Project description:Rothmund-Thomson syndrome (RTS) is a genodermatosis presenting with a characteristic facial rash (poikiloderma) associated with short stature, sparse scalp hair, sparse or absent eyelashes and/or eyebrows, juvenile cataracts, skeletal abnormalities, radial ray defects, premature aging and a predisposition to cancer. The prevalence is unknown but around 300 cases have been reported in the literature so far. The diagnostic hallmark is facial erythema, which spreads to the extremities but spares the trunk, and which manifests itself within the first year and then develops into poikiloderma. Two clinical subforms of RTS have been defined: RTSI characterised by poikiloderma, ectodermal dysplasia and juvenile cataracts, and RTSII characterised by poikiloderma, congenital bone defects and an increased risk of osteosarcoma in childhood and skin cancer later in life. The skeletal abnormalities may be overt (frontal bossing, saddle nose and congenital radial ray defects), and/or subtle (visible only by radiographic analysis). Gastrointestinal, respiratory and haematological signs have been reported in a few patients. RTS is transmitted in an autosomal recessive manner and is genetically heterogeneous: RTSII is caused by homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations in the RECQL4 helicase gene (detected in 60-65% of RTS patients), whereas the aetiology in RTSI remains unknown. Diagnosis is based on clinical findings (primarily on the age of onset, spreading and appearance of the poikiloderma) and molecular analysis for RECQL4 mutations. Missense mutations are rare, while frameshift, nonsense mutations and splice-site mutations prevail. A fully informative test requires transcript analysis not to overlook intronic deletions causing missplicing. The diagnosis of RTS should be considered in all patients with osteosarcoma, particularly if associated with skin changes. The differential diagnosis should include other causes of childhood poikiloderma (including dyskeratosis congenita, Kindler syndrome and Poikiloderma with Neutropaenia), other rare genodermatoses with prominent telangiectasias (including Bloom syndrome, Werner syndrome and Ataxia-telangiectasia) and the allelic disorders, RAPADILINO syndrome and Baller-Gerold syndrome, which also share some clinical features. A few mutations recur in all three RECQL4 diseases. Genetic counselling should be provided for RTS patients and their families, together with a recommendation for cancer surveillance for all patients with RTSII. Patients should be managed by a multidisciplinary team and offered long term follow-up. Treatment includes the use of pulsed dye laser photocoagulation to improve the telangiectatic component of the rash, surgical removal of the cataracts and standard treatment for individuals who develop cancer. Although some clinical signs suggest precocious aging, life expectancy is not impaired in RTS patients if they do not develop cancer. Outcomes in patients with osteosarcoma are similar in RTS and non-RTS patients, with a five-year survival rate of 60-70%. The sensitivity of RTS cells to genotoxic agents exploiting cells with a known RECQL4 status is being elucidated and is aimed at optimizing the chemotherapeutic regimen for osteosarcoma.
Project description:BackgroundStanley Milgram's 1960s experimental findings that people would administer apparently lethal electric shocks to a stranger at the behest of an authority figure remain critical for understanding obedience. Yet, due to the ethical controversy that his experiments ignited, it is nowadays impossible to carry out direct experimental studies in this area. In the study reported in this paper, we have used a similar paradigm to the one used by Milgram within an immersive virtual environment. Our objective has not been the study of obedience in itself, but of the extent to which participants would respond to such an extreme social situation as if it were real in spite of their knowledge that no real events were taking place.MethodologyFollowing the style of the original experiments, the participants were invited to administer a series of word association memory tests to the (female) virtual human representing the stranger. When she gave an incorrect answer, the participants were instructed to administer an 'electric shock' to her, increasing the voltage each time. She responded with increasing discomfort and protests, eventually demanding termination of the experiment. Of the 34 participants, 23 saw and heard the virtual human, and 11 communicated with her only through a text interface.ConclusionsOur results show that in spite of the fact that all participants knew for sure that neither the stranger nor the shocks were real, the participants who saw and heard her tended to respond to the situation at the subjective, behavioural and physiological levels as if it were real. This result reopens the door to direct empirical studies of obedience and related extreme social situations, an area of research that is otherwise not open to experimental study for ethical reasons, through the employment of virtual environments.
Project description:Rothmund-Thomson syndrome (RTS) is a rare autosomal recessive trait disease. It is characterised by skin, eye and skeletal abnormalities. Abnormalities associated with teeth include abnormal crown and root formations, rudimentary or hypoplastic teeth, microdontia and multiple missing teeth. In the present case, there were multiple decayed primary teeth and multiple congenitally missing permanent teeth. Mandibular left primary first molar (tooth 74) was pulpally involved and obturated with mineral trioxide ggregate. Follow-up after 2?years revealed successful obturation.
Project description:A novel configuration of the multi-pass Thomson scattering (TS) system is proposed to improve the time resolution and accuracy of electron temperature measurements by use of a polarization control technique. This configuration can realize a perfect coaxial multi-passing at each pass, and the number of round trips is not limited by the optical configuration. To confirm the feasibility of the new method, we installed this system in the GAMMA 10 plasma system. As a result, the integrated scattering signal of the double-pass configuration is about two times larger than that of the single-pass configuration. These results are in good agreement with the design.