The ablation of cosmic dust particles entering the Earth's upper atmosphere produces a layer of Ca atoms around 90 km. Here, we present a set of kinetic experiments designed to understand the nature of the Ca molecular reservoirs on the underside of the layer. CaOH was produced by laser ablation of a Ca target in the fast flow tube and detected by non-resonant laser-induced fluorescence, probin...

INTRODUCTION No consensus exists regarding the optimal treatment setup for neoadjuvant radiotherapy of rectal cancer using a 3D conformal (3D CRT) technique. Positioning the patient prone with a belly board aims to reduce the amount of small bowel irradiated. METHODS Twenty-five patients with locally advanced rectal cancer underwent computed tomography (CT) planning for neoadjuvant chemoradio...

OBJECTIVE To study the effects of amenorrhoea and intensive back exercise on the bone mineral density of the lumbar spine in female athletes. DESIGN Cross sectional study comparing amenorrhoeic with eumenorrhoeic athletes and rowers with non-rowers. SETTING The British Olympic Medical Centre, Northwick Park Hospital. PATIENTS 46 Elite female athletes comprising 19 rowers, 18 runners, and ...

BACKGROUND Mechanism and effects of vagal response (VR) during cryoballoon ablation procedure on the cardiac autonomic nervous system (ANS) are unclear. The present study aimed to evaluate the relationship between VR during cryoballoon catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation and ANS modulation by evaluating epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) locations and heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. ...

Iron deficiency, causing maternal sideropenic anemia, is one of the most frequent nutritive disorder that develops during the pregnancy. We collected 30 placentas from anemic mothers and 30 placentas from mothers belonging to the control group. Terminal villi (magnification 10x) and terminal villi capillaries (magnification 40x) were stereologically analyzed and numerically determined.In the pl...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to map out the developmental curve of the orbital volume of Chinese children aged 1-15 years. METHODS CT scanning was performed on 109 children and the orbital volume, interlateral orbital rim distance (IORD), and extent of exophthalmos were measured on the CT images and plotted against age. RESULTS The development of the orbit structure followed a biphas...

Nuclear organelles, unlike many cytoplasmic organelles, lack investing membranes and are thus in direct contact with the surrounding nucleoplasm. Because the properties of the nucleoplasm and nuclear organelles influence the exchange of molecules from one compartment to another, it is important to understand their physical structure. We studied the density of the nucleoplasm and the density and...

PURPOSE To analyze the distribution of functional liver volume (FLV) in the margin volume (MV) surrounding hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) before radiation therapy (RT) and to verify the safety of single photon emission computed tomography-based three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (SPECT-B3DCRT) by exploring the relation of FLV in MV to radiation-induc...

The overall rate constants of the reactions of NO with hydroxy- and chloroalkylperoxy radicals, derived from the OH- and Cl-initiated oxidation of methacrolein and methyl vinyl ketone, respectively, were directly determined for the first time using the turbulent-flow technique and pseudo-first-order kinetics conditions with high-pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry for the direct dete...

OBJECTIVES The prevalence of obesity and diabetes in the Middle East is among the highest in the world. Valid measures of abdominal adiposity are essential to understanding the metabolic consequences of obesity. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is increasingly being utilised to assess body composition in population studies, and has recently been used to estimate visceral adipose tissue (V...