Enhanced remediation of arsenic and chromium co-contaminated soil by eletrokinetic-permeable reactive barriers with different reagents

Abstract

The present work focused on the effects of different reagents on the remediation of arsenic and chromium co-contaminated soil by electrokinetic technology coupled with permeable reactive barrier (EK-PRB). In a running of EK-PRB, reductant (ascorbic acid, sodium citrate) and chelating agent (EDTA-2Na) were used to pretreat contaminated soil together with CaAl-LDH as reactive materials for PRB. As a result, the chelating agent improved the removals of As and Cr in co-contaminated soil. However, the reducing agent only increased As removal. When 0.05 M sodium citrate was used in pretreatment, the As removal attained the maximum of 50.5%, although Cr removal was only 44.1% at the same time. When the contaminated soil was pretreated with 0.01 M EDTA-2Na, the Cr removal increased to 54.28%, although As removal was only 26.3%. After EK-PRB, the As and Cr were efficiently captured by CaAl-LDH, resulting in maximal fixed amounts of 126.5 mg/kg (As) and 1507.6 mg/kg (Cr). The XRD and FITR analyses of LDH indicated that As was mainly adsorbed on the surface of LDH. As for Cr, it was mainly intercalated into interlayer of LDH.

https://ift.tt/2Q6zpnU

Clinico‐pathological predictors of mismatch repair deficiency in sebaceous neoplasia: A large case series from a single Australian private pathology service

Abstract

Background/Objectives

Loss of expression of mismatch repair (MMR) proteins is frequently observed in sebaceous skin lesions and can be a herald for Lynch syndrome. The aim of this study was to identify clinico‐pathological predictors of MMR deficiency in sebaceous neoplasia that could aid dermatologists and pathologists in determining which sebaceous lesions should undergo MMR immunohistochemistry (IHC).

Methods

An audit of sebaceous skin lesions (excluding hyperplasia) where pathologist‐initiated MMR IHC was performed between January 2009 to December 2016 was undertaken from a single pathology practice identifying 928 lesions from 882 individuals. Lesions were further analysed for differences in gender, age at diagnosis, lesion type and anatomic location, stratified by MMR status.

Results

The 882 individuals (67.7% male) had a mean (SD) age of diagnosis of 68.4 ± 13.3 years. Nearly two‐thirds of the lesions were sebaceous adenomas, with 82.6% of all lesions occurring on the head and neck. MMR deficiency, observed in 282 of the 919 lesions (30.7%), was most common in sebaceous adenomas (210/282; 74.5%). MMR‐deficient lesions occurred predominantly on the trunk or limbs (64.7%), compared with 23.2% in head or neck (P < 0.001). Loss of MSH2 and MSH6 protein expression was most frequent pattern of loss (187/281; 66.5%). The highest AUC for discriminating MMR‐deficient sebaceous lesions from MMR‐proficient lesions was observed for the ROC curve based on subgroups defined by type and anatomic location of the sebaceous lesion (AUC = 0.68).

Conclusion

The best combination of measured clinico‐pathological features achieved only modest positive predictive values, sensitivity and specificity for identifying MMR‐deficient sebaceous skin lesions.

https://ift.tt/2AILtBf

Pigmentary Skin Disorders. Edited by P Kumarasinghe. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland, 2018. 297 pages. €110. ISBN 978‐3‐319‐70418‐0.

https://ift.tt/2QqDcMj

Cytotoxic and genotoxic effect of oxyfluorfen on hemocytes of Biomphalaria glabrata

Abstract

Chemicals released from anthropogenic activities such as industry and agriculture often end up in aquatic ecosystems. These substances can cause serious damage to these ecosystems, thus threatening the conservation of biodiversity. Among these substances are pesticides, such as oxyfluorfen, a herbicide used for the control of grasses and weeds. Considering its widespread use, it is important to investigate the possible toxicity of this compound to aquatic organisms, especially invertebrates. Hence, the use of biological systems able to detect such effects is of great importance. The mollusk Biomphalaria glabrata has been shown to be useful as an environmental indicator to assess the potential ecological effects of physical and chemical stressors in freshwater environments. The present study sought to detect mutagenic changes in hemocytes of B. glabrata exposed to oxyfluorfen. To perform these tests, this study used ten animals per group, exposed acutely (48 h) and chronically (15 days) to oxyfluorfen. The herbicide concentrations were 0.125, 0.25, and 0.5 mg/L. The results showed that oxyfluorfen induced significant frequencies of micronuclei, binucleated cells, and apoptosis in hemocytes of mollusks when compared to the control group. Unlike chronic exposure, acute exposure was dose-dependent. The present study's results demonstrate the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of oxyfluorfen on hemocytes of B. glabrata.

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Clinical Thyroidology®High-Impact Articles

FREE ACCESS through December 11, 2018.
Read Now:

Vemurafenib Restores Radioiodine Uptake in Some Metastatic Thyroid Cancers
Jerome M. Hershman  

Randomized, Controlled Trials Show That Treatment of Subclinical Hypothyroidism Does Not Improve Quality of Life, Cognition, Blood Pressure, or BMI
Tim I.M. Korevaar 

Symptoms Strongly Drive the Consideration of Alternative Thyroid Hormone–Replacement Options in Patients with Hypothyroidism
Angela M. Leung 

Which Factors Predict the Outcome of Ablative Radioactive Iodine Treatment of Hyperthyroid Graves' Disease?
Jacques Orgiazzi 

 

The post Clinical Thyroidology^®High-Impact Articles appeared first on American Thyroid Association.

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Advanced oxidation technologies: state-of-the-art in Ibero-American countries

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VideoEndocrinology™ High-Impact Videos

VideoEndocrinology™
The Official Journal of: American Thyroid Association

FREE ACCESS through December 14, 2018.
Watch now:

Transoral Endoscopic Thyroidectomy Vestibular Approach: Technical Tips and Tricks
Gustavo G. Fernandez Ranvier, Patrick Neshiwat, William B. Inabnet III

Central Neck Dissection: The Five Key Steps
Nathaniel J. Walsh, Asif M. Talukder, David J. Terris 

Transoral and Submental Thyroidectomy
Yufei Chen, Kathryn H. Chomsky-Higgins, Iheoma Nwaogu, Carolyn D. Seib, Jessica E. Gosnell, Wen T. Shen, Quan-Yang Duh, Insoo Suh 

3D Anatomic Adrenal Modeling Aids Preoperative Planning in Cortical-Sparing Adrenalectomy
Janeil M. Mitchell, Michael J. Magnetta, Kelly L. McCoy, Sally E. Carty, Linwah Yip

The post VideoEndocrinology™ High-Impact Videos appeared first on American Thyroid Association.

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Oxytocin therapy in hypopituitarism: challenges and opportunities

Summary

Patients with hypopituitarism display impaired quality of life and excess morbidity and mortality, despite apparently optimal pituitary hormone replacement. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide synthesised in the anterior hypothalamus which plays an important role in controlling social and emotional behaviour, body weight and metabolism. Recent studies have suggested that a deficiency of oxytocin may be evident in patients with hypopituitarism and craniopharyngioma, and that this may be associated with deficits in cognitive empathy. Preliminary data hint at potential benefits of oxytocin therapy in improving these deficits and the accompanying metabolic disturbances that are common in these conditions. However, several challenges remain, including an incomplete understanding of the regulation and mechanisms of action of oxytocin, difficulties in accurately measuring oxytocin levels and in establishing a diagnosis of oxytocin deficiency, and a need to determine both the optimal mode of administration for oxytocin therapy and an acceptable safety profile with long‐term use. This review considers the data linking oxytocin to the neuropsychological and metabolic disturbances evident in patients with craniopharyngioma and hypopituitarism, and describes the challenges that need to be overcome before replacement therapy can be considered as a therapeutic option in clinical practice.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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Denoising of MR images using Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance in a Non Local framework

Publication date: Available online 2 December 2018

Source: Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Author(s): Fabio Baselice, Giampaolo Ferraioli, Vito Pascazio, Antonietta Sorriso

Abstract

Data coming from any acquisition system, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging ones, are affected by noise. Although modern high field scanners can reach high Signal to Noise Ratios, in some circumstances, for example in case of very weak signals due to a specific acquisition sequence, noise becomes a critical issue that has to be properly handled. In last years methods based on the so called Non Local Mean have proven to be very effective in denoising tasks. The idea of these filters is to find similar patches across the image and to jointly exploit them to obtain the restored image. A critical point is the distance metric adopted for measuring similarity. Within this manuscript, we propose a filtering technique based on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance. The main innovative aspect of the proposed method consists in the criteria adopted for finding similar pixels across the image: it is based on the statistics of the points rather then the widely adopted weighted Euclidean distance. More in details, the Cumulative Distribution Functions of different pixels are evaluated and compared in order to measure their similarities, exploiting a stack of images of the same slice acquired with different acquisition parameters. To quantitatively and qualitatively assess the performances of the approach, a comparison with other widely adopted denoising filters in case of both simulated and real datasets has been carried out. The obtained results confirm the validity of the proposed solution.

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Maternal anaesthesia in open and fetoscopic surgery of foetal open spinal neural tube defects: A 6-year observational study

BACKGROUND Prenatal myelomeningocele repair by open surgery can improve the neurological prognosis of children with this condition. A shift towards a fetoscopic approach seems to reduce maternal risks and improve obstetric outcomes. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to report on the anaesthetic management of women undergoing prenatal open or fetoscopic surgery for neural tube defects. DESIGN A retrospective cohort study. SETTING Prenatal myelomeningocele repair research group, Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Spain. INTERVENTION Intra-uterine foetal repairs of spina bifida between 2011 and 2016 were reviewed. Anaesthetic and vasoconstrictor drugs, fluid therapy, maternal haemodynamic changes during surgery, blood gas changes during CO2 insufflation for fetoscopic surgery, and maternal and foetal complications were noted. RESULTS Twenty-nine foetuses with a neural tube defect underwent surgery, seven (24.1%) with open and 22 (75.9%) with fetoscopic surgery. There were no significant differences in maternal doses of opioids or neuromuscular blocking agents. Open surgery was associated with higher dose of halogenated anaesthetic agents [maximum medium alveolar concentration (MAC) sevoflurane 1.90 vs. 1.50%, P = 0.01], higher need for intra-operative tocolytic drugs [five of seven (71.4%) and two of 22 (9.1%) required nitroglycerine, P = 0.001], higher volume of colloids (500 vs. 300 ml, P = 0.036) and more postoperative tocolytic drugs (three drugs in all seven cases (100%) of open and in one of 21 (4.76%) of fetoscopic surgery, P 

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Intra-operative tachycardia is not associated with a composite of myocardial injury and mortality after noncardiac surgery: A retrospective cohort analysis

BACKGROUND Myocardial injury after noncardiac surgery (MINS) is a major contributor to peri-operative morbidity and mortality with a reported incidence of about 8%. Tachycardia increases myocardial oxygen demand, and decreases oxygen supply, and is therefore a potential cause of MINS. OBJECTIVE We tested the hypothesis that there is an association between intra-operative area above a heart rate (HR) of 90 bpm and a composite of MINS and in-hospital all-cause mortality. DESIGN Retrospective analyses. SETTING Major tertiary care hospital, Cleveland, USA. PATIENTS Adults having elective or nonelective noncardiac surgery and scheduled troponin monitoring during the first 3 postoperative days between 2010 and 2015. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All-or-none composite of myocardial injury (MINS), defined by a peak postoperative generation 4 troponin T concentration at least 0.03 ng ml−1, and in-hospital all-cause mortality. RESULTS Among 2652 eligible patients, 123 (4.6%) experienced MINS within 7 days after surgery and 6 (0.2%) died before discharge. Intra-operative area above HR more than 90 bpm was not associated with the all-or-none composite of MINS and in-hospital mortality, with an estimated odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.99 (0.97 to 1.01) per 1 h bpm increase in area above HR more than 90 bpm. Secondary outcomes were also unrelated to the composite, with estimated odds ratios (98.3% confidence interval) of 0.99 (0.98 to 1.00) for area above HR more than 80, 0.98 (0.92 to 1.04) for area above HR more than 100 bpm, and 0.96 (0.88 to 1.05) for maximum HR. CONCLUSION There was no apparent association between various measures of tachycardia and a composite of MINS and death, a result that contradicts previously reported associations between other measures of intra-operative tachycardia and MINS/mortality. Correspondence to Kurt Ruetzler, MD, Department of Outcomes Research, Anaesthesiology Institute, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, P-77, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA Tel: +1 216 445 9857; fax: +1 216 444 6135; e-mail: kurt.ruetzler@reflex.at;web:www.or.org Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal's Website (https://ift.tt/2ylyqmW). © 2018 European Society of Anaesthesiology

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