Primary central nervous system melanoma is rare, accounting for approximately 1% of total melanoma cases (1-3). Primary central nervous system melanoma localized to the spinal cord is even rarer. The cervical and thoracic levels are most frequently involved. There are no pathognomonic imaging characteristics and diagnosis must be confirmed immunohistologically. The preferred treatment is gross total resection. Utilization of adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy may improve disease-free survival. The prognosis for primary central nervous system melanoma is generally better than that of metastatic and cutaneous melanoma, although there are relatively few cases from which to draw conclusions. We report a case of a 64-year-old woman diagnosed with primary spinal melanoma of the thoracic spine treated with subtotal surgical resection followed by adjuvant radiation therapy.

The coupling interactions between deformable structures and unsteady fluid flows occur across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales in many engineering applications. These fluid-structure interactions (FSI) make it challenging to predict flow physics accurately. In the present work, two multi-layer network approaches are proposed that characterize the interactions between the fluid and structural layers for an incompressible laminar flow over a two-dimensional compliant flat plate at a 35-degrees angle of attack. In one approach, the wake vortices and bound vortexlets form the nodes of the network with the edges defined by induced velocity. In the other approach, coherent structures (fluid modes) contributing to the kinetic energy of the flow and structural modes contributing to the kinetic energy of the compliant structure constitute the network nodes. The energy transfers between the modes are extracted using a perturbation approach. The network structure of the FSI system is further simplified using the community detection algorithm in the vortical approach and by selecting dominant modes in the modal approach. Network measures are used to reveal the temporal behavior of the individual nodes within the simplified FSI system. Predictive models are then built using both data-driven and physics-based methods. We conclude by investigating the controllability of the modal interaction network. This work sets the foundation for network-theoretic reduced-order modeling of fluid-structure interactions, generalizable to other multi-physics systems.

A 40 year-old athletic woman presented with worsening dyspnea on exertion over the preceding several months. Chest radiograph showed borderline cardiomegaly and subsequent echocardiography demonstrated a 5.0-cm left atrial mass as well as left-to-right interatrial shunting through a patent foramen ovale. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging was performed, which demonstrated signal characteristics consistent with an atrial myxoma. The patient then underwent urgent surgical treatment with good technical and clinical outcome. Histologic examination confirmed an atrial myxoma. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging was valuable in characterizing the nature of the atrial mass and patent foramen ovale, helping guide the surgical approach.