Outcome of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis following autologous stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancy

Based on successful results in animal models, it has been proposed that high-dose myeloablative therapy followed by autologous bone marrow or stem cell transplantation (ABMT/ASCT) may cure autoimmune disease. The coexistence of autoimmune disease and hematologic malignancy provides an opportunity to examine the response of autoimmune disease to ABMT or ASCT. We describe 4 patients with autoimmune disease (3 with psoriasis and 1 with rheumatoid arthritis) and hematologic malignancy. In each patient, the autoimmune disease remitted posttransplantation, but, in 4 patients with long-term followup, it recurred at 8-24 months. The earliest relapse occurred in a patient treated with interferon-alpha. Our experience suggests that a single autograft with unpurged stem cells is unlikely to cure autoimmune disease, but that other strategies building on this approach are worthy of investigation.     

TopCat: data mining for topic identification in a text corpus

TopCat (topic categories) is a technique for identifying topics that recur in articles in a text corpus. Natural language processing techniques are used to identify key entities in individual articles, allowing us to represent an article as a set of items. This allows us to view the problem in a database/data mining context: Identifying related groups of items. We present a novel method for identifying related items based on traditional data mining techniques. Frequent itemsets are generated from the groups of items, followed by clusters formed with a hypergraph partitioning scheme. We present an evaluation against a manually categorized ground truth news corpus; it shows this technique is effective in identifying topics in collections of news articles.     

Retention of Free Liquids in Landfills Undergoing Vertical Expansion

This paper presents the results of an evaluation of the potential release of liquids stored within a waste mass undergoing compression due to a landfill vertical expansion. The mechanism of free liquid generation is initially evaluated and data interpretation methods are developed to estimate the maximum allowable waste thickness that a landfill could reach without releasing liquids stored within the waste. The proposed conceptual framework of free liquid generation is used to evaluate the environmental implications of the vertical expansion of an unlined case history landfill located in southern California. The moisture content of waste in southern California landfills is generally below field capacity. However, if the waste is compressed, its available moisture-holding capacity will decrease and its moisture content may eventually reach field capacity. Additional compression beyond this point will squeeze liquid from the waste. Laboratory testing and field characterization programs were undertaken to evaluate the field capacity, the in-situ moisture distribution, and the unit weight profiles of the waste in the case history landfill. These experimental data were used to evaluate the ability of the landfill to continue to retain moisture after continued waste placement. The evaluation indicated that the moisture content of the waste will not reach its field capacity for the proposed final grading of the case history landfill and, therefore, that the liquids should remain within the waste mass after the vertical expansion.     

Malignant meningioma in Gorlin's syndrome: cytogenetic and p53 gene analysis. Case report

Gorlin's syndrome, also known as multiple basal cell carcinoma syndrome, is a familial tumor condition with autosomal-dominant inheritance. Patients develop multiple basal cell carcinomas beginning in childhood. They also have a typical dysmorphic facies, skeletal malformations, and a particular type of epithelial cyst of the jaws. Recent evidence localizes a Gorlin's syndrome locus on chromosome 9 at band q31. Both tumors and malformations of the central nervous system occur with Gorlin's syndrome. Medulloblastoma is the primary brain tumor most frequently associated with this syndrome; over 40 such cases have been reported. However, only seven cases of meningioma associated with Gorlin's syndrome have been described. The authors report the case of a woman with Gorlin's syndrome whose mother and maternal grandfather also had the condition. The patient was found to have a medulloblastoma at 4 years of age and presented with a large bifrontal meningioma at 19 years of age. The meningioma was histologically malignant and had a complex karyotype with multiple translocations including a t(5;9) with the breakpoint on chromosome 9 located at 9q32. The constitutional karyotype of the mother was normal. No mutations of exons 5 to 9 of the p53 gene were detected using single-stranded conformational polymorphism analysis.     

Kaposi's sarcoma in women with AIDS

OBJECTIVE: To describe the presentation and incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in a cohort of women infected with HIV and to compare their clinical characteristics with men at the same institution. DESIGN: Retrospective chart and database review. SETTING: Adult clinical AIDS program outpatient clinics at a municipal teaching hospital. RESULTS: One hundred and seven people with KS were found of whom twelve (11.2%) were women. The prevalence of KS in women was 3.6% compared with 9.9% among men (P < 0.001). Women born outside the United States were at increased risk of developing KS (P < 0.05). At initial KS presentation, no difference in HIV stage or CD4 count was found between men and women. Women presented with more advanced KS than men, with increased incidence of non-cutaneous disease (P < 0.001), lymphedema (P < 0.0001), lymph-node disease (P < 0.0001) and visceral disease (P = 0.03). Women had decreased survival after KS diagnosis compared to men, although the difference was not significant (P = 0.41). CONCLUSIONS: KS is not a rare diagnosis in HIV-infected women followed at our institution. Although the increased risk of KS in men is most likely to be related to differences in exposure, the sex-related differences in presentation and course may be due in part to delay in diagnosis. KS should be considered in the spectrum of HIV-related complications in women as well as in men.     

Behavior of the rat after removal of the neocortex and hippocampal formation.

A study with 55 adult male hooded rats showed that after surgical removal of the neocortex and hippocampal formation, Ss retained most of the movement patterns of locomotion, climbing, grooming, feeding, and fighting. However, forepaw immobility during swimming was abolished. Feeding behavior was suppressed temporarily but recovered partially. The distinctive postures of sleep and waking and a circadian rhythm of motor activity were retained. However, behaviors were often not performed at the appropriate time and place. The normal sequence of grooming behavior was disrupted; food hoarding and social behavior were essentially abolished. Removal of the neocortex alone had much the same effect as removal of neocortex and hippocampus together. Removal of hippocampus alone produced only a mild disruption of behavior. It is suggested that ascending nonspecific projections to the cerebral cortex play an important role in the moment-to-moment control of behavior but are not essential for the sleep–waking cycle. (1? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)