Radioguided surgery in patient with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour followed by PET/CT scan as a new approach of complete resection evaluation — case report

Radioguided surgery using 68-gallium labelled somatostatin analogues is a promising method for detection of small, intra-abdominal, neuroendocrine neoplasm (NEN). However, due to high background activity (physiological uptake in e.g. spleen, adrenal glands and kidneys) tumours of the tail and body of pancreas might be impossible to detect with hand-held gamma probe. Therefore a new concept of intraoperative PET/CT scan of the resected tissue can be helpful in determining whether the tumour has been excised within the margins of healthy tissue. A 71-year-old woman with primary, non-metastatic NEN of the tail of pancreas is described. The tumour was diagnosed using MRI and PET/CT scan. Before operation patient was administered intravenously 80 MBq of 68Ga-DOTATATE. The surgery procedure was performed 60–180 minutes post injection. During the procedure pancreas was visualized, but the tumour could not be localized neither with palpation nor gamma probe. The tail of the pancreas was resected en bloc with spleen and adjacent lymph nodes. PET/CT scan of the tissue specimen was performed immediately followed by pathological examination. PET/CT scan of the resected tissue showed moderate activity in the tail of pancreas, and a small focus of high activity in the tail. Area of high SSTR expression in the tail corresponded with preoperative findings in MRI and whole-body PET/CT. Histopathological examination of the specimen confirmed the presence of neuroendocrine tumour grade 1. Immediate PET/CT scan of the surgical specimen can bring new quality to intraoperative assessment of completeness of resection of neuroendocrine tumours

Mathematics in Medical Diagnostics - 2022 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Trauma Surgery Technology

The 4th event of the Giessen International Conference Series on Trauma Surgery Technology took place on April, the 23rd 2022 in Warsaw, Poland. It aims to bring together practical application research, with a focus on medical imaging, and the TDA experts from Warsaw. This publication contains details of our presentations and discussions

Forty years of carabid beetle research in Europe - from taxonomy, biology, ecology and population studies to bioindication, habitat assessment and conservation

Volume: 100Start Page: 55End Page: 14

Frequent itemset discovery algorithms in mining association rules

Niniejsza praca przybliża zagadnienie wydajności algorytmów służących do generowania zbiorów częstych z dużych zbiorów danych na potrzeby późniejszego generowania reguł asocjacyjnych. W początkowych rozdziałach zawarto definicję i szczegółowy opis reguł asocjacyjnych. Podano ich zastosowania i przykłady interpretacji. Następnie opisano wybrane algorytmy służące generowaniu zbiorów częstych oraz algorytm generowania reguł asocjacyjnych wraz z przykładami. W ramach pracy stworzono aplikację realizującą wyszukiwanie zbiorów częstych za pomocą wybranych algorytmów (Apriori, AprioriTiD, Eclat) oraz generowanie na tej podstawie reguł i pomiar czasu działania każdego z algorytmów. Implementację przeprowadzono wykorzystując metody programowania obiektowego w języku C#. Przeprowadzono również testy wydajności algorytmów z użyciem stworzonego oprogramowania i wybranych testowych zbiorów danych. W końcowych rozdziałach przedstawiono uzyskane wyniki oraz ich interpretację i ocenę.The following work presents the problem of performance of frequent itemset mining algorithms that can be later used for association rules generation. In the beginning chapters definition and detailed description of association rules is provided. Also, application and interpretation examples are described. Next, selected algorithms for mining frequent itemset and rules generation are described along with examples. An application was created to provide frequent itemset finding (using Apriori, AprioriTiD and Eclat algorithms) and association rules generating functionalities. The application was created in C# using objective programming methods. A set of performance tests were performed using the created program and selected datasets. Test results, along with interpretation and evaluation are presented in last two chapters

Effects of heavy metals and mineral nutrients on forest litter respiration rate

Two hypotheses were tested: (1) heavy metals such as Zn, Pb and Cd can suppress the respiration rate of forest litter at low-moderate pollution levels, and (2) mineral nutrients such as K, Ca and Mg can counteract the toxicity of heavy metals when applied onto the polluted litter. In a completely randomised design, three doses of heavy metals were used: Cd-10, 50, 250; Pb-100, 500, 2500; Zn-200, 1000, 5000 mu g/g dwt litter, respectively. For Ca, Mg and K, the doses corresponded to 100, 500 and 2500 mu g/g. A significant decrease in cumulated CO, evolution after 4 weeks of incubation was found for the litter samples treated with medium doses of Zn, Cd/Ca, Cd/Mg, Pb/Ca, Pb/Mg, Pb/K, Zn/Mg, Zn/Ca, Zn/K and for all the highest-dose treatments. The largest drop in respiration rate in both the medium and the highest doses was caused by additions of zn either alone or in combination with K, Ca or Mg. The additions of mineral nutrients were found to decrease the litter respiration rate below the value measured for the respective heavy metal alone in the case of Cd/Ca, Cd/Mg, Pb/Ca, Pb/Mg and Pb/K in the medium-dose treatments, and for Cd/Ca, Cd/Mg Cd/K, Pb/Ca and Pb/Mg in the highest-dose treatments. In all other cases, additions of the mineral nutrients did not influence the respiration rate significantly when compared to the effect of the respective heavy metal

Body mass and caloric value of the ground beetle (Pterostichus oblongopunctatus) (Coleoptera, Carabidae) along a gradient of heavy metal pollution

At five sites located along a metal-pollution gradient in southern Poland, we collected, during the spring and summer of 2000, more than 1,200 individuals of the ground beetle (Pterostichus oblongopunctatus) to examine the relationship between pollution level and body mass. Animals from one additional sampling in May 2001 were used to measure body caloric value to verify whether metal pollution has an effect on the energy content of the body. The study sites were located in an area with a history of zinc and lead mining and smelting dating back to medieval times. Metal concentrations in the humus layer ranged from 200 to 9,600 mg/kg of zinc, 120 to 1,600 mg/kg of lead, and 3 to 82 mg/kg of cadmium. We found a significant increase in body mass with increasing pollution level. The beetles from all sites collected near the end of the season were lighter. However, no statistically significant trend in body caloric value was detected. We suggest that the high metal tolerance of the species, combined with altered interspecies competition at the polluted sites, is responsible for the positive correlation between soil metal concentration and body mass

The dynamics of chemical elements in forest litter

Litter bags with natural mixed litter were incubated until approximate to 60-70% mass loss in two oak-hornbeam and two pine-beech forest stands in southern Poland. At the same stands the input of chemical elements with throughfall was followed. Decomposition constants k for the oak-hornbeam litters were -0.57 and -0.55, and for the pine-beech litters -0.30 and -0.27. Chemical elements (except for Cu and Mn) revealed similar relative mobility in the four litters. On average the elements could be ordered by decreasing mobility as follows: K > Mg > Ca > S > Cu > Na > Mn = N > Cd > Pb = Zn > Fe. Instead of the two presupposed factors controlling litter decomposition, biological and chemical, three factors were specified: (1) biological, dominating the decay of organic matter and the dynamics of N, Ca, Mg, Mn, and S; (2) physical, dominated by leaching and atmospheric deposition, and controlling the dynamics of organic matter, K, Na, Pb, Cd, and Zn; and (3) chemical, determining the dynamics of Fe, Zn, Pb, and Cd through the fixation of metal ions to humic substances. Potassium was the only element that decreased in concentration in all litters, while the concentrations of N, Na, Fe, Zn, Pb, and Cd increased in all litters. S, Ca, Mg, and Mn concentrations revealed different patterns in different litters, presumably due to the differences in initial concentrations and soil acidity. No clear trend was found for Cu. In all litter types, Fe, Zn, Pb, and Cd significantly increased in absolute amounts at the end of litter-bag incubation. In all four stands the input with throughfall was high enough to explain the increases in amount of elements, with the exception of Fe in the oak-hornbeam litters