OBJECTIVES The gold standard for the diagnosis of fat malabsorption, the 72-hour fat balance study, requires a 3-day collection to generate a coefficient of fat absorption (CFA). We hypothesized that a new test using behenic acid (behenate test) as a nonabsorbable lipid marker may provide a facile means to assess fat absorption. The study proposed to answer 2 questions: first, whether the behen...

Peripheral inflammation induces persistent central sensitization characterized by mechanical allodynia and heat hyperalgesia that are mediated by distinct mechanisms. Compared to well-demonstrated mechanisms of heat hyperalgesia, mechanisms underlying the development of mechanical allodynia and contralateral pain are incompletely known. In this study, we investigated the distinct role of spinal...

Cell-vessel wall interactions (adhesion, emigration) and cell-cell cohesion (aggregation) have been assessed primarily in animal experiments. The cell function analyser (CFA) is an in vitro vascular model, in which the three components of Virchow's triad are present in a highly standardised and variable form. The CFA permits visual and quantitative analysis of cellular adhesion, emigration and ...

A focal and transitory inflammation induced by injection of complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) in the submandibular skin of mice elicits pain behavior that persists for several weeks after the initial inflammation has resolved. Chronic pain, assessed as tactile hypersensitivity to stimulation with von Frey filaments, was evident from 1-7 weeks following CFA injection, although inflammation at the...

An experimental vaccine for enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) composed of a live, attenuated Salmonella vector-expressing enterotoxigenic E. coli fimbriae, colonization factor Ag I (CFA/I), stimulated a biphasic Th cell response when given orally and suppressed the normally produced proinflammatory response. Such suppression was also evident upon the Salmonella-CFA/I infection of macropha...

The thermally dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis (Pb) is the causative agent of paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM), one of the most frequent systemic mycosis that affects the rural population in Latin America. PCM is characterized by a chronic inflammatory granulomatous reaction, which is consequence of a Th1-mediated adaptive immune response. In the present study we investigated the mech...

Texts and software that we are currently using for teaching multivariate analysis to non-statisticians lack in the delivery of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The purpose of this paper is to provide educators with a complement to these resources that includes CFA and its computation. We focus on how to use CFA to estimate a "composite reliability" of a psychometric instrument. This paper pr...

When we evaluated changes of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and two glutamate transporter (GTs) by immunohistochemistry, expression of GFAP showed a significant increase in complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA)-injected rats; however, this expression was strongly inhibited by electroacupuncture (EA) stimulation. Robust downregulation of glutamate-aspartate transporter (GLAST) and glutamate t...

AIM To evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of two cements with a similar chemical composition to mineral trioxide aggregate and to attempt to improve their properties by producing a composite material. METHODOLOGY Two cement types were used: a mixture of calcium sulpho-aluminate cement and Portland cement (CSA) and calcium fluoro-aluminate cement (CFA) in conjunction with an admix...

Endovascular exclusion of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) was developed in an effort to treat patients who were at high risk for complications following standard surgical repair. Stent grafts used for endovascular repair of AAAs require the use of large-bore sheaths and surgical exposure of the common femoral arteries (CFAs). To decrease the invasiveness of AAA repair, we attempted to perform...