Leprosy and tuberculosis concomitant infection: a poorly understood, age-old relationship

Historically, archaeological evidence, post-mortem findings and retro- spective analysis of leprosy institutions’ data demonstrates a high observed incidence of concomitant infection with leprosy and tuberculosis (TB). However, reports of concomitant infection in the modern literature remain scarce, with estimates of annual new case detection rates of concomitant infection at approximately 0·02 cases per 100,000 population. Whilst the mechanism for this apparent decline in concomitant infections remains unclear, further research on this topic has remained relatively neglected. Modelling of the interaction of the two organisms has suggested that the apparent decline in observations of concomitant infection may be due to the protective effects of cross immunity, whilst more recently others have questioned whether it is a more harmful relationship, predisposing towards increased host mortality. We review recent evidence, comparing it to previously held understanding on the epidemiological relationship and our own experience of concomitant infection. From this discussion, we highlight several under-investigated areas, which may lead to improvements in the future delivery of leprosy management and services, as well as enhance understanding in other fields of infection management. These include, a) highlighting the need for greater understanding of host immunogenetics involved in concomitant infection, b) whether prolonged courses of high dose steroids pre-dispose to TB infection? and, c) whether there is a risk of rifampicin resistance developing in leprosy patients treated in the face of undiagnosed TB and other infections? Longitudinal work is still required to characterise these temporal relationships further and add to the current paucity of literature on this subject matter

The Role of HRM Practices in Organized Retailing with Special Reference to Bangalore City

Retailing displayed its significance in India’s market with tremendous contribution to the Indian economy. The development in the organized retail sector has showed the perfect platform to the Indian companies to enter into this sector. The entry of global players in retailing business has created huge challenges to the Indian companies. The organized retailer’s in order to respond to the competition, started to realize the need for efficient man power. The Human Resource practices and the employee satisfaction became the primary concern for the organized retailers. The present study will provide a clear picture on the issues related to the HR practices and its impact on employees. The study will also focus on the various problems and challenges faced by the HR department in procuring and retaining the employees of organized retailing companies

Mobile Computing in Physics Analysis - An Indicator for eScience

This paper presents the design and implementation of a Grid-enabled physics analysis environment for handheld and other resource-limited computing devices as one example of the use of mobile devices in eScience. Handheld devices offer great potential because they provide ubiquitous access to data and round-the-clock connectivity over wireless links. Our solution aims to provide users of handheld devices the capability to launch heavy computational tasks on computational and data Grids, monitor the jobs status during execution, and retrieve results after job completion. Users carry their jobs on their handheld devices in the form of executables (and associated libraries). Users can transparently view the status of their jobs and get back their outputs without having to know where they are being executed. In this way, our system is able to act as a high-throughput computing environment where devices ranging from powerful desktop machines to small handhelds can employ the power of the Grid. The results shown in this paper are readily applicable to the wider eScience community.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Presented at the 3rd Int Conf on Mobile Computing & Ubiquitous Networking (ICMU06. London October 200

Antimicrobial resistance characteristics and fitness of Gram-negative fecal bacteria from volunteers treated with minocycline or amoxicillin.

A yearlong study was performed to examine the effect of antibiotic administration on the bacterial gut flora. Gram-negative facultative anaerobic bacteria were recovered from the feces of healthy adult volunteers administered amoxicillin, minocycline or placebo, and changes determined in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) gene carriage. Seventy percent of the 1039 facultative anaerobic isolates recovered were identified by MALDI-TOF as Escherichia coli. A microarray used to determine virulence and resistance gene carriage demonstrated that AMR genes were widespread in all administration groups, with the most common resistance genes being bla TEM, dfr, strB, tet(A), and tet(B). Following amoxicillin administration, an increase in the proportion of amoxicillin resistant E. coli and a three-fold increase in the levels of bla TEM gene carriage was observed, an effect not observed in the other two treatment groups. Detection of virulence genes, including stx1A, indicated not all E. coli were innocuous commensals. Approximately 150 E. coli collected from 6 participants were selected for pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and a subset used for characterisation of plasmids and Phenotypic Microarrays (PM). PFGE indicated some E. coli clones had persisted in volunteers for up to 1 year, while others were transient. Although there were no unique characteristics associated with plasmids from persistent or transient isolates, PM assays showed transient isolates had greater adaptability to a range of antiseptic biocides and tetracycline; characteristics which were lost in some, but not all persistent isolates. This study indicates healthy individuals carry bacteria harboring resistance to a variety of antibiotics and biocides in their intestinal tract. Antibiotic administration can have a temporary effect of selecting bacteria, showing co-resistance to multiple antibiotics, some of which can persist within the gut for up to 1 year

Organic matter depositional microenvironment in deltaic channel deposits of Mahanadi river, Andhra Pradesh

Quantitative and qualitative variations in microscopic plant organic matter assemblages and its preservation state in deltaic channel deposits of Mahanadi River was correlated with the depositional environment in the ecosystem in order to prepare a modern analogue for use in palaeoenvironment studies. For this, palynological and palynofacies study was carried out in 57 surface sediment samples from Birupa river System, Kathjodi-Debi River system and Kuakhai River System constituting Upper, Middle and Lower Deltaic part of Mahanadi river. Theapex of the delta shows dominance of Spirogyra algae indicating high nutrient, low energy shallow ecosystem during most of the year and recharged only during monsoons. The depositional environment is anoxic to dysoxic in the central and south-eastern part of the Middle Deltaic Plain (MDP) and Lower Deltaic Plain (LDP) indicated by high percentage of nearby palynomorphs, Particulate Organic Matter (POM) and algal or fungal spores. The northern part of the delta show high POM preservation only in the estuarine area in LDP but high Amorphous Organic Matter (MOA) in MDP. The sediment here is deposited under dysoxic to oxic fluvial conditions. Thus, the monsoon intensity, direction of fluvial discharge, and the landward extent of sea water incursion through river mouths inducing bottom water salinity play an important role in defining the magnitude of POM and its preservation in the shallow Mahanadi deltaic ecosystem

Evolutionary Timescale of the DAV G117-B15A: The Most Stable Optical Clock Known

We observe G117-B15A, the most precise optical clock known, to measure the rate of change of the main pulsation period of this blue-edge DAV white dwarf. Even though the obtained value is only within 1 sigma, Pdot = (2.3 +/- 1.4) x 10^{-15} s/s, it is already constraining the evolutionary timescale of this cooling white dwarf star.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF NILVADIPNE LIQUISOLID COMPACTS

The purpose of the present study is to develop a novel liquid solid technique which enhances the dissolution rate of water insoluble or poorly water soluble drugs of Nilvadipine, which belong to class II of BCS. Generally the liquisolid technique is based upon the admixture of drug loaded with non volatile solutions (or) liquid drug incorporated with required carrier and coating materials in order to obtain a dry, non adherent, free flowing and compressible powder. Various non volatile solvents used were Propylene glycol, Poly ethylene glycol. The solubility of drug in the non volatile solvents plays an important role in this formulation Avicel PH 102 and aerosil were used as carrier and coating materials. Super disintegrants were used to increase the dissolution rate.Evaluation tests such as Disintegration time, Friability, Hardness and in-vitro dissolution studies were conducted. Amongst all the formulations F14 was considered to be the best in which Propylene glycol is used and the drug release was found to be 97% in 10 min

Correlation of lipid profile and anthropometry with aortic intima-media thickness in newborns of diabetic and non-diabetic mothers

Background: Exposure to diabetes in utero has been established as a significant factor for certain component of the clinical syndrome. Although complications of atherosclerosis occur in adult life, the process begins in early childhood. Hence, measuring aortic intima-media thickness (AIMT) in the newborn is a feasible, accurate, and sensitive marker of atherosclerotic risk. Objective: The objective of the study was to find an association of AIMT with cord blood lipid levels and anthropometric factors. Methods: Babies born to diabetic mothers (gestational diabetes mellitus/type 2 diabetes mellitus (34 weeks–42 weeks) who were taken as one group and babies born to non-diabetic mothers (34 weeks–42 weeks) who were taken as the other group were enrolled in this study. Lipid values were measured of umbilical cord blood, collected immediately after delivery. Atherogenic-indices were calculated; neonatal anthropometric measurements were taken within 24 h after delivery. Abdominal AIMT (aAIMT) was measured within 4 days of delivery using a high-resolution ultrasound B mode by a trained radiologist. Maternal age, parity, height, pre-pregnancy weight, gestational age, and other investigations were taken from maternal records. Results: In this study, birth weight (BW) was positively correlated with triglycerides (TG), cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), and atherogenic-indices, whereas, it was negatively correlated with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) (p<0.01). A positive correlation was found between aAIMT and BW, abdominal circumference, TG, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, VLDL, and atherogenic-indices (p<0.001). Conclusions: In this study, infants born to diabetic mothers had higher anthropometry, lipid values, aAIMT compared to babies born to non-diabetic mothers without risk factors

Fuzz-classification (p, l)-Angel: An enhanced hybrid artificial intelligence based fuzzy logic for multiple sensitive attributes against privacy breaches

The inability of traditional privacy-preserving models to protect multiple datasets based on sensitive attributes has prompted researchers to propose models such as SLOMS, SLAMSA, (p, k)-Angelization, and (p, l)-Angelization, but these were found to be insufficient in terms of robust privacy and performance. (p, l)-Angelization was successful against different privacy disclosures, but it was not efficient. To the best of our knowledge, no robust privacy model based on fuzzy logic has been proposed to protect the privacy of sensitive attributes with multiple records. In this paper, we suggest an improved version of (p, l)-Angelization based on a hybrid AI approach and privacy-preserving approach like Generalization. Fuzz-classification (p, l)-Angel uses artificial intelligence based fuzzy logic for classification, a high-dimensional segmentation technique for segmenting quasi-identifiers and multiple sensitive attributes. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solution by modelling and analyzing privacy violations using High-Level Petri Nets. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the proposed approach produces better results in terms of efficiency and utility