Observation of Photovoltaic Effect and Single-photon Detection in Nanowire Silicon Pn-junction

We  study  nanowire  silicon  pin  and  pn-junctions  at  room  and  low  temperature.  Photovoltaic  effects  are  observed  for both devices at room temperature. At low temperature, nanowire pn-junction devices show their ability to detect single photon. This ability was not been observed for pin devices. Phosphorus-boron dopant cluster in the depletion region is considered  to  have  the  main  role  for  single-photon  detection  capability.  Fundamental  mechanism  of  dopant-based single-photon detection in nanowire pn-junction is described in details

Сахарный диабет 1 типа у детей: клинические и метаболические особенности в начале заболевания

Department of Pediatric Endocrinology, Emil Cotaga Children’s Republican Hospital, Congresul III al Medicilor de Familie din Republica Moldova, 17–18 mai, 2012, Chişinău, Republica Moldova, Conferinţa Naţională „Maladii bronhoobstructive la copii”, consacrată profesorului universitar, doctor habilitat Victor Gheţeul, 27 aprilie, Chişinău, Republica MoldovaThe aim of the study was to determine the clinical and biochemical characteristics of type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM) at presentation in children. The registered data set comprised blood glucose, pH, serum bicarbonate levels, glycosylated hemoglobin and clinical symptoms at disease manifestation. 53 children with type 1 DM were included in this study. Polydipsia (90.1%), polyuria (81.4%), and weight loss (84.1%) were the most frequent symptoms anticipating disease detection. Enuresis was recorded in 32.8%. A total of 73.6% patients had DKA (pH < 7.3) at disease onset. Children under 10 years showed more pronounced ketoacidosis that developed in a shorter period of time. Blood glucose testing in children with enuresis, weight loss and family history of diabetes is essential for timely diagnosis.Данное исследование было выполнено с целью определения клинических и биохимических характеристик впервые выявленного сахарного диабета 1 типа у детей. Были регистрированы и проанализированы следующие показатели: уровень глюкозы, рН и бикарбонат крови, гликированный гемоглобин, клинические симптомы заболевания. Были исследованы 53 детей. Полидипсия (90,1%), полиурия (81,4%) и потеря веса (84,1%) были выявлены как самые распространенные симптомы до подтверждения диагноза. Энурез был зарегистрирован у 32,8% детей. 73,6% пациентов имели диабетический кетоацидоз (рН < 7,3) в момент установления диагноза. Дети до 10 лет показали более выраженный кетоацидоз, который развился в более короткие сроки. Энурез, потеря веса и семейная предрасположенность к сахарному диабету являются показаниями к определению глюкозы в крови у детей для своевременной диагностики заболевания

Stable bundles on hypercomplex surfaces

A hypercomplex manifold is a manifold equipped with three complex structures I, J, K satisfying the quaternionic relations. Let M be a 4-dimensional compact smooth manifold equipped with a hypercomplex structure, and E be a vector bundle on M. We show that the moduli space of anti-self-dual connections on E is also hypercomplex, and admits a strong HKT metric. We also study manifolds with (4,4)-supersymmetry, that is, Riemannian manifolds equipped with a pair of strong HKT-structures that have opposite torsion. In the language of Hitchin's and Gualtieri's generalized complex geometry, (4,4)-manifolds are called ``generalized hyperkaehler manifolds''. We show that the moduli space of anti-self-dual connections on M is a (4,4)-manifold if M is equipped with a (4,4)-structure.Comment: 17 pages. Version 3.0: reference adde

Modern trends in surgical treatment of chronic pancreatitis and its evolutive complications

Catedra 2 Chirurgie, LCŞ „Chirurgie Reconstructivă a Tractului Digestiv”, USMF “Nicolae Testemiţanu”, IMSP SCR, Chişinău, Republica Moldova, Al XII-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova cu participare internațională 23-25 septembrie 2015Introducere: Pancreatita cronică (PC) şi complicaţiile sale sunt o afecţiune cronică cu potenţial evolutiv şi progresiv invalidant, chiar şi în contextul unor terapii ce se înscriu în linia protocoalelor terapeutice moderne. Scop: Evaluarea strategiilor terapeutice moderne în PC şi complicaţiilor sale evolutive. Material şi metode: Studiul prezintă rezultatele tratamentului chirurgical aplicat la 460 pacienţi cu PC şi complicaţiile sale, desfăşurat în perioada 1992-2014 în Clinica Chirurgie nr.1 din cadrul Catedrei 2 Chirurgie. Operaţiile de elecţie au inclus: pancreatojejunostomie pe ansa Roux (PJS) – 125 (27,78%) cazuri, splanhnicectomia toracoscopică – 28 (6,09%) cazuri, stentare endoscopică a ductului Wirsung – 6 (1,3%) cazuri, duodenopancreatectomie cefalică (DPC) – 4 (0,87%) cazuri, chistpancreaticojejunostomie (CPJS) pe ansă Roux – 156 (33,91%) cazuri, drenare externă a PP – 61 (13,26%) cazuri, puncţie ecoghidată a PP – 8 (1,74%) cazuri. Pentru cazurile de PC complicată cu icter mecanic – PJS cu colecisto- sau coledocojejunostomie pe ansă bispiculată a lá Roux – 10 (2,17%) cazuri, CPJS cu colecisto- sau coledoco-jejunostomie pe ansă bispiculată a lá Roux – 31 (6,74%) cazuri, colecisto-(coledoco)-jejunostomie pe ansă Roux – 35 (7,61%) cazuri. Rezultate: Mortalitate postoperatorie precoce a fost inregistarată în 1 (0,22%) caz. Evoluţia pacienţilor a fost favorabilă în 380 (82,6%) cazuri. Rata complicaţiilor precoce a constituit 43 (9,34%) cazuri din totalul pacienţilor. Complicaţiile tardive s-au manifestat în 21 (4,57%) cazuri, necesitând reintervenţie chirurgicală clasică la 13 (2,83%) pacienţi şi miniinvazivă la 14 (3,04%) pacienţi. Concluzii: La pacientul cu PC şi complicaţiile sale evolutive marcate de asocieri lezionale, tratamentul chirurgical trebuie definit pentru fiecare caz în parte, luînd în consideraţie riscurile şi beneficiile. Caracterul lezional al ţesutului pancreatic şi starea ductului pancreatic reprezintă punctele cruciale în managementul PC şi complicaţiile sale evolutive.Introduction: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) and its complications is a chronic disease which can be evolutionary and progressive disabling, even in the context of the therapies that are included on the modern therapeutic protocols. Aim: Evaluation of the modern therapeutic strategies in CP and its progressive complications. Material and methods: The study presents the results of surgical treatment applied to 460 patients with CP and its complications, held during 1992-2014 in the Surgical Clinic Nr.1. The elective surgeries included: cyst pancreatojejunoanastomosis (CPJA) on the loop by Roux – 125 (27.78%) cases, the thoracoscopic splanhnicectomy – 28 (6.09%) cases, endoscopic stenting of the Wirsung duct – 6 (1.3%) cases, cephalic duodenopancreatectomy (DPC) – 4 (0.87%) cases, cyst pancreatojejunoanastomosis (CPJS) on Roux-loop 156 (33.91%) cases, external drainage of PP – 61 (13.26%) cases, ultrasound-guided puncture of PP – 8 (1.74%) cases. In the cases of CP complicated with mechanical jaundice – PJS with cholecysto- or choledochojejunoanastomosis on the loop by Roux – 10 (2.17%) cases, CPJS with cholecysto- or choledochojejunoanastomosis on the loop by Roux – 31 (6.74%) cases, cholecysto- or choledochojejunoanastomosis on the loop by Roux – 35 (7.61%) cases. Results: It was registered 1 (0.22%) case of early postoperative mortality. The patients evolution was favorable in 380 (82.6%) cases. The rate of early complications was in 43 (9.34%) cases. Late complications were recorded in 21 (4.57%) cases, reason for 12 (4.42%) of them required a new opened surgery and 14 (3.04%) a minimally invasive. Conclusions: In the case of a patient with CP and its evolutionary complications, marked by lesional associations, the surgical treatment must be defined for each case, taking into account the risks and benefits. The lesional character of the pancreatic tissue and the condition of the pancreatic duct are very important in CP management and its evolutionary complications

efam: an expanded, metaproteome-supported HMM profile database of viral protein families

Motivation: Viruses infect, reprogram and kill microbes, leading to profound ecosystem consequences, from elemental cycling in oceans and soils to microbiome-modulated diseases in plants and animals. Although metagenomic datasets are increasingly available, identifying viruses in them is challenging due to poor representation and annotation of viral sequences in databases. Results: Here, we establish efam, an expanded collection of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) profiles that represent viral protein families conservatively identified from the Global Ocean Virome 2.0 dataset. This resulted in 240 311 HMM profiles, each with at least 2 protein sequences, making efam >7-fold larger than the next largest, panecosystem viral HMM profile database. Adjusting the criteria for viral contig confidence from 'conservative' to 'eXtremely Conservative' resulted in 37 841 HMM profiles in our efam-XC database. To assess the value of this resource, we integrated efam-XC into VirSorter viral discovery software to discover viruses from less-studied, ecologically distinct oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) marine habitats. This expanded database led to an increase in viruses recovered from every tested OMZ virome by similar to 24% on average (up to similar to 42%) and especially improved the recovery of often-missed shorter contigs (<5 kb). Additionally, to help elucidate lesser-known viral protein functions, we annotated the profiles using multiple databases from the DRAM pipeline and virion-associated metaproteomic data, which doubled the number of annotations obtainable by standard, single-database annotation approaches. Together, these marine resources (efam and efam-XC) are provided as searchable, compressed HMM databases that will be updated bi-annually to help maximize viral sequence discovery and study from any ecosystem

Combined mechanism glaucoma asociated with Grave's Ophtalmopathy: Case report

A 69-year-old female presented marked vision loss in both eyes, intense photophobia and ocular pain. The patient had long history of uncompensated glaucoma, Graves ophtalmopathy, treated for several years with topical medication without normalizing the intraocular pressure. The patient undergo orbital decompression for Grave’s ophtalmopathy which ameliorated the exophthalmia. Visual assessment showed 0,08 best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the right eye respectively 0 in the left eye, posterior chamber pseudophakic implant both eyes, posterior capsular opacification left eye. The intraocular pressure was 18-25 mmHg in the right eye, respectively 14-19 mm Hg under topical medication. The cup-disc ratio was 0.8 in the RE respectively 0.9-1 in the LE. The visual field assessment in the RE showed relative central scotoma, complete lower arcuate (Bjerrum) scotoma, generalized depresion of VF. We performed RE trabeculectomy with 5 fluorouracil and collagen implant (OLOGEN®), with good postoperative evolution. The Visual Acuity improves significantly to 0.1, the IOP after a month was 15 mm Hg. The onset, symptomatology and general clinical context of the patient determined the focus on the neuro-ophthalmological aspect of the case, even if that meant that the control of the glaucoma, at times obviously inefficient, would remain second, from the perspective of its importance

A metabolite-derived protein modification integrates glycolysis with KEAP1-NRF2 signalling.

Mechanisms that integrate the metabolic state of a cell with regulatory pathways are necessary to maintain cellular homeostasis. Endogenous, intrinsically reactive metabolites can form functional, covalent modifications on proteins without the aid of enzymes1,2, and regulate cellular functions such as metabolism3-5 and transcription6. An important 'sensor' protein that captures specific metabolic information and transforms it into an appropriate response is KEAP1, which contains reactive cysteine residues that collectively act as an electrophile sensor tuned to respond to reactive species resulting from endogenous and xenobiotic molecules. Covalent modification of KEAP1 results in reduced ubiquitination and the accumulation of NRF27,8, which then initiates the transcription of cytoprotective genes at antioxidant-response element loci. Here we identify a small-molecule inhibitor of the glycolytic enzyme PGK1, and reveal a direct link between glycolysis and NRF2 signalling. Inhibition of PGK1 results in accumulation of the reactive metabolite methylglyoxal, which selectively modifies KEAP1 to form a methylimidazole crosslink between proximal cysteine and arginine residues (MICA). This posttranslational modification results in the dimerization of KEAP1, the accumulation of NRF2 and activation of the NRF2 transcriptional program. These results demonstrate the existence of direct inter-pathway communication between glycolysis and the KEAP1-NRF2 transcriptional axis, provide insight into the metabolic regulation of the cellular stress response, and suggest a therapeutic strategy for controlling the cytoprotective antioxidant response in several human diseases

Efam: an expanded, metaproteome-supported HMM profile database of viral protein families

Motivation: Viruses infect, reprogram and kill microbes, leading to profound ecosystem consequences, from elemental cycling in oceans and soils to microbiome-modulated diseases in plants and animals. Although metagenomic datasets are increasingly available, identifying viruses in them is challenging due to poor representation and annotation of viral sequences in databases. Results: Here, we establish efam, an expanded collection of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) profiles that represent viral protein families conservatively identified from the Global Ocean Virome 2.0 dataset. This resulted in 240 311 HMM profiles, each with at least 2 protein sequences, making efam >7-fold larger than the next largest, pan-ecosystem viral HMM profile database. Adjusting the criteria for viral contig confidence from 'conservative' to 'eXtremely Conservative' resulted in 37 841 HMM profiles in our efam-XC database. To assess the value of this resource, we integrated efam-XC into VirSorter viral discovery software to discover viruses from less-studied, ecologically distinct oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) marine habitats. This expanded database led to an increase in viruses recovered from every tested OMZ virome by ∼24% on average (up to ∼42%) and especially improved the recovery of often-missed shorter contigs (<5 kb). Additionally, to help elucidate lesser-known viral protein functions, we annotated the profiles using multiple databases from the DRAM pipeline and virion-associated metaproteomic data, which doubled the number of annotations obtainable by standard, single-database annotation approaches. Together, these marine resources (efam and efam-XC) are provided as searchable, compressed HMM databases that will be updated bi-annually to help maximize viral sequence discovery and study from any ecosystem

Texture spectrum coupled with entropy and homogeneity image features for myocardium muscle characterization

People in middle/later age often suffer from heart muscle damage due to coronary artery disease associated to myocardial infarction. In young people, the genetic forms of cardiomyopathies (heart muscle disease) are the utmost protuberant cause of myocardial disease. Accurate early detected information regarding the myocardial tissue structure is a key answer for tracking the progress of several myocardial diseases. The present work proposes a new method for myocardium muscle texture classification based on entropy, homogeneity and on the texture unit-based texture spectrum approaches. Entropy and homogeneity are generated in moving windows of size 3x3 and 5x5 to enhance the texture features and to create the premise of differentiation of the myocardium structures. Texture is then statistically analyzed using the texture spectrum approach. Texture classification is achieved based on a fuzzy c–means descriptive classifier. The noise sensitivity of the fuzzy c–means classifier is overcome by using the image features. The proposed method is tested on a dataset of 80 echocardiographic ultrasound images in both short-axis and long-axis in apical two chamber view representations, for normal and infarct pathologies. The results established that the entropy-based features provided superior clustering results compared to homogeneity