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Abstract Background Diagnosis of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is commonly based on clinical criteria, and confirmed by genetic testing. In patients without known MEN1-related germline mutations, the possibility of a casual association between two or more endocrine tumors cannot be excluded and subsequent management may be difficult to plan. We describe a very uncommon case of functioning glucagonoma associated with primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT) in which genetic testing failed to detect germline mutations of MEN-1 and other known genes responsible for MEN1. Case presentation The patient, a 65-year old woman, had been suffering for more than 1 year from weakness, progressive weight loss, angular cheilitis, glossitis and, more recently, skin rashes on the perineum, perioral skin and groin folds. After multidisciplinary investigations, functioning glucagonoma and asymptomatic pHPT were diagnosed and, since family history was negative, sporadic MEN1 was suspected. However, genetic testing revealed neither MEN-1 nor other gene mutations responsible for rarer cases of MEN1 (CDKN1B/p27 and other cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor genes CDKN1A/p15, CDKN2C/p18, CDKN2B/p21). The patient underwent distal splenopancreatectomy and at the 4-month follow-up she showed complete remission of symptoms. Six months later, a thyroid nodule, suspected to be a malignant neoplasia, and two hyperfunctioning parathyroid glands were detected respectively by ultrasound with fine needle aspiration cytology and 99mTc-sestamibi scan with SPECT acquisition. Total thyroidectomy was performed, whereas selective parathyroidectomy was preferred to a more extensive procedure because the diagnosis of MEN1 was not supported by genetic analysis and intraoperative intact parathyroid hormone had revealed “adenoma-like” kinetics after the second parathyroid resection. Thirty-nine and 25 months after respectively the first and the second operation, the patient is well and shows no signs or symptoms of recurrence. Conclusions Despite well-defined diagnostic criteria and guidelines, diagnosis of MEN1 can still be challenging. When diagnosis is doubtful, appropriate management may be difficult to establish.

Grapevine adaptation to drought involves morphological, anatomical, and physiological modifications that could be viewed as a measure of drought avoidance. The main vine responses to drought consist of the regulation of carbon assimilation as a consequence of limited stomatal conductance, which is reflected in changes in plant water status. In this factorial study (2020–2021 growing seasons), two red cultivars, the local 'Aglianico', widely grown in Central-South Italy, and the international 'Cabernet Sauvignon', were used to evaluate how their interaction in three different environments can modify physiological adaptations and how yields and their qualitative traits can be modified. The lowest leaf water potential (−0.68 Mpa) for the two cultivars was registered in Molise, while the most stressed vine was found in Sicily for Aglianico (−1.86 MPa). At least in two of three locations, Molise and Campania, the detected stomatal conductance and the leaf water potential have shown that Cabernet Sauvignon can be classified as a near-isohydric cultivar, whereas Aglianico can be categorized as a near-anisohydric cultivar. The interactions between genotype x environment highlight different levels of adaptability between the two cultivars in different sites during each season. The data presented here contribute to a better understanding of the effects of genotype and environment interactions in progressive dry cultivation and how these interactions can modify the qualitative traits of grapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of interactions between the genotype and environmental conditions are expressed in the phenotype. Comparing the performances of genotypes under the same range of environmental conditions allows for relative measurements to be made of the different levels of plasticity among those genotypes. The objective of this research was to evaluate the different responses of two wine grape cultivars, native Aglianico and international Cabernet Sauvignon, under different pedoclimatic conditions in terms of the functional traits that govern grapevine bud fruitfulness, vegetative growth, and yield development. The study was conducted over two consecutive seasons (2020 and 2021), in six commercial Vitis vinifera L. vineyards, located in three distinct viticultural regions of central-southern Italy (Molise, Campania, and Sicily). In each experimental vineyard, the bud fruitfulness, number of leaves, total leaf area per vine, midday vine water status, and fruit yield were measured. The obtained results showed that bud fruitfulness was higher for Aglianico than for Cabernet Sauvignon in each experimental site, while the variability of plant responses between the vineyards was lower for Cabernet Sauvignon cultivar compared to those for Aglianico. The genetic × environmental interactions were expressed predominantly during berry ripening stages, while plasticity was generally greater in Aglianico than in Cabernet Sauvignon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new multiparty protocol for the distributed generation of biprime RSA moduli, with security against any subset of maliciously colluding parties assuming oblivious transfer and the hardness of factoring. Our protocol is highly modular, and its uppermost layer can be viewed as a template that generalizes the structure of prior works and leads to a simpler security proof. We introduce a combined sampling-and-sieving technique that eliminates both the inherent leakage in the approach of Frederiksen et al. (Crypto’18) and the dependence upon additively homomorphic encryption in the approach of Hazay et al. (JCrypt’19). We combine this technique with an efficient, privacy-free check to detect malicious behavior retroactively when a sampled candidate is not a biprime and thereby overcome covert rejection-sampling attacks and achieve both asymptotic and concrete efficiency improvements over the previous state of the art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Complete surgical resection of gastric cancer is potentially curative, but long-term survival is poor. Methods Patients with histologically proven adenocarcinoma of the stomach of stages IB, II, IIIA and B, or IV (T4N2MO) and treated with potentially curative surgery were randomly assigned to follow-up alone or to intravenous treatment with four cycles (repeated every 21 days) of PELF (cisplatin (40 mg/m², on days 1 and 5], epirubicin [30 mg/m², days 1 and 5], L-leucovorin (100 mg/m², days 1-4], and 5-fluorouracil [300 mg/m², days,1-4] in a hospital setting. Frequencies and severity of adverse events were determined. Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were compared between the treatment arms using Kaplan-Meier analysis and a Cox proportional hazards regression model. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results From January 1995 through September 2000, 258 patients were randomly assigned to chemotherapy (n = 130) or surgery alone (n = 128). Patient characteristics were well balanced between the two arms. Among those who received chemotherapy, grade 3 or 4 toxic effects including vomiting, mucositis, and diarrhea were experienced by 21.1%, 8.4%, and 11.8% of patients, respectively. Leucopenia, anemia, and thrombocytopenia of grade 3 or 4 were experienced by 20.3%, 3.3%, and 4.2% of patients, respectively. After a median follow-up of 72.8 rnonths, 128 patients (49.6%) experienced recurrence and 139 (53.9%) deaths were observed, one toxicity-related. Relative to treatment with surgery alone, adjuvant chemotherapy did not increase disease-free survival (hazard ratio [HR] of recurrence = 0.92; 95% confidence interval [Cl] = 0.66 to 1.27) or overall survival (HR of death = 0.90; 95% Cl = 0.64 to 1.26). Conclusions Our results failed to provide proof of an effect of adjuvant chemotherapy with PELF on overall survival or disease-free survival. The estimated effect of chemotherapy (10% reduction in the hazard of death or relapse) is modest and consistent with the results of meta-analyses of adjuvant chemotherapy without platinum agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]