Intracranial fusarium fungal abscess in an immunocompetent patient: case report and review of the literature.

Introduction Fusarium spp is an omnipresent fungal species that may lead to fatal infections in immunocompromised populations. Spontaneous intracranial infection by Fusarium spp in immunocompetent individuals is exceedingly rare. Case Report An immunocompetent 33-year-old Hispanic woman presented with persistent headaches and was found to have a contrast-enhancing mass in the left petrous apex and prepontine cistern. She underwent a subsequent craniotomy for biopsy and partial resection that revealed a Fusarium abscess. She had a left transient partial oculomotor palsy following the operation that resolved over the next few weeks. She was treated with long-term intravenous antifungal therapy and remained at her neurologic baseline 18 months following the intervention. Discussion To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of Fusarium spp brain abscess in an immunocompetent patient. Treatment options include surgical intervention and various antifungal medications. Conclusion This case demonstrates the rare potential of intracranial Fusarium infection in the immunocompetent host, as well as its successful treatment with surgical aspiration and antifungal therapy

Kairomonal response of the parasitoid Anagyrus spec. nov. near pseudococci to the sex pheromone of the vine mealybug

The occurrence of a kairomonal response of the parasitoid Anagyrus spec. nov. near pseudococci (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) to (+)-(1 R, 3 R )- cis -2,2-dimethyl-3-isopropenyl-cyclobutanemethanol acetate (PcA, namely, planococcyl acetate) and ( S )-(+)-lavandulyl senecioate (LS), the respective female sex pheromones of its hosts, the citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri (Risso) and the vine mealybug, Planococcus ficus (Signoret) (Homoptera: Pseudococcidae) was investigated. Attraction to the pheromones was tested by employing pheromone traps in field trials and by static air olfactometer bioassays in the laboratory. Female wasps showed a significant response to LS, in both field and olfactometer experiments. No significant response was registered to the sex pheromone of P. citri. Despite the similarity between the structures of LS and its analogue ( S ) - (+)-lavandulyl isovalerate (LI), no significant response to the latter compound was observed. It seems that differences between the structures of the carboxylate moiety of the respective molecules (LS and LI) markedly affect the kairomonal attractiveness to the parasitoid. The kairomonal response of Anagyrus spec. nov. near pseudococci was neither influenced by the host habitat nor by the host species on which it developed. This suggested innate behaviour of Anagyrus spec. nov. near pseudococci , possibly derived from evolutionary relationships between the parasitoid and P. ficus . The practical implications of the results are discussed

Improved visible-light activities of nanocrystalline CdS by coupling with ultrafine NbN with lattice matching for hydrogen evolution

Metallic ultrafine NbN with lattice matching to nanocrystalline CdS could replace the expensive platinum for efficiently trapping photogenerated electrons, enhancing charge separation and then activating the preferentially adsorbed H_{2}O to produce H_{2}, mainly confirmed by Kelvin probe experiments, Mott–Schottky plots, amount of ˙OH produced, electrochemical experiments and density-functional-theory calculations

Optimization and first electronic implementation of the Constant-Fraction Time-Over-Threshold pulse shape discrimination method

In this contribution we report on further investigations of the recently-evaluated Constant-Fraction Time-over-Threshold (CF-ToT) method for neutron/gamma-ray pulse shape discrimination (PSD). The superiority of the CF-ToT PSD method over the constant-threshold (CT-ToT) method was previously demonstrated, down to low neutron energy thresholds of 100 keVee. Here, we report on a quantitative comparison between the traditionally used Charge Comparison (CC) method and the CF-ToT method using a stilbene scintillator coupled to a silicon photomultiplier, implementing an offline analysis of recorded fast-neutron and gamma-ray waveforms. An optimization of the constant fraction value indicates that a 20%-fraction yields the optimum figure-of-merit (FOM) and gamma-ray peak-to-valley (P/V) ratio. The results obtained for a particle energy threshold of 100 keVee show that the FOM and P/V values achieved with the CF-ToT method are superior to those obtained using the standard CC method. In addition, a first electronic implementation of the CF-ToT method was performed using simple circuitry suitable for multichannel architecture. Initial results obtained with this circuit prototype are presented.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. To be submitted to JINS

An Analysis of Private School Closings

We add to the small literature on private school supply by exploring exits of K-12 private schools. We find that the closure of private schools is not an infrequent event, and use national survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study closures of private schools. We assume that the probability of an exit is a function of excess supply of private schools over the demand, as well as the school's characteristics such as age, size, and religious affiliation. Our empirical results generally support the implications of the model. Working Paper 07-0

Orthostatic headache and bilateral abducens palsy secondary to spontaneous intracranial hypotension

Spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH) is a well-documented syndrome characterized typically by a benign, self-limited course. Patients typically present with postural or exertional headaches that can be temporarily relieved by lying in a supine or recumbent position. A 35-year-old Caucasian male suffered orthostatic headache that developed to a bilateral abducens palsy. We ordered relative rest and the patient improved and completely recovered after 3 months. Although SIH is considered as a benign and self limited process it could also be associated with disabling complications. We should be aware of the possible complications and inform our patients. SIH can present with headache and bilateral abducens palsy even when the headache is improving

Transcriptomics reveal an integrative role for maternal thyroid hormones during zebrafish embryogenesis

Thyroid hormones (THs) are essential for embryonic brain development but the genetic mechanisms involved in the action of maternal THs (MTHs) are still largely unknown. As the basis for understanding the underlying genetic mechanisms of MTHs regulation we used an established zebrafish monocarboxylic acid transporter 8 (MCT8) knock-down model and characterised the transcriptome in 25hpf zebrafish embryos. Subsequent mapping of differentially expressed genes using Reactome pathway analysis together with in situ expression analysis and immunohistochemistry revealed the genetic networks and cells under MTHs regulation during zebrafish embryogenesis. We found 4,343 differentially expressed genes and the Reactome pathway analysis revealed that TH is involved in 1681 of these pathways. MTHs regulated the expression of core developmental pathways, such as NOTCH and WNT in a cell specific context. The cellular distribution of neural MTH-target genes demonstrated their cell specific action on neural stem cells and differentiated neuron classes. Taken together our data show that MTHs have a role in zebrafish neurogenesis and suggest they may be involved in cross talk between key pathways in neural development. Given that the observed MCT8 zebrafish knockdown phenotype resembles the symptoms in human patients with Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome our data open a window into understanding the genetics of this human congenital condition.Portuguese Fundacao para Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) [PTDC/EXPL/MARBIO/0430/2013]; CCMAR FCT Plurianual financing [UID/Multi/04326/2013]; FCT [SFRH/BD/111226/2015, SFRH/BD/108842/2015, SFRH/BPD/89889/2012]; FCT-IF Starting Grant [IF/01274/2014]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Shared computational principles for language processing in humans and deep language models

Departing from traditional linguistic models, advances in deep learning have resulted in a new type of predictive (autoregressive) deep language models (DLMs). Using a self-supervised next-word prediction task, these models generate appropriate linguistic responses in a given context. In the current study, nine participants listened to a 30-min podcast while their brain responses were recorded using electrocorticography (ECoG). We provide empirical evidence that the human brain and autoregressive DLMs share three fundamental computational principles as they process the same natural narrative: (1) both are engaged in continuous next-word prediction before word onset; (2) both match their pre-onset predictions to the incoming word to calculate post-onset surprise; (3) both rely on contextual embeddings to represent words in natural contexts. Together, our findings suggest that autoregressive DLMs provide a new and biologically feasible computational framework for studying the neural basis of language

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV