A comparative study to assess the effect of escitalopram and amitriptyline on psychomotor functions in patients of depression

Background: Depression is a most common and widespread of all psychiatric disorders. Treatment of depression includes the use of antidepressants commonly used clinically such as tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Certain antidepressants apart from improvement in the symptoms found to have detrimental effect on cognitive and psychomotor function. Objective of this study was to assess and to compare the effect of escitalopram and amitriptyline on cognitive and psychomotor functionsMethods: Effect of escitalopram and amitriptyline on psychomotor function was assessed by using Critical flicker fusion frequency (CFF) and Reaction time (RT) in patients of mild to moderate depression at the end of 2nd and 4th week of monotherapy.Results: Patients in both the group have their RT remained significantly higher (p<0.001) in comparison with control and CFF remained significantly lower at the end of both the week. There was a significant rise in CFF in escitalopram group as compared to amitriptyline (p<0.001). Escitalopram showed a significant improvement in Visual reaction time (VRT), Auditory reaction time (ART) and Choice reaction time (CRT) (p<0.001) compared to amitriptyline at both the follow ups.Conclusions: Findings of this study support the use of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) i.e. escitalopram which had shown less impairment of psychomotor function in patients of Depression as compared to amitriptyline (Tricyclic antidepressant), in special subgroups of population who operate machinery, drive vehicle or require alertness for the work

Study of prescribing pattern of antimicrobial agents in indoor patients of a tertiary care hospital

Background: To evaluate prescribing pattern of antimicrobial agents in indoor patients of medicine and surgery department of SBH Government Medical College, Dhule.Methods: This was a retrospective cross sectional study carried over a period of 3 months. The patients who were admitted and received antimicrobial therapy in department of Medicine and Surgery were randomly selected and included in the study. The case record sheet and drug chart were obtained from Medical Record Section of the Hospital. The data was collected using case record form specially prepared for the study. The cases were categorised according to slightly Modified Kunin’s Criteria. Results: Total numbers of patients receiving antimicrobial therapy were 130 in medicine department and 93 in surgery department. Most commonly prescribed antimicrobial agent was cefotaxime (21.7%) in medicine and metronidazole in surgery (30.6%) department. The average number of antimicrobials per patient was found to be 1.7 and 3.02 in medicine and surgery department respectively. The switch on therapy from parenteral to oral route was employed in 16.15% patients in medicine department and 11.82% patients in surgery department.  As per Kunin’s modified criteria, 66.2% and 58.06% patients received antimicrobial therapy appropriately in Medicine and surgery department respectively.Conclusion: This study highlights the problem of over-prescription of antibiotics and a trend towards polypharmacy. The interventions to rectify the problem of inappropriate use of antimicrobial agents are needed to make therapy more rational and cost effective.

Proposal for creating a centre for research in solar-terrestrial physics as an interdepartmental activity during IHY at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (16.40°N, 74.15°E)

This note describes teaching and R & D activities presently being carried out in the solar-terrestrial Physics at the Space Science laboratory, Department of Physics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur. A variety of solar and geophysical ground based experiments are available, which can be operated on a regular basis during IHY, with financial help from the government funding agencies in India. The main purpose of this note is to briefly describe our experimental research facilities of relevance to IHY

Impact of heat stress on expression pattern of nine rice heat shock factor genes and its traits related to tolerance

65-75Global warming is unusually increasing the earth temperature over the past century at an average rate of 0.07 per decade since 1880. The increased temperature exhibit greater impact on grain yield, approximately 5.18 million tons of rice yields due to heat wave. Heat shock factors (HSF) has major role in regulating heat shock proteins which in turn responsible for survival of plants in heat stress by refolding proteins, maintaining functional confirmation, aiding in host defence mechanism. The aim of this research was to analyse phenological, biochemical changes and key genes highly expressed during heat stress at flowering stage in rice. Expression analysis of nine HSF genes had given a differential expression under heat stress as compared to controlled traits. This study suggested OsHSP26.7 as most responsive gene under heat stress and rice line 159, RRF-127, GP-145-103 and Annada with heat tolerant adaptive mechanisms and better performance under high temperatures and was found to be in correlation with the estimated biochemical traits. This can be taken as a base for heat tolerance response of the crop, which may be useful for further validation studies of the candidate genes for heat tolerance in the rice as well as other crop plants

Repercussion of biofilm and antibiotic resistance in ventilator associated pneumonia

Background: Ventilator associated pneumonia contributes nearly half of all cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia. Drug resistance among ventilator associated pneumonia has obligation of device withdrawal in order to achieve clinical and microbiological cure. Aim of the study was to determine the relationship between antibiotic resistance of Endotracheal tube biofilm and pulmonary pathogens in ventilator-associated pneumonia.Methods: A descriptive analytical study of 100 clinically suspected VAP patients was done. Patients were divided into group-I and Group-II based on intubation duration for 1-5 days and 6-10 days respectively. Endotracheal aspirate (ETA) was collected from clinically diagnosed cases and processed as per standard microbiological techniques. Bacterial counts ≥106 CFU/ml for quantitative cultures was considered significant. Biofilm production was detected by tissue culture plate, tube method and Congo red method. Multi-variant analysis was done to find out the association of the various factors.Results: Klebsiella pneumoniae was the predominant bacteria isolated followed by Acinetobacter baumannii. 45% of Gram negative bacteria were β lactamase producers. In Biofilm production by tissue culture method, 72% of the isolates showed either strong or moderate biofilm formation. Multivariate analysis revealed that bacteria isolated from VAP occurring after 5 days of mechanical ventilation among prior antibiotic-treated patients were resistant to all the antibiotics tested.Conclusions: Bacterial aetiology, biofilm formation and drug resistance has ramification on outcome of ventilator associated pneumonia. Hence, advised that it is crucial to remove ET tube in regular interval to prevent biofilm formation and sequential cultures to obtain the microbiological information which enables better patient care.

The CMS Outer Hadron Calorimeter

The CMS hadron calorimeter is a sampling calorimeter with brass absorber and plastic scintillator tiles with wavelength shifting fibres for carrying the light to the readout device. The barrel hadron calorimeter is complemented with a outer calorimeter to ensure high energy shower containment in CMS and thus working as a tail catcher. Fabrication, testing and calibrations of the outer hadron calorimeter are carried out keeping in mind its importance in the energy measurement of jets in view of linearity and resolution. It will provide a net improvement in missing \et measurements at LHC energies. The outer hadron calorimeter has a very good signal to background ratio even for a minimum ionising particle and can hence be used in coincidence with the Resistive Plate Chambers of the CMS detector for the muon trigger

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Integrating transcriptomic and proteomic data for accurate assembly and annotation of genomes

© 2017 Wong et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Complementing genome sequence with deep transcriptome and proteome data could enable more accurate assembly and annotation of newly sequenced genomes. Here, we provide a proof-of-concept of an integrated approach for analysis of the genome and proteome of Anopheles stephensi, which is one of the most important vectors of the malaria parasite. To achieve broad coverage of genes, we carried out transcriptome sequencing and deep proteome profiling of multiple anatomically distinct sites. Based on transcriptomic data alone, we identified and corrected 535 events of incomplete genome assembly involving 1196 scaffolds and 868 protein-coding gene models. This proteogenomic approach enabled us to add 365 genes that were missed during genome annotation and identify 917 gene correction events through discovery of 151 novel exons, 297 protein extensions, 231 exon extensions, 192 novel protein start sites, 19 novel translational frames, 28 events of joining of exons, and 76 events of joining of adjacent genes as a single gene. Incorporation of proteomic evidence allowed us to change the designation of more than 87 predicted noncoding RNAs to conventional mRNAs coded by protein-coding genes. Importantly, extension of the newly corrected genome assemblies and gene models to 15 other newly assembled Anopheline genomes led to the discovery of a large number of apparent discrepancies in assembly and annotation of these genomes. Our data provide a framework for how future genome sequencing efforts should incorporate transcriptomic and proteomic analysis in combination with simultaneous manual curation to achieve near complete assembly and accurate annotation of genomes

Design, Performance and Calibration of the CMS Forward Calorimeter Wedges

We report on the test beam results and calibration methods using charged particles of the CMS Forward Calorimeter (HF). The HF calorimeter covers a large pseudorapidity region (3\l |\eta| \le 5), and is essential for large number of physics channels with missing transverse energy. It is also expected to play a prominent role in the measurement of forward tagging jets in weak boson fusion channels. The HF calorimeter is based on steel absorber with embedded fused-silica-core optical fibers where Cherenkov radiation forms the basis of signal generation. Thus, the detector is essentially sensitive only to the electromagnetic shower core and is highly non-compensating (e/h \approx 5). This feature is also manifest in narrow and relatively short showers compared to similar calorimeters based on ionization. The choice of fused-silica optical fibers as active material is dictated by its exceptional radiation hardness. The electromagnetic energy resolution is dominated by photoelectron statistics and can be expressed in the customary form as a/\sqrt{E} + b. The stochastic term a is 198% and the constant term b is 9%. The hadronic energy resolution is largely determined by the fluctuations in the neutral pion production in showers, and when it is expressed as in the electromagnetic case, a = 280% and b = 11%