1. Radiotherapy-associated angiosarcoma in the breast reconstructed by autologous free-flap and treated with electrochemotherapyRomi Cencelj-Arnež, Jerica Novak, Andreja Klevišar Ivančič, Maša Omerzel, Maja Čemažar, Marko Snoj, 2021, original scientific article Abstract: Radiotherapy-associated angiosarcoma (RAA) of the breast is a rare complication of radiotherapy, which is often difficult to identify and has poor prognosis. It usually presents as violaceous skin, erythema or rapidly growing palpable firm mass that can be confused with other benign skin lesions. Patients and methods After reviewing the literature, we found only four cases with RAA after mastectomy and autologous breast reconstruction. The presented case is the first that was treated by electrochemotherapy. The patient presented with secondary angiosarcoma of the breast five years after mastectomy, immediate breast reconstruction with deep inferior epigastric artery perforator free flap and adjuvant radiotherapy. Results Electrochemotherapy was feasible, safe and effective in treatment of radiation induced sarcoma. Most of the treated lesions in several consecutive electrochemotherapy sessions responded with complete response, but multiple recurrences occurred in non-treated areas. Conclusions Patients with breast cancer after skin-sparing mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction, who receive radiotherapy, need regular long-term follow up and low threshold for biopsy of any suspicious lesions is mandatory. Electrochemotherapy proved as one of feasible modalities of treatment for RAA.
Keywords: angiosarcoma, breast reconstruction, breast cancer, electrochemotherapy
Published in DiRROS: 22.07.2024; Views: 197; Downloads: 50
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2. Biogeographical history of golden orbweavers : chronology of a global conquestEva Turk, Klemen Čandek, Simona Kralj-Fišer, Matjaž Kuntner, 2020, original scientific article Abstract: Aim
A wholistic biogeographical reconstruction should combine a phylogeny with specifics of organismal biology, plate tectonics and consequent probabilities of historic dispersal events. Here, we demonstrate this approach by reconstructing the geographical origin and sequence of intercontinental colonization of the golden orbweaving spiders, a global clade. We test two alternative hypotheses about their ancestral range. Due to the highest contemporary species diversity in Africa, the ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis predicts the Afrotropics as their most likely ancestral area. The alternative, ‘Out of West Burma’ hypothesis aims to explain a Burmese amber fossil as stem nephilid. Because the West Burma block probably detached from Australia, then rafted towards Laurasia, either on its own or with India, this hypothesis predicts either Australasia or Indomalaya (or both) as the ancestral area.
Location
Worldwide.
Taxon
Golden orbweaving spiders, family Nephilidae.
Methods
We construct an expanded phylogeny of nephilid spiders and apply RASP (Reconstruct Ancestral State in Phylogenies) to infer their global biogeographical history. We fit the data to six integrated biogeographical models: DEC, DIVALIKE, BAYAREALIKE and their +j variants. We fine-tune the analysis by evaluating varying probabilities of dispersal between geographical areas throughout the clade's evolutionary history. We use the physical distance between the areas as a proxy for dispersal probabilities, thus accounting for plate tectonics.
Results
The best supported model reconstructs both Australasia and Indomalaya as ancestral area. In several parts of the phylogeny, these areas persist for the estimated 130-million-year evolutionary history. However, numerous intercontinental shifts in nephilid biogeographical history are also inferred. Since nephilid origins are clearly Gondwanan, our study supports the interpretations that Burmese amber contains Gondwanan biota.
Main conclusions
These results are consistent with the Out of West Burma hypothesis but reject the Out of Africa hypothesis. That certain clades persist in their ancestral ranges while others may shift continents aligns well with the known nephilid biology. Our methodological approach that assesses organismal specific dispersal probabilities through concrete distances measured though time slices of the Earth's history can be applied to biogeographical reconstruction of any lineage.
Keywords: spiders, golden orbweavers, Nephilidae, reconstruction of lineage, biogeography
Published in DiRROS: 22.07.2024; Views: 122; Downloads: 154
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3. Critical edges in Rips complexes and persistencePeter Goričan, Žiga Virk, 2023, original scientific article Abstract: We consider persistent homology obtained by applying homology to the open Rips filtration of a compact metric space $(X, d)$. We show that each decrease in zero-dimensional persistence and each increase in one-dimensional persistence is induced by local minima of the distance function $d$ When $d$ attains local minimum at only finitely many pairs of points, we prove that each above mentioned change in persistence is induced by a specific critical edge in Rips complexes, which represents a local minimum of $d$. We use this fact to develop a theory (including interpretation) of critical edges of persistence. The obtained results include upper bounds for the rank of one-dimensional persistence and a corresponding reconstruction result. Of potential computational interest is a simple geometric criterion recognizing local minima of $d$ that induce a change in persistence. We conclude with a proof that each locally isolated minimum of $d$ can be detected through persistent homology with selective Rips complexes. The results of this paper offer the first interpretation of critical scales of persistent homology (obtained via Rips complexes) for general compact metric spaces.
Keywords: persistent homology, Rips complex, critical simplex, reconstruction result
Published in DiRROS: 10.04.2024; Views: 402; Downloads: 270
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4. Green water reconstructed for Rižana watershed, SW SloveniaSimon Poljanšek, Urša Vilhar, Tom Levanič, original scientific article Abstract: In this case study, set in south-west Slovenia, the feasibility of reconstructing green water (the combined amount of evaporated and transpired water in trees and available in the soil) was investigated. In a simplifed scheme, the amounts of green water were calculated as the diference between precipitation and discharge of the Rižana river. Based on the methods of dendroclimatology, the climate signal was tested on black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold) trees growing in the south-western part of the Rižana watershed near the Slovenian sea coast. Results showed that the measured tree-ring parameters of tree-ring width and density are strongly dependent on the amount of green water. The strongest correlation was between available green water in the period May-August and tree-ring width (r=0.61) and latewood width (r=%0.64) (both n=46, p<0.001). The climate signal is signifcant and stable through time, which enabled the reconstruction of green water data into the period before instrumentally measured data. Green water data from the May-August period were extended from 1966 back to 1937 using tree-ring width, and back to 1940 using latewood width. With additional coring of older trees and the extension of existing chronologies, even longer reconstructions could be developed.
Keywords: tree-ring width, tree-ring density, dendrochronology, dendroclimatology, reconstruction
Published in DiRROS: 18.04.2018; Views: 2969; Downloads: 1769
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5. DendroTools : R package for studying linear and nonlinear responses between tree-rings and daily environmental dataJernej Jevšenak, Tom Levanič, original scientific article Abstract: We introduce in this paper the dendroTools R package for studying the statistical relationships between tree-ring parameters and daily environmental data. The core function of the package is daily_response(), which works by sliding a moving window through daily environmental data and calculating statistical metrics with one or more tree ring proxies. Possible metrics are correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination and adjusted coeffi- cient of determination. In addition to linear regression, it is possible to use a nonlinear artificial neural network with the Bayesian regularization training algorithm (brnn). dendroTools provides the opportunity to use daily climate data and robust nonlinear functions for the analysis of climate-growth relationships. Models should thus be better adapted to the real (continuous) growth of trees and should gain in predictive capabilities. The dendroTools R package is freely available in the CRAN repository. The functionality of the package is demonstrated on two examples, one using a mean vessel area (MVA) chronology and one a traditional tree-ring width (TRW).
Keywords: dendroclimatology, daily climate data, running window, nonlinear modelling, tree-ring proxies, climate reconstruction
Published in DiRROS: 16.04.2018; Views: 3244; Downloads: 2018
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