OBJECTIVES To assess the utility of asking for presence of progressive forgetfulness (PF) prior to administering the Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT) when screening for dementia in the community-dwelling elderly Chinese. METHODS This was a two-phased community-based survey of elderly subjects (>or=50 yrs). In phase one, subjects were asked for PF and administered the AMT. Those having PF or an i...

Plantar fascia (PF) disorders commonly cause heel pain and disability in the general population. Imaging is often required to confirm diagnosis. This review article aims to provide simple and systematic guidelines for imaging assessment of PF disease, focussing on key findings detectable on plain radiography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Sonographic characteristics of planta...

We aimed to validate a more rapid, yet reliable means of assessing physical function (PF) for patients with prostate cancer. The sample included 128 prostate cancer patients recruited from urology and general oncology clinics at two Chicago-area hospitals. The main outcome measures were: A 36-item PF item bank that included a 5-item short form (BriefPF) and the 10-item PF subscale (PF-10) from ...

OBJECTIVE Detrimental effects of the preserved prostaglandin analogs (PGAs) have been thoroughly documented in the published literature. The current work studied two preservative-free (PF) prostaglandin eye drops: PF tafluprost and PF latanoprost. The aim of the study was to compare these two PF formulations in vitro for viability of the human corneal epithelial (HCE-T) cells and in vivo for oc...

The production of vascular permeability factor (PF) by certain strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been demonstrated in rabbits injected intradermally with culture filtrates followed by intravenous injection with Pontamine Sky Blue 6BX. The dose-response curve was found to be rectilinear when lesion diameters, within the range of 10 to 20 mm, were plotted against log dose. Thus, PF in test fi...

The platelet factor-4 variant, designated PF-4var/CXCL4L1, is a recently described natural non-allelic gene variant of the CXC chemokine platelet factor-4/CXCL4. PF-4var/CXCL4L1 was cloned, and the purified recombinant protein strongly inhibited angiogenesis. Recombinant PF-4var/CXCL4L1 was angiostatically more active (at nanomolar concentration) than PF-4/CXCL4 in various test systems, includi...

The delay eyeblink conditioning (EBC) is a cerebellum-dependent type of associative motor learning. However, the exact roles played by the various cerebellar synapses, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms, remain to be determined. It is also unclear whether long-term potentiation (LTP) or long-term depression (LTD) at parallel fiber (PF)-Purkinje cell (PC) synapses is involved in EBC....

The location of the Antarctic Polar Front (PF) was mapped over a 7-year period (1987–1993) within images of satellite-derived sea surface temperature. The mean path of the PF is strongly steered by the topographic features of the Southern Ocean. The topography places vorticity constraints on the dynamics of the PF that strongly affect spatial and temporal variability. Over the deep ocean basins...

OBJECTIVES This study was conducted to investigate the effects of thyroid hormone on the electrophysiological characteristics of pulmonary vein (PV) cardiomyocytes. BACKGROUND Hyperthyroidism is an important etiology of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). Pulmonary veins are known to initiate paroxysmal AF. METHODS The action potential and ionic currents were investigated in single rabbit ...