Radiation therapy of giant aggressive keratoacanthomas

BACKGROUND AND DESIGN: Giant aggressive keratoacanthoma is a rare destructive subset of keratoacanthoma that frequently involves the facial region, grows rapidly to a large size, and often recurs after surgical management. The effectiveness of ionizing radiation therapy was examined in a retrospective study involving 16 patients; 14 of the tumors had recurred after surgical therapy. RESULTS: All tumors resolved with satisfactory cosmetic results and without recurrence following a fractionated course of superficial radiation therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Radiation therapy is an effective therapeutic modality for giant aggressive keratoacanthomas.     

Radiation therapy for stage I-II non-small cell lung cancer in patients aged 75 years and older

Vaccination with peptides that induce a specific immune response is a potential prophylactic or therapeutic strategy against viral infections and tumors. Because of the extensive polymorphism of the HLA loci, synthetic peptide vaccines must consist of a cocktail of peptides that bind specifically to different HLA molecules. Such cocktails should be optimized for the target population as each population has its specific HLA gene frequencies. To achieve maximum population coverage with a minimum number of peptides, information is needed on the ranking of the most frequent HLA phenotypes. We introduce the minimal phenotype panel, which is the smallest combination of HLA antigens selected so that the proportion of individuals in a population that express at least one of the antigens in the panel exceeds a desired minimum value. We developed a method for assembling minimal phenotype panels based on known HLA class I gene frequencies. We give an example based on a set of 2446 well-defined HLA-typed, random, healthy, unrelated, Dutch Caucasoid individuals. In addition, we discuss the possibility of assembling minimal phenotype panels based on two-locus haplotypes, which enables the assembly of phenotype panels from the antigens of both loci.     

Anomalies of the tracheobronchial tree in patients with esophageal atresia

Bone marrow examination revealed a lipid-laden histiocytosis in seven patients undergoing long-term total parenteral nutrition necessitated by extensive short-bowel surgical resection. Clinical abnormalities occurred during this treatment which required bone marrow examination. These included hepatosplenomegaly and peripheral blood cytopenia; the median time to the detection of these abnormalities was 64 months. The most striking change within the bone marrow was the presence of many pigment-laden histiocytes which had the typical morphology of sea-blue histiocytes seen in the so-called idiopathic sea-blue histiocyte syndrome. The occurrence of sea-blue histiocytosis in the bone marrow in association with long-term parenteral nutrition for short-bowel syndrome has not, to our knowledge, been reported previously and should now be considered in the differential diagnosis of bone marrow sea-blue histiocytosis.     

Decision by the Principle Board of the Polish Allergy Society

A review of isolates of Neisseria meningitidis and other laboratory evidence of meningococcal infection was carried out for the period 1990-1995. Thirty-three patients with evidence of meningococcal disease were identified over the six year period. Group B organisms were the most commonly identified, but an increase in Group C has occurred and is almost equal in number. Data from clinical, laboratory and public health sources should be centralized in a National Surveillance Centre.     

Scanning Acoustic Microscopy of SCS-6 Silicon Carbide Fiber

Scanning acoustic microscopy of SCS-6 silicon carbide fiber reveals large radial variations in acoustic reflectivity associated with the chemical composition and microstructure of a given fiber region. Rayleigh wave fringe patterns observed in each of five subregions are used to calculate the average Young modulus of that subregion. The Young modulus is found to increase monotonically from 40 GPa in the carbon core to a value of 413 GPa in the stoichiometric SiC region. The effective Young modulus of the fiber as a whole is estimated from the moduli of the individual regions and it is compared with mechanical measurements reported in the literature.     

An easy-to-use mismatch model for the MOS transistor

In this paper, a physics-based mismatch model is presented. It is demonstrated on a 0.18-/spl mu/m technology that a simple mismatch model can still be used to characterize deep-submicron technologies. The accuracy of the model is examined and found to be within 20% in the strong inversion region. Bulk bias dependence is modeled in a physical way. To extract the mismatch parameters, a weighted fit is introduced. It is shown that the width and length dependence of the mismatch parameters is given by the Pelgrom model.     

Fabrication of 1.55 μm VCSELs on Si using metallic bonding

Using AuGeNiCr multilayered metals as the wafer bonding medium, long-wavelength GaInAsP/InP vertical cavity surface emitting lasers employing Al-oxide/Si as the upper and lower distributed Bragg reflectors were fabricated on Si substrate with the bonding interface formed outside the vertical cavity surface emitting laser cavity. Laser emission at 1.545 μm was measured under pulsed operations near room temperature. The low-temperature metallic bonding process demonstrates a great potential in device fabrication     

Direct evidence of high DNA binding activity of transcription factor AP-1 in rheumatoid arthritis synovium

Green fluorescent protein (GFP) is increasingly being used in plant biology from the cellular level to whole plant level. At the cellular level, GFP is being used as an in vivo reporter to assess frequency of transient and stable transformation. GFP has also proven to be an invaluable tool in monitoring trafficking and subcellular localization of protein. At the organ level and up, many exciting applications are rapidly emerging. The development of brighter GFP mutants with more robust folding properties has enabled better macroscopic visualization of GFP in whole leaves and plants. One interesting example has been the use of GFP to monitor virus movement in and among whole plants. GFP is also emerging as a powerful tool to monitor transgene movement and transgenic plants in the field. In a proof-of-concept study, tobacco was transformed with a modified version of the GFP gene controlled by a constitutive (35S) promoter. GFP expression in progeny plants ranged from 0% to 0.5%, and approximately 0.1% GFP was the minimal amount needed for unambiguous macroscopic detection. GFP is the first truly in vivo reporter system useful in whole plants, and we project its usefulness will increase even further as better forms of GFP genes become available.