722 research outputs found
Baba Yaga: An Ecofeminist Analysis of the Witch of the Woods
In this thesis, I will argue that Baba Yagaâs prevalence in Russiaâs culture and media provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into the junctures between the climate crisis and gender inequality in Russia. Despite the persistent gender inequities present in current Russian society, ecofeminist frameworks and ideologies are already deeply embedded in Russian culture. Women, as a group, have always been politically active in Russia, from resisting the introduction of Christianity in the 9th century, to the feminist resistance group Pussy Riot founded in 2011. I will examine Baba Yagaâs history, her role in the Russian folktale, and her associated symbols and objects through an ecofeminist lens. To do this, I will examine the unique qualities of the folklore genre, analyze two famous folktales containing Baba Yaga that exemplify her potential as an ecofeminist icon, and briefly discuss the significance of the environment where Baba Yaga lives
The association of A1166C gene polymorphism of angiotensin receptors with the parameters of central pulse wave in normotensive persons and patients with hypertension
Introduction. Available information about the impact of the polymorphic structure of type 1 angiotensin receptor (ATR1) gene on the central pulse wave is scarce and contradictory. The aim of the study was to establish a possible association of A1166C polymorphism of ATR1 gene with the pulse wave parameters obtained by applanation tonometry.
Material and metods. We examined male and female persons aged 25 to 76 years. They were divided into two groups: the basic consisting of 150 hypertensive patients and the control group presented by 128 individuals with normal blood pressure. In addition to the general clinical exam three-fold measurements of systolic and diastolic blood pressure (systolic blood pressure [SBP] and diastolic blood pressure [DBP], respectively) with the automatic blood pressure monitor Omron M3 were provided mandatory. The structure of the polymorphic receptor gene ATR1 was defined in all participants by polymerase chain reaction on the thermocycler PHC (Techne, UK). Pulse wave analysis was provided with applanation tonometry. For this purpose we used Sphygmocor XCEL equipment (AtCor Medical, Australia).
Results. Analysis of mean SBP and DBP in dependence on ATR1 genotype and existence of arterial hypertension showed that there was a tendency to rise with increasing number of C alleles, but statistical significance of the trend had been confirmed by ANOVA only for SBP in patients with hypertension. Also it was shown a significant difference in central diastolic blood pressure (CDBP) and pulse pressure augmentation (PPA) in hypertensive patients compared with normotensive. It was found a tendency to decrease CDBP and PPA with increasing number of C alleles. The subjects of the control group demonstrated the same trend of PPA as in the group of hypertensive patients.
Conclusion. Thus, we established the association between decrease of PPA and increase of C alleles number in the ATR1 gene
Implementation of the âVascular Age Indexâ for the interpretation of applanation tonometry
Background The application of pulse wave analysis in clinical practice is significantly limited due to the difficulties with evaluation of obtained data. The aim of the study was to propose the new index named âVascular Age Indexâ for the improvement and simplification of pulse wave analysis.
Material and methods We examined male and female persons aged from 25 to 76. 128 normotensive participants (the control group, CG) and 150 patients with essential hypertension (EH) were subdivided into subgroups of 25â44, 45â64 and 65 or more years. Each of them included 50 patients. The exception was the oldest subgroup of CG consisting of 28 persons. All participants underwent office blood pressure measurement by automatic blood pressure monitor âOmron 3â and pulse wave analysis carried out with «Sphygmocor XCEL» equipment (AtCor Medical, Australia). Besides common parameters of pulse wave such as augmentation index (AIx) and pulse wave velocity (PWV) the new indicator â âVascular Age Indexâ was determined in all persons by the formula: VAI (year) = PWV Ă AIx Ă· 20.
Results All studied parameters of pulse wave showed strong relationship with age, but the relationship of VAI with age was superior in its strength and significance. It was especially strong (r = 0.90; p < 0.001) in normotensive patients. The values of VAI obtained in subjects of the control group were approaching to the calendar age, and in patients with hypertension â often exceeded it.
Conclusions Our data confirmed the relationship between AIx and PWV on the one hand, and age and blood pressure on the other. It was shown that in patients of 25â44 years pathological changes of central pulse wave parameters could serve as an additional argument for the diagnosis of hypertension. VAI significantly simplifies the interpretation of central pulse wave study and increases the compliance. Moreover, the diagnostic accuracy of VAI application is rather high. Thus, the implementation of VAI in the routine practice may be recommended
The inappropriateness of left ventricular mass and echoreflectivity in males with essential hypertension and different CYP11B2 gene polymorphisms
Background. The CYP11B2 gene as the main controller of aldosterone plasma activity is likely to be responsible as for the BP level as for the expression of different traits of hypertensive cardiac remodeling such as increased left ventricular mass and myocardial fibrosis. The main objective of our study was to define the differences in myocardial remodeling depending on CYP11B2 gene polymorphism. It was shown that some special techniques of echocardiography such as the assessment of inappropriate left ventricular mass and myocardial echoreflectivity proved additional information in patients with hypertensive heart disease. Thatâs why these techniques were used for a more precise assessment of hypertensive cardiac remodeling.
Material and methods. Our study involved 150 males aged 45â60 years. They were divided into three groups: Group 1â50 patients with normal BP without any echocardiographic abnormalities, Group 2â52 patients with essential hypertension without left ventricular hypertrophy, and Group 3â48 patients with essential hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy.
Results. It was found that in patients with inappropriate LVM the prevalence of CC genotype was almost twice higher than among those with appropriate LVM. On the other hand, hypertensive patients with CC genotype and LVH demonstrated higher echoreflectivity parameters.
Conclusions. We assume that CC polymorphism of CYP11B2 may be an indicator of more expressed signs of hypertensive cardiac remodeling, in particular myocardial hypertrophy and myocardial fibrosis, in males with essential hypertension
Colite eosinofĂlica em lactentes
OBJECTIVE:To review the literature for clinical data on infants with allergic or eosinophilic colitis.DATA SOURCE:MEDLINE search of all indexes was performed using the words ''colitis or procto-colitis and eosinophilic'' or ''colitis or proctocolitis and allergic'' between 1966 and February of 2013. All articles that described patients' characteristics were selected.DATA SYNTHESIS:A total of 770 articles were identified, of which 32 met the inclusion criteria. The 32 articles included a total of 314 infants. According to the available information, 61.6% of infants were male and 78.6% were younger than 6 months. Of the 314 patients, 49.0% were fed exclusively breast milk, 44.2% received cow's milk protein, and 6.8% received soy protein. Diarrheal stools were described in 28.3% of patients. Eosinophilia was found in 43.8% (115/263) of infants. Colonic or rectal biopsy showed infiltration by eosinophils (between 5 and 25 perhigh-power field) in 89.3% (236/264) of patients. Most patients showed improvement with theremoval of the protein in cow's milk from their diet or the mother's diet. Allergy challenge tests with cow's milk protein were cited by 12 of the 32 articles (66 patients).CONCLUSIONS:Eosinophilic colitis occurs predominantly in the first six months of life and in males. Allergy to cow's milk was considered the main cause of eosinophilic colitis. Exclusion of cow'smilk from the diet of the lactating mother or from the infant's diet is generally an effective therapeutic measure.OBJETIVO:RevisĂŁo da literatura sobre dados clĂnicos de lactentes com colite eosinofĂlica oualĂ©rgica.FONTE DOS DADOS:Pesquisa no Medline de todas as indexaçÔes com as palavras ''colitis or proc-tocolitis and eosinophilic'' ou ''colitis or proctocolitis and allergic'' entre 1966 e fevereiro de 2013. Foram selecionados todos os artigos que descreviam as caracterĂsticas dos pacientes.SĂNTESE DOS DADOS:Foram identificados 770 artigos dos quais 32 preenchiam os critĂ©rios de inclusĂŁo. Os 32 artigos incluĂram o total de 314 lactentes. Conforme as informaçÔes disponĂveis, 61,6% dos lactentes eram do sexo masculino e 78,6% apresentavam idade inferior a 6 meses. Dos 314 pacientes, 49,0% encontrava-se em aleitamento natural exclusivo, 44,2% recebiam proteĂna do leite de vaca e 6,8% proteĂna da soja. Fezes diarreicas foram descritas em 28,3% dos pacientes. Eosinofilia foi encontrada em 43,8% (115/263) dos lactentes. BiĂłpsia retal ou colĂŽnica mostrou infiltração por eosinĂłfilos (entre 5 e 25 por campo de grande aumento) em 89,3% (236/264) dos pacientes. A maioria dos pacientes apresentou melhora com a retirada da proteĂna do leite de vaca da sua dieta ou das suas mĂŁes. Teste de desencadeamento com proteĂna do leite de vaca foi citado em 12 dos 32 artigos (66 pacientes).CONCLUSĂES:Colite eosinofĂlica ocorre predominantemente nos primeiros seis meses de vida e no sexo masculino. Alergia ao leite de vaca foi considerada a principal causa de colite eosinofĂlica. Dieta de exclusĂŁo do leite de vaca da mĂŁe lactante ou da dieta do lactente Ă© uma medidate rapĂȘutica geralmente eficaz.Universidade Federal de SĂŁo Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de Medicina Department of PediatricsUNIFESP, EPM, Department of PediatricsSciEL
Non-Immunoglobulin-E mediated gastrointestinal food allergy in children: diagnosis, management and clinical impact
Background: Despite all research published in the last decades, the prevalence of
food allergy in the paediatric population has continued to increase and is nowadays
recognized as a significant public health problem. In the United Kingdom, studies
have found that between 2.2% and 5.5% of the infants in the first year of life present
with proven food allergies, with the prevalence of cowâs milk protein allergy, the most
common form of non-IgE food allergies, ranging between 1.9% and 4.9%. The
diagnosis of non-IgE mediated food allergy is a real challenge due to its delayed
onset, with symptoms occurring hours to days after ingestion of the culprit and
mainly affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Allergy tests have shown limited use in
these patients, and the diagnosis relies heavily on the recognition of symptoms and
an allergy-focused history. The treatment is based on diet elimination, which can
lead to the development of nutritional disorders and negative impact on the childâs
quality of life.
Objectives: The aims of the publications included in this thesis are, first, to
prospectively investigate the required length of elimination diet to achieve symptom
improvement during the diagnostic process; second, to evaluate the knowledge of
primary health care professionals about diagnosis and management of cowâs milk
protein allergy, to compare with parents views and opinions, and to better
understand diagnosis tools, treatment and tolerance in infants diagnosed with nonIgE food allergies; third, to evaluate possible impacts of the elimination diet on
growth and nutrients deficiencies; and fourth, to analyse the potential impact of nonIgE mediated gastrointestinal allergies on the quality of life of the affected children
and their families.
Methods: Children with suspected non-IgE mediated gastrointestinal food allergies
were recruited and followed prospectively at a large tertiary gastroenterology
department in the United Kingdom (UK) from December 2011 to November 2013.
This study was designed to investigate the impact of non-IgE mediated food allergies
on quality of life, as well as to establish symptoms, childrenâs growth and the
characteristics and impact of dietary elimination. The knowledge and journey of
diagnosis of cowâs milk protein allergy among general practitioners were studied via
surveys. Eosinophilic colitis in infants was studied through a systematic review.
II
Results: In non-IgE mediated gastrointestinal food allergies the required time to
achieve symptom improvement following the initiation of the elimination diet was four
weeks in 98% of our patients. All symptoms individually and collectively have
statistically improved after commencing the elimination diet (p <0.001). Regarding
cowâs milk protein allergy, parents and general practitioners have very different
perceptions about the course of the disease and the familiesâ journeys. An extensive
review of the literature found that eosinophilic colitis occurred more frequently in
male infants, younger than six months old. Half were exclusively breastfed at the
time of the diagnosis. Patients on a diagnostic four-week elimination diet showed an
improvement in the weight-for-age and weight-for-height. It was also noted that 60%
of the cohort had low vitamin D intake and a higher number of patients had a low
intake of copper, zinc, and selenium. Non-IgE mediated food allergies have a
negative impact on the quality of life of the affected children and their families.
Conclusions: The âDiscovering the effect of non-IgE mediated allergies on children
and their familiesâ is a landmark study in the paediatric food allergy field. This welldesigned study investigated and elucidated some important characteristics and
clinical features of this group of patients. Its impact is reflected in the number of
publications derived from the results of this cohort, a large number of citations and
the impact in clinical practice worldwide as much more is now known about this
condition. Studies investigating preventative measures for the development of food
allergies in childhood are also essential in the future
ICEBEAR-3D: An Advanced Low Elevation Angle Auroral E region Imaging Radar
The Ionospheric Continuous-wave E region Bistatic Experimental Auroral Radar (ICEBEAR) is an auroral E~region radar which has operated from 7 December 2017 until the September 2019. During the first two years of operation, ICEBEAR was only capable of spatially locating E~region scatter and meteor trail targets in range and azimuth. Elevation angles were not determinable due to its East-West uniform linear receiving antenna array. Measuring elevation angles of targets when viewing from low elevation angles with radar interferometers has been a long standing problem. Past high latitude radars have attempted to obtain elevation angles of E~region targets using North-South baselines, but have always resulted in erroneous elevation angles being measured in the low elevation regime (0° to â30° above the horizon), leaving interesting scientific questions about scatter altitudes in the auroral E~region unanswered. The work entailed in this thesis encompasses the design of the ICEBEAR-3D system for the acquisition of these important elevation angles.
The receiver antenna array was redesigned using a custom phase error minimization and stochastic antenna location perturbation technique, which produces phase tolerant receiver antenna arrays. The resulting 45-baseline sparse non-uniform coplanar T-shaped array was designed for aperture synthesis radar imaging. Conventional aperture synthesis radar imaging techniques assume point-like incoherent targets and image using a Cartesian basis over a narrow field of view. These methods are incompatible with horizon pointing E~region radars such as ICEBEAR. Instead, radar targets were imaged using the Suppressed Spherical Wave Harmonic Transform (Suppressed-SWHT) technique. This imaging method uses precalculated spherical harmonic coefficient matrices to transform the visibilities to brightness maps by direct matrix multiplication. The under sampled image domain artefacts (dirty beam) were suppressed by the products of differing harmonic order brightness maps. From the images, elevation and azimuth angles of arrival were obtained. Due to the excellent phase tolerance of ICEBEAR new light was shed on the long standing low elevation angle problem. This led to the development of the proper phase reference vertical interferometry geometry, which allowed horizon pointing radar interferometers to unambiguously measure elevation angles near the horizon. Ultimately resulting in accurate elevation angles from zenith to horizon
pDNA capture using grafted adsorbents
BACKGROUND: âExpandedâ composite materials are of interest as an alternative, or as a supplement, to packed-bed chromatography during bioproduct recovery and purification. Functionalized non-woven fabrics and mega-porous bodies are examples of systems that showed promise. However, there is scarce information on their suitability to capture and release plasmid DNA (pDNA), an important type of product employed in gene therapy. RESULTS: Composite adsorbents were prepared using either chemical (CG-DEAE-NW) or gamma-irradiated graft-polymerization (GIR-DEAE-MP), and subsequently modified to have diethylamino ethanol (DEAE) functionality. Capture experiments showed that pDNA can actually reversibly bind to the two mentioned adsorbents, with capacity values of 2.4 and 1.3Â mg per mL, respectively. These values are in the range of what can be expected from commercial beaded adsorbents but lower that the values expected from monoliths. CONCLUSIONS: Expanded materials, due to their high voidage, may present limited capacity for pDNA. However, such materials are able to bind proteins and other contaminants from bacterial lysate, opening the way for their utilization in the ânegativeâ mode.Fil: Singh, Naveen Kumar. University of Notre Dame; Estados Unidos. Jacobs University; AlemaniaFil: Dsouza, Roy N.. Jacobs University; AlemaniaFil: Yelemane, Vikas. Jacobs University; AlemaniaFil: Nentwig, Nina. Jacobs University; AlemaniaFil: Grasselli, Mariano. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas. Centro CientĂfico TecnolĂłgico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: FernĂĄndez Lahore, Marcelo. Jacobs University; Alemani
Characteristics of changes and clinical and instrumental predictors of the severity of structural remodelling of carotid arteries in hypertensive patients
Background. Mechanisms of activation of the process of vascular wall remodelling in patients affected by arterial hypertension have not been studied in depth and require clarification.
Materials and methods. The study included 381 patients with hypertension â 212 men and 169 women of the average age 53.0 (47; 60) years. The structural-functional vessel status was determined by the method of duplex scanning and colour duplex mapping of blood flow with the Logiq 500 MO apparatus (GE, USA). Statistical analyses were made using Microsoft Excel software kit, Statistica for Windows 6.0.
Results. The patients with hypertension presented some left-right asymmetry of remodelling extracranial carotid arteries. Unlike the impact of remodelling of the right carotid artery, the most essential effect on the left carotid artery was the impact of daytime pulse arterial pressure and variability of the nocturnal systolic arterial pressure (the strength of impact 25.0 and 13.9%, respectively. The processes of remodelling of the right carotid artery are more sensible to the impact of high values of nocturnal diastolic arterial pressure (the strength of impact 16.4%). The beginning of some brain complication is associated with the significant increase in atherosclerotic affection not only of the left, but also of the right carotid artery.
Conclusions. Remarkable remodelling of the right carotid artery is often associated with the severity of the disease and to some extent reflects the severity of the flow of the disease and can be regarded as an additional unfavourable feature
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