Differences in Epstein-Barr virus expression between primary and secondary cutaneous angiocentric lymphomas. French Study Group of Cutaneous Lymphomas

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this investigation was to report on the radiographic interpretation of the hard palate and nasal fossa floor in panoramic radiographs by studying different skulls, x-ray machines, and head positions in relationship to the Frankfort plane before and after ostectomy. STUDY DESIGN: Twenty dry human skulls were radiographed with three different panoramic x-ray machines in three different positions. Three of the skulls were submitted to different ostectomies. RESULTS: Multiple images of the hard palate and nasal fossa floor were present in 96.12% of the radiographs. Single images (3.88%) occurred only in the "chin up" position. CONCLUSIONS: The lower image represents the nasal fossa floor, especially its lateral and anterior limits. The upper images are double real images mainly formed by the junction of the nasal septum with the nasal fossa floor and possibly by posterior parts of the hard palate and nasal fossa floor. All images overlap in the "chin up" position becoming a single image. The most common shape of the anatomic landmark was wide angle "W" (58.33%). Other shapes present in positions "chin up" and "chin down" indicate patient positioning errors. The x-ray machines did not influence the results.     

Congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles type 2, an inherited exotropic strabismus fixus, maps to distal 11q13

The extraocular fibrosis syndromes are congenital ocular-motility disorders that arise from dysfunction of the oculomotor, trochlear, and abducens nerves and/or the muscles that they innervate. Each is marked by a specific form of restrictive paralytic ophthalmoplegia with or without ptosis. Individuals with the classic form of congenital fibrosis of the extraocular muscles (CFEOM1) are born with bilateral ptosis and a restrictive infraductive external ophthalmoplegia. We previously demonstrated that CFEOM1 is caused by an autosomal dominant locus on chromosome 12 and results from a developmental absence of the superior division of the oculomotor nerve. We now have mapped a variant of CFEOM, exotropic strabismus fixus ("CFEOM2"). Affected individuals are born with bilateral ptosis and restrictive ophthalmoplegia with the globes "frozen" in extreme abduction. This autosomal recessive disorder is present in members of three consanguineous Saudi Arabian families. Genetic analysis of 70 individuals (20 affected individuals) reveals linkage to markers on chromosome 11q13, with a combined LOD score of 12.3 at the single nonrecombinant marker, D11S1314. The 2.5-cM CFEOM2 critical region is flanked by D11S4196/D11S4162 and D11S4184/1369. Two of the three families share a common disease-associated haplotype, suggesting a founder effect for CFEOM2. We hypothesize that CFEOM2 results from an analogous developmental defect to CFEOM1, one that affects both the superior and inferior divisions of the oculomotor nerve and their corresponding alpha motoneurons and extraocular muscles.     

Purification and properties of beta-N-Acetylhexosaminidase from cabbage

beta-N-Acetylhexosaminidase was purified from the extract of cabbage by sequential steps of ammonium sulfate fractionation, chromatofocusing, DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B ion exchange chromatography and Sephacryl S-200 HR gel filtration. By these steps, the purity of the enzyme increased by 256 fold with a recovery of 8%. The purified enzyme was homogeneous as examined by native PAGE. It showed an optimal pH of 4, an optimal temperature of 60 degrees C and a Km of 0.94 mM for hydrolysis of pNp-beta-GlcNAc. The molecular mass of the enzyme determined from filtration through Sephacryl S-200 was 150 kDa. Three subunits with molecular mass of 64, 57 and 51 kDa were observed as determined by SDS-PAGE. NBS (0.025 mM), DEPC (3 mM) and WRK (30 mM) significantly inhibited the activity of the enzyme. The enzyme also showed activity toward pNp-beta-GalNAc, N,N'-diacetylchitobiose, N,N',N"-triacetylchitotriose and N,N',N",N"'-tetraacetyl chitotetraose but showed no activity toward pNp-alpha-GlcNAc, chitin and ethylene glycol chitin.     

Radiotherapy of plantar heel spurs: indications, technique, clinical results at different dose concepts

BACKGROUND: In a retrospective study the efficacy of orthovoltage radiotherapy for refractory painful plantar heel spur was analyzed for 3 different radiation dose concepts. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From 1.1 1984 through 1.3.1994, 182 patients with refractory painful heel symptoms and radiologically proven plantar heel spur received radiotherapy. A total of 141 patients and 170 heels (due to double-sided symptoms) were completely documented in long-term follow-up. Clearly defined semi-quantitative criteria (9-point score) were used to analyze heel pain and ankle function prior to RT, 6 to 12 weeks post-radiation, and at last follow-up. The treatment outcome, i.e. (un)favourable response, of 3 radiation dose concepts were compared: Group A (n = 72 heels) received 12 Gy total radiation dose in 3 fractions per week and 2 series (6 x 1 Gy per series) separated by 6 weeks; group B (n = 98 heels) received 3 Gy total radiation dose in 10 fractions of 0.3 Gy (n = 50) or 5 Gy (10 x 0.5 Gy) (n = 48) with conventional fractionation in 1 series. RESULTS: Radiotherapy was very effective: at last follow-up 67% (group A) and 71% (group B) remained completely free of pain. The rate of "complete pain relief" (i.e. free of any pain symptoms) was not different between the 3 radiation concepts. However, significant differences were observed with regard to "incomplete or insufficient pain relief", i.e. a subjective pain relief of less than 80%, a delayed pain relief after more than 4 weeks or a relapse of pain symptoms in long-term follow-up. More favourable results were achieved in patients receiving 5 Gy or 12 Gy total dose, while patients with 3 Gy total dose had significantly worse results. Prognostic factors for "complete pain relief" were short duration of pain symptoms and acute pain symptoms prior to radiotherapy; with regard to "in-complete or insufficient pain relief" the total dose was found to be a prognostic parameter. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with refractory heel pain can yield a high response to radiotherapy even after failing various conventional treatments previously. Thus, radiotherapy should not be solely regarded as a last resort due to its low costs and high efficacy at low radiation doses.     

Progressive subretinal fibrosis and blindness in patients with multifocal granulomatous chorioretinitis

Since women with a first-degree relative with breast cancer are at increased risk for breast cancer, it is of special importance that they adhere to early detection programs. In this study, women with (389) and without (3295) a family history of breast cancer were compared with respect to risk perception, breast cancer anxiety, and early detection behavior. Special attention was paid to the role of knowing that family history is a breast cancer risk factor. It was found that 46% of "family history positives" did not know that their risk was increased by their family history. Still, family history positives had increased risk perception; our results suggest that this was partly caused by their knowing they belonged to a risk group and partly by their having experienced the disease at close range. Although family history positives had higher risk perceptions, no differences in early detection behavior were found. This could not be attributed to high anxiety levels. Implications for health education are discussed.     

Michigan Particle Swarm Optimization for Prototype Reduction in Classification Problems

This paper presents a new approach to Particle Swarm Optimization, called Michigan Approach PSO (MPSO), and its application to continuous classification problems as a Nearest Prototype (NP) classifier. In Nearest Prototype classifiers, a collection of prototypes has to be found that accurately represents the input patterns. The classifier then assigns classes based on the nearest prototype in this collection. The MPSO algorithm is used to process training data to find those prototypes. In the MPSO algorithm each particle in a swarm represents a single prototype in the solution and it uses modified movement rules with particle competition and cooperation that ensure particle diversity. The proposed method is tested both with artificial problems and with real benchmark problems and compared with several algorithms of the same family. Results show that the particles are able to recognize clusters, find decision boundaries and reach stable situations that also retain adaptation potential. The MPSO algorithm is able to improve the accuracy of 1-NN classifiers, obtains results comparable to the best among other classifiers, and improves the accuracy reported in literature for one of the problems.

Anti-cloning protocol suitable to EPCglobal Class-1 Generation-2 RFID systems

Radio frequency Identification (RFID) systems are used to identify remote objects equipped with RFID tags by wireless scanning without manual intervention. Recently, EPCglobal proposed the Electronic Product Code (EPC) that is a coding scheme considered to be a possible successor to bar-code with added functionalities. In RFID-based applications where RFID tags are used to identify and track tagged objects, an RFID tag emits its EPC in plaintext. This makes the tag inevitably vulnerable to cloning attacks as well as information leakage and password disclosure. In this paper, we propose a novel anti-cloning method in accordance with the EPCglobal Class-1 Generation-2 (C1G2) standard. Our method only uses functions that can be supported by the standard and abides by the communication flow of the standard. The method is also secure against threats such as information leakage and password disclosure.     

Relational Learning with GPUs: Accelerating Rule Coverage

Relational learning algorithms mine complex databases for interesting patterns. Usually, the search space of patterns grows very quickly with the increase in data size, making it impractical to solve important problems. In this work we present the design of a relational learning system, that takes advantage of graphics processing units (GPUs) to perform the most time consuming function of the learner, rule coverage. To evaluate performance, we use four applications: a widely used relational learning benchmark for predicting carcinogenesis in rodents, an application in chemo-informatics, an application in opinion mining, and an application in mining health record data. We compare results using a single and multiple CPUs in a multicore host and using the GPU version. Results show that the GPU version of the learner is up to eight times faster than the best CPU version.     

Modeling the benefit of e-recruiting process integration

While e-recruiting has been widely adopted as one of the most successful e-business applications, it constitutes an under-researched area in e-business research. This study reviews the integration issues in e-recruiting and presents an e-recruiting integration decision model. The benefits of the investment in e-recruiting process integration are discussed in comparison to separate e-recruiting investments. We show that the optimal investment in the e-recruiting process integration results in a lower total cost than the separate e-recruiting investments. In addition, in light of the widely practiced resource constrained investments, we present the method of Lagrange multipliers which is used to find the optimal investment under a budget constraint.