Evaluation of Prothrombin Time and Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time in Hypertensive Patients Attending a Tertiary Hospital in Calabar, Nigeria

Introduction. Several biomedical findings have established the effects of hypertension on haemostasis and roles of blood coagulation products in the clinical course of hypertension. Methods. This cross-sectional study aimed at determining effects of hypertension on prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) in hypertensive patients in comparison with normotensive subjects attending a tertiary hospital in Calabar. Forty-two (42) hypertensive patients and thirty-nine (39) normotensive control subjects were investigated for PT and APTT using Quick one-stage methods. Results. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) correlated positively with APTT (r=0.3072, r=0.4988; P<0.05) in hypertensive patients. DBP, SBP, PT, and APTT were significantly higher in hypertensive patients when compared to normotensive subjects (P<0.05). DBP correlated negatively with duration of illness (r=-0.3097; P<0.05) in hypertensive patients and positively with age of normotensive subjects (r=0.3523; P<0.05). Conclusion. The results obtained indicated that measurements of PT and APTT may serve as indices for evaluating hemostatic abnormalities in hypertensive patients and guide for antihypertensive therapy. However, to have better understanding of hemostatic activities in hypertension, it is recommended to conduct D-dimer, platelet factors, and protein assays

Genetic Associations with Gestational Duration and Spontaneous Preterm Birth

BACKGROUND Despite evidence that genetic factors contribute to the duration of gestation and the risk of preterm birth, robust associations with genetic variants have not been identified. We used large data sets that included the gestational duration to determine possible genetic associations. METHODS We performed a genomewide association study in a discovery set of samples obtained from 43,568 women of European ancestry using gestational duration as a continuous trait and term or preterm (<37 weeks) birth as a dichotomous outcome. We used samples from three Nordic data sets (involving a total of 8643 women) to test for replication of genomic loci that had significant genomewide association (P<5.0x10(-8)) or an association with suggestive significance (P<1.0x10(-6)) in the discovery set. RESULTS In the discovery and replication data sets, four loci (EBF1, EEFSEC, AGTR2, and WNT4) were significantly associated with gestational duration. Functional analysis showed that an implicated variant in WNT4 alters the binding of the estrogen receptor. The association between variants in ADCY5 and RAP2C and gestational duration had suggestive significance in the discovery set and significant evidence of association in the replication sets; these variants also showed genomewide significance in a joint analysis. Common variants in EBF1, EEFSEC, and AGTR2 showed association with preterm birth with genomewide significance. An analysis of mother-infant dyads suggested that these variants act at the level of the maternal genome. CONCLUSIONS In this genomewide association study, we found that variants at the EBF1, EEFSEC, AGTR2, WNT4, ADCY5, and RAP2C loci were associated with gestational duration and variants at the EBF1, EEFSEC, and AGTR2 loci with preterm birth. Previously established roles of these genes in uterine development, maternal nutrition, and vascular control support their mechanistic involvement.Peer reviewe

Ancient transposable elements transformed the uterine regulatory landscape and transcriptome during the evolution of mammalian pregnancy

A major challenge in biology is determining how evolutionarily novel characters originate; however, mechanistic explanations for the origin of new characters are almost completely unknown. The evolution of pregnancy is an excellent system in which to study the origin of novelties because mammals preserve stages in the transition from egg laying to live birth. To determine the molecular bases of this transition, we characterized the pregnant/gravid uterine transcriptome from tetrapods to trace the evolutionary history of uterine gene expression. We show that thousands of genes evolved endometrial expression during the origins of mammalian pregnancy, including genes that mediate maternal-fetal communication and immunotolerance. Furthermore, thousands of cis-regulatory elements that mediate decidualization and cell-type identity in decidualized stromal cells are derived from ancient mammalian transposable elements (TEs). Our results indicate that one of the defining mammalian novelties evolved from DNA sequences derived from ancient mammalian TEs co-opted into hormone-responsive regulatory elements distributed throughout the genome.Vincent J. Lynch, Mauris C. Nnamani, Aurélie Kapusta, Kathryn Brayer, Silvia L. Plaza, Erik C. Mazur, Deena Emera, Shehzad Z. Sheikh, Frank Grützner, Stefan Bauersachs, Alexander Graf, Steven L. Young, Jason D. Lieb, Francesco J. DeMayo, Cédric Feschotte, Günter P. Wagne

An Efficient Technique for the Reduction of Packet Loss in Wireless Sensor Network

This paper, presents an efficient technique for the reduction of packet losses in wireless sensor network (WSN), which occurs because of buffer overflow and subsequently congestion. A key design feature for wireless sensor network is to have less packet loss, as more packet loss degrades the Quality of service (QoS) of the transmitted information and retransmitting such, a packet can use up the energy of the nodes. Regardless of a number of efforts made to alleviate this problem, networks still experiences packet losses because of congestion and topology change. A congestion avoidance algorithm, which is based on an active queue management technique, was proposed in this work. The new technique, called a Refined Adaptive Random Early Detection (RARED) technique was used to control the maximum packet drop probability to be within 0.01 and 0.5, which is equivalently between 1% and 50%, thereby reducing the rate of packet loss and increasing the throughput. Simulation results obtained using Network simulator 2, showed that the proposed algorithm attained a reduction in packet loss of 5.7% against the existing Priority-based Fairness Rate Control (PFRC) in WSN

An Integral Experiment on Polyethylene Using Radiative Capture in Indium Foils in a High Flux D-D Neutron Generator

We report here the results of a measurement of the scattered versus unscattered neutron fluence on polyethylene determined via neutron activation of multiple natural indium foils from a deuterium-deuterium (D-D) neutron generator. The neutrons were produced by the High Flux Neutron Generator (HFNG) at the University of California, Berkeley, a specially designed source to maximize neutron flux on a sample while minimizing the total neutron yield. During the experiment, approximately 108 n/s were produced with the energies at the indium foils ranging from 2.2 to 2.8&nbsp;MeV. Both the angle-integrated and the partial angle differential results are consistent with the predictions of the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code, using ENDF/B-VII.1. This supports shielding calculations in the fast energy region with high-density polyethylene

An Integral Experiment on Polyethylene Using Radiative Capture in Indium Foils in a High Flux D-D Neutron Generator

We report here the results of a measurement of the scattered versus unscattered neutron fluence on polyethylene determined via neutron activation of multiple natural indium foils from a deuterium-deuterium (D-D) neutron generator. The neutrons were produced by the High Flux Neutron Generator (HFNG) at the University of California, Berkeley, a specially designed source to maximize neutron flux on a sample while minimizing the total neutron yield. During the experiment, approximately 108 n/s were produced with the energies at the indium foils ranging from 2.2 to 2.8&nbsp;MeV. Both the angle-integrated and the partial angle differential results are consistent with the predictions of the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport (MCNP) code, using ENDF/B-VII.1. This supports shielding calculations in the fast energy region with high-density polyethylene

Deep Sequencing to Reveal Phylo-Geographic Relationships of Juquitiba Virus in Paraguay

Several hantaviruses result in zoonotic infections of significant public health concern, causing hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) or hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) in the Old and New World, respectively. Given a 35% case fatality rate, disease-causing New World hantaviruses require a greater understanding of their biology, genetic diversity, and geographical distribution. Juquitiba hantaviruses have been identified in Oligoryzomys nigripes in Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Brazil has reported the most HCPS cases associated with this virus. We used a multiplexed, amplicon-based PCR strategy to screen and deep-sequence the virus harbored within lung tissues collected from Oligoryzomys species during rodent field collections in southern (Itapúa) and western (Boquerón) Paraguay. No Juquitiba-like hantaviruses were identified in Boquerón. Herein, we report the full-length S and M segments of the Juquitiba hantaviruses identified in Paraguay from O. nigripes. We also report the phylogenetic relationships of the Juquitiba hantaviruses in rodents collected from Itapúa with those previously collected in Canindeyú. We showed, using the TN93 nucleotide substitution model, the coalescent (constant-size) population tree model, and Bayesian inference implemented in the Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling trees (BEAST) framework, that the Juquitiba virus lineage in Itapúa is distinct from that in Canindeyú. Our spatiotemporal analysis showed significantly different time to the most recent ancestor (TMRA) estimates between the M and S segments, but a common geographic origin. Our estimates suggest the additional geographic diversity of the Juquitiba virus within the Interior Atlantic Forest and highlight the need for more extensive sampling across this biome