Metastatic sweat gland adenocarcinoma: A clinico-pathological dilemma

Background  

Sweat gland adenocarcinoma is a rare malignancy with high metastatic potential seen more commonly in later years of life. Scalp is the most common site of occurrence and it usually spreads to lymph nodes. Liver, lung and bones are the distant sites of metastasis with fatal results. The differentiation between apocrine and eccrine metastatic sweat gland carcinoma is often difficult. The criteria's are inadequate to be of any practical utility.     

Notes on the Sociology of Wantoks in Papua New Guinea

In Melanesian pidgin languages, wantok means someone with a similar origin as oneself, and connotes a familiarity and mutual solidarity. Wantok has also become a watchword of politics and elite discourse on the Pacific Islands' political and social development, where it is a figure of corruption, clientelism, and the lingering influence of tribal identity. Even among grassroots people, wantok sociality is common, especially in urban places, but wantok talk tends to paint the wantok as a drain and burden. In this paper, I argue that when people perform wantok status they juxtapose village and town as inversions. They thereby create familiar relationships in uncertain situations, but also posit intimacy as inimical to the idea of modernity as embodied in towns. This suggests that the wantok idiom draws upon a particularly segmentary logic of relatedness in which solidarity is relative to difference of varying scales. In so doing, wantoks transform the nature of the kinship ties which inform them. As evidence, I examine debates over urbanisation in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and ethnographic observations of a rural-urban nexus of Normanby Island and Alotau in Milne Bay Province, PNG.     

Large Hawk‐Cuckoo Hierococcyx sparverioides parasitism on the Chinese Babax Babax lanceolatus may be an evolutionarily recent host–parasite system

We documented brood parasitism by the poorly studied Large Hawk‐Cuckoo on a previously unknown host species, the Chinese Babax. Furthermore, we describe a new egg colour for the Large Hawk‐Cuckoo. The parasitism rate of Chinese Babax nests over 4 years was 6.9% (11 of 159 nests), with significant temporal variation. The Large Hawk‐Cuckoo laid immaculate white eggs that appeared non‐mimetic to the blue Babax eggs, an impression that was confirmed by avian visual modelling. Nevertheless, most Cuckoo eggs were accepted by the host, suggesting that this host–parasite system may be evolutionarily recent.     

Phylogeny of decapods: moving towards a consensus

Although the recognition of four broad groups within Decapoda – natantians, macrurans, anomurans and brachyurans – has long been a staple of textbooks and even the primary taxonomic literature, a precise resolution of phylogenetic relationships within the order has proved more difficult. Indeed, there have been as many schemes of decapod taxonomy and phylogeny as there were experts who wished to offer an opinion. In this decade, utilization of explicit cladistic methods of analysis and the application of molecular techniques have produced a series of clear hypotheses concerning the relationships within many of the groups of Decapoda. It is apparent that earlier conflicts of opinion can be related in part to the implicit problems of dealing with paraphyletic groups near the base of the tree that are too broadly defined by only general or plesiomorphic features. Comprehensive morphological analyses of both fossil and living forms, with attention being paid to defining synapomorphies, can lead to resolution of old controversies. Molecular techniques hold great promise towards providing further resolution, but currently suffer from insufficiencies of sampling. Nevertheless, where once there was chaos and vexation, there is now some enlightenment. The situation can only improve, but the broad outlines of decapod deep history are already emerging.     

Parnassia palustris: a genetically diverse species in Scandinavia

Patterns of variation at nine enzyme loci were examined in 528 plants representing diploid and tetraploid populations of Parnassia palustris s. l. in Europe to assess genetic variation patterns and migration history. Half of the plants showed a unique multilocus phenotype and 75% of all phenotypes occurred only in Scandinavia. Diploid populations showed similar levels of genetic diversity as other widespread outbreeding species with animal-mediated pollination and F -statistics indicated excessive heterozygosity and low rates of gene flow among them. In spite of dramatic population histories caused by the ice ages, diploid populations have maintained the same genetic diversity in Scandinavia as in central and southern Europe. Northern populations have apparently been established through the gradual advance of genetically variable populations and patterns of variation at individual loci indicate different migration routes, from the south-south-west and the east-north-east, respectively. The data strongly support a repeated autoploid origin of the tetraploid cytotype which has been much more successful than the diploid progenitors in colonizing new land since the last ice age. High genetic diversity in Scandinavia has apparently been obtained by a combination of immigration of plants from different source areas and recurrent formation of autotetraploids from diploid progenitors.  © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society , 2003, 142 , 347−372.