Thymomas: a review.

Thymomas are neoplasma of thymic epithelial cells. They may be benign or malignant and may associate with locai ìnvasiveness and paraneoplastic diseases. Myasthenia gravis is often associated with thymomas, bui this is not thè rule. Several classifications have been proposed: some of them follow thè histopathological findings (Rosai and Levine, Snover, Marino and Muller- Hermelink classification), other emphasizes thè clinic-pathological stage (Masaoka, Verley and Hollmann stadiation). One third of thymomas is asymptomatic. Diagnosis is made often by plain X-ray and confirmed by Computed Tomography or fine needle biopsy. Surgery is effective in 100% of noninvasive cases and in 58% of invasive ones. Radio and chemotherapy are recommended only in advanced or inoperable stages

Cancer of the Thyroid in patients over the age of fifty.

Aim. The authors performed a retrospective investigation of patients over thè age of 50, in order to detect any peculiarities of cancer of thè thyroid possibly affecting surgical treatment and whether age itself represented an independent prognostic factor. Methods. A total of 152 patients were examined at thè Department of Surgical Science of "La Sapienza" University of Rome with a minimum follow- up of 10 years. The 152 subjects recruited were divided into 3 age groups: from 51 to 60 years, (74 patients); from 61 to 70 years, (57 patients); from 71 to 80 years, (21 patients). Resulti. Relating thè different histologic types to age group, there was found to be a lower incidence of well-differentiated carcinoma and a relative increase in thè epidermoid and undifferentiated forms in older patients. In thè 51-60 age group 80% of thè patients were at stages I and II, while in thè 71-80 age group 56.2% of cases were at stages III and IV. Conclusion. In thè elderly patient undifferentiated, anaplastic or epidermoid forms and those with a higher biologica! aggressiveness are more frequently found. We believe that prompt diagnosis would present thè surgeon with neoplasms at an early stage and with less aggressive histotypes, thus ensuring greater scope for radicai surgical treatment and appreciably enhancing prognosis

Characterization of liposomes coated with S-layer proteins from lactobacilli

The stability of liposomes coated with S-layer proteins from Lactobacillus brevis and Lactobacillus kefir was analyzed as a previous stage to the development of a vaccine vehicle for oral administration. The interactions of the different S-layer proteins with positively charged liposomes prepared with soybean lecithin or dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine were studied by means of the variation of the Z potential at different protein-lipid ratios, showing that both proteins were able to attach in a greater extent to the surface of soybean lecithin liposomes. The capacity of these particles to retain carboxyfluorescein or calcein by exposure to bile salts, pancreatic extract, pH change and after a thermal shock showed that both S-layer proteins increased the stability of the liposomes in the same magnitude. The non-glycosylated protein from L. brevis protects more efficiently the liposomes at pH 7 than those from L. kefir even without treatment with glutaraldehyde.Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimento

Plasticity in the sensorimotor cortex induced by Music-supported therapy in stroke patients: a TMS study.

Playing a musical instrument demands the engagement of different neural systems. Recent studies about the musician"s brain and musical training highlight that this activity requires the close interaction between motor and somatosensory systems. Moreover, neuroplastic changes have been reported in motor-related areas after short and long-term musical training. Because of its capacity to promote neuroplastic changes, music has been used in the context of stroke neurorehabilitation. The majority of patients suffering from a stroke have motor impairments, preventing them to live independently. Thus, there is an increasing demand for effective restorative interventions for neurological deficits. Music-supported Therapy (MST) has been recently developed to restore motor deficits. We report data of a selected sample of stroke patients who have been enrolled in a MST program (1 month intense music learning). Prior to and after the therapy, patients were evaluated with different behavioral motor tests. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) was applied to evaluate changes in the sensorimotor representations underlying the motor gains observed. Several parameters of excitability of the motor cortex were assessed as well as the cortical somatotopic representation of a muscle in the affected hand. Our results revealed that participants obtained significant motor improvements in the paretic hand and those changes were accompanied by changes in the excitability of the motor cortex. Thus, MST leads to neuroplastic changes in the motor cortex of stroke patients which may explain its efficacy

Deregulated expression of aurora kinases is not a prognostic biomarker in papillary thyroid cancer patients.

Abstract A number of reports indicated that Aurora-A or Aurora-B overexpression represented a negative prognostic factor in several human malignancies. In thyroid cancer tissues a deregulated expression of Aurora kinases has been also demonstrated, butno information regarding its possible prognostic role in differentiated thyroid cancer is available. Here, weevaluated Aurora-A and Aurora-B mRNA expression and its prognostic relevance in a series of 87 papillary thyroid cancers (PTC), with a median follow-up of 63 months. The analysis of Aurora-A and Aurora-B mRNA levels in PTC tissues, compared to normal matched tissues, revealed that their expression was either up-or down-regulatedin the majority of cancer tissues. In particular, Aurora-A and Aurora-B mRNA levels were altered, respectively, in 55 (63.2%) and 79 (90.8%) out of the 87 PTC analyzed. A significant positive correlation between Aurora-A and Aurora-B mRNAswas observed (p=0.001). The expression of both Aurora genes was not affected by the BRAF(V600E) mutation. Univariate, multivariate and Kaplan-Mayer analyses documented the lack of association between Aurora-A or Aurora-B expression and clinicopathological parameterssuch as gender, age, tumor size, histology, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis and BRAF status as well asdisease recurrences or disease-free interval. Only Aurora-B mRNA was significantly higher in T(3-4) tissues, with respect to T(1-2) PTC tissues. The data reported here demonstrate that the expression of Aurora kinases is deregulated in the majority of PTC tissues, likely contributing to PTC progression. However, differently from other human solid cancers, detection of Aurora-A or Aurora-B mRNAs is not a prognostic biomarker inPTC patients

Sugars separation in a fermentative broth by simulated moving bed chromatography : SMB

Des sucres tels que les fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) sont bénéfiques pour leurs hôtes car ils stimulent la croissance de bactéries bénéfiques dans le colon du fait qu’ils ne sont pas digérés par l’organisme. Ces FOS peuvent être produits à grande échelle par un procédé de fermentation du sucrose dont le milieu résultant (FOS + autres sucres + sels) doit être séparé en ses différents constituants afin de respecter les normes agroalimentaires. Parmi les techniques permettant cette séparation, seule la chromatographie liquide est applicable à grande échelle afin d’obtenir les puretés requises. La technique de séparation par lit mobile simulé (Simulated Moving Bed – SMB) permet de rendre le procédé continu et de diminuer la consommation d’éluant tout en augmentant la productivité. L’efficacité des techniques chromatographiques dépendant en grande partie de la nature de l’adsorbant, une étude préliminaire a été réalisée dans le but d’identifier le meilleur adsorbant pour cette séparation. Une résine échangeuse d’ions choisie, différentes techniques d’identification des paramètres de fonctionnement ont été mises en oeuvre afin de tester la séparation en mode SMB. Les résultats obtenus permettent de montrer qu’à partir d’un milieu de fermentation contenant 40% de FOS, il est possible d’obtenir un produit final pur à plus de 80%. Néanmoins, il a été mis en évidence que si la présence de sucrose dans le milieu de fermentation est inévitable, il faut absolument la contrôler au maximum pour éviter la pollution du produit finalFructooligosaccharides (FOS) are non-digestible sugars which affect positively the host by stimulating the growth of specific bacteria in the colon. At large scale, FOS can be produced from sucrose through fermentation. The fermentative broth obtained from this process is a complex mixture. The application of these sugars in the food industry requires their fractionation in order to meet final product specifications. Simulated moving bed chromatography (SMB) appears to be an efficient downstream process for the fractionation of sugars at an industrial scale. Thanks to this technique it is possible to work continuously reducing the solvent consumption and increasing the productivity. The major challenge when designing the separation process is the choice of an efficient adsorbent. A preliminary study was thus realized in order to identify the best adsorbent. An ion exchange resin was chosen and several parametric identification techniques were performed in order to realize the SMB separation. The results display the possibility to increase the FOS purity from 40% to 80%. Nevertheless, it was also displayed that sucrose present in the broth troubles the separation and must be strictly controlled during the fermentation

Operating conditions of a simulated moving bed chromatography unit for the purification of fructooligosaccharides

C. Nobre acknowledges the F.C.T. - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portugal) for the PhD Grant ref. SFRH/BD/32514/2006. A. Severino is funded by Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.S.R.- FNRS).This paper presents research results of the Belgian Network DYSCO (Dynamical Systems, Control, and Optimization), funded by the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme, initiated by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The scientific responsibility rests with its authors

Improving nitrogen use efficiency in irrigated cotton production

Irrigated cotton in Australia is mainly grown on heavy textured soils which are prone to waterlogging, resulting in significant losses of nitrogen (N) via denitrification and surface run-off. This study investigated fertiliser nitrogen use efficiency (fNUE) over three seasons on five commercial cotton farms using the $^{15}$N tracer technique. Fertiliser NUE was consistently low across all fertilised treatments, with on average 47% of the applied fertiliser lost and only 17% of the N taken up by the crop derived from fertiliser. There was no significant effect of different N fertiliser products and rates on cotton lint yield. High lint yields (0.9–3.6 Mg ha$^{-1}$) could be achieved even without the application of N fertiliser, demonstrating mineralisation of soil organic N, residual fertiliser, or N returned with crop residues, as key source of N in these cropping systems. Using the nitrification inhibitor DMPP and overhead instead of furrow irrigation showed potential to reduce N fertiliser losses. The results demonstrate that under current on-farm management fNUE is low on irrigated cotton farms in Australia and highlight the need to account for soil N stocks and mineralisation rates when assessing optimized fertiliser rates. There is substantial scope to improve fNUE and reduce N losses without any impact on lint yield, by adjusting N fertiliser application rates, in particular in combination with the use of the nitrification inhibitor DMPP. Using overhead instead of furrow irrigation is a promising approach to improve not only water use efficiency, but also fNUE in irrigated cotton systems

Weaving Concurrency in eXecutable Domain-Specific Modeling Languages

International audienceThe emergence of modern concurrent systems (e.g., Cyber-Physical Systems or the Internet of Things) and highly-parallel platforms (e.g., many-core, GPGPU pipelines, and distributed platforms) calls for Domain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) where concurrency is of paramount importance. Such DSMLs are intended to propose constructs with rich concurrency semantics, which allow system designers to precisely define and analyze system behaviors. However , specifying and implementing the execution semantics of such DSMLs can be a difficult, costly and error-prone task. Most of the time the concurrency model remains implicit and ad-hoc, embedded in the underlying execution environment. The lack of an explicit concurrency model prevents: the precise definition, the variation and the complete understanding of the semantics of the DSML, the effective usage of concurrency-aware analysis techniques, and the exploitation of the concurrency model during the system refinement (e.g., during its allocation on a specific platform). In this paper, we introduce a concurrent executable metamodeling approach, which supports a modular definition of the execution semantics , including the concurrency model, the semantic rules, and a well-defined and expressive communication protocol between them. Our approach comes with a dedicated metalanguage to specify the communication protocol, and with an execution environment to simulate executable models. We illustrate and validate our approach with an implementation of fUML, and discuss the modularity and applicability of our approach

Revalorización del residuo sólido de levaduras cerveceras como aditivo en la alimentación de aves con potencial probiótico

La producción de cerveza, la bebida alcohólica mundialmente más consumida, conlleva la generación de residuos sólidos, como el bagazo de malta y las levaduras floculadas. Estas últimas, de elevados valor nutritivo y carga orgánica, suponen un problema de descarte para los cerveceros artesanales, que impone costos de pre-tratamiento inasequibles para el sector. Esta investigación propone la revalorización del residuo de levaduras cerveceras (RLC) como aditivo para la alimentación avícola, a partir del estudio de sus propiedades tecnológicas y probióticas