Hyperglycemia-induced circulating ICAM-1 increase in diabetes mellitus: the possible role of oxidative stress

Since the introduction of itraconazole in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Foundation LAREB and the Inspectorate for Health Care received 15 reports of pill cycle disturbances and one of pregnancy occurring during simultaneous use of itraconazole and oral contraceptives. Twelve women used oral contraceptives containing ethinylestradiol and desogestrel. In these women, the withdrawal bleeding was either delayed or did not occur at all; one of these women reported a transiently positive pregnancy test after previous breakthrough bleedings. Three women who used a contraceptive containing ethinylestradiol and levonorgestrel had a breakthrough bleeding. One woman who used an oral contraceptive containing ethinylestradiol and cyproterone acetate became pregnant during the concomitant use of itraconazole. The possible mechanism involved remains to be explained. Although an influence of itraconazole on the reliability of oral contraceptives is uncertain, additional contraceptive measurements might be considered.     

The rôle of renewable energy sources in the Italian agricultural system

Italy imports more than 83 per cent of its primary energy. In particular, the Italian agricultural sector imports 100 per cent of its primary energy needs. Today, an effort is being made towards a better mix of primary sources and towards reducing the country's dependence on imports, especially in this sector where there are considerable endogenous energy sources. Solar thermal energy and energy from biomass can be substituted for oil. The present paper analyses the end uses of energy in Italian agriculture and assesses the amount which can be substituted by solar thermal and biogas technologies. For each end use category, the benefits of renewable technologies are compared with the economics of non-renewable sources. The results of the analyses show that the most competitive technologies are biogas systems, passive solar systems (especially solar greenhouses) and energy-saving measures. Active solar systems are close to the threshold of competitiveness for low temperature heating, so that their penetration is very dependent on fuel prices and on the politics of financial subsidies.     

Robust deformation capture from temporal range data for surface rendering

Imagine an object such as a paper sheet being waved in front of some sensor. Reconstructing the time‐varying 3D shape of the object finds direct applications in computer animation. The goal of this paper is to provide such a deformation capture system for surfaces. It uses temporal range data obtained by sensors such as those based on structured light or stereo. So as to deal with many different kinds of material, we do not make the usual assumption that the object surface has textural information. This rules out those techniques based on detecting and matching keypoints or directly minimizing color discrepancy. The proposed method is based on a planar mesh that is deformed so as to fit each of the range images. We show how to achieve this by minimizing a compound cost function combining several data and regularization terms, needed to make the overall system robust so that it can deal with low quality datasets. Carefully examining the parameter to residual relationship shows that this cost function can be minimized very efficiently by coupling nonlinear least squares methods with sparse matrix operators. Experimental results for challenging datasets coming from different kinds of range sensors are reported. The algorithm is reasonably fast and is shown to be robust to missing and erroneous data points. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Clinical diagnosis and therapy of cutaneous melanoma in situ

BACKGROUND: The frequency of in situ melanoma is increasing, and it is often diagnosed fortuitously by histology. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 121 melanomas in situ in 113 patients with the aim of identifying the clinical features of, and optimal surgical treatment for this cutaneous malignancy. Treatment was limited surgery with 3 mm margins of excision in 69 cases (57%) and wider margins of excision (more than 3 mm) in 52 cases (43%). The lesions had a median diameter of 1 cm (range, 2-35 mm) and were generally macular (92% of cases) asymmetric (87%), with an irregular border (88%) and nonuniform pigmentation (98%), usually in shades of brown (41%) and black (48%). These features had permitted a clinical diagnosis of melanoma or suspected melanoma in 62% of cases and of doubtful nevus in an additional 18% of cases. RESULTS: At a median follow-up of 4 years, there were six local recurrences (three treated by limited surgery and three by wider excision), all in situ melanomas. CONCLUSIONS: The typical clinical features of melanoma in situ, which are similar to those of early invasive melanoma, are usually sufficiently distinctive to suggest the clinical diagnosis of melanoma or suspected melanoma. Except for large size and superficially extended lesions (larger than 2 cm), adequate treatment is excision with 3 mm margins, although larger lesions (larger then 2 cm) may have an appreciable incidence of local recurrence.     

Band structure,magneto-transport,and magneto-optical properties of lnAs-Ga1-xlnxSb superlattices

We have theoretically and experimentally investigated the electronic properties of InAs-Ga_1-xIn_xSb superlattices. It is found that a strong repulsion between the El and HI bands in superlattices with thin Ga_1-xIn_xSb layers leads to dispersion relations that closely resemble those in HgTe-CdTe superlattices. Temperature-dependent magneto-transport and magneto-optical measurements on samples with a range of InAs layer thicknesses confirm several of the theoretically predicted consequences, e.g., the coexistence of two electron species in semimetallic superlattices and a very light electron cyctron mass in narrow-gap semiconducting samples. The electron mobility is found to be dominated by interface roughness scattering under nearly all conditions of interest. Implications for this system as an infrared detector material are discussed.     

Increase of serum alpha 1-acid glycoprotein despite the decline of liver synthetic function in cirrhotics with hepatocellular carcinoma

alpha 1-Acid glycoprotein, an acute phase reactant synthesised by the liver, has been reported to be increased in neoplastic conditions and reduced in chronic liver disease. We measured serum alpha 1-acid glycoprotein by a nephelometric method in 186 subjects (112 males, 74 females): 55 had mild chronic liver disease (chronic hepatitis and steatofibrosis), 45 cirrhosis, 38 hepatocellular carcinoma, 15 extra-hepatic malignant disease; 33 healthy subjects were used as controls. Analysis of variance demonstrated a significant variability among groups (F = 17.08, P = 0.0000). Higher concentrations of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein were detected in malignant extra-hepatic disease than in all other groups (P < 0.01); concentrations of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein were higher in hepatocellular carcinoma than in cirrhosis (P < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis by groups (dependent variable = alpha 1-acid glycoprotein; group 1 = mild chronic liver disease + cirrhosis; group 2 = hepatocellular carcinoma) showed a significant correlation for both group 1 (r = 0.6264, F = 8.005, P = 0.0000) and group 2 (r = 0.8947, F = 13.643, P = 0.0000). The significant standardised regression coefficients were: cholinesterase, C-reactive protein, gamma-glutamyltransferase and iron (negative) for regression upon group 1; C-reactive protein, alpha 1-antiproteinase, gamma-glutamyltransferase, iron (negative) for regression upon group 2. A difference between the 2 regression equation coefficients was detected (F = 5.209, P = 0.0002).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)