High-risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are present and can cooperate with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) to initiate and/or enhance the progression of several types of human carcinomas including cervical as well as head and neck; in parallel, it has been recently pointed out that these oncoviruses can be detected in human breast cancers. Thus, we herein explored the presence/co-presence of high-risk HPVs and EBV in breast cancer in Lebanese women. A cohort of 102 breast cancer samples and 14 normal breast tissues were assessed for the presence of HPVs and EBV. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis in addition to tissue microarray (TMA) platform were used in this study. We found the presence of HPV in 66/102 (65%) of our samples, while EBV is present in 41/102 (40%) of the cohort. Additionally, our data showed that high-risk HPV types (52, 35, 58, 45, 16 and 51) are the most frequent in breast cancer in Lebanese women. Meanwhile, we report that high-risk HPVs and EBV are co-present in 30/102 (29%) of the samples; more significantly, our results indicate that their co-presence is associated with tumor grade (p = 0.03). Our data revealed that HPVs and EBV are present/co-present in human breast cancer where they may play an important role in its development and/or progression; thus, we believe that further investigations are essential to confirm and elucidate the presence/co-presence of these oncoviruses and the underlying mechanisms of their interaction in breast carcinogenesis.

Given that recordings of wars, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and other tragic and catastrophic events have become commonplace and ubiquitous in the modern mediated world, this paper questions the importance and role of the media as a mediator in distributing these recordings to the public. The role of the media in providing credible information in situations of crisis is very important, but also difficult, especially when it comes to live reporting, when there is no possibility to control the situation and when no one can know whether we will see death or hear it live. The paper uses a case study of two regional news televisions (N1 and Al Jazeera Balkans) reporting on the earthquake in Petrinja (Croatia), to show the weight of dilemmas and challenges that a journalist faces when he experiences, sees, and records a tragic event, and must report about it immediately - ethically, professionally and objectively. The aim of the paper is therefore to point out the reality of the journalistic profession in which sometimes, not with the intention of relativizing journalistic objectivity, there may still be a gap between ideals and practice.

This thesis presents new wearable sensing platforms, prepared using an array of microstructures, for detecting health and disease biomarkers. Glucose is a biomarker routinely detected/monitored by diabetic patients when using a painful and invasive procedure. The developed platforms offer user-friendly devices that can continuously monitor glucose found in skin interstitial fluid, or sweat, in a safe and non-invasive way. A second type of wearable platform detects a breast cancer biomarker, also found in interstitial fluid, reliably in short time and can be implemented in cancer diagnostics due to its simplicity and affordability.

ABSTRACT Although diverse European policy initiatives have been developed to integrate young NEETs – “Not in Employment, Education or Training”, it is particularly relevant to question how NEETs are perceived by their counterparts who are actively engaged in society. For this reason, we aimed to examine the Social Representations (SRs) of NEETs in France, using the classic free evocation technique. French NEETs (n = 71) and matched controls (n = 66; people employed, in education or in training) were interviewed. Results showed the scope of SRs for the semantic field of the term NEET and its associated terms. The need to develop effective communication to talk about work, education, and training with NEETs and implications for career counselling are discussed.

We present phenomenological study of the most minimal realistic SU(5) model that owns its predictivity solely to the gauge symmetry and the representational content. The model is built entirely out of the fields residing in the first five lowest dimensional representations that transform non-trivially under the SU(5) gauge group. It has eighteen real parameters and fourteen phases, all in all, to address experimental observables of the Standard Model fermions and accomplishes that via simultaneous use of three different mass generation mechanisms. Furthermore, it inextricably links the origin of the neutrino mass to the experimentally observed difference between the down-type quark and charged lepton masses. The main predictions of the model are that (i) the neutrinos are Majorana particles, (ii) one neutrino is massless, (iii) the neutrinos have normal mass ordering, and (iv) there are four new scalar multiplets at or below a 120TeV mass scale. A one-loop analysis demonstrates that an improvement of the current p→ πe partial lifetime limit by a factor of 2, 15, and 96 would require these four scalar multiplets to reside at or below the 100TeV, 10TeV, and 1TeV mass scales, respectively.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: The investigation of auditory cognitive processes recently moved from strictly controlled, trial-based paradigms toward the presentation of continuous speech. This also allows the investigation of listening effort on larger time scales (i.e., sustained listening effort). Here, we investigated the modulation of sustained listening effort by a noise reduction algorithm as applied in hearing aids in a listening scenario with noisy continuous speech. The investigated directional noise reduction algorithm mainly suppresses noise from the background. Design: We recorded the pupil size and the EEG in 22 participants with hearing loss who listened to audio news clips in the presence of background multi-talker babble noise. We estimated how noise reduction (off, on) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR; +3 dB, +8 dB) affect pupil size and the power in the parietal EEG alpha band (i.e., parietal alpha power) as well as the behavioral performance. Results: Our results show that noise reduction reduces pupil size, while there was no significant effect of the SNR. It is important to note that we found interactions of SNR and noise reduction, which suggested that noise reduction reduces pupil size predominantly under the lower SNR. Parietal alpha power showed a similar yet nonsignificant pattern, with increased power under easier conditions. In line with the participants’ reports that one of the two presented talkers was more intelligible, we found a reduced pupil size, increased parietal alpha power, and better performance when people listened to the more intelligible talker. Conclusions: We show that the modulation of sustained listening effort (e.g., by hearing aid noise reduction) as indicated by pupil size and parietal alpha power can be studied under more ecologically valid conditions. Mainly concluded from pupil size, we demonstrate that hearing aid noise reduction lowers sustained listening effort. Our study approximates to real-world listening scenarios and evaluates the benefit of the signal processing as can be found in a modern hearing aid.

Com a evolucao da tecnologia, os meios eletronicos de contratacao se tornaram praticas comerciais usuais. No caso dos contratos bancarios realizados pelos consumidores diretamente no autoatendimento dos bancos, por exemplo, a apresentacao de telas, por vezes, e o unico meio pelo qual as instituicoes financeiras tem para comprovar contratacoes. Embora atualmente a tecnologia esteja extremamente avancada – inclusive com a implementacao de Inteligencia Artificial pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal – ainda muitos magistrados resistem em aceitar estas telas sistemicas como prova. O objetivo desta pesquisa e discutir o acolhimento de provas digitais em acoes judiciais, especialmente no direito bancario. Como metodologia de estudo sera utilizado metodo hermeneutico e bibliografico, com pesquisa das obras relacionadas ao tema objeto de estudo, e dedutivo. Como resultado da pesquisa demonstrou-se que a utilizacao de provas digitais bancarias e segura, pois a manipulacao de dados internos, alem de ilegais, podem gerar diversos danos com relacao a credibilidade das instituicoes financeiras, fato que, obviamente, nao e de interesse destas.

We report a case of recurrent painful and disabling granulomatous flexor tenosynovitis of the right wrist in 50-year-old female patient. The proper diagnosis was made ex juvantibus after repeated cultivation of Mycobacteria yielded negative results and local disease control was surgically unsuccessful. It was then decided to start at first with oral Clarithromycin at 500mg 2x daily during 6-month period throughout which there was no sign of local recurrence. However, synovectomy had to be performed 3 times in total during the period of two years. While the noninfectious causes were excluded, and infectious agent was not to be determined, the decision was made to administer full anti-tuberculosis medication therapy. At about the same time, we were finally able to obtain a positive Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture after a sudden onset of right axillary lymphadenitis, but only two and half years from the occurrence of first symptoms related to right wrist tenosynovitis.

Self‐rating scales are frequently used to screen for anxiety and depression in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Different cutoff values are recommended in literature, and guidelines have suggested the use of other screening instruments over time. The aim of this study was to assess the correlation between the most commonly used psychological screening instruments for anxiety and depression in IBS and to compare custom cutoff scores for these instruments.

Introduction: Rapid-onset obesity, hypoventilation, hypothalamic dysfunction and autonomic dysregulation (ROHHAD) is a rare syndrome beginning at 3-6 years of age with approximately 150 cases described. Additional features include eye abnormalities, neurobehavioral dysfunction and paraneoplastic tumors. The etiology of the complex phenotype remains unknown. Methods: This study aims to investigate the genetic landscape of this complex phenotype by whole exome sequencing (WES) and copy number variation (CNV) analysis. We recruited 33 families (27 trios, 1 duo and 5 singletons) with a proband with ROHHAD syndrome (Ize-Ludlow 2007, Pediatrics). WES of 89 individuals was performed at the Center for Mendelian Genomics, Broad Institute. The Illumina platform with a mean coverage of ~100X (> 90% targets 20x) and Infinium Global Screening Array BeadChip 24v1.0 were used. Results: This report includes 28 probands (female = 18, 64%) with rapid onset obesity (100%), hypoventilation (88%), hypothalamic dysfunction (69%), eye disorders (62%) and neurobehavioral abnormalities (76%). Neuroendocrine tumor, ganglioneuroblastoma, was present in 38% (n=13). No unifying causative single gene or CNV was identified, but a number of sequence variants are prioritized. ARNT2, which encodes for a helix-loop-helix transcription factor, plays a role in the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, postnatal brain growth, and visual and renal function. The de novo monoallelic missense variant was found in a 14-year old white girl (BMIz +3.25) with extreme obesity and a neurobehavioral phenotype. OCRL1, a multi-domain protein involved in cytoskeleton-plasma membrane adhesion, endosomal trafficking and in primary cilium assembly. Mutations in this gene have also been known to cause Lowe syndrome. A hemizygous X-linked frameshift variant in a 5-year old white boy with extreme obesity (BMIz +5.48), central hypoventilation neurobehavioral dysfunction and ganglioneuroblastoma. A monoallelic missense variant in NSD1, a transcriptional intermediary factor acting as a histone methyltransferase, was identified in a 8-year old Hispanic girl with severe obesity (BMIz +2.91), neurobehavioral disorder, pituitary and eye dysfunction and ganglioneuroblastoma. NSD1 is known to cause Sotos and Beckwith-Wiedemann. Compound heterozygous variants in KIF7, a key component of the Hedgehog signaling pathway, were identified in a 14-year old white girl with severe obesity (BMIz +3.00), autistic behavior, pituitary dysfunction and central hypoventilation. This gene is known to cause autosomal recessive hydrolethalis and acroscallosal syndromes with mutations also noted in Bardet-Biedl, Meckel and Joubert syndromes. Conclusion: While no unifying genetic cause has been identified in ROHHAD syndrome, it is possible that the phenotype represents a collection of complex genetic syndromes.

The paper shows a comparison of the three different methods to determine stress and strain in a U-shaped pipe compensator which is used to decrease stress in long pipes due to the constrained temperature dilatations. The stress and strain are analyzed analytically first with some parts of the analytical solution obtained numerically, such as integrals with no analytical solution in a closed form, i.e., functional series can be involved as a tool to solve those integrals. The pipe is analyzed as a beam or a planar frame using the Castigliano's method to determine displacements. Since there are curved parts of the U compensator, the curved beam theory is applied. The alternative method to determine the strains and stresses along the pipe is shown using the numerical simulations in SolidWorks. The results are compared with the analytical solution. Finally, the experimental method using a 3D scanner is involved for a comparison to check the applied conditions in the analytical and the simulation model.

Replication is an important tool used to test and develop scientific theories. Areas of biomedical and psychological research have experienced a replication crisis, in which many published findings failed to replicate. Following this, many other scientific disciplines have been interested in the robustness of their own findings. This chapter examines replication in primate cognitive studies. First, it discusses the frequency and success of replication studies in primate cognition and explores the challenges researchers face when designing and interpreting replication studies across the wide range of research designs used across the field. Next, it discusses the type of research that can probe the robustness of published findings, especially when replication studies are difficult to perform. The chapter concludes with a discussion of different roles that replication can have in primate cognition research.