Advanced psychometric testing on a clinical screening tool to evaluate insomnia: sleep condition indicator in patients with advanced cancer

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - To examine the psychometric properties of the Sleep Condition Indicator (SCI) using different psychometric approaches [including classical test theory, Rasch models,...     

The economic burden of dengue fever in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Rapid urbanization, global trade, and the exceptionally great numbers of worldwide visitors during Hajj and Umrah have all placed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at a significant risk of introducing several vector-borne tropical diseases, such as dengue fever virus (DENV) infection. In this study we estimated DENV infection cost of illness (COI) in Saudi Arabia in the period 2013–2017, by processing national data including all declared cases recorded in referral centers in the western region, being the endemic region of the country. Using a statistically validated predictive model that was built on a representative sample of 717 laboratory-confirmed cases of DENV infection, direct costs, due to care-related expenditures, were estimated by applying the predictive equation to national data. However, indirect costs, which are due to productivity loss, were estimated using the human capital model based on gross domestic product adjusted for invalidity duration. Further, under-reporting was adjusted by using an expansion factor EF = 3. We observed highest estimated costs in 2016 with over US$168.5 Million total costs, including direct (US$29.0 Million) and indirect (US$139.5 Million) costs, for a total 4415 confirmed cases. The total DENV COI for the five years was estimated as US$551.0 Million for a total 15,369 patients (59.7%) out of 25,745 declared cases, resulting in an average cost of US$11 947.6 by patient. Depending on the year, productivity years loss costs accounted for 63.3% to 83.8% of the estimated total costs. Dengue has a substantial local economic burden that costs US$110.2 Million per year, stressing the urgent need for an effective national prevention strategy to perform considerable cost-savings besides reducing morbidity.     

Flooding or drought which one is more offensive on pepper physiology and growth?

Molecular Biology Reports - Both extreme usage of water in agriculture i.e., drought and flooding affect physiological and growth aspects of the plant as well as gene expression undertaken in water...     

Synthesized Zn(II)-Amino Acid and -Chitosan Chelates to Increase Zn Uptake by Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) Plants

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - Plants require optimum amounts of nutrients for suitable growth and yield production. Accordingly, the most efficient methods of fertilization, including the...     

Peptides with Dual Antimicrobial-Anticancer Activity Derived from the N-terminal Region of H. pylori Ribosomal Protein L1 (RpL1)

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Whereas the traditional approaches of cancer therapy including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy have failed to properly...     

The Role of Peptide-Based Tumor Vaccines on Cytokines of Adaptive Immunity: A Review

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Recently, peptide-based materials have been applied to solving many therapeutic problems and have shown particular efficacy as cancer...     

Computational Design and Analysis of a Multi-epitope Against Influenza A virus

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - Influenza A viruses are among the most studied viruses, however no effective prevention against influenza infection has been developed....     

Fourfold paralogy regions on human HOX-bearing chromosomes: Role of ancient segmental duplications in the evolution of vertebrate genome

BackgroundSusumu Ohno’s idea that modern vertebrates are degenerate polyploids (concept referred as 2R hypothesis) has been the subject of intense debate for past four decades. It was proposed that intra-genomic synteny regions (paralogons) in human genome are remains of ancient polyploidization events that occurred early in the vertebrate history. The quadruplicated paralogon centered on human HOX clusters is taken as evidence that human HOX-bearing chromosomes were structured by two rounds of whole genome duplication (WGD) events.ResultsEvolutionary history of human HOX-bearing chromosomes (chromosomes 2/7/12/17) was evaluated by the phylogenetic analysis of multigene families with triplicated or quadruplicated distribution on these chromosomes. Topology comparison approach categorized the members of 44 families into four distinct co-duplicated groups. Distinct gene families belonging to a particular co-duplicated group, exhibit similar evolutionary history and hence have duplicated simultaneously, whereas genes of two distinct co-duplicated groups do not share their evolutionary history and have not duplicated in concert with each other.ConclusionThe recovery of co-duplicated groups suggests that “ancient segmental duplications and rearrangements” is the most rational model of evolutionary events that have generated the triplicated and quadruplicated paralogy regions seen on the human HOX-bearing chromosomes.