Recommendations of the Spanish Working Group on Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (GETECCU) on the use of abdominal ultrasound in inflammatory bowel disease.

Ultrasound has an excellent diagnostic performance when Crohn's disease is suspected, when performing an activity assessment, or determining the extension and location of Crohn's disease, very similar to other examinations such as MRI or CT. It has a good correlation with endoscopic lesions and allows the detection of complications such as strictures, fistulas or abscesses. It complements colonoscopy in the diagnosis and, given its tolerance, cost and immediacy, it can be considered as a good tool for disease monitoring.

Urinary bladder lipoma: an illustrative case.

Urinary bladder lipomas are rare neoplasms. Therefore, very few of them have been reported in the literature. We present a case that illustrates the typical features that allow radiologists to diagnose this entity: a solid lesion that arises from the urinary bladder wall, showing an endophytic growth and homogeneous hypoattenuation.

Intratumoral nanoplexed poly I:C BO-112 in combination with systemic anti-PD-1 for patients with anti-PD-1-refractory tumors.

Intratumoral therapies, especially Toll-like receptor agonists, can trigger both the innate and adaptive immune systems. BO-112 is a nanoplexed form of polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) that induces local and systemic immunotherapeutic effects in mouse models. In a multicenter phase 1 clinical trial, repeated intratumoral administrations of BO-112 induced an increase in tumor cell necrosis and apoptosis, as well as augmented immune reactivity according to gene expression profiling.

Repetitive patterns in rapid optical variations in the nearby black-hole binary V404 Cygni.

How black holes accrete surrounding matter is a fundamental yet unsolved question in astrophysics. It is generally believed that matter is absorbed into black holes via accretion disks, the state of which depends primarily on the mass-accretion rate. When this rate approaches the critical rate (the Eddington limit), thermal instability is supposed to occur in the inner disk, causing repetitive patterns of large-amplitude X-ray variability (oscillations) on timescales of minutes to hours.

Growth Hormone Protects the Intestine Preserving Radiotherapy Efficacy on Tumors: A Short-Term Study.

The efficacy of radiotherapy on tumors is hampered by its devastating adverse effects on healthy tissue, particularly that of the gastrointestinal tract. These effects cause acute symptoms that are so disruptive to patients that they can lead to interruption of the radiotherapy program. These adverse effects could limit the intensity of radiation received by the patient, resulting in a sublethal dose to the tumor, thus increasing the risk of tumor resistance.

Growth hormone upregulates intestinal trefoil factor expression in the ileum of rats after γ-radiation.

Growth hormone (GH) and intestinal trefoil factor (ITF) have been involved in intestinal protection and repair. This study investigates the effects of GH administration on ITF expression and histological changes associated with tissue injury in an intestinal rat model of radiation. Adult male rats were divided into four groups: control, GH, radiation and radiation + GH (GHyRAD).

Effects of mannoprotein E1 in liquid diet on inflammatory response and TLR5 expression in the gut of rats infected by Salmonella typhimurium.

Background: Mannoproteins are yeast cell wall componend, and rich in mannose. The use of foods rich in mannose as carbohydrate, could have a bioprotective effect against entrobacteria intestinal infection. Nothing is known about mannoproteins' activity in inflammatory bowel processes induced by entrobacteria.

Exogenous ghrelin regulates proliferation and apoptosis in the hypotrophic gut mucosa of the rat.

Ghrelin is the natural endogenous ligand for growth hormone secretagogue receptors. This peptide regulates energy homeostasis and expenditure and is a potential link between gut absorptive function and growth. We hypothesized that ghrelin may induce a proliferative and antiapoptotic action promoting the recovery of the hypotrophic gut mucosa.

Communications: Evidence for the role of fluctuations in the thermodynamics of nanoscale drops and the implications in computations of the surface tension.

Test-area deformations are used to analyze vapor-liquid interfaces of Lennard-Jones particles by molecular dynamics simulation. For planar vapor-liquid interfaces the change in free energy is captured by the average of the corresponding change in energy, the leading-order contribution. This is consistent with the commonly used mechanical (pressure-tensor) route for the surface tension.

Estimating errors in free energy calculations from thermodynamic integration using fitted data.

A procedure to estimate the statistical uncertainties associated with free energies computed from thermodynamic integration using fitted data is described. The method involves generating synthetic data sets from the actual simulation data and performing an analysis of the resulting distribution of free energy values. These values follow a Gaussian distribution, and the corresponding standard deviation is associated with the error in the computed value of the free energy.

Vapor-liquid interfacial properties of fully flexible Lennard-Jones chains.

We consider the computation of the interfacial properties of molecular chains from direct simulation of the vapor-liquid interface. The molecules are modeled as fully flexible chains formed from tangentially bonded monomers with truncated Lennard-Jones interactions. Four different model systems comprising of 4, 8, 12, and 16 monomers per molecule are considered.

Determination of the melting point of hard spheres from direct coexistence simulation methods.

We consider the computation of the coexistence pressure of the liquid-solid transition of a system of hard spheres from direct simulation of the inhomogeneous system formed from liquid and solid phases separated by an interface. Monte Carlo simulations of the interfacial system are performed in three different ensembles. In a first approach, a series of simulations is carried out in the isothermal-isobaric ensemble, where the solid is allowed to relax to its equilibrium crystalline structure, thus avoiding the appearance of artificial stress in the system.

Computation of surface tensions using expanded ensemble simulations.

A method for the direct simulation of the surface tension is examined. The technique is based on the thermodynamic route to the interfacial tension and makes use of the expanded ensemble simulation method for the calculation of the free energy difference between two inhomogeneous systems with the same number of particles, temperature, and volume, but different interfacial area. The method is completely general and suitable for systems with either continuous or discontinuous interactions.

System-size dependence of the free energy of crystalline solids.

We investigate the system-size dependence of the Helmholtz free energy of crystalline solids from computer simulation. We employ a standard thermodynamic integration technique along a reversible path that links the crystalline solid with a noninteracting Einstein crystal with the same structure. The key contribution to the free energy is computed by using the so-called expanded-ensemble technique and the results are compared with those obtained from conventional integration of the derivative of the free energy along the path using Gaussian-Legendre quadrature.

Right-atrial floating thrombus attached to the interatrial septum with massive pulmonary embolism diagnosed by echocardiography.

The presence of a right-atrium thrombus is considered as an unusual form of thromboembolic disease, with a prevalence of 10-18%. Most of them are located in the right-atria. Its mortality is about 45%.

The nature of the calculation of the pressure in molecular simulations of continuous models from volume perturbations.

We consider some fundamental aspects of the calculation of the pressure from simulations by performing volume perturbations. The method, initially proposed for hard-core potentials by Eppenga and Frenkel [Mol. Phys.

Computer simulation of nematic reentrance in a simple molecular model.

We report a computer simulation study of a system of parallel hard ellipsoids with attractive interactions represented by a spherically symmetric square well of range lamba. For suitable values of the results are consistent with the sequence of phases nematic (N), smectic-A (SmA), reentrant nematic (N(re)), and crystal (Cr) under pressure. Both the N-SmA and the SmA-N(re) transitions are found to be first order or continuous depending on temperature.

Density functional theory and simulation of the columnar phase of a system of parallel hard ellipsoids with attractive interactions.

A simple molecular model consisting of parallel hard oblate ellipsoids with superimposed square-well attractive interactions of variable range is considered for the study of the phase behavior of thermotropic discotic molecules. A density functional theory appropriate for nonuniform fluids is formulated in which the hard-core contributions to the free energy are treated within a nonlocal weighted-density approximation (WDA) while the attractive contributions are treated at a mean-field level. It is shown that the columnar phase becomes stable relative to the nematic phase at fluid densities for a range of values of the range of the attractive well.

Test-area simulation method for the direct determination of the interfacial tension of systems with continuous or discontinuous potentials.

A novel test-area (TA) technique for the direct simulation of the interfacial tension of systems interacting through arbitrary intermolecular potentials is presented in this paper. The most commonly used method invokes the mechanical relation for the interfacial tension in terms of the tangential and normal components of the pressure tensor relative to the interface (the relation of Kirkwood and Buff [J. Chem.

Smectic phase in a system of hard ellipsoids with isotropic attractive interactions.

The smectic phase is studied for a thermotropic fluid model consisting of aligned hard ellipsoids with superimposed square-well attractive interactions of variable range. The system is analyzed using a density functional theory in which the hard-core contributions to the free-energy functional are treated within a nonlocal weighted density approximation and the attractive contributions are considered at a mean-field level. In the absence of attractions the model reduces, under appropriate scaling, to a fluid of hard spheres and therefore does not exhibit smectic ordering.

A high-protein dietary treatment to intestinally hypotrophic rats induces ghrelin mRNA content and serum peptide level changes.

Background & Aims: Ghrelin is a peptide mainly secreted in stomach with a potent growth hormone releasing activity both in vitro and in vivo. The trophic mucosal effect of an enriched protein diet may be related with ghrelin and growth hormone plasma levels since peptides from the somatotrophic axis are well-known trophic factors. The possible relationship between nutritionally regulated active ghrelin plasma levels and the intestinal trophic effects of a high-protein diet was probed in rats with intestinal hypotrophy induced by an elemental diet.

Stability of smectic phases in the Gay-Berne model.

We present a detailed computer simulation study of the phase behavior of the Gay-Berne liquid crystal model with molecular anisotropy parameter kappa=4.4. According to previous investigations: (i) this model exhibits isotropic (I), smectic-A (Sm-A), and smectic-B (Sm-B) phases at low pressures, with an additional nematic (N) phase between the I and Sm-A phases at sufficiently high pressures; (ii) the range of stability of the Sm-A phase turns out to be essentially constant when varying the pressure, whereas other investigations seem to suggest a pressure-dependent Sm-A range; and (iii) the range of stability of the Sm-B phase remains unknown, as its stability with respect to the crystal phase has not been previously considered.

An accurate density functional theory for the vapor-liquid interface of associating chain molecules based on the statistical associating fluid theory for potentials of variable range.

A Helmholtz free energy density functional is developed to describe the vapor-liquid interface of associating chain molecules. The functional is based on the statistical associating fluid theory with attractive potentials of variable range (SAFT-VR) for the homogenous fluid [A. Gil-Villegas, A.

Protective effects of dietary enrichment with docosahexaenoic acid plus protein in 5-fluorouracil-induced intestinal injury in the rat.

Objective: The intestinal side effects of anti-tumoural therapy can be so severe as to preclude its clinical efficacy, although the use of selected nutrients and growth factors may ameliorate the noxious effects. This study examines whether dietary supplementation with the polyunsaturated fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) potentiates the protective action of growth hormone in the intestine and whether a synergetic effect occurs with dietary protein and DHA enrichment and growth hormone treatment.

Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided into nine groups and received a standard diet, or a diet supplemented with protein, or a diet supplemented with DHA, or a diet supplemented with both protein and DHA.