Marble impaction in the nasopharynx following oral ingestion

Foreign body ingestion is an important emergency occurring in childhood. In this article, we report the case of a 5-year-old girl with marble impaction in the nasopharynx, which had not been discovered by routine X-rays of the chest and abdomen at the time of ingestion. The patient presented 4months after the event with typical symptoms of adenoid hypertrophy and sinusitis, and the diagnosis was established on the basis of a plain film of the nasopharynx. This rare situation is potentially dangerous, since the foreign body may descend and cause sudden airway obstruction. Therefore, in all cases with vanishing foreign bodies in the aerodigestive system, nasopharyngeal impaction and its fatal consequences should be kept in mind and endoscopic examination of the region should be considere

Effects of the acute exposure to the electromagnetic field of mobile phones on human auditory brainstem responses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the short-term effects of the electromagnetic fields (EMF) of mobile phones on human auditory brainstem responses. This prospective study of healthy adults evaluated the influence of EMF. Eighteen healthy adult volunteers participated in this study. Mobile telephones emitting signals in the region of 900MHz and with the highest SAR value of 0.82W/kg were positioned in direct contact to the right ear, which was exposed to the phone signal for 15min before and after ABR testing with click stimuli of 60 and 80dB nHL intensities. The latencies of the waves and interwave latencies were measured on screen by an experienced audiologist. The differences of the mean latencies of waves I, III and IV were not significant in initial and post-exposure ABR measurements at both 60 and 80dB nHL stimulus levels ( P >0.05). Similarly, differences of the mean interwave intervals I-III, I-V and III-V remained insignificant at the initial and postexposure ABR measurements at stimulus levels of both 60 and 80dB nHL ( P >0.05). Acute exposure to the EMF of mobile phones does not cause perturbations in ABR latencies. However, these negative results should not encourage excessive mobile communication, because minor biological and neurophysiological influences may not be detectable by the current technolog

Importin-9 wraps around the H2A-H2B core to act as nuclear importer and histone chaperone.

We report the crystal structure of nuclear import receptor Importin-9 bound to its cargo, the histones H2A-H2B. Importin-9 wraps around the core, globular region of H2A-H2B to form an extensive interface. The nature of this interface coupled with quantitative analysis of deletion mutants of H2A-H2B suggests that the NLS-like sequences in the H2A-H2B tails play a minor role in import. Importin-9•H2A-H2B is reminiscent of interactions between histones and histone chaperones in that it precludes H2A-H2B interactions with DNA and H3-H4 as seen in the nucleosome. Like many histone chaperones, which prevent inappropriate non-nucleosomal interactions, Importin-9 also sequesters H2A-H2B from DNA. Importin-9 appears to act as a storage chaperone for H2A-H2B while escorting it to the nucleus. Surprisingly, RanGTP does not dissociate Importin-9•H2A-H2B but assembles into a RanGTP•Importin-9•H2A-H2B complex. The presence of Ran in the complex, however, modulates Imp9-H2A-H2B interactions to facilitate its dissociation by DNA and assembly into a nucleosome

Comparative analysis of tunisian sheep-like virus, bungowannah virus and border disease virus infection in the porcine host

Apart from the established pestivirus species Pestivirus A to Pestivirus K novel species emerged. Pigs represent not only hosts for porcine pestiviruses, but are also susceptible to bovine viral diarrhea virus, border disease virus (BDV) and other ruminant pestiviruses. The present study focused on the characterization of the ovine Tunisian sheep-like virus (TSV) as well as Bungowannah virus (BuPV) and BDV strain Frijters, which were isolated from pigs. For this purpose, we performed genetic characterization based on complete coding sequences, studies on virus replication in cell culture and in domestic pigs, and cross-neutralization assays using experimentally derived sera. TSV forms a distinct phylogenetic group more closely related to Pestivirus C (classical swine fever virus, CSFV) than to Pestivirus D (BDV). In contrast to BDV and BuPV, TSV replicates by far more efficiently on ovine than on porcine cells. Nevertheless, pigs were susceptible to TSV. As a consequence of close antigenic relatedness of TSV to CSFV, cross-reactivity was detected in CSFV-specific antibody assays. In conclusion, TSV is genetically closely related to CSFV and can replicate in domestic pigs. Due to close antigenic relatedness, field infections of pigs with TSV and other ruminant pestiviruses can interfere with serological diagnosis of classical swine fever

Distributed and biometric signature-based identity proofing system for the maritime sector

The maritime sector is an industry that faces significant and various challenges related to cyber security and data management, such as fraud and user authentication. Therefore, there is a need for a secure solution that can effectively manage data transactions while resolving digital identity. A biometric signature application in blockchain for fighting fraud and fake identities may provide a solution in the maritime sector. This research proposes a biometric signature and an IPFS network-blockchain framework to address these challenges. This paper also discusses the proposed framework's cyber security challenges that threaten behavioral biometric security

Detecting User Behavior in Cyber Threat Intelligence: Development of Honeypsy System.

This research demonstrates a design of an experiment of a hacker infiltrating a server where it is assumed that the communication between the hacker and the target server is established, and the hacker also escalated his rights on the server. Therefore, the honeypot server setup has been designed to reveal the correlation of a hacker’s actions with that of the hacker’s experience, personality, expertise, and psychology. To the best of our knowledge, such a design of experiment has never been tested rigorously on a honeypot implementation except for self-reporting tests applied to hackers in the literature. However, no study evaluates the actual data of these hackers and these tests. This study also provides a honeypot design to understand the personality and expertise of the hacker and displays the correlation of these data with the tests. Our Honeypsy system is composed of a Big-5 personality test, a cyber expertise test, and a capture-the-flag (CTF) event to collect logs with honeypot applied in this sequence. These three steps generate data on the expertise and psychology of known cyber hackers. The logs of the known hacker activities on honeypots are obtained through the CTF event that they have participated in. The design and deployment of a honeypot, as well as the CTF event, were specifically prepared for this research. Our aim is to predict an unknown hacker's expertise and personality by analyzing these data. By examining/analyzing the data of the known hackers, it is now possible to make predictions about the expertise and personality of the unknown hackers. The same logic applies when one tries to predict the next move of the unknown hackers attacking the server. We have aimed to underline the details of the personalities and expertise of hackers and thus help the defense experts of victimized institutions to develop their cyber defense strategies in accordance with the modus operandi of the hackers

The Causes of Acute Fever Requiring Hospitalization in Geriatric Patients: Comparison of Infectious and Noninfectious Etiology

Introduction. Infectious diseases may present with atypical presentations in the geriatric patients. While fever is an important finding of infections, it may also be a sign of noninfectious etiology. Methods. Geriatric patients who were hospitalized for acute fever in our infectious diseases unit were included. Acute fever was defined as presentation within the first week of fever above 37.3°C. Results. 185 patients were included (82 males and 103 females). Mean age was 69.7 ± 7.5 years. The cause of fever was an infectious disease in 135 and noninfectious disease in 32 and unknown in 18 of the patients. The most common infectious etiologies were respiratory tract infections (n = 46), urinary tract infections (n = 26), and skin and soft tissue infections (n = 23). Noninfectious causes of fever were rheumatic diseases (n = 8), solid tumors (n = 7), hematological diseases (n = 10), and vasculitis (n = 7). A noninfectious cause of fever was present in one patient with no underlying diseases and in 31 of 130 patients with underlying diseases. Conclusion. Geriatric patients with no underlying diseases generally had infectious causes of fever while noninfectious causes were responsible from fever in an important proportion of patients with underlying diseases

International Migration, Remittances, and the Human Capital Formation of Egyptian Children

We study the roles that migration and remittances play in the human capital formation of children in Egypt. Our estimations reveal a significant association between remittances and human capital formation: the higher the probability of receipt of remittances, the higher the probability of school enrollment, and the older the age at which children enter the labor force. Although, with regard to the likelihood of school enrollment and the age of the first participation in the labor force, the family disruption effect of migration dominates the income effect of remittances, the likelihood of labor force participation decreases even in households from which both parents migrated