OBJECTIVE

In limited samples of valuable biological tissues, univariate ranking methods of microarray analyses often fail to show significant differences among expression profiles. In order to allow for hypothesis generation, novel statistical modeling systems can be greatly beneficial. The authors applied new statistical approaches to solve the issue of limited experimental data to generate new hypotheses in CD14(+) cells of patients with HIV-related fatigue (HRF) and healthy controls.

METHODS

We compared gene expression profiles of CD14(+) cells of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)-treated HIV patients with low versus high fatigue to healthy controls (n = 5 each). With novel Bayesian modeling procedures, the authors identified 32 genes predictive of low versus high fatigue and 33 genes predictive of healthy versus HIV infection. Sparse association and liquid association networks further elucidated the possible biological pathways in which these genes are involved. RELEVANCE FOR NURSING PRACTICE: Genetic networks developed in a comprehensive Bayesian framework from small sample sizes allow nursing researchers to design future research approaches to address such issues as HRF.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings from this pilot study may take us one step closer to the development of useful biomarker targets for fatigue status. Specific and reliable tests are needed to diagnosis, monitor and treat fatigue and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Horizontal root fractures (HRF) usually affect the anterior teeth as a result of trauma, and generally heal spontaneously, depending on the vitality of the pulp. Diagnosis based on clinical findings, sensitivity tests, and radiographic examination is important to determine the presence of a root fracture and to prevent a root fracture from passing unnoticed. Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) has been used successfully for diagnosis and prognosis imaging of root fractures and has proved to be superior to other radiographic methods. This study reports two cases of dental trauma caused by a collision and a sports accident. The patients suffered horizontal root fractures in the maxillary left central incisor and in the mandibular left central incisor. The diagnosis of root fracture was confirmed by cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images, which also demonstrated spontaneous healing of the fracture line. The repair occurred by interposition of connective tissue in the former case and by interposition of bone and connective tissue in the latter case. The final diagnoses of both cases were based on CBCT images, indicating the importance of a CBCT examination to reach a firm diagnosis and to follow the healing process of root fracture cases, avoiding unnecessary radical endodontic treatment.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate interobserver agreement for the detection of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT) features of diabetic macular edema (DME).

METHODS

Cross-sectional study in which 2 retinal specialists evaluated SDOCT scans from eyes receiving treatment for DME. Scans from 50 eyes with DME of 39 patients were graded for features of DME including intra-retinal fluid (IRF), diffuse retinal oedema (DRE), hyper-reflective foci (HRF), subretinal fluid (SRF), macular fluid and vitreomacular traction (VMT). Features were graded as present or absent at zones involving the fovea, 1mm from the fovea and the whole scan of 49 line scans. Analysis was performed using cross-tabulations for percentage concordance and kappa values (κ).

RESULTS

In the 2950 line scans analysed, there was an increase in percentage concordance for DRE and HRF when moving from a foveal line scan, 1mm zone and then to a whole scan analysis (88% vs 94% vs 96%) and (88% vs 94% vs 94%) respectively with κ ranging from substantial to almost perfect. Percentage concordance for SRF was 96% at all 3 regions analysed, whilst IRF was 96% at fovea and 98% at higher number of line-scans analysed. Concordance for MF was 100% at fovea and 98% at 1mm zone and whole scan with almost perfect and substantial κ respectively. κ agreement was substantial for VMT at all regions analysed.

CONCLUSIONS

We report a high level of interobserver agreement in the detection of SDOCT features of DME. This finding is important as detection of macular fluid is used to guide retreatment with anti-angiogenic agents.

A number of cytokines, including histamine-releasing factors (HRFs), have a role to play in IgE-mediated asthma. However, the influence of HRF in allergic rhinitis without asthma remains to be revealed. This article presents a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on the role of HRF in ragweed-allergic rhinitis and its modulation by natural pollen exposure and specific immunotherapy (IT). Twenty-seven patients allergic to ragweed were randomly assigned to receive either preseasonal alum-precipitated aqueous extracts of ragweed or placebo. Before the onset of therapy and during the ragweed-pollen season, subjects were evaluated for each of the following: clinical scores, ragweed IgE and IgG antibody levels, and spontaneous and allergen-driven HRF production. Thirteen nonatopic volunteers were also studied in the same protocol. First, before the initiation of therapy, more HRF was produced by both unstimulated and ragweed-stimulated mononuclear cells (MNCs) of atopic subjects as compared to MNCs of nonatopic subjects. Second, MNCs of the placebo-treated group produced significantly more spontaneous and ragweed-specific HRF during the pollen season compared to the preseasonal values. Finally, specific IT not only improved the clinical manifestation of allergy but also prevented the seasonal rise of spontaneous and ragweed-driven HRF production, along with a well-known change in other immunologic parameters associated with successful IT.

EEG-fMRI is an established technique to allow mapping BOLD changes in response to interictal discharges recorded in the EEG of epilepsy patients. Traditional fMRI experiments rely on an echo planar imaging (EPI) sequence with a time resolution given by its time-to-repetition (TR) of ~2 s. Recently, multiple fast fMRI sequences have been developed to get around the limited temporal resolution of the EPI sequence, and achieved a TR in the 100 ms range or lower. One such sequence is called Magnetic Resonance EncephaloGraphy (MREG). Its high temporal resolution should offer increased detection sensitivity and statistical power in the context of epilepsy studies and in fMRI experiments in general. The aim of this work was to investigate the advantages and disadvantages offered by MREG. This was done by superimposing artificial event-related BOLD responses on EPI and MREG background signals, from 5 epileptic patients, that were free of epileptic discharges (spikes) on simultaneously recorded EEG. These functional datasets simulated different spiking rates and hemodynamic response amplitudes, and were analyzed with the commonly used General Linear Model (GLM) with the canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF) as a fixed model of the response. Robustness to violation of the assumptions of the GLM was additionally assessed with similar simulations using variable spike-to-spike response amplitudes and 8 non-canonical HRFs. Consistent with previous work, MREG yields higher maximum statistical t-values than EPI, but our simulations showed these statistics to be inflated, as the false positive rate at a standard threshold was high. At thresholds set to appropriately control specificity, EPI showed better true positive rate and larger cluster size than MREG. However, the lack of an appropriate calibration of the amplitude of the responses across the sequences precludes definitive judgment on their relative sensitivity. In addition, we show that a mismatch between the assumed and actual HRF impairs more MREG detection performance, but that EPI is more affected by non-modeled spike-to-spike variations of response amplitude. Filtering-out physiological noise, which is not aliased at the fast sampling rate of MREG, and the modeling of temporal autocorrelation are advantageous in increasing the detection power of MREG. This simulation study 1) warrants care when interpreting statistical t-values from fast fMRI sequences, 2) proposes thresholds for valid inferences and processing methods for maximal sensitivities, and 3) demonstrates the relative robustness/susceptibility of MREG and EPI to violation of the GLM's assumptions.

Since the retinal blood vessel has been acknowledged as an indispensable element in both ophthalmological and cardiovascular disease diagnosis, the accurate segmentation of the retinal vessel tree has become the prerequisite step for automated or computer-aided diagnosis systems. In this paper, a supervised method is presented based on a pre-trained fully convolutional network through transfer learning. This proposed method has simplified the typical retinal vessel segmentation problem from full-size image segmentation to regional vessel element recognition and result merging. Meanwhile, additional unsupervised image post-processing techniques are applied to this proposed method so as to refine the final result. Extensive experiments have been conducted on DRIVE, STARE, CHASE_DB1 and HRF databases, and the accuracy of the cross-database test on these four databases is state-of-the-art, which also presents the high robustness of the proposed approach. This successful result has not only contributed to the area of automated retinal blood vessel segmentation but also supports the effectiveness of transfer learning when applying deep learning technique to medical imaging.

Background: Stress is known as one of the major factors threatening human health. A large number of studies have been performed in order to either assess or relieve stress by analyzing the brain and heart-related signals.

Method: In this study, a method based on the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approach is proposed to assess stress induced by the Montreal Imaging Stress Task. The proposed model is trained on the heart rate signal derived from functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is referred to as HRF. In this regard, fNIRS signals of 20 healthy volunteers were recorded using a configuration of 23 channels located on the prefrontal cortex. The proposed deep learning system consists of two main parts where in the first part, the one-dimensional convolutional neural network is employed to build informative activation maps, and then in the second part, a stack of deep fully connected layers is used to predict the stress existence probability. Thereafter, the employed CNN method is compared with the Dense Neural Network, Support Vector Machine, and Random Forest regarding various classification metrics.

Results: Results clearly showed the superiority of CNN over all other methods. Additionally, the trained HRF model significantly outperforms the model trained on the filtered fNIRS signals, where the HRF model could achieve 98.69 ± 0.45% accuracy, which is 10.09% greater than the accuracy obtained by the fNIRS model.

Conclusions: Employment of the proposed deep learning system trained on the HRF measurements leads to higher stress classification accuracy than the accuracy reported in the existing studies where the same experimental procedure has been done. Besides, the proposed method suggests better stability with lower variation in prediction. Furthermore, its low computational cost opens up the possibility to be applied in real-time monitoring of stress assessment.

Keywords: Convolutional neural network; Deep learning; Functional near infrared spectroscopy; Heart rate; Independent component analysis; Stress assessment.

Multiband (MB) or Simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acquisition schemes allow the acquisition of MRI signals from more than one spatial coordinate at a time. Commercial availability has brought this technique within the reach of many neuroscientists and psychologists. Most early evaluation of the performance of MB acquisition employed resting state fMRI or the most basic tasks. In this study, we tested whether the advantages of using MB acquisition schemes generalize to group analyses using a cognitive task more representative of typical cognitive neuroscience applications. Twenty-three subjects were scanned on a Philips 3 T scanner using five sequences up to eight-fold acceleration with MB-factors 1 to 4, SENSE factors up to 2 and corresponding TRs of 2.45s down to 0.63s, while they viewed (i) movie blocks showing complex actions with hand object interactions and (ii) control movie blocks without hand object interaction. Data were processed using a widely used analysis pipeline implemented in SPM12 including the unified segmentation and canonical HRF modelling. Using random effects group-level, voxel-wise analysis we found that all sequences were able to detect the basic action observation network known to be recruited by our task. The highest t-values were found for sequences with MB4 acceleration. For the MB1 sequence, a 50% bigger voxel volume was needed to reach comparable t-statistics. The group-level t-values for resting state networks (RSNs) were also highest for MB4 sequences. Here the MB1 sequence with larger voxel size did not perform comparable to the MB4 sequence. Altogether, we can thus recommend the use of MB4 (and SENSE 1.5 or 2) on a Philips scanner when aiming to perform group-level analyses using cognitive block design fMRI tasks and voxel sizes in the range of cortical thickness (e.g. 2.7 mm isotropic). While results will not be dramatically changed by the use of multiband, our results suggest that MB will bring a moderate but significant benefit.

The purpose of the study was to examine Hispanic and other minority ninth-grade students' health-related fitness (HRF) knowledge, using FitSmart, a standardized test for high school students. The test consisted of 50 weighted multiple choice items, measuring six subcontent components. Means and standard deviations of the overall scores and the subcontent scores were computed. The findings suggested that students demonstrated mastery of one subcontent component but failed to meet passing values for all other subcontents and overall HRF knowledge. Female students outscored their male counterparts, but there was no difference for ethnicity. More efforts are needed to ensure that Hispanic and other minority high school students master fundamental HRF knowledge.

Elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) in breathing air is widely used as a vasoactive stimulus to assess cerebrovascular functions under hypercapnia (i.e., "stress test" for the brain). Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) is a contrast mechanism used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). BOLD is used to study CO2-induced cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), which is defined as the voxel-wise percentage BOLD signal change per mmHg change in the arterial partial pressure of CO2 (PaCO2). Besides the CVR, two additional important parameters reflecting the cerebrovascular functions are the arrival time of arterial CO2 at each voxel, and the waveform of the local BOLD signal. In this study, we developed a novel analytical method to accurately calculate the arrival time of elevated CO2 at each voxel using the systemic low frequency oscillations (sLFO: 0.01-0.1 Hz) extracted from the CO2 challenge data. In addition, 26 candidate hemodynamic response functions (HRF) were used to quantitatively describe the temporal brain reactions to a CO2 stimulus. We demonstrated that our approach improved the traditional method by allowing us to accurately map three perfusion-related parameters: the relative arrival time of blood, the hemodynamic response function, and CVR during a CO2 challenge.

Keywords: BOLD signal; Low frequency oscillation; cerebrovascular reactivity; hemodynamic response; hypercapnia.

Food allergy occurs due to IgE- and mast cell-dependent intestinal inflammation. Previously, we showed that histamine-releasing factor (HRF), a multifunctional protein secreted during allergy, interacts with a subset of IgE molecules and that the HRF dimer activates mast cells in an HRF-reactive IgE-dependent manner. In this study, we investigated whether HRF plays any role in food allergy. Specifically, we determined that prophylactic and therapeutic administration of HRF inhibitors that block HRF-IgE interactions reduces the incidence of diarrhea and mastocytosis in a murine model of food allergy. Food allergy-associated intestinal inflammation was accompanied by increased secretion of the HRF dimer into the intestine in response to proinflammatory, Th2, and epithelial-derived cytokines and HRF-reactive IgE levels at the elicitation phase. Consistent with these data, patients with egg allergy had higher blood levels of HRF-reactive IgE compared with individuals that were not hypersensitive. Successful oral immunotherapy in egg-allergy patients and food-allergic mice reduced HRF-reactive IgE levels, thereby suggesting a pathological role for HRF in food allergy. Together, these results suggest that antigen and HRF dimer amplify intestinal inflammation by synergistically activating mast cells and indicate that HRF has potential as a therapeutic target in food allergy.

A high-performance thin-layer chromatography method has been established for the identification and simultaneous quantification of the cyclic lipopeptides Surfactin, Iturin A and Fengycin in Bacillus culture samples. B. subtilis DSM 10T, B. amyloliquefaciens DSM 7T and B. methylotrophicus DSM 23117 were used as model strains. Culture samples indicated that a sample pretreatment is necessary in order to run HPTLC analyses. A threefold extraction of the cell-free broth with the solvent chloroform/methanol (2:1, v/v) gave best results, when all three lipopeptides were included in the analysis. For the mobile phase, a two-step development was considered most suitable. The first development is conducted with chloroform/methanol/water (65:25:4, v/v/v) over a migration distance of 60mm and the second development using butanol/ethanol/0.1% acetic acid (1:4:1, v/v/v) over a migration distance of 60mm, as well. The method was validated according to Validation of Analytical Procedures: Methodology (FDA Guidance) with respect to the parameters linearity, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), precision, accuracy and recovery rate. A linear range with R2>0.99 was obtained for all samples from 30ng/zone up to 600ng/zone. The results indicated that quantification of Surfactin has to be performed after the first development (hRF=44), while Fengycin is quantified after the second development (hRF=36, hRF range=20-40). For Iturin A, the results demonstrated that quantification is in favor after the first (hRF=19) development, but also possible after the second (hRF=59) development. LOD and LOQ for Surfactin and Iturin A after the first development, and Fengycin after the second development were determined to be 16ng/zone and 47ng/zone, 13ng/zone and 39ng/zone, and 27ng/zone and 82ng/zone, respectively. Results further revealed the highly accurate and precise character of the developed method with a good inter- and intraday reproducibility. For the precision and accuracy, expressed as % recovery and relative standard deviation, respectively, the determined values did not exceed ±15% as specified by the FDA Guidance. The recovery assay conducted for samples obtained from two strains with the solvent chloroform/methanol (2:1, v/v), which was determined to be most suitable if all three lipopeptides are of interest, gave recoveries of 96.5% and 99.6%, 68.6% and 71.6%, and 102.5% and 95.2% for Surfactin, Iturin A and Fengycin, respectively. Overall, a suitable and reliable method for the simultaneous quantification of the lipopeptides Surfactin, Iturin A and Fengycin in biological samples using HPTLC was successfully developed and validated.

BACKGROUND

Substance dependence is associated with impaired decision-making and altered fronto-striatal-limbic activity. Both greater and lesser brain activity have been reported in drug users compared to controls during decision-making. Inconsistent results might be explained by group differences in the temporal profile of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) response. While most previous studies model a canonical hemodynamic response, a finite impulse response (FIR) model measures fMRI signal at discrete time points without assuming a temporal profile. We compared brain activity during decision-making and feedback in substance users and controls using two models: a canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF) and a FIR model.

METHODS

37 substance-dependent individuals (SDI) and 43 controls performed event-related decision-making during fMRI scanning. Brain activity was compared across group using canonical HRF and FIR models.

RESULTS

Compared to controls, SDI were impaired at decision-making. The canonical HRF model showed that SDI had significantly greater fronto-striatal-limbic activity during decisions and less activity during feedback than controls. The FIR model confirmed greater activity in SDI during decisions. However, lower activity in SDI during feedback corresponded to a lower post-stimulus undershoot of the hemodynamic response.

CONCLUSIONS

Greater activity in fronto-striatal-limbic pathways in SDI compared to controls is consistent with prior work, further supporting the hypothesis that abnormalities in these circuits underlie impaired decision-making. We demonstrate for the first time using FIR analysis that lower activity during feedback may simply reflect the tail end of the hemodynamic response to decision, the post-stimulus undershoot, rather than an actual difference in feedback response.

Hantaviruses cause potentially fatal two different systemic infectious diseases in humans named as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. The clinical features of HFRS are hemorrhage, fever, thrombocytopenia and acute renal insufficiency frequently observed. HFRS shows distinctive clinical manifestations throughout from acute influenza-like febrile illness to shock. Although a large portion of HRFS patients present with a complaint of abdominal pain, acute pancreatitis is a rare complication of HFRS. No specific treatment protocol has been described for HRFS and supportive treatment is the basic approach. The rate of success enhanced with early diagnosis and intensive care support. Clinicians should be alert to the HFRS in patients with acute pancreatitis associated with systemic viral infection. We describe a case with HFRS who has presented with acute kidney injury, thrombocytopenia and acute pancreatitis. The patient was treated by supportive management successfully.

Our purpose was to compare joint loads between habitual rearfoot (hRF) and habitual mid/forefoot strikers (hFF), rearfoot (RFS) and mid/forefoot strike (FFS) patterns, and shorter stride lengths (SLs). Thirty-eight hRF and hFF ran at their normal SL, 5% and 10% shorter, as well as with the opposite foot strike. Three-dimensional ankle, knee, patellofemoral (PF) and hip contact forces were calculated. Nearly all contact forces decreased with a shorter SL (1.2-14.9% relative to preferred SL). In general, hRF had higher PF (hRF-RFS: 10.8 ± 1.4, hFF-FFS: 9.9 ± 2.0 BWs) and hip loads (axial hRF-RFS: -9.9 ± 0.9, hFF-FFS: -9.6 ± 1.0 BWs) than hFF. Many loads were similar between foot strike styles for the two groups, including axial and lateral hip, PF, posterior knee and shear ankle contact forces. Lateral knee and posterior hip contact forces were greater for RFS, and axial ankle and knee contact forces were greater for FFS. The tibia may be under greater loading with a FFS because of these greater axial forces. Summarising, a particular foot strike style does not universally decrease joint contact forces. However, shortening one's SL 10% decreased nearly all lower extremity contact forces, so it may hold potential to decrease overuse injuries associated with excessive joint loads.

A variety of phenolics had been found to be functional in promoting cellular glucose consumption that is important for blood glucose regulation. Sweet cherry (Prunus avium) is rich in such kinds of phenolics, including hydrocinnamic acids, anthocyanins, flavonols, and flavan-3-ols. Furthermore, a sweet cherry phenolics-rich extract (PRE) was found to be effective in promoting HepG2 glucose consumption. Seventeen components were preliminarily identified by HPLC-ESI-MS, including 9 hydrocinnamic acids, 4 anthocyanins, 3 flavonols, and 1 flavan-3-ol. To investigate the cellular glucose consumption-promotion activity of different phneolics subclasses, the phenolics were further fractionated into an anthocyanin-rich fraction (ARF), hydrocinnamic acid-rich fraction (HRF), and flavonol-rich fraction (FRF) through liquid-liquid extraction and mix-mode cation-exchange solid-phase extraction. The 3 fractions promoted HepG2 glucose consumption to different levels, with the promotion effects of HRF and FRF stronger than that of the ARF. The results provide guidance on the use of sweet cherry as a functional fruit.

Healthcare-related frustrations (HRFs) are common occurrences in patient-provider interactions. Little is known about HRFs experienced by individuals with chronic conditions. The purposes of this study were to: 1) identify the frequency of six HRFs among adults with chronic conditions; 2) assess factors associated with these HRFs; and 3) examine factors associated with multiple HRFs.

Data were analyzed from 589 middle-aged and older adults with 1+ chronic conditions. A series of logistic regression models were fitted to identify factors associated with each frustration, and an ordinal regression model was fitted to identify factors associated with increasing frustrations.

Participants reported at least two of the six HRFs. The most commonly reported HRFs included feeling tired of describing the same condition (46%) and wishing their doctor had more time to speak with them during visits (44%). Having functional limitations (Beta=0.58, P=0.004), reporting more self-care barriers (Beta=0.41, P<0.001), visiting a physician more frequently (P<0.05), and having less support (Beta=-0.64, P=0.013) were associated with increasing HRFs.

Reducing HRFs may improve patient-provider interactions, chronic disease management, and patients' overall quality of life.

Care coordination, communication and cultural competency training, and a review of materials may help address these frustrations.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of awake and unrestrained dogs (Canis familiaris) has been established as a novel opportunity for comparative neuroimaging, promising important insights into the evolutionary roots of human brain function and cognition. However, data processing and analysis pipelines are often derivatives of methodological standards developed for human neuroimaging, which may be problematic due to profound neurophysiological and anatomical differences between humans and dogs. Here, we explore whether dog fMRI studies would benefit from a tailored dog haemodynamic response function (HRF). In two independent experiments, dogs were presented with different visual stimuli. BOLD signal changes in the visual cortex during these experiments were used for (a) the identification and estimation of a tailored dog HRF, and (b) the independent validation of the resulting dog HRF estimate. Time course analyses revealed that the BOLD signal in the primary visual cortex peaked significantly earlier in dogs compared to humans, while being comparable in shape. Deriving a tailored dog HRF significantly improved the model fit in both experiments, compared to the canonical HRF used in human fMRI. Using the dog HRF yielded significantly increased activation during visual stimulation, extending from the occipital lobe to the caudal parietal cortex, the bilateral temporal cortex, into bilateral hippocampal and thalamic regions. In sum, our findings provide robust evidence for an earlier onset of the dog HRF in two visual stimulation paradigms, and suggest that using such an HRF will be important to increase fMRI detection power in canine neuroimaging. By providing the parameters of the tailored dog HRF and related code, we encourage and enable other researchers to validate whether our findings generalize to other sensory modalities and experimental paradigms.

Keywords: Dog; cognition; fMRI; haemodynamic response function (HRF); vision.

BACKGROUND

The role of EUS in managing asymptomatic pancreatic cystic lesions (PCLs) remains unresolved. We retrospectively evaluated EUS in risk stratification of PCLs when adhering to the most recent AGA guidelines.

METHODS

Asymptomatic PCLs that were evaluated by EUS from January 2014 to December 2014 were retrospectively reviewed including associated cytology, fluid analysis, and relevant surgical pathology. Cross-sectional imaging reports were reviewed blindly by an expert radiologist using AGA risk stratification terminology. Accepted imaging high-risk features (HRF) included cyst diameter>> 3 cm, dilated upstream pancreatic ducts, and a solid component in the cyst.

RESULTS

We reviewed 125 patients who underwent EUS. Expert review of cross-sectional imaging resulted in a different interpretation 25% of the time including 1 malignant cyst. Ninety-three patients (75%) had no HRFs on cross-sectional imaging; 28 patients (22%) were diagnosed with 1 HRF and 4 patients (3%) had 2 HRFs. Adhering to AGA guidelines using 2 HRF as threshold for use of EUS, the diagnosis of malignant and high-risk premalignant lesions (including pancreatic adenocarcinoma, mucinous cystadenoma, neuroendocrine tumors, and IPMN with dysplasia) had a 40% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Had EUS been utilized based on a threshold of 1 HRF on imaging, malignant and high-risk premalignant lesions would have been identified with 80% sensitivity and 95% specificity. By adding EUS to radiographic imaging, the specificity for detecting carcinomas (p = 0.0009) and detection of all premalignant lesions (p = 0.003) statistically improved. Furthermore, EUS allowed 14 patients (11%) to avoid further surveillance by lowering their risk stratification.

CONCLUSIONS

EUS remains an essential risk stratification modality for incidental PCLs. Current guideline suggestions of its utility may be too stringent. Our study justifies expert radiology review when managing PCLs. Further studies are required to identify the optimal approach to PCL management.

OBJECTIVE

To demonstrate the abscopal mutagenic effect of low-energy-ion irradiation in dormant plant seeds, and its dependence on the targeted portion of seeds.

METHODS

Arabidopsis thaliana-lines transgenic for b-glucuronidase (GUS) recombination substrates and A. thaliana RADiation54 (AtRAD54) promoter::GUS were adopted. The seeds were irradiated from four specialised orientations with 30 KeV (40)Ar(+) ions. The homologous recombination frequency (HRF) and the expression levels of the AtRAD54 genein non-irradiated aerial plants were measured. Moreover, several post-embryonic developments, such as growth of primary roots, differentiation of root hairs, and germination of seeds and growth of true leaves, were also analysed.

RESULTS

It was shown that low-energy-ion irradiation of seeds led to significant increases in HRF in the non-irradiated aerial parts of irradiated plants and the aerial parts of naïve plants from irradiated progenitors. The low-energy-ion irradiation was also shown to induce an elevated expression of AtRAD54 gene in aerial plants, and to inhibit the post-embryonic developments of seeds. Moreover, the changes in HRF, expression level of the AtRAD54 gene and post-embryonic developments depended largely on the orientation of seeds with regard to low-energy-ion irradiation; and the root apical meristem (RAM)-orientated irradiation exhibited the largest effects on all biological endpoints assayed here.

CONCLUSIONS

Low-energy-ion irradiation can induce an abscopal mutagenic effect in dormant plant seeds, the extent of which depends greatly on the targeted portion of seeds.

Heavy ion irradiation has been used as radiotherapy of deep-seated tumors, and is also an inevitable health concern for astronauts in space mission. Unlike photons such as X-rays and γ-rays, a high linear energy transfer (LET) heavy ion has a varying energy distribution along its track. Therefore, it is important to determine the correlation of biological effects with the Bragg curve energy distribution of heavy ions. In this study, a continuous biological tissue equivalent was constructed using a layered cylinder of Arabidopsis seeds, which was irradiated with carbon ions of 87.5MeV/nucleon. The position of energy loss peak in the seed pool was determined with CR-39 track detectors. The mutagenic effect in vivo along the path of carbon ions was investigated with the seeds in each layer as an assay unit, which corresponded to a given position in physical Bragg curve. Homologous recombination frequency (HRF), expression level of AtRAD54 gene, germination rate of seeds, and survival rate of young seedlings were used as checking endpoints, respectively. Our results showed that Arabidopsis S0 and S1 plants exhibited significant increases in HRF compared to their controls, and the expression level of AtRAD54 gene in S0 plants was significantly up-regulated. The depth-biological effect curves for HRF and the expression of AtRAD54 gene were not consistent with the physical Bragg curve. Differently, the depth-biological effect curves for the developmental endpoints matched generally with the physical Bragg curve. The results suggested a different response pattern of various types of biological events to heavy ion irradiation. It is also interesting that except for HRF in S0 plants, the depth-biological effect curves for each biological endpoint were similar for 5Gy and 30Gy of carbon irradiation.

As a novelty, the combination of headspace solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled to an Orbitrap mass analyzer in full scan mode (HS-SPME-GC-Orbitrap-MS) was evaluated for the monitoring of organic pollutants in wastewaters. The developed methodology showed good linearity (R² > 0.999), sensitivity as well as suitable relative recoveries (89-115%) and precision values (RSD = 1-16%) for 15 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) selected as target compounds. Naphthalene, acenapthene and phenanthrene were found in the analyzed samples (influent and effluent wastewaters). Naphthalene was present in 62% of them, ranging from 1.33 to 24.32 ng L^-1. Acenapthene was observed in 1 single sample (4.17 ng L^-1) while phenanthrene was found in 7 samples (1.51-8.67 ng L^-1). In addition, in order to identify other pollutants in the samples, retrospective analyses were addressed through target and non-target screenings. An in-house database containing close to 1,000 pollutants including, among others, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) and pesticides, was applied in the post-target analysis. For the non-target screening, after a deconvolution process, high resolution filtering (HRF) and Kovats retention index (KI) were used for tentative analyte identification. Thus, 51 additional pollutants were tentatively identified in the wastewaters, most of them used as flavoring agents and household product ingredients, highlighting the presence of linear alkyl benzenes (LABs).

This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of a combined exergaming and physical education (PE) program on children's motor skill competence (MSC) and health-related fitness (HRF) as compared to traditional PE. A total of 261 second- and third-grade children (127 boys; 8.25 ± 0.66 years for male; 8.29 ± 0.74 years for female; 73.6% non-Hispanic white) participated in the nine-month study from 2012 to 2013. Children were assigned to one of the two groups: (a) intervention group (125 min of alternating PE and exergaming weekly); and (b) comparison group (125-min weekly PE). MSC was assessed via product scores in two locomotor and two object control skills. HRF included the cardiorespiratory fitness, musculoskeletal fitness, and body mass index (BMI). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to analyze the effect of the combined exergaming⁻PE program on children's MSC and HRF. There were significant group by time interaction effects for BMI, p < 0.01, η² = 0.20; musculoskeletal fitness, p < 0.01, η² = 0.13; and object control skills (the comparison group demonstrating greater improvement), p = 0.01, η² = 0.03. The findings suggest that the combined exergaming program can have a positive effect on children's BMI and musculoskeletal fitness, indicating that exergaming can be an alternative school-based program to supplement traditional PE.