Iatrogenic Gastric Dilatation: A Rare and Transient Cause of Hepatic-portal Venous Gas

Gas in the portal veins is rare and in most cases is associated with serious diseases and poor clinical outcome. A case of gas in the hepatic-portal veins with gastric dilatation, as shown by CT-scanning for abdominal trauma, is reported. The condition was clinically benign and resolved spontaneously. An abdominal CT scan documented the findings

Intra-abdominal pectus bar migration – a rare clinical entity: case report

We present the case of a 20-year-old male who underwent successful surgical correction of pectus excavatum with the Highly Modified Ravitch Repair (HMRR). At 29 months the attempted operative removal of the Ravitch bar was unsuccessful despite the impression of adequate bar location on chest x-ray. Subsequent imaging with computed tomography was unclear in determining whether the bar was supra or infra-diaphragmatic due to the tissue distortion subsequent to initial surgery. Video assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) successfully retrieved the bar and revealed that it was not in the thorax, but had migrated to the intra-abdominal bare area of the liver, with no evidence of associated diaphragmatic defect or hernia. Intra-abdominal pectus bar migration is a rare clinical entity, and safe removal can be facilitated by the use of the VATS technique

Combining natural language processing and metabarcoding to reveal pathogen-environment associations.

Cryptococcus neoformans is responsible for life-threatening infections that primarily affect immunocompromised individuals and has an estimated worldwide burden of 220,000 new cases each year-with 180,000 resulting deaths-mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Surprisingly, little is known about the ecological niches occupied by C. neoformans in nature. To expand our understanding of the distribution and ecological associations of this pathogen we implement a Natural Language Processing approach to better describe the niche of C. neoformans. We use a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model to de novo topic model sets of metagenetic research articles written about varied subjects which either explicitly mention, inadvertently find, or fail to find C. neoformans. These articles are all linked to NCBI Sequence Read Archive datasets of 18S ribosomal RNA and/or Internal Transcribed Spacer gene-regions. The number of topics was determined based on the model coherence score, and articles were assigned to the created topics via a Machine Learning approach with a Random Forest algorithm. Our analysis provides support for a previously suggested linkage between C. neoformans and soils associated with decomposing wood. Our approach, using a search of single-locus metagenetic data, gathering papers connected to the datasets, de novo determination of topics, the number of topics, and assignment of articles to the topics, illustrates how such an analysis pipeline can harness large-scale datasets that are published/available but not necessarily fully analyzed, or whose metadata is not harmonized with other studies. Our approach can be applied to a variety of systems to assert potential evidence of environmental associations

Activity profiles of elite wheelchair rugby players during competition

To quantify the activity profiles of elite wheelchair rugby and establish classification-specific arbitrary speed zones. Additionally, indicators of fatigue during full matches were explored. Methods: Seventy-five elite wheelchair rugby players from eleven national teams were monitored using a radio-frequency based, indoor tracking system across two international tournaments. Players who participated in complete quarters (n = 75) and full matches (n = 25) were included and grouped by their International Wheelchair Rugby Federation functional classification: group I (0-0.5), II (1.0-1.5), III (2.0-2.5) and IV (3.0-3.5). Results: During a typical quarter, significant increases in total distance (m), relative distance (m·minˉ¹), and mean speed (m·sˉ¹) were associated with an increase in classification group (P < 0.001), with the exception of group III and IV. However, group IV players achieved significantly higher peak speeds (3.82 ± 0.31 m·sˉ¹) than groups I (2.99 ± 0.28 m·sˉ¹), II (3.44 ± 0.26 m·sˉ¹) and III (3.67 ± 0.32 m·sˉ¹). Groups I and II differed significantly in match intensity during very low/low speed zones and the number of high-intensity activities in comparison with groups III and IV (P < 0.001). Full match analysis revealed that activity profiles did not differ significantly between quarters. Conclusions: Notable differences in the volume of activity were displayed across the functional classification groups. However, the specific on-court requirements of defensive (I and II) and offensive (III and IV) match roles appeared to influence the intensity of match activities and consequently training prescription should be structured accordingly

Evolutionary conservation and in vitro reconstitution of microsporidian iron–sulfur cluster biosynthesis

This work was supported by Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships to T.A.W., E. H. and S. L., a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant (ERC-2010-AdG-268701) to T.M.E., and a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant (number 045404) to T.M.E. and J.M.L. R.L. acknowledges generous financial support from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 593, SFB 987, GRK 1216, LI 415/5), LOEWE program of state Hessen, Max-Planck Gesellschaft, von Behring-Röntgen StiftungMicrosporidians are a diverse group of obligate intracellular parasites that have minimized their genome content and simplified their sub-cellular structures by reductive evolution. Functional studies are limited because we lack reliable genetic tools for their manipulation. Here, we demonstrate that the cristae-deficient mitochondrion (mitosome) of the microsporidian Trachipleistophora hominis is the functional site of iron-sulphur cluster (ISC) assembly, which we suggest is the essential task of this organelle. Cell fractionation, fluorescence imaging and fine-scale immunoelectron microscopy demonstrate that mitosomes contain a complete pathway for [2Fe-2S] cluster biosynthesis that we biochemically reconstituted using purified recombinant mitosomal ISC proteins. Reconstitution proceeded as rapidly and efficiently as observed for yeast or fungal mitochondrial ISC components. Core components of the T. hominis cytosolic iron-sulphur protein assembly (CIA) pathway were also identified including the essential Cfd1-Nbp35 scaffold complex that assembles a [4Fe-4S] cluster as shown by spectroscopic methods in vitro. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that both the ISC and CIA biosynthetic pathways are predominantly bacterial, but their cytosolic and nuclear target Fe/S proteins are mainly archaeal. This mixed evolutionary history of the Fe/S-related proteins and pathways, and their strong conservation among highly reduced parasites, provides additional compelling evidence for the ancient chimeric ancestry of eukaryotes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Changes in the concentrations of thyroid hormones in dairy sheep

The aim of the research was to determine the changes in the concentrations of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) in sheep during lactation. The experiment was conducted on 20 Polish Longwool ewes. Milking was begun after the lambs were weaned, on the 57th day of lactation. Sheep were milked twice a day (8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.) until dry. The milk yield of each ewe was checked every 10 days. For determination of thyroid hormones, blood was collected every 28 days beginning at sunset, every 20 minutes for 6 hours. The average milk yield of the sheep was determined based on the individual yields on test days. The highest (P ≤ 0,01) milk yield was obtained in the first month of milking, i.e. April (0,48 ± 0,018 l). Milk yield decreased as lactation progressed. The concentration of hormone T3 was significantly higher (P ≤ 0,01) in the first and third months of lactation (0,72 ± 0,02 ng/ml in April and 0,74 ± 0,02 ng/ml in June) than in September (0,55 ± 0,01 ng/ml). The T3 concentration decreased in successive months of lactation. In contrast, the concentration of the T4 hormone increased with the progression of lactation. Significantly (P ≤ 0,01) the lowest concentration of T4 was found in the first and second month of milking (51,7 ± 9,8 ng/ml, 48,8 ± 7,4 ng/ml). The highest T4 concentration in lactating sheep was noted in August (60,55 ± 10 ng/ml). The research showed that the secretion of T3 decreases with milk yield, while secretion of T4 shows an upward trend as lactation progresses. Therefore thyroid hormones modulate secretion of milk in sheep