Microscopic colitis is a form of inflammatory bowel disease characterized by profuse non-bloody watery diarrhea. Macroscopic abnormality is not present on colonoscopy, and it requires biopsy for diagnosis. Few cases have been attributed to levodopa/dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor therapy.
 
  A retrospective cohort study of 21 patients on levodopa/benserazide and one patient on levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel with clinically suspected or biopsy proven microscopic colitis.
 
  All 21 patients on oral levodopa/benserazide had resolution of diarrhea with cessation of the medication. Four patients discontinued levodopa permanently. Two were rechallenged with levodopa/benserazide without symptom recurrence. One patient on oral levodopa/carbidopa developed diarrhea only with intermittent dispersible levodopa/benserazide. 14 were switched to levodopa/carbidopa with resolution of diarrhea in 9 but symptom recurrence in 5. One patient on oral levodopa/benserazide developed profuse diarrhea when switched to levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel. Of 7/22 patients who had colonoscopy and biopsy, 5 had histopathological proven microscopic colitis.
 
  levodopa/dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor induced microscopic colitis may be more common than previously suspected, with the potential to affect treatment compliance and therapeutic options.
 levodopa/dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor induced microscopic colitis may be more common than previously suspected, with the potential to affect treatment compliance and therapeutic options.Estimation of construction waste generation (CWG) at the field scale is a crucial but challenging task for effective construction waste management (CWM). Extant field-scale CWG modeling approaches have faced difficulties in obtaining accurate results due to a lack of detailed CWG data, and most of them fail to consider the complex relationship among predictive variables. This study attempts to tackle this issue by proposing a novel CWG modeling approach that integrates improved on-site measurement (IOM) and a support vector machine (SVM)-based prediction model. To achieve this goal, 206 ongoing commercial construction sites were investigated to obtain the predictor values and waste generation rates (WGRs) of five types of waste (i.e., inorganic nonmetallic waste, organic waste, metal waste, composite waste, and hazardous waste) generated at three construction stages (i.e., the understructure stage, superstructure stage, and finishing stage). The data were introduced to the SVM to develop the relationships between predictive variables and WGRs. An actual commercial building under construction was used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. The results showed that the superiority of the IOM can be used as a basis to implement robust CWG data collection. In addition, the SVM-based WGR prediction model (SWPM) can obtain more accurate prediction results (R2 = 86.87%) than the back-propagation neural network (R2 = 75.14%) and multiple linear regression (R2 = 61.93%).Plastic packaging has been used increasingly worldwide in a broad range of application. Plastic packaging has a short lifetime, which generates a large amount of waste. However, robust information on plastic packaging waste flow is generally not available, especially for developing countries such as Brazil. We analyzed and quantified Brazilian post-consumer plastic packaging waste (PPW) flows using material flow analysis (MFA) for the year 2017. The system modeled covered from the manufacturing stage of plastic packaging up to its waste management stage. We used a range of data sources, whose quality we assessed using uncertainty characterization. The results showed that Brazil generated 12 Mt of PPW in 2017, and the management of 63% of that was not monitored. The majority of monitored PPW was disposed of into landfills, but 0.8 Mt of PPW was improperly disposed. Informal collection was 24% greater than formally managed selective collection. Only 4.5% of the PPW generated in Brazil was recycled. The results identified the major national challenges in relation to PPW management as being that information systems needed to be improved, informal waste collectors needed to be socially and productively included in the management systems, and recovery systems needed to be developed towards a circular economy.Chitosan nanoparticles (NPs) exhibit great potential in drug-controlled release systems. A controlled hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) technique was developed to intensify the emulsion crosslinking process for the synthesis of chitosan NPs. Experiments were performed using a circular venturi and under varying operating conditions, i.e., types of oil, addition mode of glutaraldehyde (Glu) solution, inlet pressure (Pin), and rheological properties of chitosan solution. Palm oil was more appropriate for use as the oil phase for the HC-intensified process than the other oil types. The addition mode of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion containing Glu (with Span 80) was more favorable than the other modes for obtaining a narrow distribution of chitosan NPs. The minimum size of NPs with polydispersity index of 0.342 was 286.5 nm, and the maximum production yield (Py) could reach 47.26%. A positive correlation was found between the size of NPs and the droplet size of W/O emulsion containing chitosan at increasing Pin. Particle size, size distribution, and the formation of NPs were greatly dependent on the rheological properties of the chitosan solution.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/Decitabine.html  Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis indicated that the molecular structure of palm oil was unaffected by HC-induced effects. Compared with ultrasonic horn, stirring-based, and conventional drop-by-drop processes, the application of HC to intensify the emulsion crosslinking process allowed the preparation of a finer and a narrower distribution of chitosan NPs in a more energy-efficient manner. The novel route developed in this work is a viable option for chitosan NP synthesis.In this study we evaluated the expression of SATB2 protein in colorectal cancer (CRC) and its association with microsatellite instability (MSI) status, inflammation and hypoxia. Immunohistochemical SATB2 expression was observed in 111 CRC samples. We assessed the correlation between SATB2 expression and clinico-morphological parameters, MSI, COX-2 and HIF-1α expression. SATB2 was noticed in 92.8% CRC. We observed nuclear staining with predominantly strong immunoreaction intensity (67.6%) and percentage of SATB-2 positive cells in more than 50% of cells (87.4%). The statistically significant associations were recorded between high SATB2 expression and low grade, negative lymph nodes and negative vascular invasion. Statistical analysis confirmed a significant correlation between SATB2 expression and microsatellite stability, tendency to correlate with COX-2 and no significant correlation with HIF-1α. SATB2 is overexpressed in CRC and its high expression is a marker of good prognosis. Moreover, SATB2 expression is significantly associated with microsatellite stability, there is tendency to correlate with pro-inflammatory COX-2 and there is no association with hypoxia.