Is detection of bacterial DNA in ascitic fluid of clinical relevance?

In patients with cirrhosis, bacterial DNA has been found in ascites reflecting bacterial translocation. However, the clinical relevance of this finding is ill-defined especially compared with the standard diagnostics for detection of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP). Furthermore, other DNA tests have not been sufficiently evaluated.

Relevance of In-vitro Tests of Adhesive and Composite Dental Materials. A Review in 3 Parts. Part 2: Non-standardized tests of composite materials

Summary The first part of this review examined ISO approval requirements and in vitro testing. In the second part, non-standardized test methods for composite materials are presented and discussed. Physical tests are primarily described. Analyses of surface gloss and alterations, as well as aging simulations of dental materials are presented. Again, the importance of laboratory tests in determining clinical outcomes is evaluated. Differences in the measurement protocols of the various testing institutes and how these differences can in?uence the results are also discussed. Because there is no standardization of test protocols, the values determined by different institutes cannot be directly compared. However, the ranking of the tested materials should be the same if a valid protocol is applied by different institutes. The modulus of elasticity, the expansion after water sorption, and the polishability of the material are all clinically relevant, whereas factors measured by other test protocols may have no clinical correlation. The handling properties of the materials are highly dependent on operators' preferences. Therefore, no standard values can be given.

Relevance of in vitro tests of adhesive and composite dental materials, a review in 3 parts. Part 1: Approval requirements and standardized testing of composite materials according to ISO specifications

The first part of this three-part review on the relevance of laboratory testing of composites and adhesives deals with approval requirements for composite materials. We compare the in vivo and in vitro literature data and discuss the relevance of in vitro analyses. The standardized ISO protocols are presented, with a focus on the evaluation of physical parameters. These tests all have a standardized protocol that describes the entire test set-up. The tests analyse flexural strength, depth of cure, susceptibility to ambient light, color stability, water sorption and solubility, and radiopacity. Some tests have a clinical correlation. A high flexural strength, for instance, decreases the risk of fractures of the marginal ridge in posterior restorations and incisal edge build-ups of restored anterior teeth. Other tests do not have a clinical correlation or the threshold values are too low, which results in an approval of materials that show inferior clinical properties (e.g., radiopacity). It is advantageous to know the test set-ups and the ideal threshold values to correctly interpret the material data. Overall, however, laboratory assessment alone cannot ensure the clinical success of a product.

Feature-invariant image registration method for quantification of surgical outcomes in patients with craniosynostosis: a preliminary study

Craniosynostosis consists of a premature fusion of the sutures in an infant skull that restricts skull and brain growth. During the last decades, there has been a rapid increase of fundamentally diverse surgical treatment methods. At present, the surgical outcome has been assessed using global variables such as cephalic index, head circumference, and intracranial volume. However, these variables have failed in describing the local deformations and morphological changes that may have a role in the neurologic disorders observed in the patients. This report describes a rigid image registration-based method to evaluate outcomes of craniosynostosis surgical treatments, local quantification of head growth, and indirect intracranial volume change measurements. The developed semiautomatic analysis method was applied to computed tomography data sets of a 5-month-old boy with sagittal craniosynostosis who underwent expansion of the posterior skull with cranioplasty. Quantification of the local changes between pre- and postoperative images was quantified by mapping the minimum distance of individual points from the preoperative to the postoperative surface meshes, and indirect intracranial volume changes were estimated. The proposed methodology can provide the surgeon a tool for the quantitative evaluation of surgical procedures and detection of abnormalities of the infant skull and its development.

A differential concentration-dependent effect of IVIg on neutrophil functions: relevance for anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory mechanisms

Background Polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) play a key role in host defences against invading microorganisms but can also potentiate detrimental inflammatory reactions in case of excessive or misdirected responses. Intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) are used to treat patients with immune deficiencies and, at higher doses, in autoimmune, allergic and systemic inflammatory disorders. Methodology/Principal Findings We used flow cytometry to examine the effects of IVIg on PMN functions and survival, using whole-blood conditions in order to avoid artifacts due to isolation procedures. IVIg at low concentrations induced PMN activation, as reflected by decreased L-selectin and increased CD11b expression at the PMN surface, oxidative burst enhancement, and prolonged cell survival. In contrast, IVIg at higher concentrations inhibited LPS-induced CD11b degranulation and oxidative burst priming, and counteracted LPS-induced PMN lifespan prolongation. Conclusions/Significance IVIg appears to have differential, concentration-dependent effects on PMN, possibly supporting the use of IVIg as either an anti-microbial or an anti-inflammatory agent.

Prognostic relevance of Bcl-2 overexpression in surgically treated prostate cancer is not caused by increased copy number or translocation of the gene

Overexpression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 plays a role in prostate cancer progression, particularly in transformation to androgen-independent disease. Androgen-independent prostate cancers have been shown to harbor Bcl-2 gene copy number gains frequently suggesting that this genetic alteration might play a role in Bcl-2 overexpression. The relation of Bcl-2 overexpression and copy number gains or translocation of the BCL-2 gene in prostate cancer under hormone-naïve conditions is unknown.

Incretin receptors in non-neoplastic and neoplastic thyroid C cells in rodents and humans: relevance for incretin-based diabetes therapy

While incretins are of great interest for the therapy of diabetes 2, the focus has recently been brought to the thyroid, since rodents treated with glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogs were found to occasionally develop medullary thyroid carcinomas. Incretin receptors for GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) were therefore measured in various rodent and human thyroid conditions. In vitro GLP-1 and GIP receptor autoradiography were performed in normal thyroids, C-cell hyperplasia and medullary thyroid carcinomas in rodents. Receptor incidence and density were assessed and compared with the receptor expression in human thyroids, medullary thyroid carcinomas, and TT cells. GLP-1 receptors are expressed in C cells of normal rat and mice thyroids. Their density is markedly increased in rat C-cell hyperplasia and medullary thyroid carcinomas, where their incidence amounts to 100%. GIP receptors are neither detected in normal rodent thyroids nor in C-cell hyperplasia, but are present in all rat medullary thyroid carcinomas. No GLP-1 or GIP receptors are detected in normal human thyroids. Whereas only 27% of all human medullary thyroid carcinomas express GLP-1 receptors, up to 89% express GIP receptors in a high density. TT cells lack GLP-1 receptors but express GIP receptors. GLP-1 receptors are frequently expressed in non-neoplastic and neoplastic C cells in rodents while they are rarely detected in human C-cell neoplasia, suggesting species differences. Conversely, GIP receptors appear to be massively overexpressed in neoplastic C cells in both species. The presence of incretin receptors in thyroid C cell lesions suggests that this organ should be monitored before and during incretin-based therapy of diabetes.

A Novel Method for the Homogenization of Daily Temperature Series and Its Relevance for Climate Change Analysis

Instrumental daily series of temperature are often affected by inhomogeneities. Several methods are available for their correction at monthly and annual scales, whereas few exist for daily data. Here, an improved version of the higher-order moments (HOM) method, the higher-order moments for autocorrelated data (HOMAD), is proposed. HOMAD addresses the main weaknesses of HOM, namely, data autocorrelation and the subjective choice of regression parameters. Simulated series are used for the comparison of both methodologies. The results highlight and reveal that HOMAD outperforms HOM for small samples. Additionally, three daily temperature time series from stations in the eastern Mediterranean are used to show the impact of homogenization procedures on trend estimation and the assessment of extremes. HOMAD provides an improved correction of daily temperature time series and further supports the use of corrected daily temperature time series prior to climate change assessment.

The Power of Tragedy: An Eighteenth-Century Debate on Theater and its Relevance to Literature Pedagogy Today

This article brings to light a debate on tragic fiction in eighteenth-century France, and more specifically, on whether or not tragedy has the power to transform individuals intellectually and emotionally. Through analysis of abbé Dubos’s Reflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles, I contend that Dubos’s overwhelmingly positive conception of fiction—and especially his contention that we learn through the emotions when we engage with tragic fiction—can serve as an admirable pedagogical model for today’s fiction-focused foreign language classrooms.

Cosmologies and Regionalisms from "Above' and "Below' in the Post-Cold War Americas: the Relevance of Karl Polanyi for the 21st Century

Drawing on a Polanyian analysis of the land question, this article aims to analyse both Western and Indigenous cosmologies of Abya Yalathe name that indigenous peoples give to the American continentto understand the relationship between human beings and land and nature. These cosmologies are at the heart of the way in which two distinct societies construct their regional space, one from above', the other from below', and they are therefore key to understanding today's climate change problematique. Following this nexus it is argued that, since the end of the Cold War, a new regional double-movement', unleashed by the quest for land and natural resources has been in the making. This is a superstructural or legal battle between Western transnational regime-making and a law that originated at the centre of the Earth'. The article explains both regionalisms and the dialectical interaction between them and demonstrates that Karl Polanyi's legacy remains relevant for the 21st century.

Feature Versus Spatial Strategies by Orangutans (Pongo abelii) and Human Children (Homo sapiens) in a Cross-Dimensional Task

Despite the fact that photographic stimuli are used across experimental contexts with both human and nonhuman subjects, the nature of individuals' perceptions of these stimuli is still not well understood. In the present experiments, we tested whether three orangutans and 36 human children could use photographic information presented on a computer screen to solve a perceptually corresponding problem in the physical domain. Furthermore, we tested the cues that aided in this process by pitting featural information against spatial position in a series of probe trials. We found that many of the children and one orangutan were successfully able to use the information cross-dimensionally; however, the other two orangutans and almost a quarter of the children failed to acquire the task. Species differences emerged with respect to ease of task acquisition. More striking, however, were the differences in cues that participants used to solve the task: Whereas the orangutan used a spatial strategy, the majority of children used a feature one. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed from both evolutionary and developmental perspectives. The novel results found here underscore the need for further testing in this area to design appropriate experimental paradigms in future comparative research settings.