Herniation of the Anterior Wall of the Stomach into a Congenital Postdiaphragmatic Space: An Unusual Complication following Laparoscopic Nissen Fundoplication

Postoperative herniation of the stomach into potential spaces is a rare but serious complication of Nissen fundoplication. We report a 55-year-old female who presented with persistent vomiting shortly following laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication. At laparotomy, the anterior wall of the stomach was noted to be herniating into a congenital space behind the diaphragm. Anterior gastropexy was performed following the reduction of the herniating gastric segment. A high index of suspicion followed by aggressive and timely intervention is necessary to diagnose and manage postoperative gastric herniation and reduce the subsequent morbidity and mortality

Polymorphisms of androgens-related genes and idiopathic male infertility in Turkish men

Androgens, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) are endocrine regulators of spermatogenesis and act via androgen receptor (AR). The aim of this study was to investigate the association(s) of AR (CAG repeat length), SRD5A2 (rs523349, V89L) and TNF-α (rs1800629, -308G/A) polymorphisms with idiopathic male infertility in Turkish men. This case-control study consisted of 312 men with idiopathic infertility and 113 fertile men. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) or PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism methods were used for genotyping. The mean AR CAG repeat length was significantly longer in infertile men than in fertile men (p = 0.015). However, there was no significant association between the SRD5A2 genotypes (VV, VL and LL) and the risk of infertility (p = 0.516). The genotype frequency and allele distribution of TNF-α -308G/A polymorphism (GG, GA, AA genotypes and G, A alleles) were not associated with male infertility (p = 0.779 and p = 0.743 respectively). AR CAG repeat expansion might be one of the risk factors for idiopathic male infertility in Turkish men. Further studies investigating the association of male infertility with AR CAG, V89L and -308G/A polymorphisms are warranted to understand the possible associations among them

Future Opportunities for Port City Development: A Reciprocal Evaluationfor Competitive Advantage for Malaysian Seaports

The seaport is a crucial feature of economic progress since it facilitates commerce, provides additionalbenefits to a port and city and enables domestic and international companies to expand their openingsin the market. One of Malaysia?s least urbanised areas is the East Coast Region (ECR) of the Penin-sular, which is also experiencing several development challenges. For instance, many inhabitants arepoor or unemployed, while many households suffer from a low income. The region also is underde-veloped in logistical and transportation terms, as well as in its infrastructure and related facilities. Thisstudy presents an analysis of how the ?port city? has been defined, the ways that ports and cities existsymbiotically, and the principal influences over the way port cities develop. This study employed semi-structured interviews with 14 respondents, the majority of whom possessed considerable knowledgeand experience in the related field. The result shows that eight factors influence port city development,such as facilities and infrastructure; relationships; port city planning; port performance and competi-tion; green environment and quality of life; population growth; port city attractions and benchmarking.In addition, the port-city reciprocation needs to be strengthened to boost economic growth in the ECRof Peninsular Malaysi

THE ESTIMATION OF GENETIC DISTANCE BETWEEN GERMAN CATTLE BREEDS

Za budući izbor uzgoja potrebno je očuvanje genetske raznolikosti u životinja. U filogenetskim proučavanjima mikrosateliti su dokazani kao snažno sredstvo. (Bowcock et al. 1994.). Procjena genetskih udaljenosti što se temelji na učestalosti alela mikrosatelitskih markera pomoći će u procjeni veličine razlika između usko povezanih pasmina stoke. Pasmina Shorthom i Angler mogu se identificirati kao sporedne pasmine, pa je stoga razvoj programa očuvanja vrlo koristan. Prilagođenje pasmine Orginal Black Pied još nije jasno. Odredit će se dodatni markeri kako bi se povećala točnost procjene. Niti vrijednosti udaljenosti između Holsteina i mliječnog Red Pied niti slični uzgojni ciljevi čini se da nisu razuman razlog da se ove pasmine drže odijeljeno. Ovaj će rad biti od pomoći u odlučivanju o očuvanju pasmina u posebnim programima očuvanja konzervacijom in vivo i in vitro

Harnessing genomics to improve health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region – an executive course in genomics policy

BACKGROUND: While innovations in medicine, science and technology have resulted in improved health and quality of life for many people, the benefits of modern medicine continue to elude millions of people in many parts of the world. To assess the potential of genomics to address health needs in EMR, the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office and the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics jointly organized a Genomics and Public Health Policy Executive Course, held September 20(th)–23(rd), 2003, in Muscat, Oman. The 4-day course was sponsored by WHO-EMRO with additional support from the Canadian Program in Genomics and Global Health. The overall objective of the course was to collectively explore how to best harness genomics to improve health in the region. This article presents the course findings and recommendations for genomics policy in EMR. METHODS: The course brought together senior representatives from academia, biotechnology companies, regulatory bodies, media, voluntary, and legal organizations to engage in discussion. Topics covered included scientific advances in genomics, followed by innovations in business models, public sector perspectives, ethics, legal issues and national innovation systems. RESULTS: A set of recommendations, summarized below, was formulated for the Regional Office, the Member States and for individuals. • Advocacy for genomics and biotechnology for political leadership; • Networking between member states to share information, expertise, training, and regional cooperation in biotechnology; coordination of national surveys for assessment of health biotechnology innovation systems, science capacity, government policies, legislation and regulations, intellectual property policies, private sector activity; • Creation in each member country of an effective National Body on genomics, biotechnology and health to: - formulate national biotechnology strategies - raise biotechnology awareness - encourage teaching and training of biotechnology - devise integration of biotechnology within national health systems. CONCLUSION: The recommendations provide the basis for a road map for EMR to take steps to harness biotechnology for better and more equitable health. As a result of these recommendations, health ministers from the region, at the 50th Regional Committee Meeting held in October 2003, have urged Member States to establish national bodies of biotechnology to formulate a strategic vision for developing biotechnology in the service of the region's health. These efforts promise to raise the profile of genomics in EMR and increase regional cooperation in this exciting new field

Theorising Women’s Health and health inequalities: shaping processes of the ‘gender-biology nexus’

Since the theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools we employ shape research outcomes by guiding research pathways, it is important that we subject them to ongoing critical reflection. A thoroughgoing analysis of the global production of women's health inequality calls for a comprehensive theorization of how social relations of gender and the biological body mutually interact in local contexts in a nexus with women's health. However, to date, the predominant concern of research has been to identify the biological effects of social relations of gender on the body, to the relative neglect of the co-constitutive role that these biological changes themselves may play in ongoing cycles of gendered health oppressions. Drawing on feminist and gender theoretical approaches, and with the health of women and girls as our focus, we seek to extend our understanding of this recursive process by discussing what we call the 'shaping processes' of the 'gender-biology nexus' which call attention to not only the 'gender-shaping of biology' but also the 'biologic-shaping of gender'. We consider female genital mutilation/cutting as an illustration of this process and conclude by proposing that a framework which attends to both the 'gender-shaping of biology' and the 'biologic-shaping of gender' as interweaving processes provides a fruitful approach to theorising the wider health inequalities experienced by women and girls

Extracting diverse attribute-value information from product catalog text via transfer learning

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2017.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-64).E-commerce sites are increasingly becoming the norm for how consumers search, purchase, and review products. Such sites internally list millions of products, creating a torrent of product options that can overwhelm a browsing consumer. To facilitate their search, it helps to annotate each product with a table of attributes describing general features such as color, size, etc. However, the tables must be provided by the merchant, so there is a business incentive to automate this task by extracting attribute-value information directly from product titles and descriptions. However, while past methods have done extraction for only a handful of attributes, in practice their exists hundreds of diverse attributes. In this thesis, we present a single model for extracting information on all attributes. In addition, we show that incorporating extra information about intra-attribute similarity improves performance for data-poor attributes.by Abdi-Hakin A. Dirie.M. Eng