Ethanol Ablation of a Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor Presenting as a Small Bowel Obstruction.

Ethanol has historically been used as an ablative agent for a variety of lesions. One of the more common applications of this technique is celiac plexus neurolysis; however, recent reports have suggested a role for the endoscopic alcohol ablation of a variety of solid and cystic lesions. We report a novel case of endoscopic ethanol ablation of a peripheral nerve sheath tumor presenting as a small bowel obstruction

An Behavioral Finance Analysis Using Learning Vector Quantization in the Taiwan Stock Market Index Future

There are various types of trading behavior in the stock market. And the buying or selling activities in many investment strategies are influenced by numerous factors respectively, such as fundamental analysis, macroeconomic analysis, and news analysis. Consequently, various factors will reflect on market price. Random Walk in financial engineering is not the focus in this paper. Otherwise, the importance of the technique analysis about Taiwan Stock Index Futures will be emphasized in this research. It is the intention of this paper to investigate the information content of Open, High, Low, Close prices in the previous trading day and relative higher and lower points in the prior period of the current trading day, as well as their prices in analyzing Taiwan Stock Index Future. The predictability of Learning Vector Quantizationl Network can clearly be seen from the empirical result

Correlation between Pineal Activation and Religious Meditation Observed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The human brain possesses plenty of functions but little is known about its scientific relationship with mind and spirit. Conferences^1,2^ focused on the connection between science and religion were held very recently in which neuroscientists, Buddhist scholars and Dalai Lama discussed attention, mental imagery, emotion, mind, brain functions and meditation, suggesting religious meditation offers an effective means to investigate the mystery of mind and spirit. In the past decade, scientists struggled to obtain brain mappings for various meditation styles using different brain imaging techniques and stimulating results have been observed^3-17^. In this letter we report that, together with other brain regions, pineal body exhibit significant activation during meditation process, supporting the long lasting speculation that pineal plays an important role in the intrinsic awareness which might concern spirit or soul. Pineal is known as an endocrine organ which produces substrates including melatonin and has been ascribed numerous even mysterious functions but its activation during meditation has never been observed by brain imaging technique. In seventeenth century, based on anatomic observation, Descartes ventured to suggest that pineal serves as the principal seat of the soul^18-20^. Inspired by its geometric center in the brain, physiologists, psychologists, philosophers and religionists have been speculating for centuries about pineal's function relevant to spirit and soul. In this study, we chose Chinese Original Quiet Sitting, one style of meditation, to explore this long lasting speculation by functional magnetic resonance imaging technique. Our results demonstrate a correlation between pineal activation and religious meditation which might have profound implications in physiological understanding of the intrinsic awareness

Paxillin facilitates timely neurite initiation on soft-substrate environments by interacting with the endocytic machinery.

Neurite initiation is the first step in neuronal development and occurs spontaneously in soft tissue environments. Although the mechanisms regulating the morphology of migratory cells on rigid substrates in cell culture are widely known, how soft environments modulate neurite initiation remains elusive. Using hydrogel cultures, pharmacologic inhibition, and genetic approaches, we reveal that paxillin-linked endocytosis and adhesion are components of a bistable switch controlling neurite initiation in a substrate modulus-dependent manner. On soft substrates, most paxillin binds to endocytic factors and facilitates vesicle invagination, elevating neuritogenic Rac1 activity and expression of genes encoding the endocytic machinery. By contrast, on rigid substrates, cells develop extensive adhesions, increase RhoA activity and sequester paxillin from the endocytic machinery, thereby delaying neurite initiation. Our results highlight paxillin as a core molecule in substrate modulus-controlled morphogenesis and define a mechanism whereby neuronal cells respond to environments exhibiting varying mechanical properties