Search

The adoption of Muslim children is one of the familial issues in Indonesia. At the law level, the Indonesian law authorizes two judicial institutions, namely Islamic and public courts, to handle the case. Here, conflicts of jurisdiction occur obviously and, as a consequence, the parties have the choice to decide which court to request based on their wishes. This article answers the question of why and what the consequences of conflicts of jurisdiction are in the case of the adoption of Muslim children? The study found that two judicial institutions both accepted and examined cases of the adoption of Muslim children. However, there is a difference in the legal consequences. If the adopted child is to be treated as a biological child and can inherit, the application is filed to a public court. On the contrary, if the child is to be maintained, it is an Islamic court that judges. In the case of family lineage (nasab), both the courts do not break the ties of the adopted child with his/her biological parents, including the right of guardianship.

PurposeEvaluate the initial ocular safety and tolerability and efficacy of VVN001 Ophthalmic Solution (VVN001), a small-molecule antagonist of lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1), in subjects with dry eye disease (DED).MethodsThis was a multi-center, double-masked, randomized, dose-response, vehicle-controlled, parallel-group study conducted in 170 subjects with DED. Subjects were randomized to receive VVN001 (1% or 5%) or its vehicle, twice-daily in both eyes for 84 days. The primary outcome measure was inferior region corneal fluorescein staining (iCFS, 0-4 scale) at Day 84. Visual Analogue Scale eye dryness (VAS, 0-100 scale) was a secondary outcome.ResultsThe primary and first secondary outcomes were not met. At Day 84 treatment effects in favor of VVN001 5% relative to its vehicle for iCFS were 0.29 units (p = 0.054), and for VAS were 3.18 units (p = 0.533). In other secondary outcomes, treatment effects in favor of VVN001 5% relative to its vehicle were seen in total CFS (1.61 units, 0-20 scale, p = 0.004) and Schirmer score (1.77 and 2.32 mm, p = 0.049 and p = 0.17 at Days 14 and 28 respectively). Adverse events of incidence 5% or greater in either active treatment group were instillation site pain (3/57, 5.3%), dysgeusia (3/56, 5.4%) and urinary tract infection (3/57, 5.3%).ConclusionsThere were no major safety issues of note. Appropriately powered studies will be required with a priori selection of the efficacy endpoints to evaluate VVN001's therapeutic potential.

Background. Injuries of various origins with damage to parenchymal organs remain one of the urgent issues of emergency surgery, despite all the achievements of medical science of the first quarter of the XXI century. One way to improve the quality of treatment for patients with this pathology consists in developing new wound dressings or modifying the properties of existing ones. Hemostatic efficacy is claimed to be one of the main requirements for such dressings.Objective. To perform a comparative analysis of the efficacy of the developed biodegradable wound dressings based on chitosan in the treatment of experimental wounds of parenchymal organs.Methods. The study involved laboratory animals (male rabbits weighing 2900 ± 150 g) to form experimental wounds of parenchymatous organs. The methodology involved wounding the liver via internal method, with the creation of a tissue defect of a given volume, or forming a linear incised wound with fixed parameters followed by application of a developed wound dressing. In the control group of animals, a collagen hemostatic sponge was used as a wound dressing. The animals used in the experiment were kept in accordance with GOST 33044-2014 “Principles of good laboratory practice”. The experiment involved studying the properties of two samples of wound dressings developed on the basis of modified Chitosan Soft (Ch-S) and Chitosan Hard (Ch-H) chitosan, having different properties due to their different structural parameters. The applied ultrasound control of the experimental wound area, with visualization of the samples of the investigated material in the process of biodegradation, enabled the features of the wound process to be studied in more detail. Statistical processing of the study results was carried out by methods of variational statistics, including the calculation of mean values (M), standard errors of mean values (± m). The criterion of the level of statistical significance considered a value of p

BackgroundWhen the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, Yemen, a country facing years of conflict had only one laboratory with PCR testing capacity. In this article, we describe the outcome of the implementation of molecular based diagnostics platform in Yemen and highlight the key milestones the country went through to increase access to testing for its populations residing in a geographically vast and politically divided country.MethodsA retrospective assessment of COVID-19 laboratory response activities was done detailing the needs assessment process, timelines, geographical coverage, and outcomes of the activities. Laboratory data was analyzed to construct the geographical locations of COVID-19 testing laboratories and the numbers of tests performed in each facility to highlight the demands of testing for travelers. Finally, we discuss the impact these activities had in enabling the movement of people across international borders for economic gains and in delivery of critical humanitarian aid.OutcomePCR testing capacities in Yemen significantly improved, from one laboratory in Sanaa in April 2020 to 18 facilities across the country by June 2022. In addition, the number of functional Real-Time PCR thermocyclers increased from one to 32, the PCR tests output per day improved from 192 to 6144 tests per day. Results from analysis of laboratory data showed there were four peaks of COVID-19 in Yemen as October 2022. The majority of laboratory tests were performed for travelers than for medical or public health reasons. Demand for laboratory testing in Yemen was generally low and waned over time as the perceived risk of COVID-19 declined, in parallel with rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.Discussion/conclusionThe successful expansion of laboratory testing capacity was instrumental in the control and management of COVID-19 cases and critical in the implementation of public response strategies, including restrictions on gathering. Laboratory testing also facilitated the movement of humanitarian agencies and delivery of aid and enabled hundreds of thousands of Yemeni nationals to travel internationally. By virtue of these outcomes, the impact of laboratory strengthening activities was thus felt in the health sector and beyond.

Breast cancer remains a major global health concern and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Early detection and effective treatment are essential in improving patient survival. Advances in omics technologies have provided deeper insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying breast cancer. This study aimed to identify subnetwork markers with diagnostic and prognostic potential by integrating genome-wide gene expression data with protein–protein interaction networks. We identified four significant subnetworks revealing potentially important hub genes, including VEGFA, KIF4A, ZWINT, PTPRU, IKBKE, STYK1, CENPO, and UBE2C. The diagnostic and prognostic potentials of these subnetworks were validated using independent datasets. Unsupervised principal component analysis demonstrated a clear separation of breast cancer patients from healthy controls across multiple datasets. A KNN classification model, based on these subnetworks, achieved an accuracy of 97%, sensitivity of 98%, specificity of 94%, and area under the curve (AUC) of 96%. Moreover, the prognostic significance of these subnetwork markers was validated using independent transcriptomic datasets comprising over 4000 patients. These findings suggest that subnetwork markers derived from integrated genomic network analyses can enhance our understanding of the molecular landscape of breast cancer, potentially leading to improved diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Al-Yacoub et al. investigate the consequences of FBXO32 mutation on dilated cardiomyopathy. ER stress, abnormal CHOP activation and CHOP-induced apoptosis with no UPR effector activation are found to underlie the FBXO32 mutation induced cardiomyopathy, suggesting an alternative pathway that can be considered to develop new therapeutic targets for its treatment.

The development of reliable methods for identification of robust biomarkers for complex diseases is critical for disease diagnosis and prognosis efforts. Integrating multi-omics data with protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks to investigate diseases may help better understand disease characteristics at the molecular level. In this study, we developed and tested a novel network-based method to detect subnetwork markers for patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). We performed an integrated omics analysis using whole-genome gene expression profiling and copy number alterations (CNAs) datasets followed by building a gene interaction network for the significantly altered genes. We then clustered the constructed gene network into subnetworks and assigned a score for each significant subnetwork. We developed a support vector machine (SVM) classifier using these scores as feature values and tested the methodology in independent CRC transcriptomic datasets. The network analysis resulted in 15 subnetwork markers that revealed several hub genes that may play a significant role in colorectal cancer, including PTP4A3, FGFR2, PTX3, AURKA, FEN1, INHBA, and YES1. The 15-subnetwork classifier displayed over 98 percent accuracy in detecting patients with CRC. In comparison to individual gene biomarkers, subnetwork markers based on integrated multi-omics and network analyses may lead to better disease classification, diagnosis, and prognosis.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is considered the most common type of liver cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the world. Since the disease is usually diagnosed at advanced stages, it has poor prognosis. Therefore, reliable biomarkers are urgently needed for early diagnosis and prognostic assessment.Methods: We used genome-wide gene expression profiling datasets from human and rat early HCC (eHCC) samples to perform integrated genomic and network-based analyses, and discovered gene markers that are expressed in blood and conserved in both species. We then used independent gene expression profiling datasets for peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for eHCC patients and from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to estimate the diagnostic and prognostic performance of the identified gene signature. Furthermore, we performed functional enrichment, interaction networks and pathway analyses.Results: We identified 41 significant genes that are expressed in blood and conserved across species in eHCC. We used comprehensive clinical data from over 600 patients with HCC to verify the diagnostic and prognostic value of 41-gene-signature. We developed a prognostic model and a risk score using the 41-geneset that showed that a high prognostic index is linked to a worse disease outcome. Furthermore, our 41-gene signature predicted disease outcome independently of other clinical factors in multivariate regression analysis. Our data reveals a number of cancer-related pathways and hub genes, including EIF4E, H2AFX, CREB1, GSK3B, TGFBR1, and CCNA2, that may be essential for eHCC progression and confirm our gene signature’s ability to detect the disease in its early stages in patients’ biological fluids instead of invasive procedures and its prognostic potential.Conclusion: Our findings indicate that integrated cross-species genomic and network analysis may provide reliable markers that are associated with eHCC that may lead to better diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment options.

Engine performance is influenced by volumetric efficiency, an engine’s ability to put air into its cylinders. It is known for its intake length being tuned based on engine speed due to the air pressure wave behavior. However, the airflow into the intake system is controlled by the throttle opening, so there is a need to study the performance effect of intake length that is tuned based on it. Thus, this current study focuses on the impact of different throttle opening and intake lengths in relation to engine speed on the volumetric efficiency of the Proton CamPro 1.6L SI engine. The simulation runs on different ranges of engine speeds from 1000 rpm to 7000 rpm and different intake lengths with different throttle opening angles. The critical finding of this study revealed that tuning intake length based on throttle opening showed an improvement of 1.3% for volumetric efficiency at the low rpm range. It is by tuning the intake length to 400 mm at a throttle opening of 70° for 1000 rpm and 450 mm intake length with a throttle opening of 50° at 2000 rpm. However, it showed that 90° or wide-open throttle provides the best volumetric efficiency for mid and high-range rpm for all intake lengths. The highest efficiency achieved is 101% at 4000 rpm with a 500 mm length intake and wide-open throttle. The findings from this study contribute to a good understanding of engine performance through intake length tuned based on throttle opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fight to protect women's rights is critical now more than ever. The World Bank has noted that women throughout the world "have only three quarters of the legal rights afforded to men."1 On the domestic front in the United States, the battleground remains fraught with blows to the women's rights movement, especially on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rollback of reproductive rights. Statements made by the Biden Administration in support of global women's rights, for example, have been met with inadequate action on the legislative front; the most pertinent standstill has come from the fight over the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women ("CEDAW"), a long and drawn-out battle that has left the United States virtually alone in failing to explicitly affirm the global rights of women. This gap between promise and action leaves one main question open, what can be done? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Congenital erythropoietic porphyria is a rare autosomal recessive disorder that affects heme-porphyrin synthesis. This disorder is due to the genetic defect of uroporphyrinogen III cosynthase. This defect results in the accumulation of high amounts of uroporphyrin I in all tissues, leading to clinical manifestations ranging from mild to severe chronic damage of the skin, cartilage and bone. Hypertrichosis, erythrodontia and reddish-colored urine are often present, as well as hemolytic anemia accompanied by hepatosplenomegaly. Case presentation Here, we present a case of a 5-year-old male child of Middle Eastern origin who had been diagnosed as having alpha thalassemia and was undergoing chronic blood transfusions. He later presented with hypopigmented skin lesions and atrophy post-photosensitivity, persistent red-colored urine and hepatosplenomegaly. Laboratory investigations showed a high level of porphyrin metabolites in his plasma and erythrocytes. As a result, he was diagnosed as having Congenital erythropoietic porphyria. Conclusion Here, we diagnose a case of congenital erythropoietic porphyria which was initially missed, although the clinical features were clear (red-colored urine, hepatosplenomegaly and hemolytic anemia were present since birth, and skin manifestations appeared at the age of 22 months after being exposed to sunlight). After a DNA test was performed, the patient was initially diagnosed as having alpha thalassemia. We identified two causes of hemolytic anemia (congenital erythropoietic porphyria and alpha thalassemia) in this patient. The diagnosis of congenital erythropoietic porphyria was missed up until the child turned 5 years old. To our knowledge, this is the first case of hemolytic anemia to be reported with a diagnosis of both congenital erythropoietic porphyria and alpha thalassemia.