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??The sagittal discrepancy in children which undermines esthetics to a great extent is frequently noticed by parents and is the major reason for patients to seek treatment. Transverse discrepancy??however??is more prone to be overlooked by orthodontists due to the overemphasis of diagnosis and treatment of the sagittal discrepancy. Furthermore??the discrepancies in all three dimensions of space are highly correlated and reciprocally reinforced. Therefore the transverse discrepancy should not be neglected owing to its potential of worsening the discrepancies in other dimensions. Comprehensive evaluation and accurate diagnosis of transverse discrepancy along with all other discrepancies by using postero-anterior cephalogram??plaster cast and cone-beam computerized tomography??CBCT??is positively contributed to getting esthetic and stable treatment results. Besides??a beautiful smile is always compromised by a narrow dental arch??but a full smile??which can be readily achieved by arch expansion??is always what patients are looking for and what orthodontists are working hard to get. Early treatment with maxillary expansion is able to not only improve smile esthetics of children but also lower the treatment complexity and enhance the effectiveness of the second phase orthodontic treatment.     

Technical aspects and access devices for preperitoneal and retroperitoneal endoscopic surgery

The main advantages of preperitoneal and retroperitoneal endoscopic surgery over conventional laparoscopy or open surgery are the decreased risk of injury to organs and reduced postoperative adhesion formation. Exact knowledge of anatomy, as well as correct positioning of the patient, is essential for its success. While a blunt dissection technique, using either the fingers or an endoscope under pneumodissection, is preferred for preperitoneal surgery, the introduction of a balloon dissection device directly into the retroperitoneal cavity simplifies this procedure for retroperitoneoscopy. Different general surgical procedures are described for preperitoneal (hernia) and retroperitoneal (adrenalectomy, neurectomy/ sympathectomy) surgery. Urological/gynaecological procedures (kidney, tumor biopsy, lymphadenectomy) are excluded from this review. In recent years, the number of possible preperitoneal and retroperitoneal surgical procedures has increased, mainly as a result of the development of commercially-available balloon trocars and balloon-tipped trocars, which create and maintain a working space.     

Pressure sensors for the monitoring of diseases in surgical care

Our 10-year experience of retroperitoneal laparoscopic pyelolithotomy, a rarely performed minimally invasive operative procedure, is presented. The results are compared with our own experience of percutaneous nephrolithotomy for larger renal stones. Forty-two patients with a mean age of 39.12 years underwent 43 retroperitoneal laparoscopic pyelolithotomies using Gaur's balloon technique. The total number of stones was 65 (44 pelvic and 21 calyceal) and they ranged in size between 5 and 48 mm. Two patients had chronic renal failure due to bilateral impacted renal calculi. Forty-eight percutaneous nephrolithotomies performed in the same unit during the last 2 years in patients with non-staghorn calculi > 2 cm were included for a comparative study. The open conversion rate and the drainage period for retroperitoneal laparoscopic pyelolithotomy were much higher. However, the operative time, blood loss, analgesic intake, hospital stay, residual stone rate, re-treatment rate and major complication rates were lower, compared with percutaneous nephrolithotomy.     

Natural killer cells as a promising tool to tackle cancer—A review of sources,methodologies, and potentials

Immune cell-based therapies are emerging as a promising tool to tackle malignancies, both solid tumors and selected hematological tumors. Vast experiences in literature have documented their safety and added survival benefits when such cell-based therapies are combined with the existing treatment options. Numerous methodologies of processing and in vitro expansion protocols of immune cells, such as the dendritic cells, natural killer (NK) cells, NKT cells, αβ T cells, so-called activated T lymphocytes, γδ T cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and lymphokine-activated killer cells, have been reported for use in cell-based therapies. Among this handful of immune cells of significance, the NK cells stand apart from the rest for not only their direct cytotoxic ability against cancer cells but also their added advantage, which includes their capability of (i) action through both innate and adaptive immune mechanism, (ii) tackling viruses too, giving benefits in conditions where viral infections culminate in cancer, and (iii) destroying cancer stem cells, thereby preventing resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. This review thoroughly analyses the sources of such NK cells, methods for expansion, and the future potentials of taking the in vitro expanded allogeneic NK cells with good cytotoxic ability as a drug for treating cancer and/or viral infection and even as a prophylactic tool for prevention of cancer after initial remission.     

Risk taking and the triarchic model of psychopathy

Introduction: High risk behaviors, such as aggression, criminality, sexual promiscuity, drug use, and gambling, are often associated with psychopathic traits. Such behaviors might arise due to a lack of fear of the consequences (boldness) or due to impulsive actions (disinhibition). We examined risk taking behavior in the laboratory setting using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), where an individual can inflate a balloon to earn a reward, but will lose this accumulated reward if the balloon bursts. The task reflects the willingness to take risks under conditions where the risk-taking behavior is understood and is made clear to the individual. Method: BART performance was measured in a mixed community and offender sample, and psychopathy was characterized via the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy, which proposes that psychopathy is a combination of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Results: Total psychopathy score was correlated with greater risk taking on the BART, and this effect was mainly due to the Boldness scale rather than the Meanness or Disinhibition scales. These relationships were not moderated by the nature of the sample (offender vs. community) or by gender. Conclusions: Individuals with high psychopathy scores appear more willing to take risks on this simple laboratory task, and this behavior appears due to boldness rather than being related to an impulsive disposition.     

Studies on percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy using a modified transseptal approach

Summary A modified version of Brockenbrough's trans-septal catheterization technique was carried out in 11 patients indicated for percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy (PTMC). In 8/11 (72.7%), a coiled guide-wire was successfully inserted through theforamen ovale without atrial septal puncture. The Brockenbrough needle was used merely to maintain stiffness and the orientation of the dilator. PTMC was performed with an Inoue single balloon without incident.Patent foramen ovale was found by transesophageal echocardiography prior to the operation in only 1/11 patients (9.0%); nonetheless, it proved not to be a critical factor for the success of the procedure. This procedure seems to have much potential to enable the treatment of mitral stenosis with a lowered risk to the patient, as long as it is performed with precision and caution.     

On the evolution of chaperones and cochaperones and the expansion of proteomes across the Tree of Life

Across the Tree of Life (ToL), the complexity of proteomes varies widely. Our systematic analysis depicts that from the simplest archaea to mammals, the total number of proteins per proteome expanded ∼200-fold. Individual proteins also became larger, and multidomain proteins expanded ∼50-fold. Apart from duplication and divergence of existing proteins, completely new proteins were born. Along the ToL, the number of different folds expanded ∼5-fold and fold combinations ∼20-fold. Proteins prone to misfolding and aggregation, such as repeat and beta-rich proteins, proliferated ∼600-fold and, accordingly, proteins predicted as aggregation-prone became 6-fold more frequent in mammalian compared with bacterial proteomes. To control the quality of these expanding proteomes, core chaperones, ranging from heat shock proteins 20 (HSP20s) that prevent aggregation to HSP60, HSP70, HSP90, and HSP100 acting as adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-fueled unfolding and refolding machines, also evolved. However, these core chaperones were already available in prokaryotes, and they comprise ∼0.3% of all genes from archaea to mammals. This challenge—roughly the same number of core chaperones supporting a massive expansion of proteomes—was met by 1) elevation of messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein abundances of the ancient generalist core chaperones in the cell, and 2) continuous emergence of new substrate-binding and nucleotide-exchange factor cochaperones that function cooperatively with core chaperones as a network.

All cellular life is thought to have stemmed from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) (1, 2), that emerged more than 3.6 billion y ago. Two major kingdoms of life diverged from LUCA: bacteria and archaea, which about 2 billion y later merged into the eukaryotes (3). Since the beginning of biological evolution, life’s volume has increased on a grand scale: The average size of individual cells has increased ∼100-fold from prokaryotes to eukaryotes (4), the number of cell types has increased ∼200-fold from unicellular eukaryotes to humans (5), and average body size has increased ∼5,000-fold from the simplest sponges to blue whales (6).This expansion in organismal complexity and variability was accompanied by an expansion in life’s molecular workforce, proteomes in particular, which in turn presented a challenge of reaching and maintaining properly folded and functional proteomes. Most proteins must fold to their native structure in order to function, and their folding is largely imprinted in their primary amino acid sequence (7–9). However, many proteins, and especially large multidomain polypeptides, or certain protein types such as all-beta or repeat proteins, tend to misfold and aggregate into inactive species that may also be toxic (10). Life met this challenge by evolving molecular chaperones that can minimize protein misfolding and aggregation, even under stressful out-of-equilibrium conditions favoring aggregation (11, 12). Chaperones can be broadly divided into core and cochaperones. Core chaperones can function on their own, and include ATPases heat shock protein 60 (HSP60), HSP70, HSP100, and HSP90 and the adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-independent HSP20. The basal protein holding, unfolding, and refolding activities of the core chaperones are facilitated and modulated by a range of cochaperones such as J-domain proteins (13–15).Starting from LUCA, as proteomes expanded, so did the core chaperones and their respective cochaperones. Indeed, chaperones have been shown to facilitate the acquisition of destabilizing mutations and thereby accelerate protein evolution (16–18). However, the coexpansion of proteomes and of chaperones, underscoring a critical balance between evolutionary innovation and foldability, remains largely unexplored. We thus embarked on a systematic bioinformatics analysis that explores the evolution of both proteomes and chaperones, and of both core and their auxiliary cochaperones, along the Tree of Life.     

Prolonged ex vivo culture of cord blood CD34(+) cells facilitates myeloid and megakaryocytic engraftment in the non-obese diabetic severe combined immunodeficient mouse model

A clinical goal for ex vivo expansion of cord blood (CB) CD34(+) cells is to shorten the period of neutropenia and thrombocytopenia following myeloablative therapy and transplantation. Prolongation of cytokine expansion leads to the production of greater numbers of cells, and should have an impact on neutrophil and platelet recovery. Furthermore, expansion of CD34(+) cells should support the continued production of neutrophils and platelets in the 6-week period following transplantation. We tested these hypotheses by characterization of the kinetics (human CD45(+) cells in the blood) and phenotype (CD45, CD34, CD61, CD33, CD19 and CD3) of human engraftment in the non-obese diabetic severe combined immunodeficient mouse (NOD-SCID) following 7 or 14 d of ex vivo expansion of CB CD34(+) cells. Mice transplanted with 14 d cells showed greater percentages of human CD45(+) cells in the blood, bone marrow and spleen than mice transplanted with unexpanded cells or 7 d cells. Prolonging cytokine exposure of CD34(+) cells and transplantation with increasing numbers of input cells facilitated the production of absolute numbers of CD34(+), CD33(+), CD61(+) and CD19(+) cells in vivo. Furthermore, analysis of SCID engrafting potential showed that prolongation of culture duration facilitates in vivo expansion of CD45(+), CD34(+) and CD19(+) cells after transplantation. It is anticipated that prolonged (2 weeks) ex vivo culture of CB will have a beneficial clinical effect.     

“支柱块”置入与球囊扩张椎体后凸成形术治疗老年胸腰椎压缩骨折的疗效观察

目的分析"支柱块"置入与球囊扩张椎体后凸成形方法在老年胸腰椎压缩骨折患者治疗中的效果。方法将2012年1月~2013年6月期间150例老年胸腰椎压缩骨折患者依据随机数字表法分为两组,实验组使用"支柱块"置入治疗,对照组采用球囊扩张椎体后凸成形术治疗,观察两组效果。结果实验组与对照组手术时间、失血量之间比较差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。实验组24 h疼痛目测类评分高于对照组,差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论 "支柱块"置入与球囊扩张椎体后凸成形方法均对老年胸腰椎压缩骨折患者的影响小,且二者各具优点,依据患者具体状况进行选择。