Elimination of potentially self-reactive T lymphocytes during their maturation in the thymus has been shown to be a major mechanism in accomplishing self-tolerance. Previous reports demonstrated that clonal deletion of self-Mls-l a -specific V,36+ T lymphocytes is controlled by a radiosensitive I-E+ thymic component. Irradiation chimeras reconstituted with I-E bone marrow showed substantial num...

Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) systems have proven their usefulness in the rapid and accurate acquisition of urban environment. From generated point clouds, street furniture can be extracted classified without manual intervention. However, this process classification is not error-free, caused mainly by disturbances. This paper analyses effect three disturbances (point density variation, ambient no...

The autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITDs), comprising Graves' disease (GD) and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT), appear to develop as a result of a complex interaction between predisposing genes and environmental triggers. The goals of the present study were to identify the susceptibility loci for GD and HT and to study the relationships between them. We performed a whole genome linkage study on a da...

BACKGROUND Airway management is critical in patients with cervical spondylosis, a population with a high incidence of difficult airway. Intubation with Shikani Optical Stylet (SOS) has become increasingly popular in difficult airway. We compared the effects of intubation with SOS versus Macintosh laryngoscope (MLS) in patients undergoing surgery for cervical spondylosis. METHODS A total of 27...

Inflammatory mediators present in the tumor milieu may promote cancer progression and are considered promising targets of novel biological therapies. We previously reported that the marine antitumor agent trabectedin, approved in Europe in 2007 for soft tissue sarcomas and in 2009 for ovarian cancer, was able to downmodulate the production of selected cytokines/chemokines in immune cells. Patie...

Mobile laser scanning (MLS) is a modern and powerful technology capable of obtaining massive point clouds of objects in a short period of time. Although this technology is nowadays being widely applied in urban cartography and 3D city modelling, it has some drawbacks that need to be avoided in order to strengthen it. One of the most important shortcomings of MLS data is concerned with the fact ...

In my article The genetical theory of multilevel selection, I provided a synthesis of the theory of multilevel selection (MLS) and the theory of natural selection in class-structured populations. I framed this synthesis within Fisher's genetical paradigm, taking a strictly genetical approach to traits and fitness. I showed that this resolves a number of long-standing conceptual problems that ha...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Transcranial color-coded duplex sonography (TCCS) allows bedside imaging of intracranial hemodynamics and parenchymal structures. It provides reliable information regarding midline shift (MLS) in space-occupying hemispheric stroke. We studied the value of MLS measurement to predict fatal outcome at different time points after stroke onset. METHODS Forty-two patients wit...

The genetic background that predisposes the Japanese population to type 2 diabetes is largely unknown. Therefore, we conducted a 10-cM genome-wide scan for type 2 diabetes traits in the 359 affected individuals from 159 families, yielding 224 affected sib-pairs of Japanese origin. Nonparametric multipoint linkage analyses performed in the whole population showed one suggestive linked region on ...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to quantify volume changes in the gross target volume (GTV) during preoperative radiotherapy for extremity soft tissue sarcomas (ESTS). METHODS Twenty-seven patients with ESTS, treated with preoperative radiotherapy, were included in this study. Weekly cone-beam CT scans acquired for setup correction were used for GTV delineation in order to quantify v...