BACKGROUND Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the thalamus is a safe and efficient method for treatment of disabling tremor in patient with essential tremor (ET). However, successful tremor suppression after surgery requires careful selection of stimulus parameters. Our aim was to examine the possible use of certain quantitative methods for evaluating the efficacy of thalamic DBS in ET patients in...

In this study, we analyzed Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) genetic diversity in Anambra State, Nigeria based on spoligotyping followed by 5-loci exact tandem repeats (ETRs). Spoligotyping of 180 MTC strains isolated in 2009-2011 from pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients led to a total of 31 distinct patterns. A comparison with the SITVIT2 international database showed that all the 31 p...

The pinned mode in optically excited polyacetylene Is a vibrational envelope with a width of =500 cm centered at 500 cw,". The width of this mode has been attributed to single solitons interacting with a wide range of pinin par etrs. The constancy of the envelope for polyacetylene prepared by disparate methods (Shirakawa and Durham)d Cis-trans ratios, casts doubt on this concept as the underlyi...

Chronic chagasic myocarditis (CCM) depends on Trypanosoma cruzi persistence in the myocardium. Studies of the proteolytic mechanisms governing host/parasite balance in peripheral sites of T. cruzi infection revealed that tissue culture trypomastigotes (TCTs) elicit inflammatory edema and stimulate protective type-1 effector T cells through the activation of the kallikrein-kinin system. Molecula...

BACKGROUND The quasispecies composition of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) could have important implications with regard to viral persistence and response to interferon-based therapy. The complete NS5A was analyzed to evaluate whether the composition of NS5A quasispecies of HCV 1a/1b is related to responsiveness to combined interferon pegylated (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin therapy. METHODS Viral RNA was i...

Various genetic markers have been exploited for fingerprinting the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) in molecular epidemiological studies, mainly through identifying restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP). In large-scale studies, RFLP typing has practical processing and analysis limitations; therefore, attempts have been made to move towards PCR-based typing techniques. Spolig...

In this contribution, we present a discussion of some architectural ideas pertaining to the mapping distribution protocol. The efficiency of this protocol in terms of response time and the volume of traffic load it generates are important considerations. We consider how Egress Tunnel Routers (ETRs) can perform aggregation of end point ID (EID) address space belonging to their downstream deliver...

A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the relative effects of measurement errors in climate data input parameters on the accuracy of calculated reference crop evapotranspiration (ET) using the ASCE-EWRI Standardized Reference ET Equation. Data for the period of 1995 to 2008 from an automated weather station located at the USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory at B...