Correlation and Multiple Regression Analyses of Pituitary Growth Hormone and Hepatic Activities in Hepatitis C Infection and Interferon Response

The prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection varies across the world, with the highest percent of infections reported in Middle East, increasingly in Egypt. The current study aimed at examining the bio-statistical correlation and multiple regression analyses of pituitary growth hormone (GH) and liver activities among HCV genotype-4 patients treated with PEG-IFN-α plus RBV therapy. Herein, the current study was conducted on 100 HCV genotype-4 infected patients and 50 healthy controls. Patients received PEG-IFN-α/RBV for 24 weeks. Host RNA was isolated from patients’ sera for HCV genotyping and viral load determination. Moreover, the enzymatic activities of the liver, AFP, GH, PT, and CBC were performed in all volunteers. The present study resulted that the activities of the hepatic enzymes among HCV genotype-4 patients correlated together significantly. While, human GH showed a significant positive regression with pre-treatment ALT concentration in responders. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis for GH showed a significant positive correlation with pre-treatment ALT in HCV genotype-4 infected patients. We concluded that there were a putative significant relation between GH and pre-treatment ALT activity in HCV infection and response to IFN-based therapy.     

What do you mean by learning lab?

Education and Information Technologies - Digital and innovation competencies are nowadays highly required for students and faculty members in higher education institutions. We therefore need...     

Frequency dependent dynamic properties from resonant column and cyclic triaxial tests

The resonant column (RC) and cyclic triaxial (CT) devices are commonly used for the measurement of soils’ dynamic properties. The results of these tests do not agree when extrapolated to similar strain levels. The main objectives of this paper are to evaluate the effect of excitation frequency on the dynamic properties of soils, and to provide a methodology to reconcile shear modulus values obtained from RC and CT tests. The effect of frequency on the dynamic properties is evaluated using the new non-resonance (NR) method in the RC device and CT tests. Sand specimens with varying percentages of bentonite-water mixture and a clay specimen are tested. The results obtained from RC tests utilizing the NR method indicate significant change in shear modulus with frequency. The extrapolation of shear modulus from the conventional RC results to shear strains used in CT is significantly overestimated. The extrapolations improved when the results were corrected for frequency effect inferred from the NR method.     

Analysis of adaptive detection of moderately fluctuating radar targets in target multiplicity environments

In this article, we provide a complete detection analysis, in its exact form, of what is known as moderately fluctuating radar targets when the background environment contains a number of interfering targets along with the target under test. The illumination of this class of radar targets by a coherent pulse train, return a train of correlated pulses with a correlation coefficient in the range 0<ρ<1 (intermediate between SWII and SWI models). Since the adaptive detection is one of the desirable features for modern radar receivers, it becomes of importance to adaptively detect this class of targets. The attractive class of adaptive detectors is that based on order-statistics (OS) technique. The more advanced version of the OS algorithm, known as the generalized trimmed-mean (GTM) scheme, is chosen here to carry out this task. It implements trimmed averaging of a weighted ordered range samples. This processor is analyzed for the case where the radar receiver incorporates a postdetection integrator amongst its contents and where the operating environment is multitarget. The primary and the secondary interfering targets are assumed to be fluctuating in accordance with partially correlated χ² fluctuation model. SWI and SWII well-known models represent the cases where the signal is completely correlated and completely decorrelated, respectively, from pulse to pulse. It is shown that the processor performance improves, for weak SNR of the primary target, as the correlation coefficient ρ_s increases and this occurs either in the absence or in the presence of spurious targets. For strong SNR, on the other hand, the processor performance degrades as ρ_s increases and the SWI and SWII models enclose the correlated target case and this behavior is common for all GTM based schemes.     

Richey,Rita C ed (2013) Encyclopedia of terminology for educational communications and technology Springer (Berlin) isbn 978‐1‐4614‐6572‐0 xxxii+338 pp £117 http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/learning+%26+instruction/book/978‐1‐4614‐6572‐0

This collection of explanations of terms across the field of educational communications and technology offers scholars and practitioners a comprehensive and coherent overview of the domain. It presents short key educational discussions, annotated explanations, and avenues to further scholarly works. I recommend borrowing the book, and for educational leaders, it could fruitfully feature as a useful reference text in their personal libraries. Nancy El‐Farargy     

Trends in the development of student level of reasoning in pattern generalization tasks across grade level

This paper explored (1) the developmental trend of student level of reasoning across grade level in pattern generalization; (2) the mediatory role of task variables in the developmental trend of student level of reasoning within and across tasks; and (3) developmental trend of student level of reasoning associated with strategy use across grade level. A test designed to measure student level of reasoning was given to a sample of 1232 students from grades 4 to 11 from 5 schools in Lebanon. The Structure of the Learned Outcomes or Responses (SOLO) was used as a theoretical model. Results show that student level of reasoning exhibited an increasing trend across clusters of grade levels and that there were several SOLO levels in each cluster of grade levels. Type of task (immediate, near, far) and function type (linear, non-linear) seem to mediate the development of level of reasoning across grade level but the complexity of the task (simple, more complex) did not. Students used several strategies in each cluster of grade levels and the developmental trends of student level of reasoning associated with strategy use were not uniform and varied across clusters of grade levels, thus supporting a neo-Piagetian interpretation of the results.     

The Role of the NUKAT Union Catalog in Shaping the Society of Knowledge in Poland: January 2008 Conference Report

The paper summarizes the proceedings of the January 2008 conference entitled The Role of the NUKAT Union Catalog in Shaping the Society of Knowledge in Poland.