Complications orbitaires de la polypose nasosinusienne de l’enfant

La polypose nasosinusienne (PNS) est une pathologie rare chez l’enfant. La symptomatologie clinique est habituellement celle de l’adulte. Exceptionnellement, une complication locorégionale lui est révélatrice. A travers deux observations de PNS diagnostiquées suite à une complication orbitaire, on discute les particularités cliniques de cette entité ainsi que ses implications thérapeutiques. Il s’agissait de deux enfants âgés de 13 ans ayant été hospitalisés pour une exophtalmie unilatérale d’apparition aiguë. L’examen clinique a découvert une PNS surinfectée évoquant alors le diagnostic de complication orbitaire d’origine infectieuse, confirmé par l’imagerie. Le traitement a associé un drainage chirurgical d’urgence de l’abcès orbitaire par voie externe paracanthale interne, suivi par une corticothérapie locale. L’ethmoïdectomie a été nécessaire dans un cas. L’évolution était favorable dans les deux cas avec une stabilisation de la PNS et une absence de signes de récidive de l’infection orbitaire

The application of ground-based and satellite remote sensing for estimation of bio-physiological parameters of wheat grown under different water regimes

Remote sensing technologies have been widely studied for the estimation of crop biometric and physiological parameters. The number of sensors and data acquisition methods have been increasing, and their evaluation is becoming a necessity. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of two remote sensing data for describing the variations of biometric and physiological parameters of durum wheat grown under different water regimes (rainfed, 50% and 100% of irrigation requirements). The experimentation was carried out in Policoro (Southern Italy) for two growing seasons. The Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images and radiometric ground-based data were acquired regularly during the growing season with plant biometric (leaf area index and dry aboveground biomass) and physiological (stomatal conductance, net assimilation, and transpiration rate) parameters. Water deficit index was closely related to plant water status and crop physiological parameters. The enhanced vegetation index showed slightly better performance than the normalized difference vegetation index when plotted against the leaf area index with R2 = 0.73. The overall results indicated that the ground-based vegetation indices were in good agreement with the satellite-based indices. The main constraint for effective application of satellite-based indices remains the presence of clouds during the acquisition time, which is particularly relevant for winter-spring crops. Therefore, the integration of remote sensing and field data might be needed to optimize plant response under specific growing conditions and to enhance agricultural production

Les tumeurs benignes de la parotide

Introduction : Les tumeurs parotidiennes bénignes sont caractérisées par une grande diversité histologique. Les indications thérapeutiques ne sont pas encore bien codifiées et restent un sujet de controverse.Matériel et méthodes : Nous rapportons une étude rétrospective à propos de 48 cas de tumeurs parotidiennes bénignes, colligés sur une période de 7 ans (2004-2010). Tous les patients ont bénéficié d’un examen ORL complet, d’un bilan biologique et radiologique. Le traitement était chirurgical dans tous les cas.Résultats : L’âge moyen était de 46 ans et le sex-ratio 1,52. Le motif de consultation était dans tous les cas une tuméfaction au niveau de la région parotidienne. L’échographie cervicale a confirmé le siège intra-parotidien dans tous les cas. L’IRM était pratiquée chez 28 patients. Le cystadénolymphome était évoqué dans 6 cas et l’adénome pléomorphe dans 22 cas. Une cytoponction a été pratiquée chez 8 patients et a montré un aspect en faveur d’adénome pléomorphe dans 6 cas et de cystadénolymphome dans 2 cas. Tous les patients ont été opérés sous anesthésie générale. La tumeur était au dépends du lobe superficiel dans 43 cas et du lobe profond dans 5 cas. Une parotidectomie totale a été pratiquée chez les 5 patients ayant une tumeur au dépends du lobe profond. Parmi les 43 patients ayant une tumeur au dépends du lobe superficiel, une parotidectomie totale a été pratiquée chez 5 patients, une parotidectomie exofaciale chez 35 patients et une simple énucléation tumorale dans 3 cas. L’examen anatomopathologique définitif était concordant avec l’examen extemporané dans 100% des cas. Au total, nous avions 31 cas d’adénome pléomorphe et 17 cas de cystadénolymphome. Des complications post-opératoires étaient présentes dans 9 cas. L’évolution ultérieure a été marquée par l’absence de récidive dans tous les cas, avec un recul moyen de 28 mois.Conclusion : Le développement des techniques de l’imagerie a permis actuellement d’évoquer le diagnostic de bénignité d’une tumeur parotidienne et même d’évoquer fortement un diagnostic anatomopathologique. Le choix de l’intervention chirurgicale est guidé par la localisation et l’étendue de la tumeur et par le type histologique.Mots-clés : tumeur bénigne, glande parotide, imagerie par résonance magnétique, cytoponction, parotidectomie, nerf facialIntroduction: Benign parotid tumors are characterized by high histological diversity. Therapeutic indications are not well codified and remain a subject of controversy.Materials and Methods: We report a retrospective study of 48 cases of benign parotid tumors, collected over a period of 7 years (2004-2010). All patients underwent complete ENT examination, biological and radiological assessment. Treatment was surgical in all cases.Results : The mean age was 46 years and the sex ratio 1.52. Tumefaction in the parotid region was the presenting symptom in all cases. Cervical ultrasound confirmed the intra-parotid location in all cases. MRI was performed in 28 patients. Cystadenolymphoma was suggested in 6 cases and pleomorphic adenoma in 22 cases. A fine-needle aspiration was performed in 8 patients and showed pleomorphic adenoma in 6 cases and cystadenolymphoma in 2 cases. All patients were operated under general anesthesia. The tumor was at the expense of the superficial lobe in 43 cases and the deep lobe in 5 cases. A total parotidectomy was performed in 5 patients having a deep lobe tumor. Among the 43 patients having a superficial lobe tumor, a total parotidectomy was performed in 5 patients, an exofacialparotidectomy in 35 patients and a single tumor enucleation in 3 cases. The final histological examination was consistent with the frozen section in 100% of cases. In total, we had 31 cases of pleomorphic adenoma and 17 cases of cystadenolymphoma. Postoperative complications were present in 9 cases. The subsequent evolution was marked by the absence of recurrence in all cases, with a mean follow-up period of 28 months.Conclusion : The development of imaging techniques has currently allowed to suggest the diagnosis of benignity of a parotid tumor, and even to highly evoke the pathological diagnosis. The choice of surgical procedure is guided by the location and extent of the tumor and by the histological type.Keywords : benign tumor, parotid gland, magnetic resonance imaging, fine-needle aspiration, parotidectomy, facial nerv

Pragmatic Ontology Evolution: Reconciling User Requirements and Application Performance

Increasingly, organizations are adopting ontologies to describe their large catalogues of items. These ontologies need to evolve regularly in response to changes in the domain and the emergence of new requirements. An important step of this process is the selection of candidate concepts to include in the new version of the ontology. This operation needs to take into account a variety of factors and in particular reconcile user requirements and application performance. Current ontology evolution methods focus either on ranking concepts according to their relevance or on preserving compatibility with existing applications. However, they do not take in consideration the impact of the ontology evolution process on the performance of computational tasks – e.g., in this work we focus on instance tagging, similarity computation, generation of recommendations, and data clustering. In this paper, we propose the Pragmatic Ontology Evolution (POE) framework, a novel approach for selecting from a group of candidates a set of concepts able to produce a new version of a given ontology that i) is consistent with the a set of user requirements (e.g., max number of concepts in the ontology), ii) is parametrised with respect to a number of dimensions (e.g., topological considerations), and iii) effectively supports relevant computational tasks. Our approach also supports users in navigating the space of possible solutions by showing how certain choices, such as limiting the number of concepts or privileging trendy concepts rather than historical ones, would reflect on the application performance. An evaluation of POE on the real-world scenario of the evolving Springer Nature taxonomy for editorial classification yielded excellent results, demonstrating a significant improvement over alternative approaches

A coupled optical-thermal-electrical model to predict the performance of hybrid PV/T-CCPC roof-top systems

A crossed compound parabolic concentrator (CCPC) is applied into a photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) hybrid solar collector, i.e. concentrating PV/T (CPV/T) collector, to develop new hybrid roof-top CPV/T systems. However, to optimise the system configuration and operational parameters as well as to predict their performances, a coupled optical, thermal and electrical model is essential. We establish this model by integrating a number of submodels sourced from literature as well as from our recent work on incidence-dependent optical efficiency, six-parameter electrical model and scaling law for outdoor conditions. With the model, electrical performance and cell temperature are predicted on specific days for the roof-top systems installed in Glasgow, Penryn and Jaen. Results obtained by the proposed model reasonably agree with monitored data and it is also clarified that the systems operate under off-optimal operating condition. Long-term electric performance of the CPV/T systems is estimated as well. In addition, effects of transient terms in heat transfer and diffuse solar irradiance on electric energy are identified and discussed

A unified global investigation on the spectral effects of soiling losses of PV glass substrates: preliminary results

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via the DOI in this recordThe present work reports on the initial results of an international collaboration aiming to investigate the spectral effects of soiling losses. Identical glass coupons have been exposed outdoors for eight weeks in different locations worldwide, and weekly direct and hemispherical transmittance (T%) measurements are compared. Maximum losses as high as 7% and 50% in hemispherical and direct transmittance, respectively, have been found during the 8-week outdoor exposure. At the end of the data collection, a preliminary analysis of the spectral impact of soiling has been performed. The results show that the blue end of the spectrum is more affected and that lower hemispherical T% correlate to larger area covered by particles.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)US Department of Energ

Scalable solar thermoelectrics and photovoltaics (SUNTRAP)

This is the final version of the article. Available from AIP Publishing via the DOI in this record.This paper presents the design, manufacture and electrical test of a novel integrated III:V low concentrator photovoltaic and thermoelectric device for enhanced solar energy harvesting efficiency. The PCB-based platform is a highly reliable means of controlling CPV cell operational temperature under a range of irradiance conditions. The design enables reproducible data acquisition from CPV solar cells whilst minimizing transient time for solid state cooling capability.The authors would like to acknowledge the Sêr Cymru National Research Network and EPSRC for financial support

Visceral leishmaniasis in 26 HIV-negative adults

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Visceral leishmaniasis is a notifiable parasitic disease that had increased in incidence in our region on the past few years. It is common in children. In adults, it occurs more on a background of immunodeficiency, and frequently with incomplete clinical manifestations, making the diagnosis complicated.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>The aim of our study is to reveal different features of visceral leishmaniasis in adults, through the analysis of its epidemiological, clinical and biological parameters, in a group of 26 patients. No one was infected with HIV or under immunosuppressive therapy Clinical presentation was generally conservative, but there was few differences in adults compared to children, concerning both the clinical symptoms and the laboratory parameters. Diagnosis was provided by direct examination of bone marrow smears in 24 cases (sensitivity 92%), and anti-leishmanial serology in the others.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We should think to the diagnosis of VL even if the patient is not known immunocompromised, and even if the clinical is incomplete, to avoid a delay of care which can lead to serious complications.</p

Ethological principles predict the neuropeptides co-opted to influence parenting

Ethologists predicted that parental care evolves by modifying behavioural precursors in the asocial ancestor. As a corollary, we predict that the evolved mechanistic changes reside in genetic pathways underlying these traits. Here we test our hypothesis in female burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides, an insect where caring adults regurgitate food to begging, dependent offspring. We quantify neuropeptide abundance in brains collected from three behavioural states: solitary virgins, individuals actively parenting or post-parenting solitary adults and quantify 133 peptides belonging to 18 neuropeptides. Eight neuropeptides differ in abundance in one or more states, with increased abundance during parenting in seven. None of these eight neuropeptides have been associated with parental care previously, but all have roles in predicted behavioural precursors for parenting. Our study supports the hypothesis that predictable traits and pathways are targets of selection during the evolution of parenting and suggests additional candidate neuropeptides to study in the context of parenting