A comparative study of thyroid status of patients on phenytoin, carbamazepine and valproate monotherapy

Background: Anti-epileptic drugs are well tolerated, many effects on endocrine function have been reported, especially, the effect of long-term administration of anticonvulsant drugs on blood thyroid hormone levels.Methods: An analytical, cross sectional, non-randomized study conducted in Neurology Department over a period of twelve months from November 2012 to October 2013 where in 90 patients was enrolled in the study.Results: Of the 90 patients 56 were male and 34 were females. Baseline evaluation of the thyroid status of all patients were noted and showed all the 90 patients were clinically and Para clinically euthyroid. Patients on Phenytoin showed serum TSH value (Mean ± SD) to be statistically higher than the baseline and the normal reference value, whereas no significant difference was noted in the serum free T3 and T4 values. When patients on carbamazepine were evaluated, statistically significant difference was noted in the serum T3 and T4 level and was found to be lower than the reference value. No significant difference was seen in the serum TSH level. Patients receiving valproate showed no significant difference in the serum T3, T4 and TSH before and 6 month after prescription. All the patients were clinically euthyroid and showed no sign and symptoms of hypothyroidism.Conclusions: Valproate monotherapy does not alter serum levels of thyroid hormones. On the contrary, alterations of thyroid hormone function were seen in patients treated with carbamazepine and phenytoin. However, all the patients were euthyroid and were not associated with clinical or even subclinical hypothyroidism

Genomic Insights Into The Ixodes scapularis Tick Vector Of Lyme Disease

Ticks transmit more pathogens to humans and animals than any other arthropod. We describe the 2.1 Gbp nuclear genome of the tick, Ixodes scapularis (Say), which vectors pathogens that cause Lyme disease, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, babesiosis and other diseases. The large genome reflects accumulation of repetitive DNA, new lineages of retrotransposons, and gene architecture patterns resembling ancient metazoans rather than pancrustaceans. Annotation of scaffolds representing B57% of the genome, reveals 20,486 protein-coding genes and expansions of gene families associated with tick–host interactions. We report insights from genome analyses into parasitic processes unique to ticks, including host ‘questing’, prolonged feeding, cuticle synthesis, blood meal concentration, novel methods of haemoglobin digestion, haem detoxification, vitellogenesis and prolonged off-host survival. We identify proteins associated with the agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis, an emerging disease, and the encephalitis-causing Langat virus, and a population structure correlated to life-history traits and transmission of the Lyme disease agent

Genomic Insights Into The Ixodes scapularis Tick Vector Of Lyme Disease

Ticks transmit more pathogens to humans and animals than any other arthropod. We describe the 2.1 Gbp nuclear genome of the tick, Ixodes scapularis (Say), which vectors pathogens that cause Lyme disease, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, babesiosis and other diseases. The large genome reflects accumulation of repetitive DNA, new lineages of retrotransposons, and gene architecture patterns resembling ancient metazoans rather than pancrustaceans. Annotation of scaffolds representing B57% of the genome, reveals 20,486 protein-coding genes and expansions of gene families associated with tick–host interactions. We report insights from genome analyses into parasitic processes unique to ticks, including host ‘questing’, prolonged feeding, cuticle synthesis, blood meal concentration, novel methods of haemoglobin digestion, haem detoxification, vitellogenesis and prolonged off-host survival. We identify proteins associated with the agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis, an emerging disease, and the encephalitis-causing Langat virus, and a population structure correlated to life-history traits and transmission of the Lyme disease agent

Robust Blind Watermarking Mechanism For Motion Data Streams

The commercial reuse of 3D motion capture (Mocap) data in animation and life sciences raises issues with respect to its copyright. In order to improvise content protection of Mocap data, we devise a substitutive blind watermarking technique. This technique visualizes 3D Mocap data as a series of non-intersecting cluster of triangles. Bits are encoded inside the triangles by using an extended substitutive bit encoder in spatial domain. The encoding supports watermark imperceptibility and develops robustness against affine transforms (rotation, translation, scaling), noise addition, reordering and sample loss attacks. Security of the scheme can be enhanced by adding secret embedding distances between clusters, which are based on a secret key used for watermarking purpose

SVD-based Tamper Proofing of Multi-attribute Motion Data

Repositories of motion captured (MoCap) data can be reused for human motion analysis in physical medicine, biomechanics and animation related entertainment industry. MoCap data expressed as a matrix Mm x n can be subject to tampering from shuffling of its elements or change in element values due to motion editing operations. Tampering of archived motion data intentionally or due to machine/human errors, may result in loss of research, money and effort. The paper proposes singular value decomposition (SVD) based methodology for tamper proofing motion data. This tamper proofing methodology extracts reference patterns in the form of right and left singular vectors of motion data matrix M. These patterns are used to verify and trace the pattern of tampering. The use of first Eigen vectors for tamper detection reduces storage and computation complexities to O (m + n) and makes the solution scalable. 1

Smart Security And Alert System For Vehicles

Now days,thesecurity of vehicles is ofprime concern. This system will provide restricted accessonlytotheauthorized person. The first layer of protection in this system is fingerprintmatchingand alcohol detection. The Alcohol detectionsystem willstricture the drunkenperson.We have designed locking or unlocking system using fingerprint module. Thissystem helpsto activate, authenticate and detect the user in the real time for security of vehicle. The second layer of security system is fuel theft detection. In this layerby using GSM, the message willsendto the owner if the fuel theft is detected

A comparative study of thyroid status of patients on phenytoin, carbamazepine and valproate monotherapy

Background: Anti-epileptic drugs are well tolerated, many effects on endocrine function have been reported, especially, the effect of long-term administration of anticonvulsant drugs on blood thyroid hormone levels.Methods: An analytical, cross sectional, non-randomized study conducted in Neurology Department over a period of twelve months from November 2012 to October 2013 where in 90 patients was enrolled in the study.Results: Of the 90 patients 56 were male and 34 were females. Baseline evaluation of the thyroid status of all patients were noted and showed all the 90 patients were clinically and Para clinically euthyroid. Patients on Phenytoin showed serum TSH value (Mean ± SD) to be statistically higher than the baseline and the normal reference value, whereas no significant difference was noted in the serum free T3 and T4 values. When patients on carbamazepine were evaluated, statistically significant difference was noted in the serum T3 and T4 level and was found to be lower than the reference value. No significant difference was seen in the serum TSH level. Patients receiving valproate showed no significant difference in the serum T3, T4 and TSH before and 6 month after prescription. All the patients were clinically euthyroid and showed no sign and symptoms of hypothyroidism.Conclusions: Valproate monotherapy does not alter serum levels of thyroid hormones. On the contrary, alterations of thyroid hormone function were seen in patients treated with carbamazepine and phenytoin. However, all the patients were euthyroid and were not associated with clinical or even subclinical hypothyroidism

Evaluation of Deltamethrin induced reproductive toxicity in male Swiss Albino mice

Objective: To assess the adverse effect of Deltamethrin (DM) (technical grade) on reproductive organs and fertility indices of male Swiss albino mice, Mus musculus. Methods: Forty male mice were divided into four experimental groups: control, vehicle control (peanut oil), high dose DM treated and low dose DM treated group. An oral dose of 3 mg/kg b.wt (low dose) and 6 mg/kg b.wt (high dose) of Deltamethrin was administered for a period of 45 days to male Swiss albino mice. Results: DM caused a significant reduction in body and organ weights, sperm count, sperm motility percent, sperm viability, serum testosterone level, sialic acid content of cauda epididymis and fructose level of seminal vesicle. DM-treated groups also showed a significant decline in testicular 3β and 17β Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase (HSD) activities. Histological examinations revealed significant alterations in the testes of dosed groups. Conclusion: Deltamethrin is a toxic pyrethroid pesticide that produced significant reproductive toxicity in treated male mice as revealed by the severely affected parameters and the altered gravimetric indices

Ameliorative Effects of Curcumin on Artesunate-Induced Subchronic Toxicity in Testis of Swiss Albino Male Mice

India is one of the endemic areas where control of malaria has become a formidable task. Artesunate is the current antimalarial drug used to treat malaria, especially chloroquine resistant. The objective of the present study was to investigate the dose-dependent effect of oral administration of artesunate on the oxidative parameters in testes of adult male Swiss albino mice and ameliorative efficacy of curcumin, a widely used antioxidant. An oral dose of 150 mg/kg body weight (bwt; low dose) and 300 mg/kg bwt (high dose) of artesunate was administered for a period of 45 days to male mice, and ameliorative efficacy of curcumin was also assessed. The results revealed that artesunate caused significant alteration in oxidative parameters in dose-dependent manner. Administration of artesunate brought about significant decrease in activities of superoxide dismutase, glutathione, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione reductase, whereas lipid peroxidation and glutathione-S-transferase activity were found to be significantly increased. The results obtained show that oxidative insult is incurred upon the intracellular antioxidant system of testis tissue by artesunate treatment. Further, administration of curcumin at the dose level of 80 mg/kg bwt along with both doses of artesunate attenuated adverse effects in male mice

Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans osteomyelitis in a 12 year old boy : case report emphasizing the importance of tissue culture, and review of literature

Background: Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans most commonly causes periodontitis but has been reported to infect heart valves, soft tissue, brain and lungs, and distal bones. Osteomyelitis distal to the jaw is rarely described. Case presentation: We report an unusual and rare case of chronic osteomyelitis caused by A. actinomycetemcomitans in the toe of a paediatric patient, and review the available literature. The infection was managed with intravenous antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics. Conclusion: This is an unusual presentation of A. actinomycetemcomitans causing chronic osteomyelitis presumed due to nidation in a minimally damaged bone, associated with bacteraemia of an oral commensal. It occurred in the toe, without obvious dental predisposition; associated with minimal clinical disturbance and with muted immune response