Background. Occult hepatitis C virus infection (OCI) was identified as a new form of Hepatitis C virus (HCV), characterized by undetectable HCV antibodies and HCV RNA in serum, while HCV RNA is detectable in liver and peripheral blood cells only. Aim. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of OCI in Egyptian patients with lymphoproliferative disorders (LPDs) and to compare its prevalence with that of HCV in those patients. Subjects and Methods. The current study included 100 subjects, 50 of them were newly diagnosed cases having different lymphoproliferative disorders (patients group), and 50 were apparently healthy volunteers (controls group). HCV antibodies were detected by ELISA, HCV RNA was detected in serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR), and HCV genotype was detected by INNO-LiPA. Results. OCI was detected in 20% of patients group, compared to only 4% OCI in controls group. HCV was detected in 26% of patients group with a slightly higher prevalence. There was a male predominance in both HCV and OCI. All HCV positive patients were genotype 4. Conclusion. Our data revealed occurrence of occult HCV infection in Egyptian LPD patients at a prevalence of 20% compared to 26% of HCV.
A single oral dose of amisulpride was well tolerated and showed a similar pharmacokinetic profile in healthy elderly and young subjects. However, these findings should be confirmed after multiple dosing in a larger population in order to establish the lack of need of dosage adjustment in this elderly population.
Many offshore structures are subjected to overturning moments due to wind load, wave pressure, and ship impacts. Also most of retaining walls are subjected to horizontal forces and bending moments, these forces are due to earth pressure. For foundations in such structures, usually a combination of vertical and batter piles is used. Little information is available in the literature about estimating the capacity of piles under uplift. In cases where these supporting piles are not vertical, the behavior under axial pullout is not well established. In order to delineate the significant variables affecting the ultimate uplift shaft resistance of batter pile in dry sand, a testing program comprising 62 pullout tests was conducted. The tests are conducted on model steel pile installed in loose, medium, and dense sand to an embedded depth ratio, L/d, vary from 7.5 to 30 and with various batter angles of 0°, 10°, 20°, and 30°. Results indicate that the pullout capacity of a batter pile constructed in dense and/or medium density sand increases with the increase of batter angle attains maximum value and then decreases, the maximum value of Pα occurs at batter angle approximately equal to 20°, and it is about 21–31% more than the vertical pile capacity, while the pullout capacity for batter pile that constructed in loose sand decreases with the increase of pile inclination. The results also indicated that the circular pile is more resistant to pullout forces than the square and rectangular pile shape. The rough model piles tested is experienced 18–75% increase in capacity compared with the smooth model piles. The suggested relations for the pullout capacity of batter pile regarding the vertical pile capacity are well predicted.
Over the past few decades, retrofitting of existing buildings, rather than new construction, became more popular due to economic reasons and the benefit of shorter service interruptions of constructed facilities. Change of use of an existing building may require the removal of portions of the structural members such as introducing door and window openings in an existing shear walls. In these scenarios, a remedial retrofit of such structural members is needed to restore the structural integrity and to regain building's seismic ductility. This paper presents the results of an experimental study that aimed at evaluating the structural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls, with different opening geometries strengthened with fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) carbon/epoxy composites laminates. Results of this study indicated that the proposed FRP strengthening system for strengthening RC shear walls with openings was successful in significantly enhancing both the strength and ductility of the retrofitted walls. The average strength gain and ductility enhancement of the retrofitted walls, as compared to the "as-built" walls ranged from 20 % to 28%. Conclusions and recommendations for future research is presented.
In this paper, the ultimate load capacities of shell foundations on unreinforced and reinforced sand were determined by laboratory model tests. A series of loading tests were carried out on model shell footing with and without single layer of reinforcement. The tests were done for shell foundation at different shell embedment depth and subgrade density. The results were compared with those for flat foundations without reinforcement. The model test results were verified using finite element analysis using program PLAXIS. The experimental studies indicated that, the ultimate load capacity of shell footing on reinforced subgrade is higher than those on unreinforced cases and the load settlement curves were significantly modified. The shell foundation over reinforced subgrade can be considered a good method to increase the effective depth of the foundation and decrease the resulting settlement. Also the rupture surface of shell reinforced system was significantly deeper than both normal footing and shell footing without reinforcement. The numerical analysis helps in understanding the deformation behavior of the studied systems and identifies the failure surface of reinforced shell footing.
A triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily with an established role in innate and adaptive immune response. We aimed to determine the plasma concentrations and clinical association of sTREM-1 in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) patients. Plasma from 79 SLE patients and 35 normal healthy subjects were assayed for sTREM-1 and IL-6 levels using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA). The clinical disease characteristics and serological data were prospectively assessed. Disease activity was scored using the SLE disease activity index. We detected significantly higher levels of sTREM-1 in plasma of SLE patients than the healthy control group. We also detected high sTREM-1 levels in subgroups of patients with neuropsychiatric manifestations (NPLE) and patients with the total high disease activity and NPLE activity. In addition, sTREM-l levels were significantly correlated with parameters of disease activity, i.e. SLEDAI score, IL-6, hypoalbuminemia. On the other hand, we did not find significant differences in sTREM-1 levels in relation to age, disease duration, medications, ESR, other organ system involvement, or the presence of anti-dsDNA. Our preliminary data indicated that sTREM-1 levels may be an additional useful marker of disease activity in SLE. It also highlights its importance in patients with NPLE. An additional prospective longitudinal study should be carried out to support these findings.
We demonstrated that GSTM1 null or GSTT1 null genotypes may be considered independent risk factors for AML with no impact on prognosis and GSTP1 * 105 genotype is a prognostic factor, adding independent information to the routine laboratory parameters and cytogenetic and molecular alterations of the tumor cells.
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