A Search for Low Surface Brightness Structure Around Compact Narrow Emission Line Galaxies

As the most extreme members of the rapidly evolving faint blue galaxy population at intermediate redshift, the compact narrow emission line galaxies (CNELGs) are intrinsically luminous (-22 < M_B < -18) with narrow emission linewidths (30 < \sigma < 125 km/s). Their nature is heavily debated: they may be low-mass starbursting galaxies that will fade to present-day dwarf galaxies or bursts of star formation temporarily dominating the flux of more massive galaxies, possibly related to in situ bulge formation or the formation of cores of galaxies. We present deep, high-quality (~0.6 - 0.8 arcsec) images with CFHT of 27 CNELGs. One galaxy shows clear evidence for a tidal tail; the others are not unambiguously embedded in galactic disks. Approximately 55% of the CNELGS have sizes consistent with local dwarfs of small-to-intermediate sizes, while 45% have sizes consistent with large dwarfs or disks galaxies. At least 4 CNELGs cannot harbor substantial underlying disk material; they are low-luminosity galaxies at the present epoch (M_B > -18). Conversely, 15 are not blue enough to fade to low-luminosity dwarfs (M_B > -15.2). The majority of the CNELGs are consistent with progenitors of intermediate-luminosity dwarfs and low-luminosity spiral galaxies with small disks. CNELGs are a heterogeneous progenitor population with significant fractions (up to 44%) capable of fading into today's faint dwarfs (M_B > -15.2), while 15 to 85% may only experience an apparently extremely compact CNELG phase at intermediate redshift but remain more luminous galaxies at the present epoch.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, emulateapj, published in Ap

Revision of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic species of the family Stegocephalidae (Crustacea: Amphipoda) with description of two new species

The Antarctic and sub-Antarctic elements of the family Stegocephalidae DANA, 1855 (Crustacea: Amphipoda) are revised, and a key to the species is presented. Two new species are described: Andaniexis ollii n.sp. and Phippsiella watlingi n.sp. The family is represented in the Southern Ocean by 19 species belonging to 11 genera, of which one is reported as new to the area

Are internists in an non-prescriptive setting favourable to guidelines? A survey in a Department of Internal Medicine in Switzerland.

A cross-sectional anonymous postal survey was carried out in a Department of Internal Medicine in order to assess physicians' knowledge about and attitudes towards clinical practice guidelines and to evaluate the role of age in determining their use and opinions. The study took place in a Swiss University Hospital where exposure to guidelines had been limited. The questionnaire was sent to the 174 physicians of the Department. The response rate was 67% (116/174). The spontaneous definitions of guidelines were heterogeneous and referred to information of uncertain validity. Most participants, especially the younger groups of junior and senior residents, reported using guidelines and were favourable to their development. Less favourable attitudes were observed among senior staff physicians and consultants. For instance, the latter more often held the opinion that guidelines are too rigid to apply to individual patients, were likely to decrease physician reimbursement and to hamper research (respectively, 32% vs 24%, 50% vs 31% and 18% vs 7% when compared with the opinions of residents). In conclusion, in a non-prescriptive hospital setting, where the development, dissemination and implementation of guidelines are emerging, the concept of 'guideline' was heterogeneous. Despite generally positive attitudes towards guidelines, the opinion of senior staff physicians constitute a barrier to their dissemination and implementation

Radial Color Gradients in K+A Galaxies in Distant Clusters of Galaxies

Galaxies in rich clusters with z $\gtrsim$ 0.3 are observed to have a higher fraction of photometrically blue galaxies than their nearby counterparts. This raises the important question of what environmental effects can cause the termination of star formation between z $\approx$ 0.3 and the present. The star formation may be truncated due to ram-pressure stripping, or the gas in the disk may be depleted by an episode of star formation caused by some external perturbation. To help resolve this issue, surface photometry was carried out for a total of 70 early-type galaxies in the cluster Cl1358+62, at z $\sim$ 0.33, using two-color images from the Hubble Archive. The galaxies were divided into two categories based on spectroscopic criteria: 24 are type K+A (e.g., strong Balmer lines, with no visible emission lines), while the remaining 46 are in the control sample with normal spectra. Radial color profiles were produced to see if the K+A galaxies show bluer nuclei in relation to their surrounding disks. Specifically, a linear gradient was fit to the radial color profile of each galaxy. We find that the K+A galaxies on average tend to have slightly bluer gradients towards the center than the normals. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test has been applied to the two sets of color gradients. The result of the test indicates that there is only a $\sim$2% probability that the K+A and normal samples are drawn from the same parent distribution. There is a possible complication from a trend in the apparent magnitude vs. color gradient relation, but overall our results favor the centralized star formation scenario as an important process in the evolution of galaxies in dense clusters.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A

Exosome mimetics: a novel class of drug delivery systems

The identification of extracellular phospholipid vesicles as conveyors of cellular information has created excitement in the field of drug delivery. Biological therapeutics, including short interfering RNA and recombinant proteins, are prone to degradation, have limited ability to cross biological membranes, and may elicit immune responses. Therefore, delivery systems for such drugs are under intensive investigation. Exploiting extracellular vesicles as carriers for biological therapeutics is a promising strategy to overcome these issues and to achieve efficient delivery to the cytosol of target cells. Exosomes are a well studied class of extracellular vesicles known to carry proteins and nucleic acids, making them especially suitable for such strategies. However, the considerable complexity and the related high chance of off-target effects of these carriers are major barriers for translation to the clinic. Given that it is well possible that not all components of exosomes are required for their proper functioning, an alternative strategy would be to mimic these vesicles synthetically. By assembly of liposomes harboring only crucial components of natural exosomes, functional exosome mimetics may be created. The low complexity and use of well characterized components strongly increase the pharmaceutical acceptability of such systems. However, exosomal components that would be required for the assembly of functional exosome mimetics remain to be identified. This review provides insights into the composition and functional properties of exosomes, and focuses on components which could be used to enhance the drug delivery properties of exosome mimetics

Baltic Quest for a Hungarian Path, 1965

The Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states in August 1940, an act Western democracies refused to recognize. Under somewhat different circumstances, the Baltic states could have turned, instead, into satellite 'People's Democracies' like Hungary - Communist-ruled but outside the Soviet Union. The annexed Baltic states played a major disruptive role during the demise of the Soviet Union. Might the Soviet Union have survived, had it disgorged the Baltic ferment in good time? The satellite option received mention repeatedly, from as early as June 1940 to as late as 1989. Here the focus is on 1965, when three Estonian refugees proposed a compromise: Washington might encourage Moscow to turn the Baltic states into satellites, the governments of which the USA could then recognize. For the Baltic nations, the main change would have been to curtail the influx of Russians. The reactions to this proposal are reviewed, ending with the question: what do alternate histories tell us about the actual one?. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Appropriateness of Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: Comparison of American and Swiss Criteria

Objective: Examine the reproducibility of the RAND method for developing criteria for the appropriateness of medical procedures. Design: Comparison of two sets of explicit criteria for appropriateness of upper gastrointestinal (UGI) endoscopy, developed by separate expert panels from two countries.Setting: United States, Switzerland. Study participants: National experts from different medical specialties involved in the referral or application of UGI endoscopy.Interventions: Each panel was presented with about 500clinical scenarios (indications)that were rated on a nine-point scale as to the appropriateness of performing UGI endoscopy for a patient with that clinical presentation. Main outcome measurer: (1) distribution of appropriateness ratings and intrapanel agreement categories between the two panels, (2)between-panel agreement of assigning appropriateness for comparable indications and, (3) percentage of indications with major between-panel differences. Results: Ratings for 2/3 of indications could be compared. The Swiss panel showed higher intrapanel agreement (54.6% versus 46.2% p=0.002). Seventy-eight percent of comparable Indications were assigned to indentical categories of appropriateness by both panels (kappa=0.76,P <0.001). For 93% of the 376 comparable indications, there were no major interpanel differences. Conclusion: Separate expert panels in different countries, using a standardized methodology, produce criteria for appropriatenesof medical procedures that are similar. Given the resources being invested throught the world in devilping criteria and guidelines, international collaboration in seeking optimal use of limited health care resources should be intensifled. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserve

When is it appropriate to prescribe postmenopausal hormone therapy?

OBJECTIVE: To develop evidence and consensus-based recommendations for the use of hormone therapy (HT) in postmenopausal women. DESIGN: Using evidence from clinical trials and other publications, a multidisciplinary group of women's health experts developed consensus-based recommendations for HT use in more than 300 clinical scenarios. These panelists utilized the RAND Appropriateness Method and a quantitative scale to rate the appropriateness of treatment options for women with various risk factors and clinical scenarios. RESULTS: The panel judged it appropriate to prescribe all forms of HT to women with intolerable menopause symptoms and usual (age-expected) risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD), venous thromboembolism (VTE), or stroke. Use of HT was judged not appropriate for the clinical scenarios of bone preservation, cosmetic appearance, current memory loss, loss of libido, or CVD protection. For a woman still using HT after 5 or more years, it was considered appropriate to recommend the options of stopping or lowering the dose even if stopping was previously attempted. In treating intolerable symptoms in the presence of some elevated risk for diseases related to HT, route of administration may affect appropriateness but prior stroke or TIA# risk is a contraindication. CONCLUSIONS: Standard HT is appropriate for women with intolerable menopausal symptoms in the absence of HT-related risk factors (eg, CVD, stroke, VTE, breast cancer). Panelists judged it appropriate to repeatedly present the option of stopping or reducing the dose. In most cases, presence of risk factors makes standard-dose oral HT not appropriate; however, some women may be candidates for a different dose or route of administration. [Authors]]]> Estrogen Replacement Therapy ; Gynecology ; Menopause ; Physician's Practice Patterns ; Practice Guidelines as Topic oai:serval.unil.ch:BIB_F6BBBCACCC3A 2022-05-07T01:30:17Z openaire documents urnserval <oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd"> https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_F6BBBCACCC3A Prevalence and management of familial hypercholesterolaemia in patients with acute coronary syndromes. info:doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehv289 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehv289 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/26142466 Nanchen, D. Gencer, B. Auer, R. Räber, L. Stefanini, G.G. Klingenberg, R. Schmied, C.M. Cornuz, J. Muller, O. Vogt, P. Jüni, P. Matter, C.M. Windecker, S. Lüscher, T.F. Mach, F. Rodondi, N. info:eu-repo/semantics/article article 2015 European Heart Journal, vol. 36, no. 36, pp. 2438-2445 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/eissn/1522-9645 urn:issn:0195-668X <![CDATA[AIMS: We aimed to assess the prevalence and management of clinical familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) among patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied 4778 patients with ACS from a multi-centre cohort study in Switzerland. Based on personal and familial history of premature cardiovascular disease and LDL-cholesterol levels, two validated algorithms for diagnosis of clinical FH were used: the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network algorithm to assess possible (score 3-5 points) or probable/definite FH (&gt;5 points), and the Simon Broome Register algorithm to assess possible FH. At the time of hospitalization for ACS, 1.6% had probable/definite FH [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3-2.0%, n = 78] and 17.8% possible FH (95% CI 16.8-18.9%, n = 852), respectively, according to the Dutch Lipid Clinic algorithm. The Simon Broome algorithm identified 5.4% (95% CI 4.8-6.1%, n = 259) patients with possible FH. Among 1451 young patients with premature ACS, the Dutch Lipid Clinic algorithm identified 70 (4.8%, 95% CI 3.8-6.1%) patients with probable/definite FH, and 684 (47.1%, 95% CI 44.6-49.7%) patients had possible FH. Excluding patients with secondary causes of dyslipidaemia such as alcohol consumption, acute renal failure, or hyperglycaemia did not change prevalence. One year after ACS, among 69 survivors with probable/definite FH and available follow-up information, 64.7% were using high-dose statins, 69.0% had decreased LDL-cholesterol from at least 50, and 4.6% had LDL-cholesterol ≤1.8 mmol/L. CONCLUSION: A phenotypic diagnosis of possible FH is common in patients hospitalized with ACS, particularly among those with premature ACS. Optimizing long-term lipid treatment of patients with FH after ACS is required

Nomenclature and listing of celiac disease relevant gluten T-cell epitopes restricted by HLA-DQ molecules

Celiac disease is caused by an abnormal intestinal T-cell response to gluten proteins of wheat, barley and rye. Over the last few years, a number of gluten T-cell epitopes restricted by celiac disease associated HLA-DQ molecules have been characterized. In this work, we give an overview of these epitopes and suggest a comprehensive, new nomenclature