Case report: intra-tendinous ganglion of the anterior cruciate ligament in a young footballer

A 20-year-old male medical student and keen rugby player presented with a 12-month history of progressively worsening right knee pain and stiffness with no history of trauma. Clinical examination revealed effusion and posterior knee pain exacerbated by end range movement and an extension lag of 15 degrees. Physiotherapy to improve the range of motion proved unsuccessful. Magnetic resonance imaging showed that the ACL was grossly thickened and displaced by material reported as mucoid in nature. There were also areas of focally high signal in relation to its tibial attachment and intra osseous small cysts. Arthroscopic examination revealed a ganglion related to the tibial attachment of the ACL and gross thickening and discoloration of the ACL. Biopsies were taken showing foci of mucoid degeneration in the ACL. A large intra-ACL mass of brownish coloured tissue was excised arthroscopically. Already at 2 weeks follow up the patient had greatly improved range of movement and was pain free. However, upon returning to rugby, joint instability was noticed and a tear of the ACL was confirmed. This rare clinical condition can be diagnosed with MRI and arthroscopic debridement effectively relieves symptoms. This case report illustrates that augmentation or reconstruction may end up being the definitive treatment for athletes. It may also offer some support to the argument that mucoid degeneration and ganglion cyst formation share a similar pathogenesis to intra-osseous cyst formation

Sine-Gordon Model - Renormalization Group Solutions and Applications

The sine-Gordon model is discussed and analyzed within the framework of the renormalization group theory. A perturbative renormalization group procedure is carried out through a decomposition of the sine-Gordon field in slow and fast modes. An effective slow modes's theory is derived and re-scaled to obtain the model's flow equations. The resulting Kosterlitz-Thouless phase diagram is obtained and discussed in detail. The theory's gap is estimated in terms of the sine-Gordon model paramaters. The mapping between the sine-Gordon model and models for interacting electrons in one dimension, such as the g-ology model and Hubbard model, is discussed and the previous renormalization group results, obtained for the sine-Gordon model, are thus borrowed to describe different aspects of Luttinger liquid systems, such as the nature of its excitations and phase transitions. The calculations are carried out in a thorough and pedagogical manner, aiming the reader with no previous experience with the sine-Gordon model or the renormalization group approach.Comment: 44 pages, 7 figure

Extraction of bodily features for gait recognition and gait attractiveness evaluation

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11042-012-1319-2. Copyright @ 2012 Springer.Although there has been much previous research on which bodily features are most important in gait analysis, the questions of which features should be extracted from gait, and why these features in particular should be extracted, have not been convincingly answered. The primary goal of the study reported here was to take an analytical approach to answering these questions, in the context of identifying the features that are most important for gait recognition and gait attractiveness evaluation. Using precise 3D gait motion data obtained from motion capture, we analyzed the relative motions from different body segments to a root marker (located on the lower back) of 30 males by the fixed root method, and compared them with the original motions without fixing root. Some particular features were obtained by principal component analysis (PCA). The left lower arm, lower legs and hips were identified as important features for gait recognition. For gait attractiveness evaluation, the lower legs were recognized as important features.Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award and HEFCE

Cybermatics: A Holistic Field for Systematic Study of Cyber-Enabled New Worlds

PublishedJournal ArticleThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via the DOI in this record.© 2013 IEEE.Following the two trends of computerization and informatization, another emerging trend is cyberization in which numerous and various cyber entities in cyberspace will exist in cyber-enabled worlds, including the cyber world and cyber-conjugated physical, social, and mental worlds. Computer science and information science, as holistic fields, have, respectively, played important roles in computerization and informatization. Similarly, it is necessary for there to be a corresponding field for cyberization. Cybermatics is proposed as such a holistic field for the systematic study of cyber entities in cyberspace and cyber world, and their properties, functions, and conjugations with entities in conventional spaces/worlds. This paper sets out to explain the necessity and rationale for, and significance of, the proposed field of Cybermatics, what it is and what it encompasses, and how it is related to other fields and areas

Intestinal parasitic infections in schoolchildren in different settings of Côte d'Ivoire : effect of diagnostic approach and implications for control

BACKGROUND: Social-ecological systems govern parasitic infections in humans. Within the frame of assessing the accuracy of a rapid diagnostic test for Schistosoma mansoni in Cote d'Ivoire, three different endemicity settings had to be identified and schoolchildren's intestinal parasitic infection profiles were characterized. METHODS: In September 2010, a rapid screening was conducted in 11 schools in the Azaguie district, south Cote d'Ivoire. In each school, 25 children were examined for S. mansoni and S. haematobium. Based on predefined schistosome endemicity levels, three settings were selected, where schoolchildren aged 8-12 years were asked to provide three stool and three urine samples for an in-depth appraisal of parasitic infections. Triplicate Kato-Katz thick smears were prepared from each stool sample for S. mansoni and soil-transmitted helminth diagnosis, whereas urine samples were subjected to a filtration method for S. haematobium diagnosis. Additionally, a formol-ether concentration method was employed on one stool sample for the diagnosis of helminths and intestinal protozoa. Multivariable logistic regression models were employed to analyse associations between schoolchildren's parasitic infections, age, sex and study setting. RESULTS: The prevalences of S. mansoni and S. haematobium infections in the initial screening ranged from nil to 88% and from nil to 56%, respectively. The rapid screening in the three selected areas revealed prevalences of S. mansoni of 16%, 33% and 78%. Based on a more rigorous diagnostic approach, the respective prevalences increased to 92%, 53% and 33%. S. haematobium prevalences were 0.8%, 4% and 65%. Prevalence and intensity of Schistosoma spp., soil-transmitted helminths and intestinal protozoan infections showed setting-specific patterns. Infections with two or more species concurrently were most common in the rural setting (84%), followed by the peri-urban (28.3%) and urban setting (18.2%). CONCLUSIONS: More sensitive diagnostic tools or rigorous sampling approaches are needed to select endemicity settings with high fidelity. The observed small-scale heterogeneity of helminths and intestinal protozoan infections has important implications for contro

Structural analysis of MDM2 RING separates degradation from regulation of p53 transcription activity

MDM2–MDMX complexes bind the p53 tumor-suppressor protein, inhibiting p53's transcriptional activity and targeting p53 for proteasomal degradation. Inhibitors that disrupt binding between p53 and MDM2 efficiently activate a p53 response, but their use in the treatment of cancers that retain wild-type p53 may be limited by on-target toxicities due to p53 activation in normal tissue. Guided by a novel crystal structure of the MDM2–MDMX–E2(UbcH5B)–ubiquitin complex, we designed MDM2 mutants that prevent E2–ubiquitin binding without altering the RING-domain structure. These mutants lack MDM2's E3 activity but retain the ability to limit p53′s transcriptional activity and allow cell proliferation. Cells expressing these mutants respond more quickly to cellular stress than cells expressing wild-type MDM2, but basal p53 control is maintained. Targeting the MDM2 E3-ligase activity could therefore widen the therapeutic window of p53 activation in tumors

Confirmation of the Chinese version of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire Short Form (PIUQ-SF)

Although an increasing number of studies have focused on problematic Internet use, numerous measures exist with only modest investigation into their reliability and validity, both within and across different cultures (Király et al. 2015). The most frequently used questionnaire is the Internet Addiction Test (Young 1998). However, its factor structure appears to be unstable (e.g., Fernandez-Villa et al. 2015; Pontesetal. 2014). Koronczai et al. (2011) suggested that a suitable measure should fit six basic requirements. More specifically, it should be (i) comprehensive, that is examining more, possibly all, aspects of problematic Internet use; (ii) as concise as possible, in order to be able to assess the more impulsive population, and to use in time-limited surveys (or having different forms with different length). Such a measure should be (iii) reliable and valid for different methods of data collection (e.g. online, paper-and-pencil self-rating, face-to-face); as well as (iv) for different age groups (e.g. adolescents and adults), and (v) in different cultural settings. Finally, (vi) cut-off scores should be defined on the basis of clinical examination. The Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ) (Demetrovics et al. 2008) fulfills several of the aforementioned criteria. The 18-item PIUQ is a comprehensive measure that assesses three basic aspects of problematic Internet use (i.e., obsession, neglect, and control disorder). The 18-item and the shorter 9-item versions of the PIUQ have a reliable structure, and are suitable for time-limited surveys and have proved to be valid across various methods of data collection (i.e., online as well as paper-pencil) and age groups (Demetrovics et al. 2008; Koronczai et al. 2011). However, its implementation has so far mostly taken place in Western individualistic cultures (Kelley and Gruber 2010, 2013; Koronczai et al. 2011; Zahodne et al. 2011. To date, the PIUQ has also been applied in a survey in Iran with good Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and subscales (Mazhari 2012a, 2012b). Consequently, validation of the questionnaire in a culture that is significantly different from the Western culture is needed. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was the validation of the 9-item PIUQ among the Chinese population

Infectious Disease Ontology

Technological developments have resulted in tremendous increases in the volume and diversity of the data and information that must be processed in the course of biomedical and clinical research and practice. Researchers are at the same time under ever greater pressure to share data and to take steps to ensure that data resources are interoperable. The use of ontologies to annotate data has proven successful in supporting these goals and in providing new possibilities for the automated processing of data and information. In this chapter, we describe different types of vocabulary resources and emphasize those features of formal ontologies that make them most useful for computational applications. We describe current uses of ontologies and discuss future goals for ontology-based computing, focusing on its use in the field of infectious diseases. We review the largest and most widely used vocabulary resources relevant to the study of infectious diseases and conclude with a description of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) suite of interoperable ontology modules that together cover the entire infectious disease domain