Facial myokymia and spastic paretic facial contracture as the result of anaplastic pontocerebellar glioma

The case of a 36-year-old man who sought treatment of right facial myokymia and spastic paretic facial contracture is reported. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed a tumor located in the right cerebellar peduncle and the right dorsal pons bulging into the fourth ventricle. After microsurgical partial resection of the mass, which was verified histologically as an anaplastic glioma, facial myokymia initially ceased. The vermicular rippling movements were less intense upon recurrence and could be controlled by low-dose dexamethasone in the further course, when magnetic resonance imaging showed an interstitial pontine edema after percutaneous radiation therapy. It is assumed that facial myokymia and spastic paretic facial contracture were generated by ectopic activity due to alterations in the microenvironment at the intrapontine portion of the axons of the seventh nerve caused by the compressive effect of the tumor and later by edema.     

Biodegradation of chlorpyrifos by either single or combined cultures of some soilborne plant pathogenic fungi

Biodegradation of chlorpyrifos was studied in liquid culture media amended with either single or combined eight different plant pathogenic fungi isolated from the continuous cropping wheat fields. The average recovery of chlorpyrifos from the liquid media was found to be 86.1%. The detection limit of chlorpyrifos by the analytical method used was 19 ppb. Data showed that the growth of mixed fungi at concentrations up to 200 ppm of chlorpyrifos was higher than in the control treatment. Chlorpyrifos concentrations declined in the medium of combined fungi more than it did in the medium of any single fungus with increase in the incubation period. The amount of chlorpyrifos recovered was 79.8 ppm (39.9%) in the combined fungal cultures after 21 days. However, those recovered from the media of Fusarium graminearum, F. oxysporum, Rhizoctonia solani, Cladosporium cladosporiodes, Cephalosporium sp., Trichoderma viridi, Alternaria alternata, and Cladorrhinum brunnescens, ranged from 48.0 to 74.8%. The half-life value (T1/2) for chlorpyrifos was 15.8 day in the medium amended with mixed fungi. However, for the single cultures it ranged from 19.3 to 33.0 day.     

Limit load analysis of strength undermatched welded T-joints under bending

An increasing amount of laser beam welded T‐joints (e.g. skin‐stringer) of aluminium alloys are now in use in advanced fuselage applications designed as ‘integral structures’ for weight and cost savings. It is known that weld joints generally show lower strength (undermatching) than base metal in both laser beam and friction stir welded joints of 6xxx series Al‐alloys. Damage tolerance considerations in terms of the residual strength of such joints require limit load solutions to be used in engineering fitness‐for‐service (FFS) analysis. The paper, therefore, provides an upper bound limit load solution in closed form for welded T‐joints (idealized) with strength undermatching and subject to a bending moment. In addition to the necessary requirements of the upper bound theorem, the kinematically admissible velocity field chosen leads to a stress field, which satisfies the equilibrium equations and some stress boundary conditions in the plastic zone. This is an advantage of the solution and, therefore, it is expected that the upper bound obtained is close to the exact limit load of such joints.     

Gastrointestinal autonomic nerve tumour presenting as small bowel volvulus: a rare disease with a rare presentation

A 78-year-old Chinese woman presented with recurrent postprandial abdominal pain. Computerised tomography revealed a small bowel tumour causing volvulus of a segment of the small bowel. Laparotomy confirmed an extraluminal ileal tumour with partial volvulus of the involved small bowel segment. Small bowel resection was done. Histological and ultrastructural studies confirmed a gastrointestinal autonomic nerve tumour. We review the medical literature on this rare tumour.     

Longitudinal bone mineral density changes in early rheumatoid arthritis

A prospective longitudinal study of patients with early RA was performed to examine the influence of disease duration, disease activity and physical activity on bone loss. Sixty-seven patients with non-steroid treated RA of less than 5 yr duration, including 16 patients with disease duration less than 6 months, had BMD measurements of the femoral neck and the lumbar spine over a 12-month period using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. The BMD changes were compared with values from 72 control patients and were also correlated with serial measurements of disease activity (measured by the Stoke Index) and disability [measured by the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) score], at 3-monthly intervals over the 12-month period. No significant differences in BMD changes were found between RA patients and controls overall. Patients with disease duration of less than 6 months had significantly greater loss of BMD at the femoral neck (-3.9%, S.E.M. 1.5) than the remainder of the cohort (-0.2%, S.E.M. 0.7) (P = 0.02) and controls (-0.8%, S.E.M. 0.6). Lumbar spine BMD changes correlated with the initial Stoke Index (Rs-0.373, P = 0.01) but not mean Stoke Indices. There was no correlation of BMD changes with age or HAQ scores. These findings suggest that significant bone loss occurs within the first few months of disease in patients with RA.     

A genetic algorithm for multiple molecular sequence alignment

MOTIVATION: Multiple molecular sequence alignment is among the most important and most challenging tasks in computational biology. The currently used alignment techniques are characterized by great computational complexity, which prevents their wider use. This research is aimed at developing a new technique for efficient multiple sequence alignment. APPROACH: The new method is based on genetic algorithms. Genetic algorithms are stochastic approaches for efficient and robust searching. By converting biomolecular sequence alignment into a problem of searching for optimal or near-optimal points in an 'alignment space', a genetic algorithm can be used to find good alignments very efficiently. RESULTS: Experiments on real data sets have shown that the average computing time of this technique may be two or three orders lower than that of a technique based on pairwise dynamic programming, while the alignment qualities are very similar. AVAILABILITY: A C program on UNIX has been written to implement the technique. It is available on request from the authors.