Progressive improvement of impaired visual acuity during the first year after transsphenoidal surgery for non-functioning pituitary macroadenoma

Improvement of visual field defects continues even years after the initial surgical treatment. Because this process of continuing improvement has not been documented for visual acuity, we audited our data to explore the pattern of recovery of visual acuity until 1 year after transsphenoidal surgery for non-functioning pituitary macroadenoma. Retrospective follow-up study. Forty-three patients (mean age 56 +/- 14 years), treated by transsphenoidal surgery for non-functioning pituitary macroadenoma, were included in this analysis. Visual acuity improved significantly within 3 months after transsphenoidal surgery. The mean visual acuity increased from 0.65 +/- 0.37 to 0.75 +/- 0.36 (P <0.01) (right eye), and from 0.60 +/- 0.32 to 0.82 +/- 0.30 (P <0.01) (left eye). Visual acuity was improved 1 year after transsphenoidal surgery compared to the 3 months postoperative values. The mean visual acuity increased from 0.75 +/- 0.36 to 0.82 +/- 0.34 (P <0.05) (right eye), and from 0.82 +/- 0.30 to 0.88 +/- 0.27 (P <0.05) (left eye). Visual acuity improves progressively after surgical treatment for non-functioning pituitary macroadenomas, at least within the first year after transsphenoidal surger

A descriptive marker gene approach to single-cell pseudotime inference

MotivationPseudotime estimation from single-cell gene expression data allows the recovery of temporal information from otherwise static profiles of individual cells. Conventional pseudotime inference methods emphasize an unsupervised transcriptome-wide approach and use retrospective analysis to evaluate the behaviour of individual genes. However, the resulting trajectories can only be understood in terms of abstract geometric structures and not in terms of interpretable models of gene behaviour.ResultsHere we introduce an orthogonal Bayesian approach termed ‘Ouija’ that learns pseudotimes from a small set of marker genes that might ordinarily be used to retrospectively confirm the accuracy of unsupervised pseudotime algorithms. Crucially, we model these genes in terms of switch-like or transient behaviour along the trajectory, allowing us to understand why the pseudotimes have been inferred and learn informative parameters about the behaviour of each gene. Since each gene is associated with a switch or peak time the genes are effectively ordered along with the cells, allowing each part of the trajectory to be understood in terms of the behaviour of certain genes. We demonstrate that this small panel of marker genes can recover pseudotimes that are consistent with those obtained using the entire transcriptome. Furthermore, we show that our method can detect differences in the regulation timings between two genes and identify ‘metastable’ states—discrete cell types along the continuous trajectories—that recapitulate known cell types.Availability and implementationAn open source implementation is available as an R package at http://www.github.com/kieranrcampbell/ouija and as a Python/TensorFlow package at http://www.github.com/kieranrcampbell/ouijaflow.Supplementary informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.</p

Patents and Industrialisation. An Historical Overview of the British Case, 1624-1907

A Report to the Strategic Advisory Board on Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP), U

Genealogy of the family Dulken.

The first half of the manuscript provides a chronicle not just of the Dulken family, but also of the history of the Jewish community of Deutz (now incorported into Cologne), in which the Dülkens have roots going back several generations. The second half of the manuscript offers family trees, which provide vital statistics for members of various branches of the family from approximately the 19th through the mid-20th century. A few appendices include a transcript of the text on a Torah curtain of the Deutz community and a map of the Jewish cemetary of Deutz.Dulken, ErnstProcessed for digitizationSent for digitizationReturned from digitizationLinked to online manifestationdigitize

Searching for European registered designs

Registered design databases Design registration statistics European Internet design databases Locarno classification Design image availability Official design gazettes

Free patent databases on the Internet: a critical view

Free patent databases on the Internet are useful, particularly as they allow users in numerous locations to quickly access information. This advantage of ease of access is however a disadvantage if the novice user does not realise that expert advice is needed at the site itself, and ideally from staff at patent libraries, so that a good search can be constructed and so that the results can be properly interpreted. Other problems include the potential disappearance of such databases, or charging for them; problems in adequate access, particularly when the latest software is used; poorly designed search masks in many sites; poor or non-existent help; and the inability to browse data. Suggestions to improve the situation include ensuring that compatible products on CD-ROM or DVD co-exist; much better help keys; hypertext links to classifications and to patent libraries; and easy scanning through drawings.

The “Midwife Menace” and How We Forget: Inter-Generational Gaps in Southern Appalachian Women Healers

In the twentieth century, the medical profession engineered campaigns to eliminate lay midwifery. This discretionary purging of local healers erased the practice and legacy of Southern Appalachia’s granny women. Through tracing their disappearance we can uncover how ignorance is produced and deployed for social gains. And in doing so, better understand the consequences of agnotology across medicine and, more broadly, Appalachian women\u27s social power. Utilizing oral histories, periodicals, and the American College of Nurse-Midwife collection, this study unpacks how midwifery shifted from the sphere of “menace” to one of critical importance in modern neonatal care. It also explores what happens when a healing figure is evacuated from a region’s memory. In particular, voices from the “Uses of Traditional Medicine and the Health Care System Among Farm Families Oral History Project” at the Louie B. Nunn Center begged the question, how did Southern Appalachian women become so unfamiliar with their bodies? Three spheres of scholarship help frame an analysis for the cultural erasure of Southern Appalachia\u27s granny women. First, historians Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger provide a model for grappling with ignorance and causality in their book Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Second, Anthony Cavender offers an entry point into the practices of regional healers in his book Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia. Finally, discoveries illustrated in Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes illuminate who granny women might have been before they were expunged from the landscape and memories of Southern Appalachia