Intracranial dissemination in a primary small cell carcinoma of the brain: a case report and literature review

Primary intracranial small cell carcinoma (SCC) is extremely rare with only 8 previously reported cases. We describe a case of primary intracranial SCC with intracranial metastasis. A 46-year-old man presented with decreased vision and a red and swollen left eye. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a heterogeneously enhanced tumor on the left frontal lobe. Preoperative systemic computed tomography (CT), MRI, and positron emission tomography (PET)-CT revealed no extracranial tumors. The tumor on the left frontal lobe was excised. Immunohistochemical staining on the excision showed positivity for CD56, synaptophysin (Syn), cytokeratin (CK), and Ki-67 (30%), and negativity for thyroid transcriptional factor-1 (TTF-1), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), B-cell lymphoma 6 (Bcl-6), multiple myeloma oncogene 1 (MUM-1), C-Myc, Vimentin, P40, P53, CK7, CD3, CD5, CD20, CD79a, CD10, and CD23. The pathological examination strongly suggested that the tumor was a primary intracranial SCC. One year after the surgery, the patient was readmitted with slurred speech and slow movements. Three well-defined tumors were found in the left upper frontal lobe by brain MRI. Tumor resection was then performed. Further immunohistochemical examination of the excised tissue displayed the same pattern as previously, indicating the recurrence of intracranial SCC in the left frontal lobe. The patient received adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy after the tumor resection. At the 2-year follow-up, he remained asymptomatic

Sulphonated Poly Ether Ether Ketone/Aminodiphenylsilandiol Composite Electrolyte for PEM Fuel Cells

A composite polymeric membrane to be used as electrolyte in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells has been prepared and characterized. The membrane is composed of an acidic polymer, sulfonated polyetheretherketone, and of basic filler, amino-diphenylsilandiol, a functionalized organically modified silane. Attenuated total reflectance (ATR)/fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) demonstrated the occurrence of a specific interaction of the polymer ASO3H groups with the basic function of the filler. Such interaction reflected in reduced swelling, enhanced thermal stability, and good proton conductivity values at intermediate temperatures (r 10 2 S cm 1 at 100 C)

Sorption mechanisms of lead on soil-derived black carbon formed under varying cultivation systems

The knowledge about lead (Pb) sorption on soil-derived black carbons (SBCs) under different cultivation intensities of soils is limited. In this study, chemical and spectroscopic methods were applied to investigate the Pb sorption mechanisms on SBCs in soils from a forest land, a rubber plantation area, and a vegetable farm with none, less and highly intensive cultivation, respectively, that are located in the Hainan Island of China. Results showed that the specific surface area and cation exchange capacity of the SBCs from the less and highly intensive cultivation soils were 4.5- and 2.7-fold, and 1.3- and 1.8-fold higher compared to that of SBC from the no-cultivation soil, which subsequently enhanced the Pb sorption capacities of SBCs in iron exchange fraction. Ion exchange and hydrogen bonded Pb fractions together accounted for about 80% of total Pb sorbed on all SBCs at an externally added 1000 mg L−1 Pb solution concentration. The Odouble bondC–O groups also played key roles in Pb sorption by forming complexes of Odouble bondC–O–Pb–O and/or Odouble bondC–O–Pb. Overall, SBCs in soils under all studied cultivation intensities showed high potential to sorb Pb (with the maximum absorbed Pb amount of 46.0–91.3 mg g−1), and increased Pb sorption capacities of the studied soils by 18.7–21.1 mg kg−1 in the stable fraction (complexation). Therefore, SBC might be a potential environment-friendly material to enhance the Pb immobilization capacity of soil

Regional crustal deformation characteristic before 2016 Yuncheng M4.4 earthquake swarm based on CMONOC continuous GPS data

To further study regional deformation characteristic in the southeast margin of Ordos Block during the period between the Alanshan M5.8 and Yuncheng M4.4 earthquake swarm, we analyze continuous GPS sites around the study area. The time-varying strain parameters removed a linear trend deviated from the background state in varying degrees since April, 2015, and began to turn back at the end of the year 2015, meanwhile, the maximum extension strain and shear strain have the bigger variation relative to others. The GPS measurement also shows that the eastward displacement rate of the stations decreases during 2015–2016 in varying degrees compared to 2011–2015, and the variation is closely related to its geologic structural location. The differential movement between the stations is converted into regional strain accumulation due to the fault locking. Furthermore, during 2015–2016, the maximum extension rate oriented at near NS direction obviously increased, and the maximum contraction strain direction is changed from NW to EW direction, which contributes to strengthen extension and shear strain of the NE-striking faults, it's consistent with the regional background strain state of Shanxi seismic zone, this may be an important contributor to occurrence of M4.4 earthquake swarm in Yuncheng basin

Adaptive Thresholding Approach of Moving Object Detection

Modeling background and segmenting moving objects are significant techniques for video surveillance and other video processing applications. In this paper, we proposed a novel adaptive approach modeling background and segmenting moving object with non-parametric kernel density estimation. Unlike previous approaches to object detection which detect objects by global threshold, we use a local threshold to reflect temporal persistence. With combined of global threshold and local thresholds, the proposed approach can handle scenes containing gradual illumination variations and noise and has no bootstrapping limitations. The presentation of the proposed approach is complemented by results on challenging standard test data and comparisons with other standard techniques

Mechanism of deformation around northern Hejin, China, observed by InSAR

Interierometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images reveal deformation around northern Hejin, Shanxi Province. The small baseline subset (SBAS) approach for InSAR-derived deformation indicates that the observed deformation pattern can be characterized by the sum of two phenomena: background subsidence from December 2003 to February 2009 with a cumulative displacement of approximately 5 cm and uplift from February 2009 to November 2010 with a cumulative displacement of approximately 2. 5 cm. Deformation modeling indicates that the local deformation was caused by the closing and opening of a sill beneath northern Hejin. The modeled sill which is approximately 5 km long, 2 km wide, is centered at 1. 5 km depth. The deformation was caused by the withdrawal and influx of subsurface water