Background: The criteria for chest drain removal after lung resections remain vague and rely on personal experience instead of evidence. Because pleural fluid resorption is proportional to body weight, a weight-related approach seems reasonable. We examined the feasibility of a weight-adjusted fluid output threshold concerning postoperative respiratory complications and the occurrence of symptomatic pleural effusion after chest drain removal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Transgenic mice have become an important tool to elucidate the genetic foundation of the human language faculty. While learning is an essential prerequisite for the acquisition of human speech, it is still a matter of debate whether auditory learning plays any role in the development of species-specific vocalizations in mice. To study the influence of auditory input on call development, we compared the occurrence and structure of ultrasonic vocalizations from deaf otoferlin-knockout mice, a model for human deafness DFNB9, to those of hearing wild-type and heterozygous littermates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the study of genetic diversity at non-core Y-STRs in South African population groups, we identified loci with high discrimination capacity. In this study we present a detailed account of the allele diversity, allele sequence data, gene diversity, allele frequency spectrum and informativeness for assignment in the European English, Asian Indian and Xhosa population groups at loci DYS449, DYS481, DYS518, DYS612, DYS626, DYS644 and DYS710. The suitability of these loci for forensic, genealogical and evolutionary studies is discussed, and nomenclature for loci DYS518, DYS612, DYS626 and DYS644 is suggested.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo Y-STR genotyping systems were evaluated for usefulness in forensic casework in the Cape Muslim population of South Africa. Samples were collected from 105 males, and genotyped for 17 loci amplified in two multiplexes. Allele and haplotype frequencies were determined for nine Y-STR loci used to define the minimal haplotype (DYS19, DYS389-I, DYS389-II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, and the duplicated locus DYS385) amplified in one multiplex, as well as for eight widely used loci amplified in a second multiplex and consisting of DYS449, DYS481, DYS518, DYS557, DYS570, DYS607, DYS612 and DYS614.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSamples were collected from 108 Afrikaner males and 114 males of mixed ancestry. The term mixed ancestry is being used to denote a complex community which was established with contributions from Asians, Caucasians and Indigenous populations and constitutes a significant proportion of the Cape Town metropolitan population. Allele and haplotype frequencies were determined for nine Y-STR loci (DYS19, DYS389-I, DYS389-II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393 and the duplicated locus DYS385).
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