Clinical and investigative profile of scrub typhus patients at a tertiary care center in Southern West Bengal, India

Background: Scrub typhus, caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is an acute febrile illness with symptoms such as fever, chills, and organ failure. The similar clinical presentation in other common diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and typhoid fever creates difficulty and delay in the clinical diagnosis of scrub typhus. This delay may increase the risk of scrub typhus complications. In India, it is a public health issue with a paucity of data. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the clinical characteristics, outcomes, and prognostic factors of patients with scrub typhus. Materials and Methods: This institutional-based observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among consecutively selected 154 adult patients suffering from scrub typhus at a Medical College Hospital situated in the southern part of West Bengal, India. All data were collected according to a pre-designed proforma. At the end of the study, results were analyzed statistically. Results: Younger, females, and homemakers are more susceptible to scrub typhus, mostly in the post-monsoon season from July to November. The incidence of scrub typhus complications is high in the southern part of West Bengal. The case fatality rate of scrub typhus is 6.5%. Male sex, pre-hospitalization duration of illness more than 7 days, presence of diabetes mellitus, serum creatinine (Scr) more than 1.5 mg/dL, serum bilirubin more than 3 mg/dL, systolic blood pressure below 90 mmHg, altered sensorium, and acute respiratory distress syndrome were associated with poor prognosis. Conclusion: A high degree of clinical suspicion is required for the early diagnosis of scrub typhus and the factors associated with poor prognosis must be considered to reduce morbidity and mortality

Minimal cost multifactor experiments for agricultural research involving hard-to-change factors

Multifactor experiments are very common in agricultural research. Randomizing run orders in multifactor experiments often witness in large number of factorwise level changes which will increase the cost and time of the experiments. Minimal cost multifactor experiments are such experiments where the cost of the experiment is minimum which can be achieved by choosing a factorial run order where the total number of factor level change is minimum as cost of the experiment is directly proportional to the number of level changes of factors. Here, a method of constructing minimal cost 2-level multifactor experiments with minimum number of factorwise level changes has been proposed. As for a same factorial combination, there may exist more than one minimally changed factorial run order, an exhaustive search was also performed to obtain all possible minimally changed run order for two level multifactorial experiments with three factors. Due to restricted randomization, adaption of these run orders may witness the effect of systematic time trend. Hence, the usual method of analysis may not be a feasible solution due to lack of randomization. Here, the analytical procedure of experiments using minimal cost multifactorial run order has also been highlighted based on a real experimental data. The work has been carried out at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi during 2019-20. The data from the real experiment used for explaining the analysis procedure has been collected from Climate Change Facility of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute farm, New Delhi, India based on experiments conducted during 2014-15

Understanding the Estranged Attitude of Medical Students while Attending Lectures at a Medical College in Eastern India: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: Absenteeism among medical undergraduate students during lecture classes is a worldwide problem in medical education. Their disengaged attitude towards attending lectures is associated with poor grades in examinations and contributes to poor professional socialisation. Aim: To identify the different factors responsible for absenteeism among medical undergraduate students during lecture classes and gather feedback that may help improve the content and delivery of these classes. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted at the Department of Biochemistry, Bankura Sammilani Medical College, West Bengal, India. The study duration was six months, from October 2022 to March 2023. A total of 199 undergraduate medical students from phase-I voluntarily participated in the study out of a total of 200 students. A prevalidated questionnaire using the Likert scale was used as the study tool to determine the students’ perspectives on poor attendance. Additionally, a focused group discussion was held to obtain the students’ opinions on improving the presentation of lectures. The responses were recorded, and the Tastle and Wierman tests were conducted to derive a consensus opinion. Results: Among the participants, 169 (84.9%) strongly agreed and 125 (62.8%) agreed that access to multiple websites and a preference for self-study were factors leading to skipping lectures, respectively. There was a strong agreement, with a consensus score of 0.52, that factors such as the inability of the mental capacity to match the chosen course, poor content, and monotonous presentation were important contributors to absenteeism. A significant correlation was observed between internal assessment scores and lecture attendance (p-value <0.01, r-value=0.4). Approximately 44% of participants believed that a chalk and talk approach followed by small group discussions was the best teaching method. Conclusion: This cross-sectional survey identified multiple factors, such as access to various e-learning platforms, a preference for self/group study, and technical difficulties, as reasons for poor attendance in lecture classes. However, improvements in content, mode of presentation, and clinical relevance of topics may enhance students’ attitudes towards attending regular lectures and improve their performance

Inhibition of rat brain mitochondrial electron transport chain activity by dopamine oxidation products during extended in vitro incubation: Implications for Parkinson's disease

AbstractSeveral studies on mitochondrial functions following brief exposure (5–15 min) to dopamine (DA) in vitro have produced extremely variable results. In contrast, this study demonstrates that a prolonged exposure (up to 2 h) of disrupted or lysed mitochondria to DA (0.1–0.4 mM) causes a remarkable and dose-dependent inhibition of complex I and complex IV activities. The inhibition of complex I and complex IV activities is not prevented by the antioxidant enzyme catalase (0.05 mg/ml) or the metal-chelator diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (0.1 mM) or the hydroxyl radical scavengers like mannitol (20 mM) and dimethyl sulphoxide (20 mM) indicating the non-involvement of ·OH radicals and Fenton's chemistry in this process. However, reduced glutathione (5 mM), a quinone scavenger, almost completely abolishes the DA effect on mitochondrial complex I and complex IV activities, while tyrosinase (250 units/ml) which catalyses the conversion of DA to quinone products dramatically enhances the former effect. The results suggest the predominant involvement of quinone products instead of reactive oxygen radicals in long-term DA-mediated inactivation of complex I and complex IV. This is further indicated from the fact that significant amount of quinones and quinoprotein adducts (covalent adducts of reactive quinones with protein thiols) are formed during incubation of mitochondria with DA. Monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) inhibitor clorgyline also provides variable but significant protection against DA induced inactivation of complex I and complex IV activities, presumably again through inhibition of quinoprotein formation. Mitochondrial ability to reduce tetrazolium dye 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) in presence of a respiratory substrate like succinate (10 mM) is also reduced by nearly 85% following 2 h incubation with 0.4 mM DA. This effect of DA on mitochondrial function is also dose-dependent and presumably mediated by quinone products of DA oxidation. The mitochondrial dysfunction induced by dopamine during extended periods of incubation as reported here have important implications in the context of dopaminergic neuronal death in Parkinson's disease (PD)

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Not AvailableMultifactor experiments are very common in agricultural research. Randomizing run orders in multifactor experiments often witness in large number of factorwise level changes which will increase the cost and time of the experiments. Minimal cost multifactor experiments are such experiments where the cost of the experiment is minimum which can be achieved by choosing a factorial run order where the total number of factor level change is minimum as cost of the experiment is directly proportional to the number of level changes of factors. Here, a method of constructing minimal cost 2-level multifactor experiments with minimum number of factorwise level changes has been proposed. As for a same factorial combination, there may exist more than one minimally changed factorial run order, an exhaustive search was also performed to obtain all possible minimally changed run order for two level multifactorial experiments with three factors. Due to restricted randomization, adaption of these run orders may witness the effect of systematic time trend. Hence, the usual method of analysis may not be a feasible solution due to lack of randomization. Here, the analytical procedure of experiments using minimal cost multifactorial run order has also been highlighted based on a real experimental data. The work has been carried out at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi during 2019–20. The data from the real experiment used for explaining the analysis procedure has been collected from Climate Change Facility of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute farm, New Delhi, India based on experiments conducted during 2014–15.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableAnthropogenic activities in few decades past have increased the concentration of the atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) which leads to climate change. This changing climate will certainly have impact on agricultural production. A study was carried out during the kharif season of year 2017 inside the open top chamber (OTCs) in IARI farm, New Delhi to quantify the interactive effect of elevated CO2 and temperature on growth of rice crop. Rice crop was grown in crates under two different CO2 levels: ambient (400 ppm) and elevated (550 ± 25 ppm) and with two temperature levels: ambient and elevated ( + 2°C). Growth of rice increased in elevated CO2 treatment while it decreased under high temperature condition. This was observed in terms of changes in tiller number, straw weight and root weight of the crop. Straw weight of rice reduced from 44.7 g hill - 1 to 52.1 g hill - 1in high temperature treatment. But increase in CO2 concentration significantly increased straw weight of the crop. The study showed that increased CO2 concentration was able to compensate the loss due to enhance growth of rice crop under high CO2 condition.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableA study was conducted to quantify the effect of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature on soil organic nitrogen (N) fractions and enzyme activities in rice rhizosphere. Rice crop was grown inside the open top chambers in the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute. The N was applied in four different doses. Grain yield and aboveground N uptake by rice significantly reduced under elevated temperature. However, elevated CO2 along with elevated temperature was able to compensate this loss. Principal component analysis clearly indicated that microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass N, amino acid N, total hydrolysable N, ammonia N and serine–threonine N contributed significantly to rice grain yield. Combined effect of elevated CO2 and elevated temperature decreased the total hydrolysable N, especially for lower N doses. The N-acetyl-glucosaminidase and leucine aminopeptidase enzyme activities were negatively correlated with the organic N pools. Higher activities of these enzymes under limited N supply may accelerate the decomposition of organic N in soil. When N was applied in super-optimal dose, plant N demand was met thereby causing lesser depletion of total hydrolysable N. Better nitrogen management will alleviate faster depletion of native soil N under future scenario of climate change and thus might cause N sequestration in soil.Not Availabl