The Relationship between Obesity-Related Factors and Graves' Orbitopathy: A Pilot Study.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between obesity-related factors including body mass index (BMI), diabetes or prediabetes, hyperlipidemia, fasting plasma glucose, fasting plasma insulin, homeostasis model assessment-estimated insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and Graves' orbitopathy (GO). Eighty-four patients with Graves' disease (GD) (42 without GO and 42 with GO) were enrolled in this cross-sectional cohort study. Gender, age, GD treatment history, height, body weight, waist circumference, smoking status, co-morbidities, levels of free thyroxin, thyroid-stimulating hormone, thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) antibodies, fasting plasma glucose and insulin, and hs-CRP were recorded.

The Efficacy of Therapeutic Plasma Exchange in Antiphospholipid Antibody-positive Patients With Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage and High D-dimer Levels.

Objective: We investigated the efficacy of plasma exchange (PE) in antiphospholipid antibody (aPL)-positive patients with a spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and high D-dimer levels.

Materials And Methods: From May 2013 to May 2016, we evaluated 32 patients who were below the age of 50 and presented with spontaneous ICH. Five patients were positive for aPL antibody and 3 had a higher level of D-dimer.

Mechanical Stability of Flexible Graphene-Based Displays.

The mechanical behavior of a prototype touch panel display, which consists of two layers of CVD graphene embedded into PET films, is investigated in tension and under contact-stress dynamic loading. In both cases, laser Raman spectroscopy was employed to assess the stress transfer efficiency of the embedded graphene layers. The tensile behavior was found to be governed by the "island-like" microstructure of the CVD graphene, and the stress transfer efficiency was dependent on the size of graphene "islands" but also on the yielding behavior of PET at relatively high strains.

Hypertonic saline in the treatment of corneal jellyfish stings.

A 20-year-old male soldier was hit by the jellyfish. The ophthalmic examination revealed that epithelial keratitis and corneal oedema in the right eye. We prescribed 3% NaCl eyedrops and 0.

Thermal properties of graphene-copper-graphene heterogeneous films.

We demonstrated experimentally that graphene-Cu-graphene heterogeneous films reveal strongly enhanced thermal conductivity as compared to the reference Cu and annealed Cu films. Chemical vapor deposition of a single atomic plane of graphene on both sides of 9 μm thick Cu films increases their thermal conductivity by up to 24% near room temperature. Interestingly, the observed improvement of thermal properties of graphene-Cu-graphene heterofilms results primarily from the changes in Cu morphology during graphene deposition rather than from graphene's action as an additional heat conducting channel.

Coexistence of neuroleptic malignant syndrome and a hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state.

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) is a rare idiosyncratic disorder characterized by muscle rigidity, hyperthermia, autonomic dysfunction, and altered consciousness. Although the incidence of NMS is low, it may be fatal if early recognition is delayed. There are a variety of precipitating factors for NMS including systemic illness and dehydration.

A new on-line resource for psycholinguistic studies.

Picture naming is a widely used technique in psycholinguistic studies. Here, we describe new on-line resources that our project has compiled and made available to researchers on the world wide web at http://crl.ucsd.

DNA sequence-specific recognition of peptides incorporating the HPRK and polyamide motifs.

Three peptide amides, HPRK(Py)(4)HPRK-NH(2) (PyH-12), HPRK(Py)(3)HPRK-NH(2) (PyH-11) and HPRK(Py)(2)HPRK-NH(2) (PyH-10), incorporating two HPRK motifs and various 4-amino-1-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylic acid residues (Py) were synthesized by solid-phase peptide methodology. The binding of these three peptides to a 5'-32P-labeled 158-mer DNA duplex (Watson fragment) and to a 5'-32P-labeled 135-mer DNA duplex (complementary Crick fragment) was investigated by quantitative DNase I footprinting. On the 158-mer Watson strand, the most distinctive DNase I blockages seen with all three peptides occur around positions 105-112 and 76-79, corresponding to the sequences 5'-GAGAAAAT-3' and 5'-CGGT-3', respectively.

Timed picture naming in seven languages.

Timed picture naming was compared in seven languages that vary along dimensions known to affect lexical access. Analyses over items focused on factors that determine cross-language universals and cross-language disparities. With regard to universals, number of alternative names had large effects on reaction time within and across languages after target-name agreement was controlled, suggesting inhibitory effects from lexical competitors.