Platelet Rich Plasma in the Treatment of Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia

Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia (FFA) represents a form of scaring alopecia more frequent in postmenopausal women that presents with frontal hairline recession. It is typically classified as a variant of lichen planopilaris. Treatment of FFA can be challenging with poor long-term outcomes. Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) consists of an autologous concentration of platelets in a small volume of plasma. Activated platelets secrete cytokines and growth factors and thus may have a potential role in the treatment of inflammatory scarring alopecia such as FFA. A 68-year-old female with multi-resistant FFA was treated with lesional PRP injections every 4 weeks for 16 weeks. Baseline LPPAI score and phototrichograms targeting a representative area of disease activity were compared at baseline and at 16 weeks. After 16 weeks, no significant change in follicular units or follicular density from baseline to week 16 was noted. Only a minimal improvement in inflammatory activity observed clinically and through the Lichen Planopilaris Activity Index was observed. The discordance between the follicular density count and observed inflammatory activity suggests a longer treatment and observational period is needed. Additionally, the frequency of PRP injections potentially may also need to be increased. Given the limited efficacy of current therapies for FFA, PRP injections may be an option in patients with refractory disease, as an adjunct to systemic therapy. Additional investigation is needed to optimize frequency of PRP injections in FFA and to better assess its true anti-inflammatory effect.

Optimized Main Ditch Water Control for Agriculture in Northern Huaihe River Plain, Anhui Province, China, Using MODFLOW Groundwater Table Simulations

Controlled drainage by regulating the groundwater level in open ditches is necessary to ensure the normal growth of crops in Northern Huaihe River Plain, China. The groundwater model MODFLOW was calibrated and validated in a representative area, and was then conducted to simulate the groundwater under different main drainage ditch water depth control schemes during the growth period of corn and wheat. Then the scenario with highest water depth (Scenario 20) from 1989 to 2019 was simulated, and the annual cumulative drought and waterlogging intensity (ACDWI) were analyzed in each decade and in different hydrological years. The results showed that the study area was dominated by drought stress. The lowest level of drought stress was achieved under Scenario 20. The frequency of drought gradually decreased from north to south in the study area. Moreover, the ACDWI decreased with increase of precipitation during 1989 to 2019. The results indicated that it was important to store water during the dry season, while it is also necessary to control the drainage in the rainy season to drain excess water on time. The results suggested that the water depth of the main drainage ditch should be regulated by zoning and by season to alleviate crop drought and waterlogging.

Interdisciplinary approach for qualitatively monitoring coastline dynamics in North Java Coast, Case study: Karawang Regency Indonesia

The coast of north Java is the most rapid development area among other parts of Indonesia. Since the North Java Coast is dominated by mild slope, soft-loose quaternary sediment and provoked by the sea thus the vulnerability of it is the most challenging issue to be assessed. Karawang is the representative area to investigate the scientific reason of coastal dynamics. This study aims to reveal the coastline changing based on RBI (1210-211, 1210-212, 1210-221, 1210-542, 1210-543, 1210-544 and 1210-631) and LPI (1210-04 and 1209-01) maps, hydrodynamics simulation and field measurements associated with abrasion and accretion. The equalizing procedure has been applied for a benchmark of zero coastlines that LPI and RBI data were used to observe the back and forth of coastline changing throughout 2000 and 2018. The results show five districts, Tirtajaya, Pakisjaya, Cilebar, Cibuaya and Pedes have the highest abrasion with an average magnitude of 11.3 m/year, 9.1 m/year, 6.9 m/year, 5.1 m/year and 3.7 m/year respectively within a total 489 ha disappear area. By all integrated analysis data so we can conclude that the dominated monsoonal longshore current is east to west and working on the dominantly terrigenous coastal alluvium and intercalated by carbonatic marine sediment.

A longitudinal analysis of collapsibility with predictions over the southeastern Loess Plateau in China

Loess presents very unique collapsible behaviour due to its special under-compactness, weak cementation and porousness. Many environmental issues and geological hazards including subgrade subsidences, slope collapses or failures, building cracking and so on are directly caused by the collapsible deformation of loess. Such collapsible behaviour may also severe accidents due to sinkholes, underground caves or loess gullies. Moreover, with the increasing demand of construction and development in the loess areas, an in-depth research towards effective evaluation of loess collapsibility is urged. Currently no studies have made attempts to explore a rather complete and representative area of Loess Plateau. This paper thus provides a novel approach on spatial modelling over Jin-Shan Loess Plateau as an extension to experimental studies. The in-lab experiment results have shown that shown that the porosity ratio and collapsibility follow a Gaussian distribution and a Gamma distribution respectively for both sampling areas: Yan’an and Lv Liang. This establishes the prior intuition towards spatial modelling which provides insights of potential influential factors on loess collapsibility and further sets a potential direction of the loess studies by considering an extra dimension of spatial correlation. Such modelling allows robust predictions taken into account of longitudinal information as well as structural parameters and basic physical properties. Water contents, dry densities, pressure levels and elevations of samples are determined to be statistically significant factors which affect the loess collapsibility. All regions in Lv Liang area are at risk of high collapsibility with average around 0.03, out of which roughly a third of them are predicted to be at high risk. Clear spatial patterns of higher expected collapsibility in the southwest comparing to the northeast are shown adjusting for influential covariates. On reference guidelines for potential policy makings, county-level regions with the highest expected loess collapsibility are also identified.

Extended Spatially Localized Perturbation GAN (eSLP-GAN) for Robust Adversarial Camouflage Patches

Deep neural networks (DNNs), especially those used in computer vision, are highly vulnerable to adversarial attacks, such as adversarial perturbations and adversarial patches. Adversarial patches, often considered more appropriate for a real-world attack, are attached to the target object or its surroundings to deceive the target system. However, most previous research employed adversarial patches that are conspicuous to human vision, making them easy to identify and counter. Previously, the spatially localized perturbation GAN (SLP-GAN) was proposed, in which the perturbation was only added to the most representative area of the input images, creating a spatially localized adversarial camouflage patch that excels in terms of visual fidelity and is, therefore, difficult to detect by human vision. In this study, the use of the method called eSLP-GAN was extended to deceive classifiers and object detection systems. Specifically, the loss function was modified for greater compatibility with an object-detection model attack and to increase robustness in the real world. Furthermore, the applicability of the proposed method was tested on the CARLA simulator for a more authentic real-world attack scenario.

Demographic Effects of Severe Fire in Montane Shrubland on Tasmania’s Central Plateau

Australian montane sclerophyll shrubland vegetation is widely considered to be resilient to infrequent severe fire, but this may not be the case in Tasmania. Here, we report on the vegetative and seedling regeneration response of a Tasmanian non-coniferous woody montane shrubland following a severe fire, which burned much of the Great Pine Tier in the Central Plateau Conservation Area during the 2018–2019 fire season when a historically anomalously large area was burned in central Tasmania. Our field survey of a representative area burned by severe crown fire revealed that more than 99% of the shrubland plants were top-killed, with only 5% of the burnt plants resprouting one year following the fire. Such a low resprouting rate means the resilience of the shrubland depends on seedling regeneration from aerial and soil seedbanks or colonization from plants outside the burned area. Woody species’ seedling densities were variable but generally low (25 m−2). The low number of resprouters, and reliance on seedlings for recovery, suggest the shrubland may not be as resilient to fire as mainland Australian montane shrubland, particularly given a warming climate and likely increase in fire frequency.

A PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF TRIPLE ASSESSMENT IN EVALUATION OF BREAST LUMP

Breast masses have a variety of etiologies, benign and malignant. Most masses are benign, but breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. The Study is done with an aim of assessing the added and singular dependability of modified triple testing in making a pre-procedural diagnosis of a breast lump. A random sample of 150 patients attending the surgery outpatient department was taken. Of the 150 patients presenting with breast lumps most of the lumps were painless 81.3%(n=122),10% (n=16)of the lumps were associated with pain and 8%(n=12) were associated with nipple discharge. A fine collaboration between experienced radiologists, cytologist and the Clinician is required.Ultrasound when replacing mammography serves as effective an imaging modality in palpable breast lumps and is more comprehensive.Ultrasound breast aids biopsy techniques by guidance to the representative area than increasing yield. CNB is a suitable alternative when FNA is inconclusive and may offer additional information. Thus the use of Modified Triple Test( MTT) to complement findings in differential diagnosis of a lesion in a symptomatic women seeking medical care deserves acceptance and further evolution. This may lead to less delay in treatment when malignancy is suspected and to avoidance of surgical exploration when a benign nature of lesion is suspected.

Maxillofacial lymphomas

Lymphomas affecting the bones of the jaws, although less frequent than carcinomas, can both present radiologically as carcinomas in addition to the more frequent “periapical-radiolucencies-of-inflammatory-origin” (PRIOs). Certainly those lymphomas arising within the maxillary alveolus have a short period of prior awareness before presentation, denoting an aggressive process. Half are provisionally diagnosed as carcinomas and the other half as PRIOs. Failure of the latter to respond to appropriate treatment, compels prompt and appropriate investigation for a malignancy. Further distinction of the malignancy into carcinoma and lymphoma is necessary, because the treatment of carcinomas is radical, achieved mainly by resection plus radiotherapy, whereas treatment of lymphomas relies on chemotherapy and in some cases, radiotherapy. The few reported cases that have been subject to cross-sectional imaging and reporting by radiologists has only appeared relatively recently. These cases reveal roles for cone-beam computer tomography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance (MR). Ultimately the diagnosis is dependant on a biopsy from the most representative area/s and the treatment plan upon the diagnosis and extent of the disease defined by the imaging.

Policy Windows: Sociopreneurship Activity Through Development of Turtle Breeding Ecotourism in Mapak Indah Beach

Indonesia is one of the few countries in the world which becomes a natural habitat for turtles.However, like other countries, the Indonesia’s turtle population are prone to extinction. All species of see turtles in Indonesia’s waters are protected under the Government Regulation Number 7, 1999 concerning preservation of plant and animal species. Despite having the legal status, the turtle preservation is not fully comprehended and even ignored by the number of people. The development of turtle-based ecotourism is an alternative source of income. Mapak Indah Beach is considered to be a representative area for this ecotourism activity. However, finding from tourism and ecological activities shows no satisfactory results in combining the two activities. Sociopreneurship activities in the management of the Mapak Indah Beach turtle breeding ecosystem require an in-depth study to be able to access the policy windows of the Mataram City Government (the public agenda becomes the government's agenda). Strategic policies are: (1) an increase of coordination and roles among stakeholders; 2) a capacity building for management and procurement of sarpras; and (3) an increase of knowledge and skills of the local communities.