The pistachio green stink-bug, Brachynema germari Kolenati (Hem.: Pentatomidae), is an important pest of pistachio in Iran. In this research, the effects of four commercial pistachio cultivars that are commonly grown in Iran including Kaleghochi, Ahmadaghaii, Ohadi and Akbari were evaluated on the biology (developmental time, mortality rate, longevity) and demographic parameters of <em...

This study investigated the metabolism of salvianolic acid A (SAA) both in vivo and in vitro. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis of drug-containing rat bile samples and bile samples hydrolyzed by glucuronidase revealed a series of methylated conjugates of SAA and its glucuronides, as well as the predominance of the methylation pathway of SAA in rats. For the first time, four major...

RATIONALE Much of the total disease burden and cost of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD). Serum amyloid A (SAA) is a novel candidate exacerbation biomarker identified by proteomic screening. OBJECTIVES To assess SAA as a biomarker of AECOPD. METHODS Biomarkers were assessed (1) cross-sectionally (stable vs. AECOPD; 62 indivi...

The distinction between exudates and transudates is very important in the patient management. Here we evaluate whether the acute-phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA), in comparison with C reactive protein (CRP) and total protein (TP), can be useful in this discrimination. CRP, SAA, and TP were determined in 36 exudate samples (27 pleural and 9 ascitic) and in 12 transudates (9 pleural and 3 asci...

In this study, we evaluated whether human serum and lipoproteins, especially high-density lipoprotein (HDL), affected serum amyloid A (SAA)-induced cytokine release. We verified the effects of SAA on THP-1 cells in serum-free medium compared to medium containing human serum or lipoprotein-deficient serum. SAA-induced tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) production was higher in the medium conta...

PURPOSE To investigate whether serum amyloid A (SAA) levels are increased in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and whether its levels correlate well with AS disease activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-eight patients with AS and 38 age- and sex-matched control subjects were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Their SAA levels were quantitatively measured by immunonephelometry. A...

Abstract Sample average approximation (SAA) is a widely popular approach to data-driven decisionmaking under uncertainty. Under mild assumptions, SAA is both tractable and enjoys strong asymptotic performance guarantees. Similar guarantees, however, do not typically hold in finite samples. In this paper, we propose a modification of SAA, which we term Robust SAA, which retains SAA’s tractabilit...

OBJECTIVE To determine if serum amyloid A (A-SAA) could be detected in human osteoarthritic (OA) joints and further clarify if high A-SAA level in joints result from a local production or from a diffusion process from abnormally elevated plasma concentration. Regulatory mechanism of A-SAA expression and its pro-inflammatory properties were also investigated. METHODS A-SAA levels in serum and ...

The impact of immune system stimulation (ISS) on the ileal nutrient digestibility and utilisation of dietary methionine plus cysteine (SAA) intake for whole-body protein deposition (PD) was evaluated in growing pigs. For this purpose, sixty barrows were used in two experiments: thirty-six pigs in Expt I and twenty-four pigs in Expt II. Pigs were feed restricted and assigned to five levels of di...