Search results for " Sam"
showing 10 items of 1096 documents
Comparison of high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Griess reagent-spectroscopic methods for the measurement of nitrate in serum from health…
2008
Bioavailability of NO can be estimated by measuring the concentration of nitrate (NO(3)) in serum. However, the methods used for the measurement NO(3) in plasma or serum show a great degree of variation. Therefore, we compared two analytical methods for the measurement of NO(3) in serum.The concentration of NO(3) in 600 serum samples collected from healthy individuals was determined by the HPLC and by the Griess reagent-spectroscopic method.The concentration of NO(3) in the samples was 29.4+/-16.1 micromol/L and 26.2+/-14.0 micromol/L (mean+/-SD) measured by HPLC and Griess reagent-spectroscopic method respectively (p0.0001). We detected a significant correlation between the two methods (R=…
Localization of sentinel lymph node in breast cancer. A prospective study
2014
Abstract Introduction Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy (SLNB) is the standard of care for staging axillary lymph nodes in women with breast cancer and clinically negative nodes. It is associated with reduced arm morbidity, moderated or severe lymphoedema, and a better quality of life in comparison with standard axillary treatment. Unfortunately, skip metastases makes all minimally invasive approaches, such as axillary sampling, unreliable. The aim of the present clinical prospective study is to evaluate the position of SLN in an important number of cases and establish the real incidence of skip metastases in clinically node-negative patients. Patients and methods A cohort of 898 female patients w…
Acoustic Airway Profiles in Unilateral Cleft Palate Patients
1999
Objective: This study investigates the nasal airway in unilateral cleft palate patients by means of a noninvasive, objective diagnostic method that provides topographic information about the airway profile. Design: A consecutive sample of patients was measured. Setting: Cleft palate rehabilitation center of the University of Mainz, Germany. Patients: Forty-nine subjects were investigated: 34 full-grown patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate and 15 controls with subjective normal nasal patency. Intervention: A transnasal series of three acoustic measurements of nasal volume was performed per nostril; measurements were taken both before and after decongestion with 0.3 mg xylom…
Maternal serum ghrelin levels in early IVF pregnancies: lack of prognostic value for viable pregnancy and altered post-prandial responses
2008
Background Ghrelin is a pleiotropic hormone, involved in the control of growth and metabolism, whose circulating levels fluctuate in relation to food intake and body mass index. Ghrelin has been detected in the decidualized endometrium, as well as in human and rat placenta. Methods A total of 106 patients undergoing IVF procedures were prospectively recruited. On Days 16 and 23 after oocyte retrieval, the patients were subjected to blood sampling after overnight fasting, for determination of serum ghrelin, hCGbeta and progesterone levels. In addition, ghrelin levels were assayed in these groups, 2 h after ingestion of a fixed-calorie meal. Results The subjects were divided according to whet…
Expression of aquaporins early in human pregnancy
2011
Abstract Background Aquaporins (AQPs) constitute a family of channel proteins implicated in transmembrane water transport. Thirteen different AQPs (AQP0–12) have been described but their precise biologic function still remains unclear. AQPs 1, 3, 4, 8, and 9 expression has been described in human chorion, amnion and placenta; however, AQP4 is the only that has been identified in the first trimester of human pregnancy. Objective To assess multiplicity of AQPs expression from 10th to 14th week gestation. Population and methods Chorionic villi samples (CVS) collected in pregnant women for prenatal diagnosis were analysed by real time-PCR to assess cDNA expression of AQPs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…
Circulating miR-200–family micro-RNAs have altered plasma levels in patients with endometriosis and vary with blood collection time
2015
Objective To determine whether circulating micro-RNA (miR) 200a, miR-200b, and miR-141 have altered levels in patients with endometriosis compared with control individuals. Design Experimental laboratory study. Setting University. Patient(s) Patients with endometriosis (n = 61), laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis-free women (n = 35), and self-reported healthy women (n = 30) were included in the study. Intervention(s) None. Main Outcome Measure(s) Plasma miRNA levels in endometriosis patients and control subjects. Result(s) We found that the levels of studied miRNAs varied with blood collection time, being lower in the morning than in the evening. When blood collection time was taken i…
Accuracy of ASTER Level-2 thermal-infrared Standard Products of an agricultural area in Spain
2007
Abstract The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) collects five-channel thermal-infrared images that are calibrated, corrected for atmospheric effects, and then converted to land surface temperature and emissivity products by the ASTER Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. TES scales low- and high-contrast surfaces differently, and has been validated over water (low contrast) and rock (high contrast). Performance of TES over agricultural areas, however, has not been evaluated specifically. To address this issue, field measurements of “ground truth” were made over bare soil in addition to green grass, alfalfa and corn, at an agricultural researc…
Thompson Sampling Guided Stochastic Searching on the Line for Non-stationary Adversarial Learning
2015
This paper reports the first known solution to the N-Door puzzle when the environment is both non-stationary and deceptive (adversarial learning). The Multi-Armed-Bandit (MAB) problem is the iconic representation of the exploration versus exploitation dilemma. In brief, a gambler repeatedly selects and play, one out of N possible slot machines or arms and either receives a reward or a penalty. The objective of the gambler is then to locate the most rewarding arm to play, while in the process maximize his winnings. In this paper we investigate a challenging variant of the MAB problem, namely the non-stationary N-Door puzzle. Here, instead of directly observing the reward, the gambler is only…
Drop-on-demand sample introduction system coupled with the flowing atmospheric-pressure afterglow for direct molecular analysis of complex liquid mic…
2012
One of the fastest developing fields in analytical spectrochemistry in recent years is ambient desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (ADI-MS). This burgeoning interest has been due to the demonstrated advantages of the method: simple mass spectra, little or no sample preparation, and applicability to samples in the solid, liquid, or gaseous state. One such ADI-MS source, the flowing atmospheric-pressure afterglow (FAPA), is capable of direct analysis of solids just by aiming the source at the solid surface and sampling the produced ions into a mass spectrometer. However, direct introduction of significant volumes of liquid samples into this source has not been possible, as solvent loads c…
Associations between personality, sports participation and athletic success. A comparison of Big Five in sporting and non-sporting adults
2018
Abstract The present study investigates whether the Big Five personality traits are different among diverse sports populations. A sample of 881 male athletes and non-athletes completed a self-report questionnaire measuring their personality traits. The Exploratory Structure Equation Modeling (ESEM) approach is adopted to test measurement invariance and mean differences among groups. The results indicate that athletes who had experienced the most success in their sport scored higher than non-athletes in each personality dimension of the Big Five, with the exception of openness, while less successful athletes scored higher than non-athletes only in extraversion and agreeableness. The more suc…