INTRODUCTION Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors represent a significant group of drugs primarily used in the treatment of hypertension and congestive heart failure. OBJECTIVE Selected ACE inhibitors (enalapril, quinapril, fosinopril, lisinopril, cilazapril) were studied in order to establish a fast and easy estimation method of their plasma protein binding degree based on their li...

Three time-series models (regression, decomposition, and Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving averages) were applied to national surveillance data for campylobacteriosis with the goal of disease forecasting in three US states. Datasets spanned 1998-2007 for Minnesota and Oregon, and 1999-2007 for Georgia. Year 2008 was used to validate model results. Mean absolute percent error, mean sq...

The fractal nature of the DNA arrangement has been postulated to be a common feature of all cell nuclei. We investigated the prognostic importance of the fractal dimension (FD) of chromatin in blasts of patients with acute precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). In 28 patients, gray scale transformed pseudo-3D images of 100 nuclei (May-Grünwald-Giemsa stained bone marrow smears) were analyz...

A growing body of evidence has delineated the predominant role of humoral mediators of inflammation in linking sleep with immunity. Nonetheless, characterization of the relationship between complement components with inflammatory functions and objective sleep measures has not been performed. In this study we investigated the relationships between objective measures of sleep and complement compo...

Developing countries have embarked on the promotion of “ICT access for all” through subsidized Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially in underserviced areas of such countries. The main aim of the “ICT access for all” is to extend the communication services to the large areas of underserviced regions through subsidized communication services. In some instances, subsidies m...

We give a simple explanation of numerical experiments of V. Arnold with two sequences of symmetric numerical semigroups, S(4, 6 + 4k, 87− 4k) and S(9, 3 + 9k, 85− 9k) generated by three elements. We present a generalization of these sequences by numerical semigroups S(r 1 , r1r2 + r 2 1k, r3 − r 2 1k), k ∈ Z, r1, r2, r3 ∈ Z , r1 ≥ 2 and gcd(r1, r2) = gcd(r1, r3) = 1, and calculate their univers...

This paper studies the behavior under iteration of the maps Tab(x, y) = (Fab(x) − y, x) of the plane R2, in which Fab(x) = ax if x ≥ 0 and bx if x < 0. The orbits under iteration correspond to solutions of the difference equation xn+2 = 1/2(a−b)|xn+1|+1/2(a+b)xn+1−xn. This family of piecewise-linear maps of the plane has the parameter space (a, b) ∈ R2. These maps are area-preserving homeomorph...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is very common in hemodialysis patients and an independent risk factor for mortality in this population. The myocardial remodeling underlying the LVH can affect ventricular repolarization causing abnormalities in QT interval. OBJECTIVE to evaluate the reproducibility and reliability of measurements of corrected QT interval (QTc) and its dispersion...

Background: Honey has a lot of reputation because of its supposed medicinal properties. In this study, Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), sugars, and Fructose/Glucose ratio of honey in Bangladesh were assessed for adulteration and authenticity evaluation. Methods: Seventy honey samples collected from different districts of Bangladesh were analyzed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) for...