“SPLIT” Pancreaticojejunostomy in the Surgical Treatment of Chronic Pancreatitis

“Split” pancreaticojejunostomy is a procedure consisting of vertical transection of the pancreas and anastomosis of both sides of the cut pancreatic duct with an interposed, Roux-en-Y jejunal loop. In this paper we report the long term results of this procedure in the treatment of eight patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP)

Taking eDNA underground: factors affecting eDNA detection of subterranean fauna in groundwater

First published: 31 March 2023. OnlinePublStygofauna are aquatic fauna that have evolved to live underground. The impacts of anthropogenic climate change, extraction and pollution on groundwater pose major threats to groundwater health, prompting the need for efficient and reliable means to detect and monitor stygofaunal communities. Conventional survey techniques for these species rely on morphological identification and can be biased, labour intensive, and often indeterminate to lower taxonomic levels. By contrast, environmental DNA (eDNA)-based methods have the potential to dramatically improve on existing stygofaunal survey methods in a large range of habitats and for all life stages, reducing the need for the destructive manual collection of often critically endangered species or specialized taxonomic expertise. We compared eDNA and haul-net samples collected in 2020 and 2021 from 19 groundwater bores and a cave on Barrow Island, located north-west of Western Australia, and assessed how sampling factors influenced the quality of eDNA detection of stygofauna. The two detection methods were complementary, eDNA metabarcoding was able to detect soft-bodied taxa and fish often missed by nets, but only detected seven of the nine stygofaunal crustacean orders identified from haul-net specimens. Our results also indicated that eDNA metabarcoding could detect 54-100% of stygofauna from shallow water samples and 82-90% from sediment samples. However, there was significant variation in stygofaunal diversity between sample years and sampling types. The findings of this study demonstrate that haul net sampling has a tendency to underestimate stygofaunal diversity and that eDNA metabarcoding of groundwater can substantially improve efficiency of stygofaunal surveys.Mieke van der Heyde, Nicole E. White, Paul Nevill, Andrew D. Austin, Nicholas Stevens, Matt Jones, Michelle T. Guzi

Polarization degrees of freedom in photoinduced two-nucleon knockout from finite nuclei

The polarization degrees of freedom in photoinduced two-nucleon knockout from finite nuclei are studied. It is pointed out that they open good perspectives to study the dynamics of dinucleons in the medium in detail. The ($\gamma,pp$) and ($\gamma,pn$) angular cross sections, photon asymmetries and outgoing nucleon polarizations are calculated for the target nuclei $^{16}$O and $^{12}$C and photonenergies ranging from 100 up to 500 MeV. It is investigated to which degree the two-nucleon emission reaction is dominated by photoabsorption on $^3S_1(T=0)$ proton-neutron and $^1S_0(T=1)$ proton-proton pairs in the nuclear medium. The calculations demonstrate that dominance of $S$ wave photoabsorption in the ($\gamma,pn$) channel does not necessarily imply that the reaction mechanism is similar to what is observed in deuteron photodisintegration.Comment: 27 pages, REVTeX 3.0 with epsf.sty, 11 figures in EPS forma

Pitfalls and complications in the treatment of cervical spine fractures in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

Patients with ankylosing spondylitis are at significant risk for sustaining cervical spine injuries following trauma predisposed by kyphosis, stiffness and osteoporotic bone quality of the spine. The risk of sustaining neurological deficits in this patient population is higher than average. The present review article provides an outline on the specific injury patterns in the cervical spine, diagnostic algorithms and specific treatment modalities dictated by the underlying disease in patients with ankylosing spondylitis. An emphasis is placed on the risks and complication patterns in the treatment of these rare, but challenging injuries

IFNAR1-Signalling Obstructs ICOS-mediated Humoral Immunity during Non-lethal Blood-Stage Plasmodium Infection

Funding: This work was funded by a Career Development Fellowship (1028634) and a project grant (GRNT1028641) awarded to AHa by the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC). IS was supported by The University of Queensland Centennial and IPRS Scholarships. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 has no effect on survival during experimental malaria but affects parasitemia in a parasite strain-specific manner

status: publishe

Malaria and obesity: obese mice are resistant to cerebral malaria

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Atorvastatin prevents Plasmodium falciparum cytoadherence and endothelial damage

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The adhesion of <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>parasitized red blood cell (PRBC) to human endothelial cells (EC) induces inflammatory processes, coagulation cascades, oxidative stress and apoptosis. These pathological processes are suspected to be responsible for the blood-brain-barrier and other organs' endothelial dysfunctions observed in fatal cases of malaria. Atorvastatin, a drug that belongs to the lowering cholesterol molecule family of statins, has been shown to ameliorate endothelial functions and is widely used in patients with cardiovascular disorders.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The effect of this compound on PRBC induced endothelial impairments was assessed using endothelial co-culture models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Atorvastatin pre-treatment of EC was found to reduce the expression of adhesion molecules and <it>P. falciparum </it>cytoadherence, to protect cells against PRBC-induced apoptosis and to enhance endothelial monolayer integrity during co-incubation with parasites.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results might suggest a potential interest use of atorvastatin as a protective treatment to interfere with the pathophysiological cascades leading to severe malaria.</p

Оценка качества образования на основе компетентностного подхода

В работе представлен практический опыт оценки качества образования в новом формате компетентностного подход