The present study was conducted to assess the relationship between metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome score (MSS) and serum vitamin D levels in adults aged 20 or older (n = 5,483) using 2012 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, which represents national data in Korea. Key study results were as follows: First, serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels decreased s...

BACKGROUND Although maternal serum screening (MSS) for Down's syndrome has become routinely available in most obstetric clinics in many countries, few studies have addressed the reasons why women agree to undergo the MSS test. OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to describe the circumstances in which MSS was offered to pregnant women and their reasons for undertaking it. METHODS Particip...

The European Union Directive on cross-border health care places an obligation on member states (MSs) to establish one or more national contact points (NCPs). We evaluated whether MSs were meeting their legal obligations. Two researchers created a set of criteria, drawn from the Directive, to evaluate the information that 18 MSs provide on their NCP websites. Some 15 of the 18 MSs evaluated prov...

BACKGROUND Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is a relatively new technology for diagnosis of fetal aneuploidies. NIPT is more accurate than conventional maternal serum screening (MSS) but is also more costly. Contingent NIPT may provide a cost-effective alternative to universal NIPT screening. Contingent screening used a two-stage process in which risk is assessed by MSS in the first stage a...

Objective To review the literature on the effectiveness, safety and long-term patency of ureteric metal mesh stents (MSs), as a variety of MSs have been used for managing malignant ureteric obstruction over the last three decades. Materials and methods A systematic review using the search string; Ureter∗ AND (stent OR endoprosthesis) AND metal∗ was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, Web of science ...

Polymeric microspheres (MSs) have received attention for their potential to improve the delivery of drugs with poor oral bioavailability. Although MSs can be absorbed into the absorptive epithelium of the small intestine, little is known about the physiologic mechanisms that are responsible for their cellular trafficking. In these experiments, nonbiodegradable polystyrene MSs (diameter range: 5...

Maximum aerobic power (VO2 max), maximum anaerobic power (AP max), submaximal exercise heart rate (HRsub), and performance times for distances of 15m, 600 m, 3.22 km, and 10 km were evaluated in 12 male runners prior to and after 7 weeks of a running programme at each individual's maximum steady-state (MSS) pace. MSS pace, a running speed at which blood lactate is believed to equal 2.2 mmol . l...

Successful drug therapies for treating ocular diseases require effective concentrations of neuroprotective compounds maintained over time at the site of action. The purpose of this work was to assess the efficacy of intravitreal controlled delivery of tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) encapsulated in poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres for the treatment of the retina in a rat ...

BACKGROUND The gut microbiota is associated with the modulation of mucosal immunity and the etiology of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Previous studies focused on the impact of bacterial species on IBD but seldom suspected archaea, which can be a major constituent of intestinal microbiota, to be implicated in the diseases. Recent evidence supports that two main archaeal species found in the...

The generalized linear moving sampling scheme (MSS) exploiting the second-order statistics and also high-order cumulants is studied, where set of MSS defined as shifted distance offsets involved in estimation based on a platform. Then, sparse physical arrays (SPAs) with nonuniform schemes (NL-MSS), referred to SPA-NL-MSS, are proposed optimize consecutive difference co-arrays. For same number s...