Search

Objective: Spinal epidural cavernous hemangiomas (SECHs) are rare, and merely a few have previously been described in case reports. The present study aims to explore the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features of SECHs and analyze the causes of their preoperative misdiagnosis. Methods: The present retrospective study included 11 patients (three male and eight female patients, mean age ± standard deviation: 47.55±17.39 years old) with histopathologically confirmed SECH between January 2015 and April 2021. The MRI features of SECH were analyzed by two radiologists. Results: The cervical, thoracic and thoracolumbar segments were involved in 2, 7 and 2 patients, respectively. All lesions grew along the long axis of the spine. The tumors were shuttle-shaped in six patients, oval in two patients, pseudopodia-shaped in one patient, clamp-shaped in one patient, and growing outward along the intervertebral foramen in one patient. Nine SECHs had relatively uniform isointense or hypointense T1-weighted imaging (T1WI) and hyperintense T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) signals. On the T2WI, filamentary low-signal shadows (i.e., the hairline or grid sign) with significant contrast enhancement and asymptotic strengthening were observed. Two SECHs had mixed high and low signals on T1WI and T2WI, with significant heterogeneous enhancement, hemorrhage, and hemosiderin deposition. The SECH was misdiagnosed as meningioma, neurofibromatosis and schwannoma in 1, 1 and 4 patients, respectively, while this was not diagnosed in one patient. The preoperative diagnosis was correct in merely approximately 36% of patients. Among the four patients with a correct preoperative diagnosis, hemosiderin deposition was found in three patients and small tortuous vascular shadows were found in one patient. Conclusions: SECH presents as a long spindle-shaped mass, and the “'pen cap sign” is common at the lesion edges. SECH also exhibits a hairline or grid sign on T2WI. Furthermore, some lesions present with hemorrhage and hemosiderin deposition. Therefore, the hairline, grid sign and hemosiderin deposition are valuable diagnostic features of SECH.

This observational study assessed sleep disturbance and autonomic dysfunction as risk factors for chronic subjective tinnitus through polysomnography (PSG) and autonomic function tests.Adult patients with chronic subjective tinnitus who visited the department of otolaryngology in our hospitals (n = 40), along with controls without tinnitus (n = 80), were recruited. Individuals with an average hearing threshold level (HL) exceeding 25 dB HL and a known diagnosis of insomnia were excluded. Objective assessments comprised pure-tone audiometry, PSG, and autonomic function tests (e.g., the cold pressor test).Patients with prolonged sleep latency, lower sleep efficiency, and sympathetic hyperactivity had significantly higher risks of developing tinnitus. No interaction effect between poor sleep quality and sympathetic hyperactivity on tinnitus was detected.This is the first study to administer PSG and autonomic function tests to patients with chronic subjective tinnitus. Poor sleep quality and autonomic dysfunction were implicated as risk factors for tinnitus. PSG and the autonomic function tests helped identify tinnitus-related comorbidities and inform tinnitus treatment. Sleep disturbance and autonomic dysfunction did not exert an interaction effect on tinnitus. Further studies with a larger sample size and the inclusion of patients with more severe tinnitus are warranted.

Modern software systems are complex, and they heavily rely on external libraries developed by different teams and organizations. Such systems suffer from higher instability due to incompatibility issues caused by library upgrades. In this article, we address the problem by investigating the impact of a library upgrade on the behaviors of its clients. We developed CompCheck , an automated upgrade compatibility checking framework that generates incompatibility-revealing tests based on previous examples. CompCheck first establishes an offline knowledge base of incompatibility issues by mining from open source projects and their upgrades. It then discovers incompatibilities for a specific client project, by searching for similar library usages in the knowledge base and generating tests to reveal the problems. We evaluated CompCheck on 202 call sites of 37 open source projects and the results show that CompCheck successfully revealed incompatibility issues on 76 call sites, 72.7% and 94.9% more than two existing techniques, confirming CompCheck ’s applicability and effectiveness.

The negative feedback between tropical cyclone (TC) intensity and sea surface temperature (SST) plays an important role in TC development. In this study, ocean–atmosphere coupled and uncoupled ensemble forecasts are conducted to investigate the dynamics of error growth and predictability of TC intensity in an ocean–atmosphere coupled system. For the TC–ocean coupled system, the TC intensity–SST negative feedback is the essential mechanism to reduce the error growth of TC intensity by two routes, and thereby improves the TC intensity predictability. For the first route (atmosphere-limited route), the TC-induced SST cooling slows the intensification rate of the TC and weakens the final TC intensity, thereby reducing the error growth of TC intensity. In this route, the TC intensity spread is limited by the magnitude of TC intensity, while SST can be regarded as an environmental forcing. For the second route (atmosphere–ocean mutually influenced route), the interaction between the TC intensity spread and SST spread is dominant. The increasing TC intensity spread could lead to an increase in SST cooling spread, and then reduce the TC intensity spread through the negative feedback. In other words, the more (less) intense TC produces stronger (weaker) SST cooling, and thereby limits (enhances) further TC intensification in an ensemble forecast. In the second route, initial ocean temperature uncertainty could suppress the TC intensity spread reduction. Significance Statement Tropical cyclones force the sea surface and can lead to its cooling. This cooled sea surface can then suppress tropical cyclone intensification. The purpose of this study is to better examine the influence of such an interaction between a tropical cyclone and the ocean on tropical cyclone forecasts. We explore how accurately representing the interaction can improve the capacity to forecast tropical cyclone intensity. Given that many weather forecasting centers have considered this interaction in their models, this study should help them to understand and improve their forecasts.

As the adverse impacts of hydrological extremes increase in many regions of the world, a better understanding of the drivers of changes in risk and impacts is essential for effective flood and drought risk management and climate adaptation. However, there is currently a lack of comprehensive, empirical data about the processes, interactions and feedbacks in complex human-water systems leading to flood and drought impacts. Here we present a benchmark dataset containing socio-hydrological data of paired events, i.e., two floods or two droughts that occurred in the same area. The 45 paired events occurred in 42 different study areas and cover a wide range of socio-economic and hydro-climatic conditions. The dataset is unique in covering both floods and droughts, in the number of cases assessed, and in the quantity of socio-hydrological data. The benchmark dataset comprises: 1) detailed review style reports about the events and key processes between the two events of a pair; 2) the key data table containing variables that assess the indicators which characterise management shortcomings, hazard, exposure, vulnerability and impacts of all events; 3) a table of the indicators-of-change that indicate the differences between the first and second event of a pair. The advantages of the dataset are that it enables comparative analyses across all the paired events based on the indicators-of-change and allows for detailed context- and location-specific assessments based on the extensive data and reports of the individual study areas. The dataset can be used by the scientific community for exploratory data analyses e.g. focused on causal links between risk management, changes in hazard, exposure and vulnerability and flood or drought impacts. The data can also be used for the development, calibration and validation of socio-hydrological models. The dataset is available to the public through the GFZ Data Services (Kreibich et al. 2023, link for review: https://dataservices.gfz-potsdam.de/panmetaworks/review/923c14519deb04f83815ce108b48dd2581d57b90ce069bec9c948361028b8c85/).

Background: Amyloid-β protein precursor (AβPP) is enriched in neurons. However, the mechanism underlying AβPP regulation of neuronal activity is poorly understood. Potassium channels are critically involved in neuronal excitability. In hippocampus, A-type potassium channels are highly expressed and involved in determining neuronal spiking. Objective: We explored hippocampal local field potential (LFP) and spiking in the presence and absence of AβPP, and the potential involvement of an A-type potassium channel. Methods: We used in vivo extracellular recording and whole-cell patch-clamp recording to determine neuronal activity, current density of A-type potassium currents, and western blot to detect changes in related protein levels. Results: Abnormal LFP was observed in AβPP–/– mice, including reduced beta and gamma power, and increased epsilon and ripple power. The firing rate of glutamatergic neurons reduced significantly, in line with an increased action potential rheobase. Given that A-type potassium channels regulate neuronal firing, we measured the protein levels and function of two major A-type potassium channels and found that the post-transcriptional level of Kv1.4, but not Kv4.2, was significantly increased in the AβPP–/– mice. This resulted in a marked increase in the peak time of A-type transient outward potassium currents in both glutamatergic and gamma-aminobutyric acid-ergic (GABAergic) neurons. Furthermore, a mechanistic experiment using human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells revealed that the AβPP deficiency-induced increase in Kv1.4 may not involve protein-protein interaction between AβPP and Kv1.4. Conclusion: This study suggests that AβPP modulates neuronal firing and oscillatory activity in the hippocampus, and Kv1.4 may be involved in mediating the modulation.