Scientific Research Publishing

Epigastric or retrosternal heartburn (pyrosis) is one of the most reported conditions and is the primary symptom of gastro-oesophageal reflux (GER). However, most people who suffer from acid reflux and pyrosis practice self-medication and only when the situation becomes persistent or chronic do they look for professional aid. And there is a large variety of over-the-counter (OTC) products worldwide for symptomatic treatment of acid reflux. In fact, it is important to rank the clinical efficacy of different anti-reflux agents to promote their rational use. In this study, the authors aimed to combine the results of randomized clinical trials that had compared the incidence of symptoms related to gastro-oesophageal reflux (GER) with/without endoscopic evidence of oesophagitis in a network meta-analysis and thus rank the main anti-reflux therapies according to the magnitude of their clinical efficacy.  Inclusion criteria: 1) randomized controlle...

Angiotensin II (Ang II) is a critical component of the reninangiotensin system that contributes to hypertension. Although platelets in blood from hypertensive subjects have an abnormal biological profile, it is unclear if circulating Ang II influences platelet aggregation or thrombus formation. One of the abnormalities presented to the platelets during hypertension is an elevated plasma concentration of serotonin (5-HT) caused by reduced 5-HT uptake secondary to loss of the 5-HT transporter (SERT) on the platelet plasma membrane. In this study, the authors evaluated  in   vivo  platelet function after 7 days of subcutaneous Ang II infusion to establish hypertension in mice and additionally assessed the biology of isolated platelets exposed to Ang II  in   vitro . The administration of Ang II elevated systolic blood pressure, but markers of platelet activation including P-selectin and  PE Jon/A staining were not changed. However...

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease affecting humans and other animals caused by parasitic protozoans belonging to the Plasmodium type. It is usually found in tropical and subtropical climates where the parasites that cause it live and remains a major health problem. Due to the protective barrier of the placenta, transfer of maternal antibodies and the protective effect of foetal haemoglobin (HbF), malaria was thought to be rare in neonates. However, recent studies report increasing prevalence in neonates. In this paper, the authors aimed to assess the prevalence, clinical features and outcome of malaria in neonates admitted into two tertiary hospitals in Jos, Plateau State. The study was carried out in Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) and Bingham University Teaching Hospital (BhUTH). It had a prospective hospital based longitudinal descriptive study design and was carried out between 2nd January and 4th July, 2013. All consecutive neonates (aged between 0 and ...

The current and growing construction industry in Malaysia has led to increasing of accidents related to construction workers. In an attempt to decrease accidents on site, the design safety concept is the most suitable measures to date. Though the impact is evident and potential benefits of its implementation are apparent, widespread application of this intervention in the Malaysia’s construction industry is currently lacking, especially in the academic sector. Therefore, this paper aimed to explore the integration of safety and health to the current curricula focusing on the engineering programs and their perceptions towards design safety concept and its implementation. The types of design disciplines included in the research study were limited to academicians. A total of 72 respondents received via questionnaire and the responses were scored on a 5-point Likert Scale to express their level of agreement. The respondents had varied backgrounds representing a variety of exp...

Glutathione (GSH), a major cellular antioxidant, is the most abundant intracellular non-protein thiol and anti-oxidant in the body with a concentration of approximately 2 - 3 mM in brain. It can protect cells against oxidative stress injury. It is also vital for guarding normal healthy metabolism as well as defense against a range of disease and toxicity mechanisms by appropriately controlling cellular redox levels, most notably in the central nervous system (CNS). Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NFE2L2/Nrf2) is a redox sensitive master regulator of battery of antioxidant enzymes including those involved in GSH antioxidant machinery. In various experimental models of neurodegeneration, neuronal antioxidant defenses (mainly GSH) have been shown to be supported by astrocytes. The authors therefore sought to determine whether astrocytes could render protection to neurons against ethanol (ETOH) toxicity, particularly when the function of Nrf2 was compromised in neurons. ...

Pericarditis is an inflammation of the lining surrounding the heart (the pericardial sac). Pericardial effusion is a collection of fluid in the pericardial sac. This fluid may be produced by inflammation. The cause of pericarditis in most individuals is unknown but is likely due to viral infection. This study was to describe the etiological and evolutionary aspects of fluid pericarditis in pediatric cardiology at Institute of Cardiology of Abidjan (ICA).  The authors conducted a retrospective study of 42 cases of fluid pericarditis diagnosed among 202 children hospitalized over a five-year period (1 st  January 2009 to 31 st  December 2014). All patients with pericardial effusion were included in the study. The prevalence was estimated at 20.8% of hospitalizations, sex ratio was 1.1 with a female predominance (52%) and the mean age at 9.2 years old (11 days old to 15 years old). The results indicated that dyspnea (64%), cardiomegaly (24%), fever (10%) a...

Global climate change has negatively impacted the whole biodiversity. And the changes are highly exacerbated by human pressures, mainly in coastal areas, within the high urbanization, the industrialization, the over-exploitation of natural resources. This study was undertaken mainly to 1) investigate temporal trends in annual rainfall and temperature; 2) identify discontinuities in the time series; and 3) assess the Land Use/Land Cover Change (LULC) in the Somone coastal lagoon, within the river basin. The study examined temporal trends in rainfall (1931-2016) and temperature (1961-2016) datasets of Somone river basin, and breaks in time series by using Mann-Kendall non-parametric test and other suitable statistical tools. Temporal evolution in LULC was assessed for the years 1954, 1978, 2003 and 2016. Analysis indicated a significant decreasing trend in precipitation over the basin. These trends were much more pronounced for minimum and average rainfall than for maximum and annua...

Septic arthritis is infection of one or more joints by microorganisms. It can be caused by bacterial, viral, and fungal infections. The risks for the development of septic arthritis include a patient taking immune-suppression medicines, intravenous drug abuse, past joint disease, injury or surgery, and underlying medical illnesses which include diabetes, alcoholism, sickle cell disease, rheumatic diseases, and immune deficiency disorders. T his retrospective analysis documented the features and factors that potentially affected the outcomes in septic arthritis in the Cross River Basin area of south-south Nigeria. In this study, a sample of 43 patients who presented with septic arthritis in 45 joints was collected between September 2007 and August 2010. There were 24 males and 19 females (M:F = 1.3:1). Forty patients were children while three were adults. Thirty-three patients were urban dwellers, 8 were semi-urban dwellers and 2 were rural dwellers. Twenty-five children were first...

Epilepsy is a central nervous system disorder (neurological disorder) in which nerve cell activity in the brain becomes disrupted, causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations and sometimes loss of consciousness. Seizure symptoms can vary widely. It can be treated by drugs or surgeries. However, pharmaco-resistant epilepsy patients are poorly controlled or their seizures are refractory to drug treatment, then resective surgery is frequently a promising therapy in this population; while not all the patients meet the eligibility criteria for the surgical treatment. In recent years, deep brain stimulation has been investigated in clinical studies and animal studies as an alternative treatment, but the optimal stimulation parameters remain an issue. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of unilateral high-frequency stimulation (HFS) of hippocampus on seizure development by using the hippocampal rapid kindling method (hRK) in rats, and compared the...

Dental composite resins are types of synthetic resins which are used in dentistry as restorative material or adhesives. It’s also more recently used as a dentine replacement material.  SDR (Smart Dentine Replacement, Dentsply ) is a flowable, high-resin composite material designed to minimize the effect of the high shrinkage through the use of a flexible monomer. It has an increased depth of cure due to increased translucency which can have an adverse impact on aesthetics in some clinical situations. In this paper, the authors conducted an in vitro study to investigate the properties of a bulk-fill flowable resin restorative material. Tests were carried out on Surefil SDR (Smart Dentin Replacement) and two other commonly used resin-based composite materials (XRV Herculite,  Kerr  and Spectrum TPH,  Dentsply ) including: depth of cure according to ISO 4049, degree of cure using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), compressive strength using a Uni...

Accuracy of crop classification for high spatial resolution satellite imagery in the intensively cultivated lands of the Egyptian Nile delta is still low. The main objective of this research was to determine the optimal hyperspectral wavebands in the spectral range of (400 - 2500 nm) to discriminate between two winter crops (wheat and clover) and two summer crops (maize and rice). This was considered as the first step to improve crop classification through satellite imagery in the intensively cultivated areas in Egypt. Hyperspectral ground measurements of ASD field Spec3 spectroradiometer was used to monitor the spectral reflectance profile during the period of the maximum growth stage of the four crops. 1-nm-wide was aggregated to 10-nm-wide bandwidths. After accounting for atmospheric windows and/or areas of significant noise, a total of 2150 narrow bands in 400 - 2500 nm were used in the analysis. Spectral reflectance was divided into six spectral z...

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest developing industries through the world which plays an important role in socio-economic life of the people. It not only promotes national economics and exchange revenues but also is a clean industry which can produce many career opportunities especially in developing countries. However, weather and climate are critical factors which can directly affect tourist arrivals and travelling destination. In this paper, a study was conducted to evaluate the tourist’s comfort conditions of Baluchestan region by using Tourism Climate Index (TCI) , which is an index used for evaluating tourist’s comfortable conditions. Climate parameters data, including the mean maximum air temperature, the mean minimum relative humidity, the mean air temperature and the mean relative humidity, amount of precipitation, daily sunshine duration and mean wind speed, were collected from 5 synoptic stations (Khash, Saravan, Nikshahr, Iranshahr and Chabahar) located in...

Myocardial infarct , commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to a part of the heart, causing irreversible loss of cardimyocytes accompanied by deterioration of contractile function and arrhythmias. Maintenance of mitochondrial activity and antioxidant features of coenzyme Q 10  ( CoQ 10 ) could be an effective background for treatment of acute myocardial ischemia. Dietary uptake of CoQ 10  is limited to only a few percent. In urgent cases, parenteral administration of CoQ 10  could provide fast increase of its plasma and myocardial levels. The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of single intravenous (i.v.) pretreatment of solubilized CoQ 10 on its myo cardial level and IR injury. 30 min prior to coronary artery occlusion rats received i.v. solubilized CoQ 10  (30 mg/kg) or saline (1 ml/kg). After 30 min of ischemia and 120 min of reperfusion, infarct zone of left ventricle (LV) and quantity of CoQ 10 ...

Variations in leaf morphological characteristics have been extensively studied at both interand intraspecific levels although not explicitly on paper birch ( Betula papyrifera  Marsh). Paper birch populations might have considerable genotypic and leaf morphological variations that have allowed them to inhabit wide environmental gradients. In this study, the authors analyzed variations in leaf morphological characteristics in 23 paper birch populations collected across Canada and grown in a greenhouse. Furthermore, they examined whether the variations in leaf morphological characteristics observed were related to the climate of the population’s origin. The authors measured leaf size (LS), perimeter (P), blade length (BL), petiole length (PL), petiole size (PS), maximum width (MW), position of maximum width (PMW), horizontal width (HW) and vertical length (VL) of the samples. And mean annual and growing season temperature and precipitation data for population’s origin were...

An ischemic stroke occurs when an artery supplying the brain with blood is obstructed by a blood clot. It is almost always caused by the accumulation of fatty deposits along blood vessel walls—a condition known as atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. It is one of the most common pathological conditions both in neurological practice and in all clinical medicine. In this study, the authors investigated the efficacy of brain transcatheter laser revascularization in patients who had extensive ischemic stroke. 1125 patients aged 29 - 81 (average age 75) with cerebral atherosclerosis were examined. The examination plan included: CT brain scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), brain scintigraphy (SG), rheoencephalography (REG), cerebral multi-gated angiography (MUGA), laboratory tests, assessment of severity of dementia (CDR), cognitive impairment (MMSE) and activities of daily living (IB). 93 patients suffered extensive ischemic stroke of whom 7 (7.53%) had 10 -...

Marathon is a long-distance running race. It is one of the endurance events which have some health benefits. However, the incidences of sudden cardiac deaths that have occurred during marathons imply an element of risk as well. In this paper, the authors aimed to assess the prevalence of high blood pressure (BP) and cardiovascular risk factors among marathon runners during Beirut-Marathon 2014. A total of 325 marathon runners were divided into 42 km (30 runners) and 10 km groups (295 runners). They were assessed for cardiovascular risk factors by measuring their BP and answering a questionnaire. The questionnaire composed of 22 questions related to demographic information, risk factors, medical history, family history, medical checkups, use of antihypertensive drugs and definition of hyponatremia.  The results demonstrated that 1) the majority of 42 km runners were males 29 (96.7%) vs. 205 (69.5%) in the 10 km group, (P = 0.001); 2) The age of the runners in 42 km group ...