Computational studies of light acceptance and propagation in straight and curved multimodal active fibres

A Monte Carlo simulation has been performed to track light rays in cylindrical multimode fibres by ray optics. The trapping efficiencies for skew and meridional rays in active fibres and distributions of characteristic quantities for all trapped light rays have been calculated. The simulation provides new results for curved fibres, where the analytical expressions are too complex to be solved. The light losses due to sharp bending of fibres are presented as a function of the ratio of curvature to fibre radius and bending angle. It is shown that a radius of curvature to fibre radius ratio of greater than 65 results in a light loss of less than 10% with the loss occurring in a transition region at bending angles of pi/8 rad.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure

Late Corneal Thinning and Keratitis following Mitomycin-C use in Pterygium Surgery

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Drug utilization study of patients with dermatophytosis attending dermatology outpatient department in tertiary care teaching hospital in Central India

Background: Dermatophytosis is a common fungal infection in India, with prevalence ranging from 36.6% to 78.4%. Treatment options include topical and systemic antifungal agents such as amphotericin B, clotrimazole, miconazole, luliconazole, itraconazole, and terbinafine. With the availability of newer antifungal drugs, a drug utilization study is necessary to understand prescription patterns and promote rational use. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study conducted among the patients attending outpatient department of dermatology of Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Mayo Hospital. Prescription of patients with diagnosis of tinea were collected using efficient digital database. These prescriptions were then analysed depending on their demographic profile, treatment and then results were evaluated with the help of MS Excel and results presented as percentage and proportion. Results: Total 3701 patients had tinea with 1658 females and 2043 males with majority of patients from 16 to 30 years of age. 81% medicine were prescribed using brand names with prescription containing maximum antifungal drugs followed by antihistaminic drugs. Most common drug prescribed was terbinafine (29%), followed by luliconazole (27.46%) and itraconazole (17%). Most commonly topical antifungal agents were prescribed as cream (35.80%) followed by as lotion (26.26%). Conclusions: Drug utilisation pattern study like this is very important for studying the varying prescription pattern in treatment of dermatophytosis and to make a first step towards uniform and rational drug prescription

Bimodal imaging of inflammation with SPECT/CT and MRI using iodine-125 labeled VCAM-1 targeting microparticle conjugates

Upregulation of cell adhesion molecules on endothelial cells is a hallmark of inflammation and an early feature of several neurological conditions. Here, we describe bimodal in vivo imaging of this inflammatory event in the brain using functionalized micron-sized particles of iron oxide. The particles were conjugated to anti-VCAM-1 antibodies and subsequently labeled with iodine-125. Radiolabeling of the antibody-coated particles was straightforward and proceeded in high radiochemical yields using commercially available iodination tubes. The corresponding contrast agent was evaluated in a rat model of cerebral inflammation based on intracerebral injection of tumor necrosis factor alpha and a rat model of status epilepticus. Biodistribution studies and phosphorimaging of cryosections were used to verify in vivo imaging data obtained with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The contrast agent showed rapid and highly localized binding to the vasculature of inflamed brain tissue, and was effectively cleared from the blood pool within 2 min postinjection. Overall, the pattern of hypointensities observed with MRI was in good agreement with the distribution of the contrast agent as determined with SPECT and phosphorimaging; however, conspicuous differences in the signal intensities were observed. The results demonstrate that radiolabeled micron-sized particles of iron oxide enable multimodal in vivo imaging with MRI and nuclear techniques, and highlight the value of validating different imaging methods against one another

A case of Stevens-Johnson syndrome due to rifampicin

A 25 year old female known case of category II pulmonary Tuberculosis was on anti-coch’s treatment in the FDC of rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, ethambutol and Streptomycin. Fifteen days after the commencement of Cat II anti TB treatment she developed diffuse erythematous rash on face, trunk and both extremities which turned into blisters. There were ulcers on oral and genital cavity. A diagnosis of Stevens Johnson’s syndrome was made. The patient had a history of cat I pulmonary TB and treated for 8 months and at the end of 8th month she was sputum smear negative. Four months later she had a relapse of sputum smear positive for pulmonary TB. She responded to the stoppage of drugs and oral/inj. Corticosteroids, antihistaminics and antibiotics

Spontaneous recovery from depression in women: a qualitative study of vulnerabilities, strengths and resources

Objective: To gain insight into the perceived vulnerability and restitution factors for anxiety/or depression.Methods: Focus group discussion of seven married women recovered spontaneously from anxiety and/or depression, belonging to a lower middle class semi-urban community of Karachi.Results: Poverty, unemployment, abuse and on going difficulties were perceived as risk factors for depression. A reliable social support system, positive thinking approach, faith, prayers, and experiencing a turning point event were reported as factors that promoted recovery from anxiety and/or depression.CONCLUSION: Individual vulnerabilities, strengths and resources can have an important role in recovery from anxiety and/or depression in women

The spectrum of bacterial infections in febrile neutropenic patients: effect on empiric antibiotic therapy

The aim of this retrospective analysis was to look at the spectrum of bacterial isolates and their resistance patterns to the commonly used antIbiotics in the settmg of febrile neutropenia. A total of 127 bacteria were isolated from patients with acute leukemias, lymphoproliferative disorders, aplastic anaemia and various solid tumours. Fifty-four percent organisms were gram negative; while the rest were gram positive. E. coli, pseudomónas aeruginosa, staphylococcus aureus, enterococcus and streptococci were the commonly isolated organisms. Forty-eight percent organisms were isolated from blood, 16% from urine, 13% from wounds and superficial abscesses and 11% from respiratory tract. E. coli exhibited a great degree of resistance to the commonly used antibiotics, such as pipericillin (70%), ofloxacin (50%) and aztreonam (50%). Pseudomonas and kiebsiella also showed varying degree of resistance against the antibiotics. Staphylococcus aureus and staphylococcus epidennidis were almost universally resistant to penicillin and showed a variable degree of resistance to other antibiotices too. Compared to the previous reports, the pattern of bacterial isolates and their resistance to antibiotics has changed over the past years. Aminolgy­cosides and third generation cephalosporins seem to be the choice of antibiotics for the upfront manage­ment of febrile neutropenic patients (JPMA 48:364,1998)

Flow-Based Single Cell Deposition for High-Throughput Screening of Protein Libraries

The identification and engineering of proteins having refined or novel characteristics is an important area of research in many scientific fields. Protein modelling has enabled the rational design of unique proteins, but high-throughput screening of large libraries is still required to identify proteins with potentially valuable properties. Here we report on the development and evaluation of a novel fluorescent activated cell sorting based screening platform. Single bacterial cells, expressing a protein library to be screened, are electronically sorted and deposited onto plates containing solid nutrient growth media in a dense matrix format of between 44 and 195 colonies/cm2. We show that this matrix format is readily applicable to machine interrogation (<30 seconds per plate) and subsequent bioinformatic analysis (~60 seconds per plate) thus enabling the high-throughput screening of the protein library. We evaluate this platform and show that bacteria containing a bioluminescent protein can be spectrally analysed using an optical imager, and a rare clone (0.5% population) can successfully be identified, picked and further characterised. To further enhance this screening platform, we have developed a prototype electronic sort stream multiplexer, that when integrated into a commercial flow cytometric sorter, increases the rate of colony deposition by 89.2% to 24 colonies per second. We believe that the screening platform described here is potentially the foundation of a new generation of high-throughput screening technologies for proteins

Cognitive and psychomotor effects of adjunctive aripiprazole or paliperidone in patients of schizophrenia receiving olanzapine: a double blind placebo controlled clinical study

Background: Emergence of atypical antipsychotics has revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia by exploiting dual actions on serotonin as well as dopaminergic receptors. Still, monotherapy with these agents is insufficient to control cognitive and psychomotor as well as positive and negative symptoms. Hence combination therapy with antipsychotics is common in clinical practice. Objective of current study is to compare the effects of addition of aripiprazole or paliperidone on cognition and psychomotor functions in schizophrenia receiving olanzapine.Methods: This is prospective, double blind, placebo controlled, parallel group study in 90 patients of schizophrenia showing partial or no response to olanzapine measured by Positive And Negative Symptoms Score (PANSS) scale. They were randomly divided to receive adjuvant aripiprazole, paliperidone or placebo for 6 weeks.Results: Combination of aripiprazole and olanzapine shows significant improvement in most of the cognition and psychomotor parameters like attention, perception, verbal memory, thinking and processing as well as motor speed while combination of paliperidone and olanzapine is associated with improvement in only some of the cognitive and psychomotor parameters such as attention, perception and verbal memory only. Both the combinations are efficacious in controlling positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia as assessed by PANSS scale.Conclusions: The best augmenting strategy with for olanzapine nonresponsive patients will be D2 receptor partial agonist like aripiprazole rather than D2 antagonist like paliperidone and other atypical antipsychotic agents for better improvement in cognition and psychomotor domains