B. A. Prakash (ed.). Kerala’s Economic Development: Issues and Problems. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999. 392 pages. Hardbound. Indian Rs 495.00.

The distinctive development experience of Kerala, which has come to be known as the ‘Kerala Model’, has attracted widespread research interest. Successive state governments have pursued a number of objectives that included increase in per capita income at least to the national level, attaining self-reliance in food, terminating the tenancy system, solving unemployment problems, reducing regional inequalities, and protecting the vulnerable sections of society, particularly the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The improvements continued till the first half of the 1990s, taking Kerala ahead of India by 25 years in demographic transition. Life expectancy and literacy rates are high, while the birth, death, and infant mortality rates are the lowest in all of India

A Concise Review of Chromatographic Methods for the Analysis of Benzene and its Metabolites

Benzene is an important pollutant with carcinogenic potential. The main sources of benzene exposure include its unabated industrial use, gasoline vapors, emissions from engines and tobacco smoke. Environmental and occupational exposure of benzene has been associated with serious health hazards. Analysis of benzene is therefore important for the monitoring of environmental quality. The metabolites of benzene, especially S-phenyl mercapturic acid (S-PMA) and trans, trans-muconic acid (t,t-MA) have been used as sensitive biomarkers of benzene exposure. Estimation of un-metabolized benzene in urine has also been suggested as a more reliable indicator of its exposure. This review describes various chromatographic methods for the estimation of benzene and its metabolites in different environmental and biological samples

ArraySolver: An Algorithm for Colour-Coded Graphical Display and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Statistics for Comparing Microarray Gene Expression Data

The massive surge in the production of microarray data poses a great challenge for proper analysis and interpretation. In recent years numerous computational tools have been developed to extract meaningful interpretation of microarray gene expression data. However, a convenient tool for two-groups comparison of microarray data is still lacking and users have to rely on commercial statistical packages that might be costly and require special skills, in addition to extra time and effort for transferring data from one platform to other. Various statistical methods, including the t-test, analysis of variance, Pearson test and Mann–Whitney U test, have been reported for comparing microarray data, whereas the utilization of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, which is an appropriate test for two-groups comparison of gene expression data, has largely been neglected in microarray studies. The aim of this investigation was to build an integrated tool, ArraySolver, for colour-coded graphical display and comparison of gene expression data using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The results of software validation showed similar outputs with ArraySolver and SPSS for large datasets. Whereas the former program appeared to be more accurate for 25 or fewer pairs (n ≤ 25), suggesting its potential application in analysing molecular signatures that usually contain small numbers of genes. The main advantages of ArraySolver are easy data selection, convenient report format, accurate statistics and the familiar Excel platform

Zymosan-induced luminol-dependent chemiluminescence response of circulating and extravasated leukocytes in experimental sepsis.

This study examines a concurrent profiling of circulating and extravasated polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) in a rat model of experimental sepsis. Fecal peritonitis was induced in Wistar male rats by intraperitoneal instillation of a fecal suspension in saline (1:1 w/v). Blood and peritoneal fluid were collected 8 h following fecal inoculation for the evaluation of inflammatory response of PMNs using zymosan-induced luminol-dependent chemiluminescence. Fifty microliters of pre-diluted blood or peritoneal fluid samples were mixed with 150 microl of reaction mixture (4 x 10(-4) M luminol+50 microg opsonized zymosan+0.1% gelatin in Hank's balanced salt solution) and the chemiluminescence signal was measured in a luminometer at 37 degrees C. Fecal peritonitis caused a significant leukocytopenia (3540+/-297 mm(-3) versus control value of 7525+/-711 mm(-3), p < 0.001) accompanied by massive infiltration of PMNs in the peritoneal cavity (34700+/-4006 versus 7325+/-425 mm(-3), p < 0.001). The phagocytic activity of circulating blood PMNs was down-regulated whereas a significant up-regulation was observed in the activity of PMNs from peritoneal fluid. In conclusion, this study clearly demonstrates sepsis-induced alterations in both blood and peritoneal fluid PMNs and their quantitative assessment may be helpful in disease evaluation and designing effective therapies

Effect of Fluconazole on Phagocytic Response of Polymorphonuclear Leukocytes in a Rat Model of Acute Sepsis

Recently, fluconazole (FLZ) has been shown to improve survival and reduce multiorgan failure in experimental and clinical septic shock. The mechanism by which FLZ affords protection against sepsis remains obscure. This study examines the effect of FLZ on phagocytic activity of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) in a rat model of septic shock by inducing fecal peritonitis in male Wistar rats using intraperitoneal instillation (1 mL/kg) of fecal suspension in saline (1:1 w/v). Sham control rats received sterile fecal suspension and vehicle treatment. FLZ was administered in the doses of 0, 3, 10, and 30 mg/kg by gavage 30 minutes before fecal instillation. The samples of peritoneal fluid were collected 8 hours following fecal inoculation for the evaluation of phagocytic response of PMNs using zymosan-induced luminol-dependent chemiluminescence (CL). Fecal peritonitis caused massive infiltration of PMNs in the peritoneal cavity (ANOVA F(4.45) = 6.322, P < .001). Although FLZ reduced the infiltration of PMNs, this effect was neither significant nor dose dependent. The actual CL response was significantly higher in the peritoneal fluid of rats subjected to peritonitis, which was significantly and dose-dependently attenuated by FLZ treatment (ANOVA F(4.45) = 11.048, P < .001). Normalization of CL response for 1000 PMNs revealed that FLZ dose-dependently albeit insignificantly reduced the activity of PMNs. The high dose of FLZ caused 2.29-fold decrement in the area under curve (AUC) pertaining to cumulative CL response. The findings of this study suggest that FLZ protects rats against septic shock by inhibiting PMN-mediated inflammatory cascade without compromising their phagocytic activity

Multiplex Technology for Biomarker Immunoassays

The simultaneous measurement of different substances from a single sample is an emerging area for achieving efficient and high-throughput detection in several applications. Although immunoanalytical techniques are established and advantageous over alternative screening analytical platforms, one of the challenges for immunoassays is multiplexing. While ELISA is still commonly used to characterise a single analyte, laboratories and organisations are moving towards multiplex immunoassays. The validation of novel biomarkers and their amalgamation into multiplex immunoassays confers the prospects of simultaneous measurement of multiple analytes in a single sample, thereby minimising cost, time and sample. Therefore, the technological advancement in clinical sciences is helpful in the identification of analytes or biomarkers in test samples. However, the analytical bioanalysers are expensive and capable of detecting only a small amount or type of analytes. The simultaneous measurement of different substances from a single sample called multiplexing has become increasingly important for the quantification of pathological or toxicological samples. Although multiplex assays have many advantages over conventional assays, there are also problems that may cause apprehension among clinicians and researchers. Hence, many challenges still remain for these multiplexing systems which are at early stages of development