Autoimmune Pancreatitis: Clinical Presentation and Therapy

Autoimmune pancreatitis is a relatively recently identified entity. The dominant type 1 is the pancreatic manifestation of a systemic IgG4-related fibroinflammatory disease. The type 2 has a clearly different histology, its dominant feature is a granulocytic epithelial lesion, and it is independent of IgG4. While type 1 is rather a disease with male dominance in majors than 50-year-old people, no gender difference is observed in type 2, and the disease is more frequently seen in young people. The more frequent initial clinical manifestation is obstructive jaundice in type 1, while abdominal pain and mild acute pancreatitis in type 2. CT and magnetic resonance images are very similar, IgG4 can be normal even in type 1, and the associated involvement of other organs is frequently posterior to the pancreatic manifestation; thus, the distinction of the two types of AIP can be difficult without histology in the everyday clinical practice. Several cases can be undetermined and qualified as Not Otherwise Specified (NOS). However, all types of AIP respond quickly to steroid treatment with a complete recovery. Late prognosis is good, but up to 50% recurrence has been observed in type 1, and several authors have described progression to chronic pancreatitis

Tenzidek önrendeződése fémfelületeken és hordozókon = Self-organization of surfactants on metal particles and supports

Adszorpciós mikrokalorimetriával jellemeztük tenzidek adszorpcióját (az adszorpciós réteg komplex szerkezetét) nemesfém nanorészecskéken, hidrofil és hidrofób katalizátor hordozókon. Új típusú kolloidkémiai módszereket dolgoztunk ki tenzidekkel stabilizált, méret- és morfológia-kontrollált nemesfém nanorészecskék előállítására réteges szerkezetű hordozók (montmorillonit; hidrotalcit) interlamelláris terében. A katalizátorokat szerkezetérzékeny vizsgálati módszerekkell jellemeztük (XRD, TEM, HR-TEM, IR-Raman és UV-vis spektroszkópia, titrációs- és áramlásos mikrokalorimetria). Az anyagok aktív és szelektív heterogén katalizátoroknak bizonyultak folyadékfázisú hidrogénezési reakciókban; alkinek alkénekké történő átalakításában. Hidrogénszorpciós méréseink szerint a Pd/H béta-hidrid képződés nem befolyásolja e reakciók kötésszelektivitását. Adszorpciós-folyadékkromatográfiás eljárást dolgoztunk ki hordozós átmenetifém katalizátorok diszperzitásának meghatározására. A tenzidek önrendeződésén alapuló ''in-situ'' módszert fejlesztettünk ki átmenetifém és átmenetifém ötvözet nanorészecskék előállítására MCM-41 hordozók mezopórusaiban. A katalizátorok nagy aktivitást és szelektivitást mutattak alkinek alkénekké történő hidrogénezési reakcióiban. | Measurements of the adsorption of surfactants on noble metal nanoparticles and hydrophilic and hydrophobic support materials have been performed by adsorption microcalorimetry. Surfactant-stabilized, size- and morphology-controlled noble metal nanoparticles have been synthesized and deposited in the interlamellar space of layer-structured materials (montmorillonite; hydrotalcite) by novel colloid chemical methods. The heterogeneous catalysts have been characterized by structure-sensitive instrumental methods (XRD, TEM, HR-TEM, IR-Raman and UV-vis spectroscopy, titration- and flow-microcalorimetry). These catalysts proved to be active and selective in the liquid-phase hydrogenations of alkynes to alkenes. Hydrogen sorption measurements indicated that bond-selectivity is not affected by Pd/H beta-hydride formation. A novel adsorption-liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of the dispersion of supported noble metal catalysts. The self-organization of surfactants has been utilized for the ''in-situ'' generation of noble metal and alloyed noble metal nanoparticles in MCM-41 host matrices. These materials proved to be active and selective in the liquid-phase hydrogenations of aklynes to alkenes

Exceptional sets for self-similar fractals in Carnot groups

We consider self-similar iterated function systems in the sub-Riemannian setting of Carnot groups. We estimate the Hausdorff dimension of the exceptional set of translation parameters for which the Hausdorff dimension in terms of the Carnot-Carathéodory metric is strictly less than the similarity dimension. This extends a recent result of Falconer and Miao from Euclidean space to Carnot group

Top quark pair production in association with a jet with NLO parton showering

We compute the production cross section of a top-antitop pair in association with a jet at hadron colliders at next-to-leading order accuracy matched with parton shower algorithms to make predictions at the hadron level. The parton shower allows for including the decay of the top quarks at the leading order accuracy. We use a framework based on three well established numerical codes, the POWHEG-BOX, used for the calculation of the cross section, HELAC, which generates the matrix elements for the Born-level, real emission and the virtual part, and finally a parton shower program, such as PYTHIA or HERWIG, which generate the parton-shower and hadronization.Comment: changed title, bug in HERWIG analysis corrected, published version with restructured discussion, but main conclusions unchange

QCD Corrections to Photon Production in Association with Hadrons in e+e−e^+e^- Annihilation

A detailed investigation of the theoretical ambiguities present in the QCD description of photon production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation is given. It is pointed out that in a well-defined perturbative analysis it is necessary to subtract the quark-photon collinear singularities. This subtraction requires the introduction of an unphysical parameter in the perturbative part of the cross section. The subtracted term is factored into non-perturbative fragmentation function. The dependence on the unphysical parameter cancels in the sum of non-perturbative and perturbative parts. It is pointed out that for $E_{\gamma}\le \sqrt{s}/(2(1+\epsilon_c))$ the non-perturbative contributions are suppressed. Using a general purpose next-to-leading order Monte Carlo program, we calculate various physical quantities that were measured in LEP experiments recently.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 1 table (available by request), LaTeX, ETH-TH/92-2

Evaluation of contraceptive methods in women with congenital heart disease in Germany, Hungary and Japan

Aims For women with congenital heart defects (CHD), pregnancy may pose a health risk. Sexually active women with CHD without the desire for own children or for whom pregnancy would imply considerable health risks require adequate counselling regarding appropriate contraception. This study gathers data on the contraceptive behaviour of women with CHD from three different cultural regions. Methods and results 634 women with CHD from Germany, Hungary and Japan were surveyed regarding contraception and contraceptive methods (CM) used. The patients were divided into groups according to different criteria such as pregnancy associated cardiovascular risk or "safety" of the contraceptive methods used. 59% of the study participants had already gained experience with CM. The average age at the first time of use was 18.4 years; the German patients were significantly younger at the first time of using a CM than those from Hungary and Japan. Overall the condom was the method used the most (38%), followed by oral contraceptives (30%) and coitus interruptus (11%). The range of CM used in Japan was much smaller than that in Germany or Hungary. Unsafe contraceptives were currently, or had previously been used, by 29% of the surveyed patients (Germany: 25%, Hungary: 37%, Japan: 32%). Conclusion Most women with CHD use CM. There are differences between the participating countries. Adequate contraceptive counselling of women with CHD requires considering the individual characteristics of each patient, including potential contraindications. For choosing an appropriate CM, both the methods' "safety", as well as the maternal cardiovascular risk, are important. © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Uniformly curated signaling pathways reveal tissue-specific cross-talks and support drug target discovery

Motivation: Signaling pathways control a large variety of cellular processes. However, currently, even within the same database signaling pathways are often curated at different levels of detail. This makes comparative and cross-talk analyses difficult. Results: We present SignaLink, a database containing 8 major signaling pathways from Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, and humans. Based on 170 review and approx. 800 research articles, we have compiled pathways with semi-automatic searches and uniform, well-documented curation rules. We found that in humans any two of the 8 pathways can cross-talk. We quantified the possible tissue- and cancer-specific activity of cross-talks and found pathway-specific expression profiles. In addition, we identified 327 proteins relevant for drug target discovery. Conclusions: We provide a novel resource for comparative and cross-talk analyses of signaling pathways. The identified multi-pathway and tissue-specific cross-talks contribute to the understanding of the signaling complexity in health and disease and underscore its importance in network-based drug target selection. Availability: http://SignaLink.orgComment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables and a supplementary info with 5 Figures and 13 Table