Management of incidental adrenal tumours.

An incidental adrenal tumour, described in this article as an “adrenal incidentaloma,” is an adrenal mass discovered during imaging that was not performed for suspected adrenal disease. These are being detected more frequently in an ageing population through the increased use of computed tomography (eg, computed tomography urogram, or colonoscopy) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans with enhanced resolution. This article highlights the management of adrenal incidentalomas, collating recommendations from international guidelines, and is aimed at non-specialists

Analysis of some selected toxic metals in registered herbal products manufactured in Nigeria

The use of herbal medicine has been on the increase in many developing and industrialized countries and Nigerians in particular has been using herbal medicine for many centuries. The approval of these herbal remedies by regulatory bodies has further encouraged the use of herbal remedies. The safety of these herbal remedies is however poorly understood. This study investigated the concentration of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury in twenty registered ready to use herbal products. Twenty brands of herbal remedies were purchased randomly from the Pharmacy shops in Lagos, digested with aquaregia (3:1 HCl: HNO3) and were analysed using atomic absorption spectroscopy (Buck 205 Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer). There was no detectable lead in any of the 20 herbal samples; however, all the samples contained a detectable amount of one or more of the other metals of interest. The Oral Component Limit (OCL) for arsenic, cadmium and mercury as stated by USP are 1.5, 0.5 and 1.5 μg/g, respectively. All the samples contained arsenic and mercury below the USP OCL, while sixtyfive percent contained cadmium out of which fifty-five percent were above USP OCL. The results obtained from this study suggest a significant risk to consumers’ health considering the toxicity of these heavy metals.Key words: Herbal remedies, toxic heavy metals, atomic absorption spectrophotometry

Prévalence de l’hépatite B chez les personnes infectées par le VIH à Parakou au Bénin

Introduction: la co-infection avec l'hépatite B est l'un des défis majeurs de la prise en charge du VIH depuis l'amélioration de l'accès aux  antirétroviraux en Afrique. La présente étude visait à estimer la prévalence de l'hépatite B chez les personnes séropositives au VIH à Parakou et décrire les facteurs associés. Méthodes: il s'agit d'une étude transversale menée de Mai 2011 à Juin 2012 dans le service de Médecine du CHU de Parakou. Ont été inclus tous les adultes séropositifs au VIH vus en  consultation ou hospitalisés. Les données ont été collectées par interviews et dépouillement de dossiers médicaux. L'antigène HBs a été recherché par un test rapide et l'ALAT a été dosé. L'analyse des données a été faite avec le logiciel EpiInfo 3.5.1. Les proportions ont été comparées grâce au test de Chi-deux ou au test de Fisher au seuil de significativité de 5%. Un modèle de régression logistique multivariable a permis d'expliquer la prévalence de l'hépatite B.Résultats: sur les 744 sujets inclus on a dénombré 555 femmes. L'âge moyen était de 35,5 + 10,1 ans. La  prévalence de l'hépatite B a été estimée à 16,9% (IC95 : 14,3%-19,9%). Cette prévalence était plus élevée chez les sujets originaires du  Borgou/Alibori et ceux au stade 4 de l'OMS. Conclusion: la prévalence de la co-infection VIH/VHB au CHU Parakou est élevée. Le dispositif national de prise en charge et de prévention de l'hépatite B chez les personnes  séropositives au VIH doit être renforcé

Cosmic rays and molecular clouds

This paper deals with the cosmic-ray penetration into molecular clouds and with the related gamma--ray emission. High energy cosmic rays interact with the dense gas and produce neutral pions which in turn decay into two gamma rays. This makes molecular clouds potential sources of gamma rays, especially if they are located in the vicinity of a powerful accelerator that injects cosmic rays in the interstellar medium. The amplitude and duration in time of the cosmic--ray overdensity around a given source depend on how quickly cosmic rays diffuse in the turbulent galactic magnetic field. For these reasons, gamma-ray observations of molecular clouds can be used both to locate the sources of cosmic rays and to constrain the properties of cosmic-ray diffusion in the Galaxy.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the San Cugat Forum on Astrophysics 2012, 27 pages, 10 figure

Coordinated optimization of visual cortical maps (I) Symmetry-based analysis

In the primary visual cortex of primates and carnivores, functional architecture can be characterized by maps of various stimulus features such as orientation preference (OP), ocular dominance (OD), and spatial frequency. It is a long-standing question in theoretical neuroscience whether the observed maps should be interpreted as optima of a specific energy functional that summarizes the design principles of cortical functional architecture. A rigorous evaluation of this optimization hypothesis is particularly demanded by recent evidence that the functional architecture of OP columns precisely follows species invariant quantitative laws. Because it would be desirable to infer the form of such an optimization principle from the biological data, the optimization approach to explain cortical functional architecture raises the following questions: i) What are the genuine ground states of candidate energy functionals and how can they be calculated with precision and rigor? ii) How do differences in candidate optimization principles impact on the predicted map structure and conversely what can be learned about an hypothetical underlying optimization principle from observations on map structure? iii) Is there a way to analyze the coordinated organization of cortical maps predicted by optimization principles in general? To answer these questions we developed a general dynamical systems approach to the combined optimization of visual cortical maps of OP and another scalar feature such as OD or spatial frequency preference.Comment: 90 pages, 16 figure

An Sp1/Sp3 Binding Polymorphism Confers Methylation Protection

Hundreds of genes show aberrant DNA hypermethylation in cancer, yet little is known about the causes of this hypermethylation. We identified RIL as a frequent methylation target in cancer. In search for factors that influence RIL hypermethylation, we found a 12-bp polymorphic sequence around its transcription start site that creates a long allele. Pyrosequencing of homozygous tumors revealed a 2.1-fold higher methylation for the short alleles (P<0.001). Bisulfite sequencing of cancers heterozygous for RIL showed that the short alleles are 3.1-fold more methylated than the long (P<0.001). The comparison of expression levels between unmethylated long and short EBV-transformed cell lines showed no difference in expression in vivo. Electrophorectic mobility shift assay showed that the inserted region of the long allele binds Sp1 and Sp3 transcription factors, a binding that is absent in the short allele. Transient transfection of RIL allele-specific transgenes showed no effects of the additional Sp1 site on transcription early on. However, stable transfection of methylation-seeded constructs showed gradually decreasing transcription levels from the short allele with eventual spreading of de novo methylation. In contrast, the long allele showed stable levels of expression over time as measured by luciferase and ∼2–3-fold lower levels of methylation by bisulfite sequencing (P<0.001), suggesting that the polymorphic Sp1 site protects against time-dependent silencing. Our finding demonstrates that, in some genes, hypermethylation in cancer is dictated by protein-DNA interactions at the promoters and provides a novel mechanism by which genetic polymorphisms can influence an epigenetic state

Access to Land and Food Security: Analysis of ‘Priority Crops’ Production in Ogun State, Nigeria

Using Ogun State located in south-western Nigeria, this chapter draws attention to the increase in output productivity of priority crops in the State from 2003 to 2015 due to the acquisitions of over 47,334 hectares of agricultural land across 28 communities in different Local Government Areas (LGAs). From Ogun State Agriculture Data, eight priority crops are analyzed: cassava, maize, rice, melon, yam, cocoyam, potato and cowpea. Statistics reveal that the cultivation of cassava gives the highest average output of 4,515,620 metric tonnes and yield per hectare of 16.41 relative to other produce which affirms that Ogun State has the most comparative advantage in the cultivation of cassava followed by maize. The chapter further explores other pro-poor programmes directed at ensuring food security in the State

Coordinated optimization of visual cortical maps (II) Numerical studies

It is an attractive hypothesis that the spatial structure of visual cortical architecture can be explained by the coordinated optimization of multiple visual cortical maps representing orientation preference (OP), ocular dominance (OD), spatial frequency, or direction preference. In part (I) of this study we defined a class of analytically tractable coordinated optimization models and solved representative examples in which a spatially complex organization of the orientation preference map is induced by inter-map interactions. We found that attractor solutions near symmetry breaking threshold predict a highly ordered map layout and require a substantial OD bias for OP pinwheel stabilization. Here we examine in numerical simulations whether such models exhibit biologically more realistic spatially irregular solutions at a finite distance from threshold and when transients towards attractor states are considered. We also examine whether model behavior qualitatively changes when the spatial periodicities of the two maps are detuned and when considering more than 2 feature dimensions. Our numerical results support the view that neither minimal energy states nor intermediate transient states of our coordinated optimization models successfully explain the spatially irregular architecture of the visual cortex. We discuss several alternative scenarios and additional factors that may improve the agreement between model solutions and biological observations.Comment: 55 pages, 11 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1102.335