A rare cause of recurrent spontaneous pneumothorax: Birt-hogg-dube syndrome

Birt-Hogg-Dube (BHD) syndrome is an unusual disorder characterized by the triad of cutaneous lesions, renal tumors and lung cysts. In cases with BHD syndrome, the frequency of recurrent pneumothorax is increased due to presence of multiple lung cysts. It is important to evaluate the BHD syndrome in differential diagnosis of recurrent pneumothorax especially with multiple lung cysts predominating in the lung base. In these patients, the presence of accompanying kidney and other tumors should be investigated. Herein, we report a case of BHD syndrome presenting with recurrent pneumothorax. © 2018 by Turkish Thoracic Society

633 Comparison of soluble proteins from skin sections of acne and TCA induced postinflammatory hyperpigmentation and erythema

Postinflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) is an acquired hypermelanosis occurring after cutaneous inflammation or injury that can arise in all skin types, but more frequently affects skin-of-color. The differences in the ethology of PIH and Postinflammatory erythema (PIE) in skin of color were evaluated from soluble protein extracts collected from skin section samples, using Somascan protein kit1.3 k (n=5). The skin samples were collected from selected gluteal TCA-induced lesions and truncal acne pustules, of either PIH or PIE, at day 28 post initial evaluation. Differences between proteins (FDR\u3c0.05) from PIH and PIE were analyzed with STRING version 11.5 and analysis points toward involvement of JAK/STAT signaling pathway and enhanced IL17 signaling in PIH compared to PIE lesions (OSM, CSF3, IL10RA, IL12RB2, IL10RB, IL3, CSF2, IL17D, IL17F, IFNA2, IFNA10, CRLF2, IL5RA, TYK2, IL12RB1, PRLR, GHR). The involvement of JAK/STAT signaling pathway has been described for some chronic cutaneous inflammatory conditions and acne. A higher occurrence of dermal remodeling proteases and inhibitors were found in PIE (MMP1, MMP2, MMP7, TIMP2) indicating a dermal remodeling phase at the time of excision. Concurrently, elevated levels of IL-1β, and TGF-β (critical for triggering and continuing differentiation programs of naïve CD4+ T cells to IL-17 secreting Th17 cells) in PIH samples suggests continuing promotion of macrophage infiltration and sustained inflammation. In addition to MMP13 and MMP16, the protein Keap1 was found to be increased in the PIH samples. Keap1, a repressor of master cellular defense against oxidative and electrophilic stresses, has been reported to be involved in the imbalance of proteolysis that can lead towards premature aging and in a senescent phenotype of endothelial cells. The sustained inflammation with excess of Keap1 protein might contribute to an altered proteostasis and ethology of PIH

The water we would like

Water is needed for our health: it maintains the health and integrity of every cell in the body, keeps the bloodstream liquid enough to flow through blood vessels, helps eliminate the by-products of the body’s metabolism, aids digestion, and other exceptional properties. High-quality water is needed to preserve health. Unfortunately, the environment and all its sectors are differently contaminated. This dangerous state is closely linked to increased anthropic activities (industrial and agricultural) and the use of harmful substances released without control. Old contaminants (pesticides and substances deriving from industrial activities) and new contaminants, called "emerging" (drugs, phytotoxins, body care products), can arrive in rivers, in surface and deep water, and the sea if they are not removed from the wastewater. These substances are harmful to human health because they enter the environment in quantities exceeding the natural self capacity purification of the ecosystems. We can be exposed to water-derived contaminants in different ways. For example, people can ingest small amounts of pollutants by drinking water; they can absorb pollutants through the skin while bathing or showering and during recreational activities, such as swimming, windsurfing, and water skiing; they can inhale droplets suspended in the air or vapors while taking a shower. They can also ingest foods that have been contaminated with water-borne pollutants.Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) cannot altogether remove most of these substances, which can easily reach the drinking water supplies, causing health problems for adults and children. Although drinking water quality is regulated and monitored in many countries, today’s increased knowledge suggests reviewing standards and guidelines on a near-permanent basis for both held and newly identified contaminants and adopting technologies as tertiary treatment processes, which could promote the easy degradation of recalcitrant compounds. It will be necessary to verify that the degradation products are less dangerous than the original molecules and that no dangerous aggregation products are formed. This communication reports some of the degradation studies carried out by our Research Teams in collaboration with foreign researchers using Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) on pesticides and pharmaceuticals present in actual water samples. Photolysis and heterogeneous photocatalysis under simulated solar irradiation using two forms of TiO2 (suspended or immobilized on the surface of thin glass plates) have been investigated to assess the suitability of different oxidation processes to promote mineralization of recalcitrant substances. Transformation products (TPs) have been identified by an LC system coupled to a hybrid LTQ-FTICR (7-T) mass spectrometer (MS). To evaluate the treatment methods' effectiveness, the treated solutions' measurements have been performed using the “Microtox® Toxicity Test” that reports the luminescence inhibition of the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri. During the degradation process, the temporary formation of toxic fragments was observed, which rapidly degraded to complete mineralization. Samples collected during the degradation process showed the temporary toxicity of the water. The rate of decomposition was highly dependent on the method used. Advanced oxidation processes such as TiO2/Xe-arc system, lead to a rapid decrease of the biorecalcitrant chemical concentrations in aqueous solutions, while photolysis and TiO2-coated glass are less effective. These promising results push us to continue and improver experimental trials. What is the future prospect? The creation of prototypes to be used by farmers and artisans to start with the virtuous path of water recycle

Generalized reactive amyloidosis in a gazelle (gazella gazella)

Bu raporda 1.5 yaşında, erkek bir dağ ceylanında saptanan generalize reaktif amiloidozis tanımlandı. Makroskobik incelemede karın boşluğundaki serozalarda hiperemi ve rumende ise kenarları kanamalı 7 cm çapında ülser belirlendi. Her iki böbreğin yüzeyinde 1-2 mm büyüklüğünde boz-beyaz renkte odaklar gözlendi. Mikroskobik incelemelerde böbreklerde glomerulus, tubulus ve akıtıcı kanal bazal membranları ve damar duvarlarında, dalakta foliküllerde, karaciğerde Disse aralığında ve ince barsaklarda lamina propriyada pembe renkte, homojen ve amorf yapıda birikimler gözlendi. Bu birikimlerin Kongo kırmızısı ile tuğla kırmızısı renkte boyandıkları, potasyum permanganat ile muamele edildikten sonra Kongo kırmızısı ile boyanmadıkları görülerek AA-amiloidoz (sekonder amiloidozis) olduğu kanısına varıldı. %10"luk formaldehitte bulunan stok doku parçalarının Lugol ve sülfirik asitle muamele edilmeleri sonucunda amiloid birikimlerinin koyu mavi renkte oldukları gözlendi. Rumende ülserasyonla birlikte generalize amiloidoz saptanan bu olguda, amiloid birikimlerinin makroskobik olarak sadece taze dokularda değil formaldehit solüsyonunda tespit edildikten sonra da gösterilebileceğine dikkat çekilmiştir

Person Re-identification with Deep Similarity-Guided Graph Neural Network

The person re-identification task requires to robustly estimate visual similarities between person images. However, existing person re-identification models mostly estimate the similarities of different image pairs of probe and gallery images independently while ignores the relationship information between different probe-gallery pairs. As a result, the similarity estimation of some hard samples might not be accurate. In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning framework, named Similarity-Guided Graph Neural Network (SGGNN) to overcome such limitations. Given a probe image and several gallery images, SGGNN creates a graph to represent the pairwise relationships between probe-gallery pairs (nodes) and utilizes such relationships to update the probe-gallery relation features in an end-to-end manner. Accurate similarity estimation can be achieved by using such updated probe-gallery relation features for prediction. The input features for nodes on the graph are the relation features of different probe-gallery image pairs. The probe-gallery relation feature updating is then performed by the messages passing in SGGNN, which takes other nodes' information into account for similarity estimation. Different from conventional GNN approaches, SGGNN learns the edge weights with rich labels of gallery instance pairs directly, which provides relation fusion more precise information. The effectiveness of our proposed method is validated on three public person re-identification datasets.Comment: accepted to ECCV 201

Peutz-Jeghers syndrome-a case report

Peutz-Jeghers Sendromu (PJS) gastrointestinal polipler ve mukokutanöz pigmentasyonlarla karakterize otozomal dominant geçişli, nadir görülen bir sendromdur. PJS'lu hastalarda gastrointestinal ve nongastrointestinal kanser riski hem relatif ve hem de mutlak değer olarak artmıştır. Melena şikayeti ile gelen 6 yaşındaki kız hastamızın ağız mukozasında siyah pigmente lezyonlar vardı. Uzun süredir yineleyen karın ağrılarından şikayetçi idi ve rektal polip öyküsü vardı. PJS tanısı alan hastamızın aile bireylerinden baba ve amcasında ağız mukozasında benzer lezyonlar, ayrıca babada mide kanaması öyküsü, hastanın kız kardeşinde yineleyen karın ağrıları, babaannesinin erkek kardeşlerinde mide ve nazofarenks kanseri mevcuttu. PJS'lu hastalarda LKB1(STK11) geninin sorumlu olduğu düşünülmektedir. Malignite riski normal popülasyondan 18 kat fazladır. Hastaların genç yaştan itibaren izlenmesi ve aile taraması yapılması kanser teşhisi yönünden önemlidir. Nadir görülen PJS'lu olgumuzu yayınlamayı ve konu ile ilgili literatürdeki bilgileri aktarmayı uygun bulduk.Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome (PJS), inherited autosomal dominantly, is a rare syndrome characterised by mucocutaneus pigmentation and gastrointestinal polyps. Patients with PJS are at very high relative and absolute risk for gastrointestinal and nongastrointestinal cancers. Our 6 year old female patient was admitted with melena and also had black pigmented lesions on her oral mucosa. She gave a long history of abdominal cramps and rectal polyps. Our diagnosis was PJS. There were similar lesions on her father's and uncle's oral mucosa, her father had a history of gastrointestinal bleeding, her sister had recurrent abdominal pain and her grandmother's brother had nasopharyngeal and gastric carcinoma. Recent literature holds the LKB1(STK11) gene responsible for PJS. In patients with PJS the risk of malignancy is 18 times more than normal population. For the early diagnosis of cancer, patients with PJS and their families have tobeexaminedfrequently. Since PJSisararedisorder, thiscasewas decidedtobepresentedalong withareview of recent literature

Investigation of metabolomic biomarkers for childhood executive function and the role of genetic and dietary factors : The GUSTO cohort

Background Few studies have investigated molecular biomarkers of specific executive function (EF) skills in children. We aimed to characterise the prospective associations between metabolome and multiple domains of EF using a bidirectional design. Methods This study was conducted within a longitudinal birth cohort, the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO). Circulating levels of 165 metabolites were quantified using a nuclear magnetic resonance based metabolomics platform (n = 457 (~6yrs) and n = 524 (~8yrs)). Parent-reported EF was available for 495 children (~7yrs). Multivariate linear regression was used to assess the metabolite-EF relationships. We examined the role of body composition, dietary factors, and genetics in the metabolite-EF associations. Findings Higher leucine level (~6yrs) was associated with poorer EF (~7yrs, Initiate (P = 0.003) and Working Memory (P = 0.004)). EF (~7yrs) was not associated with leucine (~8yrs). Importantly, we found weak evidence for associations of dietary factors (~5yrs) with leucine (~6yrs) and EF (~7yrs). Each copy of C allele in rs1260326 (a leucine-related polymorphism) was associated with higher leucine level and poorer Initiate and Working Memory (P < 0.05). Amongst those with less strongly genetically influenced leucine, inverse association between leucine and cognitive regulation were weaker among those with higher BMI. Interpretation The observed association between higher leucine level and poorer EF may be determined by genetics and may not be easily amenable to dietary interventions. Further research is needed for validation and to understand mechanisms. Copyright (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)Peer reviewe

Glassy phonon heralds a strain glass state in a shape memory alloy

Shape memory strain glasses are frustrated ferroelastic materials with glasslike slow relaxation an

Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

High-throughput identification of genotype-specific cancer vulnerabilities in mixtures of barcoded tumor cell lines.

Hundreds of genetically characterized cell lines are available for the discovery of genotype-specific cancer vulnerabilities. However, screening large numbers of compounds against large numbers of cell lines is currently impractical, and such experiments are often difficult to control. Here we report a method called PRISM that allows pooled screening of mixtures of cancer cell lines by labeling each cell line with 24-nucleotide barcodes. PRISM revealed the expected patterns of cell killing seen in conventional (unpooled) assays. In a screen of 102 cell lines across 8,400 compounds, PRISM led to the identification of BRD-7880 as a potent and highly specific inhibitor of aurora kinases B and C. Cell line pools also efficiently formed tumors as xenografts, and PRISM recapitulated the expected pattern of erlotinib sensitivity in vivo