The Spot Weldability of Carbon Steel Sheet

The specimens of thickness 0.8 mm carbon steel number 1.8902 in a strip form were welded. The strips of lap joints and curved peeljoints configurations have been welded. The welding parameters such as weld current and weld time have been investigated. The relation between the weld area and the joint strength properties has been presented. The obtained results were showing that the weld joint strength and the molten area (weld nugget volume) highly increase with the increasing of weld current. Therefore, the correlation between the maximum load (joint strength) and area has been given. The reliable weldability under the tensile and shearing loading was considered. Therefore, the new limits of weldability have been presented to consider these two types of loading. Moreover, the experimental results were compared with the empirical relations that consider the sheet thickness only

Role of diversion ileostomy in low rectal cancer: A randomized controlled trial

AbstractIntroduction: Rectal cancer continues to be devastating malignancy worldwide. Sphincter preservation is the need of the hour. Distal anastomosis is more prone to leaks. Proximal diversion in form of ileostomy may be used to protect distal anastomosis. Aim: To compare two groups of low anterior resection with and without diversion ileostomy in rectal cancer patients. Material and methods: A prospective, hospital based study of 78 rectal carcinoma patients were taken for the study. Inclusion criteria was operable rectal cancer 4–12 cm from anal verge. Patients were randomized into two groups. Group – A (34 patient) patients with low anterior resection with ileostomy (LAR with ileostomy); Group – B (44 patients) patients with low anterior resection without ileostomy (LAR without ileostomy). Quality of life was assessed by scoring done by self designed method. A total score of 0–20 given for various parameters. Results: Skin excoriation was the commonest complication. Stomal retraction and stomal obstruction was seen in 1 patient each (3%). Hypokalemia was the commonest electrolyte imbalance present in ileostomy group. Anastomotic leak was present in 6% of Group A and 11% of Group B patients. Mean time of closure of ileostomy was 16 ± 4.3 weeks. Conclusion: LAR with ileostomy has certain advantages over LAR without ileostomy in terms of anastomotic leak, postoperative ileus, resumption of diet, wound infection, small bowel obstruction and in terms mortality and recurrence. However stoma related complications were main disadvantage in LAR with ileostomy

The prevalence of gallstone disease after sleeve gastrectomy and Roux en Y gastric bypass

Background: Obesity (body mass index >30) is increasing worldwide with an estimated 1.7 billion people currently affected by the disease, Gallstone represent the third most common disease observed among obese patients. Moreover about 30% of the patients who are candidates for bariatric surgery either have undergone a prior cholecystectomy or are found to present gallstones at time of surgery, On the other hand, newly formed gallstones may be diagnosed in 27% to 43% of patients who have undergone bariatric surgery within a very short period of time. Objective: To determine the prevalence of gallstone disease requiring cholecystectomy after laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and roux en Y gastric bypass during a one year follow up and to determine the need for prophylactic cholecystectomy in these patients. Patients and methods: prospective study among patients with morbid obesity treated with laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy and Roux- en- Y Gastric Bypass between 1st of February 2013 till 31st of July 2015 at Saint Raphael hospital and Al-Hayat private hospital, patients with negative abdominal ultrasound preoperatively, patient with at least one year follow up after surgery were included in this study, The patients were divided into two groups for comparison. Group A patients who had laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, and group B included the patients who underwent laparoscopic Roux en Y gastric bypass. The primary outcome measure was the formation of symptomatic gallstones or sludge with or without complications. Results: 284 patients in group A(sleeve) and 45 patients in group B(Bypass) were included in the analysis, the mean age of was 34.5 years for group A, and 191(67.3%) of the patients were women, whereas it was 41.5 years for group B and 33 (73.3%) of the patients were women, Symptomatic cholelithiasis subsequently requiring cholecystectomy occurred in 29 (10.2%) of 284 laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy patients, and 5(11.1%) of 45 Roux en Y gastric bypass patients , symptomatic gallstone developed in a median of 7 months in group A, while the median time to developed symptomatic gallstone in group B was 8 months. No significant difference in symptomatic gallstone disease was found between the patients who underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass and those who had sleeve gastrectomy Conclusions: Cholelithiasis was common in our patients before weight reduction surgery. The rate for symptomatic gallstones after surgery was not so high.. Routine prophylactic cholecystectomy should not be recommended for these patients

Laparoscopic Low Anterior Resection using Endo GIA Radial Reload Stapler: early results (case series)

Background: Laparoscopic colectomy is performed in an increasing number of institutions as a minimally invasive treatment for benign and malignant large bowel disease. Laparoscopic rectal surgery enables more accurate visualization of the anatomical structure in the pelvic cavity for selected patients with tumors in the middle and low rectum. Objectives: To determine the early outcome of patient who underwent laparoscopic low anterior resection using radial reload stapler. Patients and methods: This is a prospective study of 8 patients with low or mid rectal cancer who underwent a laparoscopic low anterior resection between January 2017 till June 2017 at Saint Raphael hospital. Results: Eight patients underwent elective laparoscopic low anterior resection, 5 (62.5%) of them were male and 3(37.5%) were female. In 6 (75%) patients complete rectal transaction done only radial reload stapler, while the other 2 (25%) patients complete transaction couldn’t be done only by the radial reload stapler and they need one Endo GIATM (Covidien) medium thick purple stapler. There was no anastomotic leakage, no wound infection and no mortality. Conclusion: The primary results and early outcome of this study showed that laparoscopic low anterior resection using radial reload is a safe procedure without increasing the risk of anastomotic leak. Further analysis in a large series is needed to draw definitive conclusions

Tea Polyphenols and Their Roles in Cancer Prevention and Chemotherapy

Many plant-derived, dietary polyphenols have been studied for their chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic properties against human cancers, including green tea polyphenols, genistein (found in soy), apigenin (celery, parsley), luteolin (broccoli), quercetin (onions), kaempferol (broccoli, grapefruits), curcumin (turmeric), etc. The more we understand their involved molecular mechanisms and cellular targets, the better we could utilize these “natural gifts” for the prevention and treatment of human cancer. Furthermore, better understanding of their structure-activity relationships will guide synthesis of analog compounds with improved bio-availability, stability, potency and specificity. This review focuses on green tea polyphenols and seeks to summarize several reported biological effects of tea polyphenols in human cancer systems, highlight the molecular targets and pathways identified, and discuss the role of tea polyphenols in the prevention and treatment of human cancer. The review also briefly describes several other dietary polyphenols and their biological effects on cancer prevention and chemotherapy

An RxLR effector from phytophthora infestans prevents re-localisation of two plant NAC transcription factors from the endoplasmic reticulum to the nucleus

The plant immune system is activated following the perception of exposed, essential and invariant microbial molecules that are recognised as non-self. A major component of plant immunity is the transcriptional induction of genes involved in a wide array of defence responses. In turn, adapted pathogens deliver effector proteins that act either inside or outside plant cells to manipulate host processes, often through their direct action on plant protein targets. To date, few effectors have been shown to directly manipulate transcriptional regulators of plant defence. Moreover, little is known generally about the modes of action of effectors from filamentous (fungal and oomycete) plant pathogens. We describe an effector, called Pi03192, from the late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans, which interacts with a pair of host transcription factors at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) inside plant cells. We show that these transcription factors are released from the ER to enter the nucleus, following pathogen perception, and are important in restricting disease. Pi03192 prevents the plant transcription factors from accumulating in the host nucleus, revealing a novel means of enhancing host susceptibility

A Visual Neural Network for Robust Collision Perception in Vehicle Driving Scenarios

This research addresses the challenging problem of visual collision detection in very complex and dynamic real physical scenes, specifically, the vehicle driving scenarios. This research takes inspiration from a large-field looming sensitive neuron, i.e., the lobula giant movement detector (LGMD) in the locust's visual pathways, which represents high spike frequency to rapid approaching objects. Building upon our previous models, in this paper we propose a novel inhibition mechanism that is capable of adapting to different levels of background complexity. This adaptive mechanism works effectively to mediate the local inhibition strength and tune the temporal latency of local excitation reaching the LGMD neuron. As a result, the proposed model is effective to extract colliding cues from complex dynamic visual scenes. We tested the proposed method using a range of stimuli including simulated movements in grating backgrounds and shifting of a natural panoramic scene, as well as vehicle crash video sequences. The experimental results demonstrate the proposed method is feasible for fast collision perception in real-world situations with potential applications in future autonomous vehicles

Micronutrient synergy—a new tool in effective control of metastasis and other key mechanisms of cancer

Consumption of a plant-based diet has been associated with prevention of the development and progression of cancer. We have developed strategies to inhibit cancer development and its spread by targeting common mechanisms used by all types of cancer cells that decrease stability and integrity of connective tissue. Strengthening of collagen and connective tissue can be achieved naturally through the synergistic effects of selected nutrients, such as lysine, proline, ascorbic acid and green tea extract (NM). This micronutrient mixture has exhibited a potent anticancer activity in vivo and in vitro in a few dozen cancer cell lines. Its anti-cancer effects include inhibition of metastasis, tumor growth, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) secretion, invasion, angiogenesis, and cell growth as well as induction of apoptosis. Many cancers are often diagnosed at later stages, when metastasis has occurred, which standard treatment has been unable to control. Our studies on NM effects on hepatic and pulmonary metastasis demonstrated profound, significant suppression of metastasis in a murine model. Evaluation of effects of NM on xenografts in murine models demonstrated significant reduction in tumor size and tumor burden in all human cancer cell lines tested. In vitro studies demonstrated that NM was very effective in inhibition of cell proliferation (by MTT assay), MMP secretion (by gelatinase zymography), cell invasion (through Matrigel), cell migration (by scratch test), induction of apoptosis (by live green caspase) and induction of pro-apoptotic genes in many diverse cancer cell lines. Furthermore, in vivo and in vitro studies of effects of individual micronutrients compared to their specific combination demonstrated synergistic effects resulting in improved anticancer potency

Prediagnostic selenium status, selenoprotein gene variants and association with breast cancer risk in a European cohort study

Selenium (Se) may help prevent breast cancer (BC) development. Owing to limited observational evidence, we investigated whether prediagnostic Se status and/or variants in the selenoprotein genes are associated with BC risk in a large European cohort. Se status was assessed by plasma measures of Se and its major circulating proteins, selenoprotein P (SELENOP) and glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPX3), in matched BC case-control pairs (2208 for SELENOP; 1785 for GPX3 and Se) nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, n = 452) in 55 selenoprotein and Se metabolic pathway genes and an additional 18 variants previously associated with Se concentrations were extracted from existing genotyping data within EPIC for 1564 case-control pairs. Multivariable-adjusted logistic regression models were used to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) of the association between Se status markers, SNP variants and BC risk. Overall, there was no statistically significant association of Se status with BC risk. However, higher GPX3 activity was associated with lower risk of premenopausal BC (4th versus 1st quartile, OR = 0.54, 95 % CI: 0.30–0.98, Ptrend = 0.013). While none of the genetic variant associations (P ≤ 0.05) retained significance after multiple testing correction, rs1004243 in the SELENOM selenoprotein gene and two SNPs in the related antioxidant TXN2 gene (rs4821494 and rs5750261) were associated with respective lower and higher risks of BC at a significance threshold of P ≤ 0.01. Fourteen SNPs in twelve Se pathway genes (P ≤ 0.01) in interaction with Se status were also associated with BC risk. Higher Se status does not appear to be associated with BC risk, although activity of the selenoenzyme GPX3 may be inversely associated with premenopausal BC risk, and SNPs in the Se pathway alone or in combination with suboptimal Se status may influence BC risk

The Transcriptome of Compatible and Incompatible Interactions of Potato (Solanum tuberosum) with Phytophthora infestans Revealed by DeepSAGE Analysis

Late blight, caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, is the most important disease of potato (Solanum tuberosum). Understanding the molecular basis of resistance and susceptibility to late blight is therefore highly relevant for developing resistant cultivars, either by marker-assissted selection or by transgenic approaches. Specific P. infestans races having the Avr1 effector gene trigger a hypersensitive resistance response in potato plants carrying the R1 resistance gene (incompatible interaction) and cause disease in plants lacking R1 (compatible interaction). The transcriptomes of the compatible and incompatible interaction were captured by DeepSAGE analysis of 44 biological samples comprising five genotypes, differing only by the presence or absence of the R1 transgene, three infection time points and three biological replicates. 30.859 unique 21 base pair sequence tags were obtained, one third of which did not match any known potato transcript sequence. Two third of the tags were expressed at low frequency (<10 tag counts/million). 20.470 unitags matched to approximately twelve thousand potato transcribed genes. Tag frequencies were compared between compatible and incompatible interactions over the infection time course and between compatible and incompatible genotypes. Transcriptional changes were more numerous in compatible than in incompatible interactions. In contrast to incompatible interactions, transcriptional changes in the compatible interaction were observed predominantly for multigene families encoding defense response genes and genes functional in photosynthesis and CO2 fixation. Numerous transcriptional differences were also observed between near isogenic genotypes prior to infection with P. infestans. Our DeepSAGE transcriptome analysis uncovered novel candidate genes for plant host pathogen interactions, examples of which are discussed with respect to possible function