Transanal total mesorectal excision with triangle rules: a road map to prevent injuries

[Extract] Transanal total mesorectal excision (TaTME) is presented as a promising new surgical technique for the approach to the distal rectum, providing the ability to perform a highquality resection, with technical advantages over the laparoscopic approach. However, the new surgical anatomy of the TaTME resection complicates surgical understanding and increases the risks of inadvertent injuries to important anatomic structures...info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Wintertime Southern Hemisphere Split Jet: Structure, Variability, and Evolution

A persistent feature of the Southern Hemisphere upper-level time-mean flow is the presence of a split jet across the South Pacific east of Australia during the austral winter. The split jet is composed of the subtropical jet (STJ) on its equatorward branch and the polar front jet (PFJ) on its poleward branch. The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis is used to investigate the structure and evolution of the split jet. Results show that the presence/absence of the PFJ determines the degree of split flow, given that the STJ is a quasi-steady feature. A split-flow index (SFI) is developed to quantify the variability of the split jet, in which negative values represent strong split flow and positive values nonsplit flow. Correlations with teleconnection indices are investigated, with the SFI positively correlated to the Southern Oscillation index and negatively correlated to the Antarctic oscillation. The SFI is used to construct composites of heights, temperature, and wind for split-flow and non-split-flow days. The composites reveal that relatively cold conditions occur in the South Pacific in association with non-split-flow regimes, and split-flow regimes occur when relatively warm conditions prevail. In the latter situation cold air bottled up over Antarctica helps to augment the background tropospheric thickness gradient between Antarctica and the lower latitudes with a resulting increase in the thermal wind and the PFJ. It is surmised that frequent cold surges out of Antarctica moving into the South Pacific are associated with non-split-flow regimes. In this context, the variability of the split jet responds to large-scale baroclinic processes and is further modulated by synoptic-scale disturbances

Cryptographic enforcement of information flow policies without public information via tree partitions

We may enforce an information flow policy by encrypting a protected resource and ensuring that only users authorized by the policy are able to decrypt the resource. In most schemes in the literature that use symmetric cryptographic primitives, each user is assigned a single secret and derives decryption keys using this secret and publicly available information. Recent work has challenged this approach by developing schemes, based on a chain partition of the information flow policy, that do not require public information for key derivation, the trade-off being that a user may need to be assigned more than one secret. In general, many different chain partitions exist for the same policy and, until now, it was not known how to compute an appropriate one. In this paper, we introduce the notion of a tree partition, of which chain partitions are a special case. We show how a tree partition may be used to define a cryptographic enforcement scheme and prove that such schemes can be instantiated in such a way as to preserve the strongest security properties known for cryptographic enforcement schemes. We establish a number of results linking the amount of secret material that needs to be distributed to users with a weighted acyclic graph derived from the tree partition. These results enable us to develop efficient algorithms for deriving tree and chain partitions that minimize the amount of secret material that needs to be distributed.Comment: Extended version of conference papers from ACNS 2015 and DBSec 201

Evidence for Two Modes of Synergistic Induction of Apoptosis by Mapatumumab and Oxaliplatin in Combination with Hyperthermia in Human Colon Cancer Cells

Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the world-- the main cause of death from colorectal cancer is hepatic metastases, which can be treated with isolated hepatic perfusion (IHP). Searching for the most clinically relevant approaches for treating colorectal metastatic disease by isolated hepatic perfusion (IHP), we developed the application of oxaliplatin concomitantly with hyperthermia and humanized death receptor 4 (DR4) antibody mapatumumab (Mapa), and investigated the molecular mechanisms of this multimodality treatment in human colon cancer cell lines CX-1 and HCT116 as well as human colon cancer stem cells Tu-12, Tu-21 and Tu-22. We showed here, in this study, that the synergistic effect of the multimodality treatment-induced apoptosis was caspase dependent and activated death signaling via both the extrinsic apoptotic pathway and the intrinsic pathway. Death signaling was activated by c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling which led to Bcl-xL phosphorylation at serine 62, decreasing the anti-apoptotic activity of Bcl-xL, which contributed to the intrinsic pathway. The downregulation of cellular FLICE inhibitory protein long isoform (c-FLIPL) in the extrinsic pathway was accomplished through ubiquitination at lysine residue (K) 195 and protein synthesis inhibition. Overexpression of c-FLIPL mutant (K195R) and Bcl-xL mutant (S62A) completely abrogated the synergistic effect. The successful outcome of this study supports the application of multimodality strategy to patients with colorectal hepatic metastases who fail to respond to standard chemoradiotherapy that predominantly targets the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. © 2013 Song et al

A Formal Study of the Privacy Concerns in Biometric-Based Remote Authentication Schemes

With their increasing popularity in cryptosystems, biometrics have attracted more and more attention from the information security community. However, how to handle the relevant privacy concerns remains to be troublesome. In this paper, we propose a novel security model to formalize the privacy concerns in biometric-based remote authentication schemes. Our security model covers a number of practical privacy concerns such as identity privacy and transaction anonymity, which have not been formally considered in the literature. In addition, we propose a general biometric-based remote authentication scheme and prove its security in our security model

Impaired perceptual learning in a mouse model of Fragile X syndrome is mediated by parvalbumin neuron dysfunction and is reversible.

To uncover the circuit-level alterations that underlie atypical sensory processing associated with autism, we adopted a symptom-to-circuit approach in the Fmr1-knockout (Fmr1-/-) mouse model of Fragile X syndrome. Using a go/no-go task and in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, we find that impaired visual discrimination in Fmr1-/- mice correlates with marked deficits in orientation tuning of principal neurons and with a decrease in the activity of parvalbumin interneurons in primary visual cortex. Restoring visually evoked activity in parvalbumin cells in Fmr1-/- mice with a chemogenetic strategy using designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs was sufficient to rescue their behavioral performance. Strikingly, human subjects with Fragile X syndrome exhibit impairments in visual discrimination similar to those in Fmr1-/- mice. These results suggest that manipulating inhibition may help sensory processing in Fragile X syndrome

Será que a soja aumenta as contagens sanguíneas em síndrome mielodisplásica?

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of clonal stem cell diseases characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis, bone marrow hyperproliferation, cytopenias in peripheral blood and risk of transformation into acute leukemia. We decided to investigate the effects of a soy concentrate on MDS patients based on the follow-up results of a 61 year-old Japanese female patient who was diagnosed with MDS and refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia in 2003 (hemoglobin = 11g/dL; white blood cells count = 2,500/uL and platelets = 25,000/uL; marrow with mild dysplasia and normal karyotype; paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria was excluded). She started using soy as a dietary supplementation in May 2004 and presented a gradual increment in blood counts, achieving normalization approximately eight months afterwards. Among the soy components, the main compounds with anti-carcinogenic activity are the isoflavones (genistein and daidzein). Based on these lines of evidence, we proposed to administer daily a standard soy concentrate to 14 MDS out-patients for a minimum period of three months and maximum of 12 months, in an attempt to evaluate prospectively the possible increase in hemoglobin, neutrophils and platelet counts. A historical control group was used to compare results. The use of a soy concentrate in a standardized manner was associated with an increase in neutrophil and/or platelet counts in some cases, but spontaneous increments were also observed in historical controls. This preliminary study does not allow establishing a relation between soy supplementation and blood cell count increase.As síndromes mielodisplásicas (SMD) são um grupo das doenças clonais de células-tronco caracterizado por hematopoese ineficaz, hiperproliferação de medula óssea, citopenias no sangue periférico e risco de transformação para leucemia aguda. Decidimos investigar os efeitos de um concentrado de soja em pacientes com SMD com base no fato de termos o seguimento de uma paciente japonesa, de 61 anos de idade, que foi diagnosticada em 2003 com SMD, citopenia refratária com displasia subtipo multilinhagens (hemoglobina = 11 g/dL; contagem de glóbulos brancos = 2.500/uL e plaquetas = 25.000/uL; medula com displasia leve e cariótipo normal; hemoglobinúria paroxística excluída), e que começou a usar a soja como suplemento alimentar em maio de 2004, apresentando gradual aumento da contagem das células sanguíneas, atingindo a normalização cerca de oito meses depois. Entre os componentes da soja, os principais compostos com propriedades anticarcinogênese são as isoflavonas (Ge nisteína e daidzeína). Com base nessas linhas de evidência, foi proposto oferecer diariamente um concentrado de soja padrão, por um período mínimo de três meses e máximo de doze meses, a 14 pacientes ambulatoriais, na tentativa de avaliar, prospectivamente, o possível aumento de hemoglobina, neutrófilos e plaquetas. Um grupo controle histórico foi utilizado para comparar os resultados. O uso de um concentrado de soja de forma padronizada foi associado ao aumento na contagem de neutrófilos e/ou de plaquetas em alguns casos, mas aumentos espontâneos também foram observados em controles históricos. Este estudo preliminar não permite estabelecer relação entre o uso de soja e o aumento na contagem sanguínea.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de Medicina Hematologia e HemoterapiaEmpresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de SojaInstituto FleuryUniversidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM) Departamento de MedicinaUNIFESP, EPM, Hematologia e HemoterapiaUNIFESP, EPM, Depto. de MedicinaSciEL

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far