A case of elongated styloid process in a modern-age skull from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

Background: The styloid process (SP) arises from cartilage of the second branchial arch and tends to calcify during later life. If the length of the SP is more than 30 mm, it can be considered abnormally elongated. Clinical symptoms associated with elongation of this type are defined as Eagle’s syndrome. The paper presents a case of an elongated SP in a modern skull from Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, obtained from a series of skulls of African slaves kept at the Department of Anthropology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Wroclaw. Materials and methods: The skull belonged to a male individual, aged ca. 55 years at death (maturus). In terms of basic anthropometric features it had slightly greater facial width parameters in comparison to the cerebral part, and a shorter length of neurocranium when compared to average values of morphological features in African skulls from Uganda. Results: Further macroscopic analysis revealed the presence of an elongated SP (ca. 70.1 mm) with secondary lesions remaining after a healed fracture. Imaging of the bone structure of the elongated SP was carried out using a computed to­mography scan, with multilevel image analysis without contrast. The elongation and calcification of the left ligament in anterior orientation could have caused irritation to the structure of cranial nerves, running within the parapharyngeal space, and to sympathetic fibres running in the wall of cervical arteries. Conclusions: Analyses of craniological materials recovered during excavations or as part of old osteological collections are rare due to the fragility of this bone structure, and for that reason they may be a valuable source of information on the health status of historic human populations

Is the blood B-cell subset profile diagnostic for Sjögren syndrome?

International audienc

The Validation and Assessment of Machine Learning: A Game of Prediction from High-Dimensional Data

In applied statistics, tools from machine learning are popular for analyzing complex and high-dimensional data. However, few theoretical results are available that could guide to the appropriate machine learning tool in a new application. Initial development of an overall strategy thus often implies that multiple methods are tested and compared on the same set of data. This is particularly difficult in situations that are prone to over-fitting where the number of subjects is low compared to the number of potential predictors. The article presents a game which provides some grounds for conducting a fair model comparison. Each player selects a modeling strategy for predicting individual response from potential predictors. A strictly proper scoring rule, bootstrap cross-validation, and a set of rules are used to make the results obtained with different strategies comparable. To illustrate the ideas, the game is applied to data from the Nugenob Study where the aim is to predict the fat oxidation capacity based on conventional factors and high-dimensional metabolomics data. Three players have chosen to use support vector machines, LASSO, and random forests, respectively

TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 9 DRIVES THE MATURATION OF B LYMPHOCYTES IN THE SALIVARY GLANDS OF PATIENTS WITH SJÖGREN’S SYNDROME

Oral Communication presented at the ";Forum des Jeunes Chercheurs";, Brest (France) 2011

Can pain be self-managed?:Pain change in vulnerable participants to a health education programme

Chronic pain exerts a significant impact on the quality of life, giving rise to both physical and psycho-social vulnerabilities. It not only leads to direct costs associated with treatments, but also results in indirect costs due to the reduced productivity of affected individuals. Chronic conditions can be improved by reducing modifiable risk factors. Various educational programs, including the Chronic Disease Self-Management Programme (CDSMP), have demonstrated the advantages of enhancing patient empowerment and health literacy. Nevertheless, their efficacy in addressing pain symptoms has received limited attention, especially concerning vulnerable populations. This research aims to assess the effectiveness of the CDSMP in alleviating pain among socio-economically vulnerable participants with chronic conditions. By accounting for a wide range of variables, and using data from the EFFICHRONIC project (EU health programme), we investigated the changes in pain levels after the intervention, among 1070 participants from five European countries. Our analyses revealed a significant reduction in pain following the intervention. This finding supports the notion that training programs can effectively ameliorate pain and alleviate its impact on the quality of life, particularly in vulnerable populations. Younger participants, as well as those with higher education levels and individuals experiencing higher levels of pain at baseline, were more likely to experience a reduction in their pain levels. These findings underscore the importance of recognising the social determinants of health. The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (ISRCTN70517103).</p

HIV infection drives interferon signaling within intestinal SARS-CoV-2 target cells

SARS-CoV-2 infects epithelial cells of the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract and causes related symptoms. HIV infection impairs gut homeostasis and is associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 fatality. To investigate the potential link between these observations, we analyzed singlecell transcriptional profiles and SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor expression across lymphoid and mucosal human tissue from chronically HIV-infected individuals and uninfected controls. Absorptive gut enterocytes displayed the highest coexpression of SARS-CoV-2 receptors ACE2, TMPRSS2, and TMPRSS4, of which ACE2 expression was associated with canonical interferon response and antiviral genes. Chronic treated HIV infection was associated with a clear antiviral response in gut enterocytes and, unexpectedly, with a substantial reduction of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 target cells. Gut tissue from SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals, however, showed abundant SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in both the large and small intestine, including an HIV-coinfected individual. Thus, upregulation of antiviral response genes and downregulation of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in the GI tract of HIV-infected individuals does not prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in this compartment. The impact of these HIVassociated intestinal mucosal changes on SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics, disease severity, and vaccine responses remains unclear and requires further investigation