BACKGROUND Pain catastrophization has recently been recognized as a barrier to the healthy development of physical functioning among chronic pain patients. Levels of pain catastrophization in chronic pain patients are commonly measured using the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). OBJECTIVE To cross-culturally adapt and validate the South African PCS (SA-PCS) among English-, Afrikaans- and Xhos...

Lead is harmful for human health and animals. Proanthocyanidins (PCs), a natural antioxidant, possess a broad spectrum of pharmacological and medicinal properties. However, its protective effects against lead-induced liver damage have not been clarified. This study was aimed to evaluate the protective effect of PCs on the hepatotoxicity of male Kunming mice induced by chronic lead exposure. A t...

Mathematically intensive engineering subjects at a tertiary level have traditionally been taught in classroom environments using whiteboards or blackboards. This paper reports on student views of the effectiveness of board and alternative technologies used within existing classroom contexts. Students in this study revealed a strong preference for the use of pen-enabled Tablet PCs as a delivery ...

With increasing storage capacities on current PCs, searching the World Wide Web has ironically become more efficient than searching one’s own personal computer. The recently introduced desktop search engines are a first step towards coping with this problem, but not yet a satisfying solution. The reason for that is that desktop search is actually quite different from its web counterpart. Docume...

Heavy metals activate the synthesis of phytochelatins (PCs), while the induced PCs might affect metal uptake via chelating intracellular free metals. However, the relationship of PCs to metal uptake is poorly understood. In this study, we examined the kinetics of cadmium (Cd) accumulation and the synthesis of PCs in a marine diatom, Thalassiosira weissflogii, under different irradiance levels. ...

OBJECTIVE p-Cresylsulphate (PCS), a protein-bound uraemic retention solute, is known to cause endothelial dysfunction and possibly plays a role in coronary atherosclerosis. We aimed to investigate the relationship of total PCS with traditional biomarkers associated with chronic coronary atherosclerosis. In addition, the relationship between serum total PCS levels and the severity of coronary ar...

Previous studies have shown that prostacyclin (PGI(2)) synthase (PCS) gene transfer inhibits neointimal formation in balloon-injured arteries. However, the role of each cyclooxygenase (COX) isoform in this healing mechanism remains unknown. We hypothesized that overexpression of PCS may modulate COX-2-mediated prostaglandin (PG) metabolism. That is to say, excessive PGH(2) derived from COX-2 af...

Murine and human iPSC-NS/PCs (induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem/progenitor cells) promote functional recovery following transplantation into the injured spinal cord in rodents. However, for clinical applicability, it is critical to obtain proof of the concept regarding the efficacy of grafted human iPSC-NS/PCs (hiPSC-NS/PCs) for the repair of spinal cord injury (SCI) in a non-hu...

In distributed software contexts, Web Services (WSs) that provide transactional properties are useful to guarantee reliable Transactional Composite WSs (TCWSs) execution and to ensure the whole system consistent state even in presence of failures. Fails during the execution of a TCWS can be repaired by forward or backward recovery processes, according to the component WSs transactional properti...

The objective of this study was to examine if polysaccharides from Cassiae Seeds (PCS) can be used as prebiotics to improve the intestinal microflora of piglets with an in vitro and an in vivo trial. The in vitro trial was conducted to study the dose-response effect of PCS on the growth of E. coli 09 and Lactobacillus with traditional plate count method. The gradient culture mediums, containing...