Individual Investors and Portfolio Diversification in Late Victorian Britain: How Diversified Were Victorian Financial Portfolios?

This article investigates Victorian investor financial portfolio strategies in England and Wales during the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that investors held on average about half of their gross wealth in the form of four or five liquid financial securities, but were reluctant to adopt fully contemporary financial advice to invest equal amounts in securities or to spread risk across the globe. They generally held under-diversified portfolios and proximity to their investments may have been an alternative to diversification as a means of risk reduction, especially for the less wealthy

CD44 and hyaluronate in the differential diagnosis of dermatofibroma and dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans

The histological distinction between dermatofibroma (DF) and dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) may be extremely difficult. CD34 and Factor XIIIa have been used to differentiate DF from DFSP. However, there is an overlap and relative lack of specificity of their expressions. CD44 is a widely distributed integral membrane glycoprotein, which is expressed as a multitude of isoforms generated by alternative splicing of at least 10 different variant exons and post-translational modifications. CD44 is currently thought to be the principal cell surface receptor for hyaluronate (HA), the major component of the extracellular matrix. In this study we aimed to assess the expression of standard CD44 (CD44s) and its isoforms (CD44v3, CD44v4, CD44v5, CD44v6, CD44v7, CD44v7v8, and CD44v10), and HA in DF and DFSP. Immunohistochemical staining was performed on the biopsy specimens of 15 cases of DF and four cases of DFSP, using antibodies that recognize the CD44s, different CD44 isoforms and the hyaluronate binding protein (HABP). Tumor cells displayed a strong CD44s immunoreactivity in all cases of DF whereas a faint HA positivity was observed in the tumor stroma. The DF cells were negative for CD44v3, CD44v4, CD44v6, CD44v7 and CD44v7v8 but showed a strong reactivity for CD44v5 and CD44v10. In contrast, CD44s' expression was significantly reduced or absent in all DFSP lesions and the tumor stroma displayed strong staining for HA. Our results indicate that CD44 and HA can be used as additional diagnostic markers to distinguish DF from DFSP

Adult-onset Still's disease with persistent plaques

Adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) is a systemic disorder characterized by intermittent fever, evanescent rash, arthralgias or arthritis and predominantly neutrophilic leucocytosis. We report on a 16-year-old woman with Still's disease who developed, in addition to the typical rash, persistent papular lesions on her face, neck and upper and lower back. Although the presence of fixed skin lesions is not a characteristic feature of AOSD, their appearance at the onset of the disease and their evolution suggest that they represent a specific manifestation of the disease

Hyaluronate accumulation and decreased CD44 expression in perifollicular solitary cutaneous myxoma

Background: Myxomas are rare cutaneous tumors which may be solitary or associated with Carney's complex, NAME or LAMB syndromes. The mucinous material which constitutes the stroma of cutaneous myxomas is predominantly composed of hyaluronate (HA), the major component of the extracellular matrix. CD44 is a polymorphic integral membrane glycoprotein which serves as the principal cell surface receptor for HA. Objective and Methods: Here we present 2 cases of solitary cutaneous myxomas displaying microscopically a perifollicular localization, in which we explored the nature of the accumulated mucinous material by colloidal iron and HA-binding protein stainings, as well as the epidermal expression of CD44 protein by immunohistochemistry. Results: We show that HA is accumulated in the stroma of the cutaneous myxoma lesions and that the protein expression of CD44 in the keratinocytes of the trichofolliculoma-like epithelial buds projecting from the hair follicle centering these lesions is significantly decreased. Conclusions:Our results suggest that a decrease in CD44 expression in follicular epithelial proliferations may be correlated with an abnormal HA accumulation in cutaneous myxoma. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel

Linear Darier disease with herpes zoster superinfection treated successfully by brivudine

We report the case of a human immunodeficiency virus-positive patient presenting linear Darier disease with varicella-zoster virus superinfection following the lines of Blaschko. The lesions healed after treatment with brivudine