A 3D benign paroxysmal positional vertigo model for study of otolith disease

AbstractObjectiveTo develop a three-dimensional study tool of the membranous labyrinth in order to study the pathophysiology, diagnostic workup and treatment of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). BPPV is the most common cause of peripheral vertigo. Its diagnosis and treatment depend on an understanding of the anatomy of the vestibular labyrinth and its position relative to the head. To date, many illustrations have been made to explain principals of diagnosis and treatment of BPPV, but few have been based on anatomical studies of the membranous labyrinth.MethodsA cadaveric human membranous labyrinth was axially sectioned at 20 μm resolution, stained and segmented to create a high-resolution digital model. The model was cloned to create an enantiomeric pair of labyrinths. These were associated a 3D model of a human skull, segmented from MRI data, and were oriented according to established anatomic norms. Canal markers representing otoliths were created to mark canalith position during movement of the model within the 3D environment.ResultsThe model allows visualization of true membranous labyrinth anatomy in both ears simultaneously. The dependent portion of each semicircular duct and of the utricle can easily be visualized in any head position. Moveable markers can mark the expected progress of otolith debris with changes in head position and images can be captured to document simulations. The model can be used to simulate pathology as well as diagnostic maneuvers and treatment procedures used for BPPV. The model has great potential as a teaching tool.ConclusionA simple model based on human anatomy has been created to allow careful study of BPPV pathophysiology and treatment. Going forward, this tool could offer insights that may lead to more accurate diagnosis and treatment of BPPV

The product system

It was some years ago after practising as an industrial designer that I experienced the power of design to convey meanings through the coordinated use of attributes which materialised out of a diversity of manufacturing processes. I was fascinated by the fact that a piece of transformed material, a curve or the enhancement of a product displayed in a shop could so strongly attract the attention of a viewer. I was puzzled by the ability of certain designers to trigger evident or obscure connotations by the complexity of the shapes of their designs. Objects have the ability to define groups of people or personalities by unconscious criteria. I observed how objects can influence cultures and nationalities and we find ourselves influenced and limited by their appearance, function and value. Can we say that designed objects function only as commodities or as marks of economic wellbeing? At the beginning of this investigation my intention was to bring some answers to general questions like this. I realised that my research would involve investigating the most recondite accounts of philosophy, sociology and the theory of knowledge. I had to start from the very foundations of the complex act of understanding and, in order to organise all the different concepts, the research is constructed from three main sections

Differential expression profile of CXCR3 splicing variants is associated with thyroid neoplasia. Potential role in papillary thyroid carcinoma oncogenesis?

Indexación: Scopus.Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most prevalent endocrine neoplasia. The increased incidence of PTC in patients with thyroiditis and the frequent immune infiltrate found in PTC suggest that inflammation might be a risk factor for PTC development. The CXCR3-ligand system is involved in thyroid inflammation and CXCR3 has been found upregulated in many tumors, suggesting its pro-tumorigenic role under the inflammatory microenvironment. CXCR3 ligands (CXCL4, CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11) trigger antagonistic responses partly due to the presence of two splice variants, CXCR3A and CXCR3B. Whereas CXCR3A promotes cell proliferation, CXCR3B induces apoptosis. However, the relation between CXCR3 variant expression with chronic inflammation and PTC development remains unknown. Here, we characterized the expression pattern of CXCR3 variants and their ligands in benign tumors and PTC. We found that CXCR3A and CXCL10 mRNA levels were increased in non-metastatic PTC when compared to non-neoplastic tissue. This increment was also observed in a PTC epithelial cell line (TPC-1). Although elevated protein levels of both isoforms were detected in benign and malignant tumors, the CXCR3A expression remained greater than CXCR3B and promoted proliferation in Nthy-ori-3-1 cells. In non-metastatic PTC, inflammation was conditioning for the CXCR3 ligands increased availability. Consistently, CXCL10 was strongly induced by interferon gamma in normal and tumor thyrocytes. Our results suggest that persistent inflammation upregulates CXCL10 expression favoring tumor development via enhanced CXCR3A-CXCL10 signaling. These findings may help to further understand the contribution of inflammation as a risk factor in PTC development and set the basis for potential therapeutic studies.http://www.oncotarget.com/index.php?journal=oncotarget&page=article&op=view&path[]=23502&path[]=7402

MEAN-pinolla tehdyn järjestelmän yksikkötestaaminen

Tämä opinnäytetyö on laadittu tilaajayritys Mekiwi Oy:n tarpeisiin ja siinä tutkitaan yksikkötestejä sekä niiden merkitystä ja hyötyjä MEAN-pinolla tehdyssä järjestelmässä. Tarve opinnäytetyölle ilmeni, kun sen kohteena olevan järjestelmän testausta haluttiin helpottaa ja automatisoida. Tavoitteena oli tuottaa yritykselle tietoa yksikkötestauksesta ja yksikkötestien rakentamisesta sekä suunnitella ja toteuttaa yksikkötestit kattamaan järjestelmän koko lähdekoodi. Alusta asti oli selvää, että tutkimusta tarvittaisiin varsin vähän, sillä työn painopiste on toiminnallisuudessa. Lähteiden sisältö onkin suurimmaksi osaksi teoriapohjaa, jolla avataan tarvittavat käsitteet ja teknologiat itse toteutusosaa varten. Käytetyistä lähteistä suurin osa on kunkin käsiteltävän asian kotisivuja. Opinnäytetyön tuloksena on kaksi sarjaa yksikkötestejä, jotka testaavat järjestelmän asiakassovelluksen käyttäjiä koskevia tietokantatoimintoja ja HTTP-rajapintoja. Lisäksi sen tuloksena saatiin tietoa tarvittavista toimenpiteistä yksikkötestien tekemisestä kattamaan koko järjestelmän koodi. Pelkkä testien kirjoittaminen ei tule riittämään, sillä sekä järjestelmän palvelin- että asiakassovelluksessa on koodia, jonka yksikkötestaaminen ilman koodimuutoksia on vähintäänkin epäluotettavaa ellei jopa mahdotonta.This thesis was made for a company called Mekiwi Oy. The subject is to examine the purpose and benefits of unit tests in a software built with the MEAN stack. The need for this thesis arose when the company wanted to improve the testing of a software and to make it more automatic. The goal was to provide information to the company about unit testing and to design and produce unit tests to cover the whole of the software’s codebase. It was clear right from the start that the need for research would be limited because the main focus would be on the functional side. The majority of the source material used is information about the concepts and technologies described either in the theory section or in the implementation section. The vast majority of the references are links to a homepage of the subject in question. The end result was two sets of unit tests: one testing the database functionalities regarding users and one testing the HTTP application programming interfaces regarding users. Information on creating unit tests to cover the entire codebase was also uncovered. Mere writing the unit testing will not be sufficient because both the client and the server have code that will need refactoring to make unit testing it possible

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

The influence of population aging on global climate policy

We study the connection between the demographic transition to an aging population and global climate policy ambition in the outcomes from recent international agreements on climate change: We test whether the share of the elderly in a population is a significant determinant of the quantity and ambition of a country’s policy actions against climate change. We use different indicators of climate policy ambition as measured by the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) of the Paris Agreement as updated in the Glasgow Climate Pact. We also use the number of climate change laws passed in a country to further test robustness of main results. We resort to instrumental variables as part of our identification strategy to account for potential endogeneity. Our econometric results indicate a negative association between the share of the elderly and both policy ambition in climate agreements and the intensity of regulatory initiatives to fight climate change. This suggests that the increasing political influence of the older population as a consequence of aging hinders climate policy ambition. Policy implications are discussed

Éléonore Devevey, Terrains d’entente. Anthropologues et écrivains dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle

Spécialiste de littérature française, Éléonore Devevey s’intéresse dans ce livre aux stratégies d’unification de soi par l’écriture. Le savant et le lettré ne sont pas étrangers à la vie réelle et il s’agit ici « de ne pas dissocier la vie intellectuelle des modalités pratiques de l’existence » (p. 28). C’est donc à une histoire intellectuelle « buissonnante » que vise l’autrice en s’attachant aux activités d’écritures, que celles-ci soient du côté de la formulation d’expériences ou de la fo..

Cesaria Evora

Cet article revient sur les conditions d’une commande éditoriale au sujet de la chanteuse Cesaria Evora. Par la biographie qui en a résulté, il est possible de penser le corpus sémantique commun créé autour de Cesaria. L’adhésion à ce corpus commun par le critique musical fonde autant sa capacité à prendre en charge la « présentification » de Cesaria Evora que la légitimité de cette dernière. La reconnaissance de Cesaria Evora repose en grande partie sur « l’immédiateté de la séduction » que procure sa voix et ses interprétations ou plutôt sur ce qu’il en est dit. Ce caractère instantané de l’art vocal de Cesaria Evora se construit par la comparaison avec d’autres chanteuses comme Billie Holiday et l’emploi du terme « diva ». Pour autant, la capacité reconnue à Cesaria de toucher le public reste un impensé des biographies qui lui ont été consacrées

Landscape metrics as functional traits in plants: perspectives from a glacier foreland

Spatial patterns of vegetation arise from an interplay of functional traits, environmental characteristics and chance. The retreat of glaciers offers exposed substrates which are colonised by plants forming distinct patchy patterns. The aim of this study was to unravel whether patch-level landscape metrics of plants can be treated as functional traits. We sampled 46 plots, each 1 m x 1 m, distributed along a restricted range of terrain age and topsoil texture on the foreland of the Nardis glacier, located in the South-Eastern Alps, Italy. Nine quantitative functional traits were selected for 16 of the plant species present, and seven landscape metrics were measured to describe the spatial arrangement of the plant species' patches on the study plots, at a resolution of 1 cm x 1 cm. We studied the relationships among plant communities, landscape metrics, terrain age and topsoil texture. RLQ-analysis was used to examine trait-spatial configuration relationships. To assess the effect of terrain age and topsoil texture variation on trait performance, we applied a partial-RLQ analysis approach. Finally, we used the fourth-corner statistic to quantify and test relationships between traits, landscape metrics and RLQ axes. Floristically-defined relevé clusters differed significantly with regard to several landscape metrics. Diversity in patch types and size increased and patch size decreased with increasing canopy height, leaf size and weight. Moreover, more compact patch shapes were correlated with an increased capacity for the conservation of nutrients in leaves. Neither plant species composition nor any of the landscape metrics were found to differ amongst the three classes of terrain age or topsoil texture. We conclude that patch-level landscape metrics of plants can be treated as species-specific functional traits. We recommend that existing databases of functional traits should incorporate these type of data