Mucinous Cystadenocarcinoma of the Colon during Pregnancy

A rare case of mucinous adenocarcinoma of the cecum in a pregnant woman is described. A 32-year-old Korean woman was diagnosed as having an abdominal tumor immediately after giving birth. Abdominal computed tomography demonstrated a smooth mass measuring 10 cm in diameter on the right side of the abdomen. Acute abdomen developed 3 days after birth. At emergency surgery, volvulus of a polypoid tumor was detected at the cecum apart from the normal appendix. We successfully performed a tumorectomy; however, histopathological examination demonstrated mucinous adenocarcinoma with a massive blood clot

Potential of an Asymmetrical Agitation in Industrial Mixing

Mixing is one of the most fundamental operations in chemical engineering. Stirred tanks are widely used in the manufacture of such materials as chemicals, paints, inks, electronics materials, ceramics, foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Suitable mixing is indispensable to the purpose achievement of a process. Eccentric mixing, in which an impeller installed at eccentric position in a vessel, is one of the traditional methods of promoting mixing. An asymmetrical flow which occurs in vessel is complicated, and it promotes mixing, distribution, and mass transfer. In this study, a new mixing method which eccentric mixing using a large type impeller which attracts attention in recent years is shown. The high performance of a large impeller can be combined with the advantages of an eccentric impeller by using the impeller at an eccentric position. The power consumption and mixing time for MAXBLEND, which is a type of large impeller, were investigated. The power consumption, P, and mixing time, θM, were measured under various eccentric conditions. The relation between the power number (Np) and Reynolds number (Re) and that between the dimensionless mixing time (nθM) and Re were investigated. When eccentric mixing is used industrially, we should be concerned about the horizontal load to a agitating shaft. The large oscillating horizontal load causes serious problems, such as the falling off of the impeller or the breakage of the motor, mechanical seal or gearbox. It is, therefore, important to understand the relation between these values and the impeller rotational speed when designing the mixing equipment and determining the operating conditions. In this study, the torque and horizontal load were measured in eccentric mixing under various eccentric conditions. The averages of both, the torque and the horizontal load, and their standard deviations, corresponding to the amplitude of fluctuation, were shown.Doi: 10.12777/ijse.5.2.73-80 [How to cite this article: Nishi, K., Enya, N., Sonoda, K., Misumi, R., Kaminoyama, M. (2013). Potential of an asymmetrical agitation in industrial mixing. International Journal of Science and Engineering, 5(2),73-80. Doi: 10.12777/ijse.5.2.73-80

Histology of tbe fissure contents in completely impacted teeth

Nous avons étudié les fissures occlusales et leur contenu au niveau de dents complètement incluses à l’aide du microscope optique et électronique et obtenu quelques résultats intéressants. C’est-à-dire au microscope optique, l’examen des coupes de fissures ont montré:a) Un certain nombre de fissures étaient comblées.b) D’autres étaient comblées à certains endroits limités, localisés le long des murs de la fissure.c) D’autres enfin ne contenaient rien et les fissures étaient pratiquement vides.La fine structure du contenu des fissures ne pouvait pas être précisée au microscope optique et l’interprétation ne peut qu’être subjective.Observés au microscope électronique, les dépôts comblant les fissures se sont avérés être de l’émail hypominéralisé

Ecto-5’-nucleotidase: Structure function relationships

Ecto-5’-nucleotidase (ecto-5’-NT) is attached via a GPI anchor to the extracellular membrane, where it hydrolyses AMP to adenosine and phosphate. Related 5’-nucleotidases exist in bacteria, where they are exported into the periplasmic space. X-ray structures of the 5’-nucleotidase from E. coli showed that the enzyme consists of two domains. The N-terminal domain coordinates two catalytic divalent metal ions, whereas the C-terminal domain provides the substrate specificity pocket for the nucleotides. Thus, the substrate binds at the interface of the two domains. Here, the currently available structural information on ecto-5’NT is reviewed in relation to the catalytic properties and enzyme function

Comparative analysis of miRNAs and their targets across four plant species

BACKGROUND: MicroRNA (miRNA) mediated regulation of gene expression has been recognized as a major posttranscriptional regulatory mechanism also in plants. We performed a comparative analysis of miRNAs and their respective gene targets across four plant species: Arabidopsis thaliana (Ath), Medicago truncatula(Mtr), Brassica napus (Bna), and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Cre). RESULTS: miRNAs were obtained from mirBase with 218 miRNAs for Ath, 375 for Mtr, 46 for Bna, and 73 for Cre, annotated for each species respectively. miRNA targets were obtained from available database annotations, bioinformatic predictions using RNAhybrid as well as predicted from an analysis of mRNA degradation products (degradome sequencing) aimed at identifying miRNA cleavage products. On average, and considering both experimental and bioinformatic predictions together, every miRNA was associated with about 46 unique gene transcripts with considerably variation across species. We observed a positive and linear correlation between the number miRNAs and the total number of transcripts across different plant species suggesting that the repertoire of miRNAs correlates with the size of the transcriptome of an organism. Conserved miRNA-target pairs were found to be associated with developmental processes and transcriptional regulation, while species-specific (in particular, Ath) pairs are involved in signal transduction and response to stress processes. Conserved miRNAs have more targets and higher expression values than non-conserved miRNAs. We found evidence for a conservation of not only the sequence of miRNAs, but their expression levels as well. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the notion of a high birth and death rate of miRNAs and that miRNAs serve many species specific functions, while conserved miRNA are related mainly to developmental processes and transcriptional regulation with conservation operating at both the sequence and expression level

Proteomic-based identification of haptoglobin-1 precursor as a novel circulating biomarker of ovarian cancer

Screening for specific biomarkers of early-stage detection of ovarian cancer is a major health priority due to the asymptomatic nature and poor survival characteristic of the disease. We utilised two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) to identify differentially expressed proteins in the serum of ovarian cancer patients that may be useful as biomarkers of this disease. In this study, 38 ovarian cancer patients at different pathological grades (grade 1 (n=6), grade 2 (n=8) and grade 3 (n=24)) were compared to a control group of eight healthy women. Serum samples were treated with a mixture of Affigel-Blue and protein A (5 : 1) for 1 h to remove high abundance protein (e.g. immunoglobulin and albumin) and were displayed using 11 cm, pH 4-7 isoelectric focusing strips for the first dimension and 10% acrylamide gel electrophoresis for the second dimension. Protein spots were visualised by SYPRO-Ruby staining, imaged by FX-imager and compared and analysed by PDQuest software. A total of 24 serum proteins were differentially expressed in grade 1 (P<0.05), 31 in grade 2 (P<0.05) and 25 in grade 3 (P<0.05) ovarian cancer patients. Six of the protein spots that were significantly upregulated in all groups of ovarian cancer patients were identified by nano-electrospray quadrupole quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (n-ESIQ(q)TOFMS) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) as isoforms of haptoglobin-1 precursor (HAP1), a liver glycoprotein present in human serum. Further identification of the spots at different pathological grades was confirmed by Western blotting using monoclonal antibody against a haptoglobin epitope contained within HAP1. Immunohistochemical localisation of HAP1-like activity was present in malignant ovarian epithelium and stroma but strong immunostaining was present in blood vessels, areas with myxomatous stroma and vascular spaces. No tissue localisation of HAP1-like immunoreactivity was observed in normal ovarian surface epithelium. These data highlight the need to assess circulating concentration of HAP1 in the serum of ovarian cancer patients and evaluate its potential as a biomarker in the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.N Ahmed, G Barker, KT Oliva, P Hoffmann, C Riley, S Reeve, AI Smith, BE Kemp, MA Quinn and GE Ric

A 100%-complete sequence reveals unusually simple genomic features in the hot-spring red alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>All previously reported eukaryotic nuclear genome sequences have been incomplete, especially in highly repeated units and chromosomal ends. Because repetitive DNA is important for many aspects of biology, complete chromosomal structures are fundamental for understanding eukaryotic cells. Our earlier, nearly complete genome sequence of the hot-spring red alga <it>Cyanidioschyzon merolae </it>revealed several unique features, including just three ribosomal DNA copies, very few introns, and a small total number of genes. However, because the exact structures of certain functionally important repeated elements remained ambiguous, that sequence was not complete. Obviously, those ambiguities needed to be resolved before the unique features of the <it>C. merolae </it>genome could be summarized, and the ambiguities could only be resolved by completing the sequence. Therefore, we aimed to complete all previous gaps and sequence all remaining chromosomal ends, and now report the first nuclear-genome sequence for any eukaryote that is 100% complete.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our present complete sequence consists of 16546747 nucleotides covering 100% of the 20 linear chromosomes from telomere to telomere, representing the simple and unique chromosomal structures of the eukaryotic cell. We have unambiguously established that the <it>C. merolae </it>genome contains the smallest known histone-gene cluster, a unique telomeric repeat for all chromosomal ends, and an extremely low number of transposons.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>By virtue of these attributes and others that we had discovered previously, <it>C. merolae </it>appears to have the simplest nuclear genome of the non-symbiotic eukaryotes. These unusually simple genomic features in the 100% complete genome sequence of <it>C. merolae </it>are extremely useful for further studies of eukaryotic cells.</p

The Conformal Transformation in General Single Field Inflation with Non-Minimal Coupling

The method of a conformal transformation is applied to a general class of single field inflation models with non-minimal coupling to gravity and non-standard kinetic terms, in order to reduce the cosmological perturbative calculation to the conventional minimal coupling case to all orders in perturbation theory. Our analysis is made simple by the fact that all perturbation variables in the comoving gauge are conformally invariant to all orders. The structure of the vacuum, on which cosmological correlation functions are evaluated, is also discussed. We show how quantization in the Jordan frame for non-minimally coupled inflation models can be equivalently implemented in the Einstein frame. It is thereafter argued that the general N-point cosmological correlation functions (of the curvature perturbation) are independent of the conformal frame.Comment: 15 pages, no figure, references adde