Aim—To examine the relation between grade III–IV periventricular/ intraventricular haemorrhage (PVH/IVH) and antenatal exposure to tocolytic treatment in very low birthweight (VLBW) premature infants. Study design—The study population consisted of 2794 infants from the Israel National VLBW Infant Database, of gestational age 24–32 weeks, who had a cranial ultrasound examination during the first...

Beginning with the WTO‘s Doha Development Agenda and establishment of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by 50 percent by 2015, poverty impacts of trade reforms have become central to the global development agenda. This has been particularly true of agricultural trade reforms due to the importance of grains in the diets of the poor, presence of relatively higher protection in a...

The very amino-terminal domain of the huntingtin protein is directly located upstream of the protein's polyglutamine tract, plays a decisive role in several important properties of this large protein and in the development of Huntington's disease. This huntingtin 1-17 domain is on the one hand known to markedly increase polyglutamine aggregation rates and on the other hand has been shown to be ...

The GafD lectin of the G (F17) fimbriae of diarrhea-associated Escherichia coli was overexpressed and purified from the periplasm of E. coli by affinity chromatography on GlcNAc-agarose. The predicted mature GafD peptide comprises 321 amino acids, but the predominant form of GafD recovered from the periplasm was 19,092 Da in size and corresponded to the 178 N-terminal amino acid residues, as ju...

Individuals working in commercial hog confinement facilities have elevated incidences of headaches, depression, nausea, skeletal muscle weakness, fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, and cardiovascular diseases, and the molecular mechanisms for these nonrespiratory ailments remain incompletely undefined. A common element underlying these diverse pathophysiologies is perturbation of intracellula...

Clostridium sordellii lethal toxin (TcsL) is a powerful virulence factor responsible for severe toxic shock in man and animals. TcsL belongs to the large clostridial glucosylating toxin (LCGT) family which inactivates small GTPases by glucosylation with uridine-diphosphate (UDP)-glucose as a cofactor. Notably, TcsL modifies Rac and Ras GTPases, leading to drastic alteration of the actin cytoske...

This paper examines the effect of value-added taxes (VATs) on international trade. Destination-based VATs are commonly thought to encourage exports, since exports are exempt from tax while imports are taxed. Economic theory implies that exchange rate adjustment prevents destination-based VATs from affecting exports and imports, since exchange rate appreciation completely undoes the effects of i...

BACKGROUND Postweaning diarrhoea (PWD) in pigs is usually the main infectious problem of large-scale farms and is responsible for significant losses worldwide. The disease is caused mainly by enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) and Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC). In this study a total of 101 E. coli isolated from pigs with PWD in Slovakia were characterized using phenotypic and genotypic metho...

Maternal concentrations of steroids have been widely used to monitor fetal well-being but the tests are less discriminatory than usually required (1). Possibly some pregnant women differ from others by normally having different metabolic capability and so different expected concentrations of steroids. Plasma progesterone (average 3.5 samples per pregnancy) and estriol (4.2) were measured during...

Gallibacterium anatis, a member of the Pasteurellaceae family, constitute a part of the normal micro-flora of the upper respiratory tract and the lower genital tract in chickens. However, increasing evidence indicate that G. anatis is also associated with a wide range of pathological changes, particularly in the reproductive organs, which leads to decreased egg production, lowered animal welfar...