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Objectives: Trachyspermum khasianum H. Wolff is a rare medicinal plant characteristically used by the traditional healers in traditional medicine for the treatment of throat-pain, toothache, and stomach ache. The study was designed to determine the anthelmintic and analgesic properties of the aerial parts of Trachyspermum khasianum H. Wolff (Family: Apiaceae). The aqueous and ethanol extract of T. khasianum H. Wolff was prepared and subjected for evaluation to determine the possible therapeutic effects.Methods: Anthelmintic activities of the extracts were determined by observing the time taken to paralyze and the time taken for the death of earthworms (Eisenia foetida) as compared to the standard drug–Albendazole (20 mg/ml) and control. Analgesic potential of the extracts was evaluated using Eddy’s hot plate method to understand the analgesic activity in rats (Wistar rats) at 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg body weight doses and compared with the standard reference (Diclofenac sodium: 10 mg/kg of animals).Results: The extracts showed a significant dose-dependent anthelmintic effect at the different concentrations (10, 20, and 40) mg/ml, compared to that of the standard drug (20 mg/ml). Also, the results suggested that the plant extracts possess significantly analgesic activity in rats.Conclusion: The studies indicate that Trachyspermum khasianum shows anthelmintic and potent analgesic activities. Further research should be carried out to identify the specific phytoconstituents responsible for both analgesic and anthelmintic activities and its possible mechanism of action.

Today, the most important factor in the occurrence of metabolic and reproductive diseases in dairy cattle is the disturbance of natural process in body’s cellular-molecular events that occur after increasing of oxidants and the formation of oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of a significant association between the serum concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC), as oxidative stress indexes, with the incidence of subclinical ketosis and clinical endometritis in dairy cows. For this purpose, 101 Holstein dairy cows were divided into 4 groups (healthy, subclinical ketosis, clinical endometritis, and both of them subclinical ketosis-clinical endometritis), and serum levels of MDA and TAC were measured in one month before delivery. The lowest serum concentration of TAC and the highest plasma MDA levels were observed in cows with both of diseases, while control group (healthy cows) had the highest serum concentration of TAC and lowest MDA levels (P≤0.05). There was no significant difference in serum concentrations of TAC and MDA between clinical endometritis and subclinical ketosis groups (p>0.05). The results of this study demonstrated a significant correlation between serum concentrations MDA and TAC with the incidence of clinical endometritis and prevalence of ketosis-endometritis in dairy cows (P≤0.05). Conflict of interest: None declared.Keywords: Malondialdehyde, Total Antioxidant Capacity, Clinical Endometritis, Subclinical Ketosis.

BackgroundPatients who have recently received a hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) are at higher risk of acute complications in the first weeks after discharge, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to test the use of a telehealth platform for the follow-up of HCT patients during the first two weeks after discharge. MethodsIn total, 21 patients who received autologous or allogeneic HCT for hematological malignancies were screened from April 30, 2020, to July 15, 2020. The telehealth platform assisted in the daily collection of vital signs as well as physical and psychological symptoms for two weeks after hospital discharge. The required medical devices (oximeter and blood pressure monitor) were given to patients and a dedicated smartphone app was developed to collect this data. The data were reviewed daily through web-based software by a hematologist specializing in HCT. ResultsOnly 12 of 21 patients were able to join and complete the study. Technological barriers were the most frequent limiting factor in this study. Among the 12 patients who completed the study, adherence to data reporting was high. The patients’ experience of using such a system was considered good. In two cases, the system enabled the early recognition of acute complications. ConclusionsThis pilot study showed that telehealth systems can be applied in the early posttransplant setting, with evident advantages for physicians and patients for both medical and psychological aspects. Technological issues still represent a challenge for the applicability of such a system, especially for older adult patients. Easier-to-use technologies could help to expand the use of telehealth systems in this setting in the future.

Abstract. Daratumumab is a human CD38-targeted monoclonal antibody approved as monotherapy for heavily pretreated relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. We report findings for the Spanish cohort of an open-label treatment protocol that provided early access to daratumumab monotherapy and collected safety and patient-reported outcomes data for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. At 15 centers across Spain, intravenous daratumumab (16 mg/kg) was administered to 73 patients who had ≥3 prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor and an immunomodulatory drug, or who were double refractory to both. The median duration of daratumumab treatment was 3.3 (range: 0.03–13.17) months, with a median number of 12 (range: 1–25) infusions. Grade 3/4 treatment-emergent adverse events were reported in 74% of patients and included lymphopenia (28.8%), thrombocytopenia (27.4%), neutropenia (21.9%), leukopenia (19.2%), and anemia (15.1%). Common (>5%) serious treatment-emergent adverse events included respiratory tract infection (9.6%), general physical health deterioration (6.8%), and back pain (5.5%). Infusion-related reactions occurred in 45% of patients. The median change from baseline in all domains of the EQ-5D-5L and EORTC QLQ-C30 was mostly 0. A total of 18 (24.7%) patients achieved a partial response or better, with 10 (13.7%) patients achieving a very good partial response or better. Median progression-free survival was 3.98 months. The results of this early access treatment protocol are consistent with previously reported trials of daratumumab monotherapy and confirm its safety and antitumoral efficacy in Spanish patients with heavily treated relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. European Clinical Trials Database number: 2015-002993-19

En este artículo se presentan los diversos aspectos de una aproximación científica al lenguaje. Una de las principales consecuencias de adoptar los principios metodológicos propios de las ciencias es que la lingüística no puede ser una ciencia de las lenguas, porque, desde esa perspectiva es imposible dar una definición objetiva de lengua. Por ello, el objeto de estudio de la lingüística no puede ser otro que la facultad del lenguaje, entendida como la capacidad propia de todo individuo de la especie humana que nos permite desarrollar y poner en uso conocimientos lingüísticos. Una vez establecidos estos supuestos básicos, el texto esboza la clase de problemas a los que se enfrenta la investigación en este ámbito y reflexiona sobre algunas de las principales aproximaciones metodológicas que se pueden adoptar para buscar respuestas a dichos problemas.

By 1967, it was clear to Eric Lenneberg that reconstructing the phylogenetic history of language should require the adoption of a non-functional (or Owenian) homology concept for grounding relevant comparisons. Fifty years later, most biolinguistic approaches have betrayed this project, for they routinely derive their conclusions regarding the unique/shared status of language on merely folk grounds — as dramatically illustrated in Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch vs. Pinker & Jackendoff’s debate, or based on functional considerations — as in Chomsky’s recent conceptualization of language as a unique tool for thought. Here we claim that Lenneberg’s project needs to be resumed and we articulate some suggestions about how to conduct it, taking advantage of recent findings and new conceptual insights concerning two crucial levels of analysis actually pinpointed by him — namely, anatomical/molecular structure and physiological function.

The state of the art of the debate between externalist and internalist concepts of language is reviewed in this paper, and a new conceptualization of language as a “developmental hybrid” is suggested that entails that it equally comprises environmental and organism-internal component pieces, in an ultimately non dissociable way. The key for understanding this hybrid status is to be found in development, for when individually evolving, a general dynamic is observed in which organism-internal facilities selectively apply to certain designated aspects of the environmental stimulus, which in their turn have a facilitatory impact on these very same facilities. These kinds of loops inspire the conclusion that the internal and the external compose a single, integrated developmental unit.

This paper tries to shed light on traditional and current observations that give support to the idea that language is subject to critical period effects. It is suggested that this idea is not adequately grounded on a view on language as a developmental phenomenon which motivates the suggestion of moving from the now classic concept of language as a ‘faculty’ to a new concept of language as a ‘gradient’: i.e. an aggregate of cognitive abilities, the weight of which is variable from one to another developmental stage, and which exercise crucial scaffolding effects on each other. Once this well-supported view is assumed, the idea of ‘critical period’ becomes an avoidable one, for language can instantiate different forms of gradation, none of which is inherently normal or deviant relatively to each other. In any event, a notion of ‘criticality’ is retained within this view, yet simply to name the transitional effects of scaffolding influences within the gradient.