Familial Aggregation of Urinary Tract and Bone Tumors: Searching for a Syndrome

Positive family anamnesis is an important risk factor for cancer, and therefore further investigations need to be done if familial aggregation of cancer is observed. Due to a rare combination of urinary tract and bone tumors occurring in the family presented herein we hypothesized a hereditary predisposition and thus, Li-Fraumeni syndrome was considered to be the most likely differential diagnosis. To confirm Li-Fraumeni syndrome, we set out to investigate this case by analyzing the tumor suppressor gene p53. However, taking into account all the diagnostic results obtained, Li-Fraumeni syndrome could not be confirmed, but there is still uncertainty regarding a definitive diagnosis

Changes in intervertebral disc morphology persist 5 mo after 21-day bed rest

As part of the nutrition- countermeasures (NUC) study in Cologne, Germany in 2010, seven healthy male subjects underwent 21 days of head-down tilt bed rest and returned 153 days later to undergo a second bout of 21-day bed rest. As part of this model, we aimed to examine the recovery of the lumbar intervertebral discs and muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) after bed rest using magnetic resonance imaging and conduct a pilot study on the effects of bed rest in lumbar muscle activation, as measured by signal intensity changes in T2-weighted images after a standardized isometric spinal extension loading task. The changes in intervertebral disc volume, anterior and posterior disc height, and intervertebral length seen after bed rest did not return to prebed-rest values 153 days later. While recovery of muscle CSA occurred after bed rest, increases (P 0.016) in multifidus, psoas, and quadratus lumborum muscle CSA were seen 153 days after bed rest. A trend was seen for greater activation of the erector spinae and multifidus muscles in the standardized loading task after bed rest. Greater reductions of multifidus and psoas CSA muscle and greater increases in multifidus signal intensity with loading were associated with incidence of low back pain in the first 28 days after bed rest (P 0.044). The current study contributes to our understanding of the recovery of the lumbar spine after 21-day bed rest, and the main finding was that a decrease in spinal extensor muscle CSA recovers within 5 mo after bed rest but that changes in the intervertebral discs persist

Net synthesis of acetate from CO2 by Eubacterium acidaminophilum through the glycine reductase pathway

Eubacterium acidaminophilum combines the oxidation of amino acids such as alanine or valine with the reduction of glycine to acetate in a two-substrate fermentation (Stickland reaction). In the absence of glycine, dense cell suspensions oxidized alanine or valine only to a small extent, with limited production of hydrogen and acetate. Experiments with 14C-labeled carbonate revealed that acetate was formed under these conditions by net reduction of CO2/HCO ; 14C-labeled formate was formed as an intermediate. E. acidaminophilum did not grow with hydrogen plus CO2 ; dense cell suspensions under H2/CO2 produced only very small amounts (60.5 mM) of acetate. There was no activity of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, indicating that the glycine pathway was used for acetate synthesis. The results are explained on the basis of biochemical and energetic considerations

Capacity Dimensioning of ISL Networks in Broadband LEO Satellite Systems

This paper considers the capacity dimensioning of intersatellite link (ISL) networks in broadband LEO satellite systems, where the major challenge is the topology dynamics. First, a general method to design convenient ISL topologies for connection-oriented operation is presented, and a reference topology for numerical studies is derived. A permanent virtual topology is then defined on top of the physical one, thus forming a framework for discrete-time dynamic traffic routing. On this basis, heuristic and optimization approaches for the combined routing and dimensioning task, operating on discrete time steps, are presented and their performance is numerically compared. It is shown that minimizing the worst case link capacity is an appropriate target function, which can be formulated as linear minmax optimization problem with linear constraints. Using linear programming (LP) techniques, the dimensioning results are clearly better than with simple heuristic approaches. I. INTRODUCTION F..

Using the Hephaistos orthotic device to study countermeasure effectiveness of neuromuscular electrical stimulation and dietary lupin protein supplementation, a randomised controlled trial

Purpose The present study investigated whether neuromuscular electrical stimulation for 20 min twice a day with an electrode placed over the soleus muscle and nutritional supplementation with 19 g of protein rich lupin seeds can reduce the loss in volume and strength of the human calf musculature during long term unloading by wearing an orthotic unloading device. Methods Thirteen healthy male subjects (age of 26.4 ± 3.7 years) wore a Hephaistos orthosis one leg for 60 days during all habitual activities. The leg side was randomly chosen for every subject. Six subjects only wore the orthosis as control group, and 7 subjects additionally received the countermeasure consisting of neuromuscular electrical stimulation of the soleus and lateral gastrocnemius muscles and lupin protein supplementation. Twenty-eight days before and on the penultimate day of the intervention cross-sectional images of the calf muscles were taken by magnetic resonance imaging (controls n = 5), and maximum voluntary torque (controls n = 6) of foot plantar flexion was estimated under isometric (extended knee, 90Ê knee flexion) and isokinetic conditions (extended knee), respectively. Results After 58 days of wearing the orthosis the percentage loss of volume in the entire triceps surae muscle of the control subjects (-11.9 ± 4.4%, mean ± standard deviation) was reduced by the countermeasure (-3.5 ± 7.2%, p = 0.032). Wearing the orthosis generally reduced plantar flexion torques values, however, only when testing isometric contraction at 90Ê knee ankle the countermeasure effected a significantly lower percentage decrease of torque (-9.7 ± 7.2%, mean ± SD) in comparison with controls (-22.3 ± 11.2%, p = 0.032). Conclusion Unloading of calf musculature by an orthotic device resulted in the expected loss of muscle volume and maximum of plantar flexion torque. Neuromuscular electrical muscle stimulation and lupin protein supplementation could significantly reduce the process of atrophy

Modeling the I/O behavior of the NEST simulator using a proxy

NEST is a simulator for spiking neural networks. It runs on ordinary desktop computers and notebooks, small clusters and supercomputers. Storing simulation data efficiently is essential for neuroscientific studies but is not trivial on supercomputers with centralized storage. To assess different I/O strategies and libraries, we have implemented a proxy which imitates the writing behavior of NEST. This proxy is useful in benchmarking and statistical analysis, and thus consequent optimization, without the complexity of running full NEST simulations