ALBERT

Description: Background: Polymyositis is an immune-mediated myopathy with clinical features of proximal muscle weakness. Dysphagia and neck flexor weakness can develop along with respiratory muscle weakness as the disease progresses. Kennedy disease or X-linked spinobulbar muscular atrophy is a rare X-linked recessive disorder with clinical features of slowly progressive atrophy and weakness of limb and bulbar muscles. These two disorders may have overlapping clinical manifestations.Case presentationWe present the case of a 52-year-old Filipino man with chronic weakness involving his proximal muscle groups who carried the diagnosis of polymyositis and was refractory to multiple immunomodulatory therapies. Further neurologic examination and history taking along with selective serologic and electrodiagnostic studies instead confirmed the diagnosis of Kennedy disease. Conclusions: Distinction between polymyositis and Kennedy disease may be difficult given the potential overlapping clinical manifestations. However, with careful neurological history taking, examination, and selective serologic plus electrodiagnostic investigations the correct diagnosis may be made, thus sparing the patient ineffective therapy. One must always be sure of the diagnosis of polymyositis before it's classified as refractory.

Description: we use the modified variation of parameters method for finding the analytical solution of a system of third-order nonlinear boundary value problems associated with obstacle, unilateral, and contact problems. The results are calculated in terms of convergent series with easily computable components. The suggested technique is applied without any discretization, perturbation, transformation, and restrictive assumptions. Moreover, it is free from round off errors. Some examples are given to illustrate the implementation and efficiency of the modified variation of parameters method.

Description: 4,4′-(1,3-Phenylenebis(oxy))dianiline 1 is an aromatic diamine compound and has been very less utilized in the organic synthesis. Different diimines and diamides were synthesized by reacting compound 1 with aromatic and heterocyclic compounds having different functionalities. These longer electron rich spacer molecules were synthesized to utilize them in the near future in making macrocycles of different sizes and functionalities. A hydrazide was also prepared from a diamide spacer molecule containing ester group. A diamide prepared containing nibrobenzene moiety was further reduced to amine to obtain longer spacer diamine molecule than the starting molecule 1.

Description: The present study examines how climatic conditions and pond design affect the growth performance of microalgae. From January to April of 2011, outdoor batch cultures of Nannochloropsis salina were grown in three replicate 780 L conventional raceways, as well as in an experimental 7500 L algae raceway integrated design (ARID) pond. The ARID culture system utilizes a series of 8–20 cm deep basins and a 1.5 m deep canal to enhance light exposure and mitigate temperature variations and extremes. The ARID culture reached the stationary phase 27 days earlier than the conventional raceways, which can be attributed to its superior temperature management and shallower basins. On a night when the air temperature dropped to −9°C, the water temperature was 18°C higher in the ARID pond than in the conventional raceways. Lipid and fatty acid content ranged from 16 to 25% and from 5 to15%, respectively, as a percentage of AFDW. Palmitic, palmitoleic, and eicosapentaenoic acids comprised the majority of fatty acids. While the ARID culture system achieved nearly double the volumetric productivity relative to the conventional raceways (0.023 versus 0.013 g L−1day−1), areal biomass productivities were of similar magnitude in both pond systems (3.47 versus 3.34 g m−2day−1), suggesting that the ARID pond design has to be further optimized, most likely by increasing the culture depth or operating at higher cell densities while maintaining adequate mixing.

Description: Background: Double-stranded (ds) RNA fungal viruses are typically isometric single-shelled particles that are classified into three families, Totiviridae, Partitiviridae and Chrysoviridae, the members of which possess monopartite, bipartite and quadripartite genomes, respectively. Recent findings revealed that mycovirus-related dsRNA viruses are more diverse than previously recognized. Although an increasing number of viral complete genomic sequences have become available, the evolution of these diverse dsRNA viruses remains to be clarified. This is particularly so since there is little evidence for horizontal gene transfer (HGT) among dsRNA viruses. Results: In this study, we report the molecular properties of two novel dsRNA mycoviruses that were isolated from a field strain of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Sunf-M: one is a large monopartite virus representing a distinct evolutionary lineage of dsRNA viruses; the other is a new member of the family Partitiviridae. Comprehensive phylogenetic analysis and genome comparison revealed that there are at least ten monopartite, three bipartite, one tripartite and three quadripartite lineages in the known dsRNA mycoviruses and that the multipartite lineages have possibly evolved from different monopartite dsRNA viruses. Moreover, we found that homologs of the S7 Domain, characteristic of members of the genus phytoreovirus in family Reoviridae are widely distributed in diverse dsRNA viral lineages, including chrysoviruses, endornaviruses and some unclassified dsRNA mycoviruses. We further provided evidence that multiple HGT events may have occurred among these dsRNA viruses from different families. Conclusions: Our study provides an insight into the phylogeny and evolution of mycovirus-related dsRNA viruses and reveals that the occurrence of HGT between different virus species and the development of multipartite genomes during evolution are important macroevolutionary mechanisms in dsRNA viruses.

Description: Background: Identifying modifiable factors that influence the epidemiology of colorectal cancer incidence among multiethnic groups might be informative for the development of public health strategies targeting the disease. Minimal data exists describing the impact of physical activity on colorectal polyp risk in United States minority populations. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship of exercise on the prevalence of polyps in a multiethnic colorectal cancer screening population. Results: We enrolled 982 patients: 558 Hispanic, 202 Asian ,149 Black, and 69 White. Patients who reported exercising one or more hours weekly had a lower prevalence of any polyps (25.3% vs 33.2%, P = 0.008) as well as adenomas (13.8 vs. 18.9%, P = 0.03) compared to those who did not exercise. Black and Hispanic patients and those who were overweight or obese also had lower prevalence of polyps if they led an active lifestyle. Multivariate analysis revealed that age 〉55, male sex, and Black race/ethnicity were positively associated with the presence of adenomas, while a history of exercising one hour or more weekly was an independent negative predictor for the presence of adenomas anywhere in the colon (OR 0.67; 95% CI 0.4 - 0.9, P = 0.03). Conclusions: Exercising one hour per week was associated with a lower prevalence of polyps and adenomas when compared to those who exercised less or not at all. An active lifestyle provides benefits to groups who are at risk for colorectal cancer, such as Blacks. It also provides significant protection to overweight and obese individuals. Public health initiatives should promote physical activity as a cancer prevention tool in multiethnic populations.

Description: We suggest and analyze some new iterative methods for solving the nonlinear equations f(x)=0 using the decomposition technique coupled with the system of equations. We prove that new methods have convergence of fourth order. Several numerical examples are given to illustrate the efficiency and performance of the new methods. Comparison with other similar methods is given.

Description: Desorption and adsorption equilibrium moisture isotherms of Ziziphus spina-christi leaves were determined using the gravimetric-static method at 30, 40, and 50°C for water activity ranging from 0.057 to 0.898. At a given , the results show that the moisture content decreases with increasing temperature. A hysteresis effect was observed. The experimental data of sorption were fitted by eight models (GAB, BET, Henderson-Thompson, modified-Chung Pfost, Halsey, Oswin, Peleg, and Adam and Shove). After evaluating the models according to several criteria, the Peleg and Oswin models were found to be the most suitable for describing the sorption curves. The net isosteric heats of desorption and adsorption of Ziziphus spina-christi leaves were calculated by applying the Clausius-Clapeyron equation to the sorption isotherms and an expression for predicting these thermodynamic properties was given.

Description: The performance of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) in boreholes is studied numerically regarding changes induced by CO2 sequestration in deep saline reservoirs. The new optimization approach is applied to generate an optimized data set of only 4% of the comprehensive set but of almost similar best possible resolution. Diverse electrode configurations (mainly tripotential α and β) are investigated with current flows and potential measurements in different directions. An extensive 2.5D modeling (>100,000 models) is conducted systematically as a function of multiparameters related to hydrogeology, CO2 plume, data acquisition and methodology. ERT techniques generally are capable to resolve storage targets (CO2 plume, saline host reservoir, and impermeable cap rock), however with the common smearing effects and artefacts. Reconstructed tomograms show that the optimized and multiply oriented configurations have a better-spatial resolution than the lateral arrays with splitting of potential and current electrode pairs between boreholes. The later arrays are also more susceptible to telluric noise but have a lower level of measurement errors. The resolution advance of optimized and multiply oriented configurations is confirmed by lower values for ROI (region of index) and residual (relative model difference). The technique acceptably resolves targets with an aspect ratio down to 0.5.

Description: We propose a new exact method for solving bilevel 0-1 knapsack problems. A bilevel problem models a hierarchical decision process that involves two decision makers called the leader and the follower. In these processes, the leader takes his decision by considering explicitly the reaction of the follower. From an optimization standpoint, these are problems in which a subset of the variables must be the optimal solution of another (parametric) optimization problem. These problems have various applications in the field of transportation and revenue management, for example. Our approach relies on different components. We describe a polynomial time procedure to solve the linear relaxation of the bilevel 0-1 knapsack problem. Using the information provided by the solutions generated by this procedure, we compute a feasible solution (and hence a lower bound) for the problem. This bound is used together with an upper bound to reduce the size of the original problem. The optimal integer solution of the original problem is computed using dynamic programming. We report on computational experiments which are compared with the results achieved with other state-of-the-art approaches. The results attest the performance of our approach.