Management of intercondylar femur fracture with distal femur locking compression plate: outcome analysis of 72 cases

Background: Supra-condylar and inter-condylar fractures of the distal femur account for 7% of all femoral fractures and have always been difficult to treat and regaining full knee function is often difficult. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the functional outcome, fracture healing, complications of distal femoral intercondylar fractures managed by locking compression plate.Methods: Total 72 patients of intercondylar femur fracture were operated by ORIF with distal femur-locking compression plate via the standard swashbuckler approach. The functional outcomes were analyzed using modified hospital for special surgery scoring system.Results: Muller type C2 fracture was the most common fracture type with 50 out of 72 patients. The average range of motion achieved was about 99.03°±24.73° (Closed fractures =105.83°±19.41°and open fractures = 89.50°±28.36°). There was also a significant difference in the duration of operative time, 84.28±18.32 minutes for closed fractures and 98.46±22.47 minutes for open fractures. The average duration for radiological union was 14.52±2.21 weeks for closed and 17.20±2.44 weeks for open fractures. The average knee score was 80.13±13.38 using modified Hospital for Special Surgery score.Conclusions: Closed fractures have a higher range of motion and a better knee score compared to open fractures, supporting the fact that soft tissue compromise also affects range of motion and post-op rehabilitation of the limb. The outcome seems to correlate with the nature of injury i.e. high vs low velocity, type of fracture, anatomic reduction, associated injuries, time elapsed since injury to fixation and the stability of fixation

ANTIDIABETIC ACTIVITY OF SEED OF EUGENIA JAMBOLANA IN STREPTOZOTOCIN INDUCED DIABETIC MALE ALBINO RAT: AN APOPTOTIC AND GENOMIC APPROACH

Objective: The study aimed to investigate the antidiabetic effect of ethyl acetate fraction of seed of Eugenia jambolana (E. jambolana) at genomic level in streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic male albino rat. Methods: Diabetic rats were treated with said fraction at the dose of 200 mg/Kg of body weight/day for 35 days. Potential antidiabetic mechanisms were investigated with blood glucose (short duration and long duration model), serum insulin, haemoglobin A1C (HbA1C), ISEL (In-Situ End Labelling) study of pancreatic tissue and quantitative RT-PCR study of hepatic hexokinase-I (Hex-I), Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression. Results: Results showed a significant antihyperglycemic action of the said fraction in both short and long duration treatment schedule. Serum insulin and HbA1C levels were also recovered in treated group in compare to the untreated diabetic group (p<0.05). ISEL study focused the regeneration of pancreatic beta cells in treated group. It was also observed that the correction in expression in Bax, Bcl-2 and Hex-I gene in hepatic tissue after the treatment of the fraction in the diabetic rat. The antidiabetic activity of the fraction was compared with glibenclamide, a standard antidiabetic drug. Conclusion: The findings provide information about the antihyperglycemic activity of this fraction through gene regulation

Adoption of Sinter Addition in Steelmaking Converter to Control Spitting

Steel Melting Shop-I, Rourkela Steel Plant, Rourkela, produces 0.5 MT of various special steels through BOF-VAR/VOR-LF-CC route. One of the most serious problems in BOF operations was lance skulling, hood jamming, and build-up of metal in the mouth and cone of the furnace due to spitting and slopping. As spitting occurring during blowing increases, these particles of metal are deposited inside the mouth and cone and affect badly BOF productivity. In the present work, control of spitting has been established by addition of sinter during the period of spitting. It also helped to improve the slag formation and fluidity of slag through increase of FeO content during peak decarburisation period

Antioxidant potential of hydro-methanolic extract of seed of Caesalpinia bonduc: An in vitro study

It is well known that the over production of reactive oxygen species is harmful for living organisms and it damages major cellular constituents such as DNA, protein, and lipid. At present, searching of new plant sources having free radical scavenging activity is an important field of research in phytomedicine as natural products are safe and relatively low cost. In this respect, attention has been focused to evaluate the antioxidant potential of hydro-methanolic extract of seed of Caesalpinia bonduc (Caesalpenacae) using different in vitro models. To evaluate the antioxidant activity, extract was examined on 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging effect, scavenging of hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radical scavenging potential, and anti-lipid peroxidation activity by biochemical methods. Total phenol and flavonoids contents in the said extract were measured biochemically as per standard methods. Results were compared with butylated hydroxyl toluene and α-tocopherol. Results indicated that hydro-methanolic extract has strong scavenging activity on 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical with IC50 value 157.4 μg/ml, hydroxyl radical with IC50 value 61.9 μg/ml and hydrogen peroxide with IC50 value 64.32 μg/ml. Hydro-methanolic extract also showed notable inhibition in lipid peroxidation having IC50 value 58.87 μg/ml. Phytochemical study focused that the extract is rich in phenolic compounds (24.66 mg gallic acid equivalent/g dried extract) and flavonoids (136.65 mg quercetin equivalent/g dried extract). Findings of the experiment indicated that the hydro-methanolic extract of seed of Caesalpinia bonduc is a source of natural antioxidants

A 0–1 knapsack problem-based approach for solving open-pit mining problem with type-2 fuzzy parameters

Open-pit mining has several non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) 0–1 knapsack problems. The complexities of these problems are also increased due to some uncertain input parameters. This paper proposed an innovative hybrid fuzzy logic and genetic algorithm-based approach for solving a critical open-pit mining problem. First, the uncertainty of this problem is incorporated within the type-2 fuzzy environment, where the critical value reduction method was used to defuzzify the objective value. Next, genetic algorithm was used to solve the optimisation problem iteratively using a special initial solution generator, unique mutation, refinement, and immigration operations. Some benchmark instances from KPLIB were solved to show the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid fuzzy type-2 and genetic algorithm approach. The benchmark results show the proposed method can generate optimum solutions. Finally, a few OPMP instances from MineLib were solved using the proposed technique to demonstrate the applicability of this research to actual cases under fuzziness. The case study results indicated that the proposed approach can effectively solve the open-pit optimisation problem and similar NP-hard knapsack problems