OBJECTIVE To discuss the current concepts in lower ureteric stone management. MATERIAL AND METHODS Between October 2008 and November 2010, 190 patients of both sexes and of different age groups with lower ureteric stones, underwent in situ extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) (48 cases), ureterorenoscopy (URS) (120 cases) and open stone surgery (OSS) (22 cases). The patients' clinical...

A high level of serum resistin has recently been found in patients with a number of cancers, including colorectal cancer (CRC). Hence, resistin may play a role in CRC development. Fulvic acid (FA), a class of humic substances, possesses pharmacological properties. However, the effect of FA on cancer pathophysiology remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of resistin...

When acutely transferred to diluted seawater (SW), Procephalothrix spiralis and Clitellio arenarius regulate water content (g H20/g solute free dry wt = s.f.d.w.) via loss of Na and Cl (^moles/g s.f.d.w.). The present study extends these observations to a greater range of salinities and determines the effects of long-term, stepwise acclimation to diluted seawaters. Final exposure to a given exp...

seed weight (sw) in oilseed rape (brassica napus l.) is determined during the seed filling period (sfp). a great proportion of variation in sw is associated with environmental conditions in this period. to quantify factors determining sw in open pollinated (op) and hybrid cultivars of oilseed rape, 12 field experiments were conducted at agricultural research station of gonbad, iran, during 2000...

The oegopsid squids Abraliopsis and Pterygioteuthis are abundant and diverse genera with taxonomic and distributional problems. Identification and distribution of species in the Mexican Pacific has been somewhat controversial. Here are provided a large series of new records for Abraliopsis affinis, Abraliopsis falco, Pterygioteuthis gemmata, Pterygioteuthis giardi and Pterygioteuthis hoylei fro...

The successful establishment of a species in a given habitat depends on the ability of each of its developing stages to adapt to the environment. In order to understand this process we have studied the adaptation of a euryhaline fish, the sea-bass Dicentrarchus labrax, to various salinities during its ontogeny. The expression and localization of Aquaporin 1a (AQP1a) mRNA and protein were determ...

A long-standing debate concerns whether humans are specialized for speech perception, which some researchers argue is demonstrated by the ability to understand synthetic speech with significantly reduced acoustic cues to phonetic content. We tested a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) that recognizes 128 spoken words, asking whether she could understand such speech. Three experiments presented 48 ind...

The aim of this study was to verify the effects on osteoblast cultures of adding a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) concentrate pretreated with 500 shock wave (SW) at an energy flow density of 0.17 mJ/mm(2), emitted by an electromagnetic generator Minilith SL1 (STORZ, Germany), reproducing the conditions of our previous study in which we apply SW directly on osteoblasts. Real-time PCR showed that in ...

Two Gram-negative, non-motile, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped strains, SW-2T and SW-26, were isolated from sea water of the East Sea in Korea. These organisms grew optimally at 37 degrees C and in the presence of 2-3 % (w/v) NaCl. They did not grow without NaCl or in the presence of >9 % (w/v) NaCl. Strains SW-2T and SW-26 were characterized chemotaxonomically as having MK-7 as the predominant i...

Dozens of experiments on magnetosensitive, migratory birds have shown that their magnetic orientation behavior depends on the spectrum of light under which they are tested. However, it is not certain whether this is due to a direct effect on the magnetoreceptive system and which photosensitive molecules may be involved. We examined 62 experiments of light-dependent magnetoreception in three cre...