Autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) is an increasingly recognized disease entity, but data in children are limited. AIP presentation and outcome in children might differ from the adult experience. We aim ...to determine the characteristic features of AIP in children.
Data about clinical symptoms, imaging, histology, and treatment were collected using two sources: (i) a systematic literature search and (ii) the INSPPIRE database, the largest international multicenter study of pancreatitis in children and the Cliniques Universitaires St-Luc (CUSL) registry.
We identified 48 AIP cases: 30 from literature review, 14 from INSPPIRE, and 4 from CUSL. The median age at diagnosis was 13 years (range 2-17 years). Abdominal pain (43/47, 91%) and/or obstructive jaundice (20/47, 42%) were the most common symptoms at diagnosis. Elevated serum IgG4 levels were only observed in 9/40 (22%) children. Cross-sectional imaging studies were abnormal in all children including hypointense global or focal gland enlargement (39/47, 83%), main pancreatic duct irregularity (30/47, 64%), and common bile duct stricture (26/47, 55%). A combination of lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, pancreatic fibrosis, and ductal granulocyte infiltration were the main histological findings (18/25, 72%). Children with AIP had a prompt clinical response to steroids. Complications of AIP included failure of exocrine (4/25, 16%) and endocrine (3/27, 11%) pancreas function.
Pediatric AIP has a distinct presentation with features similar to type 2 AIP in adults. This comprehensive report on the largest group of children with AIP to date is expected to help with the diagnosis and management of this disease and pave the way for future research studies.
Imaging findings represent key criteria for diagnosing chronic pancreatitis in children. Understanding radiologists' agreement for imaging findings is critical to standardizing and optimizing ...diagnostic criteria.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the interobserver agreement among experienced pediatric radiologists for subjective, quantitative, and semiquantitative imaging findings of chronic pancreatitis in children.
In this retrospective study, CT or MRI examinations performed in children with chronic pancreatitis were submitted by six sites participating in the INSPPIRE (International Study Group of Pediatric Pancreatitis: In Search for a Cure) Consortium. One pediatric radiologist from each of the six sites reviewed examinations; three of the radiologists independently reviewed all CT examinations, and the other three radiologists independently reviewed all MRI examinations. Reviewers recorded 13 categoric imaging findings of chronic pancreatitis and measured pancreas thickness and pancreatic duct diameter. Agreement was assessed using kappa coefficients for the categoric variables and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for the continuous variables.
A total of 76 CT and 80 MRI examinations performed in 110 children (65 girls and 45 boys; mean age, 11.3 ± 4.6 SD years) were reviewed. For CT, kappa coefficients for categoric findings ranged from -0.01 to 0.81, with relatively high kappa coefficients noted for parenchymal calcifications (κ = 0.81), main pancreatic duct dilatation (κ = 0.63), and atrophy (κ = 0.52). ICCs for parenchymal thickness measurements ranged from 0.57 in the pancreas head to 0.80 in the body and tail. The ICC for duct diameter was 0.85. For MRI, kappa coefficients for categoric findings ranged from -0.01 to 0.74, with relatively high kappa coefficients noted for main duct irregularity (κ = 0.74), side branch dilatation (κ = 0.70), number of dilated side branches (κ = 0.65), and main duct dilatation (κ = 0.64); kappa coefficient for atrophy was 0.52. ICCs for parenchymal thickness measurements ranged from 0.53 for the neck and body individually to 0.68 in the tail. ICC for duct diameter was 0.77.
Interobserver agreement was fair to moderate for most CT and MRI findings of chronic pancreatitis in children.
This study highlights challenges for the imaging diagnosis of pediatric chronic pancreatitis. Standardized and/or objective criteria are needed given the importance of imaging in diagnosis.
A species of
Idris
Förster (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) is found to parasitize the eggs of
Bagrada hilaris
(Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) and is described as new:
Idris elba
Talamas,
sp. nov.
This is the ...first association of an
Idris
species with a non-spider host, and the association is confirmed with molecular diagnostic tools that enable identification of parasitoid and host from the remains of parasitized eggs.
We aimed to synthesize the evidence of a causal effect and draw inferences about whether Canadian primary care reforms improved health system performance based on measures of health service ...utilization, processes of care, and physician productivity.
We searched the Embase, PubMed and Web of Science databases for records from 2000 to September 2015. We based our risk of bias assessment on the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation guidelines. Full-text studies were synthesized and organized according to the three outcome categories: health service utilization, processes of care, and physician costs and productivity.
We found moderate quality evidence that team-based models of care led to reductions in emergency department use, but the evidence was mixed for hospital admissions. We also found low quality evidence that team-based models, blended capitation models and pay-for-performance incentives led to small and sometimes non-significant improvements in processes of care. Studies examining new payment models on physician costs and productivity were of high methodological quality and provided a coherent body of evidence assessing enhanced fee-for-service and blended capitation payment models.
A small number of studies suggested that team-based models contributed to reductions in emergency department use in Quebec and Alberta. Regarding processes of diabetes care, studies found higher rates of testing for blood glucose levels, retinopathy and cholesterol in Alberta's team-based primary care model and in practices eligible for pay-for-performance incentives in Ontario. However pay-for-performance in Ontario was found to have null to moderate effects on other prevention and screening activities. Although blended capitation payment in Ontario contributed to decreases in the number of services delivered and patients seen per day, the number of enrolled patients and number of days worked in a year was similar to that of enhanced fee-for-service practices.
To achieve an equitable energy transition toward net-zero 2050 goals, the electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2RR) to chemical feedstocks through utilizing both CO2 and renewable energy is ...particularly attractive. However, the catalytic activity of CO2RR is limited by the scaling relation of the adsorption energies of intermediates. Circumventing the scaling relation is a potential strategy to achieve a breakthrough in catalytic activity. Herein, based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we designed a high-entropy alloy (HEA) system of FeCoNiCuMo with high catalytic activity for CO2RR. Machine learning models were developed by considering 1280 adsorption sites to predict the adsorption energies of COOH*, CO*, and CHO*. The scaling relation between the adsorption energies of COOH*, CO*, and CHO* is circumvented by the rotation of COOH* and CHO* on the designed HEA surface, resulting in the outstanding catalytic activity of CO2RR with the limiting potential of 0.29–0.51 V. This work not only accelerates the development of HEA catalysts but also provides an effective strategy to circumvent the scaling relation.
Studies of realized niche shift and model transferability in alien species usually ignore the potential effects of source populations and different invaded-range environments on niche lability. We ...incorporate our detailed knowledge of the native-range source populations and global introduction history of brown marmorated stink bug (
Halyomorpha halys
) to examine intraspecific variation in realized niche expansion and unfilling, and to investigate how niche modelling approaches are affected by that variation. Realized niche dynamics of
H. halys
were analyzed using an ordination method, ecological niche models (ENMs), and occurrence records from (1) East Asia, (2) North America, (3) Europe, (4) native-range source populations for North America and Europe introductions, and (5) global range. Patterns of niche filling and expansion were observed across the invaded ranges of
H. halys
in North America and Europe: niche unfilling (42.7 %) and expansion (0.0 %) in North America, and unfilling (80.5 %) and expansion (28.0 %) in Europe. Some invasive populations have expanded into climatically novel areas in central Europe. Results presented here provide evidence that
H. halys
has not yet occupied all suitable climatic habitats in North America and Europe that resemble its native range, and the central USA and most parts of Europe appear to be most at risk of
H.
halys
spread in near future. When realized niche shifts dominated by niche unfilling, fully capturing species’ requirement by basing ENMs on native range may be more important for accurate invasion forecasts than non-native models. Caution is warranted when using the source population to estimate invasion potential.
NEURO.tv is a new educational project that seeks to bring advanced concepts in neuroscience to the general public. We film one-hour discussions with leading neuroscientists, philosophers, and ...psychologists who have had significant impact on our current understanding of brain function, and we publish these discussions on YouTube, iTunes, and other social media outlets. Here, we explain the motivations behind this new program.
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•Four new palladium complexes, (DTCs)(PAr3)PdCl, have been synthesized and characterized.•In vitro anticancer activity revealed their better anticancer potential.•They have good ...antioxidant and anti-acetylcholinesterase activities.•They have the potential to be used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Four new (DTCs)(PAr3)PdCl complexes have been synthesized, where DTCs = sodium 4-diphenylmethylpiperazine-1-carbodithioate(1), sodium4-(3-methoxyphenyl)piperazine-1-carbodithioate (2), sodium4-(2-pyrimidyl)piperazine-1-carbodithioate (3, 4); ArR3 = diphenyl-p-tolylphosphine (1, 2), 1,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)butane (3). These complexes have been characterized by CHNS analysis, FT-IR, NMR {1H, 13C and 31P}, and X-ray crystallography (for complex 1 and 2). Single crystal analysis revealed that the Pd is chelated by dithiocarbamate ligand forming a four-membered chelate ring, whereas PAr3 and Cl are coordinated in monodentate fashion. The Hirshfeld Surface and Fingerprint analysis have been used to investigate the intermolecular interactions and molecular shape of crystal structures (1&2), respectively. The anticancer activities of (1–4) were evaluated using Staurosporine as a standard against various human cancer cell lines, i.e. LU, MCF7, Hepa-IcIc-7, PC-3, and MDA-MB-231. The compound 3 was found to be the most active against the tested cancer cell lines with IC50 values of 0.9 ± 0.2–18.3–3.0 µM owing to its cationic nature that facilitates safe carriage thus causing electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged DNA. The highest antioxidant activity is shown by compound 3 against DPPH used as a free radical. Furthermore, all the complexes (1–4) caused a mixed type of inhibition against acetylcholinesterase. Thus, these compounds represent a class of potential therapeutic agents and can be used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Candidate biological control agents of invasive insect pests are increasingly being found in new geographic regions as a result of unintentional introductions. However, testing the degree of genetic ...differentiation among adventive and native-range populations of these agents is rarely done. We used reduced-representation sequencing of genomic DNA to investigate the relationships among laboratory lines of
Trissolcus japonicus
(Ashmead) (Hymenoptera, Scelionidae), an egg parasitoid and biological control agent of the brown marmorated stink bug,
Halyomorpha halys
(Stål) (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae). We compared sequences from multiple adventive populations in North America (Canada, USA) and Europe (Switzerland) with populations sourced from part of its native range in China. We found considerably more genetic variation among lines sourced from adventive populations than among those within native populations. In the Pacific Northwest of North America (British Columbia, Canada and Washington State, USA), we found preliminary evidence of three distinct genetic clusters, two of which were highly dissimilar from all other lines we genotyped. In contrast, we found that other adventive lines with close geographic proximity (two from Ontario, Canada, three from Switzerland) had limited genetic variation. These findings provide a basis for testing biological differences among lines that will inform their use as biological control agents, and provide evidence to support a hypothesis of several independent introductions of
T. japonicus
in western North America from different source areas.
Coenosia attenuata is a member of the tigrina-group of Coenosia (sensu Hennig 1964) and is a capable generalist predator in its larval and adult stages. C. attenuata is common in greenhouses ...worldwide, however, there are few documented cases of its presence in the wild. Here, we estimated C. attenuata presence in the southeastern USA peach orchards using pan traps. Over two years, a total of 717 specimens were collected from both commercially managed and fungicide-only managed peach orchards. C. attenuata is a known biological control agent in artificial greenhouse settings, but its impact on pest species in the wild is still unknown. For the first time in North America, we document an established wild population of C. attenuata, provide an overview of basic identification, and review potential benefits for biological control.
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