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Endometriosis is a common complex inflammatory condition characterised by the presence of endometrium-like tissue outside the uterus, mainly in the pelvic area. It is associated with chronic pelvic pain and infertility, and its pathogenesis remains poorly understood. The disease is typically classified according to the revised American Fertility Society (rAFS) 4-stage surgical assessment system, although stage does not correlate well with symptomatology or prognosis. Previously identified genetic variants mainly are associated with stage III/IV disease, highlighting the need for further phenotype-stratified analysis that requires larger datasets. We conducted a meta-analysis of 15 genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and a replication analysis, including 58,115 cases and 733,480 controls in total, and sub-phenotype analyses of stage I/II, stage III/IV and infertility-associated endometriosis cases. This revealed 27 genetic loci associated with endometriosis at the genome-wide p-value threshold (P−8), 13 of which are novel and an additional 8 novel genes identified from gene-based association analyses. Of the 27 loci, 21 (78%) had greater effect sizes in stage III/IV disease compared to stage I/II, 1 (4%) had greater effect size in stage I/II compared to stage III/IV and 17 (63%) had greater effect sizes when restricted to infertility-associated endometriosis cases compared to overall endometriosis. These results suggest that specific variants may confer risk for different sub-types of endometriosis through distinct pathways. Analyses of genetic variants underlying different pain symptoms reported in the UK Biobank showed that 7/9 had positive significant (p3) positive genetic correlations with endometriosis, suggesting a genetic basis for sensitivity to pain in general. Additional conditions with significant positive genetic correlations with endometriosis included uterine fibroids, excessive and irregular menstrual bleeding, osteoarthritis, diabetes as well as menstrual cycle length and age at menarche. These results provide a basis for fine-mapping of the causal variants at these 27 loci, and for functional follow-up to understand their contribution to endometriosis and its potential subtypes.

Introduction Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem autoimmune disease that can vary among different ethnic and racial groups. Objective The objective of this paper is to study the prevalence of various manifestations of SLE in a sample of the Egyptian population. Patients and methods Information in this study was derived from the medical records of SLE patients who sought medical advice at a private clinic in Cairo from January 1980 to June 2016. Results This study included 1109 SLE patients, of whom 114 (10.3%) were males and 995 were females (89.7%). Mean age of onset was 25.89 ± 10.81 years, while the median of disease duration from the onset of the disease till the last recorded visit was 26 months. The most common cumulative manifestations were arthritis (76.7%), malar rash (48.5%), leukopenia (45.7%), and photosensitivity (45.6%). A total of 33.1% of the patients had nephritis, and neuropsychiatric lupus was present in 6.4% of the patients. Secondary antiphospholipid syndrome was present in 11.5% of the patients. Antinuclear antibody and anti-double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid were present in 1060/1094 (96.9%) and 842/1062 (79.3%) of the patients, respectively. Antiphospholipid antibodies were present in 266/636 (41.8%) of the patients, anti-Smith in 54/240 (22.5%), anti-SSA/Ro in 61/229 (20.4%), and anti-SSB/La in 32/277 (11.6%) of the patients. Male patients had a statistically higher prevalence of nephritis ( p = 0.01), whereas arthritis and alopecia were statistically higher in females ( p = 0.012 and p = 0.006, respectively). Patients with juvenile onset had a statistically higher prevalence of nephritis and seizures ( p 0.001 and p = 0.012, respectively). Conclusions Arthritis and malar rash represented the most common clinical manifestations. Male and juvenile-onset patients had a predilection toward a more severe disease. These results are in agreement with many studies conducted in the Middle East and worldwide. On the other hand, major organ involvement was exceptionally low, which is contradictory to several reports from the Middle East and across the globe.

The last part of SpS5 dealt with the circumstellar environment. Structures are indeed found around several types of massive stars, such as blue and red supergiants, as well as WRs and LBVs. As shown in the last years, the potential of IR for their study is twofold: first, IR can help discover many previously unknown nebulae, leading to the identification of new massive stars as their progenitors; second, IR can help characterize the nebular features. Current and new IR facilities thus pave the way to a better understanding of the feedback from massive stars

The last part of SpS5 dealt with the circumstellar environment. Structures are indeed found around several types of massive stars, such as blue and red supergiants, as well as WRs and LBVs. As shown in the last years, the potential of IR for their study is twofold: first, IR can help discover many previously unknown nebulae, leading to the identification of new massive stars as their progenitors; second, IR can help characterize the nebular features. Current and new IR facilities thus pave the way to a better understanding of the feedback from massive stars.

Since The University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Jackson Library introduced Journal Finder in August 2001, the service has grown and evolved. Its features and capabilities have been expanded, enhanced, and refined, and a partnership program has been developed. Journal Finder enjoys significant initial success and appears to meet a real need in the research life of faculty and students. Additionally, Journal Finder has revealed several user trends with implications for the library, including the use of print serials, photocopying, interlibrary loan, and document delivery/pay-per-view, and it continues to provide insights and data for serials collection management decisions. Serials Review 2003; 29:287–294.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Jackson Library has introduced a new journal information service that makes finding and accessing journal articles easier and more effective than traditional methods. Journal Finder is part of a broader program to provide location-independent information access and through a single interface it allows users to connect directly to an electronic, full-text version of a journal; obtain local holdings and format information about a specific title; order a specific article from any journal through an unmediated document delivery service or interlibrary loan; and search other libraries' catalogs for journal holdings data. Developed in-house using a relational database structure, Journal Finder offers unique service advantages, while signaling a shift in the delivery of journal information from print subscriptions to access by means of separate articles in electronic or print formats. Serials Review 2002; 28:13–20.

If we accept a paradigm that star formation is a self-similar, hierarchical process, then the Salpeter slope of the IMF for high-mass stars can be simply and elegantly explained as follows. If the intrinsic IMF at the smallest scales follows a simple –2 power-law slope, then the steepening to the –2.35 Salpeter value results when the most massive stars cannot form in the lowest-mass clumps of a cluster. It is stressed that this steepening must occur if clusters form hierarchically from clumps, and the lowest-mass clumps can form stars. This model is consistent with a variety of observations as well as theoretical simulations.

The practice of charging fees for service in American libraries remains controversial, primarily because notions at the foundation of this issue lack a thorough and coherent theoretical framework within which they can be understood and properly related. By employing a theory of justice developed by Michael Walzer--one that argues for distributing goods on the basis of principles inherent in their shared meanings--to reframe the concepts at the root of the fee issue, I argue that information should be distributed in ways that are in keeping with its meaning in contemporary American culture. Within the United States, information is understood to be a good in the "sphere" of basic welfare and security, and, therefore (following Walzer's theory), it should be distributed on the basis of the principle appropriate to the meaning of goods in that sphere--communal provision (within limits) based on need and not on the basis of the distributive principle appropriate to the marketplace--money.

On scales ranging from pcs to kpcs, the relationship between stellar and gaseous galactic components forms the basis for interpreting observations of galaxies and understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Feedback effects from massive stars dominate the structure, ionization, kinematics, and enrichment of the gaseous ISM in star-forming galaxies. On galactic scales, the ionizing radiation from these stars creates populations of H II regions and the diffuse, warm ionized medium. Likewise, superbubbles created by stellar winds and supernovae strongly influence the structure, kinematics, and balance of the multiphase ISM. This contribution reviews these feedback effects of massive stars on the global ISM.

The winds of massive stars play a major role in setting up and controlling both the phase structure of the interstellar medium in galaxies and the vertical distribution of gas in galactic disks. In turn, these processes provide feedback into control of the star formation rate. Thanks to their proximity, these processes can be studied in detail in the Magellanic Clouds. Here we describe the results of a deep emission-line image survey of the ring nebula population, and a global high-resolution H I and H II survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. These data provide a new insight into the process of feedback between the disk and the halo gas in disk galaxies in general, and the LMC in particular.

Two resistant K562 sublines have been developed by treatment with AZQ (2,5-bis(carboethoxyamino)-3,6-diaziridinyl-1,4-benzoquinone) and BZQ (2,5-bis(2-hydroxyethylamino)-3,6-diaziridinyl-1,4-benzoquinone). The id 50 values for AZQ on K562, the AZQ-resistant sublines (AZQR) and the BZQ-resistant sublines (BZQR) were 0.063, 1.47 and 0.244 μM, respectively. The relative id 50 values for BZQ on the same cell lines were 0.2, 0.67 and 0.83 μM, respectively. Although it is generally believed that these two quinones function by different mechanisms, the two sublines have similar decreased levels of cytochrome P-450 reductase and DT-diaphorase and increased levels of glutathione and superoxide dismutase, compared to the parent cell line. The sublines are also cross-resistant to adriamycin, mitozolamide, N -methyl- N ′-nitro- N -nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) and mitomycin C. This work indicates the potential multifactorial mechanisms by which drug resistance can be induced in cell lines in the absence of conventional ‘P’-glycoprotein multidrug resistance.

Hepatitis C virus (HCY) infection is associated with a variety of extrahepatic disorders. including cryoglobulinaernia and glomerulonephritis. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) glornerulopathy may be present as a primary glomerular disease. Our study included 50 adult Egyptian patients who were diagnosed as idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (NS). We described the clinical, pathological and immunological features of these patients. There was a high prevalence (50%) of HCV infection among these patients. The studied risk factors included history of; blood transfusion (16%) operation (24%) or antibilharzial drugs (76%). Hepatomegaly was observed in 24% of cases. Mernbranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) was the commonest pathological type associated with HCV (48%). Other patterns included focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) in 32%, membranous in 8% and minimal change glomerulonephritis in 12%. Cryoglobulins were detected in 5.6% of 18 patients with HCV and idiopathic NS. Patients having HCV infection and membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis had hypocomplementemia and antinuclear antibodies were detected in 41.6%. Realising that HCV infection may be linked to different glomerulopathies, thus routine screening for HCV should be considered in serologic work-up of patients with glomerulopathy. Nevertheless, seroepiderniological studies including larger number of patients with glornerulopathy are therefore necessary to specify its relation with HCV infection.

While theoretical understanding remains to be clarified regarding the mechanisms that may or may not limit stellar masses, it is possible to empirically evaluate the existence of an upper-mass limit. ZAMS masses of the most massive stars have been estimated for a range of environments in our local Milky Way neighborhood and the Magellanic Clouds. Various statistical techniques demonstrate the existence of an upper-mass limit in this stellar sample.

Twenty-one patients with schistosomal-specific nephropathy (18 nephrotics and three with non-nephrotic proteinuria) were given anti-schistosomal treatment (oxamniquine and praziquantel). The schistosomal specificity of the kidney lesions was assessed by the detection of schistosomal-specific antigens (CAA and CCA) and antibodies deposited in the renal glomeruli of these patients. After anti-schistosomal treatment, the patients were followed for clinical and laboratory changes occurring within 12 months. In addition, 15 patients had a second kidney biopsy and the histopathological and the immunopathological findings were compared with those observed in the first biopsy. Based on clinical, laboratory and histopathological evaluations, none of the patients subjected to the study showed regression of the kidney lesion following antischistosomal treatment; in fact three patients showed progression in their lesions, one of them reaching end-stage renal failure. The histopathology of these three cases was focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. Our data suggest that anti-schistosomal treatment in an established disease state, will not produce remission.

In order to promote better mental development in three-year-old children from poor Jamaican families, a home-visiting project was carried out with the aim of helping mothers to interact with and stimulate their children. Homes were visited once a week, and the use of toys and books was demonstrated to the mothers. The play equipment was then left with the family and exchanged at the following visit. After a maximum of 29 visits, the children had made significant gains (average 13 IQ points) compared with children in a previously matched control group. The mothers' knowledge of child-rearing had also improved. Similar intervention programmes may be useful on a larger scale, and need not be expensive if full use is made of the mothers' help.