Prevalence of teenage pregnancy and pregnancy outcome at a rural teaching hospital in India

Background: Teenage pregnancy accounts for 11% of births worldwide and 95% of these occur in low middle income countries. Pregnancy and its complications are leading cause of death among these girls. This study was done to know the prevalence and to determine whether teenage mothers are at risk of adverse pregnancy outcome.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary teaching hospital, India between July 2015 to Dec, 2017. All teenage mothers delivered after 28 weeks of gestation were included. Women with Diabetes mellitus, renal disease, thyroid disorders were excluded. Demographic data, maternal complications like anaemia, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, preterm birth, mode of delivery, low birth weight, NICU admissions, stillbirth and early neonatal death were recorded.Results: In the present study, the prevalence was 7% which is less than that of other studies. Incidence of caesarean-Section in the present study was 31%. Amongst the complications oligohydramnious was found to be significantly associated with teenage pregnancy. NICU admissions were needed for 43% of the cases and 31% were LBW.Conclusions: High NICU admission and high LBW in newborns of teenage mothers were noted in the current study. Hence, there is urgent need to focus on the teenage pregnancy

Paramagnetic Meissner Effect in Multiply-Connected Superconductors

We have measured a paramagnetic Meissner effect in Nb-Al2O3-Nb Josephson junction arrays using a scanning SQUID microscope. The arrays exhibit diamagnetism for some cooling fields and paramagnetism for other cooling fields. The measured mean magnetization is always less than 0.3 flux quantum (in terms of flux per unit cell of the array) for the range of cooling fields investigated. We demonstrate that a new model of magnetic screening, valid for multiply-connected superconductors, reproduces all of the essential features of paramagnetism that we observe and that no exotic mechanism, such as d-wave superconductivity, is needed for paramagnetism.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, LaTe

Predicting Inactive Conformations of Protein Kinases Using Active Structures: Conformational Selection of Type-II Inhibitors

Protein kinases have been found to possess two characteristic conformations in their activation-loops: the active DFG-in conformation and the inactive DFG-out conformation. Recently, it has been very interesting to develop type-II inhibitors which target the DFG-out conformation and are more specific than the type-I inhibitors binding to the active DFG-in conformation. However, solving crystal structures of kinases with the DFG-out conformation remains a challenge, and this seriously hampers the application of the structure-based approaches in development of novel type-II inhibitors. To overcome this limitation, here we present a computational approach for predicting the DFG-out inactive conformation using the DFG-in active structures, and develop related conformational selection protocols for the uses of the predicted DFG-out models in the binding pose prediction and virtual screening of type-II ligands. With the DFG-out models, we predicted the binding poses for known type-II inhibitors, and the results were found in good agreement with the X-ray crystal structures. We also tested the abilities of the DFG-out models to recognize their specific type-II inhibitors by screening a database of small molecules. The AUC (area under curve) results indicated that the predicted DFG-out models were selective toward their specific type-II inhibitors. Therefore, the computational approach and protocols presented in this study are very promising for the structure-based design and screening of novel type-II kinase inhibitors

Surface superconducting states and paramagnetism in mesoscopic superconductors

In the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau equation, the temperature dependence of the upper critical field of small ring-like superconductors is studied. At equilibrium small parts of the phase diagram show paramagnetism for width / radius ratios below 0.85. Their number and extension increase with the size of the hole. In these regions, only the inner part of the ring shows a positive magnetic moment. The order parameter density profile appears to change, when crossing a first order transition line, which separates different angular momentum values, and we clarify the relationship between the localization of superconductivity nucleation and paramagnetism of those samples.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

The Energy Landscape Analysis of Cancer Mutations in Protein Kinases

The growing interest in quantifying the molecular basis of protein kinase activation and allosteric regulation by cancer mutations has fueled computational studies of allosteric signaling in protein kinases. In the present study, we combined computer simulations and the energy landscape analysis of protein kinases to characterize the interplay between oncogenic mutations and locally frustrated sites as important catalysts of allostetric kinase activation. While structurally rigid kinase core constitutes a minimally frustrated hub of the catalytic domain, locally frustrated residue clusters, whose interaction networks are not energetically optimized, are prone to dynamic modulation and could enable allosteric conformational transitions. The results of this study have shown that the energy landscape effect of oncogenic mutations may be allosteric eliciting global changes in the spatial distribution of highly frustrated residues. We have found that mutation-induced allosteric signaling may involve a dynamic coupling between structurally rigid (minimally frustrated) and plastic (locally frustrated) clusters of residues. The presented study has demonstrated that activation cancer mutations may affect the thermodynamic equilibrium between kinase states by allosterically altering the distribution of locally frustrated sites and increasing the local frustration in the inactive form, while eliminating locally frustrated sites and restoring structural rigidity of the active form. The energy landsape analysis of protein kinases and the proposed role of locally frustrated sites in activation mechanisms may have useful implications for bioinformatics-based screening and detection of functional sites critical for allosteric regulation in complex biomolecular systems

Evidence for the revival of superconductivity in Nd<SUB>1.82</SUB>Ce<SUB>0.18</SUB>CuO<SUB>4-&#948;</SUB> by doping with divalent alkaline-earth elements

The revival of superconductivity in the electron-excess T'-type compound Nd1.82Ce0.18CuO4-&#948; by hole doping has been observed. The normal-state resistivity (&#961;) changes from semiconducting (d&#961;/dT &#60; 0) to metallic (d&#961;/dT &#62; 0) as the hole doping increases up to a certain level

Development of a simple UV-spectrophotometric method for the determination of lansoprazole and study of its degradation profile

A UV-spectrophotometric method is described for the determination of lansoprazole (LAN). The method is based on the measurement of the absorbance of LAN solution in acetonitrile at 281 nm. The system obeyed Beer's law over the concentration range of 1.25-25.0 µg/mL. The degradation behavior of LAN was investigated under dry heat treatment, UV-degradation, acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis and oxidation; and found to degrade extensively under acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis and oxidation. The method was applied to the determination of LAN in capsule and the results were statistically compared with those of the reference method by applying Student's t-test and F-test

Negative thermoelectric power of over-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 superconductor

The thermoelectric power S(T) studies of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (Bi2212) samples, including as-processed Partially Melted (Bi2212-PM) and 800 °C O2-annealed (Bi2212-O2) are reported here. While Bi2212-PM sample is near optimum doping regime, Bi2212-O2 is an over-doped sample. View the MathML source values obtained through S(T) data match very well with those deduced from the R(T). Interestingly, S(T) behavior of the optimally-doped Bi2212-PM sample is seen to be positive in whole temperature range, it is found negative for the over-doped Bi2212-O2 sample above View the MathML source. The observed negative S(T) dependence of the over-doped Bi2212-O2 is in accord with the recent band structure calculations and is in line with the theoretical investigations on a van Hove singularity in electronic density of states in HTSc compounds

Observation of intermediate bands in Eu3+ doped YPO4 host: Li+ ion effect and blue to pink light emitter

This article explores the tuning of blue to pink colour generation from Li+ ion co-doped YPO4:5Eu nanoparticles prepared by polyol method at ∼100-120 °C with ethylene glycol (EG) as a capping agent. Interaction of EG molecules capped on the surface of the nanoparticles and/or created oxygen vacancies induces formation of intermediate/mid gap bands in the host structure, which is supported by UV-Visible absorption data. Strong blue and pink colors can be observed in the cases of as-prepared and 500 °C annealed samples, respectively. Co-doping of Li+ enhances the emission intensities of intermediate band as well as Eu3+. On annealing as-prepared sample to 500 °C, the intermediate band emission intensity decreases, whereas Eu3+ emission intensity increases suggesting increase of extent of energy transfer from the intermediate band to Eu3+ on annealing. Emission intensity ratio of electric to magnetic dipole transitions of Eu3+ can be varied by changing excitation wavelength. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) study of as-prepared samples confirms the presence of oxygen vacancies and Eu3+ but absence of Eu2+. Dispersed particles in ethanol and polymer film show the strong blue color, suggesting that these materials will be useful as probes in life science and also in light emitting device application