Arms down cone beam CT hepatic angiography: are we focusing on the wrong target?

We read with great interest the recent article by Dr. Gonzalez-Aguirre and colleagues entitled ‘‘Arms Down Cone Beam CT Hepatic Angiography Performance Assessment: Vascular Imaging Quality and Imaging Artefacts’’ [1]. One of the most important advantages of cone beam CT (CBCT) is the possibility to evaluate the lesion’s feeders assisting their identification and catheterization [2]. In this set, the patient’s arms positioning is crucial in order not to impair CBCT imaging. Dr. Gonzalez-Aguirre et al. had elegantly demonstrated that vessels’ visualization is independent from the patient’s arms position, allowing to perform the entire procedure without patient’s movements. This minimizes the risk of contamination and reduces procedural time. However, literature shows that the major pivotal strength of CBCT, either mono-phasic or possibly bi-phasic, is the ability to depict in intra-procedurally ‘‘occult lesions’’, not visible at pre-procedural second-line non-invasive imaging (MRI, MDCT) [3]. This ability is not just for show, but yield to some major clinical implications: the visualization of an occult nodule identifies a subset of population experiencing fast tumour growth, having consequences on the number of adjunctive treatments controlling tumour growth (adjunctive RFA, or TACE procedures) and prioritization for transplantation [4]. Moreover, bi-phasic CBCT, with its unique ability to intra-procedural permit nodule characterization, could help in patients’ reclassification and real-time TACE strategy modification [5]. In this light would be a crucial interest for the audience to know whether the CBCT acquisition with arms down does not alter the diagnostic performance of the modality and ability of lesion’s characterization, especially for those lesion localized peripherally, where the beam hardening artefacts have been shown to be significant. Finally, patient’s positioning is fundamental for CBCT imaging. By acquiring the scan with patient’s arm down, liver volume would not be located within the rotation isocentre. This could be a substantial limitation for lesion located within the left liver lobe, eventually hypertrophied, and for high BMI patients

La izquierda mexicana después de 2012

Recorrido por distintas representaciones de la izquierda mexicana, desde organismos civiles hasta partidos políticos. El autor se apoya en Rosaura Ruiz y Bruno Velázquez para asegurar que ser de izquierda es, sobre todo, una praxis. Una izquierda que plantea la necesidad de renovarse para alcanzar lo que llama una nueva sociedad de justicia. Una izquierda y dos vertientes, una como partido político y otra que ha encontrado una forma de hacer política que es no partidista ni electoral.ITESO, A.C

Ayotzinapa es México

Recorrido por los hechos en torno a los 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa desaparecidos el 26 de septiembre de 2014 en Iguala, Guerrero, y lo sucedido en los meses siguientes. Se presentan diferentes momentos y declaraciones y se destacan las diversas manifestaciones nacionales e internacionales que exigen esclarecer el caso y su demanda por hacer justicia.ITESO, A.C

El “Chapo”, capo escapista, peligroso y mediático

Un texto dedicado a quien, en el imaginario social, es el estereotipo del delincuente que nació en una situación de marginación hasta ascender al pequeño grupo de quienes son dueños de cientos de millones de dólares. En este texto se aborda el origen, la trayectoria, la captura y recaptura de Joaquín Archibaldo Guzmán Loera, el “Chapo”, jefe del cártel de Sinaloa, “una de las más poderosas asociaciones criminales del narcotráfico del mundo”, y se contrasta su historia con el manejo que el gobierno federal ha hecho del caso.ITESO, A.C

Integration of disease-specific single nucleotide polymorphisms, expression quantitative trait loci and coexpression networks reveal novel candidate genes for type 2 diabetes.

Aims/hypothesisWhile genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been successful in identifying novel variants associated with various diseases, it has been much more difficult to determine the biological mechanisms underlying these associations. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) provide another dimension to these data by associating single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with gene expression. We hypothesised that integrating SNPs known to be associated with type 2 diabetes with eQTLs and coexpression networks would enable the discovery of novel candidate genes for type 2 diabetes.MethodsWe selected 32 SNPs associated with type 2 diabetes in two or more independent GWASs. We used previously described eQTLs mapped from genotype and gene expression data collected from 1,008 morbidly obese patients to find genes with expression associated with these SNPs. We linked these genes to coexpression modules, and ranked the other genes in these modules using an inverse sum score.ResultsWe found 62 genes with expression associated with type 2 diabetes SNPs. We validated our method by linking highly ranked genes in the coexpression modules back to SNPs through a combined eQTL dataset. We showed that the eQTLs highlighted by this method are significantly enriched for association with type 2 diabetes in data from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC, p = 0.026) and the Gene Environment Association Studies (GENEVA, p = 0.042), validating our approach. Many of the highly ranked genes are also involved in the regulation or metabolism of insulin, glucose or lipids.Conclusions/interpretationWe have devised a novel method, involving the integration of datasets of different modalities, to discover novel candidate genes for type 2 diabetes

Multiscale Assimilation of Sentinel and Landsat Data for Soil Moisture and Leaf Area Index Predictions Using an Ensemble-Kalman-Filter-Based Assimilation Approach in a Heterogeneous Ecosystem

Data assimilation techniques allow researchers to optimally merge remote sensing observations in ecohydrological models, guiding them for improving land surface fluxes predictions. Presently, freely available remote sensing products, such as those of Sentinel 1 radar, Landsat 8 sensors, and Sentinel 2 sensors, allow the monitoring of land surface variables (e.g., radar backscatter for soil moisture and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and for leaf area index (LAI)) at unprecedentedly high spatial and time resolutions, appropriate for heterogeneous ecosystems, typical of semiarid ecosystems characterized by contrasting vegetation components (grass and trees) competing for water use. A multiscale assimilation approach that assimilates radar backscatter and grass and tree NDVI in a coupled vegetation dynamic-land surface model is proposed. It is based on the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), and it is not limited to assimilating remote sensing data for model predictions, but it uses assimilated data for dynamically updating key model parameters (the ENKFdc approach), including saturated hydraulic conductivity and grass and tree maintenance respiration coefficients, which are highly sensitive parameters of soil-water balance and biomass budget models, respectively. The proposed EnKFdc assimilation approach facilitated good predictions of soil moisture, grass, and tree LAI in a heterogeneous ecosystem in Sardinia for a 3-year period with contrasting hydrometeorological (dry vs. wet) conditions. Contrary to the EnKF-based approach, the proposed EnKFdc approach performed well for the full range of hydrometeorological conditions and parameters, even assuming extremely biased model conditions with very high or low parameter values compared with the calibrated ("true") values. The EnKFdc approach is crucial for soil moisture and LAI predictions in winter and spring, key seasons for water resources management in Mediterranean water-limited ecosystems. The use of ENKFdc also enabled us to predict evapotranspiration and carbon flux well, with errors of less than 4% and 15%, respectively; such results were obtained even with extremely biased initial model conditions

Estimation of pre-exercise hydration status of Mexican college athletes

INTRODUCTION: The state of hydration is a very important aspect for athletes and coaches. According to NATA and ACSM athletes must be educated to maintain a good state of hydration and thus obtain better results. PURPOSE: To determine the state of hydration, before the sport practice of athletes (males) that belong to representative sports. METHODS: Seventy-five males college athletes, physically active and apparently healthy, were voluntarily recruited. They had an average height of 174.8 ± 7.4cm, weight 87.2 ± 24.0kg and age 21.3 ± 2.4 years. The athletes attended the study on a single spontaneous occasion, prior to the training session. Were given a questionnaire of hydration habits and a urine container (to collect a urine sample of their own). The urine gravity (UG) was determined by a urinary refractometer (ATAGO, Master-Sur/Na). RESULTS: Athletes had a urine gravity of 1.024 ± 0.006UG, finding maximum values up to 1.033 UG. Only 2.6% of the study population was well hydrated (1.030UG), which means a loss of fluid of 2%, 4% and more than 5% of total body weight for hypohydration conditions. Athletes mentioned that during and one hour after exercise they drink 762.3 ± 560.2mL and 644.4 ± 362.2mL respectively, either water or isotonic drink. However, these liquid volume did not compensated the water deficiency with which they begin the practice of the exercise. CONCLUSION: Before the training, 97.4% of the subjects presented different level of hypohydration, including very severe hypohydration state. The fluid ingested after the training session did not disappear the hydration deficiency with which they begin the exercise

Children exposed to intimate partner violence: Identifying differential effects of family environment on children\u27s trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models

The majority of analytic approaches aimed at understanding the influence of environmental context on children\u27s socioemotional adjustment assume comparable effects of contextual risk and protective factors for all children. Using self-reported data from 289 maternal caregiver-child dyads, we examined the degree to which there are differential effects of severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, yearly household income, and number of children in the family on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and psychopathology symptoms (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems) among school-age children between the ages of 7–12 years. A regression mixture model identified three latent classes that were primarily distinguished by differential effects of IPV exposure severity on PTS and psychopathology symptoms: (1) asymptomatic with low sensitivity to environmental factors (66% of children), (2) maladjusted with moderate sensitivity (24%), and (3) highly maladjusted with high sensitivity (10%). Children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted with moderate sensitivity group than the asymptomatic with low sensitivity group. Latino children were less likely to be in both maladjusted groups compared to the asymptomatic group. Overall, the findings suggest differential effects of family environmental factors on PTS and psychopathology symptoms among children exposed to IPV. Implications for research and practice are discussed