Serum and platelet sialic acid in acute myocardial infarction

Blood samples from 39 patients with acute myocardial infarction and 15 healthy controls were analysed for serum and platelet sialic acid. Serum sialic acid levels in patients with acute myocardial infarction were significantly higher than controls (mean 2.7±0.46 μmol/ml Vs. 1.91±0.17 μmol/ml respectively). Levels of serum orosomucoid, an acute phase reactant, containing sialic acid, were also higher in these patients, suggesting a possible non-specific mechanism of increase in serum sialic acid concentration. In contrast, platelets contained significantly less sialic acid in patients with acute myocardial infarction than control (26.73±1.57 nmol/mg protein and 31.97±2.68 nmol/mg protein respectively).     

Remedial education for high-risk university freshmen – the case of a university of technology in Taiwan

Potential high-risk freshmen for three core courses (BasicMath, Calculus, and Computing) in the university were identified based on the “College Students’ Adjustment Check List (CSACL)” data available with the Student Development Centre in the Office of Students’ Affairs of the university. The study demonstrates that to ameliorate the problem of unpreparedness of freshmen, to check failure rates, and efficient use of limited resources, an effective remedial system could be developed by the combined inputs from the Office of Students’ Affairs, Computer Centre, Academic Affairs, and the Institutional Research. Our study corroborates the findings of other researchers that gender, teacher, department, high school performance, enrolment channel, and loads during remedial course influence the learning outcome. Also, it was found that the use of multi-evaluation approaches in different enrolment channels can attain higher retention rates.     

Determination of immunoreactivity of<Emphasis Type="Italic">Plasmodium falciparum</Emphasis> antigens,serum dilutions and biomaterials

Immunoreactivity properties of serum dilutions andPlasmodium falciparum malaria antigens were measured and compared by ELISA technique using different ELISA plates to evaluate the role of antigens and serum dilutions for optimum binding. Also effort has been made to see the effect of reaction surface and material i.e. ELISA plates for binding capacity. Serological properties were estimated by ELISA methods for detection of malaria and determination of immunological characteristics. Three Pf antigens (PfAg) i.e. ring infected erythrocyte surface antigen: AR-1 (RESA), histidine-rich protein 2 antigen (HRP-2) and glycophospholipid antigen (grown and developed Pf antigen from PSJ-M strain): GPL1 have been used for serological testing of human blood samples by Enzyme Link Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA). 1∶100, 1∶1000 and 1∶10000 dilutions of Pf positive and negative serum (50 samples in each group) and 1∶1000 dilution of Pf antigens were used to measure immunoreactive properties by ELISA method. Result of PfAg-serum immunoreactivity study showed that GPL1 has the highest degree of immuno binding reactivity compared to other Pf antigens. HRP-2 and RESA antigens showed no significant difference to each other. Study also found that Costar and Fastec ELISA plates have a better Ag−Ab binding capability compared to immulon and Falcon plates at all dilutions of serum. Serum dilution of 1∶100 showed best binding and reactivity with Pf antigens followed by 1∶1000 and 1∶10000 showed lowest reactivity.     

Improved Breast Cancer Classification Through Combining Graph Convolutional Network and Convolutional Neural Network

AimIn a pilot study to improve detection of malignant lesions in breast mammograms, we aimed to develop a new method called BDR-CNN-GCN, combining two advanced neural networks: (i) graph convolutional network (GCN); and (ii) convolutional neural network (CNN).MethodWe utilised a standard 8-layer CNN, then integrated two improvement techniques: (i) batch normalization (BN) and (ii) dropout (DO). Finally, we utilized rank-based stochastic pooling (RSP) to substitute the traditional max pooling. This resulted in BDR-CNN, which is a combination of CNN, BN, DO, and RSP. This BDR-CNN was hybridized with a two-layer GCN, and yielded our BDR-CNN-GCN model which was then utilized for analysis of breast mammograms as a 14-way data augmentation method.ResultsAs proof of concept, we ran our BDR-CNN-GCN algorithm 10 times on the breast mini-MIAS dataset (containing 322 mammographic images), achieving a sensitivity of 96.20±2.90%, a specificity of 96.00±2.31% and an accuracy of 96.10±1.60%.ConclusionOur BDR-CNN-GCN showed improved performance compared to five proposed neural network models and 15 state-of-the-art breast cancer detection approaches, proving to be an effective method for data augmentation and improved detection of malignant breast masses.     

Hypoglycemic, lipid lowering and antioxidant activities in root extract of Anthocephalus indicus in alloxan induced diabetic rats

The present study was carried out to evaluate the hypoglycemic, lipid lowering and antioxidant activities in root extract of Anthocephalus indicus (A indicus) in alloxan inducd diabetic rats. Oral administration of ethanol extract of root (500mg/ kg body weight) for 21 days resulted in significant decrease in the levels of blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, phospholipid and free fatty acids. Furthermore, the root extract (100–400μg) inhibited the generation of superoxide anions and hydroxyl radicals, in both enzymic and non-enzymic systems, in vitro. The result of the present study demonstrated hypoglycemic, lipid lowering and antioxidant activities in root extract of A indicus, which could help in prevention of diabetic dyslipidemia and related diseases.     

Fabricating scaffolds by microfluidics

In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time the technique to using microfluidics to fabricate tissue engineering scaffolds with uniform pore sizes. We investigate both the bubble generation of the microfluidic device and the application of foam as a tissue engineering scaffold. Our microfluidic device consists of two concentric tapered channels, which are made by micropipettes. Nitrogen gas and aqueous alginate solution with Pluronic^® F127 surfactant are pumped through the inner and the outer channels, respectively. We observe rich dynamic patterns of bubbles encapsulated in the liquid droplets. The size of the bubble depends linearly on the gas pressure and inversely on the liquid flow rate. In addition, monodisperse bubbles self-assemble into crystalline structures. The liquid crystalline foams are further processed into open-cell solid foams. The novel foam gel was used as a scaffold to culture chondrocytes.     

Interaction of - α 3.7, ? Thalassemia Mutation IVS 1-5 and HbD Punjab in a Family: A Case Report

Hemoglobin D exist in four form; HbD trait, HbD-thalassemia, HbD sickle cell and HbD homozygous. HbD trait and HbD homozygous generally asymptomatic condition but when HbD co-inherit with thalassemia and sickle cell anemia, produces clinically significant conditions like chronic hemolytic anemia. Here we present a case of HbD Punjab with α 3.7 kb deletion and IVS-1-5 β-thalassemia across a family. Diagnosis of HbD patient was performed by high performance liquid chromatography and complete blood count was measured by automated cell analyzer. Molecular study for common alpha deletions done by Gap-PCR while beta thalassemia mutation identified by ARMS-PCR. Case was clinically significant due to the inheritance of HbD/β⁺thalassemia genotype. Thus observed case behaved like thalassemia intermedia due to co-existence of α 3.7 deletions with IVS 1-5 β-thalassemia mutation in HbD Punjab patient.     

Correlation of Brain Biomarker Neuron Specific Enolase (NSE) with Degree of Disability and Neurological Worsening in Cerebrovascular Stroke

Stroke is the third major cause of death and foremost cause of disability worldwide. Cerebrovascular stroke remains largely a clinical diagnosis. The use of biomarkers in diagnosing stroke and assessing prognosis is an emerging and rapidly evolving field. The study aimed to investigate the predictive value of neurobiochemical marker of brain damage (neuron-specific enolase [NSE]) with respect to degree of disability at the time of admission and neurological worsening in acute ischemic stroke patients. We investigated 150 patients with cerebrovascular stroke who were admitted within 72 h of onset of stroke in the Department of Neurology at SAIMS. Venous blood samples were taken after admission and NSE was analyzed by solid enzyme linked immunosorbent assay using Analyzer and microplate reader from Biored: Code 680. In all patients, the neurological status was evaluated by a standardized neurological examination and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale on admission and on day 7. Serum NSE concentration was found to significantly correlate with both degree of disability and neurological worsening in acute ischemic stroke cases in the present study. The maximum serum NSE level within 72 h of admission was significantly higher in patients with greater degree of disability at the time of admission. Serum NSE levels were also found to be significantly elevated in patients with bad neurological outcome. Our study showed that serum NSE has high predictive value for determining severity and early neurobehavioral outcome after acute stroke.