Management of anterior vaginal prolapse in South Africa : national survey

LetterThe original publication is available at http://www.samj.org.zaTo the Editor: A national survey was done on the management of anterior vaginal prolapse (AVP) by registered gynaecologists and urologists in South Africa. Of 822 questionnaires posted, 30.2% were returned completed (23.2% from gynaecologists and 7.0% from urologists). The information supplied was anonymous and is probably a true reflection of current practice. Of concern were the 36.3% of respondents who did not use a recognised staging system, a low rate of pre-operative urodynamic investigation by gynaecologists (8.4%) and a high rate of synthetic mesh use by urologists (75.9%), even for primary procedures. This first survey among South African prolapse surgeons provides valuable insight into clinical practice.Publishers’ versio

Fresh Perspectives on Motivation, Engagement, and Identity : A Conclusion

Peer reviewe

Mice with genetically altered glucocorticoid receptor expression show altered sensitivity for stress-induced depressive reactions

Altered glucocorticoid receptor (GR) signaling is a postulated mechanism for the pathogenesis of major depression. To mimic the human situation of altered GR function claimed for depression, we generated mouse strains that underexpress or overexpress GR, but maintain the regulatory genetic context controlling the GR gene. To achieve this goal, we used the following: (1) GR-heterozygous mutant mice (GR+/-) with a 50% GR gene dose reduction, and (2) mice overexpressing GR by a yeast artificial chromosome resulting in a twofold gene dose elevation. GR+/- mice exhibit normal baseline behaviors but demonstrate increased helplessness after stress exposure, a behavioral correlate of depression in mice. Similar to depressed patients, GR+/- mice have a disinhibited hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system and a pathological dexamethasone/corticotropin-releasing hormone test. Thus, they represent a murine depression model with good face and construct validity. Overexpression of GR in mice evokes reduced helplessness after stress exposure, and an enhanced HPA system feedback regulation. Therefore, they may represent a model for a stress-resistant strain. These mouse models can now be used to study biological changes underlying the pathogenesis of depressive disorders. As a first potential molecular correlate for such changes, we identified a downregulation of BDNF protein content in the hippocampus of GR+/- mice, which is in agreement with the so-called neurotrophin hypothesis of depression

Notes on Conformal Invisibility Devices

As a consequence of the wave nature of light, invisibility devices based on isotropic media cannot be perfect. The principal distortions of invisibility are due to reflections and time delays. Reflections can be made exponentially small for devices that are large in comparison with the wavelength of light. Time delays are unavoidable and will result in wave-front dislocations. This paper considers invisibility devices based on optical conformal mapping. The paper shows that the time delays do not depend on the directions and impact parameters of incident light rays, although the refractive-index profile of any conformal invisibility device is necessarily asymmetric. The distortions of images are thus uniform, which reduces the risk of detection. The paper also shows how the ideas of invisibility devices are connected to the transmutation of force, the stereographic projection and Escheresque tilings of the plane

Basics of Generalized Unitarity

We review generalized unitarity as a means for obtaining loop amplitudes from on-shell tree amplitudes. The method is generally applicable to both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric amplitudes, including non-planar contributions. Here we focus mainly on N=4 Yang-Mills theory, in the context of on-shell superspaces. Given the need for regularization at loop level, we also review a six-dimensional helicity-based superspace formalism and its application to dimensional and massive regularizations. An important feature of the unitarity method is that it offers a means for carrying over any identified tree-level property of on-shell amplitudes to loop level, though sometimes in a modified form. We illustrate this with examples of dual conformal symmetry and a recently discovered duality between color and kinematics.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures. Invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories", R. Roiban(ed), M. Spradlin(ed), A. Volovich(ed

Synaptic abnormalities in the infralimbic cortex of a model of congenital depression

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that disturbances in excitatory transmission contribute to depression. Whether these defects involve the number, size, or composition of glutamatergic contacts is unclear. This study used recently introduced procedures for fluorescence deconvolution tomography in a well-studied rat model of congenital depression to characterize excitatory synapses in layer I of infralimbic cortex, a region involved in mood disorders, and of primary somatosensory cortex. Three groups were studied: (1) rats bred for learned helplessness (cLH); (2) rats resistant to learned helplessness (cNLH); and (3) control Sprague Dawley rats. In fields within infralimbic cortex, cLH rats had the same numerical density of synapses, immunolabeled for either the postsynaptic density (PSD) marker PSD95 or the presynaptic protein synaptophysin, as controls. However, PSD95 immunolabeling intensities were substantially lower in cLH rats, as were numerical densities of synapse-sized clusters of the AMPA receptor subunit GluA1. Similar but less pronounced differences (comparable numerical densities but reduced immunolabeling intensity for PSD95) were found in the somatosensory cortex. In contrast, non-helpless rats had 25% more PSDs than either cLH or control rats without any increase in synaptophysin-labeled terminal frequency. Compared with controls, both cLH and cNLH rats had fewer GABAergic contacts. These results indicate that congenital tendencies that increase or decrease depression-like behavior differentially affect excitatory synapses

Detection of chromosome aberrations in metaphase and interphase tumor cells by in situ hybridization using chromosome-specific library probes

Chromosome aberrations in two glioma cell lines were analyzed using biotinylated DNA library probes that specifically decorate chromosomes 1, 4, 7, 18 and 22 from pter to qter. Numerical changes, deletions and rearrangements of these chromosomes were radily visualized in metaphase spreads, as well as in early prophase and interphase nuclei. Complete chromosomes, deleted chromosomes and segments of translocated chromosomes were rapidly delineated in very complex karyotypes. Simultaneous hybridizations with additional subregional probes were used to further define aberrant chromosomes. Digital image analysis was used to quantitate the total complement of specific chromosomal DNAs in individual metaphase and interphase cells of each cell line. In spite of the fact that both glioma lines have been passaged in vitro for many years, an under-representation of chromosome 22 and an over-representation of chromosome 7 (specifically 7p) were observed. These observations agree with previous studies on gliomas. In addition, sequences of chromosome 4 were also found to be under-represented, especially in TC 593. These analyses indicate the power of these methods for pinpointing chromosome segments that are altered in specific types of tumors

Self-duality of the D1-D5 near-horizon

We explore fermionic T-duality and self-duality in the geometry AdS3 x S3 x T4 in type IIB supergravity. We explicitly construct the Killing spinors and the fermionic T-duality isometries and show that the geometry is self-dual under a combination of two bosonic AdS3 T-dualities, four fermionic T-dualities and either two additional T-dualities along T4 or two T-dualities along S3. In addition, we show that the presence of a B-field acts as an obstacle to self-duality, a property attributable to S- duality and fermionic T-duality not commuting. Finally, we argue that fermionic T-duality may be extended to CY2 = K3, a setting where we cannot explicitly construct the Killing spinors.Comment: 24 pages, references added, changes made to reinforce the point that S-duality and fermionic T-duality generically do not commute, version accepted to JHE