INTRODUCTION Tic disorders are neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood associated with psychiatric comorbidity and academic problems. Estimating the prevalence and understanding the epidemiology of tic disorders is more complex than was once thought. Until fairly recently, tic disorders were thought to be rare, but today tics are believed to be the most common movement disorder, with 0.2-46.3...

PURPOSE To study tear trypsin inhibitory capacity (T-TIC), serum trypsin inhibitory capacity (S-TIC) and their relationship to matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-1 and -9 in patients with vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC). METHODS In the first phase of the study, inactivation of alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) by MMP-1 and -9 was investigated in vitro. Subsequently, tear samples were collected after c...

BACKGROUND Titanium carbide (TiC) is used for ceramic metal composites in several industries and is regarded as a nanomaterial for catalyst and battery applications. However, there are very few studies in regard to the toxicological potential of TiC nanoparticles (NPs). OBJECTIVE To study the toxicodynamics and toxicokinetics of TiC NPs in Sprague Dawley rats in acute (24 h) and subacute (28 ...

TiC nanofibers reinforced Al matrix composites were produced by High Frequency Induction Heat Sintering (HFIHS).The titanium carbide nanofibers with an average diameter of 90 nm are first prepared by electrospinning technique and high temperature calcination process. A composite solution containing polyacrylonitrile and titanium isopropoxide is first electrospun into the nanofibers, which are s...

BACKGROUND Genetic-epidemiological studies that estimate the contributions of genetic factors to variation in tic symptoms are scarce. We estimated the extent to which genetic and environmental influences contribute to tics, employing various phenotypic definitions ranging between mild and severe symptomatology, in a large population-based adult twin-family sample. METHOD In an extended twin-...

OBJECTIVE To define the long-term outcome in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) using objective rating measures. BACKGROUND Previous historical studies suggest spontaneous improvement of tic symptoms after adolescence, but objective longitudinal data are limited. METHODS The authors reviewed all videotapes in their database (1978 through 1991) of children with GTS (ages 8 to 14) who were ...

The formation mechanism of TiC particles in a Ni-Ti-C system were revealed by using differential thermal analysis (DTA), XRD, and SEM to identify the reaction products in different temperature ranges. The results indicated that the synthesis mechanism of TiC in Ni-Ti-C system was complex; several reactions were involved in the combustion synthesis of TiC-Ni composite. The Ni-Ti intermediate pha...

Yesterday, as I was playing 3-D tic-tac-toe on my personal computer, my roommate described to me the computer’s strategy: “He tries to get three corners on the top or bottom level. If he does that he guarantees a win.” Undoubtedly, my roommate intended his description to be metaphorical, a sort of computational anthropomorphism. Few people would seriously entertain the possibility that my PC ha...

Motor tics are involuntary brief muscle contractions that interfere with ongoing behavior and appear as a symptom in several human disorders. While the pathophysiology of tics is still largely unknown, multiple lines of evidence suggest the involvement of the corticobasal ganglia loop in tic disorders. We administered local microinjections of bicuculline into the putamen of Macaca fascicularis ...

Abstract: A fuzzy test for testing statistical hypotheses about an imprecise parameter is proposed for the case when the available data are also imprecise. The proposed method is based on the relationship between the acceptance region of statistical tests at level β and confidence intervals for the parameter of interest at confidence level 1 − β. First, a fuzzy confidence interval is constructe...