Metastatic Crohn's Disease of the Ear

Objective. We reported a very rare case of metastatic Crohn's disease involving the retro-auricular region. Method. A case report and a review of literature concerning metastatic Crohn's disease. Results. Metastatic Crohn's disease is an uncommon extraintestinal cutaneous manifestation of Crohn's disease and a very rare case involving the retro-auricular region is reported here. Given the limited existing literature little is known about this condition. The skin lesions appear to have a predilection for the lower trunk and genitalia regions. There is no clear association with the severity of Crohn's disease and in some cases, the cutaneous lesions predate the onset of gastrointestinal Crohn's disease. Treatment with immune-modulating medications together with the antitumour necrosis factor monoclonal antibody therapy appears to offer the best chance of remission. Conclusion. By reporting this interesting and rare condition we also hope to highlight the importance of considering underlying chronic systemic disorders, such as Crohn's disease, when presented with skin lesions resistant to simple local treatments

Solar-driven variation in the atmosphere of Uranus

Long-term measurements (1972-2015) of the reflectivity of Uranus at 472 and 551 nm display variability that is incompletely explained by seasonal effects. Spectral analysis shows this non-seasonal variability tracks the 11-year solar cycle. Two mechanisms could cause solar modulation, (a) nucleation onto ions or electrons created by galactic cosmic rays (GCR), or (b) UV-induced aerosol colour changes. Ion-aerosol theory is used to identify expected relationships between reflectivity fluctuations and GCR flux, tested with multiple regression and compared to the linear response predicted between reflectivity and solar UV flux. The statistics show that 24% of the variance in reflectivity fluctuations at 472 nm is explained by GCR ion-induced nucleation, compared to 22% for a UV-only mechanism. Similar GCR-related variability exists in Neptune’s atmosphere, hence the effects found at Uranus provide the first example of common variability in two planetary atmospheres driven through energetic particle modulation by their host star

An orange fluorescent protein tagging system for real-time pollen tracking

BACKGROUND: Monitoring gene flow could be important for future transgenic crops, such as those producing plant-made-pharmaceuticals (PMPs) in open field production. A Nicotiana hybrid (Nicotiana. tabacum x Nicotiana glauca) shows limited male fertility and could be used as a bioconfined PMP platform. Effective assessment of gene flow from these plants is augmented with methods that utilize fluorescent proteins for transgenic pollen identification. RESULTS: We report the generation of a pollen tagging system utilizing an orange fluorescent protein to monitor pollen flow and as a visual assessment of transgene zygosity of the parent plant. This system was created to generate a tagged Nicotiana hybrid that could be used for the incidence of gene flow. Nicotiana tabacum \u27TN 90\u27 and Nicotiana glauca were successfully transformed via Agrobacterium tumefaciens to express the orange fluorescent protein gene, tdTomato-ER, in pollen and a green fluorescent protein gene, mgfp5-er, was expressed in vegetative structures of the plant. Hybrids were created that utilized the fluorescent proteins as a research tool for monitoring pollen movement and gene flow. Manual greenhouse crosses were used to assess hybrid sexual compatibility with N. tabacum, resulting in seed formation from hybrid pollination in 2% of crosses, which yielded non-viable seed. Pollen transfer to the hybrid formed seed in 19% of crosses and 10 out of 12 viable progeny showed GFP expression. CONCLUSION: The orange fluorescent protein is visible when expressed in the pollen of N. glauca, N. tabacum, and the Nicotiana hybrid, although hybrid pollen did not appear as bright as the parent lines. The hybrid plants, which show limited ability to outcross, could provide bioconfinement with the benefit of detectable pollen using this system. Fluorescent protein-tagging could be a valuable tool for breeding and in vivo ecological monitoring

Acceptability of Aggression Among Children Who Reside With Substance-Abusing Parents: The Influence of Behavioral Dysregulation, Exposure to Neighborhood Violence, and Interparental Violence

The present study examined how interparental violence, neighborhood violence, behavioral regulation during parental conflict, and age predicted beliefs about the acceptability of aggression and the acceptance of retaliation against an aggressive peer among youths. Participants were 110 families (mothers, fathers, and children) in which one or both parents met criteria for substance use disorder. Results of a bootstrapped multivariate regression model revealed higher exposure to neighborhood violence predicted greater acceptability of general aggression, whereas higher father-to-mother violence perpetration predicted lower acceptability of general aggression. Higher exposure to neighborhood violence, behavioral dysregulation during parental conflict, and older child age predicted greater approval of retaliation toward an aggressive peer. Findings are interpreted as related to the cognitive-contextual framework

Studies of multiplicity in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

In this talk I'll review the present status of charged particle multiplicity measurements from heavy-ion collisions. The characteristic features of multiplicity distributions obtained in Au+Au collisions will be discussed in terms of collision centrality and energy and compared to those of p+p collisions. Multiplicity measurements of d+Au collisions at 200 GeV nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy will also be discussed. The results will be compared to various theoretical models and simple scaling properties of the data will be identified.Comment: "Focus on Multiplicity" Internationsl Workshop on Particle Multiplicity in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions, Bari, Italy, June 17-19, 2003, 16 pages, 15 figure

Collaboration in sensor network research: an in-depth longitudinal analysis of assortative mixing patterns

Many investigations of scientific collaboration are based on statistical analyses of large networks constructed from bibliographic repositories. These investigations often rely on a wealth of bibliographic data, but very little or no other information about the individuals in the network, and thus, fail to illustrate the broader social and academic landscape in which collaboration takes place. In this article, we perform an in-depth longitudinal analysis of a relatively small network of scientific collaboration (N = 291) constructed from the bibliographic record of a research center involved in the development and application of sensor network and wireless technologies. We perform a preliminary analysis of selected structural properties of the network, computing its range, configuration and topology. We then support our preliminary statistical analysis with an in-depth temporal investigation of the assortative mixing of selected node characteristics, unveiling the researchers' propensity to collaborate preferentially with others with a similar academic profile. Our qualitative analysis of mixing patterns offers clues as to the nature of the scientific community being modeled in relation to its organizational, disciplinary, institutional, and international arrangements of collaboration.Comment: Scientometrics (In press

Provinciality and the Art World: The Midland Group 1961- 1977

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries. Second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the sixties. Third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In so doing it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery – those of the local, regional and international networks that connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provides a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the sixties, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity

Sexual selection protects against extinction

Reproduction through sex carries substantial costs, mainly because only half of sexual adults produce offspring. It has been theorised that these costs could be countered if sex allows sexual selection to clear the universal fitness constraint of mutation load. Under sexual selection, competition between (usually) males, and mate choice by (usually) females create important intraspecific filters for reproductive success, so that only a subset of males gains paternity. If reproductive success under sexual selection is dependent on individual condition, which depends on mutation load, then sexually selected filtering through ‘genic capture’ could offset the costs of sex because it provides genetic benefits to populations. Here, we test this theory experimentally by comparing whether populations with histories of strong versus weak sexual selection purge mutation load and resist extinction differently. After evolving replicate populations of the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum for ~7 years under conditions that differed solely in the strengths of sexual selection, we revealed mutation load using inbreeding. Lineages from populations that had previously experienced strong sexual selection were resilient to extinction and maintained fitness under inbreeding, with some families continuing to survive after 20 generations of sib × sib mating. By contrast, lineages derived from populations that experienced weak or non-existent sexual selection showed rapid fitness declines under inbreeding, and all were extinct after generation 10. Multiple mutations across the genome with individually small effects can be difficult to clear, yet sum to a significant fitness load; our findings reveal that sexual selection reduces this load, improving population viability in the face of genetic stress

Dnmt3a regulates emotional behavior and spine plasticity in the nucleus accumbens.

Despite abundant expression of DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) in brain, the regulation and behavioral role of DNA methylation remain poorly understood. We found that Dnmt3a expression was regulated in mouse nucleus accumbens (NAc) by chronic cocaine use and chronic social defeat stress. Moreover, NAc-specific manipulations that block DNA methylation potentiated cocaine reward and exerted antidepressant-like effects, whereas NAc-specific Dnmt3a overexpression attenuated cocaine reward and was pro-depressant. On a cellular level, we found that chronic cocaine use selectively increased thin dendritic spines on NAc neurons and that DNA methylation was both necessary and sufficient to mediate these effects. These data establish the importance of Dnmt3a in the NAc in regulating cellular and behavioral plasticity to emotional stimuli

History of oceanic front development in the New Zealand sector of the Southern Ocean during the Cenozoic--a synthesis

The New Zealand sector of the Southern Ocean (NZSSO) has opened about the Indian-Pacific spreading ridge throughout the Cenozoic. Today the NZSSO is characterised by broad zonal belts of antarctic (cold), subantarctic (cool), and subtropical (warm) surface-water masses separated by prominent oceanic fronts: the Subtropical Front (STF) c. 43deg.S, Subantarctic Front (SAF) c. 50deg.S, and Antarctic Polar Front (AAPF) c. 60deg.S. Despite a meagre database, the broad pattern of Cenozoic evolution of these fronts is reviewed from the results of Deep Sea Drilling Project-based studies of sediment facies, microfossil assemblages and diversity, and stable isotope records, as well as from evidence in onland New Zealand Cenozoic sequences. Results are depicted schematically on seven paleogeographic maps covering the NZSSO at 10 m.y. intervals through the Cenozoic. During the Paleocene and most of the Eocene (65-35 Ma), the entire NZSSO was under the influence of warm to cool subtropical waters, with no detectable oceanic fronts. In the latest Eocene (c. 35 Ma), a proto-STF is shown separating subantarctic and subtropical waters offshore from Antarctica, near 65deg.S paleolatitude. During the earliest Oligocene, this front was displaced northwards by development of an AAPF following major global cooling and biotic turnover associated with ice sheet expansion to sea level on East Antarctica. Early Oligocene full opening (c. 31 Ma) of the Tasmanian gateway initiated vigorous proto-circum-Antarctic flow of cold/cool waters, possibly through a West Antarctic seaway linking the southern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including detached northwards "jetting" onto the New Zealand plateau where condensation and unconformity development was widespread in cool-water carbonate facies. Since this time, a broad tripartite division of antarctic, subantarctic, and subtropical waters has existed in the NZSSO, including possible development of a proto-SAF within the subantarctic belt. In the Early-early Middle Miocene (25-15 Ma), warm subtropical waters expanded southwards into the northern NZSSO, possibly associated with reduced ice volume on East Antarctica but particularly with restriction of the Indonesian gateway and redirection of intensified warm surface flows southwards into the Tasman Sea, as well as complete opening of the Drake gateway by 23 Ma allowing more complete decoupling of cool circum-Antarctic flow from the subtropical waters. During the late Middle-Late Miocene (15-5 Ma), both the STF and SAF proper were established in their present relative positions across and about the Campbell Plateau, respectively, accompanying renewed ice buildup on East Antarctica and formation of a permanent ice sheet on West Antarctica, as well as generally more expansive and intensified circum-Antarctic flow. The ultimate control on the history of oceanic front development in the NZSSO has been plate tectonics through its influence on the paleogeographic changes of the Australian-New Zealand-Antarctic continents and their intervening oceanic basins, the timing of opening and closing of critical seaways, the potential for submarine ridges and plateaus to exert some bathymetric control on the location of fronts, and the evolving ice budget on the Antarctic continent. The broad trends of the Cenozoic climate curve for New Zealand deduced from fossil evidence in the uplifted marine sedimentary record correspond well to the principal paleoceanographic events controlling the evolution and migration of the oceanic fronts in the NZSSO