ORTHOTOPIC LIVER TRANSPLANTATION FOR WILSON'S DISEASE

An 11-year-old boy with terminal hepatic failure due to Wilson's disease was treated 18 months ago with orthotopic liver transplantation. Postoperatively, there has been evidence of clearance of body copper stores but without accumulation of copper in biopsy specimens of the transplanted liver after 6 and 17 months. Further follow-up will be necessary before deciding whether the disorder has been cured by liver replacement and in turn whether this constitutes proof that Wilson's disease is an inborn error of hepatic metabolism. The observations so far are consistent with these conclusions. © 1971

Fish oil consumption prevents glucose intolerance and hypercorticosteronemy in footshock-stressed rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Environmental stress plays an important role in the development of glucose intolerance influencing lipid and glucose metabolism through sympathetic nervous system, cytokines and hormones such as glucocorticoids, catecholamines and glucagon. Otherwise, fish oil prevents glucose intolerance and insulin resistance. Although the mechanisms involved are not fully understood, it is known that sympathetic and HPA responses are blunted and catecholamines and glucocorticoids concentrations can be modulated by fish consumption. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether fish oil, on a normal lipidic diet: 1) could prevent the effect of footshock-stress on the development of glucose intolerance; 2) modified adiponectin receptor and serum concentration; and 3) also modified TNF-α, IL-6 and interleukin-10 (IL-10) levels in adipose tissue and liver. The study was performed in thirty day-old male Wistar randomly assigned into four groups: no stressed (C) and stressed (CS) rats fed with control diet, and no stressed (F) and stressed (FS) rats fed with a fish oil rich diet. The stress was performed as a three daily footshock stress sessions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Body weight, carcass fat and protein content were not different among groups. FS presented a reduction on the relative weight of RET. Basal serum glucose levels were higher in CS and FS but 15 min after glucose load just CS remained with higher levels than other groups. Serum corticosterone concentration was increased in CS, this effect was inhibited in FS. However, 15 min after footshock-stress, corticosterone levels were similar among groups. IL-6 was increased in EPI of CS but fish oil consumption prevented IL-6 increase in FS. Similar levels of TNF-α and IL-10 in RET, EPI, and liver were observed among groups. Adipo R1 protein concentration was not different among groups. Footshock-stress did not modify AdipoR2 concentration, but fish oil diet increases AdipoR2 protein concentration.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Footshock-stress promotes glucose intolerance associated to corticosterone serum level and epididymal white adipose tissue IL-6 concentration increase. The fish oil consumption by stressed rats normalized the stress responses. These results suggested that fish oil intake could be useful to minimize or prevent the development of diseases associated to the stress.</p

Decision level ensemble method for classifying multi-media data

In the digital era, the data, for a given analytical task, can be collected in different formats, such as text, images and audio etc. The data with multiple formats are called multimedia data. Integrating and fusing multimedia datasets has become a challenging task in machine learning and data mining. In this paper, we present heterogeneous ensemble method that combines multi-media datasets at the decision level. Our method consists of several components, including extracting the features from multimedia datasets that are not represented by features, modelling independently on each of multimedia datasets, selecting models based on their accuracy and diversity and building the ensemble at the decision level. Hence our method is called decision level ensemble method (DLEM). The method is tested on multimedia data and compared with other heterogeneous ensemble based methods. The results show that the DLEM outperformed these methods significantly

Matcher Composition Methods for Automatic Schema Matching

We address the problem of automating the process of deciding whether two data schema ele-ments match (that is, refer to the same actual object or concept), and propose several methods for combining evidence computed by multiple basic matchers. One class of methods uses Bayesian networks to account for the conditional dependency between the similarity values produced by individual matchers that use the same or similar information, so as to avoid overconfidence in match probability estimates and improve the accuracy of matching. Another class of methods relies on optimization switches that mitigate this dependency in a domain-independent manner. Experimental results under several testing protocols suggest that the matching accuracy of the Bayesian composite matchers can significantly exceed that of the individual component match-ers, and the careful selection of optimization switches can improve matching accuracy even further

Neural Stem Cells Achieve and Maintain Pluripotency without Feeder Cells

Background: Differentiated cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotency by transduction of four defined transcription factors. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are expected to be useful for regenerative medicine as well as basic research. Recently, the report showed that mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF) cells are not essential for reprogramming. However, in using fibroblasts as donor cells for reprogramming, individual fibroblasts that had failed to reprogram could function as feeder cells. Methodology/Principal Finding: Here, we show that adult mouse neural stem cells (NSCs), which are not functional feeder cells, can be reprogrammed into iPS cells using defined four factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc) under feeder-free conditions. The iPS cells, generated from NSCs expressing the Oct4-GFP reporter gene, could proliferate for more than two months (passage 20). Generated and maintained without feeder cells, these iPS cells expressed pluripotency markers (Oct4 and Nanog), the promoter regions of Oct4 and Nanog were hypomethylated, could differentiated into to all three germ layers in vitro, and formed a germline chimera. These data indicate that NSCs can achieve and maintain pluripotency under feeder-free conditions. Conclusion/Significance: This study suggested that factors secreted by feeder cells are not essential in the initial/early stages of reprogramming and for pluripotency maintenance. This technology might be useful for a human system, as

Effectiveness of accelerated perioperative care and rehabilitation intervention compared to current intervention after hip and knee arthroplasty. A before-after trial of 247 patients with a 3-month follow-up

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Denmark, approximately 12,000 hip and knee arthroplasties were performed in 2006, and the hospital costs were close to US$ 110,000,000. In a randomized clinical trial, we have recently demonstrated the efficacy of accelerated perioperative care and rehabilitation intervention after hip and knee arthroplasty compared to current intervention under ideal circumstances. We do not, however, know whether these results could be reached under usual circumstances of healthcare practice. We therefore investigated whether length of stay after implementation of accelerated perioperative care and rehabilitation after hip and knee arthroplasty could be reduced in a normal healthcare setting, and how the achieved results matched those observed during the randomized clinical trial.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An effectiveness study as a before-after trial was undertaken in which all elective primary total hip and total knee arthroplasty patients were divided into a before-implementation group receiving the current perioperative procedure, and an after-implementation group receiving the new accelerated perioperative care and rehabilitation procedures as provided by a new multi-disciplinary organization. We used the Breakthrough Series Collaborative Model for implementation. The primary outcome measure was in hospital length of stay (LOS), and the secondary outcome measure was adverse effects within 3 months postoperatively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We included a total of 247 patients. Mean LOS was significantly (<it>P </it>< 0.001) reduced by 4.4 (95% CI 3.8–5.0) days after implementation of the accelerated intervention, from 8.8 (SD 3.0) days before implementation to 4.3 (SD 1.8) days after implementation. No significant differences in adverse effects were observed. LOS in this effectiveness study was significantly lower than LOS reported in the efficacy study.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Accelerated perioperative care and rehabilitation intervention after hip and knee arthroplasty was successfully and effectively implemented. Results obtained during usual hospital circumstances matched the results achieved under ideal circumstances in this group of patients.</p

Application of Chinese Jun-Cao technique for the production of Brazilian Ganoderma lucidum strains

Ganoderma lucidum is a medicinal mushroom traditionally used in China against a wide range of diseases such as cancer and also for its prevention. In this work, commercial Chinese strains G. lucidum were compared to wild Brazilian strains aiming to determine the cultivation potential through the use of Jun-Cao. Six formulations were tested and the strains presented good response to the applied method. In general, the mixture between the grass and wood was well suited for the basidiomycetes, contributing to the preparation of substrates that generated better results in Jun Cao

Distinct regulation of c-myb gene expression by HoxA9, Meis1 and Pbx proteins in normal hematopoietic progenitors and transformed myeloid cells

The proto-oncogenic protein c-Myb is an essential regulator of hematopoiesis and is frequently deregulated in hematological diseases such as lymphoma and leukemia. To gain insight into the mechanisms underlying the aberrant expression of c-Myb in myeloid leukemia, we analyzed and compared c-myb gene transcriptional regulation using two cell lines modeling normal hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) and transformed myelomonocytic blasts. We report that the transcription factors HoxA9, Meis1, Pbx1 and Pbx2 bind in vivo to the c-myb locus and maintain its expression through different mechanisms in HPCs and leukemic cells. Our analysis also points to a critical role for Pbx2 in deregulating c-myb expression in murine myeloid cells cotransformed by the cooperative activity of HoxA9 and Meis1. This effect is associated with an intronic positioning of epigenetic marks and RNA polymerase II binding in the orthologous region of a previously described alternative promoter for c-myb. Taken together, our results could provide a first hint to explain the abnormal expression of c-myb in leukemic cells

Acute kidney disease and renal recovery : consensus report of the Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) 16 Workgroup

Consensus definitions have been reached for both acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) and these definitions are now routinely used in research and clinical practice. The KDIGO guideline defines AKI as an abrupt decrease in kidney function occurring over 7 days or less, whereas CKD is defined by the persistence of kidney disease for a period of > 90 days. AKI and CKD are increasingly recognized as related entities and in some instances probably represent a continuum of the disease process. For patients in whom pathophysiologic processes are ongoing, the term acute kidney disease (AKD) has been proposed to define the course of disease after AKI; however, definitions of AKD and strategies for the management of patients with AKD are not currently available. In this consensus statement, the Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) proposes definitions, staging criteria for AKD, and strategies for the management of affected patients. We also make recommendations for areas of future research, which aim to improve understanding of the underlying processes and improve outcomes for patients with AKD

Search for Charged Higgs Bosons in e+e- Collisions at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV

A search for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons is performed with the L3 detector at LEP using data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 188.6 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 176.4 pb^-1. Higgs decays into a charm and a strange quark or into a tau lepton and its associated neutrino are considered. The observed events are consistent with the expectations from Standard Model background processes. A lower limit of 65.5 GeV on the charged Higgs mass is derived at 95 % confidence level, independent of the decay branching ratio Br(H^{+/-} -> tau nu)