Comparative evaluation of phasic and chemical antinociceptive action of a conventional and a novel anticonvulsants in experimental models of tail flick and formalin test

Background: Some antiepileptic drugs have been shown to be clinically efficacious in treatment of neuropathic pain and are being used by clinician.Methods: This study determined the analgesic effect of gabapentin (a conventional anticonvulsant) and levitiracetam (a novel anticonvulsant) in rats in different types of acute and chronic nociceptive test like tail flick and formalin test and compared its potency with a conventional non opioid analgesic diclofenac.Results: Per oral administration of gabapentin produced no any marked effect on early phase response of formalin test but significantly suppressed the late phase response while levitiracetam produced no any type of significant effect in both phases. In tail flick test gabapentin as well as levitiracetam produced no any significant analgesic effect while diclofenac produced significant reduction of pain in tail flick test as well as in both phases of formalin test.Conclusions: Thus, we have observed that gabapentin produced antinociception in chronic pain as second phase of formalin test reflects chronic inflammatory pain while levitiracetam did not produce any type of antinociceptive effect as it could not suppress the pain significantly in both tail flick and formalin test.

EVOLUTION AND GROWTH OF MUTUAL FUNDS IN INDIA

ABSTRACT The mutual fund industry can be considered to be a twentieth century phenomenon that has found acceptance in the financial world as an effective source of investment giving comparatively higher returns in lesser time. The foundations of the modern mutual fund were laid in USA in early part of the last century. Initially it started well but got badly affected by the great depression of the twenties that affected its prospects. This industry was made more institutionalized by the government and after the world wars its influence spread to other parts of the world. A new phase started after the globalization of economy and establishment of WTO. This increased the scope of this industry and brought many new areas into its fold. At the same time it increased the volume and variety of transactions in the mutual fund industry. The mutual fund industry in India had started in the sixties of the last century. But its real development started in the nineties especially after the liberalization of the economy. This results of the analysis show that this phase is continuing and will complete its phase in the near future after which only the next phase of growth can be discussed with regards to the mutual fund industry in India. As of now what is needed is the physical spreads of this industry and incorporation of new investors by highlighting the advantages of investing in mutual funds. In line with this thinking the recommendations of this study are: ���¢�������¢ To focus on familiarizing the advantages of mutual fund investment schemes to the investors ���¢�������¢ To increase the spatial and demographic presence of mutual fund industry on a proactive basis so that the next stage of development of mutual fund industry can happen in India ���¢�������¢ To create synergy between business goals and government policies so that they can work in tandem for the future development of the mutual fund industry

Efficient 3D Object Reconstruction using Visual Transformers

Reconstructing a 3D object from a 2D image is a well-researched vision problem, with many kinds of deep learning techniques having been tried. Most commonly, 3D convolutional approaches are used, though previous work has shown state-of-the-art methods using 2D convolutions that are also significantly more efficient to train. With the recent rise of transformers for vision tasks, often outperforming convolutional methods, along with some earlier attempts to use transformers for 3D object reconstruction, we set out to use visual transformers in place of convolutions in existing efficient, high-performing techniques for 3D object reconstruction in order to achieve superior results on the task. Using a transformer-based encoder and decoder to predict 3D structure from 2D images, we achieve accuracy similar or superior to the baseline approach. This study serves as evidence for the potential of visual transformers in the task of 3D object reconstruction

Decentralized Access Control Infrastructure for Enterprise Digital Asset Management

With the rapidly evolving landscape of cryptography, blockchain technology has advanced to cater to diverse user requirements, leading to the emergence of a multi-chain ecosystem featuring various use cases characterized by distinct transaction speed and decentralization trade-offs. At the heart of this evolution lies digital signature schemes, responsible for safeguarding blockchain-based assets such as ECDSA, Schnorr, and EdDSA, among others. However, a critical gap exists in the current landscape — there is no solution empowering a consortium of entities to collectively manage or generate digital signatures for diverse digital assets in a distributed manner with dynamic threshold settings, all while mitigating counter-party risks. Existing threshold signature schemes impose a fixed threshold during the key generation phase, limiting the adaptability of threshold settings for the subsequent signature phase. Attempts to address this challenge often involve relinquishing signature generation control either partially or entirely from the participating parties, introducing vulnerabilities that could jeopardize digital assets in the event of network disruptions. Addressing this gap, our work introduces an innovative infrastructure that allows a group of users to programmatically define and manage access control policies, supported by a blockchain network dedicated to policy enforcement. This network is uniquely designed to prevent any entity, including itself, from autonomously generating digital signatures, thereby mitigating counter-party risks and enhancing asset security. This system is particularly suited for enterprise contexts, where collaborative asset oversight and policy adherence are essential. Our solution marks a significant stride in the realm of blockchain technology, paving the way for more sophisticated and secure digital asset management in a rapidly evolving digital landscape

Study of Surface Morphology and Optical Properties of ZnO Thin Film Synthesized Using CBD Technique

A chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique was utilized in the synthesis of the Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films. Aqueous solution of ZnCl2 and NaOH were the sources of Zinc and Oxygen in this process. The thin films were deposited on microscope glass slides. We used Wedge shaped film method to estimate the thickness of the ZnO film. The average thickness of the films obtained was 55.349 µm. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX) were used in the study of the surface morphology and elemental composition of ZnO film. The topographical images (shape and size) were obtained in SEM. The presence of Zn and O was confirmed through EDAX. Optical properties of the film were studied by Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy technique. The analysis of the UV-Vis spectrum suggested the optical band gap of the ZnO film was 3.54 eV

Content-Based Search for Deep Generative Models

The growing proliferation of customized and pretrained generative models has made it infeasible for a user to be fully cognizant of every model in existence. To address this need, we introduce the task of content-based model search: given a query and a large set of generative models, finding the models that best match the query. As each generative model produces a distribution of images, we formulate the search task as an optimization problem to select the model with the highest probability of generating similar content as the query. We introduce a formulation to approximate this probability given the query from different modalities, e.g., image, sketch, and text. Furthermore, we propose a contrastive learning framework for model retrieval, which learns to adapt features for various query modalities. We demonstrate that our method outperforms several baselines on Generative Model Zoo, a new benchmark we create for the model retrieval task.Comment: Our project page is hosted at https://generative-intelligence-lab.github.io/modelverse

Mutations in Known Monogenic High Bone Mass Loci Only Explain a Small Proportion of High Bone Mass Cases.

High bone mass (HBM) can be an incidental clinical finding; however, monogenic HBM disorders (eg, LRP5 or SOST mutations) are rare. We aimed to determine to what extent HBM is explained by mutations in known HBM genes. A total of 258 unrelated HBM cases were identified from a review of 335,115 DXA scans from 13 UK centers. Cases were assessed clinically and underwent sequencing of known anabolic HBM loci: LRP5 (exons 2, 3, 4), LRP4 (exons 25, 26), SOST (exons 1, 2, and the van Buchem's disease [VBD] 52-kb intronic deletion 3'). Family members were assessed for HBM segregation with identified variants. Three-dimensional protein models were constructed for identified variants. Two novel missense LRP5 HBM mutations ([c.518C>T; p.Thr173Met], [c.796C>T; p.Arg266Cys]) were identified, plus three previously reported missense LRP5 mutations ([c.593A>G; p.Asn198Ser], [c.724G>A; p.Ala242Thr], [c.266A>G; p.Gln89Arg]), associated with HBM in 11 adults from seven families. Individuals with LRP5 HBM (∼prevalence 5/100,000) displayed a variable phenotype of skeletal dysplasia with increased trabecular BMD and cortical thickness on HRpQCT, and gynoid fat mass accumulation on DXA, compared with both non-LRP5 HBM and controls. One mostly asymptomatic woman carried a novel heterozygous nonsense SOST mutation (c.530C>A; p.Ser177X) predicted to prematurely truncate sclerostin. Protein modeling suggests the severity of the LRP5-HBM phenotype corresponds to the degree of protein disruption and the consequent effect on SOST-LRP5 binding. We predict p.Asn198Ser and p.Ala242Thr directly disrupt SOST binding; both correspond to severe HBM phenotypes (BMD Z-scores +3.1 to +12.2, inability to float). Less disruptive structural alterations predicted from p.Arg266Cys, p.Thr173Met, and p.Gln89Arg were associated with less severe phenotypes (Z-scores +2.4 to +6.2, ability to float). In conclusion, although mutations in known HBM loci may be asymptomatic, they only account for a very small proportion (∼3%) of HBM individuals, suggesting the great majority are explained by either unknown monogenic causes or polygenic inheritance.This study was supported by The Wellcome Trust and NIHR CRN (portfolio number 5163). CLG was funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship (080280/Z/06/Z), the EU 7th Framework Programme under grant agreement number 247642 (GEoCoDE), a British Geriatric Society travel grant, and is now funded by Arthritis Research UK (grant ref 20000). SH acknowledges Arthritis Research UK support (grant ref 19580). KESP acknowledges the support of Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. KAW is supported by the core programme of the MRC Nutrition and Bone Health group at MRC Human Nutrition Research, funded by the UK Medical Research Council (Grant code U10590371). EM acknowledges support of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust Clinical Research Facility. The SGC is a registered charity (no. 1097737) that receives funds from AbbVie, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genome Canada (Ontario Genomics Institute OGI- 055), GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Lilly Canada, Novartis Research Foundation, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Innovation, Pfizer, Takeda, and Wellcome Trust (092809/Z/10/Z).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.270

Gastrointestinal stromal tumour in Meckel's diverticulum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Meckel's Diverticulum is the most commonly encountered congenital anomaly of the small intestine, occurring in approximately 2% of the population. Occasionally Meckel's diverticulum harbors neoplasms.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 65 year old gentleman, presented with a pelvic mass. On exploratory laparotomy, it turned out to be gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) arising from Meckel's diverticulum. Short history and review of literature are discussed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Neoplasms occurring from Meckel's diverticulum, even though rare, should be considered as differential diagnosis of pelvic masses arising from bowel, wherever imaging modalities fail to give a definitive diagnosis.</p