Pure dysgerminoma of the ovary: a study of 31 cases

Malignant germ cell tumors of the ovary are rare tumors characterized by their heterogeneity and occurring mostly in young women. Dysgerminoma is the most common type of these tumors. This was a retrospective study of 31 patients with pure dysgerminoma of the ovary diagnosed in Salah Azaiez institute of Tunis in Tunisia between 1970 and 2012.The median age was 22 years old. Abdominal pain was the most complaint in 45.1% of cases. An abdomino-pelvic mass was found in 83.8% of cases. Surgery was performed in all patients. The median tumoral size was 13.7 cm. Sixty four-point five percent of the patients underwent a conservative surgery. The tumor was classified stage I in 51.6% of the cases, stage II in 9.7% of the cases, stage III in 35.5% of the cases and stage IV in 3.2% of the cases. Fourteen patients received platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy, and 10 patients had a radiotherapy. We have noticed 2 cases of recurrence and 2 cases of metastasis. Five-year and ten-year overall survival was 89.4%. Five-year disease free survival was 85.2% and ten-year disease free survival was 66.3%. Dysgerminomas of the ovary have a good prognosis. The two significant prognostic factors are the stage and the postoperative residual disease

Performance evaluation of Independent Component Analysis in an iris recognition system

The overall performance of any iris recognition system relies on the performance of its components, which are preprocessing, feature extraction and matching. Feature extraction is the important step of such recognition system, but it is strongly dependent on the pre-processing step that is consisting of localising and normalising the iris. In this paper, Independent Component Analysis (ICA), which is a recently developed statistical method for data analysis, is applied for extracting the features for iris region of interest that are statistically independent. Based on some mathematical criteria, the performance of ICA is evaluated by using two different subsets of CASIA-V3 iris image database. The obtained results are convincing and some future improved research works are subsequently envisaged

Does independent component analysis perform well for iris recognition?

This paper is concerned with an application of ICA for a possible improvement of iris recognition by replying to the question: does ICA perform well for such purpose? To achieve this, the hypotheses and the theoretical concepts of ICA methods used are handled so that coherence with iris authentication application is guaranteed. Our contribution is not in the development of new theoretical concepts of ICA but it is in adapting its basic ideas for our application. Also, it consists of deploying its powerful and its efficiency for iris recognition, and consequently; it's potential to embed it on smart cards for increasing application domains of secure biometric-based individual identification systems. We have developed a comparative study between the implemented ICA algorithms and other recent and popular methods of iris recognition. We have demonstrated our experimental results using some mathematical criteria. Three different subsets of international certified CASIA iris image databases are used for testing the different implemented methods. The conclusion of such comparative study is that the ICA-based approaches are more effective and more practical than other existing methods

Flexible-ICA Algorithm for a Reliable Iris Recognition

In many large scale biometric-based recognition problems, knowledge of the limiting capabilities of underlying recognition systems is constrained by a variety of factors including a choice of a source encoding technique, quality, complexity and variability of collected data. In this paper, we propose a novel iris recognition system based-on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) encoding technique, which captures both the second and higher-order statistics and projects the input data onto the basis vectors that are as statistically independent as possible. We apply Flexible-ICA algorithm in the framework of the natural gradient to extract efficient feature vectors by minimizing the mutual information of the output data. The experimental results carried on two different subsets of CASIA V3 iris database show that ICA reduces the processing time and the feature vector length. In addition, ICA has shown an encouraging performance which is comparable to the best iris recognition algorithms found in the literature

Caldimonas hydrothermale sp. nov., a novel thermophilic bacterium isolated from Roman hot bath in south Tunisia

International audienceA polyphasic approach was used to characterize a bacterium, HAN-85(T), isolated from thermal water in natural thermal spring at Tozeur, an oasis in southwest Tunisia. The novel isolate was thermophilic, strictly aerobic and amylolytic bacterium, which stained Gram negative. Cells were short rods motile by means of a single polar flagellum. Their optimum temperature and pH required for growth were 55 degrees C and pH 7, respectively. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses showed that strain HAN-85(T) belonged to the genus Caldimonas, with highest sequence similarity to the type strains Caldimonas manganoxidans and Caldimonas taiwanensis. DNA-DNA hybridization measurements revealed low DNA relatedness (35.2-44.5%) between the novel isolate and its closest relative, C. manganoxidans. The major cellular fatty acid components were 16:0, 17:0 cyclo and summed feature 3. The DNA G+C content was 68.3 mol%. Taken together, the results of DNA-DNA hybridization, fatty acids profile, physiological tests and biochemical analyses have allowed the genotypic and phenotypic differentiation of the isolate from currently recognized Caldimonas species. Therefore, we suggest that this isolate is a novel species within the genus Caldimonas and propose that it should be named Caldimonas hydrothermale sp. nov. The type strain is HAN-85(T) (=DSM 18497(T) =LMG 23755(T))

Growth promotion and protection against Orobanche foetida of chickpea (Cicer aerietinum) by two Rhizobium strains under greenhouse conditions

Fetid broomrape (Orobanche foetida Poir.) is a chlorophyll lacking holoparasite that subsists on the roots of plants and causes significant damage to the culture of leguminous plants particularly chickpea (Cicer aerietinum L.). The investigation was done about potential of Rhizobium strains for biological control of O. foetida using a commercial chickpea cultivar (Béja 1) and different Rhizobium strains. Firstly, benefit of bacterial inoculation on plant growth and efficiency in N-incorporation were demonstrated with four isolates, Azm, Bj, Sd.N2 and Sd.N1. Rhizobium strains were investigated for their ability to control O. foetida using pot and Petri-dish experiments. Inoculation of chickpeas with two (Azm and Bj) of the Rhizobium strains induced a significant decrease in O. foetida seed germination and in the number of tubercles on chickpea roots. Furthermore, other symptoms, including the non-penetration of the germ tube of germinated seeds into chickpea roots followed by radical browning and death of the parasite, were observed in the presence of these inoculated chickpea plants. The hypothesis that roots secrete toxic compounds related to Rhizobium inoculation is discussed.Keywords: Biological control, Rhizobium strains, Orobanche foetida, chickpea, necrotic symptomsAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(12), pp. 1371-137

Adult Granulosa Cell Tumours of the Ovary Seven Case Reports

Background:Ovarian granulosa cell tumours are low-grade malignant sex cord-stromal tumours. They represent 2 to 3% of all ovarian cancers and occur mainly within the adult population. Aim:&nbsp; to provide an updated overview on ovarian adult granulosa cell tumours.Patients Methods:in our retrospective study, we reviewed seven cases of adult granulosa cell tumours that were diagnosed at the pathology department of Mongi Slim hospital over a fourteen-year period (2002- 2015). Clinical and pathRIiological characteristics were retrospectively analyzed.Results: The patients of our series ranged in age between 39 and 64 years (mean = 53 years). The&nbsp; most&nbsp; common&nbsp; presenting&nbsp; symptom&nbsp; was&nbsp; abnormal&nbsp; uterine&nbsp; bleeding&nbsp; (n=5)&nbsp; followed&nbsp; by&nbsp; pelvic pain&nbsp; (n=4).&nbsp; All&nbsp; patients&nbsp; underwent&nbsp; surgical&nbsp; treatment&nbsp; including&nbsp; total&nbsp; hysterectomy&nbsp; with&nbsp; bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy&nbsp; (n=4),&nbsp; hysterectomy&nbsp; with&nbsp; right&nbsp; salpingo-oophorectomy&nbsp; (n=1)&nbsp; and&nbsp; salpingo-oophorectomy (n=2). Histopathological examination of the surgical specimen confirmed the diagnosis of adult granulosa cell tumour in all cases. Conclusions:Adult granulosa cell tumours of the ovary are considered as low grade malignancies with&nbsp; a&nbsp; relatively&nbsp; more&nbsp; favourable&nbsp; prognosis&nbsp; compared&nbsp; with&nbsp; much&nbsp; more&nbsp; commonly&nbsp; encountered epithelial&nbsp; ovarian tumours. A&nbsp; prolonged&nbsp; post-therapeutic&nbsp; follow-up&nbsp; is&nbsp; necessary&nbsp; because&nbsp; of&nbsp; the&nbsp; risk of recurrences.</p