Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of the central nervous system in mycophenolate mofetil-treated patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

We report the third case of primary lymphoma of the central nervous system (PCNSL) in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) given long-term mycophenolate mofetil (MMF). Our 43-year-old patient has a history of lupus nephritis and has been treated with MMF 500 mg/day in addition to azathioprine (AZA) for 8 years. She presented with subacute left-sided weakness. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a gadoliniumenhancing mass in the right parietal region which was isointense on T2-weighted imaging. Brain biopsy revealed diffuse sheets of large lymphoid cells which demonstrated strong membranous expression of CD20 by immunohistochemistry and positive signal for Epstein Bar virus (EBV)–encoded RNA by in-situ hybridization study. Complete remission of PCNSL was achieved after discontinuation of MMF and administration of rituximab and whole brain radiotherapy. Patients with SLE are predisposed to development of lymphoma regardless of immunosuppressive use. One meta-analysis found that non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was more common in SLE patients with a standardized incidence rate ranging from 5.2 to 44.4. However, the development of PCNSL secondary to immunosuppressive use is being increasingly recognised especially in MMF-treated renal transplant recipients with onset of PCNSL after a median of 14 months. It has also been described in some MMF-treated autoimmune conditions such as myasthenia gravis, dermatomyositis and relapsing polychondritis. Although AZA in combination with corticosteroids has been shown to predispose post-renal transplant patients to lymphoproliferative disease with a relative risk of 12.7, the association of AZA and EBV-related lymphoma is rare. The approach to management of this condition includes withdrawal of MMF and judicious use of future immunosuppressive agents.published_or_final_versionThe 15th Medical Research Conference (15th MRC), Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 16 January 2010. In Hong Kong Medical Journal, 2010, v. 16 n. 1, suppl. 1, p. 54, abstract no. 9

Functional antioxidant and tyrosinase inhibitory properties of extracts of Taiwanese pummelo (Citrus grandis Osbeck)

In recent years, the overproduction of citrus fruits has resulted in an unnecessary increase in agricultural wastes in Taiwan. In an attempt to find an application for these potentially valuable wastes, we evaluated the antioxidant and whitening properties of six Taiwanese pummelo varieties (Miyu Shihtouyu Taipeiyu Touyu Wentan and Hsishihyu). The methanolic extract of Citrus grandis Osbeck Miyu (Miyu) had the highest phenolic content (9.99 mg of gallic acid equivalent/g). C. grandis Osbeck Shihtouyu (Shihtouyu) displayed the highest 2, 2-azino-bis-(3- ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) content (9.3 mg trolox equivalent antioxidant content/g), indicating its good free radical-scavenging activity. C. grandis Osbeck Taipeiyu (Taipeiyu) showed the highest 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl content and this compound too possesses good radical-scavenging activity. The ferrous-ion chelating effect of C. grandis Osbeck Touyu (Touyu) and C. grandis Osbeck Wentan (Wentan) was found to be 0.78 and 0.92 mg/ml, respectively. Taipeiyu showed the highest limonin content (1251.86 μg/ml). Touyu inhibited tyrosinase up to 90.8% (10 mg/ml), which was almost similar to the 95% inhibition shown by kojic acid (10 mg/ml). Thus, the components of pummelo have high potential for use as ingredients in products that prevent skin pigmentation. These results indicate that the methanolic extracts and the phytochemicals derived from pummelo are potential natural antioxidant agents.Key words: Antioxidant, free radical chelating, limonin, pummelo, tyrosinase

Temporal Model Adaptation for Person Re-Identification

Person re-identification is an open and challenging problem in computer vision. Majority of the efforts have been spent either to design the best feature representation or to learn the optimal matching metric. Most approaches have neglected the problem of adapting the selected features or the learned model over time. To address such a problem, we propose a temporal model adaptation scheme with human in the loop. We first introduce a similarity-dissimilarity learning method which can be trained in an incremental fashion by means of a stochastic alternating directions methods of multipliers optimization procedure. Then, to achieve temporal adaptation with limited human effort, we exploit a graph-based approach to present the user only the most informative probe-gallery matches that should be used to update the model. Results on three datasets have shown that our approach performs on par or even better than state-of-the-art approaches while reducing the manual pairwise labeling effort by about 80%

Summertime PM₂.₅ ionic species in four major cities of China : nitrate formation in an ammonia-deficient atmosphere

2008-2009 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Microstructures and resistivity of cuprate/manganite bilayer deposited on SrTiO3 substrate

Thin Yba[SUB2]Cu[SUB3]O[SUB7-δ/La[SUB0.67]Ca[SUB0.33]MnO[SUB3] (YBCO/LCMO) films were grown on SrTiO[SUB3](STO)substrates by magnetron sputtering technique. The microstructures of the bilayers were characterized and a standard four-probe technique was applied to measure the resistivity of the samples. The interdiffusions at the YBCO/LCMO and LCMO/STO interfaces formed two transient layers with the thickness of about 3 and 2 nm, respectively. All the bilayers were well textured along the c axis. At low temperature, the superconductivity can only be observed when the thickness of YBCO is more than 25 nm. When the thickness of YBCO is less than 8 nm, the bilayers show only ferromagnetism. The superconductivity and ferromagnetism perhaps coexist in the bilayer with the YBCO thickness of 12.5 nm. These interesting properties are related to the interaction between spin polarized electrons in the manganites and the cooper pairs in the cuprates. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Effect of Silicon Content on Carbide Precipitation and Low-Temperature Toughness of Pressure Vessel Steels

Cr – Mn – Mo – Ni pressure vessel steels containing 0.54 and 1.55% Si are studied. Metallographic and fractographic analyses of the steels after tempering at 650 and 700°C are performed. The impact toughness at – 30°C and the hardness of the steels are determined. The mass fraction of the carbide phase in the steels is computed with the help of the J-MatPro 4.0 software

Does prohibitin expression regulate sperm mitochondrial membrane potential, sperm motility, and male fertility?

Prohibitin (PHB) is a highly conserved major sperm mitochondrial membrane protein whose absence in somatic cells is associated with mitochondrial membrane depolarization and increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our recent findings suggest that high levels of oxidants in human semen may contribute to male infertility and that sperm motility could be the earliest and most sensitive indicator of oxidative damage. Based on PHB's roles in mitochondrial sub-compartmentalization and respiratory chain assembly, we examine sperm PHB expression and mitochondrial membrane potential (MITO) in infertile men with poor sperm motility (asthenospermia, A) and/or low sperm concentrations (oligoasthenospermia, OA). Here, we demonstrate that MITO is significantly lower in sperm from A and OA subjects than in normospermic (N) subjects; the decrease is more severe for OA than for A subjects. PHB expression is also significantly lower in sperm from A and OA subjects. Significantly positive correlations are found among PHB expression, MITO, and sperm motility in normospermic, asthenospermic, and oligoasthenospermic subjects. Collectively, our observations lead to the hypothesis that PHB expression is an indicator of sperm quality in infertile men, and that it regulates sperm motility via an alteration in MITO and increased ROS levels. © Copyright 2012, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.published_or_final_versio

The association of cytoplasmic overexpression of cyclin d1 and tumor metastasis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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