Paleolithic Personal Ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave: The Formation of Early Symbolism and Its Regional Features in Northeast China

This article presents the results of a comparative study of personal ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave in the interregional and regional context of the formation of modern behavior. Xiaogushan is a Paleolithic and Neolithic site in Northeast China. In the Upper Paleolithic layers of the site, apart from tools, personal ornaments were found— pendants made from animal teeth, and a decorated bone disc. The date of the site is a matter of debate; ornaments from layers 2 and 3 date to ~30 ka BP. Like other bone artifacts (harpoon, needles, point), and together with types of stone tools and lithic technology, they mirror the local process of Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. We focus on similarities between the Xiaogushan ornaments and Upper Paleolithic pendants from northern China and Eurasia in general, attesting to modern behavior during the transitional period and being an important marker of the spread of Upper Paleolithic innovations from the centers to the periphery. Xiaogushan is the fi rst Upper Paleolithic industry in Northeast China known to date, and demonstrates skills and symbolic behavior typical of the initial Upper Paleolithic. The Xiaogushan pendants follow the general tendencies, while being specifi c markers of the evolution of symbolic behavior in Eastern Eurasia.

Carcinoma Showing Thymus-Like Differentiation (CASTLE): A Rare Tumor of the Thyroid

Carcinoma showing thymus-like differentiation (CASTLE) is a rare neoplasm of the thyroid or the adjacent tissues in the neck. It was first described by Miyauchi et al. in 1985 as an intrathyroidal epithelial thymoma. In 1991 Chan and Rosai classified these tumors into four types including CASTLE. World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as an independent clinicopathologic entity in 2004. The tumor arises from ectopic thymus tissue or remnants of branchial pouch. Both sexes are affected similarly with a slight female dominance. It is usually encountered in the fourth and fifth decades of life. It does not have specific symptoms or radiologic findings which makes preoperative diagnosis difficult. It has a higher tendency to be located in the lower poles of thyroid lobes. Immunohistochemistry helps differentiate it from other malignant neoplasms, CD5 being an important marker. The tumor is negative for thyroid specific markers as thyroglobulin, TTF-1 or calcitonin. Surgery is considered the mainstream therapy. Radiotherapy may be reserved for gross disease or recurrence. The role of chemotherapy is unclear. The prognosis of CASTLE is favourable.

Long COVID Syndrome Presenting as Hyperferritenemia Associated Toxic Encephalopathy in a Deferoxamine Compliant Patient of Beta Thalassemia

Ferritin overload is a frequent problem encountered in patients with beta thalassemia amounting to various complications. One of rare but important complication of ferritin overload is ferritin overload induced toxic encephalopathy. Serum ferritin has been recognised as a important marker of inflammation and cytokine storm in COVID19.We present a case of Long COVID syndrome presenting as toxic encephalopathy in a case of beta thalassemia in spite of the patient being compliant to desferroxamine therapy.This report highlights the synergistic effect of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus. 2(SARS CoV 2) mediated neuroinflammation through direct viral invasion and the release of inflammatory cytokines including ferritin resulting in toxic encephalopathy in a beta thalassemia major patient who was already prone to develop hyperferritenemia.Ferritin functions as a pro-inflammatory cytokine and it’s level increases in both thalassemia and COVID-19 and the index case presented here had both the conditions predisoposing him to develop toxic encephalopathy even after being compliant to deferoxamine therapy. It is important to recognise and treat this condition in order to prevent mortality and morbidity in patients of beta thalassemia who contract COVID19.

Portrait of an Etruscan Athletic Official: A Multi-Analytical Study of a Painted Terracotta Wall Panel

The Getty’s Etruscan painted terracotta wall panel, Athletic Official, recently has been speculated to be associated with a Caeretan wall panel depicting a Discobolus based on a shared iconography. To better understand the materials and techniques used to create the Getty panel and investigate its relation to extant Etruscan painted terracotta panels, a multi-analytical study was conducted, using broadband visible, IR, and UV imaging, along with scanning MA-XRF, FORS, Raman, SEM-EDS, and XRD analytical techniques. The analytical results together with PCA analysis suggest the clay support of the Getty panel is most similar in composition to that of panels from Cerveteri. A manganese black was identified in the decorative scheme; not commonly employed, this appears to be an important marker for the workshop practice in Cerveteri. Most significantly, the use of MA-XRF scanning allowed for invisible ruling lines on the Athletic Official, presumably laid down at the earliest stages of the creation of the panel, to be visualized. Taken together, the results of this study provide new insights into Caeretan workshop practice as well as provide a framework for better understanding the design and execution of Etruscan polychromy.

Hungarian cultural and linguistic borrowings in the folk tradition of Burgenland Croats in Hungary and Slovakia

The work which forms the bulk of the present study was carried out on the basis of numerous pieces of field material collected by means of an ethnolinguistic questionnaire in villages inhabited by Burgenland Croats in Western Hungary and Southern Slovakia (where part of the Hungarian territory was annexed after World War II). The field data contain a number of latent and obvious borrowings from Hungarian folk culture. By latent borrowings we mean cultural phenomena that were initially feebly expressed in a particular tradition (and tended to be lost), but during long coexistence with a neighboring heterogeneous tradition they were eventually maintained due to the developed state of the similar phenomena in the neighboring population. We also include here cultural phenomena that are typical of both traditions and have deep roots in the universal model of the naive world view. Analyzing the popular culture and dialects of enclave villages of Burgenland Croats in Hungary and Slovakia, we show that traditional folk culture with the corresponding vocabulary nevertheless acts as an important marker of identity for the population living in a foreign language environment.

Cellular Resilience as a Potential Predictor of Lifespan

The progressive decline of resilience during the aging process across multiple functional systems suggests basic biological mechanisms of regulation. We exploited a primary cell model to identify markers of cellular resilience or the ability of cells in culture to respond and return to homeostasis following acute challenge including metabolic, oxidative, or proteostatic stress. Using primary fibroblasts from minimally-invasive skin biopsies of genetically heterogeneous mice, we are able to determine individual cellular resilience as well as the normal lifespan and healthspan of each donor. Our studies suggest donor age and sex affect cellular resilience and that this measure of resilience can predict functional outcomes in some interventional studies. While longevity studies continue, these studies point to a potential highly important marker of healthspan and longevity as well as a model to delineate the biology of resilience in animal and translational models.

Proteomic profiling of MIS-C patients indicates heterogeneity relating to interferon gamma dysregulation and vascular endothelial dysfunction

Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) is a major complication of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in pediatric patients. Weeks after an often mild or asymptomatic initial infection with SARS-CoV-2 children may present with a severe shock-like picture and marked inflammation. Children with MIS-C present with varying degrees of cardiovascular and hyperinflammatory symptoms. Here we perform a comprehensive analysis of the plasma proteome of more than 1400 proteins in children with SARS-CoV-2. We hypothesize that the proteome would reflect heterogeneity in hyperinflammation and vascular injury, and further identify pathogenic mediators of disease. We show that protein signatures demonstrate overlap between MIS-C, and the inflammatory syndromes macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA). We demonstrate that PLA2G2A is an important marker of MIS-C that associates with TMA. We find that IFNγ responses are dysregulated in MIS-C patients, and that IFNγ levels delineate clinical heterogeneity.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FETAL ADRENAL GLAND BIOMETRY AND CERVICAL LENGTH AS A PREDICTOR OF PRETERM BIRTH

Background: Preterm birth is an important challenge in obstetrics and contemporary perinatology in India. Timely recognition, intervention and appropriate management is integral in curbing the upsurge in its incidence and consequent poor perinatal outcome. This study was conducted taking into account the potential mechanism of preterm labor: premature activation of the placental-adrenal endocrine axis wherein elevation of maternal cortisol leads to an increased production of placental corticotrophin releasing hormone which causes an increase in dehydroepiandrosterone produced by the fetal zone of the adrenal gland and its enlargement. This activates a cascade leading to early loss of uterine quiescence, consequently causing cervical modelling, ripening and preterm birth. Aim and Objectives: To assess fetal adrenal gland volume, fetal zone enlargement and cervical length on ultrasound and compare their efficacy in the prediction of preterm birth. Methods: This was a hospital based prospective study in which pregnant women with an uncomplicated live singleton pregnancy between 28 to 34 weeks of gestation were subjected to obstetric ultrasonography wherein fetal adrenal gland volume, fetal zone enlargement and cervical length was measured. They were then followed up until their delivery, whether term or preterm and its correlation with fetal adrenal gland parameters and cervical length was assessed. Result: Corrected fetal adrenal gland volume showed the highest sensitivity of 90.0% and a specificity of 96.7% with a cut off value of 632.50 mm3/kg while fetal zone enlargement showed a sensitivity and specificity of 72.7% and 60.9% respectively. Cervical length was found to be the least important marker for predicting the preterm birth as having the least AUC as 0.209, sensitivity as 36.4 % and specificity as 76.1%. Conclusion: This study concludes that fetal adrenal gland biometry can be used as a noninvasive, cost effective and potential new marker for the prediction of preterm birth and is a better predictor than cervical length. Keywords: Preterm, Cervical length, Adrenal biometry.

Measurement of Intima-Media Thickness Depending on Intima Media Complex Segmentation by Deep Neural Networks

Intima Media Thickness (IMT) of the carotid artery is an important marker indicating the sign of cardiovascular disease. Automated measurement of IMT requires segmentation of intima media complex (IMC).Traditional methods which use shape, color and texture for classification have poor generalization capability. This paper proposes two models- the pipeline model and the end-to-end model using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and auto encoder–decoder network respectively. CNN architecture is implemented and tested by varying the number of convolutional layer, size of the kernel as well as the number of kernels. Auto encoder–decoder performs pixel wise classification using two interconnected pathways for identifying the boundary of lumen-intima (LI) and media adventitia (MA). This helps in reconstruction of the segmented portion for measurement of IMT. Both methods are tested using a dataset of 550 subjects. The results clearly indicate that end-to-end model has an edge over the pipeline model exhibiting lesser deviation between the automated measurement and the measurement made by the radiologist. The pipeline model however has better segmentation accuracy when the size of the image used for training is small. The convolutional neural network with auto encoder–decoder proves robust through sparse representation, and faster learning with better generalization. Also, the experimental setup is analyzed by interconnecting Tensor flow simulated result with Raspberry PI and the outcomes are analyzed.