Bone Mineral Density in Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis: Incidence and Correlation with Demographic and Clinical Variables

Objective: To evaluate bone mineral density (BMD) in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and determine its correlation with the demographic and clinical characteristics of AS. Patients and Methods: Demographic, clinical and osteodensitometric data were evaluated in a cross-sectional study that included 136 patients with AS. Spine and hip BMD were measured by means of dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Using the modified Schober’s test we assessed spine mobility. We examined the sacroiliac, anteroposterior and lateral dorso-lumbar spine radiographs in order to grade sacroiliitis and assess syndesmophytes. Disease activity was evaluated using C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). Demographic data and BMD measurements were compared with those of 167 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Results: Patients with AS had a significantly lower BMD at the spine, femoral neck, trochanter and total hip as compared to age-matched controls (all p<0.01). According to the WHO classification, osteoporosis was present in 20.6% of the AS patients at the lumbar spine and in 14.6% at the femoral neck. There were no significant differences in BMD when comparing men and women with AS, except for trochanter BMD that was lower in female patients. No correlations were found between disease activity markers (ESR, CRP) and BMD. Femoral neck BMD was correlated with disease duration, Schober’s test and sacroiliitis grade. Conclusion: Patients with AS have a lower spine and hip BMD as compared to age- and sex-matched controls. Bone loss at the femoral neck is associated with disease duration and more severe AS

Weak Projections onto a Braided Hopf Algebra

We show that, under some mild conditions, a bialgebra in an abelian and coabelian braided monoidal category has a weak projection onto a formally smooth (as a coalgebra) sub-bialgebra with antipode; see Theorem 1.12. In the second part of the paper we prove that bialgebras with weak projections are cross product bialgebras; see Theorem 2.12. In the particular case when the bialgebra $A$ is cocommutative and a certain cocycle associated to the weak projection is trivial we prove that $A$ is a double cross product, or biproduct in Madjid's terminology. The last result is based on a universal property of double cross products which, by Theorem 2.15, works in braided monoidal categories. We also investigate the situation when the right action of the associated matched pair is trivial

Cotensor Coalgebras in Monoidal Categories

We introduce the concept of cotensor coalgebra for a given bicomodule over a coalgebra in an abelian monoidal category. Under some further conditions we show that such a cotensor coalgebra exists and satisfies a meaningful universal property. We prove that this coalgebra is formally smooth whenever the comodule is relative injective and the coalgebra itself is formally smooth

Some analogs of Zariski's Theorem on nodal line arrangements

For line arrangements in P^2 with nice combinatorics (in particular, for those which are nodal away the line at infinity), we prove that the combinatorics contains the same information as the fundamental group together with the meridianal basis of the abelianization. We consider higher dimensional analogs of the above situation. For these analogs, we give purely combinatorial complete descriptions of the following topological invariants (over an arbitrary field): the twisted homology of the complement, with arbitrary rank one coefficients; the homology of the associated Milnor fiber and Alexander cover, including monodromy actions; the coinvariants of the first higher non-trivial homotopy group of the Alexander cover, with the induced monodromy action.Comment: Published by Algebraic and Geometric Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/AGTVol5/agt-5-28.abs.htm

First Evidence of Reproductive Adaptation to “Island Effect” of a Dwarf Cretaceous Romanian Titanosaur, with Embryonic Integument In Ovo

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>The Cretaceous vertebrate assemblages of Romania are famous for geographically endemic dwarfed dinosaur taxa. We report the first complete egg clutches of a dwarf lithostrotian titanosaur, from Toteşti, Romania, and its reproductive adaptation to the “island effect”.</p> <h3>Methodology/Findings</h3><p>The egg clutches were discovered in sequential sedimentary layers of the Maastrichtian Sânpetru Formation, Toteşti. The occurrence of 11 homogenous clutches in successive strata suggests philopatry by the same dinosaur species, which laid clutches averaging four ∼12 cm diameters eggs. The eggs and eggshells display numerous characters shared with the positively identified material from egg-bearing level 4 of the Auca Mahuevo (Patagonia, Argentina) nemegtosaurid lithostrotian nesting site. Microscopic embryonic integument with bacterial evidences was recovered in one egg. The millimeter-size embryonic integument displays micron size dermal papillae implying an early embryological stage at the time of death, likely corresponding to early organogenesis before the skeleton formation.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>The shared oological characters between the Haţeg specimens and their mainland relatives suggest a highly conservative reproductive template, while the nest decrease in egg numbers per clutch may reflect an adaptive trait to a smaller body size due to the “island effect”. The combined presence of the lithostrotian egg and its embryo in the Early Cretaceous Gobi coupled with the oological similarities between the Haţeg and Auca Mahuevo oological material evidence that several titanosaur species migrated from Gondwana through the Haţeg Island before or during the Aptian/Albian. It also suggests that this island might have had episodic land bridges with the rest of the European archipelago and Asia deep into the Cretaceous.</p> </div

Unele aspect ale bilingvismului în zona limbilor română şi sîrbocroată

En parlant de ce problème nous allons souligner - en premier lieu l' influence serbocroate sur la langue roumaine (et non pas l' influence inverse), parce que nous avons examiné la zone qui était longtemps sous l' influence de la langue serbo-croate. La zone qui nous intéresse pour l' instant, c' est le Banat, c' est-à-dire le cóté yougoslave de cette région, tandis que de l' autre côté, en Banat Roumain, on rencontre une situation différente. Précisons qu' ici nous n' allons pas traiter des problèmes du bilinguisme en Serbie, au sud du Danube, où nous avons affaire avec une problématique speciale. Comme nous avons déjà délimité la zone de l' intérêt linguistique que nous allons examiner, il faut d' abord expliquer les conditions historiques dans lesquelles se sont développés les procès linguistiques.Observaţiile autorilor se bazeazii pe cercetarea fenomenului de bilingvism în zona Voivodinei si se sprijină pe exemple concrete luate din publicaţiile oficiale de expresie românească şi pe anchetarea studenţilor bilingvi care frecventează cursurile de limba română la Universitatea din Belgrad. Influîenta limbii sîrbocroate este simţită în special în domeniul lexical şi sintactic, partea morfologică şi fonetică a limbii fiind mai stabilă. Cea mai frecventă particularitate lingvistică este cea a calchierii sub diferite aspecte: -folosirea construcţiilor verbale în locul celor nominale; calchierea regimului verbelor, a anumitor sintagme, prepoziţii, a diatezei; schimbarea genului substantivelor după eel din sirbocroată; folosires incorectă a determinării proclitice prin articol; absenţa pronumelui de politeţe; împrumutarea cuvintelor noi datorate progresului tehnico- ştiinţific, din sîrbocroată, etc