Η διαχρονική παρουσία του Βυζαντίου στην Ευρώπη και στην Ανατολία

N/

Dietary and Other Risk Factors in The Aetiology of Cholelithiasis: A Case Control Study

We studied the effect of dietary factors and a variety of other risk factors on the development of cholelithiasis through a case control study

Splenic rupture as the presenting manifestation of primary splenic angiosarcoma in a teenage woman: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Primary splenic angiosarcoma is a rare neoplasm of vascular origin carrying a very poor prognosis, partly due to its high metastatic potential. This disease presents frequently with splenic rupture and hemorrhage. We report the case of a 17-year-old woman who presented with rupture of a primary splenic angiosarcoma.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>The patient presented with diffuse abdominal pain and distention. Clinical examination revealed severe tenderness in the left upper abdominal quadrant, a palpable abdominal mass, and hemodynamic instability with a systolic arterial blood pressure of 75 mmHg and heart rate of 135 beats per minute. Blood tests revealed anemia (hemoglobin 7.0 g/dl) and thrombocytopenia (platelets 70 × 10⁹/liter). After initial fluid resuscitation and stabilization, abdominal ultrasound and computed tomography were performed, revealing a large quantity of intraperitoneal free fluid, an enlarged spleen, and a heterogeneous low-density signal within the splenic parenchyma, which showed varying degrees of contrast enhancement. At laparotomy a huge (weight 1530 g, diameter 19 cm) actively bleeding spleen was identified and splenectomy was performed. Histopathology showed a primary splenic angiosarcoma. After an uneventful recovery, the patient was discharged on the sixth postoperative day.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Primary splenic angiosarcoma is rare. Although this malignancy is usually encountered in advanced age, there have been a few reported cases among younger patients. The case reported here presented with splenic rupture, was treated by laparotomy and splenectomy, and the patient is disease free 16 months after surgery.</p

MEDEA adapted: the Subaltern Barbarian speaks

This thesis examines three contemporary adaptations of Euripides’ Medea which reveal her as the ultimate subaltern heroine who comes face to face with imperial colonialism and through direct confrontation both regains her cultural identity and acquires a voice. In each adaptation Medea becomes Spivak’s barbarian subaltern Other and speaks. The plays examined are Heiner Müller’s Despoiled Shore Medeamaterial Landscapes with Argonauts (1983), Guy Butler’s Demea (1990) and Olga Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart (1995). These plays were utilized as political texts in various postcolonial situations, and employed anti-imperialist discourses to adapt and appropriate the classical Medea as a postmodern, postcolonial protest narrative. A close reading demonstrates that Medea is Euripides’ quintessential tragedy of alterity and each adaptation raises issues of cultural and sexual difference, hegemony, as well as the colonial encounter within their own cultural and historical context. The key purpose of these adaptations is to shed an alternative light on Medea’s act of infanticide, and turn it into an act not against her children, or Jason as the individual who did her injustice, but against the hegemonic structure which allowed that injustice to happen and which she seeks to subvert

Contemporary Antigones, Medeas, and Trojan Women perform on stages around the world

This thesis examines postmodern theatrical adaptations of Antigone, Medea and The Trojan Women to show how they re-define the central female figures of the source texts by creating a new work, or ‘hyperplay’, that gives the silenced and often silent female figures a voice, and assigns them a political presence in their own right. Using a collection of diverse plays and their performances which occurred in a variety of geographical locations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this thesis analyzes adaptive, ‘hypertheatrical’, strategies employed by the theatre, through which play texts from the past are ‘re-made’ in the here and now of theatrical performances. A close analysis of these performances demonstrates how the historical and cultural identity of contemporary audiences informs the process of re-interpretation of familiar material within new contexts. They evidence how these re-makings reflect the culture, the political moment or the socio-historical coincidence in which they are conceived and performed. Most importantly this thesis shows that without exception these appropriations become entirely new Antigones, Medeas and Trojan Women; they invoke re-configurations or re-inventions of femininity which detect and emphasise individual women’s strengths and female solidarity, thus placing the plays firmly within a contemporary feminist discourse

Regulation of mRNA decay by Pumilio in Drosophila melanogaster

During early embryogenesis in all animals, development is driven by maternally loaded mRNAs synthesized in the female parent during oogenesis. These maternally synthesized mRNAs are regulated by post-transcriptional mechanisms, including mRNA localization, degradation and translational activation and repression. Many of these processes rely on RNA-binding proteins to initially recognize and bind specific mRNAs and then, subsequently, recruit the appropriate post-transcriptional machinery. Eventually the products encoded by the zygotic genome regulate embryo development. My thesis focuses on an RNA-binding protein called Pumilio and its role in regulating the degradation of maternal mRNAs in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Pumilio protein and pumilio mRNA are both maternally loaded and deficiencies in pumilio are maternal-effect lethal. While homologs of Pumilio had been implicated in mediating mRNA degradation, the global role of Pumilio itself had been unclear, with contradictory results from embryos and whole flies with a conditional pumilio mutant genotype. I first produced transgenic flies expressing a tandem affinity tagged Pumilio transgene. Then, by pulling down tagged Pumilio followed by next-generation sequencing of co-purifying RNAs, I found that the Pumilio protein associates with ~200 mRNAs in early embryos. Using a null pumilio allele combination, I found that Pumilio regulates the decay of a set of mRNAs in a manner that, in part, appears to be dependent on zygotically encoded factors. I observed that many of the mRNAs whose stability is affected in pumilio mutant embryos are amongst those physically associated with Pumilio protein in early embryos and validated my findings using reporter transgenes. My data show that Pumilio is a regulator of maternal transcript degradation in D. melanogaster.Ph

Gallbladder-duodenal fistula presenting with liver abscess and upper gastrointestinal bleeding

Background. Bilio-enteric communications leading to liver abscess formation are encountered rarely and are therefore not easily suspected by the attending physician. Case outline. A bilio-enteric communication involving the gallbladder and the duodenum presented as a septic event with upper gastrointestinal bleeding in a 71-year-old man who was wrongly thought to have undergone a previous cholecystectomy. A pyogenic bacterial liver abscess developed from the fistula in the absence of biliary obstruction. The patient was treated surgically with disconnection of the fistula and drainage of the abscess. Discussion. The liver abscess presumably arose as a consequence of contamination of the bile via the cholecysto-duodenal fistula. The previous operation is likely to have been a simple cholecystostomy