A 3-step therapeutic strategy for severe alveolar proteinosis.

Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is characterized by accumulation of lipoproteinaceous material in the terminal airways. Whole lung lavage (WLL) remains the gold standard treatment but may be particularly challenging in cases of severe hypoxemia. We present a 3-step strategy that was used in a patient with PAP-associated refractory hypoxemia and that combined venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (vvECMO), double-lumen orotracheal intubation, and bilateral multisegmental sequential lavage (MSL). The procedure was well tolerated and permitted weaning from the ventilator.

Thoracic aortic dissection associated with cocaine abuse.

Cardiovascular complications of cocaine abuse include myocardial ischemia and infarction, dysrhythmias, cardiomyopathies and aortic dissection. The case in point pertains to a 26-year-old, Caucasian male, substance abuser who suffered a thoracic aortic dissection following the use of crack cocaine. The autopsy and histological findings showed a connective tissue abnormality including a focal microcystic medial necrosis and a fragmentation of the elastic fibers in the arterial walls. Blood concentrations of cocaine and benzoylecgonine, taken individually, were considered to be within a potentially toxic range. Blood concentrations of methadone also indicated use of this drug at the same time. The small amounts of morphine found in the blood and urine were compatible with heroine or morphine use more than 24 h before death.

T-Coffee: a web server for the multiple sequence alignment of protein and RNA sequences using structural information and homology extension

This article introduces a new interface for T-Coffee, a consistency-based multiple sequence alignment program. This interface provides an easy and intuitive access to the most popular functionality of the package. These include the default T-Coffee mode for protein and nucleic acid sequences, the M-Coffee mode that allows combining the output of any other aligners, and template-based modes of T-Coffee that deliver high accuracy alignments while using structural or homology derived templates. These three available template modes are Expresso for the alignment of protein with a known 3D-Structure, R-Coffee to align RNA sequences with conserved secondary structures and PSI-Coffee to accurately align distantly related sequences using homology extension. The new server benefits from recent improvements of the T-Coffee algorithm and can align up to 150 sequences as long as 10 000 residues and is available from both http://www.tcoffee.org and its main mirror http://tcoffee.crg.cat.

Septentrionales Regiones XVIII No. Tab. - Septentrionales regiones XVIII no tab

Basel : H. Petri 1552

Applying precision feeding techniques in growing-finishing pig operations

The high cost of feed ingredients, the use of non-renewable sources of phosphate and the dramatic increase in the environmental load resulting from the excessive land application of manure are major challenges for the livestock industry. Precision feeding is proposed as an essential approach to improve the utilization of dietary nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients and thus reduce feeding costs and nutrient excretion. Precision feeding requires accurate knowledge of the nutritional value of feedstuffs and animal nutrient requirements, the formulation of diets in accordance with environmental constraints, and the gradual adjustment of the dietary nutrient supply to match the requirements of the animals. After the nutritional potential of feed ingredients has been precisely determined and has been improved by the addition of enzymes (e.g. phytases) or feed treatments, the addition of environmental objectives to the traditional feed formulation algorithms can promote the sustainability of the swine industry by reducing nutrient excretion in swine operations with small increases in feeding costs. Increasing the number of feeding phases can also contribute to significant reductions in nutrient excretion and feeding costs. However, the use of precision feeding techniques in which pigs are fed individually with daily tailored diets can further improve the efficiency with which pigs utilize dietary nutrients. Precision feeding involves the use of feeding techniques that allow the provision of the right amount of feed with the right composition at the right time to each pig in the herd. Using this approach, it has been estimated that feeding costs can be reduced by more than 4.6%, and nitrogen and phosphorus excretion can both be reduced by more than 38%. Moreover, the integration of precision feeding techniques into large-group production systems can provide real-time off-farm monitoring of feed and animals for optimal slaughter and production strategies, thus improving the environmental sustainability of pork production, animal well-being and meat-product quality.

De la Cosmographie la description de Gotthie ou de Gottlande

Basel : Henry Pierre 1552

Diagnostic and Prognostic Impact of pc-ASPECTS Applied to Perfusion CT in the Basilar Artery International Cooperation Study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The posterior circulation Acute Stroke Prognosis Early CT Score (pc-APECTS) applied to CT angiography source images (CTA-SI) predicts the functional outcome of patients in the Basilar Artery International Cooperation Study (BASICS). We assessed the diagnostic and prognostic impact of pc-ASPECTS applied to perfusion CT (CTP) in the BASICS registry population. METHODS: We applied pc-ASPECTS to CTA-SI and cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume (CBV), and mean transit time (MTT) parameter maps of BASICS patients with CTA and CTP studies performed. Hypoattenuation on CTA-SI, relative reduction in CBV or CBF, or relative increase in MTT were rated as abnormal. RESULTS: CTA and CTP were available in 27/592 BASICS patients (4.6%). The proportion of patients with any perfusion abnormality was highest for MTT (93%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 76%-99%), compared with 78% (58%-91%) for CTA-SI and CBF, and 46% (27%-67%) for CBV (P < .001). All 3 patients with a CBV pc-ASPECTS < 8 compared to 6/23 patients with a CBV pc-ASPECTS ≥ 8 had died at 1 month (RR 3.8; 95% CI, 1.9-7.6). CONCLUSION: CTP was performed in a minority of the BASICS registry population. Perfusion disturbances in the posterior circulation were most pronounced on MTT parameter maps. CBV pc-ASPECTS < 8 may indicate patients with high case fatality.

An 8-Item Short Form of the Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA) Among Young Swiss Men.

Emerging adulthood is a period of life transition, in which youths are no longer adolescents but have not yet reached full adulthood. Measuring emerging adulthood is crucial because of its association with psychopathology and risky behaviors such as substance use. Unfortunately, the only validated scale for such measurement has a long format (Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood [IDEA]-31 items). This study aimed to test whether a shorter form yields satisfactory results without substantial loss of information among a sample of young Swiss men. Data from the longitudinal Cohort Study on Substance Use Risk Factors were used (N = 5,049). IDEA, adulthood markers (e.g., parenthood or financial independence), and risk factors (i.e., substance use and mental health issues) were assessed. The results showed that an 8-item, short-form scale (IDEA-8) with four factors (experimentation, negativity, identity exploration, and feeling in between) returned satisfactory results, including good psychometric properties, high convergence with the initial scale, and strong empirical validity. This study was a step toward downsizing a measure of emerging adulthood. Indeed, this 8-item short form is a good alternative to the 31-item long form and could be more convenient for surveys with constraints on questionnaire length. Moreover, it should help health care practitioners in identifying at-risk populations to prevent and treat risky behaviors.

What to compare and how: Comparative transcriptomics for Evo-Devo.

Evolutionary developmental biology has grown historically from the capacity to relate patterns of evolution in anatomy to patterns of evolution of expression of specific genes, whether between very distantly related species, or very closely related species or populations. Scaling up such studies by taking advantage of modern transcriptomics brings promising improvements, allowing us to estimate the overall impact and molecular mechanisms of convergence, constraint or innovation in anatomy and development. But it also presents major challenges, including the computational definitions of anatomical homology and of organ function, the criteria for the comparison of developmental stages, the annotation of transcriptomics data to proper anatomical and developmental terms, and the statistical methods to compare transcriptomic data between species to highlight significant conservation or changes. In this article, we review these challenges, and the ongoing efforts to address them, which are emerging from bioinformatics work on ontologies, evolutionary statistics, and data curation, with a focus on their implementation in the context of the development of our database Bgee (http://bgee.org). J. Exp. Zool. (Mol. Dev. Evol.) 324B: 372-382, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Mutations in LONP1, a mitochondrial matrix protease, cause CODAS syndrome.

Cerebral, ocular, dental, auricular, skeletal anomalies (CODAS) syndrome (MIM 600373) was first described and named by Shehib et al, in 1991 in a single patient. The anomalies referred to in the acronym are as follows: cerebral-developmental delay, ocular-cataracts, dental-aberrant cusp morphology and delayed eruption, auricular-malformations of the external ear, and skeletal-spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia. This distinctive constellation of anatomical findings should allow easy recognition but despite this only four apparently sporadic patients have been reported in the last 20 years indicating that the full phenotype is indeed very rare with perhaps milder or a typical presentations that are allelic but without sufficient phenotypic resemblance to permit clinical diagnosis. We performed exome sequencing in three patients (an isolated case and a brother and sister sib pair) with classical features of CODAS. Sanger sequencing was used to confirm results as well as for mutation discovery in a further four unrelated patients ascertained via their skeletal features. Compound heterozygous or homozygous mutations in LONP1 were found in all (8 separate mutations; 6 missense, 1 nonsense, 1 small in-frame deletion) thus establishing the genetic basis of CODAS and the pattern of inheritance (autosomal recessive). LONP1 encodes an enzyme of bacterial ancestry that participates in protein turnover within the mitochondrial matrix. The mutations cluster at the ATP-binding and proteolytic domains of the enzyme. Biallelic inheritance and clustering of mutations confirm dysfunction of LONP1 activity as the molecular basis of CODAS but the pathogenesis remains to be explored.