Chyluria presenting as milky white urine is a known presentation. But sudden and recurrent urinary retention without prior history of chyluria is very rare presentation. It also indicates the severity and tendency of passing tissue bits and clots through urine in rare cases. This case was diagnosed because of strong clinical suspicion. This case also highlights the management difficulty in these types of patients as patient had recurrent retention requiring bladder wash & had episodes of chylohematuria with chyle material and clots. This presentation is rare and adds to the list of differential diagnosis of acute retention.

Prostate cancer is usually highly androgen-dependent and exquisitely responsive to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). In addition, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) production is positively regulated by androgens.[1] Although PSA is classically elevated in high-grade disease, some patients present with the inharmonious scenario of high-grade disease and low PSA. Low-PSA, high-grade disease may represent a unique entity with underlying dedifferentiated biology, and as such may respond poorly to the current standard treatments, particularly ADT and is associated with high rates of prostate cancer-specific mortality.

The need for energy efficient technological solutions is becoming ever more prevalent in today’s world. However, current advances are failing to offer end-consumers with a flexible solution that can be widely implemented in domestic or business environments. This is particularly relevant at the user interface level where energy consumers should be allowed to easily engage in effective energy saving technology. With the help of semantically linked data, we aim to actively assist end-consumers in making well-informed decisions in order to successfully control their energy consumption. By integrating smart metering and home automation functionality, our SESAME system offers end-consumers energy-efficient and cost-cutting options for their homes or businesses. The developed SESAME system conceptualizes, demonstrates and evaluates a variety of innovative end-consumer services, here focusing specifically on their user interface paradigms. In this paper, we present three types of interactive participatory user interfaces, all of which enable users to interact with the house automation settings modelled as semantic rules, as well their evaluation in user studies based on the demonstrator system. We show that the proposed interfaces have the potential for broad acceptance, and provide a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of their varying design principles and features.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to propose and evaluate a novel system architecture for Smart City applications which uses ontology reasoning and a distributed stream processing framework on the cloud. In the domain of Smart City, often methodologies of semantic modeling and automated inference are applied. However, semantic models often face performance problems when applied in large scale. Design/methodology/approach – The problem domain is addressed by using methods from Big Data processing in combination with semantic models. The architecture is designed in a way that for the Smart City model still traditional semantic models and rule engines can be used. However, sensor data occurring at such Smart Cities are pre-processed by a Big Data streaming platform to lower the workload to be processed by the rule engine. Findings – By creating a real-world implementation of the proposed architecture and running simulations of Smart Cities of different sizes, on top of this implementation, the authors found that the combination of Big Data streaming platforms with semantic reasoning is a valid approach to the problem. Research limitations/implications – In this article, real-world sensor data from only two buildings were extrapolated for the simulations. Obviously, real-world scenarios will have a more complex set of sensor input values, which needs to be addressed in future work. Originality/value – The simulations show that merely using a streaming platform as a buffer for sensor input values already increases the sensor data throughput and that by applying intelligent filtering in the streaming platform, the actual number of rule executions can be limited to a minimum.

This paper presents an application implemented at Inland Revenue, New Zealand that enables users to access data seamlessly from different types of databases. It was developed to provide our investigators the ability to get comprehensive information about a business entity or a group of entities. The solution presented so far has been implemented using relational, semantic and document databases. It allows its users to pose fairly complex queries on the mentioned databases and retrieve results without having to know the specific query languages. Up to this point, it supports the presentation of results in graph and tabular formats.

This paper introduces a novel context management system for mobile phone users that allows them to control which part of context data they want to reveal to their service provider and which part to keep on their device. With the use of semantic rules, users can set their custom privacy and preference profile in a way that targeted advertisements can still be served despite them not wanting to reveal these details to the provider. By shifting some part of the reasoning task to user device, the mobile service provider is still able to provide highly targeted advertisements by combining the private and publicly available parts of user information.

This paper presents a semantic policy adaptation technique and its applications in the context of smart building setups. We study how semantic rules which are created for one set of contextual conditions are affected when one of the context parameters changes. In particular, rules for triggering alerts and monitoring appliances and their adaptation with changing contexts have been studied in detail. We then describe how this changing context triggers changes in other related context parameters. This technique has been implemented to demonstrate its feasibility, evaluated and positively accepted during trials with users of a real-life semantically empowered smart building setup.

As the urgent need for efficient and sustainable energy usage becomes ever more apparent, interest in Smart Homes is on the rise. The SESAME-S project (SEmantic SmArt Metering – Services for Energy Efficient Houses) uses semantically linked data to actively assist end-consumers in making well-informed decisions and controlling their energy consumption. By integrating smart metering and home automation functionality, SESAME-S works to effectively address the potential mass market of end-consumers with an easily customizable solution that can be widely implemented in domestic or business environments, with expected savings of over 20 % from the total energy bill. The developed system is a basis for conceptualizing, demonstrating, and evaluating a variety of innovative end-consumer services and their user interface paradigms. In this paper, we present the SESAME-S system as a whole and discuss the semantically enabled services, demonstrating that such systems may have broad acceptance in the future. The data obtained through such systems will be invaluable for future global energy-efficiency strategies and businesses.

Over 190 mutations in the human skeletal muscle α-actin gene, ACTA1 cause congenital actin myopathies. We transgenically expressed six different mutant actins, G15R, I136M, D154N, V163L, V163M and D292V in Drosophila indirect flight muscles and investigated their effects in flies that express one wild type and one mutant actin copy. All the flies were flightless, and the IFMs showed incomplete Z-discs, disorganised actin filaments and ‘zebra bodies’. No differences in levels of sarcomeric protein expression were observed, but tropomodulin staining was somewhat disrupted in D164N, V163L, G15R and V163M heterozygotes. A single copy of D292V mutant actin rescued the hypercontractile phenotypes caused by TnI and TnT mutants, suggesting that the D292V mutation interferes with thin filament regulation. Our results show that expression of actin mutations homologous to those in humans in the indirect flight muscles of Drosophila disrupt sarcomere organisation, with somewhat similar phenotypes to those observed in humans. Using Drosophila to study actin mutations may help aid our understanding of congential myopathies caused by actin mutations.

This paper highlights how the domain of Smart Cities is often modeled by ontologies to create applications and services that are highly flexible, (re)configurable, and inter-operable. However, ontology repositories and their accompanying reasoning and rule languages face the disadvantage of bad runtime behavior, especially if the models grow large in size. We propose an architecture that uses tools and methods from the domain of Big Data processing in conjunction with an ontology repository and a rule engine to overcome potential performance bottlenecks that will occur in this scenario.

Rule based information processing has traditionally been vital in many aspects of business, process manufacturing and information science. The need for rules gets even more magnified when limitations of ontology development in OWL are taken into account. In conjunction, the potent combination of ontology and rule based applications could be the future of information processing and knowledge representation on the web. However, semantic rules tend to be very dependent on multitudes of parameters and context data making it less flexible for use in applications where users could benefit from each other by socially sharing intelligence in the form of policies. This work aims to address this issue arising in rule based semantic applications in the use cases of smart home communities and privacy aware m-commerce setting for mobile users. In this paper, we propose a semantic policy sharing and adaptation infrastructure that enables a semantic rule created in one set of environmental, physical and contextual settings to be adapted for use in a situation when those settings/parameters/context variables change. The focus will mainly be on behavioural policies in the smart home use case and privacy enforcing and data filtering policies in the m-commerce scenario. Finally, we look into the possibility of making this solution application independent so that the benefits of such a policy adaptation infrastructure could be exploited in other application settings as well.

We describe how the semantics can be applied to the smart buildings, with the goal of making them more energy efficient. Having designed and implemented a semantically enabled smart building system, we discuss and evaluate the typical data management challenges connected with the implementation, extension and (re-)use of such system when employing them in the real buildings. The results demonstrate a clear benefit from semantic technologies for integration, efficient rule application and data processing and reuse purposes, as well as for alignment with external data such as tariffs, weather data, statistical data, data from other similar smart home systems. We outline the typical data management operations needed in the real life smart building system deployment, and discuss their implementation aspects.

A bioinformatics analysis of sequences of enzymes of the glycoside hydrolase (GH) 13 family members such as α-amylase, cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase (CGTase), branching enzyme and cyclomaltodextrinase has been carried out in order to find out the sequence motifs that govern the reactions specificities of these enzymes by using hidden Markov model (HMM) profile. This analysis suggests the existence of such sequence motifs and residues of these motifs constituting the -1 to +3 catalytic subsites of the enzyme. Hence, by introducing mutations in the residues of these four subsites, one can change the reaction specificities of the enzymes. In general it has been observed that α -amylase sequence motif have low sequence conservation than rest of the motifs of the GH13 family members.

BACKGROUND Colorectal cancer is rare in younger age group. Most cases occur in the second decade of life and are clinically aggressive. The prognosis of these patients is generally poor. This is a retrospective study in which data of Indian patients was compared to standard literature. METHODS Data on 32 young patients with colorectal cancer between ages of 10-25 years treated between January 2000 and December 2006 was reviewed. Clinical presentation, natural history and response to therapy were evaluated. RESULTS Studied cases comprised 9.9% of the total number of colorectal cancer patients. The median age of presentation was 21.5 years. Four-fifths of the cases presented in late stage. Nodal involvement was seen in 38% cases and metastatic disease in 12% cases. The rectum was the most commonly involved site. A majority of the patients presented with pain (81%), altered bowel habits (72%) and bleeding per rectum (78%). Surgery was done in 16 cases; radiotherapy in 16 patients; while chemotherapy was used in 19 cases. Responses at completion of treatment were seen in 28% cases; while 1 year post treatment only 12% cases were alive and only 6% at 2 years. CONCLUSIONS Colorectal cancer in younger age is rare and a high level of suspicion is necessary to diagnose it at an early and curable stage. Rectal bleeding therefore should not be ignored but evaluated further with at least a digital rectal examination and a sigmoidoscopy. Failure to do so results in late presentation with consequent dismal survival rates.

Introduction: In recent years there have been changes in management modality and a lower mortality with conservative management. We analyzed the result of emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) management by a review of the literature. Material and Methods: We made a retrospective study for the period from August 2005 to July 2009. Patients were evaluated by CT and subclassified based on CT. The patients managed in different modalities and their outcomes were compared. Results: A total of 28 patients were admitted with the diagnosis of EPN. The age range was 22–70 years. Five patients were managed conservatively, 17 patients underwent minimally invasive modalities (double J stent, pigtail drainage). Open drainage of the abscess was conducted in 2 patients, and 4 patients required emergency nephrectomy. Emergency nephrectomy is associated with a high mortality (75%). Conclusions: In the majority of cases, EPN was successfully treated by resuscitation and minimally invasive modalities. Percutaneous drainage should be part of the initial management strategy. This strategy is associated with a lower mortality than emergency nephrectomy.

We present the case of a 45-year-old female patient who harbored two synchronous primary malignant neoplasms-an anaplastic oligodendroglioma of the right frontal lobe and a squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Both neoplasms were in advanced stage and carried a dismal prognosis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first documentation in the english literature of such a presentation. The purpose of this article is to alert clinicians to this possibility and to outline the management approach in a different manner in patients presenting with multiple primary neoplasms.

The project SESAME 1 utilizes smart metering, building automation and policy-based reasoning to support home owners and building managers in saving energy and in optimizing their energy costs while maintaining their preferred quality of living. In this paper, we present how user-created policies are being applied to develop a system of least interference that supports the user in gaining awareness about energy consumption habits and saving potentials. Proposed concepts are currently being implemented and validated in an extensible demonstrator platform which provides a proof-of-concept for an innovative technical solution.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate a new instrument and technique for access that overcomes the difficulties with percutaneous cystolithotripsy (PCCL). PCCL is a safe and established minimally invasive surgical option for large vesical calculi. It is commonly performed using a guidewire, serial dilation, and an Amplatz sheath. However, this technique has its shortcomings, including lengthy dilation, the cost of the disposable instruments (eg, guidewire, Amplatz), fluoroscopic/cystoscopic guidance, and the need for a surgical assistant.METHODS The present prospective study was performed during a 6-year period. A total of 140 patients with a vesical calculus underwent PCCL. The modified technique using the new instrument was used for access, followed by primary closure of the stab wound. The operative time, length of hospitalization, complications, need for accessories, surgical assistant use, cosmesis, and cost were evaluated.RESULTS Of the 140 patients, 100 were adults and 40 were children. The mean stone size was 4.15 cm. The modified PCCL technique using the newly designed combined single-step safety trocar-dilator with self-retaining adjustable access sheath resulted in a shorter operative time (mean 29.4 minutes), lower analgesic requirements, shorter hospitalization (2.28 days), lower cost, fewer complications, and better cosmesis.CONCLUSIONS Our results have shown that this PCCL technique using the new trocar access system followed by primary wound closure is safe, technically easy, and cost-effective. It overcomes the shortcomings of the currently practiced methods, including lengthy dilation, cost of disposable instruments, the need for fluoroscopy/endoscopy, and the need for a surgical assistant. It also resulted in a decreased hospital stay and better cosmesis. UROLOGY 77: 1304-1307, 2011. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc.

alpha-Amylase, pullulanase, neopullulanase, cyclomaltodextrinase (CDase), cyclomaltodextin glucanotransferase (CGTase), etc. are some of the amylolytic enzymes that act on polysaccharides. These enzymes differ from each other with respect to substrate and linkage specificities. These enzymes have been grouped into the GH13 (GH, Glycoside Hydrolase) family in the CAZy database on the basis of similarity in amino acid sequence. Members of this family share three domains viz., A, B, and C, which have several binding subsites to accommodate monomeric units of the polysaccharide substrate. Among these subsites, -2, -1, +1, and +2 subsites are the most critical subsites for catalytic activity. In the present study, the substrate analog-, inhibitor-, or product-bound 3-D structures of 24 members of GH13 family have been analyzed to identify the features of the -2, -1, +1, and +2 subsites shared by all the members for recognition of the common substrate. It is found that neither the number nor the nature of the potential hydrogen bond-forming residues is conserved with the exception of the presence of tyrosine as a stacking residue in the -1 subsite. The relative spatial disposition of the conserved subsite residues are conserved as judged by distance matrices. The backbone of the -2, -1, +1, and +2 subsites does not undergo conformational change for the recognition of the substrate. This analysis suggests that these enzymes recognize their substrate on the basis of shape of the substrate rather than on the basis of specific interactions within the binding site.