An adolescent with both Wegener's Granulomatosis and chronic blastomycosis

We report a case of Wegener's Granulomatosis (WG) associated with blastomycosis. This appears to be the first case report of WG co-existing with a tissue proven blastomycosis infection. The temporal correlation of the two conditions suggests that blastomycosis infection (and therefore possibly other fungal infections), may trigger the systemic granulomatous vasculitis in a predisposed individual; a provocative supposition warranting further study

A systematic review of techniques and interventions for improving adherence to inclusion and exclusion criteria during enrolment into randomised controlled trials

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Enrolment of patients into a randomised controlled trial (RCT) in violation of key inclusion or exclusion criteria, may lead to excess avoidable harm. The purpose of this paper was to systematically identify and review techniques and interventions proven to prevent or avoid inappropriate enrolment of patients into RCTs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Methodology Register, online abstract repositories, and conference websites were searched. Experts were contacted and bibliographies of retrieved papers hand-searched. The search cut-off date was 31 August 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No primary publications were found. We identified one study in the grey literature (conference abstracts and presentations) reporting the results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of an intervention designed to prevent or avoid inappropriate enrolment of patients into an RCT. In the context of a multicentre trial, use of a dummy enrolment run-in phase was shown to reduce enrolment errors significantly (<it>P </it>< 0.001), from 16.1% during the run-in phase to < 1% after trial initiation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our systematic search yielded only one technique or intervention shown to improve adherence to eligibility criteria during enrolment into RCTs. Given the potential harm involved in recruiting patients into a clinical trial in violation of key eligibility criteria, future research is needed to better inform those conducting clinical trials of how best to prevent enrolment errors</p

Churg-Strauss syndrome following cessation of allergic desensitization vaccination: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Churg-Strauss syndrome is a vasculitis of medium to small sized vessels. Diagnosis is mainly clinical with findings of asthma, eosinophilia, rhinosinusitis and signs of vasculitis in major organs.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present a case of a 19-year-old Persian male who developed signs and symptoms of this syndrome related to hyposensitization treatments for allergy control.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>No unifying etiology for the disease can be presented as it is found associated with environmental factors, medications, infections and is even considered a variant of asthma with predisposition to vasculitic involvement. Therefore, it is important to recognize this disease and be aware of underdiagnosis because of emphasis on pathologic evidence. Here, we present a case of allergic desensitization causing Churg-Strauss syndrome in the absence of other known factors.</p

Differential Consumption of Four Aphid Species by Four Lady Beetle Species

The acceptability of four different aphid species Macrosiphum albifrons (Essig), Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas), Macrosiphum pseudorosae Patch, and Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), as prey for four lady beetle species, one native species Coccinella trifasciata L, and three non-native Coccinella septempunctata L, Harmonia axyridis Pallas, Propylea quatuordecimpunctata L (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) were tested in the laboratory. The relative field abundance of adults of the same lady beetle species on host vegetation, Lupinus polyphyllus Lindley (Fabales: Fabaceae), Solanum tuberosum L (Solanales: Solanaceae), and Rosa multiflora Thunberg (Rosales: Rosaceae), both with and without aphids present was also observed. In the laboratory, H. axyridis generally consumed the most aphids, while P. quatuordecimpunctata consumed the fewest. The exception was P. quatuordecimpunctata, which consumed a greater number of M. albifrons nymphs, and C. trifasciata, which consumed a greater number of M. albifrons nymphs and adults, compared with the other two beetle species. Lady beetles consumed fewer M. albifrons compared with the other three aphid species, likely because of deterrent compounds sequestered by this species from its host plant. In the field, P. quatuordecimpunctata was the most abundant species found on L. polyphyllus and S. tuberosum

Absence of progesterone receptor associated with secondary breast cancer in postmenopausal women

The relationship between expression of receptors for oestrogen and progesterone (ER and PR) and disease progression in breast cancer was investigated by comparing immunocytochemical determinations of ER and PR in fine needle aspirates from primary and secondary breast tumours. Rates of receptor expression were significantly higher in primary than in secondary lesions: for ER 63.3% (n = 689) compared with 45.3% (n = 223), and for PR 53.7% (n = 443) compared with 33.1% (n = 121). The effect of menopausal status was examined by subdividing the patient cohort into those over or under the age of 50 years. In both instances, ER expression in secondary tumours was relatively low; however, only postmenopausal patients had significantly lower rates of PR expression in secondary tumours. Consistent with this, an increase in the ER+PR– profile in secondary tumours compared with primary cases from postmenopausal patients was seen, and in a multivariate analysis, a specific absence of PR expression in secondary tumours was revealed. Comparison of ER and PR expression in simultaneously sampled primary tumours and lymph node metastases from the same patient showed that receptor expression was stable with progression to a metastatic site as results were concordant for ER in 92% (n = 88) and PR in 93.8% of cases (n = 65). These results suggest that absence of PR expression in primary breast cancer is associated with disease progression and may be a marker of an aggressive tumour phenotype. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

HLA-Cw*0602 associates with a twofold higher prevalence of positive streptococcal throat swab at the onset of psoriasis: a case control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The influence of streptococcal infections in the pathogenesis of psoriasis is not yet understood. <it>In vitro </it>data suggest that streptococcal factors influence T-cell function in psoriasis in a HLA-dependent manner, but studies designed to measure the HLA-C/Streptococci interaction are lacking. In the present study, we hypothesized that there is a statistical interaction between the result of streptococcal throat cultures and the presence of the HLA-Cw*0602 allele in psoriasis patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We performed a case control study using the "Stockholm Psoriasis Cohort" consisting of patients consecutively recruited within 12 months of disease onset (Plaque psoriasis = 439, Guttate psoriasis = 143), matched to healthy controls (n = 454) randomly chosen from the Swedish Population Registry. All individuals underwent physical examination including throat swabs and DNA isolation for HLA-Cw*0602 genotyping.</p> <p>The prevalence of positive streptococcal throat swabs and HLA-Cw*0602 was compared between patients and controls and expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Associations were evaluated separately for guttate and plaque psoriasis by Fisher's exact test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Regardless of disease phenotype, the prevalence of positive streptococcal throat swabs in HLA-Cw*0602 positive patients was twice the prevalence among HLA-Cw*0602 negative patients (OR = 5.8 C.I. = 3.57–9.67, p < 0.001), while no difference was observed among Cw*0602 positive versus negative controls.</p> <p>The corresponding odds ratios for the guttate and plaque psoriasis phenotypes were 3.5 (CI = 1.5–8.7, p = 0.01) and 2.3 (CI = 1.0–5.1, p = 0.02) respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings suggest that among HLA-Cw*0602 positive psoriasis patients, streptococci may contribute to the onset or exacerbation of the inflammatory process independent of the disease phenotype. However, studies on the functional interaction between HLA-C and streptococcal factors are needed.</p

f(R) theories

Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations, and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom

Levels of selected minerals, nitric oxide, and vitamins in aborted Sakis sheep raised under semitropical conditions

The serum levels of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, zinc and iron and of nitric oxide, retinol, and β-carotene were determined in Sakiz ewes that had experienced an abortion and in healthy controls. Ten healthy and 25 aborted Sakiz sheep were selected from Afyon zone in western Turkey. Their ages ranged between 2 and 4 years weighing between 40 and 60 kg at the time of experiment. All of the abortions occurred in October. The concentrations of retinol, β-carotene, phosphorus, and zinc were significantly lower and those of calcium and nitric oxide were increased in aborted ewes relative to healthy controls. The serum levels of iron, copper, and magnesium were not significantly different among the two groups. In conclusion, abortion is an important problem in commercially important species of ruminants in many regions in the tropics including of western Turkey. Deficiencies of retinol, β-carotene, phosphorus and zinc, and the increase of calcium and nitric oxide concentration may play an important role in the etiology of abortion in ewes. Prophylactic measures such as vitamin and mineral supplementation may be of help to prevent or reduce the incidence of abortion in sheep

Jet energy measurement with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

The jet energy scale and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 7TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 38 pb-1. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R=0. 4 or R=0. 6. Jet energy and angle corrections are determined from Monte Carlo simulations to calibrate jets with transverse momenta pT≥20 GeV and pseudorapidities {pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy systematic uncertainty is estimated using the single isolated hadron response measured in situ and in test-beams, exploiting the transverse momentum balance between central and forward jets in events with dijet topologies and studying systematic variations in Monte Carlo simulations. The jet energy uncertainty is less than 2. 5 % in the central calorimeter region ({pipe}η{pipe}<0. 8) for jets with 60≤pT<800 GeV, and is maximally 14 % for pT<30 GeV in the most forward region 3. 2≤{pipe}η{pipe}<4. 5. The jet energy is validated for jet transverse momenta up to 1 TeV to the level of a few percent using several in situ techniques by comparing a well-known reference such as the recoiling photon pT, the sum of the transverse momenta of tracks associated to the jet, or a system of low-pT jets recoiling against a high-pT jet. More sophisticated jet calibration schemes are presented based on calorimeter cell energy density weighting or hadronic properties of jets, aiming for an improved jet energy resolution and a reduced flavour dependence of the jet response. The systematic uncertainty of the jet energy determined from a combination of in situ techniques is consistent with the one derived from single hadron response measurements over a wide kinematic range. The nominal corrections and uncertainties are derived for isolated jets in an inclusive sample of high-pT jets. Special cases such as event topologies with close-by jets, or selections of samples with an enhanced content of jets originating from light quarks, heavy quarks or gluons are also discussed and the corresponding uncertainties are determined. © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration