Prognostic significance of cytoplasmic p53 overexpression in colorectal cancer. An immunohistochemical analysis

Early reconstruction of the thumb carpometacarpal (CMC) joint after traumatic dislocation, when instability is present, may decrease the incidence of recurrent instability and post-traumatic joint degeneration. We report two retrospective cohort groups of patients who had sustained a traumatic thumb CMC joint dislocation. The first 8 patients, group A, were treated with closed reduction and pinning. Because the results were unsatisfactory with 4 patients, requiring revision surgery for recurrent instability in 3 and degenerative arthritis in 1, the treatment plan was changed to open reduction with a flexor carpi radialis weave, group B. The 9 patients in group B underwent early (an average of 7 days after injury) ligamentous reconstruction to decrease the incidence of joint damage from recurrent instability and improve long-term functional results. For patients in group B with a minimum follow-up period of 2 years, pain was not a major problem, and range of motion and grip strength were essentially preserved. The functional variables affected most in both groups were thumb abduction, which was decreased by 10%, and pinch strength, which was decreased by 13%, in group B, as compared to 20% and 19%, respectively, for the patients in group A. Radiographically, the joint space was slightly narrowed (Eaton stage II) in 3 cases in group B; however, these were asymptomatic. In group A, 5 patients demonstrated degenerative changes of the CMC joint (3 Eaton stage II, 2 stage III), and 3 patients were symptomatic after treatment.     

Savoring Versus Dampening: Self-Esteem Differences in Regulating Positive Affect.

Five studies examined the hypotheses that when people experience positive affect, those low in self-esteem are especially likely to dampen that affect, whereas those high in self-esteem are especially likely to savor it. Undergraduate participants' memories for a positive event (Study 1) and their reported reactions to a success (Study 2) supported the dampening prediction. Results also suggest that dampening was associated with worse mood the day after a success (Study 2), that positive and negative affect regulation are distinct, that self-esteem is associated with affect regulation even when Neuroticism and Extraversion are controlled (Studies 3 and 4), and that self-esteem may be especially important for certain types of positive events and positive affect regulation (Study 5). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mangrove forests as a nature-based solution for coastal flood protection: Biophysical and ecological considerations

Nature-based coastal protection is increasingly recognised as a potentially sustainable and cost-effective solution to reduce coastal flood risk. It uses coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests to create resilient designs for coastal flood protection. However, to use mangroves effectively as a nature-based measure for flood risk reduction, we must understand the biophysical processes that govern risk reduction capacity through mangrove ecosystem size and structure. In this perspective, we evaluate the current state of knowledge on local physical drivers and ecological processes that determine mangrove functioning as part of a nature-based flood defence. We show that the forest properties that comprise coastal flood protection are well-known, but models cannot yet pinpoint how spatial heterogeneity of the forest structure affects the capacity for wave or surge attenuation. Overall, there is relatively good understanding of the ecological processes that drive forest structure and size, but there is a lack of knowledge on how daily bed-level dynamics link to long-term biogeomorphic forest dynamics, and on the role of combined stressors influencing forest retreat. Integrating simulation models of forest structure under changing physical (e.g. due to sea-level change) and ecological drivers with hydrodynamic attenuation models will allow for better projections of long-term natural coastal protection.     

Virtual reality for collaborative e-learning

In the past, the term e-learning referred to any method of learning that used electronic delivery methods. With the advent of the Internet however, e-learning has evolved and the term is now most commonly used to refer to online courses. A multitude of systems are now available to manage and deliver learning content online. While these have proved popular, they are often single-user learning environments which provide little in the way of interaction or stimulation for the student. As the concept of lifelong learning now becomes a reality and thus more and more people are partaking in online courses, researchers are constantly exploring innovative techniques to motivate online students and enhance the e-learning experience. This article presents our research in this area and the resulting development of CLEV-R, a Collaborative Learning Environment with Virtual Reality. This web-based system uses Virtual Reality (VR) and multimedia and provides communication tools to support collaboration among students. In this article, we describe the features of CLEV-R, its adaptation for mobile devices and present the findings from an initial evaluation.     

Multimedia ontology population through semantic analysis and hierarchical deep features extraction techniques

Knowledge and Information Systems - The rapid increase of available data in different complex contexts needs automatic tasks to manage and process contents. Semantic Web technologies represent the...     

Semantics-driven annotation of patient-specific 3D data: a step to assist diagnosis and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

In the digital era, patient-specific 3D models (3D-PSMs) are becoming increasingly relevant in computer-assisted diagnosis, surgery training on digital models, or implant design. While advanced imaging and reconstruction techniques can create accurate and detailed 3D models of patients’ anatomy, software tools that are able to fully exploit the potential of 3D-PSMs are still far from being satisfactory. In particular, there is still a lack of integrated approaches for extracting, coding, sharing and retrieving medically relevant information from 3D-PSMs and use it concretely as a support to diagnosis and treatment. In this article, we propose the SemAnatomy3D framework, which demonstrates how the ontology-driven annotation of 3D-PSMs and of their anatomically relevant features (parts of relevance) can assist clinicians to document more effectively pathologies and their evolution. We exemplify the idea in the context of the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis of the hand district, and show how feature extraction tools and semantic 3D annotation can provide a rich characterization of anatomical landmarks (e.g., articular facets, prominent features, ligament attachments) and pathological markers (erosions, bone loss). The core contributions are an ontology-driven part-based annotation method for the 3D-PSMs and a novel automatic localization of erosion and quantification of the OMERACT RAMRIS erosion score. Finally, our results have been compared against a medical ground truth.     

Progressive Transmission of Vector Map Data over the World Wide Web

Within distributed computing environments, access to very large geospatial datasets often suffers from slow or unreliable network connections. To allow users to start working with a partially delivered dataset, progressive transmission methods are a viable solution. While incremental and progressive methods have been applied successfully to the transmission of raster images over the World Wide Web, and, in the form of prototypes, of triangular meshes, the transmission of vector map datasets has lacked a similar attention. This paper introduces a solution to the progressive transmission of vector map data that allows users to apply analytical GIS methods to partially transmitted data sets. The architecture follows a client-server model with multiple map representations at the server side, and a thin client that compiles transmitted increments into a topologically consistent format. This paper describes the concepts, develops an architecture, and discusses implementation concerns.     

Letter from the editor

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the editor