Linear growth

dTMP-GH is a chimeric protein containing a tandem dimer of thrombopoietin mimetic peptide (dTMP) fused to human growth hormone (hGH) prepared previously by our team. It shows significant bioactivity in promoting thrombocytopoiesis, but detection of intact dTMP-GH in plasma is still a challenge due to the presence of endogenous hGH. In this study, a rabbit polyclonal antibody with high affinity to dTMP was obtained with a BSA-conjugated immunogen composed of 20 amino acids sequence spanning two TMP and the linker...

Body condition is a gauge of the energy stores of an animal, and though it has important implications for fitness, survival, competition, and disease, it is difficult to measure directly. Instead, body condition is frequently estimated as a body condition index (BCI) using length and mass measurements. A desirable BCI should accurately reflect true body condition and be unbiased with respect to size (i.e., mean BCI estimates should not change across different length or mass ranges), and choosing the most-appropriate BCI is not straightforward...

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship of the measured distance between two mandibular points (distance M-Me) to chronological age and to find out whether the absolute values of distance M-Me could be classified age-wise into a unique range, which could be directly read for predicting the stage of mandibular growth. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The study sample consists of lateral cephalometric records of 65 patients (34 females and 31 males; age range: 6-21 years)...

This phase I study aimed at determining the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and characterizing the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PKs), and efficacy of pasireotide in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). Patients were enrolled in two phases: dose-escalation phase (to determine the MTD) at a starting dose of 80 mg pasireotide long-acting release (LAR) i.m. followed by a dose-expansion phase (to evaluate safety and prelimi-nary efficacy). Associations between PK/pharmacodynamic parameters and clinical outcomes were evaluated using linear regression analysis...

The poly(ethylene glycol)-b-brush poly(l-lysine) polymer (PEG-b-(PELG50-g-PLL3)) was synthesized and evaluated as a nanocarrier for prolonging delivery of exenatide through the abdominal subcutaneous injection route. The isoelectric point of exenatide was 4.86, and exenatide could combine with PEG-b-(PELG50-g-PLL3) polymers via electrostatic interactions at pH 7.4. This polymer was a good candidate for achieving prolonged drug delivery for exenatide, considering its high molecular weight. Besides the physicochemical characterization of the polymer, in vitro and in vivo applications were researched as a sustained exenatide delivery system...

A rapid and sensitive HPLC method was developed and validated for selective determination of the human growth hormone (hGH) somatropin in the presence of its deamidated and oxidized degradation products. Reversed-phase chromatography with an acetonitrile and ammonium bicarbonate mobile phase in gradient elution mode was used. A short run time of 15 min allowed rapid and cost-effective analysis, with an average retention time of 7.4 min for native hGH, 6.2 min for its deamidated form, and 4.3 and 6 min for its oxidized variants...

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have shown a beneficial effect of obesity on bone health; however, most of those studies were not based on bone biopsies. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) could have an effect on bone remodeling. However, there are no data on the effects of MetS in the presence of renal osteodystrophy. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate associations between MetS and renal osteodystrophy using the bone histomorphometric turnover-mineralization-volume (TMV) classification...

Evaluations of human impacts on Earth's ecosystems often ignore evolutionary changes in response to altered selective regimes. Freshwater habitats for Snake River fall Chinook salmon (SRFCS), a threatened species in the US, have been dramatically changed by hydropower development and other watershed modifications. Associated biological changes include a shift in juvenile life history: Historically essentially 100% of juveniles migrated to sea as subyearlings, but a substantial fraction have migrated as yearlings in recent years...

We performed an observational study with very-low-birth weight infants (VLBWI) ≤33 weeks of gestation born in centers of the German Neonatal Network (GNN; (total n = 8534, n = 6229 received probiotics). The primary objectives of our study were (a) to assess the effect of Lactobacillus acidophilus/Bifidobacterium infantis probiotics on growth in VLBWI during primary stay in hospital and (b) to determine whether this effect is modified by antibiotic exposure. In linear regression models the administration of probiotics was independently associated with improved weight gain [g/d; effect size B = 0...

Foot and mouth disease is endemic in Middle Eastern countries including Iran but its impact is poorly characterized. The present study was conducted to evaluate the impact of FMD outbreak on milk production and heifers' growth in an industrial dairy herd located in Fars province, southern Iran. Data about individual milk production, heifers' growth and total daily milk (sold for manufacturing), its fat and protein content and somatic cell counts were collected from the herd database. Based on the results of the linear mixed models, a significant decline in individual milk production after the outbreak was observed compared with before the outbreak...

Dengue infection plays a central role in our society, since it is the most prevalent vector-borne viral disease affecting humans. We statistically investigated patterns concerning the spatial spreading of dengue epidemics in Brazil, as well as their temporal evolution in all Brazilian municipalities for a period of 12 years. We showed that the distributions of cases in municipalities follow power laws persistent in time and that the infection scales linearly with the population of the municipalities. We also found that the average number of dengue cases does not have a clear dependence on the longitudinal position of municipalities...

The Jacobian-Gaussian method, which has been recently developed for generating bending angle trials, is extended to the conformational sampling of inner segments of a long chain or a cyclic molecule where regular configurational-bias Monte Carlo was found to be very inefficient or simply incapable (i.e., for the cyclic case). For these molecules, a new conformational move would be required where one interior section is relocated while the rest of the molecule, before and after this section, is fixed. Techniques have been developed to extend the regular configurational-bias Monte Carlo to such a fixed-endpoints case by introducing a biasing probability function...

Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram-negative, non-fermenting aerobic bacterium which is often associated with hospital-acquired infections and known for its ability to develop resistance to antibiotics, form biofilms, and survive for long periods in hospital environments. In this study, we present two novel viruses, vB_AbaP_AS11 and vB_AbaP_AS12, specifically infecting and lysing distinct multidrug-resistant clinical A. baumannii strains with K19 and K27 capsular polysaccharide structures, respectively. Both phages demonstrate rapid adsorption, short latent periods, and high burst sizes in one-step growth experiments...

INTRODUCTION: Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a major clinical issue for pregnant women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate color Doppler indices of the proximal and distal parts of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) of the fetus. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 350 pregnant patients, with gestation age of 32-40 who were suspected to have intrauterine growth restriction, participated. The patients were referred for color Doppler sonography at the Imam Reza Hospital (Kermanshah, Iran) from May 2011 to September 2012...

Xanthan gum (XG) production by Xanthomonas campestris NCIM 2961 using jackfruit seed powder (JSP) as a novel substrate was reported. Central composite design (CCD) of response surface method (RSM) was used to evaluate the linear and interaction effects of five medium variables (JSP, peptone, citric acid, K2HPO4 and KH2PO4) for XG production. Maximum XG production (51.62 g/L) was observed at the optimum level of JSP (4 g/L), peptone (0.93 g/L), citric acid (0.26 g/L), K2HPO4 (1.29 g/L) and KH2PO4 (0.5 g/L)...

Altered neurotrophic signaling is thought to impair neuroplasticity in bipolar disorder (BD). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is proposed as a neurotrophic marker in BD. However, the current evidence for its use in monitoring disease activity and illness progression is conflicting and an exploration of additional neurotrophic markers is needed. This prospective case-control study investigated mood-specific changes in potential neurotrophic markers and their association to inflammatory activity. Patients with BD were included during an acute mood episode, either depressive (n=35) or (hypo)manic (n=32)...

OBJECTIVES: Growth problems are reported in patients with congenital diaphragmatic hernia during the first years of life. However, it is unknown if poor growth persists during childhood. We therefore evaluated growth of patients longitudinally until 12 years of age. METHODS: This prospective study included 172 patients (43 treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation [ECMO]) born from 1999 to 2014. Z scores of height-for-age (HFA), weight-for-height, and distance-to-target height were calculated at 6 months of age and at 1, 2, 5, 8, and 12 years of age...

We propose a toy model for a cyclic order-disorder transition and introduce a geometric methodology to understand stochastic processes involved in transitions. Specifically, our model consists of a pair of forward and backward processes (FPs and BPs) for the emergence and disappearance of a structure in a stochastic environment. We calculate time-dependent probability density functions (PDFs) and the information length L, which is the total number of different states that a system undergoes during the transition...

We study the effect of chiral impurities on Viedma ripening using a simple reaction model. The exponential amplification of the enantiomeric excess (EE) is greatly accelerated by a smaller growth rate of solids with monomers caused by the chiral impurities. From the analysis of the model, it is found that the time evolution of the EE is essentially described by a second-order differential equation. The effect of chiral impurities is that the unstable fixed point is shifted from the racemic point, which leads to the linear amplification behavior observed experimentally...

Solute dispersion in fluid flow results from the interaction between advection and diffusion. The relative contributions of these two mechanisms to mass transport are characterized by the reduced velocity ν, also referred to as the Péclet number. In the absence of diffusion (i.e., when the solute diffusion coefficient D_{m}=0 and ν→∞), divergence-free laminar flow of an incompressible fluid results in a zero-transverse dispersion coefficient (D_{T}=0), both in ordered and random two-dimensional porous media...