Renal ganglioneuromas in a pediatric patient: Case report and review of the literature

AbstractGanglioneuromas are rare benign tumors originating from the sympathetic nervous system and neural crest cells. A 4-year-old girl presented with numerous urinary tract infections. Ultrasound and computed tomography revealed a large mass within the right kidney. A right nephrectomy and sampling of surrounding lymph nodes were performed. Pathology confirmed that the mass was a mature ganglioneuroma. The patient remains disease-free, more than 2 years after surgery. We present this rare case of renal ganglioneuroma as well as a review of the literature

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

Flat Taxes and Distributional Justice

Income tax reform has become a hot topic in both the United States and Canada. Over the past few years, a variety of proposals have been advanced for the replacement of the current income tax system and most proposals involve a compression of the multi-rate structure into a single rate and a shift to some form of consumption tax base. Flat taxes are advocated on the belief that they will provide a strong stimulus to investment, employment and output. Their supporters are convinced that the economic benefits are sufficiently large to make everyone better off, therefore there is no need to be concerned about the distributional effects of flat taxes. However, the claims about potentially large efficiency gains from flat taxes are not supported by research. Evaluating the effects of a consumption-base flat tax of the type proposed by Hall and Rabushka is one of the main purposes of the paper. Using a microdata set for Canada, which allows identifying taxpayers by both income level and family type, we show that flat taxes not only increase income inequality but also have important horizontal equity implications. We argue that a full debate on income tax reform requires a detailed evaluation of both polar alternatives to the current hybrid income tax: a move to a consumption base and a move to a comprehensive income tax. Toward that end, we have performed a simulation which estimates the distributional effects of a comprehensive income base with across the board rate reductions in order to maintain revenue-neutrality. We show that this option has advantages over the consumption-base flat tax in terms of both vertical and horizontal equity.income tax reform, flat taxes, equity,

Late Artinskian–Early Kungurian (Early Permian) warming and maximum marine flooding in the East Gondwana interior rift, Timor and Western Australia, and comparisons across East Gondwana

© 2016Substantial new information is presented on upper Artinskian–Kungurian deposits in Timor-Leste and in the Canning, Southern Carnarvon and northern Perth basins of Western Australia. These basins, situated between about 35°S and 55°S palaeolatitude, formed part of the East Gondwana interior rift, a precursor to the rift that 100 my later formed the Indian Ocean in this region. Timor lay near the main axis of the East Gondwana interior rift, whereas the Western Australian basins were marginal splays from the rift axis. The main depocentres developed as a result of faulting that was initiated during the Late Pennsylvanian. Detailed lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic analyses have been made on the newly recognized Bua-bai limestone and the type Cribas Group in Timor, the Noonkanbah Formation in the Canning Basin, the Byro Group in the Merlinleigh Sub-basin of the Southern Carnarvon Basin, and the Carynginia Formation in the northern Perth Basin. In Timor the succession, which is highly disrupted by faulting, was deposited under open-marine conditions probably in a shelf–basin setting. Restricted, very shallow-water seas flooded the Canning Basin and the Merlinleigh–Byro–Irwin sub-basins of the Southern Carnarvon and northern Perth basins and had highly variable oxygen levels and salinities typical of estuarine environments. A similar pattern of warming and bathymetric change is recognized in all studied basins. During the early part of the late Artinskian cool conditions prevailed, with water temperatures 0–4 °C forming sea ice in the Merlinleigh–Byro–Irwin rift. Rapid warming during the latter part of the late Artinskian was accompanied by maximum marine flooding close to the Artinskian–Kungurian boundary. Climatic and bathymetric conditions then allowed carbonate mounds, with larger fusulines and a variety of algae, to develop in the northern part of the rift system, and Tubiphytes, conodonts, and brachiopods with Tethyan affinities to migrate into the marginal-rift basins despite the generally adverse water quality at these depositional sites. Comparison between the stratigraphic record from the East Gondwana interior rift and coeval records from Lhasa and Sibumasu indicate a similar pattern of climate change during the Carboniferous to end Cisuralian. Similar trends probably are present in Eastern Australia although there is confusion over the correlation of some units