Atypical vessels as an early sign of intracardiac myxoma?

We report on a woman with previously unknown left atrial myxoma, who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention. 45 months after the initial coronary angiography, echocardiography demonstrated a large atrial myxoma, which was not seen echocardiographically before. The retrospective analysis of the pre-intervention coronary angiography revealed atypical vessels in the atrial septum, which are interpreted as early signs of myxoma

Methodological study to evaluate the psychometric properties of FACIT-CD in a sample of Brazilian women with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

Background: The occurrence of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) is associated with changes in health-related quality of life, including psychological factors, such as fear and shame, and changes in sexuality and sexual satisfaction, such as decreased sexual desire and frequency of sexual intercourse. Personal relationships are the most affected because CIN is sexually transmitted and many women tend to blame their partner for disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the FACIT-CD questionnaire in Brazilian women diagnosed with CIN. Methods: The properties of the FACIT-CD questionnaire were tested on a sample of 439 women seen at the Department of Prevention of Barretos Cancer Hospital, including 329 patients who were diagnosed with CIN and 110 women who were not diagnosed with the disease. The analysed parameters included internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient), structural validity, convergent validity (correlation with the SF-12 and EORTC QLQ-CX24 questionnaires), discriminant validity (according to disease status, and self-rating of health), sensitivity, and responsiveness. Results: The Cronbach alpha values of the FACIT-CD scales were higher than 0.70 with the exception of the relationship scale (0.66). The FACIT-CD reproducibility was satisfactory, with variation in the intraclass correlation coefficients ranging between 0.50 and 0.83, although the 95% confidence interval (CI) was lower than 0.40 (0.33-0.64) on the treatment satisfaction scale. Regarding structural validity, only one item on the physical well-being scale was not kept in the original domain. The expected correlations between the FACIT-CD and SF-12 were not confirmed, whereas the correlations between the FACIT-CD and EORTC QLQ-CX24 were confirmed. The questionnaire was able to discriminate the groups according to disease status and self-rating of health. The sensitivity was low for the relationship scale and moderate for the other scales. The responsiveness of the FACIT-CD questionnaire varied between the groups that denominate the self-perception of health as no change, improvement or worsening. Conclusion: Our results are encouraging and indicate that the FACIT-CD questionnaire is a promising tool for the analysis of the quality of life of women with CIN.The postdoctoral fellowship was supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo - FAPESP, Sao Paulo, Brazil). Process number: FAPESP 2014/10158-3. The funding body had no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Chinese Language and Reading Abilities

This study investigated the etiology of individual differences in Chinese language and reading skills in 312 typically developing Chinese twin pairs aged from 3 to 11 years (228 pairs of monozygotic twins and 84 pairs of dizygotic twins; 166 male pairs and 146 female pairs). Children were individually given tasks of Chinese word reading, receptive vocabulary, phonological memory, tone awareness, syllable and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness and orthographic skills, and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. All analyses controlled for the effects of age. There were moderate to substantial genetic influences on word reading, tone awareness, phonological memory, morphological awareness and rapid automatized naming (estimates ranged from .42 to .73), while shared environment exerted moderate to strong effects on receptive vocabulary, syllable and rhyme awareness and orthographic skills (estimates ranged from .35 to .63). Results were largely unchanged when scores were adjusted for nonverbal reasoning as well as age. Findings of this study are mostly similar to those found for English, a language with very different characteristics, and suggest the universality of genetic and environmental influences across languages

An integrated 1D–2D hydraulic modelling approach to assess the sensitivity of a coastal region to compound flooding hazard under climate change

Coastal regions are dynamic areas that often lie at the junction of different natural hazards. Extreme events such as storm surges and high precipitation are significant sources of concern for flood management. As climatic changes and sea-level rise put further pressure on these vulnerable systems, there is a need for a better understanding of the implications of compounding hazards. Recent computational advances in hydraulic modelling offer new opportunities to support decision-making and adaptation. Our research makes use of recently released features in the HEC-RAS version 5.0 software to develop an integrated 1D–2D hydrodynamic model. Using extreme value analysis with the Peaks-Over-Threshold method to define extreme scenarios, the model was applied to the eastern coast of the UK. The sensitivity of the protected wetland known as the Broads to a combination of fluvial, tidal and coastal sources of flooding was assessed, accounting for different rates of twenty-first century sea-level rise up to the year 2100. The 1D–2D approach led to a more detailed representation of inundation in coastal urban areas, while allowing for interactions with more fluvially dominated inland areas to be captured. While flooding was primarily driven by increased sea levels, combined events exacerbated flooded area by 5–40% and average depth by 10–32%, affecting different locations depending on the scenario. The results emphasise the importance of catchment-scale strategies that account for potentially interacting sources of flooding

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Measurement of the production of a W boson in association with a charm quark in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of a W boson in association with a single charm quark is studied using 4.6 fb−1 of pp collision data at s√ = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In events in which a W boson decays to an electron or muon, the charm quark is tagged either by its semileptonic decay to a muon or by the presence of a charmed meson. The integrated and differential cross sections as a function of the pseudorapidity of the lepton from the W-boson decay are measured. Results are compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations obtained from various parton distribution function parameterisations. The ratio of the strange-to-down sea-quark distributions is determined to be 0.96+0.26−0.30 at Q 2 = 1.9 GeV2, which supports the hypothesis of an SU(3)-symmetric composition of the light-quark sea. Additionally, the cross-section ratio σ(W + +c¯¯)/σ(W − + c) is compared to the predictions obtained using parton distribution function parameterisations with different assumptions about the s−s¯¯¯ quark asymmetry

Association between Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Risk in Chinese Youth Independent of Age and Pubertal Stage

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Childhood and adolescence are critical periods of habit formation with substantial tracking of lifestyle and cardiovascular risk into adulthood. There are various guidelines on recommended levels of physical activity in youth of school-age. Despite the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in China, there is a paucity of data in this regard in Chinese youth. We examined the association of self-reported level of physical activity and cardiovascular risk in Hong Kong Chinese youth of school-age.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2007-8 in a school setting with 2119 Hong Kong Chinese youth aged 6-20 years. Physical activity level was assessed using a validated questionnaire, CUHK-PARCY (The Chinese University of Hong Kong: Physical Activity Rating for Children and Youth). A summary risk score comprising of waist circumference, blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose and lipids was constructed to quantify cardiovascular risk.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this cohort, 21.5% reported high level of physical activity with boys being more active than girls (32.1% versus 14.1%, p < 0.001). Regression analysis showed physical activity level, sex and pubertal stage were independently associated with cardiovascular risk score.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Self-reported level of physical activity is associated with cardiovascular risk factors in Chinese youth after adjusting for sex and pubertal stage.</p

Combined expression of caveolin-1 and an activated AKT/mTOR pathway predicts reduced disease-free survival in clinically confined renal cell carcinoma

We previously reported that tumour-associated caveolin-1 is a potential biomarker in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), whose overexpression predicts metastasis following surgical resection for clinically confined disease. Much attention has recently focused on the AKT/mTOR pathway in a number of malignancies, including RCC. Since caveolin-1 and the AKT/mTOR signalling cascade are independently shown to be important regulators of tumour angiogenesis, we hypothesised that caveolin-1 interacts with the AKT/mTOR pathway to drive disease progression and metastasis in RCC. The aims of this study were to determine (i) the expression status of the activated AKT/mTOR pathway components (phosphorylated forms) in RCC and (ii) their prognostic value when combined with caveolin-1. Immunohistochemistry for caveolin-1, pAKT, pmTOR, pS6 and p4E-BP1 was performed on tissue microarrays from 174 clinically confined RCCs. Significantly decreased mean disease-free survival was observed when caveolin-1 was coexpressed with either pAKT (2.95 vs 6.14 years), pmTOR (3.17 vs 6.28 years), pS6 (1.45 vs 6.62 years) or p4E-BP1 (2.07 vs 6.09 years) than when neither or any one single biomarker was expressed alone. On multivariate analysis, the covariate of ‘caveolin-1/AKT' (neither alone were influential covariates) was a significant influential indicator of poor disease-free survival with a hazard ratio of 2.13 (95% CI: 1.15–3.92), higher than that for vascular invasion. Tumours that coexpressed caveolin-1 and activated mTOR components were more likely to be larger, higher grade and to show vascular invasion. Our results provide the first clinical evidence that caveolin-1 cooperates with an activated AKT/mTOR pathway in cancer and may play an important role in disease progression. We conclude that evaluation of the ‘caveolin-1/AKT/mTOR axis' in primary kidney tumours will identify subsets of RCC patients who require greater postoperative surveillance and more intensive treatment

Regional cortical volumes and congenital heart disease: a MRI study in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) who survive surgery often present impaired neurodevelopment and qualitative brain anomalies. However, the impact of CHD on total or regional brain volumes only received little attention. We address this question in a sample of patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS), a neurogenetic condition frequently associated with CHD. Sixty-one children, adolescents, and young adults with confirmed 22q11.2 deletion were included, as well as 80 healthy participants matched for age and gender. Subsequent subdivision of the patients group according to CHD yielded a subgroup of 27 patients with normal cardiac status and a subgroup of 26 patients who underwent cardiac surgery during their first years of life (eight patients with unclear status were excluded). Regional cortical volumes were extracted using an automated method and the association between regional cortical volumes, and CHD was examined within a three-condition fixed factor. Robust protection against type I error used Bonferroni correction. Smaller total cerebral volumes were observed in patients with CHD compared to both patients without CHD and controls. The pattern of bilateral regional reductions associated with CHD encompassed the superior parietal region, the precuneus, the fusiform gyrus, and the anterior cingulate cortex. Within patients, a significant reduction in the left parahippocampal, the right middle temporal, and the left superior frontal gyri was associated with CHD. The present results of global and regional volumetric reductions suggest a role for disturbed hemodynamic in the pathophysiology of brain alterations in patients with neurodevelopmental disease and cardiac malformations