In addition to cholesterol lowering, 3-hydroxy-3-nethylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors limit inflammatory changes associated with atherosclerosis. There is also support for their ...use as inhibitors of progression in chronic renal disease, irrespective of cause. In this study, their capacity to limit acute renal inflammation was evaluated. For this purpose, mice were treated with Simvastatin either prior to, at the time of, or shortly after induction of nephrotoxic nephritis. The severity of disease was determined by evaluation of blood urea nitrogen (BUN), proteinuria, and renal histologic changes. The reversibility of benefit was evaluated by the administration of mevalonic acid along with nephrotoxic serum (NTS) and Simvastatin The severity of the acute nephritis, including proteinuria, elevated BUN, and histologic changes, was ameliorated in a dose-dependent manner, when Simvastatin was administered either prior to NTS injection or at the time of NTS injection. By contrast, Simvastatin did not alter the course of established nephritis. Coadministration of mevalonic acid, the immediate substrate following HMG-CoA reductase, abolished Simvastatin's renoprotective effect, indicating that the benefit is, at least in part, due to interference with HMG-CoA reductase and biosynthetic substrates downstream from the enzyme. These findings provide the rationale for the evaluation of the efficacy of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors in patients with recurrent forms of renal inflammation, to limit the severity of acute exacerbations of disease, prevent renal scarring and slow the rate of progression.
Bullous lung disease due to marijuana HII, Su W.; TAM, Jeff D. C.; THOMPSON, Bruce R. ...
Respirology (Carlton, Vic.),
01/2008, Letnik:
13, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Background and objective: In contrast to the well‐described effects of tobacco smoking upon pulmonary emphysema, with ∼15% of smokers being affected at the age of 65 years, the effects of marijuana ...smoking are rarely reported and poorly understood.
Methods: We report a series of 10 patients (mean age 41 ± 9 years, eight male, two female), who presented over a period of 12 months to our respiratory unit with new respiratory symptoms, and who admitted to regular chronic marijuana smoking (>1 year continuously). Symptoms on presentation were dyspnoea (n = 4), pneumothorax (n = 4) and chest infection (n = 2).
Results: High‐resolution CT revealed asymmetrical, variably sized, emphysematous bullae in the upper and mid zones. However, the CXR was normal in four patients and lung function was normal in five.
Conclusions: Marijuana smoking leads to asymmetrical bullous disease, often in the setting of normal CXR and lung function. In subjects who smoke marijuana, these pathological changes occur at a younger age (approximately 20 years earlier) than in tobacco smokers.
We experimentally demonstrate that the near-field patterns of conical second harmonic generation of a laser in random domain structures can be used to explore the spatial structure of two-dimensional ...disordered wave functions with weak localization. The statistics of the experimental near-field patterns agree very well with the theoretical distributions. In addition to the short-range correlation, the localization effects are found to contribute a nearly constant value to the long-range correlation. The result of this Letter also confirms the possibility of using conical second harmonic generation as a diagnostic tool for topographical characterization of crystals.
The morphology and microstructure of an intermetallic layer formed on the surface of Fe-8Al-30Mn-0.8C alloy by hot-dip aluminization treatment have been examined in detail. The phases present in the ...coating are unambiguously identified by means of transmission electron microscopy. After aluminization, a two layer coating was formed consisting of an external Al layer and a (Fe, Mn)
2Al
5 intermetallic on top of the substrate. The (Fe,Mn)
2Al
5 compound has an orthorhombic structure with lattice parameters
a
=
0.752 nm,
b
=
0.667 nm and
c
=
0.417 nm. The activation energy (
E
FeMnAl) for the growth of such an intermetallic layer is calculated to be 52.7 kJ/mol. These results are different from those observed in aluminized low-carbon steel (
E
Fe). The difference between
E
FeMnAl and
E
Fe is attributed to the alloying elements (Mn) in the present alloy. Environmental salt fog corrosion and high temperature oxidation tests were carried out to examine the corrosion and oxidation resistance. The results indicated that both the corrosion and oxidation resistance of the Fe-8Al-30Mn-0.8C alloy treated by hot-dip aluminization can be significantly increased.
We report here on the first identification of Shigella flexneri subserotype 1c in China. We also report the emergence of resistance to ciprofloxacin and third-generation cephalosporins in this ...subserotype 1c for the first time. Isolates of seven strains circulating in China yielded three new sequence types and seven pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns, thus demonstrating the existence of high genetic diversity within the isolates. Overall, the seven isolates showed reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin; one isolate was ciprofloxacin resistant, whilst another developed resistance to ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, cefotaxime and ceftriaxone.
To study the clinicopathologic features of intraductal papillary neoplasm of the bile duct(IPNB) and to analyze the diagnostic and therapeutic patterns.
The data of 46 patients with IPNB undergoing ...surgery in Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine from January 2013 to November 2017 were retrospectively analyzed.There were 23 males and 23 females with age of (64±8)years.Patients were followed up by clinics and telephone inquiry.Categorical data were compared with χ(2) test or Fisher's exact test.
Abdominal pain(in 31 patients), fever (in 15 patients) and jaundice (in 11 patients) were the most common symptoms.Twenty-five patients were accompanied with cholangiolithiasis and 25 were accompanied with liver atrophy.Preoperative laboratory examination was mainly manifested as the abnormal liver function caused by biliary obstruction.Typical imaging findings included bile duct dilation (in 45 patients) and mass within bile duct (i
An experimental approach of inclined incidence magneto-optic Faraday effect observed in the polar plane is applied. Three samples containing ferromagnetic cobalt ultrathin films on a semiconductor ...zinc oxide (0001) single crystal substrate with in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropy are evaluated. Through the fine adjustment of crossed polarizers in the magneto-optic effect measurement completely recorded the detail optical and magneto-optical responses from the birefringent crystal substrate and the magnetic film, especially for the signal induced from the substrate with uniaxial optical axis. The angle dependency of interference phenomena periodically from the optical and magneto-optical responses is attributed to the birefringence even in the absence of a magnetic field. The new type of observation finds that the transmission Faraday intensity in the oblique incidence includes a combination of polarization rotations, which results from optical compensation from the substrate and magneto-optical Faraday effects from the film. The samples grown at different rates and examined by this method exhibit magnetic structure discriminations. This result can be applied in the advanced polarized-light technologies to enhance the spatial resolution of magnetic surfaces with microstructural information under various magnetic field direction.
Flow visualization experiments were conducted on a transparent replica of a natural, rough‐walled rock fracture from the Stripa Mine, Sweden, for inlet conditions of constant pressure and flow rate ...over a range of angles of inclination. The experiments demonstrated that infiltrating water proceeds through unsaturated rock fractures along nonuniform, localized preferential flow paths. Even though constant inlet conditions were maintained, pervasive unsteady or intermittent flow was also observed in these experiments, where portions of the flow channel underwent cycles of snapping and reforming. Experiments conducted on parallel plates with a sequence of apertures progressing from small to large to small reproduced intermittent flow. Measurements of the frequency of intermittent flow events and the volume of water metered between events were obtained from the fracture replica and parallel plate experiments and related to the Bond and capillary numbers to generalize the results. The frequency data from the fracture replica experiments did not follow the same trend as the data from the parallel plate experiments for similar Bond and capillary numbers, but the volume of water metered data was consistent in these experiments.
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