OBJECTIVE The Combinatietherapie Bij Reumatoide Artritis (COBRA) trial demonstrated that step-down combination therapy with prednisolone, methotrexate, and sulfasalazine (SSZ) was superior to SSZ monotherapy for suppressing disease activity and radiologic progression of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The current study was conducted to investigate whether the benefits of COBRA therapy were sustained...

PURPOSE To report the first case of ophthalmia due to contact with cobra venom in the Volta Region, Ghana. METHODS An ointment containing vitamin A was applied to treat the patient's unilateral defects in the corneal epithelium and the consequent diminished visual acuity. RESULTS Healing of the corneal epithelium and improvement of visual acuity were observed after only 1 day. CONCLUSIONS...

External morphological development between oviposition and hatching of the monocled cobra, Naja kaouthia, is described. Ten developmental stages are diagnosed according to nine features. These include fusion of the body wall musculature along the ventral midline, appearance of the endolymphatic ducts, formation of the eyelid, and the appearance of scales on the head and body. Additional observa...

Interest in the alternate or C3 shunt complement pathway has recently been generated by a number of reports (1-5). Its presence in invertebrates points to a primitive phylogenetic appearance (6). The C3 shunt can be triggered by high molecular weight polysaccharides in a manner reminiscent of the properdin system (7). Once activated by cobra venom, erythrocytes and other cells can be lysed in t...

We present Cobra, a modern proof presentation framework, leveraging cutting-edge presentation technology together with a state of the art interactive theorem prover to present formalized mathematics as active documents. Cobra provides both an easy way to present proofs and a novel approach to auditorium interaction. The presentation is checked live by the theorem prover, and moreover allows for...

Gth August.?A Bungarus Fasciatus, nearly full-grown, was bittea by the same Cobra at 12-22 p.m., at about eight inches from the head. The snake was bitten twice; the Cobra took firm hold, and implanted the fangs deeply. At 2-30, when I left, there was no change; the Bungarus eeemed unaffected. The Bungarus died at 7-30 p.m. of the 7th, about 29 hours after being bitten. At 1 p.m. of the 7th, he...

The role of the complement system in containment of feline leukemia virus infection was studied by cobra venom factor treatment of feline leukemia virus-immune cats. One to three weeks after cobra venom factor treatment, an increase in viral antigen in marrow myelomonocytic cells and circulating immune complexes was noted. Prevention of reactivation of feline leukemia virus infection may in par...

Mucuna pruriens has been used by native Nigerians as a prophylactic for snakebite. The protective effects of M. pruriens seed extract (MPE) were investigated against the pharmacological actions of N. sputatrix (Javan spitting cobra) venom in rats. The results showed that MPE-pretreatment protected against cardiorespiratory and, to a lesser extent, neuromuscular depressant effects of N. sputatri...

We describe a new method for the measurement of molecular mixing ratios called Cross-Band Relative Absorption (CoBRA). The proposed method is based on relative measurements in different molecular bands referenced to a band of O2 with properly selected wavelength combinations providing high level of cancelation in temperature sensitivities. The CoBRA approach is particularly promising for satell...

The construction of an accurate approximation of the-pseudospectrum of a matrix by means of the standard grid method is a very demanding computational task. In this paper, we describe Cobra, a domain-based method for the computation of pseudospectra that combines predictor corrector path following with a one-dimensional grid. The algorithm o€ers large and medium grain parallelism and becomes pa...