A case of rhinocerebral mucormycosis with brain abscess drained by endoscopic endonasal skull base surgery

A 70-year-old Japanese man undergoing remission induction therapy for acute monocytic leukemia (AML-M5b) developed fever and headache, and was started on antibiotics and liposomal amphotericin B (L-AMB). There was no improvement, and computed tomography and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging revealed acute rhinosinusitis and brain abscess. Successful endoscopic endonasal surgery was performed at this point, providing drainage for the rhinosinusitis and abscess. Histopathological findings showed the mucormycosis

Protein C activity as a potential prognostic factor for nursing home-acquired pneumonia

[Introduction] Despite the poor prognosis for nursing home acquired pneumonia (NHAP), a useful prognostic factor is lacking. We evaluated protein C (PC) activity as a predictor of in-hospital death in patients with NHAP and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). [Methods] This prospective, observational study included all patients hospitalized with pneumonia between July 2007 and December 2012 in a single hospital. We measured PC activity at admission and investigated whether it was different between survivors and non-survivors. We also examined whether PC activity 20 mg/dL, respiratory rate >30/min, and blood pressure 65). When it was a useful prognostic factor for pneumonia, we combined PC activity with the existing prognostic scores, the pneumonia severity index (PSI) and CURB-65, and analyzed its additional effect by comparing the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) of the modified and original scores. [Results] Participants comprised 75 NHAP and 315 CAP patients. PC activity was lower among non-survivors than among survivors in NHAP and all-pneumonia (CAP+NHAP). PC activity <55% was a useful prognostic predictor for NHAP (Odds ratio 7.39 (95% CI; 1.59–34.38), and when PSI or CURB-65 was combined with PC activity, the AUC improved (from 0.712 to 0.820 for PSI, and 0.657 to 0.734 for CURB-65). [Conclusions] PC activity was useful for predicting in-hospital death of pneumonia, especially in NHAP, and became more useful when combined with the PSI or CURB-65

Visceral fat obesity is the key risk factor for the development of reflux erosive esophagitis in 40–69-years subjects

[Background] Visceral fat obesity can be defined quantitatively by abdominal computed tomography, however, the usefulness of measuring visceral fat area to assess the etiology of gastrointestinal reflux disease has not been fully elucidated. [Methods] A total of 433 healthy subjects aged 40–69 years (234 men, 199 women) were included in the study. The relationship between obesity-related factors (total fat area, visceral fat area, subcutaneous fat area, waist circumference, and body mass index) and the incidence of reflux erosive esophagitis was investigated. Lifestyle factors and stomach conditions relevant to the onset of erosive esophagitis were also analyzed. [Results] The prevalence of reflux erosive esophagitis was 27.2% (118/433; 106 men, 12 women). Visceral fat area was higher in subjects with erosive esophagitis than in those without (116.6 cm2 vs. 64.9 cm2, respectively). The incidence of erosive esophagitis was higher in subjects with visceral fat obesity (visceral fat area ≥ 100 cm2) than in those without (61.2% vs. 12.8%, respectively). Visceral fat obesity had the highest odds ratio (OR) among obesity-related factors. Multivariate analysis showed that visceral fat area was associated with the incidence of erosive esophagitis (OR = 2.18), indicating that it is an independent risk factor for erosive esophagitis. In addition, daily alcohol intake (OR = 1.54), gastric atrophy open type (OR = 0.29), and never-smoking history (OR = 0.49) were also independently associated with the development of erosive esophagitis. [Conclusions] Visceral fat obesity is the key risk factor for the development of reflux erosive esophagitis in subjects aged 40–69 years

Computing the Tutte Polynomial of a Graph and the Jones Polynomial of an Alternating Link of Moderate Size

The problem of computing the Tutte polynomial of a graph has been a hot topic in recent years, because its computation is very useful not only in graph theory but also in many problems in statistical physics, knot theory, etc. This problem is #P-hard, and there have been known only algorithms taking time at least proportional to the number of trees of a given graph which is exponential in nature. This paper presents a new algorithm by utilizing a fact that many 2isomorphic minors appear in the process of computation. The complexity of the algorithm is analyzed in terms of Bell numbers and Catalan numbers in combinatorics. By this algorithm, we can compute the Tutte polynomial of any graph with at most 14 vertices and 91 edges and that of a planar graph such as 12 2 12 lattice graph with 144 vertices and 264 edges by a standard workstation in about an hour. ANY OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION OF THIS REPORT DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT First issue 40 copies. This technical report is available ..

Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams, Graph Theory and Computational Geometry

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs in short) have been shown as a powerful paradigm in handling Boolean functions and have been applied to many fields such as VLSI CAD, AI, combinatorics, etc. In this paper, we consider Boolean functions representing some concepts in graph theory such as spanning trees, matchings, cliques, etc., as well as concepts in computational geometry such as planar triangulations. We demonstrate that the problem of finding a good variable ordering for these functions is strongly related to Gaussian elimination of graphs. This generalizes a framework of applying OBDDs to combinatorics of graphs first done by Semba and Yajima [17] and further extended by Tani and Imai [19]. Since many fertile graph properties underlie the corresponding Boolean functions, many graph-theoretic techniques can be applied to find a good ordering, which may be regarded as an extension of the work by Berman mentioned above. Our results have many implications. From the viewpoint of O..

Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams, Graph Theory and Computational Geometry

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs in short) have been shown as a powerful paradigm in handling Boolean functions and have been applied to many fields such as VLSI CAD, AI, combinatorics, etc. In this paper, we consider Boolean functions representing some concepts in graph theory such as spanning trees, matchings, cliques, etc., as well as concepts in computational geometry such as planar triangulations. We demonstrate that the problem of finding a good variable ordering for these functions is strongly related to Gaussian elimination of graphs. This generalizes a framework of applying OBDDs to combinatorics of graphs first done by Semba and Yajima [17] and further extended by Tani and Imai [19]. Since many fertile graph properties underlie the corresponding Boolean functions, many graph-theoretic techniques can be applied to find a good ordering, which may be regarded as an extension of the work by Berman mentioned above. Our results have many implications. From the viewpoint of O..

Computing the Tutte Polynomial of a Graph and the Jones Polynomial of an Alternating Link of Moderate Size

The problem of computing the Tutte polynomial of a graph has been a hot topic in recent years, because its computation is very useful not only in graph theory but also in many problems in statistical physics, knot theory, etc. This problem is #P-hard, and there have been known only algorithms taking time at least proportional to the number of trees of a given graph which is exponential in nature. This paper presents a new algorithm by utilizing a fact that many 2isomorphic minors appear in the process of computation. The complexity of the algorithm is analyzed in terms of Bell numbers and Catalan numbers in combinatorics. By this algorithm, we can compute the Tutte polynomial of any graph with at most 14 vertices and 91 edges and that of a planar graph such as 12 2 12 lattice graph with 144 vertices and 264 edges by a standard workstation in about an hour