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Participation in archaeology is the basic “inclusive process” of a human community, which allows it to identify its cultural values. Experimental archaeology with its rediscovery of gestures and techniques allows re-appropriation, a sense of belonging and consequent participation in cultural heritage.

Objectives Superficial vein thrombosis in non-varicose veins of the lower limbs is rather frequent and may be underestimated. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of inherited or acquired thrombophilia in a sample of outpatients with the disease. Method An observational study was conducted on 73 consecutive superficial vein thrombosis patients tested for inherited or acquired thrombophilia. Results Sixty of 73 patients with superficial vein thrombosis completed the testing protocol, while 13 dropped out; 46 of 60 patients were found to have a thrombophilia (76.6%). The types detected were: factor V Leiden (31/60, i.e. 51.6%), prothrombin mutation (2/60, i.e. 3.3%), MTHFR mutation (23/60, i.e. 38.3%), antiphospholipid antibodies (5/60, i.e. 8.3%), protein C deficit (1/60, i.e. 1.6%), protein S deficit (1/60, i.e. 1.6%), and antithrombin deficit (0/60, i.e. 0%). Conclusions Among patients with superficial vein thrombosis in non-varicose veins, testing demonstrated a high prevalence of thrombophilia. The most common form proved to be factor V Leiden. As thrombophilia was found to be a major cause of superficial vein thrombosis in non-varicose veins, the authors recommend that patients with superficial vein thrombosis in non-varicose veins be investigated for thrombophilia.

The Amazonian peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth), has been cultivated in southeastern Brazil for heart-of-palm production. Internationally known as a gourmet vegetable, the peach palm heart-of-palm market is expanding in Brazil. Due to its recent introduction in the southeastern Brazilian region, there are so far few studies on water consumption of the species. Being from an Amazonian habitat under a high rainfall throughout the year, the peach palm demands a suitable condition of soil water to yield economically. However, the Brazilian southeastern region, the main market for heart-of-palm in Brazil, shows seasonal soil water deficit, and thus, peach palms must be grown under irrigation. Aiming to quantify the water consumptive use of a peach palm commercial crop, to support an appropriate irrigation management, this experiment was designed to estimate the peach palms transpiration rate through sap flow measurements using the heat dissipation probe method. Sensors were installed in twelve peach palms divided into four classes, according to the main stem height and diameter, with three replications per class, to represent a standard peach palm clump of a commercial crop. Measurements have been carried out in nine year-old peach palms spaced 2 x 1 m, under irrigation, to evaluate the potential evapotranspiration. The calibration equation used was obtained in the laboratory by using a hydraulic system to simulate the sap flow. Partial results indicate the proper functioning of the sensors under field conditions, showing reliability and consistency of values, when compared to the air evaporative demand. Further measurements have been performed such as the leaf area, which has been measured in the peach palms from this experiment and in other ten peach palms. The latter were used to evaluate the relative transpiration, as well as to extrapolate the results for the entire population.

The Amazonian peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) has been grown for heart-of-palm production under subtropical conditions. As we did not see any substantial study on its photosynthesis under Amazonian or subtropical conditions, we carried out an investigation on the diurnal and seasonal variations in photosynthesis of peach palms until the first heart-of-palm harvest, considering their relationship with key environmental factors. Spineless peach palms were grown in 80-L plastic pots, under irrigation. Gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence emission measurements were taken in late winter, mid spring, mid summer and early autumn, from 7:00 to 18:00 h, with an additional chlorophyll fluorescence measurement at 6:00 h. The highest net CO2 assimilation (P N), observed in mid summer, reached about 15 μmol m−2 s−1, which was about 20% higher than the maximum values found in autumn and spring, and 60% higher than that in winter The same pattern of diurnal course for P N was observed in all seasons, showing higher values from 8:00 to 9:00 h and declining gradually from 11:00 h toward late afternoon. The diurnal course of stomatal conductance (g s) followed the same pattern of P N, with the highest value of 0.6 mol m−2 s−1 being observed in February and the lowest one (0.23 mol m−2 s−1) in September. The maximal quantum yield of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) was above 0.75 in the early morning in all the months. The reversible decrease was observed around midday in September and October, suggesting the occurrence of dynamic photoinhibition. A significant negative correlation between the leaf-air vapour pressure difference (VPDleaf-air) and P N and a positive correlation between P N and g s were observed. The photosynthesis of peach palm was likely modulated mainly by the stomatal control that was quite sensible to atmospheric environmental conditions. Under subtropical conditions, air temperature (T air) and VPDleaf-air impose more significant effects over P N of peach palm than an excessive photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD). The occurrence of dynamic photoinhibition indicates that under irrigation, peach palms appeared to be acclimated to the full-sunlight conditions under which they have been grown.

Objectives: To present a Greek family in which 5 male and 2 female members developed progressive spastic paraplegia. Plasma very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA) were reportedly normal at first testing in an affected male and for over 30 years the presumed diagnosis was hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). Targeted next generation sequencing (NGS) was used as a further diagnostic tool. Methods: Targeted exome sequencing in the proband, followed by Sanger sequencing confirmation; mutation segregation testing in multiple family members and plasma VLCFA measurement in the proband. Results: NGS of the proband revealed a novel frameshift mutation in ABCD1 (c.1174_1178del, p.Leu392Serfs*7), bringing an end to diagnostic uncertainty by establishing the diagnosis of adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), the myelopathic phenotype of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). The mutation segregated in all family members and the diagnosis of AMN/ALD was confirmed by plasma VLCFA measurement. Confounding factors that delayed the diagnosis are presented. Conclusions: This report highlights the diagnostic utility of NGS in patients with undiagnosed spastic paraplegia, establishing a molecular diagnosis of AMN, allowing proper genetic counseling and management, and overcoming the diagnostic delay that can be rarely caused by false negative VLCFA analysis. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introdução e objetivo - em transplante renal com doador cadáver, a função do enxerto depende da manutenção da integridade celular e subcelular, principalmente mitocondrial. Neste estudo o objetivo foi analisar a função mitocondrial do rins submetidos a período prolongado de isquemia fria, seguido de reperfusão por uma hora, empregando-se, ou não, a clorpromazina previamente à isquemia. Métodos - utilizando autotransplante renal em cães, subdivididos em dois grupos, foram extraidas mitocôndrias de rins submetidos à isquemia fria de 48 horas, seguida de 1 hora de reperfusão pós-transplante. Um grupo recebeu clorpromazina antes da nefrectomia. A análise da fosforilação oxidativa e do intumescimento osmótico ("swelling") mitocôndrial foi comparada com dados obtidos de rins normais, sem isquemia. Resultados - Os dados obtidos para o estado III e IV da respiração não mostraram diferença significativa entre os grupos experimentais. A primeira fase do "swelling" ocorreu em tempo semelhante em todos os grupos experimentais. Durante a reversão, os grupos I e II se comportaram de maneira estatisticamente semelhante, com frações de reversão de 57%, e 68%, respectivamente, valores significativamente menores que os obtidos para o grupo normal (99%) (grupo I: p = 0,0374 e grupo II: p = 0,0221). Discussão - é conhecida a ação protetora da clorpromazina na isquemia renal normotérmica. Entretanto, os dados aqui obtidos mostram que após 48 horas de isquemia fria, o grupo II (clorpromazina) comportou-se de maneira semelhante ao grupo I (hipotermia isolada) tanto no estudo da fosforilação oxidativa, quanto no "swelling", embora os valores apresentem tendência a serem maiores no grupo II. Isto pode ser devido a alguns fatores, como: 1) a clorpromazina possui efeito protetor mínimo quando o tempo de isquemia é prolongado; 2) seu efeito pode ser afetado ou sua ação protetora sobreposta àquela imposta pela hipotermia; 3) tempo de reperfusão curto para manifestação de seus efeitos.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the function of mitochondria obtained from kidneys submmited to 48 hours of cold ischemia followed by 1 hour of reperfusion, with and without the use of chlorpromazine. Sixteen adult mongrel dogs were submitted to unilateral nephrectomy. In 13 animals the kidney was then perfused with Euro-Collins solution and preserved during 48-hours in cold solution. After that time auto-transplantation was performed. Reperfusion time was 1 hour. After that, the transplanted kidney was taken out and samples were obtained for mitochondrial evaluation. The animals were divided into 3 groups: group N - control without ischemia (3 animals); group I - hypothermia (6 animals); group II - hypothermia + IV injection of 2 mg/Kg of chlorpromazine 15 minutes before nephrectomy. The results of mitochondrial phosphorilation and swelling showed no statistical differences. However, group II animals showed higher values during the reversion phase of the swelling. Chlorpromazine action on mitochondrial function has been previously described, providing better mitochondria recovering from ischemic lesion. The results obtained in this study may be related to the short reperfusion time, or we can argue that chlorpromazine has no protection after prolonged ischemic time, or chlorpromazine action may be masqueraded by hypothermia.

Perfectionnement du protocole ENV1 avec des applications spécifiques (turbidité, couches pélitiques) pour évaluer la faisibilit%E

O presente trabalho, realizado em janeiro de 1995, visou avaliar a atividade da enzima fosfatase ácida em folhas de quatro progênies de pupunheira (Bactris gasipaes Kunth), cultivadas em duas doses de nitrogênio e duas de fósforo. Para tanto, utilizou-se a porção média da segunda folha mais jovem de perfilhos de palmeiras com quatro anos de idade. As plantas analisadas representam parcelas submetidas a duas doses de nitrogênio (N1 = 0, N2 = 400 kg ha-1 ano-1 de N) e duas doses de fósforo (P1 = 0, P2 = 200 kg ha-1 ano-1 de P2O5). A dose de potássio foi 200 kg ha-1 ano-1 de K2O. Análises dos elementos no solo e nas folhas foram efetuadas e correlações foram estimadas entre as características avaliadas e o crescimento e a produção de palmito dos quatro tratamentos. Foram observados valores médios de atividade da fosfatase ácida de 8,35; 4,58; 10,84, e 11,05 µmol h-1 g-1, para os tratamentos N2P2, N2P1, N1P2 e N1P1, respectivamente. Houve diferenças significativas de atividade entre doses de nitrogênio (10,95 e 6,47 µmol h-1 g-1, para N1 e N2, respectivamente) e entre progênies (variando de 6,18 (G3) a 10,10 (G1) µmol h-1 g-1), indicando que esses dois fatores devem ser levados em conta em estudos dessa natureza. A atividade da fosfatase ácida apresentou correlação negativa com as características que avaliam o crescimento (biomassa aérea e radicular) e a produção de palmito (peso e diâmetro) das plantas estudadas, não se correlacionando com os teores de fósforo no solo ou no tecido foliar. Acid phosphatase activity was evaluated in leaf extracts of four year old peach palms (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) in January, 1995. Plants from four progenies were field-grown under the combination of two levels of phosphorus (P1 = 0 and P2 = 200 kg ha-1 year-1 of P2O5) and two levels of nitrogen (N1 = 0 and N2 = 400 kg ha-1 year-1 of N). Potassium was applied at a rate of 200 kg ha-1 year-1 of K2O. The results of acid phosphatase activity were 8.35, 4.58, 10.84 and 11.05 µmol h-1 g-1, respectively, for combinations N2P2, N2P1, N1P2 and N1P1. There were differences in enzyme activity between nitrogen levels (10.95 and 6.47 µmol h-1 g-1, respectively, for N1 and N2) and among progenies, ranging from 6.18 to 10.10 µmol h-1 g-1. Acid phosphatase activity was negatively correlated to above ground and root dry matter weight, as well as heart of palm yield. No significant correlation was found between enzyme activity and P soil or leaf content.

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of three weeks of daily colostrum cream on vaginal cytology and local symptoms related to menopause. Genito-urinary symptoms and cell morphology were analyzed at time 0 (T0) and after three weeks (16 +/- days since the end of treatment) at time 1 (T1). Dyspareunia, vaginal dryness, and maturation index (MI) reached a statistically significant difference between T0 and T1. The results proved to be an alternative treatment for vaginal distress caused by lack of hormones in patients in which hormonal treatment is contraindicated.

Renal transplantation remains the optimal treatment of patients with end-stage renal disease. Urinary lithiasis represents an unusual urologic complication in renal transplantation, with an incidence of1%. Today, recipients of kidneys from deceased donors are more likely to receive grafts with undiagnosed lithiasis, which does not occur in patients from living donors, owing to screening with computerized tomography.The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence, diagnosis, and therapeutic management of renal lithiasis in transplanted kidneys at a single institution.We reviewed the medical records for 1,313 patients who underwent kidney transplantation from February 1968 to February 2011.Among the grafts, 17 patients (1.29%) had nephrolithiasis: 9 women and 8 men. Ages ranged from 32 to 63 years (mean = 45.6 years). Fifteen patients received kidneys from cadaveric and only 2 from living related donors. Two stones, both located inside the ureter, were identified during transplant surgery (11.7%). Three instances of lithiasis were incidentally diagnosed by ultrasound during graft evaluation, within 7 days after surgery (17.6%); all 3 were in the calyces. The 12 remaining patients had the stones diagnosed later (70.58%): 6 in the calyces, 3 in the renal pelvis, and 3 inside the ureter.Urinary lithiasis is a rare complication in renal transplantation. In most patients the condition occurs without pain. The diagnosis and treatment options for graft urolithiasis are similar to those patients with nephrolithiasis in the general population. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) was the most common treatment method.

To evaluate the occurrence of endometrial polyp malignancy in pre- and postmenopausal women with or without symptoms.A retrospective study was performed on 351 patients with endometrial polyps diagnosed by hysteroscopy.Histological findings of biopsies obtained by operative hysteroscopy confirmed the presence of a simple endometrial polyp in 179 cases, polyps with typical simple hyperplasia in 42 cases, polyps with typical complex hyperplasia in 24 cases, polyps with atypical complex hyperplasia in three cases; carcinomatous polyps in seven cases; atrophic polyps in 17 cases; functional polyps in 56 cases; and inadequate sample in 23 cases. All seven patients with adenocarcinoma were symptomatic; six out of seven patients with adenocarcinoma were in postmenopause and one was in premenopause. The association between menopausal status and symptoms, and the presence of a malignant lesion was statistically significant (p0.001).This study revealed that prevalence of endometrial polyp malignant transformation wasor = 2.84% in postmenopausal and symptomatic patients.

The probability distribution of the overhead caused by the use of the checkpointing rollback recovery technique is evaluated in both cases of a single critical task and of an overall transaction-oriented system. This distribution is obtained in Laplace-Stieltjes transform form, from which all the moments can be easily calculated. Alternatively, inversion methods can be used to evaluate the distribution. The authors propose checkpointing strategies based on the above distribution in order to optimize performance criteria motivated, in the case of critical tasks, by real time constraints, and in the case of transaction-oriented systems, by the need of guaranteeing the users about the maximum system unavailability. >

The overall goal of the MAIS framework is to support services that are capable of adapting their behavior to changing requirements, environments, user profiles and platforms, in order to provide the user with a suitable quality of service (QoS) [112, 181, 292]. To accomplish this goal, both the front-end and the back-end MAIS environment exploit knowledge about the architecture and configuration of the underlying platform. By platform we mean of all the hardware and software system objects that support the services, for example computing nodes, interaction devices, software components and communication networks. Applications usually rely on abstractions that expose the functional aspects of the system objects. For instance, an application can display something, or send a request through a communication service. System objects also exhibit non functional aspects: in particular, basic QoS features such as bandwidth, availability, screen size, memory size, and battery level [23, 246]. Such features are subject to changes, the rate of which can go from static (e.g., the screen size of a user device) to highly dynamic (e.g., the transfer rate of a network service). In any case, the QoS of the system objects are unknown when the software components that implement the services are being developed. Therefore, in order to provide an adaptive service, such components must be capable of observing and (if possible) of controlling the QoS of the system objects they rely on [24, 25, 26]. Unfortunately, QoS is usually hidden from high-level software components. Sometimes it can be managed via tricky low-level mechanisms. In any case, there are no high-level abstractions that allow an object's QoS to be observed and controlled by high-level, platform-independent software components. To fill this gap, the MAIS project exploits a reflective architecture. The architecture is "reflective" because it allows high-level software components to observe and control the features and the inner state of the system itself. System objects are modeled by meta objects (reflective objects, or R Objects, see [251]) which expose, at a suitable level of abstraction, their meaningful features in terms of QoS. System objects and R Objects are causally connected [241]. The existence of a causal connection means that a state change in the system object causes a state change in the corresponding R Object, and vice versa. Figure 4.1 shows the various layers of the reflective system, in accordance with the general scheme sketched in Fig. 2.6. Functional objects model the functional and non reflective aspects of system objects, as exposed by the technological layer; for instance, a screen is an object where applications can display images. Reflective objects, on the other hand, model the non functional and QoS-related aspects of the system objects; for instance, a screen is modeled by its size, resolution and so on. The figure shows how the reflective mechanisms can be exploited in various ways, which will be discussed in the rest of this chapter. (Figure presented) Reflective applications rely on both domain-specific and reflective knowledge in order to provide adaptive services. Such applications exploit both functional and reflective objects. For instance, a reflective application (Reflective Application B in Fig. 4.1) can exploit both domain knowledge (e.g., user profiles) and reflective knowledge (e.g., QoS features of the devices exposed by the base reflective layer via Base R Objects) in order to provide the end user with an "optimal" service. The base reflective layer is discussed in Sect. 4.2. This approach allows sophisticated solutions to be devised, although they imply that software developers must be aware of the low-level QoS features of the underlying platform. To reduce this drawback, the extended reflective layer provides mechanisms for defining suitable QoS strategies that provide the visibility of extended R Objects. Such objects expose to the applications (Reflective Application A in Fig. 4.1) the QoS of the system objects at a higher level of abstraction. The extended reflective layer is discussed in Sect. 4.3. Reflective middleware is an intermediate tier that exploits reflective knowledge to provide applications with enhanced functional objects (i.e., functional objects with a better QoS). Non stationary distributed systems, i.e. systems where different parts exhibit great diversity in terms of message transfer delays, provide a difficult background for traditional two-tier architectures. In order to provide QoS, such as reliability and availability, for such systems we envisage the use of a three-tier architecture for service replication, where reflective middleware (i.e., an extended reflective layer) is interposed between the client layer and the end tier. The goal of this middle tier is to limit the scope of agreement protocols to well behaved parts of the system (where the middle and end tiers are located), thus relieving non reflective applications from the burden of such protocols. The three-tier scheme is represented on the right side of Fig. 4.1, where the middle tier exploits reflective knowledge to provide applications with the visibility of enhanced functional objects with improved QoS. This approach relieves the applications from the management of non functional issues, although the middle tier is bound to implement best effort policies that do not exploit domain specific knowledge. The three tier scheme for replication is discussed in Sect. 4.4. A simple example may help us to understand the two approaches. Assume that a back-end application generates a streaming video towards a front-end device. If the application itself is reflective, it can observe the QoS in detail via the appropriate R Objects and, possibly, the topology of the underlying communication subsystem as well. Therefore the application may either adapt itself to the available bandwidth (for instance, by tuning the compression rate) or control, whenever possible, the QoS of the communication subsystem (for instance, by choosing an alternate communication path). This allows the application to exploit domain knowledge (for instance, by choosing the communication path according to the requirements exposed by the user profile), at the price of a higher complexity. On the other hand, a reflective middleware layer can be interposed between the base reflective layer and the application. It would be in charge of exploiting some best-effort strategy (for instance, by choosing a communication path) in order to provide the application with a suitable QoS. The application would be simpler, as it would not have to manage reflective issues. The drawback is that the strategies implemented by the reflective middleware cannot exploit specific domain knowledge (for instance, the user profile). The proposed mechanisms can be exploited by higher-level software components, which are denoted in Fig. 4.1 as applications. In this perspective, the higher level components that implement the MAIS framework can be viewed as applications, even if they should more properly be viewed as middleware components. Section 4.2 recalls the concepts related to the computational reflection, and presents the base reflective layer. Section 4.3 describes the extended reflective layer. Section 4.4 discusses the three-tier model for replication. Finally, Section 4.5 sketches two application examples

In the context of mobile ad-hoc networks, this paper studies the problem of reliable communication among a set of processes forming a group in a dynamic system with an unbounded number of processes. A communication is reliable if any message sent by a member of the group that never leaves or leaves the group in an intentional way is eventually delivered to every member that doesn't leave the group. The problem is studied in a setting where communication links model a temporary disconnection among group members. The paper shows that additional assumptions on the system model are necessary to assure reliable communication. Then it presents a protocol, based on these assumptions, solving the problem in a meeting/conference room application scenario.

SUMMARY This paper presents a formal framework of a distributed computation based on a publish/subscribesystem. The framework abstracts the system through two delays, namely the subscription/unsubscription delay and the diffusion delay. This abstraction allows one to model concurrent execution of publication and subscriptionoperations withoutwaitingfor the stabilityofthesystem state and to definea Liveness property which gives the conditions for the presence of a notification event in the global history of the system. This formal framework allows us to analytically define a measure of the effectiveness of a publish/subscribe system, which reflects the percentage of notifications guaranteed by the system to subscribers. A simulation study confirms the validity of the analytical measurements. Copyright c � 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Objective: To evaluate the recurrence of telangiectases in patients who had previously been treated by sclerotherapy. Design: Retrospective single patient group study with 5-year follow-up. Setting: Centra Studi Malattie Vascolari ‘J. F. Merlen’, Frosinone, Italy. Patients and methods: The records of 52 patients who had been treated by sclerotherapy for leg telangiectases 5 years earlier were reviewed. Patients had been reviewed at yearly intervals. The reappearance of telangiectases at the initial treatment site and at new sites had been recorded at each review. Results: In 77% of patients studied (40/52) new telangiectases appeared. Of these, 67% (35/72) were in a different area and 56% (29/52) were in the same area (χ2 = N.S.). In 46% of cases (24/52) telangiectases occurred both in the area treated originally and in additional areas. In 48% of cases affected by a recurrence (19/40), the additional telangiectases were of minimal extent requiring little if any treatment. Conclusions: Sclerotherapy of telangiectases treats the consequences of the disease and does not address the cause. Consequently, patients often suffer recurrence of their telangiectases. This may be regarded as an evolution of the disease, affecting new veins, rather than true recurrence. Maintenance treatment will often be required to sustain the results following the initial course of sclerotherapy.

This paper addresses the problem of mobility management in content delivery networks (CDN). We introduce a CDN architecture where admission control is performed at mobility aware access routers. We formulate a Markov modulated Poisson decision process for access control that captures the bursty nature of data and packetized traffic together with the heterogeneity of multimedia services. The optimization of performance parameters, like the blocking probabilities and the overall utilization, is conducted and the structural properties of the optimal solutions are also studied. Heuristics are proposed to encompass the computational difficulties of the optimal solution when several classes of multimedia traffic are considered.

In order to simulate the dispersion of pollutants released from a marine fish farm in the Ligurian Sea (Western Mediterranean), the Lagrangian particle model LAMP3D has been nested into the numerical hydrodynamical model POM. Estimates of the regional dispersion patterns of nitrogen, phosphorus and organic carbon were calculated using a three-dimensional mesoscale grid and compared to in situ experimental data. In the numerical simulations, the dispersion of different aquaculture wastes (dissolved nutrients, faecal matter and feed wastes) was evaluated by changing the rates of particles settling and their condition of release (continuous or periodical). Results of the simulations clearly showed that dissolved particles tend to spread rapidly and undergo rapid dilution depending on dominant wind and surface currents direction. In contrast, settling particles remain mainly confined in the fish farm area and readily sink. Predicted concentrations of wastes were low in both the water column and sediment compartments and never exceed the threshold of environmental crises.

The deployment of server replicas of a service across an asynchronous distributed system (e.g., Internet) is a real practical challenge. This target cannot be indeed achieved by classical software replication techniques (e.g., passive and active replication) as these techniques usually rely on group communication toolkits that require server replicas to run over a partially synchronous distributed system to solve the underlying agreement problem. This paper proposes a three-tier architecture for software replication that encapsulates the need of partial synchrony in a specific software component of a mid-tier to free replicas and clients from the need of underlying partial synchrony assumptions. Then we propose how to specialize the mid-tier in order to manage active replication of server replicas.

Summary form only, substantially as follows:- The problem under investigation is the evaluation of the horizontal particles fluxes in high energy environments like all the sites where strong current flows do not allow the particles to sediment but cause mainly a consistent horizontal flux of material. In this type of environment traditional sediment traps do not work properly or at all because of the eddies generated by the interaction of the edges of the trap mouth with the stream of the currents. The authors propose the use of a new design trap, in which the horizontal water flow is driven through a variable geometry but constant section channel and forced to assume a laminar structure before to get into a "trapping area"; the trap effect is obtained by entering a death space (referring to Gardner's definition) in which the sudden decrease of velocity causes a particle precipitation. Different prototypes have been realised, based on the same principle but with different design of the adduction channel and with different geometry of the interface between the channel and the trapping area. The prototypes have been built not at the real dimensions, but with a scale factor of five, to be able to test the equipment's in a laboratory facility. The authors tested their apparatus first in free moving water, to evaluate its hydrodynamic behaviour in different external velocity fields. A second test phase has been conducted, and is still in progress, in a forced flow of water, artificially enriched of a known amount of known particles.

The autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs) comprising Graves' disease (GD) and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) are complex genetic diseases, which result from an interaction between predisposing genes and environmental triggers. The aim of our study was to dissect the genetic predisposition to GD and HT in one large Chinese family with multiple members affected with AITD.We completed a whole genome screen of a large multiplex Chinese-American family. We enrolled 27 family members from three generations. Eight members were affected with AITD, six had GD and two had HT.We determined the information limits of the family. Power calculations indicated that the maximum attainable LOD scores were 5.1 assuming dominant inheritance, and 3.4 assuming recessive inheritance. These estimates both assumed 100% penetrance and one gene. Whole genome screening was performed using 400 highly polymorphic and densely spaced microsatellite markers spanning the entire human genome (intermarker distance10 cM). Linkage analysis was performed using two-point and multipoint parametric and nonparametric methods.Initial whole genome screening performed with 400 microsatellite markers identified two markers that showed evidence for linkage to AITD in this family, D11S4191 and D9S175, with two-point LOD scores of 2.31 and 2.05, respectively. Multipoint linkage analysis focusing on the regions containing these markers revealed a maximum multipoint LOD score (MLS) of 2.13 and a nonparametric linkage score (NPL) of 6.1 for D11S4191 and an MLS of 2.01 and NPL of 7.5 for D9S175.These results showed that this Chinese family harboured susceptibility loci for AITD which were distinct from those previously found in the Caucasian population. This suggests that different susceptibility loci exist between different ethnic groups. Furthermore, even within a single family from a genetically homogenous population, more than one gene was involved in the genetic susceptibility to AITD, supporting the notion that AITDs are caused by multiple genes of varying influences.

It is well demonstrated in the literature that polyethylene materials used in orthopedic applications are highly compatible and non-immunogenic with host tissues. However, recent studies in our laboratory have demonstrated the need for further study of these devices in vivo to further elucidate the mechanisms involved in biocompatibility. The purpose of this investigation was to study the tissue-implant response resulting from the implantation of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (PE) coated with poly-L-lysine at 90 days post-implantation. In this investigation, implants of PE coated with poly-L-lysine and saline were implanted into 8 adult male rats subcutaneously (S/C) and intraperitoneally (I/P). At 90 days post-implantation, the animals were euthanized; and the PE devices, the fibrous tissue, and vital organs were harvested. Evaluation of routinely stained sections (5 microns, HematoxylinEosin) of the fibrous tissue capsule surrounding the PE implants revealed the following: 1) all the devices had fibrous connective tissue capsules of slightly varying degrees of thickness surrounding them present at the time of sacrifice, 2) the thickness of the fibrous tissue capsule was dependent on the site of implantation and type of coating, 3) the thickness of the fibrous tissue capsules around the subcutaneous devices differed markedly than those retrieved from the peritoneal cavity, and 4) there were statistically significant differences (T-test, p0.05) in the numbers and types of cellular components with respect to implantation site and type of coating.

Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) transection enhances social interaction in an open arena test. Social interaction enhances dopaminergic activity in the nucleus accumbens (NAC). In the present set of experiments, microdialysis probes were implanted in the NAC, and glutamate, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and dopamine (DA) were measured during electrical stimulation of the MPFC, after coronal transection caudal to the MPFC and after a systemic injection of amphetamine in transected rats. Electrical stimulation of the MPFC caused a transient enhancement of glutamate release in the NAC, no change in GABA levels and a long lasting increase in DA levels. Medial prefrontal transection did not change basal glutamate or GABA levels in the NAC, but increased basal DA levels. Amphetamine administration decreased GABA levels in medial prefrontal transected rats, had no effect on glutamate and increased DA levels more than in controls. The experiments suggest that glutamatergic activity in the accumbens decreases dopamine release. Medial prefrontal transection reduces glutamatergic tone and enhances dopamine release, which probably decreases GABAergic activity in the NAC. Presumably, GABA inhibition in the NAC enhances social interaction.

Behavioral effects of a medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) transection were assessed in animal tests of anxiety. Social investigation and plus-maze open arm exploration increased in MPFC damaged animals relative to sham ones. MPFC lesions prevented D-amphetamine (2 mg/kg, i.p.) induced social investigation decrease and exaggerated general locomotion increase. Diazepam (1 mg/kg, i.p.) and MPFC synergistically increased open arm exploration on a second (repeated) plus-maze trial. These results suggest that the MPFC would be implicated in a generalized mechanism of warning enabling emission of appropriate responses to anxiogenic stimuli. Although, this lesion did not modify motor activity itself, the pattern of the motor activation induced by amphetamine was altered. The role of the MPFC areas in the behavioral response associated with fear is discussed.

Introduction: Urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy is a major complication with profound impact on the social life of the patients. we report inicial cases of patients treated with male sling implant. Methods: Eight patients with urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy underwent to male sling (Argus-T® - Promedon) implant. We analyzed the age, the number of transurethral resection previously of the implant, the degree of incontinence before the sling (by urodynamics) and the subjective satisfaction with the surgery by telephone. Results: The patients (08) were submitted to a radical retropubic prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer. All incontinent patients developed stenosis of vesico-urethral anastomosis and were underwent transurethral resection of the anastomotic fibrosis (ranging from one to three procedures). Five patients had moderate to severe urinary incontinence before the procedures. After the implant, five pa-tients had no improvement in the degree of incontinence, three patients had a subjective improvement, two of them were completely dry. These, previously, had the lowest degree of incontinence in the objective analysis (urodynamics). Conclu-sion: The urinary incontinence after prostatectomy is a morbidity with challenging treatment. The male sling is a good method for mild cases and motivated patients, not being the first choice for more severe cases.

Spermatic cord torsion is an urologic emergency that requires urgent evaluation and possibly emergency surgical management. In a neonate it occurs during testicular descent and is usually due to an extravaginal torsion, where the testis and sperinatic cord twist. We present a case of intravaginal testicular torsion in a neonate. In this situation, as the anomalous implant of the tunica vaginalis can occur bilaterally, it is important to fix the contralateral testis in order to prevent late torsion of this gonad.

Lipedema is a chronic vascular disease almost exclusively of female sex, characterized by the deposit of fat on the legs, with an "Egyptian column" shape, orthostatic edema, hypothermia of the skin, alteration of the plantar support, and negativity of Stemmer's sign. The etiology and pathogenesis of this disease are still the object of study, and therapy is very difficult. Various authors have described morphologic and functional alterations of prelym phatic structures and of lymphatic vessels. The big veins remain untouched in the phlebograms and an alteration of the skin elasticity is demonstrated. The present authors have studied by dynamic lymphoscintigraphy 12 women patients suffering from lipedema, and compared the results with those of 5 normal subjects and 5 patients suffering from idiopathic lymphedema who were sex and age matched with the patients suffering from lipedema. The patients suffering from lipedema showed an abnormal lymphoscintigraphic pattern with a slowing of the lymphatic flow that presented some analogies to the alter ations found in the patients suffering from lymphedema. A frequent asymmetry was also noticed in the lymphoscintigraphic findings that is in contrast to the symmetry of the clinical profile.