Open and / or laparoscopic surgical treatment of liver hydatic cysts

Hydatid disease is a severe parasitic disease with a widely ranging distribution. In the human being the liver is the most frequent organ affected. 1 The treatment should be individualized to the morphology, size, number and location of the cysts, that is why a variety of surgical operations have been advocated from complete resection like total pericystectomy or partial hepatectomy to laparoscopy to a minimally invasive procedures like percutaneous aspiration of cysts to conservative drug therapy. 3-4 This study compares laparoscopic versus open management of the hydatid cyst of liver the surgical approach to liver echinococcosis is still a controversial issue and shows our results of surgical treatment of liver hydatid cysts during a 3-years period

JCV-specific T-cells producing IFN-gamma are differently associated with PmL occurrence in HIV patients and liver transplant recipients

Aim of this work was to investigate a possible correlation between the frequency of JCV-specific T-cells and PML occurrence in HIV-infected subjects and in liver transplant recipients. A significant decrease of JCV-specific T-cells was observed in HIV-PML subjects, highlighting a close relation between JCV-specific T-cell immune impairment and PML occurrence in HIV-subjects. Interestingly, liver-transplant recipients (LTR) showed a low frequency of JCV-specific T-cells, similar to HIV-PML subjects. Nevertheless, none of the enrolled LTR developed PML, suggesting the existence of different immunological mechanisms involved in the maintenance of a protective immune response in LT

A Free-Form Lensing Grid Solution for A1689 with New Mutiple Images

Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the galaxy cluster Abell 1689 has revealed an exceptional number of strongly lensed multiply-imaged galaxies, including high-redshift candidates. Previous studies have used this data to obtain the most detailed dark matter reconstructions of any galaxy cluster to date, resolving substructures ~25 kpc across. We examine Abell 1689 (hereafter, A1689) non-parametrically, combining strongly lensed images and weak distortions from wider field Subaru imaging, and we incorporate member galaxies to improve the lens solution. Strongly lensed galaxies are often locally affected by member galaxies, however, these perturbations cannot be recovered in grid based reconstructions because the lensing information is too sparse to resolve member galaxies. By adding luminosity-scaled member galaxy deflections to our smooth grid we can derive meaningful solutions with sufficient accuracy to permit the identification of our own strongly lensed images, so our model becomes self consistent. We identify 11 new multiply lensed system candidates and clarify previously ambiguous cases, in the deepest optical and NIR data to date from Hubble and Subaru. Our improved spatial resolution brings up new features not seen when the weak and strong lensing effects are used separately, including clumps and filamentary dark matter around the main halo. Our treatment means we can obtain an objective mass ratio between the cluster and galaxy components, for examining the extent of tidal stripping of the luminous member galaxies. We find a typical mass-to-light ratios of M/L_B = 21 inside the r<1 arcminute region that drops to M/L_B = 17 inside the r<40 arcsecond region. Our model independence means we can objectively evaluate the competitiveness of stacking cluster lenses for defining the geometric lensing-distance-redshift relation in a model independent way.Comment: 23 pages with 25 figures Replced with MNRAS submitted version. Some figures have been corrected and minor text edit

Prognostic significance of primary-tumor extension, stage and grade of nuclear differentiation in patients with renal cell carcinoma

Surgery remains the preferred therapy for renal cell carcinoma. The various adjunctive or complementary therapies currently yield disappointing results. Identifying reliable prognostic factors could help in selecting patients most likely to benefit from postoperative adjuvant therapies. We reviewed the surgical records of 78 patients who had undergone radical nephrectomy with lymphadenectomy for renal cell carcinoma, matched for type of operation and histology. According to staging (TNM), 5.1% of the patients were classified as stage I, 51.3% as stage II, 29.5% as stage III and 14.5% as stage IV. Of the 78 patients 40 were T2N0 and 21 T3aN0. Tumor grading showed that 39.7% of the patients had well-differentiated tumors(G1), 41.1% moderately-differentiated (G2), and 19.2% poorly-differentiated tumors (G3). Overall actuarial survival at 5 and 10 years was 100% for stage 1; 91.3% at 5 years and 83.1% at 10 years for stage II; 45.5% and 34.1% for stage III; and 29.1% and nil for stage IV (stage II vs stage III p = 0.0001). Patients with tumors confined to the kidney (pT2N0) had better 5- and 10-year survival rates than patients with tumors infiltrating the perirenal fat (pT3aN0) (p = 0.000006). Survival differed according to nuclear grading (G1 vs G3 ; p = 0.000005; G2 vs G3; p = 0.0009). In conclusion our review identified tumor stage, primary-tumor extension, and the grade of nuclear differentiation as reliable prognostic factors in patients with renal cell carcinomas

Acne Smart Club: An Educational Program for Patients with Acne

Objective: To evaluate adherence to therapy in acne patients using mobile phones and Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate. Methods: 160 patients were randomly assigned to two groups: the SMS group received 2 text messages twice a day for a period of 12 weeks; the control group did not receive any messages. Before and after 12 weeks, the following evaluations were performed in all patients: digital photographs, the Global Acne Grading System, the Dermatology Life Quality Index, the Cardiff Acne Disability Index, the doctor-patient relationship evaluated through the Patient-Doctor Depth-of-Relationship Scale, and the adherence to treatment evaluated by asking patients how many days a week they had followed the therapy. For statistical analysis we used Student's t test. Results: The SMS group had a better improvement of all parameters compared to the control group. Conclusion: Adherence and compliance are higher for patients who are included in a strategy of control. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel

Induced gravitational collapse at extreme cosmological distances: the case of GRB 090423

CONTEXT: The induced gravitational collapse (IGC) scenario has been introduced in order to explain the most energetic gamma ray bursts (GRBs), Eiso=10^{52}-10^{54}erg, associated with type Ib/c supernovae (SNe). It has led to the concept of binary-driven hypernovae (BdHNe) originating in a tight binary system composed by a FeCO core on the verge of a SN explosion and a companion neutron star (NS). Their evolution is characterized by a rapid sequence of events: [...]. AIMS: We investigate whether GRB 090423, one of the farthest observed GRB at z=8.2, is a member of the BdHN family. METHODS: We compare and contrast the spectra, the luminosity evolution and the detectability in the observations by Swift of GRB 090423 with the corresponding ones of the best known BdHN case, GRB 090618. RESULTS: Identification of constant slope power-law behavior in the late X-ray emission of GRB 090423 and its overlapping with the corresponding one in GRB 090618, measured in a common rest frame, represents the main result of this article. This result represents a very significant step on the way to using the scaling law properties, proven in Episode 3 of this BdHN family, as a cosmological standard candle. CONCLUSIONS: Having identified GRB 090423 as a member of the BdHN family, we can conclude that SN events, leading to NS formation, can already occur already at z=8.2, namely at 650 Myr after the Big Bang. It is then possible that these BdHNe originate stem from 40-60 M_{\odot} binaries. They are probing the Population II stars after the completion and possible disappearance of Population III stars.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, to appear on A&

Worldwide bilateral geopolitical interactions network inferred from national disciplinary profiles

A disciplinary profile of a country is defined as the versor whose components are the number of papers produced in a given discipline divided by the overall production of the country. Starting from the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) schema of classification of subject areas, we obtained the yearly disciplinary profiles of a worldwide graph, where on each node sits a country, in the two time intervals 1988-1988 and 1992-2017, the fall of the Berlin Wall being the watershed. We analyze the empirical pairwise cross-correlation matrices of the time series of disciplinary profiles. The contrast with random matrix theory proves that, beyond measurement noise, the empirical cross-correlation matrices bring genuine information. Arising from the Shannon theorem as the least-structured model consistent with the measured pairwise correlations, the stationary probability distribution of disciplinary profiles can be described by a Boltzmann distribution related to a generalized n(d)-dimensional Heisenberg model. The set of network interactions of the Heisenberg model has been inferred and to it, two clusterization methods, hierarchical clustering, and principal component analysis have been applied. This allows obtaining a characterization of the worldwide bilateral interactions based on physical modeling. A simple geopolitical analysis reveals the consistency of the results obtained and gives a boost to a deeper historical analysis. In order to obtain the optimal set of pairwise interactions, we used a pseudolikelihood approach. We analytically computed the pseudolikelihood and its gradient. The analytical computations deserve interest in whatever inference Bayesian problem involving an n(d)-dimensional Heisenberg model

GW170817: implications for the local kilonova rate and for surveys from ground-based facilities

We compute the local rate of events similar to GRB 170817A, which has been recently found to be associated with a kilonova (KN) outburst. Our analysis finds an observed rate of such events of R$_{KN}\sim 352^{+810}_{-281}$ Gpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$. After comparing at their face values this density of sGRB outbursts with the much higher density of Binary Neutron Star (BNS) mergers of 1540$^{+3200}_{-1220}$ Gpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$, estimated by LIGO-Virgo collaboration, one can conclude, admittedly with large uncertainty that either only a minor fraction of BNS mergers produces sGRB/KN events or the sGRBs associated with BNS mergers are beamed and observable under viewing angles as large as $\theta$ $\leq$ $40^{\circ}$. Finally we provide preliminary estimates of the number of sGRB/KN events detected by future surveys carried out with present/future ground-based/space facilities, such as LSST, VST, ZTF, SKA and THESEUS.Comment: MNRAS accepted, 6 pages, 1 figur