A case of giant prostatic hyperplasia

Benign prostatic hyperplasia(BPH)is one of the most common conditions experienced by aging males and a frequent cause of bladder outlet obstruction and macroscopic haematuria.Giant prostatic hyperplasia(GPH)is an extremely rare form of prostatic hyperplasia.We present a case of a patient with GPH of 800 mL.To our knowledge,this is the fourth largest prostatic hyperplasia ever reported in the literature.

Road distance and travel time for an improved house price Kriging predictor

The paper designs an automated valuation model to predict the price of residential property in Coventry,United Kingdom,and achieves this by means of geostatistical Kriging,a popularly employed distance-based learning method.Unlike traditional applications of distance-based learning,this papers implements non-Euclidean distance metrics by approximating road distance,travel time and a linear combination of both,which this paper hypothesizes to be more related to house prices than straight-line(Euclidean)distance.Given that–to undertake Kriging–a valid variogram must be produced,this paper exploits the conforming properties of the Minkowski distance function to approximate a road distance and travel time metric.A least squares approach is put forth for variogram parameter selection and an ordinary Kriging predictor is implemented for interpolation.The predictor is then validated with 10-fold crossvalidation and a spatially aware checkerboard hold out method against the almost exclusively employed,Euclidean metric.Given a comparison of results for each distance metric,this paper witnesses a goodness of fit(r2)result of 0.6901±0.18 SD for real estate price prediction compared to the traditional(Euclidean)approach obtaining a suboptimal r2 value of 0.66±0.21 SD.

Safety of Malaysian marine endophytic fungal extract S2 from a brown seaweed Turbinaria conoides

Objective:To evaluate the in vivo acute toxicity and antioxidant activity of the marine endophytic fungus extract S2 isolated from Turbinaria conoides.Methods:Two doses(100 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg)of the S2 extract were administered to rats orally for acute toxicity and antioxidant test.The body weight,relative weight of six organs,haematological,biochemical and antioxidant properties were investigated on Day 14.Results:A single oral dose treatment did not cause any mortality or observable adverse effects in rats.No significant variations in the body and organ weights between the control and the treated groups were observed.Heamatological analysis and clinical blood chemistry also did not reveal any toxic effects of the extract.The total white blood cell count and haemoglobin levels were increased.The levels of total serum cholesterol in males treated with 100 and 400 mg/kg were significantly(P<0.05)decreased(1.28 and 1.34 mmol/L respectively)compared to control(1.55 mmol/L)rats.Pathologically,neither gross abnormalities nor histopathological changes were observed.This study showed strong evidence of the non-toxic effects of S2 extract.Furthermore the extract exhibited significant(P<0.05)antioxidant activity through increased levels of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase enzy mes in serum,liver and kidney.Conclusions:The research findings from the present study showed the potential of marine natural products particularly in Malaysia as a source of bioactive compounds.Marine endophytic fungi as a potential source of anticancer drugs with great potential as they are potent yet safe,thus deserving further extensive investigation.