18,944 research outputs found

    A Complex Case of Cholestasis in a Patient with ABCB4 and ABCB11 Mutations

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    The low-phospholipid-associated cholelithiasis (LPAC) syndrome is a form of symptomatic cholelithiasis occurring in young adults, characterized by recurrence of symptoms after cholecystectomy and presence of hepatolithiasis. The case refers to a healthy 39-year-old Caucasian male who presented with abdominal pain and jaundice. His blood tests showed conjugated hyperbilirubinemia and elevated liver enzymes (total bilirubin 6.65 mg/dL, γ-glutamyltransferase 699 IU/L) and abdominal computed tomography revealed dilation of common bile duct and left intrahepatic ducts. Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography identified choledocholithiasis, retrieved by endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, after which there was a worsening of jaundice (total bilirubin 23 mg/dL), which persisted for several weeks, possibly due to ciprofloxacin toxicity. After an extensive workup including liver biopsy, the identification of two foci of hepatolithiasis on reevaluation abdominal ultrasound raised the hypothesis of LPAC syndrome and the patient was started on ursodeoxycholic acid, with remarkable improvement. Genetic testing identified the mutation c.1954A>G (p.Arg652Gly) in ABCB4 gene (homozygous) and c.1331T>C (p.Val444Ala) in ABCB11 gene (heterozygous). In conclusion, we describe the unique case of an adult male with choledocholithiasis, hepatolithiasis, and persistent conjugated hyperbilirubinemia after retrieval of stones, fulfilling the criteria for LPAC syndrome and with possible superimposed drug-induced liver injury, in whom ABCB4 and ABCB11 mutations were found, both of which had not been previously described in association with LPAC.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Beam alignment techniques based on the current multiplication effect in photoconductors Third summary technical progress report, 15 Nov. 1966 - 15 Oct. 1967

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    Beam alignment techniques developed for infrared sensitive single crystal germanium to study multiplication effect in photoconductor

    Self-organized patterns of coexistence out of a predator-prey cellular automaton

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    We present a stochastic approach to modeling the dynamics of coexistence of prey and predator populations. It is assumed that the space of coexistence is explicitly subdivided in a grid of cells. Each cell can be occupied by only one individual of each species or can be empty. The system evolves in time according to a probabilistic cellular automaton composed by a set of local rules which describe interactions between species individuals and mimic the process of birth, death and predation. By performing computational simulations, we found that, depending on the values of the parameters of the model, the following states can be reached: a prey absorbing state and active states of two types. In one of them both species coexist in a stationary regime with population densities constant in time. The other kind of active state is characterized by local coupled time oscillations of prey and predator populations. We focus on the self-organized structures arising from spatio-temporal dynamics of the coexistence. We identify distinct spatial patterns of prey and predators and verify that they are intimally connected to the time coexistence behavior of the species. The occurrence of a prey percolating cluster on the spatial patterns of the active states is also examined.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure
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