International Scholarly Research Notices

BACKGROUND: Acute appendicitis is the commonest nonobstetric surgical emergency during pregnancy. The aim of the study was to compare perioperative outcomes of acute appendicitis in pregnant and nonpregnant patients. METHODS: A retrospective review of medical records of 56 pregnant patients between 2011 and 2016 who were compared with 164 nonpregnant women of reproductive age who underwent open appendectomy between 2014 and 2016 for acute appendicitis. The patient's demographics and perioperative data were analyzed...

We investigated the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of a 70% v/v ethanol extract of the stem bark of Antrocaryon micraster on murine models of carrageenan-induced pleurisy and paw oedema. Rat pleural fluid was analysed for volume, protein content, and leucocytes, while lung histology was assessed for damage. Lung tissue homogenates were assayed for glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), malondialdehyde (MDA), and myeloperoxidase (MPO). Phytochemical analysis was carried out on the stem bark...

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to describe the trend of sputum organism density and the rate of bacteriological conversion among smear positive TB patients assessing care at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi, Ghana. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective patient folder review from January 2013 to March 2016 at the KATH, a tertiary hospital in Ghana. The data was entered into Microsoft Access database and exported into STATA for analysis. We applied basic descriptive statistics to study variables...

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.5402/2012/675285.].

Kidney transplantation (KT) is one of the treatment options for patients with chronic kidney disease. The number of patients waiting for kidney transplantation is growing day by day. Various strategies have been put in place to expand the donor pool. Extended criteria donors are now accepted more frequently. Increasing number of elderly donors with age > 60 years, history of diabetes or hypertension, and clinical proteinuria are accepted as donor. Dual kidney transplantation (DKT) is also more frequently done and experience with this technique is slowly building up...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.5402/2011/901416.].

BACKGROUND: Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair (TEVAR) has substantially decreased the mortality and major complications from aortic surgery. However, neurological complications such as spinal cord ischemia may still occur after TEVAR. S-100β is a biomarker of central nervous system injury, and oxidant injury plays an important role in neurological injury. In this pilot study, we examined the trends of S-100β and antioxidant capacity in the CSF during and after TEVAR. METHODS: We recruited 10 patients who underwent elective TEVAR...

Dyslipidemia is a common metabolic disorder especially in diabetes mellitus (DM). In this study, the ability of Sapium ellipticum (SE) leaf extract to restore lipid homeostasis in streptozotocin-induced diabetes was examined. DM was induced in experimental rats (Wistar strains) using single intraperitoneal dose (55 mg/kg body weight {BW}) of streptozotocin (STZ). Treatment of diabetic rats with SE was oral (p.o), at doses of 400 and 800 mg kg(-1) BW, twice daily at 8 h interval for 21 days. Lipid parameters were analyzed in the serum of rats using test kits...

BACKGROUND: Peptic ulcer perforation is a common cause of emergency admission and surgery. This is the first study that documents the presentation and outcome of management in Irrua, Nigeria. PATIENTS AND METHOD: This is a prospective study of all patients operated on for perforated peptic ulcer between April 1, 2010, and March 31, 2015. A structured questionnaire containing patients' demographics, operation findings, and outcome was filled upon discharge or death...

BACKGROUND: Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune subepidermal blistering skin disorder which occurs mostly in the elderly. Several studies have reported an association between BP and neurological disorders (ND). OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between BP and neurological disorders in Iranian patients. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 87 patients with BP were enrolled. They were compared to 184 controls...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Dopamine dysfunction is known to be associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) is one of the important genes in this pathway. This study intended to investigate the variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) in exon 3 of the DRD4 gene in Iranian children and adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 130 children with ADHD, aged 6-14 years, and 130 healthy children, within the same age range, were enrolled...

Rutin is available in some foods, fruits, and vegetables. It has various beneficial medical effects making it useful in the treatment of various diseases. Rutin is available in different oral dosage forms such as tablets or capsules, widely available in the market. Rutin and many herbal medicines lack quality control due to unavailability of analytical methods. In this study, we formulated rutin tablet and studied its stability using a simple developed analytical method. The dissolution profile of our formulated tablet was also inspected...

AIM: Job stress is a part of nurses' professional life that causes the decrease of the nurses' job satisfaction and quality of work life. This study aimed to determine the effect of positive thinking via social media applications on the nurses' quality of work life. METHODS: This was a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study design with a control group. The samples were selected among the nurses in two hospitals in Fasa University of Medical Sciences and divided randomly into two interventional (n = 50) and control (n = 50) groups...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1155/2014/967091.].

A phase resetting curve (PRC) measures the transient change in the phase of a neural oscillator subject to an external perturbation. The PRC encapsulates the dynamical response of a neural oscillator and, as a result, it is often used for predicting phase-locked modes in neural networks. While phase is a fundamental concept, it has multiple definitions that may lead to contradictory results. We used the Hilbert Transform (HT) to define the phase of the membrane potential oscillations and HT amplitude to estimate the PRC of a single neural oscillator...

Electrical resistivity measurement of freshly prepared uncured and cured soil-cement materials is done and the correlations between the factors controlling the performance of soil-cement and electrical resistivity are discussed in this paper. Conventional quality control of soil-cement quite often involves wastage of a lot of material, if it does not meet the strength criteria. In this study, it is observed that, in soil-cement, resistivity follows a similar trend as unconfined compressive strength, with increase in cement content and time of curing...

Rainfall variability has a significant impact on crop production with manifestations in frequent crop failure in semiarid areas. This study used the parameterized APSIM crop model to investigate how rainfall variability may affect yields of improved sorghum varieties based on long-term historical rainfall and projected climate. Analyses of historical rainfall indicate a mix of nonsignificant and significant trends on the onset, cessation, and length of the growing season. The study confirmed that rainfall variability indeed affects yields of improved sorghum varieties...

Introduction. Several plant preparations like a mixture of aqueous extracts of Spilanthes africana; Portulaca oleracea ; and Sida rhombifolia are currently utilized in Foumban (West Cameroon) to manage diabetes. The aim of this study is to investigate the antidiabetic property of the aqueous mixture of three plant extracts (1 : 1 : 1) on streptozotocin induced diabetes rats. Methods. Diabetes was induced to rats by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of streptozotocin (STZ) at a dose of 50 mg/kg b...

Microbial xylanase and pectinase are two extremely valuable enzymes, which have captivated much attention. This can be seen from the increased demand for these enzymes by many industrial sectors. This study investigates the isolation and screening of extracellular xylanopectinolytic enzymes-producing bacteria in a submerged fermentation (SmF). Samples are collected from the compost of empty fruit bunch (EFB) at Biocompost Pilot Plant, located at Biorefinery Plant, Universiti Putra Malaysia. From the experiment, out of 20 isolates, 11 isolates show xylanase or/and pectinase activity, and only one isolate (EFB-11) shows the concurrent activities of xylanase and pectinase...

Adequate fertility combined with effective weed management is important in maximizing corn (Zea mays L.) grain yield. Corn uptake of nitrogen (N) is dependent upon many factors including weed species and density and the rate and formulation of applied N fertilizer. Understanding interactions among corn, applied N, and weeds is important in developing management strategies. Field studies were conducted in North Carolina to compare corn and weed responses to urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), sulfur-coated urea (SCU), and composted poultry litter (CPL) when a mixture of Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S...