Primary sclerosing lipogranuloma: an unusual scrotal mass

Sclerosing lipogranuloma (SLG) of the male external genitalia is a rare benign condition presenting as subcutaneous masses. The underlying pathological process is a granulomatous reaction of fatty tissue in this area. The cause of this is unclear but hypothesis stems around the pathogenesis of exogenous lipid degeneration from injection of foreign bodies such as paraffin for penile augmentation. However, endogenous lipid degeneration from other various causes such as infection, trauma, and allergic mechanisms has also been reported. We present the case of a 40-year-old man with primary SLG of the external genitalia. Literature review on the treatment strategies are addressed and discussed

Exploring the measurement of markedness and its relationship with other linguistic variables

Antonym pair members can be differentiated by each word's markedness-that distinction attributable to the presence or absence of features at morphological or semantic levels. Morphologically marked words incorporate their unmarked counterpart with additional morphs (e.g., "unlucky" vs. "lucky"); properties used to determine semantically marked words (e.g., "short" vs. "long") are less clearly defined. Despite extensive theoretical scrutiny, the lexical properties of markedness have received scant empirical study. The current paper employs an antonym sequencing approach to measure markedness: establishing markedness probabilities for individual words and evaluating their relationship with other lexical properties (e.g., length, frequency, valence). Regression analyses reveal that markedness probability is, as predicted, related to affixation and also strongly related to valence. Our results support the suggestion that antonym sequence is reflected in discourse, and further analysis demonstrates that markedness probabilities, derived from the antonym sequencing task, reflect the ordering of antonyms within natural language. In line with the Pollyanna Hypothesis, we argue that markedness is closely related to valence; language users demonstrate a tendency to present words evaluated positively ahead of those evaluated negatively if given the choice. Future research should consider the relationship of markedness and valence, and the influence of contextual information in determining which member of an antonym pair is marked or unmarked within discourse

Falling behind: life expectancy in US counties from 2000 to 2007 in an international context

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The United States health care debate has focused on the nation's uniquely high rates of lack of insurance and poor health outcomes relative to other high-income countries. Large disparities in health outcomes are well-documented in the US, but the most recent assessment of county disparities in mortality is from 1999. It is critical to tracking progress of health reform legislation to have an up-to-date assessment of disparities in life expectancy across counties. US disparities can be seen more clearly in the context of how progress in each county compares to international trends.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We use newly released mortality data by age, sex, and county for the US from 2000 to 2007 to compute life tables separately for each sex, for all races combined, for whites, and for blacks. We propose, validate, and apply novel methods to estimate recent life tables for small areas to generate up-to-date estimates. Life expectancy rates and changes in life expectancy for counties are compared to the life expectancies across nations in 2000 and 2007. We calculate the number of calendar years behind each county is in 2000 and 2007 compared to an international life expectancy time series.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Across US counties, life expectancy in 2007 ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women. When compared against a time series of life expectancy in the 10 nations with the lowest mortality, US counties range from being 15 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years behind for men and 16 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years behind for women. County life expectancy for black men ranges from 59.4 to 77.2 years, with counties ranging from seven to over 50 calendar years behind the international frontier; for black women, the range is 69.6 to 82.6 years, with counties ranging from eight to over 50 calendar years behind. Between 2000 and 2007, 80% (men) and 91% (women) of American counties fell in standing against this international life expectancy standard.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The US has extremely large geographic and racial disparities, with some communities having life expectancies already well behind those of the best-performing nations. At the same time, relative performance for most communities continues to drop. Efforts to address these issues will need to tackle the leading preventable causes of death.</p

TTN genotype is associated with fascicle length and marathon running performance.

Titin provides a molecular blueprint for muscle sarcomere assembly and sarcomere length can vary according to titin isoform expression. If variations in sarcomere length influence muscle fascicle length, this may provide an advantage for running performance. Thus the aim of this study was to investigate if the titin (TTN) rs10497520 polymorphism was associated with muscle fascicle length in recreationally active men (RA; n = 137) and marathon personal best time in male marathon runners (MR; n = 141). Fascicle length of the vastus lateralis was assessed in vivo using B-mode ultrasonography at 50% of muscle length in RA. All participants provided either a whole blood, saliva or buccal cell sample, from which DNA was isolated and genotyped using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Vastus lateralis fascicle length was 10.4% longer in CC homozygotes, those carrying two copies of the C-allele, than CT heterozygotes (p = 0.003) in RA. In the absence of any TT homozygotes, reflective of the low T-allele frequency within Caucasian populations, it is unclear if fascicle length for this group would have been smaller still. No differences in genotype frequency between the RA and MR groups were observed (p = 0.500), although within the MR group the T-allele carriers demonstrated marathon personal best times 2 min 25 s faster than CC homozygotes (p = 0.020). These results suggest that the T-allele at rs10497520 in the TTN gene is associated with shorter skeletal muscle fascicle length and conveys an advantage for marathon running performance in habitually trained men. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Messina: A Novel Analysis Tool to Identify Biologically Relevant Molecules in Disease

BACKGROUND: Morphologically similar cancers display heterogeneous patterns of molecular aberrations and follow substantially different clinical courses. This diversity has become the basis for the definition of molecular phenotypes, with significant implications for therapy. Microarray or proteomic expression profiling is conventionally employed to identify disease-associated genes, however, traditional approaches for the analysis of profiling experiments may miss molecular aberrations which define biologically relevant subtypes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we present Messina, a method that can identify those genes that only sometimes show aberrant expression in cancer. We demonstrate with simulated data that Messina is highly sensitive and specific when used to identify genes which are aberrantly expressed in only a proportion of cancers, and compare Messina to contemporary analysis techniques. We illustrate Messina by using it to detect the aberrant expression of a gene that may play an important role in pancreatic cancer. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Messina allows the detection of genes with profiles typical of markers of molecular subtype, and complements existing methods to assist the identification of such markers. Messina is applicable to any global expression profiling data, and to allow its easy application has been packaged into a freely-available stand-alone software package

Multiphysics simulation of a microfluidic perfusion chamber for brain slice physiology

Understanding and optimizing fluid flows through in vitro microfluidic perfusion systems is essential in mimicking in vivo conditions for biological research. In a previous study a microfluidic brain slice device (μBSD) was developed for microscale electrophysiology investigations. The device consisted of a standard perfusion chamber bonded to a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannel substrate. Our objective in this study is to characterize the flows through the μBSD by using multiphysics simulations of injections into a pourous matrix to identify optimal spacing of ports. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are performed with CFD-ACE + software to model, simulate, and assess the transport of soluble factors through the perfusion bath, the microchannels, and a material that mimics the porosity, permeability and tortuosity of brain tissue. Additionally, experimental soluble factor transport through a brain slice is predicted by and compared to simulated fluid flow in a volume that represents a porous matrix material. The computational results are validated with fluorescent dye experiments

Seasonal changes in patterns of gene expression in avian song control brain regions.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Photoperiod and hormonal cues drive dramatic seasonal changes in structure and function of the avian song control system. Little is known, however, about the patterns of gene expression associated with seasonal changes. Here we address this issue by altering the hormonal and photoperiodic conditions in seasonally-breeding Gambel's white-crowned sparrows and extracting RNA from the telencephalic song control nuclei HVC and RA across multiple time points that capture different stages of growth and regression. We chose HVC and RA because while both nuclei change in volume across seasons, the cellular mechanisms underlying these changes differ. We thus hypothesized that different genes would be expressed between HVC and RA. We tested this by using the extracted RNA to perform a cDNA microarray hybridization developed by the SoNG initiative. We then validated these results using qRT-PCR. We found that 363 genes varied by more than 1.5 fold (>log(2) 0.585) in expression in HVC and/or RA. Supporting our hypothesis, only 59 of these 363 genes were found to vary in both nuclei, while 132 gene expression changes were HVC specific and 172 were RA specific. We then assigned many of these genes to functional categories relevant to the different mechanisms underlying seasonal change in HVC and RA, including neurogenesis, apoptosis, cell growth, dendrite arborization and axonal growth, angiogenesis, endocrinology, growth factors, and electrophysiology. This revealed categorical differences in the kinds of genes regulated in HVC and RA. These results show that different molecular programs underlie seasonal changes in HVC and RA, and that gene expression is time specific across different reproductive conditions. Our results provide insights into the complex molecular pathways that underlie adult neural plasticity

Unique genome-wide transcriptome profiles of chicken macrophages exposed to Salmonella-derived endotoxin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Macrophages play essential roles in both innate and adaptive immune responses. Bacteria require endotoxin, a complex lipopolysaccharide, for outer membrane permeability and the host interprets endotoxin as a signal to initiate an innate immune response. The focus of this study is kinetic and global transcriptional analysis of the chicken macrophage response to <it>in vitro </it>stimulation with endotoxin from <it>Salmonella </it><it>typhimurium</it>-798.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The 38535-probeset Affymetrix GeneChip Chicken Genome array was used to profile transcriptional response to endotoxin 1, 2, 4, and 8 hours post stimulation (hps). Using a maximum FDR (False Discovery Rate) of 0.05 to declare genes as differentially expressed (DE), we found 13, 33, 1761 and 61 DE genes between endotoxin-stimulated versus non-stimulated cells at 1, 2, 4 and 8 hps, respectively. QPCR demonstrated that endotoxin exposure significantly affected the mRNA expression of <it>IL1B</it>, <it>IL6</it>, <it>IL8</it>, and <it>TLR15</it>, but not <it>IL10 </it>and <it>IFNG </it>in HD 11 cells. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis showed that 10% of the total DE genes were involved in inflammatory response. Three, 9.7, 96.8, and 11.8% of the total DE inflammatory response genes were significantly differentially expressed with endotoxin stimulation at 1, 2, 4 and 8 hps, respectively. The <it>NFKBIA, IL1B, IL8 and CCL4 </it>genes were consistently induced at all times after endotoxin treatment. <it>NLRC5 </it>(CARD domain containing, NOD-like receptor family, RCJMB04_18i2), an intracellular receptor, was induced in HD11 cells treated with endotoxin.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>As above using an <it>in vitro </it>model of chicken response to endotoxin, our data revealed the kinetics of gene networks involved in host response to endotoxin and extend the known complexity of networks in chicken immune response to Gram-negative bacteria such as <it>Salmonella</it>. The induction of <it>NFKBIA, IL1B, IL8, CCL4 </it>genes is a consistent signature of host response to endotoxin over time. We make the first report of induction of a NOD-like receptor family member in response to <it>Salmonella </it>endotoxin in chicken macrophages.</p

Evaluation of a communication skills program for first-year medical students at the University of Toronto

Abstract Background Effective doctor-patient communication has been linked to numerous benefits for both patient and physician. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the University of Toronto's Therapeutic Communication Program (TCom) at improving first-year medical students' communication skills. Methods Data were collected during the 1996/97, 1997/98, 1998/99 and 1999/00 academic years. The study used a repeated measures design with a waiting list control group: students were randomly assigned to groups starting the educational intervention in either September (N = 38) or February (N = 41), with the latter being used as a control for the former. Communication skills were assessed at the pre- and post-intervention times and at the end of the academic year from the perspectives of student, standardized patient and external rater. Results Only the external rater, using an instrument designed to assess the students' empathy based on their written responses, showed a time × group interaction effect (p = 0.039), thereby partially supporting the hypothesis that TCom improved the students' communication skills. Students rated themselves less positively after participation in the program (p = 0.038), suggesting that self-evaluation was an ineffective measure of actual performance or that the program helped them learn to more accurately assess their abilities. Conclusion The lack of strong findings may be partly due to the study's small sample sizes. Further research at other medical or professional schools could assess the effectiveness of similar courses on students' communication skills and on other capacities that were not measured in this study, such as their understanding of and comfort with patients, their management of the doctor-patient relationship, and their ability to give and receive feedback

Accounting for density reduction and structural loss in standing dead trees: Implications for forest biomass and carbon stock estimates in the United States

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Standing dead trees are one component of forest ecosystem dead wood carbon (C) pools, whose national stock is estimated by the U.S. as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Historically, standing dead tree C has been estimated as a function of live tree growing stock volume in the U.S.'s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Initiated in 1998, the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis program (responsible for compiling the Nation's forest C estimates) began consistent nationwide sampling of standing dead trees, which may now supplant previous purely model-based approaches to standing dead biomass and C stock estimation. A substantial hurdle to estimating standing dead tree biomass and C attributes is that traditional estimation procedures are based on merchantability paradigms that may not reflect density reductions or structural loss due to decomposition common in standing dead trees. The goal of this study was to incorporate standing dead tree adjustments into the current estimation procedures and assess how biomass and C stocks change at multiple spatial scales.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Accounting for decay and structural loss in standing dead trees significantly decreased tree- and plot-level C stock estimates (and subsequent C stocks) by decay class and tree component. At a regional scale, incorporating adjustment factors decreased standing dead quaking aspen biomass estimates by almost 50 percent in the Lake States and Douglas-fir estimates by more than 36 percent in the Pacific Northwest.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Substantial overestimates of standing dead tree biomass and C stocks occur when one does not account for density reductions or structural loss. Forest inventory estimation procedures that are descended from merchantability standards may need to be revised toward a more holistic approach to determining standing dead tree biomass and C attributes (i.e., attributes of tree biomass outside of sawlog portions). Incorporating density reductions and structural loss adjustments reduces uncertainty associated with standing dead tree biomass and C while improving consistency with field methods and documentation.</p