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Item does not contain fulltext, ALK-positive histiocytosis is a rare subtype of histiocytic neoplasm first described in 2008 in 3 infants with multisystemic disease involving the liver and hematopoietic system. This entity has subsequently been documented in case reports and series to occupy a wider clinicopathologic spectrum with recurrent KIF5B-ALK fusions. The full clinicopathologic and molecular spectra of ALK-positive histiocytosis remain, however, poorly characterized. Here, we describe the largest study of ALK-positive histiocytosis to date, with detailed clinicopathologic data of 39 cases, including 37 cases with confirmed ALK rearrangements. The clinical spectrum comprised distinct clinical phenotypic groups: infants with multisystemic disease with liver and hematopoietic involvement, as originally described (Group 1A: 6/39), other patients with multisystemic disease (Group 1B: 10/39), and patients with single-system disease (Group 2: 23/39). Nineteen patients of the entire cohort (49%) had neurologic involvement (7 and 12 from Groups 1B and 2, respectively). Histology included classic xanthogranuloma features in almost one-third of cases, whereas the majority displayed a more densely cellular, monomorphic appearance without lipidized histiocytes but sometimes more spindled or epithelioid morphology. Neoplastic histiocytes were positive for macrophage markers and often conferred strong expression of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase, confirming MAPK pathway activation. KIF5B-ALK fusions were detected in 27 patients, whereas CLTC-ALK, TPM3-ALK, TFG-ALK, EML4-ALK, and DCTN1-ALK fusions were identified in single cases. Robust and durable responses were observed in 11/11 patients treated with ALK inhibition, 10 with neurologic involvement. This study presents the existing clinicopathologic and molecular landscape of ALK-positive histiocytosis and provides guidance for the clinical management of this emerging histiocytic entity.

Soil salinity affects various crop cultivation but legumes are the most sensitive to salinity. Osmotic stress is the first stage of salinity stress caused by excess salts in the soil on plants which adversely affects the growth instantly. The Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) genes play a key role in the regulation of abiotic stresses resistance from the high expression of different isoform. Selected genotypes were evaluated to estimate for salt tolerance as well as genetic variability at morphological and molecular level. Allelic variations were identified in some of the selected genotypes for the TPS gene. A comprehensive analysis of the TPS gene from selected genotypes was conducted. Presence of significant genetic variability among the genotypes was found for salinity tolerance. This is the first report of allelic variation of TPS gene from chickpea and results indicates that the SNPs present in these conserved regions may contribute largely to functional distinction. The nucleotide sequence analysis suggests that the TPS gene sequences were found to be conserved among the genotypes. Some selected genotypes were evaluated to estimate for salt tolerance as well as for comparative analysis of physiological, molecular and allelic variability for salt responsive gene Trehalose-6-Phosphate Synthase through sequence similarity. Allelic variations were identified in some selected genotypes for the TPS gene. It is found that Pusa362, Pusa1103, and IG5856 are the most salt-tolerant lines and the results indicates that the identified genotypes can be used as a reliable donor for the chickpea improvement programs for salinity tolerance.

Introduction: Residential aged care facility (RACF) residents frequently present to the emergency department (ED) and are often admitted to hospital. Some presentations and admissions may be avoidable. In 2013, Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital introduced a subacute geriatric outreach service (SGOS), which had little impact on reducing ED presentations. In 2015, Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital introduced an acute geriatric outreach service (AGOS), a geriatrician-led team that assesses and treats acutely unwell patients in RACFs. We aim to determine whether the AGOS reduces the risk of hospital admission for RACF residents. Methods: Hospital admissions data from 2010 to 2019 were used to conduct an interrupted time series (ITS) analysis. AGOS activity data were also summarized. Results: The average number of admissions from RACF per month declined from 42.8 during the SGOS period to 27.1 during the AGOS period. The difference of 15.7 admissions from RACF per month was statistically significant (95% CI 12.1–19.2; P <.001). After the introduction of the AGOS, the risk of admission to our geriatric department from RACFs was reduced by 36.1% (incidence rate ratio =0.64; 95% CI: 0.58–0.71; P <.001) compared to the SGOS period, adjusting for seasonality. Discussion: The AGOS probably reduced the risk of hospital admission for RACF residents.

We report an experimental investigation of the electronic structure and magnetic properties of bulk and nanosized MnCo2O4 diluted with Zn. The cationic distribution for tetrahedral A-site dilution is (Co1-yA2+ZnyA2+)(A)[Mn3+Co3+](B)O-4 +/-delta, whereas B-site dilution results in (Co2+)(A)[Mn1-xB3+ZnxB2+Co3+](B)O4-delta. The strength of exchange interaction J(ij) between the magnetic ions in a bulk spinel lattice decreases by similar to 15% for A-site dilution relative to the undiluted compound; however, B-site dilution results in an enhancement in J(ij) by 17%. The frequency and temperature dependence of dynamic-susceptibility [chi(ac)(f, T)] studies of nanostructured compounds reveals the existence of spin-glass like behavior below the freezing temperature T-F similar to 125.7 K (for x(B) = 0.2) and 154.3 K (y(A) = 0.1). Relaxation time tau follows the Power-Law variation with a dynamical critical exponent zv = 6.17 and microscopic spin relaxation time tau(o) = 4.4 x 10(-15) s for x(B) = 0.2 (for y(A) = 0.1, zv = 5.2 and tau(o) = 5.4 x 10(-13) s). The amplitude and peak position in chi(ac)(T) decreases with an increase in the DC bias field, which indicates that the spin-glass phase can survive in the presence of low fields forming a critical line with an exponent 2/3. This behavior is similar to the de Almeida-Thouless (AT-line) analysis in the T-H phase diagram which supports the existence of spin-glass like behavior below T-F in these Zn diluted spinels.

The kinetics of the self-assembly of supramolecular polymers is dictated by how monomers, dimers, trimers etc., attach to and detach from each other. It is for this reasons that researchers have proposed a plethora of pathways to explain the kinetics of various self-assembling supramolecules, including sulfur, linear micelles, living polymers and protein fibrils. Recent observations hint at the importance of a hitherto ignored molecular aggregation pathway that we refer to as “body evaporation and addition”. In this pathway, monomers can enter at or dissociate from any point along the backbone of the polymer. In this paper, we compare predictions for the well-established end evaporation and addition pathway with those that we obtained for the newly proposed body evaporation and addition model. We quantify the lag time, characteristic of nucleated reversible polymerisation, in terms of the time it takes to obtain half of the steady-state polymerised fraction and the apparent growth rate at that point, and obtain power laws for both as a function of the total monomer concentration. We find, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, that the body evaporation and addition pathway speeds up the relaxation of the polymerised monomeric mass relative to that of the end evaporation and addition. However, the presence of the body evaporation and addition pathway does not affect the dependence of the lag time on the total monomer concentration and it remains the same as that for the case of end evaporation and addition. The scaling of the lag time with the forward rate is different for the two models, suggesting that they may be distinguished experimentally.

We report the low-temperature anomalous magnetic behavior of ferrimagnetic spinels cobalt orthotitanate (Co2TiO4), which exhibits magnetic compensation behavior across 31.74 K, and cobalt orthostannate (Co2SnO4) exhibiting two sequential magnetic transitions, namely (i) ferrimagnetic to paramagnetic transition with Neel temperature T-N similar to 41 K and reentrant spin-glass behavior with glass transition temperature T-SG similar to 39 K. The Arrott plot (H/M versus M-2) criterion has been used to extricate the order of sequential magnetic transitions occurring below TN. Negative slopes of the Arrott plots below 32 K, metamagnetic-like character of the M-H isotherms, anomalies in the specific-heat (C-P T-1 versus T) below 15 K, and a zero-crossover of isothermal magnetic-entropychange (Delta S) signify the presence of pseudo first-order discontinuous magnetic phase transition in the low-temperature regime 5K <= T <= 32 K. The dc- and ac-susceptibilities of both Co2TiO4 and Co2SnO4 are interpreted in terms of frozen-spin-clusters, which are responsible for very large magnitudes of the coercivity H-C similar to 20 kOe and bipolar-exchange bias H-EB similar to -20 kOe observed below 10 K.

Protein aggregation is of great importance in biology, e.g., in amyloid fibrillation. The aggregation processes that occur at the cellular scale must be highly stochastic in nature because of the statistical number fluctuations that arise on account of the small system size at the cellular scale. We study the nucleated reversible self-assembly of monomeric building blocks into polymer-like aggregates using the method of kinetic Monte Carlo. Kinetic Monte Carlo, being inherently stochastic, allows us to study the impact of fluctuations on the polymerization reactions. One of the most important characteristic features in this kind of problem is the existence of a lag phase before self-assembly takes off, which is what we focus attention on. We study the associated lag time as a function of system size and kinetic pathway. We find that the leading order stochastic contribution to the lag time before polymerization commences is inversely proportional to the system volume for large-enough system size for all nine reaction pathways tested. Finite-size corrections to this do depend on the kinetic pathway

Corrosion inhibition of N80 steel in a 15% HCl solution was studied using two synthesized triazine derivatives, namely: N2-(4-(2-amino-6-(4-methoxyphenyl)pyrimidine-4-yl)phenyl)-N4,N6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triamine (APTT) and N2-(4-(5-(4-methoxyphenyl)isoxazol-3-yl)phenyl)-N4,N6-diphenyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triamine (MITT) using gravimetric measurement, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. The inhibition efficiency was found to increase with increasing inhibitor concentrations and decreases with increasing temperatures. Some thermodynamic and kinetic parameters were calculated and discussed. The adsorption of inhibitor on N80 steel surface, obeyed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Polarization studies showed that both inhibitors behave as mixed-type inhibitors. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), FTIR, UV–visible spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were performed for surface analysis of the uninhibited and inhibited N80 steel samples. The density functional theory (DFT) was employed for theoretical calculations and the results obtained were found to be consistent with the experimental findings.