Acute hypocalcemia and metabolic alkalosis in children on cation-exchange resin therapy

Background. Sodium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS) is a chelating agent used for the treatment of hyperkalemia. SPS has a wide range of exchange capacity requiring close monitoring of serum electrolytes. We observed two patients who developed acute hypocalcemia and increased metabolic alkalosis after initiating SPS therapy. We report these cases to draw attention to the potential risk of this medication in pediatric patients. Case Diagnosis/Treatment. Two children with chronic kidney disease on dialysis were started on SPS for hyperkalemia. Within a week after initiation of the medication, both patients developed hypocalcemia on routine labs without overt clinical manifestations. The hypocalcemia was rapidly corrected with oral supplementation and discontinuation of SPS. Conclusions. Severe hypocalcemia can develop after SPS therapy. The metabolic alkalosis in these patients associated with the hypocalcemia put them at increased risk for complications. Hence, careful attention must be paid to the state of calcium metabolism in all patients receiving SPS. Often calcium supplementation is required to maintain normal calcium levels

Story Comparisons: Evidence from Film Reviews

Interested in formally modelling similarity between narratives, we investigate judgements of similarity between narratives in a small corpus of film reviews and book–film comparisons. A main finding is that judgements tend to concern multiple levels of story representation at once. As these texts are pragmatically related to reception contexts, we find many references to reception quality and optimality. We conclude that current formal models of narrative can not capture the task of naturalistic narrative comparisons given in the analysed reviews, but that the development of models containing a more reception-oriented point of view will be necessary

Global stability and positive recurrence of a stochastic SIS model with Lévy noise perturbation

Focusing on epidemic model in random environments, this paper uses white noise and Lévy noise to model the dynamics of the SIS epidemic model subject to the random changes of the external environment. We show that the jump encourages the extinction of the disease in the population. We first, give a rigorous proof of the global stability of the disease-free equilibrium state. We also establish sufficient conditions for the persistence of the disease. The presented results are demonstrated by numerical simulations.Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University-Kénitra, Morocc

In-depth two-year study of phenolic profile variability among olive oils from autochthonous and Mediterranean varieties in Morocco, as revealed by a LC-MS chemometric profiling approach

Olive oil phenolic fraction considerably contributes to the sensory quality and nutritional value of this foodstuff. Herein, the phenolic fraction of 203 olive oil samples extracted from fruits of 4 autochthonous Moroccan cultivars ("Picholine Marocaine", "Dahbia", "Haouzia" and "Menara"), and 9 Mediterranean varieties recently introduced in Morocco ("Arbequina", "Arbosana", "Cornicabra", "Frantoio", "Hojiblanca", "Koroneiki", "Manzanilla", "Picholine de Languedoc" and "Picual"), were explored over two consecutive crop seasons (2012/2013 and 2013/2014) by using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. A total of 32 phenolic compounds (and quinic acid), belonging to five chemical classes (secoiridoids, simple phenols, flavonoids, lignans and phenolic acids) were identified and quantified. Phenolic profiling revealed that the determined phenolic compounds showed variety-dependent levels, being, at the same time, significantly affected by the crop season. Moreover, based on the obtained phenolic composition and chemometric linear discriminant analysis, statistical models were obtained allowing a very satisfactory classification and prediction of the varietal origin of the studied oils.Fil: Bajoub, Aadil. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias. Departamento de Química Analítica ; España. Faculty of Science and Technology. Laboratory of Bioprocess and Bio-Interfaces ; MarruecosFil: Medina Rodríguez, Santiago. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias. Departamento de Química Analítica; EspañaFil: Olmo García, Lucía. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias. Departamento de Química Analítica; EspañaFil: El Amine, Ajal. Provincial Department Of Agriculture Of Azilal; MarruecosFil: Monasterio, Romina Paula. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Biología Agrícola de Mendoza. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Biología Agrícola de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Hanine, Hafida. Faculty of Science and Technology. Laboratory of Bioprocess and Bio-Interfaces ; MarruecosFil: Fernández Gutiérrez, Alfredo. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias. Departamento de Química Analítica ; EspañaFil: Carrasco Pancorbo, Aegría. Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias. Departamento de Química Analítica ; Españ

Innovative Analytical Assessment: The Relationship Between English E-assessment CBT Scores and Traditional Methods of Assessment

King Saud University’s (KSU) Preparatory Year (PY) examines around 12,000 students per year. The sole objective of the PY is to enable students to progress to the main campus of KSU and complete their degrees; and the main focus of its program is English language acquisition, through the English Language Skills Department (ELSD). Examining such a large number of students every year puts a strain on the resources of the faculty as a whole. As a consequence, maximizing the efficiency of the examination process is of paramount concern. Computer-based testing (CBT) is an extremely effective way of monitoring the knowledge acquisition of a large body of students. Alongside the CBT the PY also implements a speaking and writing examination for the ELSD. This study finds, through a quantitative analysis of statistical data collected from the results of ELSD Humanities students’ PY examinations, and multiple regression analysis, a high degree of correlation between the demonstration of proficiencies in the speaking and writing examinations and that of the CBT. This study proposes to measure students’ English proficiency through the exclusive use of CBT assessment. Schema theory is utilized to illustrate how the acquisition and organization of knowledge by students can be analyzed effectively. The study takes account of research to date in the field of Instructional Design and Technology to identify the need for learning solution through analysis. The study calls for further research to identify elements of ESL examinations that are overly tedious and inefficient in determining linguistic competencies, using a regression statistical model. It also calls for a more sophisticated statistical analysis, to explore the interrelations in language skills in more detail in order to provide the most rigorous and relevant evaluative framework. Keywords: Instructional Design, Learning Analytics, Educational Data Mining, Learner Characteristics, e-Assessment.