Renal masses simulating primary renal cell carcinoma in patients with advanced malignancies

Most patients who present with a large solid renal mass and evidence of advanced malignancy will have primary renal cell carcinoma but a small subset with similar features have different and more treatable malignancies. We identified 7 patients with clinical and radiological findings suggestive of metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were ultimately diagnosed as have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (5), germ cell tumor (1) or transitional cell carcinoma (1). Two of these patients presented with abdominal pain, gross hematuria and a flank mass. Computerized tomography was interpreted as showing renal cell carcinoma in all patients, although lymphoma and sarcoma were included in the differential diagnoses in 2. With the correct diagnosis and appropriate therapy, 4 of the 7 patients are currently disease-free. We emphasize the need for histological documentation in such patients in view of curative therapy available for possible underlying neoplasms simulating renal cell carcinoma.     

Electrophoretic polymorphisms and their taxonomic implications in Callitrichini (Primates, Platyrrhini)

Five hundred forty-three blood samples from 15 populations of the four genera of callitrichin primates were studied electrophoretically. Polymorphism and genetic distances were estimated for 20 loci, 13 of which were polymorphic. The lion tamarin (Leontopithecus) studied here exhibited the least variability for these loci, while the monospecific Cebuella showed the most. The genetic distances observed between Callithrix and Cebuella genera support previous evidence indicating a close taxonomic relationship between them. Genetic distance values obtained in this study also support the synonimyzation of the kuhli form with Callithrix jacchus penicillata.     

Molecular phylogeny of the New World monkeys (Platyrrhini, primates) based on two unlinked nuclear genes: IRBP intron 1 and epsilon-globin sequences

Nuclear sequences of the 1.8 kilobase (kb) long intron 1 of the interstitial retinol-binding protein gene (IRBP), previously determined for 11 of the 16 extant genera of New World monkeys (superfamily Ceboidea, infraorder Platyrrhini), have now been determined for the remaining 5 genera. The maximum parsimony trees found, first with IRBP sequences alone and then with tandemly combined IRBP and epsilon-globin gene sequences from the same species, supported a provisional cladistic classification with the following clusters. Subtribes Callitrichina (Callithrix, Cebuella), Callimiconina (Callimico), Leontopithecina (Leontopithecus) and Saguina (Saguinus) constitute subfamily Callitrichinae, and subfamilies Callitrichinae, Aotinae (Aotus), and Cebinae (Cebus, Saimiri) constitute family Cebidae. Subtribes Chiropotina (Chiropotes, Cacajao) and Pitheciina (Pithecia) constitute tribe Pitheciini; and tribes Pitheciini and Callicebini (Callicebus) constitute subfamily Pitheciinae. Subtribes Brachytelina (Brachyteles, Lagothrix) and Atelina (Ateles) constitute tribe Atelini, and tribes Atelini and Alouattini (Alouatta) constitute subfamily Atelinae. The parsimony results were equivocal as to whether Pitheciinae should be grouped with Atelinae in family Atelidae or have its own family Pitheciidae. The cladistic groupings of extant ceboids were also examined by different stochastic evolutionary models that employed the same stochastic process of nucleotide substitutions but alternative putative phylogenetic trees on which the nucleotide substitutions occurred. Each model, i.e., each different tree, predicted a different multinomial distribution of nucleotide character patterns for the contemporary sequences. The predicted distributions that were closest to the actual observed distributions identified the best fitting trees. The cladistic relationships depicted in these best fitting trees agreed in almost all cases with those depicted in the maximum parsimony trees.     

Sequences of the primate epsilon-globin gene: implications for systematics of the marmosets and other New World primates

Sequences of the epsilon-globin gene were determined for five species of marmosets, along with approximately 2 kb of 5' flanking sequence. An analysis of these data, compared with those of other primates strongly supports the classification of Callithrix jacchus and C. geoffroyi into the jacchus group, and C. argentata and C. mauesi into the argentata group. The pygmy marmoset, formerly identified as Cebuella pygmaea joined strongly to the argentata group, indicating that without the pygmy marmoset the genus Callithrix would be paraphyletic. Our data support recent studies which indicate that C. pygmaea should be included in the genus Callithrix. Relationships among other primates were as indicated by previous studies of epsilon-globin sequences. Divergence times were estimated according to a local molecular clock. These calculations indicated the divergence of C. mauesi and C. argentata to be approximately 1.6-1.9 Myr (million years ago), and the most recent common ancestor of the marmosets to be between 4.5 and 4.7 Myr. The latter estimate corresponds well to the date of 4.6 Myr calculated from an independent data set.     

Requirements Engineering and Technology Transfer: Obstacles, Incentives and Improvement Agenda

For many years, research results in requirements engineering (RE) have been developed without much interaction with, or impact on, industrial practice. Why is it so difficult to introduce RE research results into mainstream RE practice? This paper attempts to provide answers to this question by describing obstacles that researchers and practitioners have encountered when they attempted technology transfer. In addition, major incentives for using RE methods are discussed, along with ideas for improving current RE practice. The paper summarises, clarifies and extends the results of two panel discussions, one at the Twelfth Conference on Advanced information Systems Engineering (CAiSE’00) and the other at the Fourth IEEE Conference on Requirements Engineering (ICRE’00).     

Guiding the evolution of product-line configurations

Software and Systems Modeling - A product line is an approach for systematically managing configuration options of customizable systems, usually by means of features. Products are generated for...     

Reducing the Range of Perception in Multi-agent Patrolling Strategies

Multi-Agent Patrolling Problems consist in moving agents throughout a graph in order to optimize a collective performance metric. Some strategies from the literature tackle this problem by dispatching decentralized autonomous agents that coordinate themselves merely by sensing and writing information in the nodes. In this work, they are called k-range local strategies, were k indicates the range, in number of edges, of the agents’ sensing capabilities. The 1-range strategies (where agents can sense up to its neighbor nodes) are certainly the most common case in the literature. And only few 0-range strategies (where agents can only sense its current node) were found, although this type of strategy has the advantage of requiring simpler hardware, when applied in the design of real robots. In this work, we propose two higher-level procedures to reduce the perception range of 1-range strategies to 0: the Zr Method and the EZr Method. Applying both methods in 1-range strategies found in the literature, we created twenty new 0-range strategies, which were evaluated in a simulation experiment described and analyzed here. We also developed a prototype of a low-cost patrolling robot that is able to run the 0-range strategies proposed in this work.     

Polarization microscopy as a tool for quantitative evaluation of collagen using picrosirius red in different stages of CKD in cats

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a relevant disease in feline clinic. The tubulointerstitial damage, with collagen deposition and fibrosis, is an important result of this process. The aim of this study was to quantify and correlate the deposition of collagen and severity of interstitial fibrosis (IF) in the kidney from cats in different stages of CKD. Kidney fragments from 10 adult cats with CKD were analyzed and stained by Masson's trichrome (MT) and Picrosirius red (PSR) for circular polarized microscopy. Random quantitative analysis was performed on MT sections to classify the degree of IF, per field area, with and without circular polarization. Statistics correlations were performed by Spearman's (ρ; p < .05). There was a significant correlation of IF quantification with the area of interstitial collagen deposition by polarized PSR (PSRp) (r = .7939, p = .0098) and nonpolarized PSR (PSRn) (r = .7781, p = .0080). There was a positive correlation of serum creatinine (sCr) at different stages of CKD with PSRp (r = .7939, p = .0098), PSRn (r = .8667, p = .0027) and MT (r = .7818, p = .0117). Correlations between the percentage of quantified area was also positive from PSRp to PSRn (r = .9030, p = .0009) and PSRp to MT (r = .7939, p = .0098). The PSRN was also correlated with MT (r = .9273, p = .0001). The correlation with IF and sCr follows the disease evolution and the quantification of collagen by PSR is an excellent tool for analyzing the disease severity at different stages.     

Supercritical fluid flow in porous media: modeling and simulation

The present work aims the modeling and simulation of supercritical fluid flow through porous media. This type of flow appears in several situations of interest in applied science and engineering, as the supercritical flow in porous materials employed in chromatography, supercritical extraction and petroleum reservoirs. The fluid is constituted of one pure substance, the flow is monophasic, highly compressible and isothermal. The porous media is isotropic, possibly heterogeneous, with rectangular format and the flow is two-dimensional. The heterogeneities of porous media are modeled by a simple power law, which describes the relationship between permeability and porosity. The modeling of the hydrodynamic phenomena incorporates the Darcy's law and the equation of mass conservation. Appropriated correlations are used to model, in a realistic form, the density and the viscosity of the fluid. A conservative finite-difference scheme is used in the discretization of the differential equations. The nonlinearity is treated by Newton method, together with the conjugate gradient method. The results of the simulation for pressure and mobility of supercritical and liquid propane flowing through porous media are presented, analyzed and graphically depicted.