The aims of this study were to determine if the hourly distribution of ischaemic episodes differed as regards ST segment elevation or ST segment depression during ischaemic attacks and differed as ...regards the degree of coronary atherosclerotic involvement. Twenty-four in-patient drug free subjects with angina at rest underwent ECG continuous Holter monitoring for periods varying from 24 to 168 hours. Four groups of patients were identified: group 1A: 6 patients with ST elevation and 0-1 vessel disease; group 1B: 6 patients with ST elevation and 2-3 vessel disease; group 2A: 3 patients with ST depression and 0-1 vessel disease; group 2B: 9 patients with ST depression and 2-3 vessel disease. During Holter monitoring, 301 ischaemic episodes were registered in group 1A during 576 hours; 173 episodes were registered in group 1B during 624 hours; 41 episodes were registered in group 2B during 528 hours. Using the single and population mean cosinor tests on the episodes of each group, considered as a whole, the following results were found: group 1A showed a circadian rhythm with acrophase at 4:03 a.m. (Fig. 2), group 1B showed a circadian rhythm with acrophase at 10:51 a.m. (Fig. 3), group 2A showed a circadian rhythm with acrophase at 11:15 p.m. (Fig. 5), while group 2B showed ultradian rhythms which lasted 7 and 13 hours (Fig. 6). The chronobiologic analysis of the distribution of the ischaemic attacks confirmed the existence of a circadian rhythm of ischaemic episodes in patients with ST elevation.
Mammalian colostrum, known as “liquid gold,” is considered a valuable source of essential nutrients, growth factors, probiotics, prebiotics, antibodies, and other bioactive compounds. Precisely for ...this reason, bovine colostrum (BC) is an emerging ingredient for the feed, food, and pharmaceutical industries, being nowadays commercially available in a variety of forms in several countries. Moreover, quite a large number of functional foods and supplements for athletes, human medicines, pet nutrition plans, and complementary feed for some livestock categories, such as piglets and calves, contain BC. The amount of BC yielded by a cow after calving represents approximately 0.5% of the yearly output in dairy breeds. For its nutritional properties and low availability, BC is characterized by a greater market value and an increasing demand compared with other by-products of the dairy sector. However, information regarding the market size of BC for the food and pharmaceutical industries, as well as future developments and perspectives, is scarcely available in the scientific literature. This lack can be attributed to industrial secrecy as well as to the relatively small scale of the BC business when compared with other dairy products, which makes the BC market limited, specific, and intended for a restricted audience. From a legal perspective, regulations assign BC to the large family of milk-derived powders; thus, collecting specific production data, as well as import-export trend information, is not straightforward and can result in unprecise estimates. Given that the interest in BC is increasing in different fields, it is important to have an overview of the production steps and of pros and cons of this emerging ingredient. The present narrative review discloses why BC has started to be considered a product rather than a by-product of the dairy industry. Moreover, the present document aims to summarize the existing methodologies used to assess BC quality in terms of immunoglobulin concentration, the different applications of BC in the industry, and the BC processing technologies. Finally, a panoramic view of the current international market is provided for the first time for this dairy product.
In this paper we address the problem of approximating functions with discontinuities via kernel-based methods. The main result is the construction of discontinuous kernel-based basis functions. The ...linear spaces spanned by these discontinuous kernels lead to a very flexible tool which sensibly or completely reduces the well-known
Gibbs phenomenon
in reconstructing functions with jumps. For the new basis we provide error bounds and numerical results that support our claims. The method is also effectively tested for approximating satellite images.
Several studies have reported gross composition differences between organic and conventional milk; however, most studies have not considered other factors such as breed and diet ingredients, which ...are known to influence milk composition. Thus, this study aimed to provide a detailed characterization of Holstein-Friesian cow milk from organic (ORG) and conventional (CONV) herds with similar diet ingredients and in the same geographic area. Bulk milk samples (n = 225) of 12 ORG and 12 CONV farms were collected from September 2019 to August 2020. Farms were located in Northern Italy, included corn (meal, silage, or both) in the lactating diets, and had similar management conditions, but ORG herds spent a period on pasture. Factors affecting milk composition were tested using a linear mixed model, which included calendar month, farming system (ORG and CONV), and their interactions as fixed effects, and farm nested within farming system as random effect. Results showed that total fat, lactose, vitamin E, and AA did not significantly differ between farming systems. Total protein and casein contents were significantly lower in ORG than CONV herds, and somatic cell score (SCS) was greater in ORG than CONV. Among minerals, differences were observed for Fe, K, Mg, and S in some months, being lower in ORG than CONV for K, Mg, and S and greater or lower for Fe depending on the month. Among fatty acid (FA) groups, index, and ratios, only polyunsaturated FA and n-3 FA tended to be greater in ORG than CONV, and cis-FA were greater in ORG than CONV during October. Among the most abundant individual FA, only C16:1n-9 differed, being lower in ORG than CONV. The calendar month (and hence seasonal feed ration) was significant for milk gross composition, SCS, vitamin E, mineral profile (except for Mo, Sr, and Zn), AA profile, FA groups (except for medium-chain FA), FA index and ratios, and individual FA (except C16:0). We conclude that the overall milk composition was quite similar between the 2 farming systems. This could be related to the similarity of the selected farms, the Holstein-Friesian breed, and generally high level of intensity in both farming systems.
The mode of inheritance of Alport syndrome (ATS) has long been controversial. In 1927, the disease was hypothesized as a dominant condition in which males were more severely affected than females. In ...1990, it was considered an X‐linked (XL) semidominant condition, due to COL4A5 mutations. Later on, a rare autosomal recessive (AR) form due to COL4A3/COL4A4 mutations was identified. An autosomal dominant (AD) form was testified more recently by the description of some large pedigrees but the real existence of this form is still questioned by many and its exact prevalence is unknown. The introduction of next generation sequencing (NGS) allowed us to perform an unbiased simultaneous COL4A3‐COL4A4‐COL4A5 analysis in 87 Italian families (273 individuals) with clinical suspicion of ATS. In 48 of them (55%), a mutation in one of the three genes was identified: the inheritance was XL semidominant in 65%, recessive in 4% and most interestingly AD in 31% (15 families). The AD form must therefore be seriously taken into account in all pedigrees with affected individuals in each generation. Furthermore, a high frequency of mutations (>50%) was shown in patients with only 1 or 2 clinical criteria, suggesting NGS as first‐level analysis in cases with a clinical suspicion of ATS.
Morphine is known as the best analgesic for patients with acute myocardial infarction complicated by heart failure. In patients with uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction, buprenorphine has ...recently been indicated as an alternative to the widely used pentazocine. In order to verify if the haemodynamic effects of the two drugs differed, a randomized double-blind controlled trial was performed on 20 patients with uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction: 10 patients were treated with i.v. pentazocine 30 mg. and 10 patients with buprenorphine 0.30 mg. (equianalgesic doses). Right atrial, ventricular and pulmonary artery and capillary pressure, cardiac index, total pulmonary and total systemic resistance were measured before testing and 15', 30', 60', 180' and 240' after drug injection. PO2 was measured before drug injection and 30' and 60' later. Data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test. All patients in each group showed uniform results: pentazocine increased total systemic resistance (mean increase 17%) while buprenorphine lowered it (mean reduction 12%) (P less than 0.05). Pentazocine lowered cardiac index (mean reduction 5.9%) while buprenorphine increased it (mean increase 9.3%) (P less than 0.05). Maximum changes occurred within 60' after the administration of both drugs. The other parameters did not change significantly from basal values. These results suggest that in patients with acute myocardial infarction uncomplicated by heart failure pentazocine and buprenorphine may be used in different haemodynamic situations. In the cases in which a reduction in total systemic resistance is desired, buprenorphine seems most suitable. However, in the presence of vagal reaction for instance, pentazocine may be administered.
In 20 male subjects with effort angina, an ambulatory ECG monitoring (AEM) was registered and an exercise test was carried out immediately afterwards. Usual indications for termination of test have ...been modified to detect the temporal relationship between the appearance of ischemic ST changes and appearance of pain. During AEM 15 patients (pts) presented ischemic episodes with a total of 80 episodes, of which 46 were asymptomatic and 34 accompanied by pain. Among the ischemic episodes registered by AEM, the mean duration of asymptomatic episodes was less that of symptomatic ones. The same can be said for the mean entity of maximum ST depression. On the basis of the temporal relationship between the appearance of ischemic ECG features and pain during exercise test, we classified 4 groups of patients: 1) pts with an almost contemporary appearance of ST alterations and pain (5 pts); 2) pts where pain appeared with a delay variable between 10 and 30 sec (6 pts); 3) pts where pain appeared with a delay of more than 30 sec (4 pts); 4) pts with absence of pain (5 pts). In these pts the exercise test was stopped either because ST depression had reached 3 mm or because ST alterations persisted for 3' without pain. Comparing the responses of the exercise test with the data of AEM, a statistical relationship was found between patients from the different groups and the prevalence of asymptomatic or symptomatic episodes of ischemia. Asymptomatic ischemic episodes during AEM are more frequent in pts who during exercise test show ischemic ECG features without pain or in pts where pain appears with a noticeable delay in comparison to ECG ischemic alterations.
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