Sebaceous gland tumors and internal malignancy in the context of Muir-Torre syndrome. A case report and review of the literature

BACKGROUND: The Muir-Torre syndrome is a rare autosomal dominant condition and is currently considered a subtype of the more common hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer syndrome, in which multiple primary malignancies occur together with sebaceous gland tumors. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe a case of a 62-year-old woman with three primary colorectal tumors, genital tumor, and sebaceous adenomas and present her family history of three generations. Our case represents the first case reported from Greece in the international literature. CONCLUSION: Recognition of the syndrome in patients with sebaceous gland tumors should facilitate early detection of subsequent malignancies if the patient is entered into appropriate screening programs

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) of Three Spectrometers for the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter

The Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) package is an element of the Russian contribution to the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission. ACS consists of three separate infrared spectrometers, sharing common mechanical, electrical, and thermal interfaces. This ensemble of spectrometers has been designed and developed in response to the Trace Gas Orbiter mission objectives that specifically address the requirement of high sensitivity instruments to enable the unambiguous detection of trace gases of potential geophysical or biological interest. For this reason, ACS embarks a set of instruments achieving simultaneously very high accuracy (ppt level), very high resolving power (>10,000) and large spectral coverage (0.7 to 17 μm—the visible to thermal infrared range). The near-infrared (NIR) channel is a versatile spectrometer covering the 0.7–1.6 μm spectral range with a resolving power of ∼20,000. NIR employs the combination of an echelle grating with an AOTF (Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter) as diffraction order selector. This channel will be mainly operated in solar occultation and nadir, and can also perform limb observations. The scientific goals of NIR are the measurements of water vapor, aerosols, and dayside or night side airglows. The mid-infrared (MIR) channel is a cross-dispersion echelle instrument dedicated to solar occultation measurements in the 2.2–4.4 μm range. MIR achieves a resolving power of >50,000. It has been designed to accomplish the most sensitive measurements ever of the trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The thermal-infrared channel (TIRVIM) is a 2-inch double pendulum Fourier-transform spectrometer encompassing the spectral range of 1.7–17 μm with apodized resolution varying from 0.2 to 1.3 cm−1. TIRVIM is primarily dedicated to profiling temperature from the surface up to ∼60 km and to monitor aerosol abundance in nadir. TIRVIM also has a limb and solar occultation capability. The technical concept of the instrument, its accommodation on the spacecraft, the optical designs as well as some of the calibrations, and the expected performances for its three channels are described

Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H₂O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

Global dust storms on Mars are rare but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H2O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals. The observed changes in H2O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere

Adaptive fine-tuning for large-scale complex nonlinear systems

Practical large-scale nonlinear control systems (PLSNCS) require an intensive and time-consuming fine-tuning process in order to achieve a satisfactory - or, even, acceptable - performance. In the majority of PLSNCS the fine-tuning process is performed by experienced personnel based on field observations and by experimenting with different combinations of controller parameters, without the use of a systematic approach. Adaptive Optimization (AO) methods such as the SPSA or AFT1 provide probably the most promising approach for the development of a systematic methodology for automatic and efficient fine-tuning of PLSNCS. However, despite the success of AO methodologies in particular fine-tuning control applications, these methods suffer from the serious problem of not guaranteeing efficient transient behaviour due to the use of random perturbations. A new algorithm (AFT2) has been developed and analyzed for alleviating this problem. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of AFT2 (versus SPSA and AFT1) when applied to three different traffic control applications: urban traffic control, network-wide motorway ramp metering and motorway variable speed control. It is demonstrated by means of simulation investigations that AFT2 not only overcomes the aforementioned problem of poor transient performance but also achieves significantly faster convergence than SPSA and AFT1

Bilateral True Isolated Superficial Femoral Artery Aneurysm: Report of a Case and Literature Review

AbstractWe report a case of an 85-year-old man with true isolated bilateral superficial femoral artery aneurysms. The aneurysm size was 6.2cm on the right and 4.8cm on the left. They were repaired with transfemoral endovascular placement of three excluder stent grafts on the right and two excluder stent grafts on the left. Both procedures were done under local anaesthesia

Aerosol Properties during the 2007 Global Dust Storm (MY28): Solar Infrared Occultation Observations by SPICAM

International audienceThe current analysis deals with properties of aer- osol particles during the 2007 global dust storm (Mars Year 28). Such events are very important for understanding and modeling processes of the Martian climate. During this time a significant dust lifting and transport processes are observed covering the whole planet by dust haze. Atmospheric heating associated with dust absorption of solar light increases strongly making a feedback and causing high advective velocities. These effects are forcing of atmospheric circulation.Solar occultation measurement in the IR spectral range allows to study the vertical distribution of aerosols. SPICAM on Mars-Express is a dedicated occultation experiment. It consists of ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers. Here we analyze data from the SPICAM IR (wavelengths of 1–1.7 μm) which provides information about optical properties of aerosols: opacity and extinction coefficient versus altitude.The ratio of opacities depends primarily on the particle size distribution. Based on Mie scattering theory we can reconstruct such characteristics as effective radius and variance assuming the lognor- mal distribution (Montmessin et al., 2002). Both mineral dust and water ice particles interact with the solar radiation so we have used refraction index for dust (Wolff et al., 2009) and H2O ice (Warren and Brandt, 2008)

Atmospheric Aerosols Properties via Solar Infrared Occultation Observations by Spicam IR

International audienc