BACKGROUND The study aimed to evaluate the use of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with (68)Ga-PRGD2 as the tracer for imaging of synovial angiogenesis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Twenty untreated active patients with RA underwent (68)Ga-PRGD2 PET/CT and (18)F-FDG PET/CT before treatment; two patients with osteoarthritis served as controls. Amo...

While natural antimicrobial peptides are potential therapeutic agents, their physicochemical properties and bioactivity generally need to be enhanced for clinical and commercial development. We have previously developed a cationic, amphipathic α-helical, 11-residue peptide (named herein GA-W2: FLGWLFKWASK-NH₂) with potent antimicrobial and hemolytic activity, which was derived from a 24-residue...

OBJECTIVE To establish reference range for uterine artery (UtA) Doppler pulsatility index (PI) using transvaginal ultrasound at 20-24w6d of gestation in a Brazilian population. MATERIAL AND METHODS A retrospective cross-sectional study in 847 low-risk pregnant women undergoing routine second trimester ultrasound examination was conducted from February 2012 through March 2015. The mean UtA PI ...

PURPOSE Pediatric patients who receive both intramuscular (i.m.) sedation and general anesthesia (GA) for oral rehabilitation occasionally experience prolonged sedation and delayed discharge. The Bispectral Index System (BIS) is an EEG monitor that measures the level of sedation. The authors compared discharge times of patients who had BIS monitoring to those who did not to determine if the use...

Background. In hepatitis B virus- (HBV-) positive patients, the relationship between the metabolic variables and histological degree of liver fibrosis has been poorly investigated. Methods. A total of 176 HBV-positive patients were assessed in whom the ratios of glycated albumin-to-glycated hemoglobin (GA/HbA1c) were calculated in order to investigate the relationship with the degree of liver f...

OBJECTIVE To assess the ability to identify the conus medullaris (CM) and measure the conus-sacrum distance (CS distance) on a routine scan and the relationship with maternal and fetal factors. METHODS This was a prospective study. The assessment of the CM and the CS distance and the influence of the body mass index (BMI), gestational age (GA) and fetal position were analyzed. The correlation...

This paper proposes two IR approaches; the first is IR with GA, which is a GA-based IR approach. This approach introduces modified GA operators that allow IR with GA to achieve high performance. The second IR model is IR without GA, which is based on traditional IR approach. Both enhance the precision and recall of the web search by improving the document representation where an enhanced invert...

Power systems are operating under stressed condition due to continuous increase in demand of load. This can lead to voltage instability problem when face additional load increase or contingency. In order to avoid voltage instability suitable size of reactive power compensation at optimal location in the system is required which improves the load margin. This work aims at obtaining optimal size ...

Glycated albumin to glycated hemoglobin (GA/A1c) ratio is known to be inversely related with body mass index (BMI) and insulin secretory capacity. However, the reasons for this association remain unknown. We aimed to investigate whether BMI directly or indirectly influences GA/A1c by exerting effects on insulin secretion or resistance and to confirm whether these associations differ according t...

INTRODUCTION The gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) is overexpressed in breast cancer. The present study evaluates GRPR imaging as a novel imaging modality in breast cancer by employing positron emission tomography (PET) and the GRPR antagonist (68)Ga-RM2. METHODS Fifteen female patients with biopsy confirmed primary breast carcinoma (3 bilateral tumors; median clinical stage IIB) unde...