Primary neuroendocrine breast carcinoma: a case report and literature review

The authors present a case of a neuroendocrine carcinoma in an asymptomatic 75-year-old woman, detected in routine breast screening. The lesion was visible at mammography as a well circumscribed, medium density nodule, with no associated microcalcifications, and at ultrasonography as a hypoechoic nodule, with irregular shape and ill-defined margins. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed findings consistent with malignancy.

Biopolítica de Estados expulsores

La biopolítica sobre los migrantes se fundamenta en el binomio dejar entrar-residir o expulsar. Las leyes de extranjería están elaboradas sobre dos ejes: por un lado, en la regulación de los lujos migratorios en función del mercado de trabajo y las demandas de la economía y, por otro, en el control policial y la persecución de la inmigración irregular. Para la realización del primer eje del binomio, dejar entrar y residir, los Estados se dotan de mecanismos de regulación e intervención sobre el inmigrante concebido como fuerza de trabajo productiva. Asimismo los Estados crean mecanismos de control-sanción para las personas migrantes que incumplen los requisitos establecidos para entrar y residir en el territorio. En este punto la biopolítica sobrela población migrante se solapa o toma forma en el ejercicio de la soberanía por el Leviatán. Las medidas de control y sanción que los gobiernos ponen en marcha sobre los sin papeles han creado una imponente maquinaria de coacción en el interior de las instituciones del Estado de derecho hasta el punto de convertirlo en un Estado expulsor.

Estados expulsores y semipersonas en la Unión Europea

La aprobación en junio de 2008 por el Parlamento Europeo de la Directiva de retorno denominada también Directiva de la infamia o Directiva de expulsión consolida el proceso de involución que sobre los derechos humanos se viene produciendo en la Unión Europea desde que el miedo a la inmigración irregular se incardinó en sus instituciones. Si bien las legislaciones de extranjería de los años ochenta contenían normas que regulaban el internamiento y la expulsión no es hasta la Directiva 2001/40/CE que comienza a tomar forma una política comunitaria centrada en la inmigración irregular y las expulsiones de migrantes. Las medidas de retorno son, dice la Comisión europea,"una piedra angular de la política de migración de la UE". Desde entonces, la barbarie de los centros de retención e internamiento, el socavamiento de los derechos y la exclusión y criminalización de los migrantes extranjeros se han convertido en el caballo de batalla de las asociaciones defensoras de los derechos humanos. La erosión que las legislaciones y medidas de expulsión están provocado en los derechos y libertades y en las instituciones del Estado de derecho es inmensa. El retroceso y la erosión en los derechos y libertades es tan grande que ya no es posible continuar hablando sin más de Estados de derecho en la UE, sino más bien de máquinas administrativas para el internamiento y la expulsión, de"Estados expulsores"(1), donde las personas extranjeras son tratadas como semipersonas (2) e incluso como"no-personas" (3).

Influência da adição de defloculante, ligante e partículas de alumina no comportamento reológico de suspensões a base de frita e caulim

Enamel suspensions were characterized according to their rheological behavior. The suspensions presented a pseudoplastic behavior, yield stress and thixotropy, with or without the presence of deffloculant. Added carboxymethylcellulose increases the apparent viscosity of enamel suspensions and interacts complexly with the deffloculant, here sodium silicate. Addition of crystalline particles of two types of alumina, used to improve the wear resistance of ceramic glazes, also change strongly the rheological behavior of the suspensions. Added high specific area, irregular alumina particles produce a higher increase of the apparent viscosity of enamel suspensions compared to rounded ones.

Microcalcification evaluation in computer assisted diagnosis for digital mammography

In order to develop applications for z;isual interpretation of medical images, the early detection and evaluation of microcalcifications in digital mammograms is verg important since their presence is oftenassociated with a high incidence of breast cancers. Accurate classification into benign and malignant groups would help improve diagnostic sensitivity as well as reduce the number of unnecessa y biopsies. The challenge here is the selection of the useful features to distinguish benign from malignant micro calcifications. Our purpose in this work is to analyse a microcalcification evaluation method based on a set of shapebased features extracted from the digitised mammography. The segmentation of the microcalcificationsis performed using a fixed-tolerance region growing method to extract boundaries of calcifications with manually selected seed pixels. Taking into account that shapes and sizes of clustered microcalcificationshave been associated with a high risk of carcinoma based on digerent subjective measures, such as whether or not the calcifications are irregular, linear, vermiform, branched, rounded or ring like, our efforts were addressed to obtain a feature set related to the shape. The identification of the pammeters concerning the malignant character of the microcalcifications was performed on a set of 146 mammograms with their real diagnosis known in advance from biopsies. This allowed identifying the following shape-based parameters as the relevant ones: Number of clusters, Number of holes, Area, Feret elongation, Roughness, and Elongation. Further experiments on a set of 70 new mammogmms showed that the performance of the classification scheme is close to the mean performance of three expert radiologists, which allows to consider the proposed method for assisting the diagnosis and encourages to continue the investigation in the senseof adding new features not only related to the shape

Stable sampling and Fourier multipliers

We study the relationship between stable sampling sequences for bandlimited functions in $L^p(\R^n)$ and the Fourier multipliers in $L^p$. In the case that the sequence is a lattice and the spectrum is a fundamental domain for the lattice the connection is complete. In the case of irregular sequences there is still a partial relationship.

Avaliação da salinização de açudes no semi-árido brasileiro por ICP-AES

The salt accumulation process in some reservoirs of regular and irregular use (from 10 to 50 years of constrution), located in the Southeast of Bahia State was evaluated. Inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry was used to evaluate the concentrations of Na, K, Ca and Mg in water samples from inside and upstream of the reservoirs. The results showed that for reservoirs of irregular use, the salt accumulation, indicated by the tracer Na, increases with the age of the reservoirs, however for the reservoirs of regular use the hydraulic retention time is the main parameter.

Further insights in trichothiodistrophy: a clinical, microscopic, and ultrastructural study of 20 cases and literature review

Background: Trichothiodistrophy (TTD) is a rare autosomal recessive condition that is characterized by a specific congenital hair shaft dysplasia caused by deficiency of sulfur associated with a wide spectrum of multisystem abnormalities. In this article, we study clinical, microscopic, and ultrastructural findings of 20 patients with TTD with the aim to add further insights regarding to this rare condition. Additionally, analyses of our results are compared with those extracted from the literature in order to enhance its comprehensibility. Materials and Methods: Twenty cases of TTD were included: 7 from Mexico and 14 from Spain. Clinical, microscopic, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies and X-ray microanalysis (XrMa) were carried out in all of them. Genetic studies were performed in all seven Mexican cases. Patients with xeroderma pigmentosum and xeroderma pigmentosum/TTD-complex were excluded. Results: Cuticular changes and longitudinal crests of the hair shaft were demonstrated. These crests were irregular, disorganized, following the hair longest axis. Hair shaft sulfur deficiency was disposed discontinuously and intermittently rather than uniformly. This severe decrease of sulfur contents was located close to the trichoschisis areas. Only five patients did not show related disturbances. Micro-dolichocephaly was observed in five cases and represented the most frequent facial dysmorphism found. It is also remarkable that all patients with urologic malformations also combined diverse neurologic disorders. Moreover, three Mexican sisters demonstrated the coexistence of scarce pubic vellus hair, developmental delay, onychodystrophy, and maxillar/mandibullar hypoplasia. Conclusions: TTD phenotype has greatly varied from very subtle forms to severe alterations such as neurologic abnormalities, blindness, lamellar ichthyosis and gonadal malformations. Herein, a multisystem study should be performed mandatorily in patients diagnosed with TTD.

Further insights in trichothiodistrophy: a clinical, microscopic, and ultrastructural study of 20 cases and literature review

Background: Trichothiodistrophy (TTD) is a rare autosomal recessive condition that is characterized by a specific congenital hair shaft dysplasia caused by deficiency of sulfur associated with a wide spectrum of multisystem abnormalities. In this article, we study clinical, microscopic, and ultrastructural findings of 20 patients with TTD with the aim to add further insights regarding to this rare condition. Additionally, analyses of our results are compared with those extracted from the literature in order to enhance its comprehensibility. Materials and Methods: Twenty cases of TTD were included: 7 from Mexico and 14 from Spain. Clinical, microscopic, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies and X-ray microanalysis (XrMa) were carried out in all of them. Genetic studies were performed in all seven Mexican cases. Patients with xeroderma pigmentosum and xeroderma pigmentosum/TTD-complex were excluded. Results: Cuticular changes and longitudinal crests of the hair shaft were demonstrated. These crests were irregular, disorganized, following the hair longest axis. Hair shaft sulfur deficiency was disposed discontinuously and intermittently rather than uniformly. This severe decrease of sulfur contents was located close to the trichoschisis areas. Only five patients did not show related disturbances. Micro-dolichocephaly was observed in five cases and represented the most frequent facial dysmorphism found. It is also remarkable that all patients with urologic malformations also combined diverse neurologic disorders. Moreover, three Mexican sisters demonstrated the coexistence of scarce pubic vellus hair, developmental delay, onychodystrophy, and maxillar/mandibullar hypoplasia. Conclusions: TTD phenotype has greatly varied from very subtle forms to severe alterations such as neurologic abnormalities, blindness, lamellar ichthyosis and gonadal malformations. Herein, a multisystem study should be performed mandatorily in patients diagnosed with TTD.

Morphological study of Sr2CeO4 blue phosphor with fine particles

Morphological and spectroscopic studies of Sr2CeO4 blue phosphor in the form of fine particles prepared from a powdered multi-component precursor, via a combustion method, are reported. Samples were also prepared through a solid-state reaction and from a polymeric precursor for comparison. Citric acid or glycine as fuels in the combustion method lead to a mixture which is heated at 950 ºC for 4 h, resulting in spheroidal particles with a diameter between 250-550 nm. Samples from the polymeric precursor result in spheroidal particles (350-550 nm) and from the solid-state reaction in irregular particles (~ 5 mum). Therefore, the combustion method is adequate for preparation of Sr2CeO4 in the form of spherical fine particles.

Notas sobre los énfasis de palabra en los titulares televisivos

Este artículo aporta unos primeros resultados acerca de los énfasis de palabra en titulares televisivos en catalán. De entrada, se subraya la poca sujeción de la palabra sobre la imagen y se sitúan los patrones melódicos más habituales en este contexto informativo. El núcleo del texto se centra en la descripción de los énfasis de palabra ascendente que tienen lugar en los numerales y en palabras con una sílaba acabada en lateral o nasal, y, colateralmente, aborda los énfasis de regularidad y de irregularidad, ya que se caracterizan por ser un conjunto de énfasis de palabra ascendente que se dan de forma regular o irregular en el cuerpo del enunciado.

Morphological priming in Spanish verb forms: an ERP repetition priming study

The ERP repetition priming paradigm has been shown to be sensitive to the processing differences between regular and irregular verb forms in English and German. The purpose of the present study is to extend this research to a language with a different inflectional system, Spanish. The design (delayed visual repetition priming) was adopted from our previous study on English, and the specific linguistic phenomena we examined are priming relations between different kinds of stem (or root) forms. There were two experimental conditions: In the first condition, the prime and the target shared the same stem form, e.g., "ando-andar" [I walk-to walk], whereas in the second condition, the prime contained a marked (alternated) stem, e.g., "duermo-dormir" [I sleep-to sleep]. A reduced N400 was found for unmarked (nonalternated) stems in the primed condition, whereas marked stems showed no such effect. Moreover, control conditions demonstrated that the surface form properties (i.e., the different degree of phonetic and orthographic overlap between primes and targets) do not explain the observed priming difference. The ERP priming effect for verb forms with unmarked stems in Spanish is parallel to that found for regularly inflected verb forms in English and German. We argue that effective priming is possible because prime target pairs such as "ando-andar" access the same lexical entry for their stems. By contrast, verb forms with alternated stems (e.g., "duermo") constitute separate lexical entries, and are therefore less powerful primes for their corresponding base forms.

Viewpoint-Based Ambient Occlusion

We've developed a new ambient occlusion technique based on an information-theoretic framework. Essentially, our method computes a weighted visibility from each object polygon to all viewpoints; we then use these visibility values to obtain the information associated with each polygon. So, just as a viewpoint has information about the model's polygons, the polygons gather information on the viewpoints. We therefore have two measures associated with an information channel defined by the set of viewpoints as input and the object's polygons as output, or vice versa. From this polygonal information, we obtain an occlusion map that serves as a classic ambient occlusion technique. Our approach also offers additional applications, including an importance-based viewpoint-selection guide, and a means of enhancing object features and producing nonphotorealistic object visualizations

One, two, or many mechanisms? The brain's processing of complex words

The heated debate over whether there is only a single mechanism or two mechanisms for morphology has diverted valuable research energy away from the more critical questions about the neural computations involved in the comprehension and production of morphologically complex forms. Cognitive neuroscience data implicate many brain areas. All extant models, whether they rely on a connectionist network or espouse two mechanisms, are too underspecified to explain why more than a few brain areas differ in their activity during the processing of regular and irregular forms. No one doubts that the brain treats regular and irregular words differently, but brain data indicate that a simplistic account will not do. It is time for us to search for the critical factors free from theoretical blinders.

Full instability behavior of N-dimensional dynamical systems with a one-directional nonlinear vector field

We show how certain N-dimensional dynamical systems are able to exploit the full instability capabilities of their fixed points to do Hopf bifurcations and how such a behavior produces complex time evolutions based on the nonlinear combination of the oscillation modes that emerged from these bifurcations. For really different oscillation frequencies, the evolutions describe robust wave form structures, usually periodic, in which selfsimilarity with respect to both the time scale and system dimension is clearly appreciated. For closer frequencies, the evolution signals usually appear irregular but are still based on the repetition of complex wave form structures. The study is developed by considering vector fields with a scalar-valued nonlinear function of a single variable that is a linear combination of the N dynamical variables. In this case, the linear stability analysis can be used to design N-dimensional systems in which the fixed points of a saddle-node pair experience up to N21 Hopf bifurcations with preselected oscillation frequencies. The secondary processes occurring in the phase region where the variety of limit cycles appear may be rather complex and difficult to characterize, but they produce the nonlinear mixing of oscillation modes with relatively generic features