De Santis A, Morlupo M, Cedola M, Peri C, Stati T, Pigna M, Antonelli M: Echographic survey of upper abdomen of 10 families of patients with immotile cilia syndrome.

Ten patients affected by the immotile cilia syndrome (ICS) and their families received an ultrasound examination of the upper abdomen to observe the possible familial occurence of biliary, pancreatic, and splenic alterations. In 9 patients the liver was localized in the left hypochondrium, and in 1 patient there was an accessory spleen. In all the examined kin, the subdiaphragmatic organs were normally positioned. Two parents had an accessory spleen. We conclude that the supposed increased frequency of polysplenia, asplenia, and biliary atresia among ICS subjects and their kin is overestimated and based only upon anecdotal reports

Extending Ontology to Behaviour in Communities of Interoperating Information Systems Agents

Work performed partly while visiting LADSEB-CNR; Corso Stati Uniti, 4; Padova, Italia, This paper argues that a community of interoperating information systems agents requires an ontology not only of the objects in the world, the agents themselves and the message types available; but also of the complex behavioural protocols through which tasks are accomplished. The universe of these applications is described using formal upper ontologies and the material ontology of institutional fact, and a method of representing a subsumption lattice of behavioural protocols using the process algebra representation of finite state machines is adapted from the literature. This behavioural subtype structure is shown to be compatible with the other aspects of the ontology. The resulting system is applied to a community of agents.

Prolonged, low dose alpha-tocopherol therapy counteracts intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 activation.

Up-regulation of ICAM-1 at the vascular endothelial level is one of the most important promoters in the slow progression of a healthy vessel to an atherosclerotic one. The current study aimed to evaluate whether low dose of the antioxidant alpha-tocopherol affects the circulating soluble (s) ICAM-1 in healthy subjects. Either alpha-tocopherol E (50 I.U./day) or placebo was randomly, double-blindly given to 39 healthy male volunteers (mean age 41.6+/-5.9 years) over a period of 20 weeks. At the baseline, sICAM-1 levels were inversely correlated with alpha-tocopherol concentrations (r=-0.525, p<0.0001). Twenty weeks of alpha-tocopherol supplementation (n=20 subjects) significantly decreased the circulating sICAM-1 levels (from 149.2+/-18.4 to 131.5+/-17.2 microg l(-1), p<0.004) while it increased the alpha-tocopherol concentrations (from 25.8+/-5.0 to 31.2+/-5.7 micromol l(-1), p<0.003). No significant changes in plasma sICAM-1 and alpha-tocopherol levels were observed in placebo-treated subjects (n=19). In actively treated subjects, changes in circulating sICAM-1 were inversely correlated with changes in alpha-tocopherol concentrations (r=-0.597, p=0.005). Plasma sICAM-1 concentrations are stable in healthy subjects over a period of 20 weeks while they significantly decreased with low dose of alpha-tocopherol. Thus, antioxidant vitamins are likely to counteract with endothelial changes that could potentially trigger the atherogenetic process

An approach to ontology for institutional facts in the semantic web

This paper shows how it is possible to represent the complex data structures needed to support electronic commerce applications in the semantic web using ontologies. The conventional mereological or subtype-oriented refinement of the ontology is supplemented by a method of coordinated refinement based on category theory. The combined methods make ontologies a much more powerful tool for organising the semantic web.