427 research outputs found
Sclerosing peritonitis associated with luteinized thecoma and elevated serum CA 125 levels: case report
CONTEXT. Thecomas are benign tumors that account for less than 1% of all ovarian neoplasms. The association of ovarian thecoma with sclerosing peritonitis is rare. CASE REPORT: We report the case of a 33-year-old woman, with a two-month history of increasing abdominal volume. Ultrasound showed a complex pelvic lesion and laboratory analysis detected elevated serum CA 125 levels. The patient underwent total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and peritoneal biopsy. Histopathological analysis revealed the presence of luteinized thecoma of both ovaries associated with sclerosing peritonitis.126212312
Astrobiological Complexity with Probabilistic Cellular Automata
Search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence constitutes one of the
major endeavors in science, but has yet been quantitatively modeled only rarely
and in a cursory and superficial fashion. We argue that probabilistic cellular
automata (PCA) represent the best quantitative framework for modeling
astrobiological history of the Milky Way and its Galactic Habitable Zone. The
relevant astrobiological parameters are to be modeled as the elements of the
input probability matrix for the PCA kernel. With the underlying simplicity of
the cellular automata constructs, this approach enables a quick analysis of
large and ambiguous input parameters' space. We perform a simple clustering
analysis of typical astrobiological histories and discuss the relevant boundary
conditions of practical importance for planning and guiding actual empirical
astrobiological and SETI projects. In addition to showing how the present
framework is adaptable to more complex situations and updated observational
databases from current and near-future space missions, we demonstrate how
numerical results could offer a cautious rationale for continuation of
practical SETI searches.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables; added journal reference belo
Adaptability and stability of organic-grown arabica coffee production using the modified centroid method
“To Him Who Has, More Will Be Given…”:A Realist Review of the OHSAS18001 Standard of OHS Management
Cultural adaptation and validation of the Freiburg Life Quality Assessment - Wound Module to Brazilian Portuguese
Mutanalyst, an online tool for assessing the mutational spectrum of epPCR libraries with poor sampling
Effect of dentinal surface preparation on bond strength of self-etching adhesive systems
Improving additive manufacturing performance by build orientation optimization
Additive manufacturing (AM) is an emerging type of production technology to create three-dimensional objects layer-by-layer directly from a 3D CAD model. AM is being extensively used in several areas by engineers and designers. Build orientation is a critical issue in AM since it is associated with the part accuracy, the number of supports required and the processing time to produce the object. This paper presents an optimization approach to solve the part build orientation problem taking into account some characteristics or measures that can affect the accuracy of the part, namely the volumetric error, the support area, the staircase effect, the build time, the surface roughness and the surface quality. A global optimization method, the Electromagnetism-like algorithm, is used to solve the part build orientation problem.The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees for their fruitfulcomments and suggestions. This work has been supported and developed under the FIBR3Dproject - Hybrid processes based on additive manufacturing of composites with long or shortfibers reinforced thermoplastic matrix (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016414), supported by theLisbon Regional Operational Programme 2020, under the PORTUGAL 2020 PartnershipAgreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This work hasbeen also supported by national funds through FCT - Funda ̧c ̃ao para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologiawithin the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/201
Variation in the Analysis of Positively Selected Sites Using Nonsynonymous/Synonymous Rate Ratios: An Example Using Influenza Virus
Sites in a gene showing the nonsynonymous/synonymous rate ratio (ω) >1 have been frequently identified to be under positive selection. To examine the performance of such analysis, sites of the ω ratio >1 in the HA1 gene of H3N2 subtype human influenza viruses were identified from seven overlapping sequence data sets in this study. Our results showed that the sites of the ω ratio >1 were of significant variation among the data sets even though they targeted similar clusters, indicating that the analysis is likely to be either of low sensitivity or of low specificity in identifying sites under positive selection. Most (43/45) of the sites showing ω >1 calculated from at least one data set are involved in B-cell epitopes which cover less than a half sites in the protein, suggesting that the analysis is likely to be of low sensitivity rather than of low specificity. It was further found that the analysis sensitivity could not be enhanced by including more sequences or covering longer time intervals. Previously some reports also likely identified only a portion of the sites under positive selection in the viral gene using the ω ratio. Low sensitivity of the analysis may result from that some sites under positive selection in the gene are also under negative (purifying) selection simultaneously for functional constrains, and so their ω ratios could be <1. Theoretically, the sites under the two opposite selection forces at the same time favor only certain nonsynonymous changes, e.g. those changing the antigenicity of the gene and maintaining the gene function. This study also suggested that sometimes we can identify more sites under positive selection using the ω ratio by integrating the positively selected sites estimated from multiple data sets
Composition, diversity and short-term temporal fluctuations of zooplankton communities in fish culture ponds (Pindamonhangaba), SP
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