Valsalva Retinopathy Associated With an Oratorical Contest

A 17-year-old man presented to us with a chief complaint of decreased visual acuity accompanied by central scotoma. There was nothing unusual in his medical history other than a recent oratorical contest. At the time of initial diagnosis, the corrected visual acuity was 20/20 in the right eye and 20/100 in the left eye. No significant findings were apparent on ophthalmic evaluation. On fundoscopy, there was a dumbbell-shaped macular bleed with a well-defined margin in the left eye. The clinical course was closely monitored along with drug therapy. Four weeks post presentation, the pre-retinal hemorrhage had nearly resolved. On fluorescein angiography, no significant findings were observed. In the left eye, the corrected visual acuity had improved to 20/25. Valsalva retinopathy is a pathology that occurs when a sudden increase in intra-thoracic pressure or abdominal pressure occurs in an otherwise healthy person. Here we report a case of Valsalva retinopathy occurring following an oratorical contest along with a review of the relevant literature

Effect of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic on the Incidence of Epidemic Keratoconjunctivitis and on Hygiene Behavior: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: EKC is transmitted chiefly by direct hand contact. It is suspected that the 2009/2010 influenza pandemic influenced hand washing. This study aims to examine the relationship between the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic and hygiene behavior. Methods: We compared the EKC prevalence trends before, during and after the 2009/2010 influenza pandemic by using a t-test comparison of EKC sentinel surveillance. Results: During the pre-pandemic period, the incidence of EKC increased from the 21st to the 44th week each year. However, during the pandemic period in 2009, there was no epidemic peak. In the post-pandemic period, the epidemic curve was similar to that in the pre-pandemic period. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the total number of EKC patients during the pandemic period showed a decrease of 44.9 % (t value = 27.23, p = 0.002). Comparing the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods by age group, we found there to be a significant decrease in the number of EKC patients for all age groups (24.12#t value#27.23, all P,0.05). This finding was most evident in the teenage group (62%) compared to the other age groups (decreases of 29 to 44%). Conclusions: A continuing effort should be made to educate the public on basic infection prevention behaviors in th

Evasion of anti-growth signaling: a key step in tumorigenesis and potential target for treatment and prophylaxis by natural compounds

The evasion of anti-growth signaling is an important characteristic of cancer cells. In order to continue to proliferate, cancer cells must somehow uncouple themselves from the many signals that exist to slow down cell growth. Here, we define the anti-growth signaling process, and review several important pathways involved in growth signaling: p53, phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), retinoblastoma protein (Rb), Hippo, growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), AT-rich interactive domain 1A (ARID1A), Notch, insulin-like growth factor (IGF), and Krüppel-like factor 5 (KLF5) pathways. Aberrations in these processes in cancer cells involve mutations and thus the suppression of genes that prevent growth, as well as mutation and activation of genes involved in driving cell growth. Using these pathways as examples, we prioritize molecular targets that might be leveraged to promote anti-growth signaling in cancer cells. Interestingly, naturally-occurring phytochemicals found in human diets (either singly or as mixtures) may promote anti-growth signaling, and do so without the potentially adverse effects associated with synthetic chemicals. We review examples of naturally-occurring phytochemicals that may be applied to prevent cancer by antagonizing growth signaling, and propose one phytochemical for each pathway. These are: epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) for the Rb pathway, luteolin for p53, curcumin for PTEN, porphyrins for Hippo, genistein for GDF15, resveratrol for ARID1A, withaferin A for Notch and diguelin for the IGF1-receptor pathway. The coordination of anti-growth signaling and natural compound studies will provide insight into the future application of these compounds in the clinical setting

Tooling design and microwave curing technologies for the manufacturing of fiber-reinforced polymer composites in aerospace applications

The increasing demand for high-performance and quality polymer composite materials has led to international research effort on pursuing advanced tooling design and new processing technologies to satisfy the highly specialized requirements of composite components used in the aerospace industry. This paper reports the problems in the fabrication of advanced composite materials identified through literature survey, and an investigation carried out by the authors about the composite manufacturing status in China’s aerospace industry. Current tooling design technologies use tooling materials which cannot match the thermal expansion coefficient of composite parts, and hardly consider the calibration of tooling surface. Current autoclave curing technologies cannot ensure high accuracy of large composite materials because of the wide range of temperature gradients and long curing cycles. It has been identified that microwave curing has the potential to solve those problems. The proposed technologies for the manufacturing of fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials include the design of tooling using anisotropy composite materials with characteristics for compensating part deformation during forming process, and vacuum-pressure microwave curing technology. Those technologies are mainly for ensuring the high accuracy of anisotropic composite parts in aerospace applications with large size (both in length and thickness) and complex shapes. Experiments have been carried out in this on-going research project and the results have been verified with engineering applications in one of the project collaborating companies

Inhibition of cancer cell invasion and metastasis by genistein

Genistein is a small, biologically active flavonoid that is found in high amounts in soy. This important compound possesses a wide variety of biological activities, but it is best known for its ability to inhibit cancer progression. In particular, genistein has emerged as an important inhibitor of cancer metastasis. Consumption of genistein in the diet has been linked to decreased rates of metastatic cancer in a number of population-based studies. Extensive investigations have been performed to determine the molecular mechanisms underlying genistein’s antimetastatic activity, with results indicating that this small molecule has significant inhibitory activity at nearly every step of the metastatic cascade. Reports have demonstrated that, at high concentrations, genistein can inhibit several proteins involved with primary tumor growth and apoptosis, including the cyclin class of cell cycle regulators and the Akt family of proteins. At lower concentrations that are similar to those achieved through dietary consumption, genistein can inhibit the prometastatic processes of cancer cell detachment, migration, and invasion through a variety of mechanisms, including the transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signaling pathway. Several in vitro findings have been corroborated in both in vivo animal studies and in early-phase human clinical trials, demonstrating that genistein can both inhibit human cancer metastasis and also modulate markers of metastatic potential in humans, respectively. Herein, we discuss the variety of mechanisms by which genistein regulates individual steps of the metastatic cascade and highlight the potential of this natural product as a promising therapeutic inhibitor of metastasis

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe