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A 70-year-old man presented to the emergency department with pain and swelling in his right periorbital region after a fall. Physical examination revealed ecchymosis and tenderness in the area, but no apparent fractures were seen on a plain radiograph. However, a crescent-shaped radiolucency known as the black eyebrow sign was present, indicating a suspicion of occult orbital wall fracture. Computed tomography confirmed the diagnosis of nondisplaced fractures at the medial and inferior orbital wall. The patient was treated conservatively and followed up at the outpatient department. [Extracted from the article]

The development of the mammalian somite provides a model system for studying how complex molecular and cellular interactions direct morphological changes and tissue differentiation. Under the influence of signals from neighboring tissues, somites become patterned along the dorsoventral axis into two tissue types, dermomyotome and sclerotome. The dermomyotome gives rise to dermis and skeletal muscles, while the sclerotome gives rise to ribs and vertebrae. Sonic Hedgehog and Noggin have been implicated in the induction of the sclerotome while members of the WNT family have been shown to mediate dermomyotome induction. Although a few markers have been used to study these inductions, little is known about what changes in gene expression are caused by these molecules to mediate their effects. We plan to identify genes induced or repressed in response to these signals that are critical for development of the somitic derivatives. Subtractive hybridization and microarray hybridization are two approaches we are taking to accomplish this. Our initial effort to use subtractive hybridization has thus far identified three transcription factors, one phosphoprotein and two glycoproteins differentially expressed between presomitic mesoderm and early somites of E9.5 mice. Using RNA from the same tissues, hybridization will be performed on a microarray containing 15,000 unique mouse cDNAs to identify genes transcriptionally regulated during somite development. The combination of these two approaches will allow us to study genes with previously unrecognized roles in somite formation and patterning.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of verteporfin therapy (Visudyne) on age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Chinese patients. The baseline characteristic and the visual outcome will be compared with the treatment of AMD with photodynamic therapy study (TAP) and verteporfin in photodynamic therapy study (VIP).Design: Retrospective comparative case series.Method: We recruited patients >50 years old, with best-corrected visual acuity >20/200 and fluorescein angiography documenting subfoveal either predominantly classic with greatest linear dimension <5400 mum or pure occult choroidal neovascularization (CNV) secondary to AMD. We applied non-thermal laser to the lesion 15 min after visudyne infusion as described in TAP study. Patients were followed up with fluorescein angiography every 3 months. Additional treatment would be offered if there was evidence of recurrence of CNV.Outcome Measure: Baseline characteristic and visual outcome.Result: In all, 46 eyes of 42 patients were enrolled at our centre from July 2002 to June 2003. They comprised 11 eyes with predominantly classic lesions and 35 eyes with pure occult lesion. The mean number of treatment sessions given was 2.9 in the first year. At the 12-month examination, there were 63 and 29% of patients showing visual improvement in predominantly classic and occult groups, respectively, while there were only 16% of patients in the TAP study and 12% of patients in the VIP study showing visual improvement in the same period.Conclusion: Verteporfin therapy for subfoveal CNV is beneficial to Chinese patients with AMD at first year. The visual result seems to be better than that observed in Caucasian patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two improvements in fading memory average for manoeuvre detection are given. First, according to the characteristics of fading memory average, the exact detection threshold is derived by a Markov chain approach. In conventional algorithms, which ignore the dynamic and dependent properties of fading memory average, only approximate threshold values are computed for a given false alarm rate. Secondly, the univariate fading memory average is further extended to the multivariate form to increase the speed of detection. The multivariate Markov chain approach, which is an extension of the Markov chain approach, can provide exact thresholds for the multivariate fading memory average. Monte Carlo simulation results verify not only the accuracy of the thresholds through both the univariate and multivariate Markov chain approaches, but also the superior detection speed of the proposed multivariate fading memory average. Under the same false alarm rates, the mean time to detection in the multivariate algorithm will be 26% less than that in the univariate algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]