Primary Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumor of the Conus Medullaris in an Elderly Patient: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Primary spinal primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNETs) are very rare conditions. Most of these tumors occur in children and young adults. A 63-year-old man with a primary spinal PNET in the conus medullaris from the L1 to L2 level is presented in this report. The optimal treatment of primary spinal PNETs is yet unknown. Surgical resection, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy have been advocated for the treatment of spinal PNET based on PNETs at other sites. However, the outcome is very poor. There are a few reports of cases with long-term survival and no recurrence. In these patients, en bloc resections were performed

A Reduction-Preserving Completion for Proving Confluence of Non-Terminating Term Rewriting Systems

We give a method to prove confluence of term rewriting systems that contain non-terminating rewrite rules such as commutativity and associativity. Usually, confluence of term rewriting systems containing such rules is proved by treating them as equational term rewriting systems and considering E-critical pairs and/or termination modulo E. In contrast, our method is based solely on usual critical pairs and it also (partially) works even if the system is not terminating modulo E. We first present confluence criteria for term rewriting systems whose rewrite rules can be partitioned into a terminating part and a possibly non-terminating part. We then give a reduction-preserving completion procedure so that the applicability of the criteria is enhanced. In contrast to the well-known Knuth-Bendix completion procedure which preserves the equivalence relation of the system, our completion procedure preserves the reduction relation of the system, by which confluence of the original system is inferred from that of the completed system

A new method to establish the rational extent of hepatic resection for advanced gallbladder cancer using dye injection through the cystic artery

BackgroundHepatic resection has been indicated to eliminate cancer at the surgical margin in cases of advanced gallbladder carcinoma, but there is considerable controversy about the reasonable extent of liver resection. A new on‐table dye injection technique has been introduced to determine the venous drainage of the gallbladder and ascertain the amount of liver to remove.MethodsIn four hepatic resections for pT2 gallbladder cancer, indocyanine green solution (25 mg/20 ml) was injected over a period of 30 seconds through the cystic artery. The stained area of the liver surface was completely resected, maintaining a margin of at least 2 cm from the gallbladder.ResultsThe entire serosal surface of the gallbladder takes on a light green stain immediately after dye injection, and then the liver surface around the gallbladder gradually becomes stained with a clear demarcation line. The distance between the demarcation line and the gallbladder ranged from 1.0 to 5.0 cm. The extent of the stained area differed from one individual to another. Histopathological examination of resected liver specimens revealed that one of the four resected livers had micrometastasis in the portal area 27 mm from the gallbladder wall and there were no cancer cells at the surgical margins. No recurrence has been seen in any of our 4 patients at 16–26 months after operation.DiscussionThe dye injection method is useful in determining the appropriate extent of hepatic resection for advanced gallbladder cancer, as it is possible to determine the necessary and sufficient amount of liver parenchyma that should be removed according to the perfusion area of the cystic veins in each individual patient

Broad-range neutron spectra identification in ultraintense laser interactions with carbon-deuterated plasma

Copyright 2005 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas, 12(11), 110703, 2005 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.213184

The Dirac Oscillator. A relativistic version of the Jaynes--Cummings model

The dynamics of wave packets in a relativistic Dirac oscillator is compared to that of the Jaynes-Cummings model. The strong spin-orbit coupling of the Dirac oscillator produces the entanglement of the spin with the orbital motion similar to what is observed in the model of quantum optics. The collapses and revivals of the spin which result extend to a relativistic theory our previous findings on nonrelativistic oscillator where they were known under the name of `spin-orbit pendulum'. There are important relativistic effects (lack of periodicity, zitterbewegung, negative energy states). Many of them disappear after a Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation.Comment: LaTeX2e, uses IOP style files (included), 14 pages, 9 separate postscript figure

Study of a Threshold Cherenkov Counter Based on Silica Aerogels with Low Refractive Indices

To identify $\pi^{\pm}$ and $K^{\pm}$ in the region of $1.0\sim 2.5$ GeV/c, a threshold Cherenkov counter equipped with silica aerogels has been investigated. Silica aerogels with a low refractive index of 1.013 have been successfully produced using a new technique. By making use of these aerogels as radiators, we have constructed a Cherenkov counter and have checked its properties in a test beam. The obtained results have demonstrated that our aerogel was transparent enough to make up for loss of the Cherenkov photon yield due to a low refractive index. Various configurations for the photon collection system and some types of photomultipliers, such as the fine-mesh type, for a read out were also tested. From these studies, our design of a Cherenkov counter dedicated to $\pi / K$ separation up to a few GeV/c %in the momentum range of $1.0 \sim 2.5$ GeV/c with an efficiency greater than $90$ \% was considered.Comment: 21 pages, latex format (article), figures included, to be published in Nucl. Instrm. Meth.

The Pharmacological Effect Of Bothrops Neuwiedii Pauloensis (jararaca-pintada) Snake Venom On Avian Neuromuscular Transmission.

The neuromuscular effects of Bothrops neuwiedii pauloensis (jararaca-pintada) venom were studied on isolated chick biventer cervicis nerve-muscle preparations. Venom concentrations of 5-50 micro g/ml produced an initial inhibition and a secondary increase of indirectly evoked twitches followed by a progressive concentration-dependent and irreversible neuromuscular blockade. At venom concentrations of 1-20 micro g/ml, the responses to 13.4 mM KCl were inhibited whereas those to 110 micro M acetylcholine alone and cumulative concentrations of 1 micro M to 10 mM were unaffected. At venom concentrations higher than 50 micro g/ml, there was pronounced muscle contracture with inhibition of the responses to acetylcholine, KCl and direct stimulation. At 20-24 degrees C, the venom (50 g/ml) produced only partial neuromuscular blockade (30.7 +/- 8.0%, N = 3) after 120 min and the initial inhibition and the secondary increase of the twitch responses caused by the venom were prolonged and pronounced and the response to KCl was unchanged. These results indicate that B.n. pauloensis venom is neurotoxic, acting primarily at presynaptic sites, and that enzyme activity may be involved in this pharmacological action.36617-2

GRIP1 enhances estrogen receptor α-dependent extracellular matrix gene expression in chondrogenic cells

SummaryObjectiveThe role of postmenopause on the pathogenesis of cartilage degeneration has been an open question. We assessed cartilage degeneration in estrogen receptor (ER)α null mice and examined the role of glucocorticoid receptor-interacting protein 1 (GRIP1) in the ERα-dependent transcription of a type II collagen gene (col2a1) with special reference to a crosstalk with the transforming growth factor (TGF)-β signaling pathway.MethodsThe vertebral cartilaginous endplate from female ERα null mice was subjected to histological analyses. Col2a1 expression of primary chondrocytes (PCs) obtained from ERα null mice after 17β-estradiol (E2) and TGF-β1 stimulation was examined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Estrogen response element (ERE) or col2a1 promoter–enhancer luciferase reporter system was used to investigate the crosstalk among ERα, GRIP1, and MKK6. Col2a1 expression and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content were measured in ATDC5 cells treated with GRIP1 small interfering RNA (siRNA).ResultsERα deficiency clearly accelerated impairment of the vertebral cartilaginous endplate. E2 and TGF-β1 stimulation increased col2a1 expression in PC from wild-type mice, but not that from ERα null mice. The same stimulation increased the col2a1 promoter–enhancer reporter activity, and the elevated activity was decreased by dominant-negative ERα and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitor. GRIP1 increased the E2-dependent ERE activation in the presence of ERα and constitutive-active MKK6. GRIP1 siRNA repressed col2a1 expression and GAG production in ATDC5 cells.ConclusionsCrosstalks between ERα/GRIP1 and TGF-β/MKK6/p38 MAPK pathway have protective roles on cartilage metabolism via regulating the extracellular matrices expression. The finding may lead to the development of a novel therapeutic approach for cartilage degeneration