Properties of Maxentropic DNA Synthesis Codes.

Low-weight codes have been proposed for efficiently synthesizing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) for massive data storage, where a multiple of DNA strands are synthesized in parallel. We report on the redundancy and information rate of maxentropic low-weight codes for asymptotically large codeword length. We compare the performance of low-complexity nibble replacement (NR) codes, which are designed to minimize the synthesis time, with the performance of maxentropic low-weight codes.

Similar α-Synuclein staining in the colon mucosa in patients with Parkinson's disease and controls.

Background: The gut is proposed as a starting point of idiopathic IPD, but the presence of α-synuclein in the IPD colon mucosa is debated.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate if α-synuclein in the colon mucosa can serve as a biomarker of IPD.

Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to locate and quantify in a blinded approach α-synuclein in the mucosa from biopsies of the right and left colon in 19 IPD patients and 8 controls.

Intragastric Rupture of a Splenic Artery Aneurysm Associated with a Pancreatic Cancer.

Acute upper digestive tract hemorrhage most often arises from gastric and esophageal vessels located in the mucosa or the submucosa. Rupture in the upper gastrointestinal tract is a classical but uncommon complication of arterial (mainly the abdominal aorta) aneurysms. Splenic artery aneurysm usually ruptures in the peritoneum, unless it is associated with a disease eroding the gastrointestinal wall.

Colorectal cancer incidence is low in patients following a colonoscopy.

Background/aims: Colonoscopy has been proven a valuable tool in preventing colorectal cancer in controlled studies; we conducted a longitudinal confirmation study in everyday clinical practice.

Methods: In a retrospective study, we monitored the outcome of patients with a total colonoscopy at our hospital between 1994 and 2007. We analysed the data of in-house follow-up colonoscopies, a national person registry and the morphological tumour registry centralizing all histopathological data at a national level.