The acute phase response (APR) is accompanied by major changes in micronutrient status. It is important to be able to quantitate the degree of APR, which can then be related to the accompanying alterations in micronutrient levels. A rapid and convenient means of achieving this, viz. the use of an animal model in which APR can be induced, would facilitate such an investigation. The aim of the pr...

OBJECTIVES The aminoglycoside apramycin has been used extensively in animal husbandry in the UK since 1978. This study aimed to determine both whether calves that had never been treated with aminoglycoside antibiotics harboured apramycin-resistant (apr(R)) commensal Escherichia coli, and the mode of spread of the resistance gene. METHODS Apr(R) E. coli from weekly calf faecal samples were typ...

BACKGROUND After total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer, many surgeons try to avoid an abdominoperineal resection (APR) by performing a transanally double stapled low colo-rectal anastomosis (LRA), frequently without a pouch. This policy is mainly based on the assumption that the quality of life after such LRA is higher than after APR. It has been suggested that a better functional outcome...

Automated program repair (APR) tools apply fault localization (FL) techniques to identify the locations of likely faults to be repaired. The effectiveness and performance of APR depends in part on the FL method used. If FL does not identify the location of a fault, the application of an APR tool will not be effective — it will fail to repair the fault. If FL assigns a faulty location a low prio...

Many spatio-temporal access methods, such as the HR-tree, the 3DR-tree, and the MV3R-tree, have been proposed for timestamp and interval queries. However, these access methods have the following problems: the poor performance of the 3DR-tree for timestamp queries, the huge size and the poor performance of the HR-tree for interval queries, and the large size and the high update cost of the MV3R-...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence and examine the factors associated with reproductive desire among women living with HIV/AIDS (WLWHA) in Central Brazil. METHODS A cross-sectional study involving 274 WLWHA, aged 18 to 49 years, was conducted with the support of treatment services and non-governmental organizations that assist people living with HIV/AIDS. Data...

Although maternal age has been associated with a number of birth defects in several reports, the literature on the association of maternal age with isolated congenital heart defect (CHD) phenotypes has been limited. We evaluated CHD prevalence based on a cohort of 5,289 infants and fetuses with isolated CHDs born during the period 1968-2005 and ascertained by the Metropolitan Atlanta Congenital...

AIMS The aim of the present study was to evaluate the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) structure and endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) activation capacity in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients with different acute-phase inflammatory response (APR). METHODS AND RESULTS Forty-five STEMI patients were stratified in quartiles according to the delta CRP level, calculated by subtracting...

PURPOSE We did a controlled study to assess adverse psychological reactions (APR) associated with high-dose glucocorticoid therapy and tried to detect somatic correlates for the observed reactions. PATIENTS AND METHODS Our study included 37 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 11 patients with Morbus Hodgkin (MH) disease, who were treated with high-dose glucocorticoid therapy,...

This study investigated whether lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is an acute-phase reactant that can cause important bias in risk factor analysis for coronary heart disease among patients with an acute-phase response (APR patients). To determine whether serum Lp(a) concentrations increase among APR patients, we compared the Lp(a) concentrations and apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)] phenotypes of 100 controls wi...