Abdominal trans-sphincter resection of the anus: new possibilities in the surgical management of deep rectal cancer, with preservation of the anal sphincter

The last decade has brought marked changes in the surgical treatment of rectal cancer: as the indication of the sphincter-saving procedures was extended, the rate of the abdomino-perineal excision has decreased even in the case of tumours of the distal third of the rectum. However, even with the use of the modern stapling devices, the anterior resection and colo-anal anastomosis may not always be feasible by the traditional abdominal approach. In these cases the sphincter-saving resection can be performed by a particular approach, the abdomino-transsphincteric technique. The authors present this seldom used operation. From the 1-st of January 1994 to the 31-st of August 1996 14 abdomino-transsphincteric resections have been performed. The mean age of the patients was 62.2 (38-81) years. The lower edge of the tumours was situated at 6.3 (5-8) cm from the anal verge. The anastomosis was performed by the double stapling technique in 8 and by hand suture in 6 cases, its distance from the anal verge was 3.2 (3-4) cm. A colon J-pouch was used in 3 cases and a diverting colostomy was performed routinely. One patient died in the postoperative period and a reoperation (abdomino-perineal excission) was performed because of left colon necrosis: Anastomotic leakage was observed in one case. By the time of the present study, 11 patients have had their colostomies closed. The continence is acceptable in every case and all the patients experience a better subjective quality of life, than it was while wearing the colostomy. The use of this technique has helped to avoid a permanent colostomy in 21 out of 33 cases operated on for cancer of the distal rectal third in the reviewed period.     

Vortex depth in unbaffled single and multiple impeller agitated vessels

Although vortex formation is usually an undesirable phenomenon in the process industry, satisfactory process conditions and results can also be obtained in unbaffled agitated vessels in the presence of a vortex. This fact and especially the low power requirements in these systems, with their immediate relevance to the energy problem in the process industry, show the true importance of vortex formation in agitated vessels. This article reviews the literature results and the correlations proposed for the prediction of vortex depth in unbaffled agitated vessels with various types of single and multiple impeller systems and presents a critical discussion on the basis of a theoretical analysis.     

Serum and follicular fluid leptin levels are correlated with human embryo quality

This prospective study was undertaken to reassess the prognostic value of leptin during critical stages of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) and address its role in the functional staging of assisted reproductive technologies at the level of embryo quality. Serum and follicular fluid samples of 100 selected women undergoing the long IVF-ET protocol were collected for leptin and embryo quality determination. The highest serum leptin concentration (52.11 +/- 4.27 ng/ml) was observed on ovum pick up day, while follicular fluid leptin was higher than all serum samples examined (62.59 +/- 5.73 ng/ml). Serum leptin above 59.48 +/- 7.6 ng/ml was associated with 'poor' embryo quality and above 56.87 +/- 5.52 ng/ml with pregnancy failure. Elevated leptin concentrations were associated with reduced ovarian stimulation and response, follicle maturation, embryo quality and pregnancy success. Our findings suggest that leptin modulates embryo quality and may serve as a sensitive marker of IVF outcome.     

Boron determination in a multi element national water monitoring program: the absence of legal limits

Directive 98/83/EC concerning the drinking water quality and Directive 80/777/EC for Natural Mineral Water demand strict control and monitoring for the presence of metals. The State General Laboratory as the official control laboratory (Accredited by ISO 17025:2005) implements a national monitoring program in order to ensure that the drinking and natural mineral water quality satisfy the requirements of the respective Directives. The National Monitoring program covers mainly metals such as Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, As, Se, Sb, Hg, Mn, Cu, Fe, Al and B in water supplied for human consumption either by distribution networks, vending machines, mobile water containers, ground water intended for human consumption as well as bottled water. The determination of metals in water by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) is a technique that successfully meets the requirements of the above Directives as it is a very powerful tool for the measurement of metals at very low concentrations with high accuracy and precision. The results obtained indicate that metal concentrations in drinking and bottled water examined were by far, below the acceptable legal limits and even below the relevant detection limits. However, in samples of bottled natural mineral water, high boron concentration were determined and risk assessment was performed due to the absence of relevant legal limits. The present paper demonstrates the steps undertaken by the General Water Analysis Laboratory of the SGL for the validated method used by ICP-MS in the determination of trace metals including boron in drinking and bottled water.     

An original genetic approach to the fully automatic gridding of microarray images

Gridding microarray images remains, at present, a major bottleneck. It requires human intervention which causes variations of the gene expression results. In this paper, an original and fully automatic approach for accurately locating a distorted grid structure in a microarray image is presented. The gridding process is expressed as an optimization problem which is solved by using a genetic algorithm (GA). The GA determines the line-segments constituting the grid structure. The proposed method has been compared with existing software tools as well as with a recently published technique. For this purpose, several real and artificial microarray images containing more than one million spots have been used. The outcome has shown that the accuracy of the proposed method achieves the high value of 94% and it outperforms the existing approaches. It is also noise-resistant and yields excellent results even under adverse conditions such as arbitrary grid rotations, and the appearance of various spot sizes.     

The effect of dietary inclusion of olive tree leaves and grape marc on the content of conjugated linoleic acid and vaccenic acid in the milk of dairy sheep and goats

Olive tree leaves (OTL) and grape marc (GM) are by-products with high linolenic (LNA) and linoleic (LA) acid content, respectively, which can be used as dietary ingredients to increase the cis-9 trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content of milk fat in sheep and goats. An experiment was conducted with 16 Friesian ewes and 16 Alpine goats to study the effect of OTL and GM inclusion in sheep and goat diets on their milk fatty acid profile, with emphasis on cis-9, trans-11 CLA and vaccenic acid (VA). Ewes and the goats were fed the control (C) diets from parturition to the 90 days in milk (DIM) and then both groups were divided into two sub-groups (treatments). The control groups of both species continued to be fed the C diets, whereas the treated groups were gradually switched over a 2-week period (DIM=91-105) from the C diets to that of treatment 1, which contained air-dried OTL. These OTL diets were fed ad libitum for 1 month (DIM=106-135). After that period, the same treated groups, after 2 weeks of gradual adaptation (DIM=136-150), were switched to treatment 2, which contained air-dried GM. The GM diets were fed ad libitum for 1 month (151-180 DIM). Concentrations of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and mono-unsaturated fatty acids increased significantly in milk fat of sheep fed OTL v. C. For goats, only the PUFA in milk fat was increased by feeding OTL compared with C. Relative to C, GM increased significantly the concentration of PUFA only in milk fat of sheep. OTL and GM diets increased the cis-9, trans-11 CLA and VA content in milk fat, compared with C, only in sheep. GM caused a sharp increase in 18:0 only in sheep milk fat, while the OTL diet increased significantly the 18:0 in milk fat of goats. GM and OTL diets also had opposite effects on the 18:1/18:0 ratio of sheep milk fat. In conclusion, OTL and GM, when included in sheep diets altered the milk fatty acid profile with a pronounced increase in cis-9, trans-11 CLA and VA contents. The results show that the response of sheep and goats to OTL and GM diets was different, suggesting a species difference that needs further investigation.     

Effects of curd heating with or without previous milk pasteurisation on the microbiological quality and safety of craft‐made ‘Pasta Filata’ Kashkaval cheese curds

An empirical ‘Pasta Filata’ process used for traditional Kashkaval cheese manufacture from raw ewes’ milk improved the hygiene of fresh curd. Coagulase‐positive (RPF+) staphylococci and coliforms declined by 2.4 and 4.5 log units, respectively, and Listeria contamination was minimised. Before Pasta Filata, RPF+ staphylococci exceeded the 5‐log threshold level specified in EC Regulation 1441/2007 in raw milk curds despite the prevalence of indigenous mesophilic lactic acid bacteria. Pasta Filata favoured enterococci in raw milk curds. Pasteurisation enhanced prevalence of Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactococcus lactis starters and microbial quality and safety of pasteurised milk curds before and particularly after Pasta Filata.     

Non-Coding RNA-Driven Regulation of rRNA Biogenesis

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) biogenesis takes place in the nucleolus, the most prominent condensate of the eukaryotic nucleus. The proper assembly and integrity of the nucleolus reflects the accurate synthesis and processing of rRNAs which in turn, as major components of ribosomes, ensure the uninterrupted flow of the genetic information during translation. Therefore, the abundant production of rRNAs in a precisely functional nucleolus is of outmost importance for the cell viability and requires the concerted action of essential enzymes, associated factors and epigenetic marks. The coordination and regulation of such an elaborate process depends on not only protein factors, but also on numerous regulatory non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Herein, we focus on RNA-mediated mechanisms that control the synthesis, processing and modification of rRNAs in mammals. We highlight the significance of regulatory ncRNAs in rRNA biogenesis and the maintenance of the nucleolar morphology, as well as their role in human diseases and as novel druggable molecular targets.     

Sign boundary and hand articulation feature recognition in Sign Language videos

Machine Translation - In this paper we present a recommendation system for (semi-)automatic annotation of sign language videos exploiting deep learning techniques, which handle handshape...