Sr for larger Ba simply reduced the space for the off-central shift in Ti in the lattice and hence the domain polarization. A-site cation ordering in BST and its influence on the density of electronic states were also explored. The effect of doping with strontium ions in the BST compound on the density of electronic states was investigated using ab initio methods. As the calculations showed, doping BT with Sr2+ atoms led to an increase in the bandgap. The proposed calculations will also be used in the subsequent search for materials optimal for applications in photovoltaics. --//-- This is an open access article Suchanicz, J.; Sitko, D.; Stanuch, K.; Świerczek, K.; Jagło, G.; Kruk, A.; Kluczewska-Chmielarz, K.; Konieczny, K.; Czaja, P.; Aleksandrowicz, J.; et al. Temperature and E-Poling Evolution of Structural, Vibrational, Dielectric, and Ferroelectric Properties of Ba1−xSrxTiO3 Ceramics (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.45). Materials 2023, 16, 6316. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16186316 published under the CC BY 4.0 licence.the Ministry of Education and Science, contract number 7216/IA/SP/2021; The Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia at the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART2

Graft-versus-host disease as an unusual complication following autologous stem cell transplantation

IntroductionGraft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a common and serious complication after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). However, a similar syndrome has been reported after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) as well. Case reportA 61-year-old female diagnosed with immunoglobulin (Ig) G lambda multiple myeloma completed 10 cycles of bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone (VTD) and 2 cycles of cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone (CTD). High-dose of melphalan (200 mg/kg) was given as conditioning, followed by an infusion of 2.5 × 10 CD34+ cells/kg. Three months later, she received her second ASCT. On Day +25 after tandem ASCT, the patient developed a maculopapular, itchy skin rash, which covered her face, trunk, and limbs. A skin biopsy was in line with the diagnosis of GVHD. The other organs were not involved. Treatment with systemic and local corticosteroids (CSs) resulted in the improvement of skin lesions, but the CSs were slowly tapered due to toxicity. In the following weeks, she developed symptoms of liver and gut involvement, which were resistant to steroids. The introduction of other immunosuppressive agents failed to achieve a response. As a consequence, she had cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation, as well as pancytopenia, and eventually, she died of infectious complications. ConclusionsGVHD after ASCT remains a rare but life-threatening complication with poor prognosis

Identification and characterization of aptameric inhibitors of human neutrophil elastase

Human neutrophil elastase (HNE) plays a pivotal role in innate immunity, inflammation and tissue remodelling. Aberrant proteolytic activity of HNE contributes to organ destruction in various chronic inflammatory diseases including emphysema, asthma, and cystic fibrosis. Therefore, elastase inhibitors could alleviate the progression of these disorders. Here, we used systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) to develop single-stranded DNA aptamers that specifically target HNE. We determined the specificity of the designed inhibitors and their inhibitory efficacy against HNE using biochemical and in vitro methods, including an assay of neutrophil activity. Our aptamers inhibit the elastinolytic activity of HNE with nanomolar potency, and are highly specific for HNE and do not target other tested human proteases. As such, this study provides lead compounds suitable for the evaluation of their tissue-protective potential in animal models

Analysis procedure of the positronium lifetime spectra for the J-PET detector

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS) has shown to be a powerful tool to study the nanostructures of porous materials. Positron Emissions Tomography (PET) are devices allowing imaging of metabolic processes e.g. in human bodies. A newly developed device, the J-PET (Jagiellonian PET), will allow PALS in addition to imaging, thus combining both analyses providing new methods for physics and medicine. In this contribution we present a computer program that is compatible with the J-PET software. We compare its performance with the standard program LT 9.0 by using PALS data from hexane measurements at different temperatures. Our program is based on an iterative procedure, and our fits prove that it performs as good as LT 9.0.Comment: 4 figures, 8 page

Overview of the software architecture and data flow for the J-PET tomography device

Modern TOF-PET scanner systems require high-speed computing resources for efficient data processing, monitoring and image reconstruction. In this article, we present the data flow and software architecture for the novel TOF-PET scanner developed by the J-PET Collaboration. We discuss the data acquisition system, reconstruction framework and image reconstruction software. Also, the concept of computing outside hospitals in the remote centers such as Świerk Computing Centre in Poland is presented

Plastic scintillators for positron emission tomography obtained by the bulk polymerization method

This paper describes three methods regarding the production of plastic scintillators. One method appears to be suitable for the manufacturing of plastic scintillator, revealing properties which fulfill the requirements of novel positron emission tomography scanners based on plastic scintillators. The key parameters of the manufacturing process are determined and discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Application of the compress sensing theory for improvement of the TOF resolution in a novel J-PET instrument

Nowadays, in positron emission tomography (PET) systems, a time of fl ight (TOF) information is used to improve the image reconstruction process. In TOF-PET, fast detectors are able to measure the difference in the arrival time of the two gamma rays, with the precision enabling to shorten signifi cantly a range along the line-of-response (LOR) where the annihilation occurred. In the new concept, called J-PET scanner, gamma rays are detected in plastic scintillators. In a single strip of J-PET system, time values are obtained by probing signals in the amplitude domain. Owing to compressive sensing (CS) theory, information about the shape and amplitude of the signals is recovered. In this paper, we demonstrate that based on the acquired signals parameters, a better signal normalization may be provided in order to improve the TOF resolution. The procedure was tested using large sample of data registered by a dedicated detection setup enabling sampling of signals with 50-ps intervals. Experimental setup provided irradiation of a chosen position in the plastic scintillator strip with annihilation gamma quanta