Circulating non-coding RNAs in head and neck cancer : roles in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy monitoring

Head and neck cancer (HNC), the seventh most common form of cancer worldwide, is a group of epithelial malignancies affecting sites in the upper aerodigestive tract. The 5-year overall survival for patients with HNC has stayed around 40-50% for decades, with mortality being attributable mainly to late diagnosis and recurrence. Recently, non-coding RNAs, including tRNA halves, YRNA fragments, microRNAs (miRNAs), and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), have been identified in the blood and saliva of patients diagnosed with HNC. These observations have recently fueled the study of their potential use in early detection, diagnosis, and risk assessment. The present review focuses on recent insights and the potential impact that circulating non-coding RNA evaluation may have on clinical decision-making in the management of HNC

Neurofibromatosis type 1-related pseudarthrosis: Beyond the pseudarthrosis site.

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant disorder affecting approximately 1 in 2,000 newborns. Up to 5% of NF1 patients suffer from pseudarthrosis of a long bone (NF1-PA). Current treatments are often unsatisfactory, potentially leading to amputation. To gain more insight into the pathogenesis we cultured cells from PA tissue and normal-appearing periosteum of the affected bone for NF1 mutation analysis. PA cells were available from 13 individuals with NF1. Biallelic NF1 inactivation was identified in all investigated PA cells obtained during the first surgery. Three of five cases sampled during a later intervention showed biallelic NF1 inactivation. Also, in three individuals, we examined periosteum-derived cells from normal-appearing periosteum proximal and distal to the PA. We identified the same biallelic NF1 inactivation in the periosteal cells outside the PA region. These results indicate that NF1 inactivation is required but not sufficient for the development of NF1-PA. We observed that late-onset NF1-PA occurs and is not always preceded by congenital bowing. Furthermore, the failure to identify biallelic inactivation in two of five later interventions and one reintervention with a known somatic mutation indicates that NF1-PA can persist after the removal of most NF1 negative cells

Of Elephants and Men

. In the elephant paper, Brooks criticized the ungroundedness of traditional symbol systems and proposed physically grounded systems as an alternative. We want to make a contribution towards integrating the old with the new. We describe the GLAIR agent architecture that specifies an integration of explicit representation and reasoning mechanisms, embodied semantics through grounding symbols in perception and action, and implicit representations of specialpurpose mechanisms of sensory processing, perception, and motor control. We present some agent components that we place in our architecture to build agents that exhibit situated activity and learning, and some applications. We believe that the Brooksian behavior generation approach goes a long way towards modeling elephant behavior, which we find most interesting, but that in order to generate more deliberative behavior we need something more. 1 Introduction and Overview In the elephant paper [11] appearing in the proceedings of the p..

Using Optimal Surface Reflectance Functions to Study Color Space Properties

We present a computational definition of the Optimal Color Stimuli surface, which corresponds to the limit of physically realizable surface spectral reflectance functions. We can use this surface to quantify and visualize color space properties, as we demonstrate for the CIE XYZ and L*a*b* spaces, as well as our own neurophysiologically-based NPP space. We then extend the technique to compute a representative set of surface spectral reflectance functions, all contained within the volume bounded by the OCS surface, and their corresponding representations in a color space. This set of spectra can be used to generate training sets for a backpropagation algorithm computing color space transforms, for example. 1 The research reported in this paper was done while the author was a member of the SNePS Research Group at the department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, and was supported in part by Equipment Grant No. EDUD-US-932022 from SUN Microsystems Computer Corp..

A Somewhat Fuzzy Color Categorization Model

We present a computational model of color categorization using a normalized Gaussian function of perceptual color space coordinates as the basic category model, and an application based on the model that can name, point out, and select colors in images, and provide a confidence or (fuzzy) membership value for each categorial judgement. We quantify the performance of our model relative to existing data about human color naming behavior, and relative to the use of different color spaces, including a novel one derived from neurophysiological measurements. The application we present is to some extent able to deal with the color constancy problem in real images made in an unmodified office environment with low-grade uncalibrated equipment. We present some empirical results with an example of this kind of image. The novelty of the approach lies in the fact that it models graded or fuzzy color categories as found in anthropological, psychological and psychophysical color perception work, and..

Computational modeling of bone fracture non-unions:four clinically relevant case studies

The human skeleton has a remarkable regeneration capacity. Nevertheless, 5-10 % of the bone fractures fails to heal and develops into a non-union which is a challenging orthopedic complication requiring complex and expensive treatment. This review paper will discuss four different computational models, each capturing a particular clinical case of non-union: non-union induced by reaming of the marrow canal and periosteal stripping, non-union due to a large interfragmentary gap, non-union due to a genetic disorder [i.e. NF1 related congenital pseudoarthrosis of the tibia (CPT)] and non-union due to mechanical overload. Together, the four computational models are able to capture the etiology of a wide range of fracture non-union types and design novel treatment strategies thereof. Further research is required to corroborate the computational models in both animal and human settings and translate them from bench to bed side