Himalayan P waves in COPD - A Rare Feature

Himalayan or giant P-waves (amplitude =5 mm) are often known to be classically associated with congenital heart diseases with right to left shunt like tricuspid atresia, Ebstein anomaly, combined tricuspid and pulmonic stenosis, etc, where they indicate a dilated right atrium and tend to be persistent. These type P waves are rarely seen in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and in this condition it may be due to structural right atrial changes or hypoxemia or combination of both. Here we report a case of COPD with Himalayan P waves which is a rare entity

Alkylated-C-60 based soft materials: regulation of self-assembly and optoelectronic properties by chain branching

Derivatization of fullerene (C60) with branched aliphatic chains softens C60-based materials and enables the formation of thermotropic liquid crystals and room temperature nonvolatile liquids. This work demonstrates that by carefully tuning parameters such as type, number and substituent position of the branched chains, liquid crystalline C60 materials with mesophase temperatures suited for photovoltaic cell fabrication and room temperature nonvolatile liquid fullerenes with tunable viscosity can be obtained. In particular, compound 1, with branched chains, exhibits a smectic liquid crystalline phase extending from 84 °C to room temperature. Analysis of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells with a ca. 100 nm active layer of compound 1 and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as an electron acceptor and an electron donor, respectively, reveals an improved performance (power conversion efficiency, PCE: 1.6 ± 0.1%) in comparison with another compound, 10 (PCE: 0.5 ± 0.1%). The latter, in contrast to 1, carries linear aliphatic chains and thus forms a highly ordered solid lamellar phase at room temperature. The solar cell performance of 1 blended with P3HT approaches that of PCBM/P3HT for the same active layer thickness. This indicates that C60 derivatives bearing branched tails are a promising class of electron acceptors in soft (flexible) photovoltaic devices

A retrospective analysis of acute organophosphorus poisoning cases admitted to the tertiary care teaching hospital in South India

Objectives: We have herein reported our experience with the pattern of presentation of cases of acute organophosphorus (OP) poisoning cases in a tertiary care hospital.Materials and Methods: This retrospective study evaluated the hospital records of patients with acute OP poisoning. In a pre-structured proforma, data regarding age, sex, time elapsed after intake, circumstances of poisoning, duration of hospitalization, severity, complications, and outcome of the patients were recorded. The data were presented as mean ± standard deviation, entered in the open office datasheet, and analyzed with PSPP software.Results: A total 101 patients were included in the study. Young adult males were more commonly involved than females (M:F 2.5:1). The mean age of the patients was 28 years (range 2-72 years, SD ± 14.3 years). Mean time to receive treatment was 5.2 ± 7.4 (range 1-48 h). About 45.5% patients received first aid before coming to the hospital. The reason was suicide in 88.1% cases and accident in 12 (11.9%, all children). Seventy-nine  patients received pralidoxime (PAM) and the mean duration was 1.7 ± 1.1 (range 1-4 days). Atropine was given in all patients. Mean duration was 5.1 ± 3.1 (range 1-19 days). Mean hospital stay was 7.5 ± 4.7 days (range 1-26 days). Mortality was 9.9% in the present series.Conclusion: Although the present study contribute substantial information regarding the epidemiology and outcome of acute OP poisoning in a tertiary care teaching hospital at a district level, its relatively small sample size and the retrospective record-based nature are the major limitations of the present study. There is a further need for prospective studies to understand the underlying socio-economic factors responsible for acute OP poisoning in our population, and, accordingly, address the problems to reduce the incidence of acute OP poisoning cases.Keywords: Acute poisoning, organophosphate poisoning pattern, outcome, tertiary care hospita

Computational and Mathematical Modelling of the EGF Receptor System

This chapter gives an overview of computational and mathematical modelling of the EGF receptor system. It begins with a survey of motivations for producing such models, then describes the main approaches that are taken to carrying out such modelling, viz. differential equations and individual-based modelling. Finally, a number of projects that applying modelling and simulation techniques to various aspects of the EGF receptor system are described

Brexit or Brand it? The Effects of Attitude Towards Brexit and Reshored Brands on Consumer Purchase Intention

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Brexit has caused a seismic shift in the British socio-economic and political landscapes, creating widespread uncertainties, while simultaneously giving hope and national pride to millions. The decision by a number of organizations to reshore their production has opened a new era for business management that challenges the axiomatic assumption of the benefits of offshored production. Although reshoring predates Brexit, the link between the two in the British context is not just serendipitous and they are argued to have reasonable interlinkages. However, there is inadequate empirical evidence to suggest that British consumers’ attitude towards Brexit has any effect on their intention to purchase reshored brands. Through a mixed-methods study comprising a survey of 415 respondents and 20 in-depth interviews, this paper addresses this research gap. Findings suggest that corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumer reshoring sentiment (CRS) have positive effects on consumers’ attitude towards reshored brands. Despite CRS's positive influence on attitude towards Brexit, the latter does not have any significant effects on the intention to purchase a reshored brand, which is positively influenced by the attitude towards the same brand. As such, companies should enhance the image of their brands and CSR in order to harness the benefits of reshoring.University of Western Australia, as part of the Wiley – The University of Western Australia agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians

Patterns of subnet usage reveal distinct scales of regulation in the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli

The set of regulatory interactions between genes, mediated by transcription factors, forms a species' transcriptional regulatory network (TRN). By comparing this network with measured gene expression data one can identify functional properties of the TRN and gain general insight into transcriptional control. We define the subnet of a node as the subgraph consisting of all nodes topologically downstream of the node, including itself. Using a large set of microarray expression data of the bacterium Escherichia coli, we find that the gene expression in different subnets exhibits a structured pattern in response to environmental changes and genotypic mutation. Subnets with less changes in their expression pattern have a higher fraction of feed-forward loop motifs and a lower fraction of small RNA targets within them. Our study implies that the TRN consists of several scales of regulatory organization: 1) subnets with more varying gene expression controlled by both transcription factors and post-transcriptional RNA regulation, and 2) subnets with less varying gene expression having more feed-forward loops and less post-transcriptional RNA regulation.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, to be published in PLoS Computational Biolog

Tuberculosis Contact Screening and Isoniazid Preventive Therapy in a South Indian District: Operational Issues for Programmatic Consideration

BACKGROUND: Under India's Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), all household contacts of sputum smear positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) patients are screened for TB. In the absence of active TB disease, household contacts aged <6 years are eligible for Isoniazid Preventive Therapy (IPT) (5 milligrams/kilogram body weight/day) for 6 months. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the number of household contacts aged <6 years, of sputum smear positive PTB patients registered for treatment under RNTCP from April to June'2008 in Krishna District, to assess the extent to which they are screened for TB disease and in its absence initiated on IPT. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted. Households of all smear positive PTB cases (n = 848) registered for treatment from April to June'2008 were included. Data on the number of household contacts aged <6 years, the extent to which they were screened for TB disease, and the status of initiation of IPT, was collected. RESULTS: Households of 825 (97%) patients were visited, and 172 household contacts aged <6 years were identified. Of them, 116 (67%) were evaluated for TB disease; none were found to be TB diseased and 97 (84%) contacts were initiated on IPT and 19 (16%) contacts were not initiated on IPT due to shortage of INH tablets in peripheral health centers. The reasons for non-evaluation of the remaining eligible children (n = 56, 33%) include no home visit by the health staff in 25 contacts, home visit done but not evaluated in 31 contacts. House-hold contacts in rural areas were less likely to be evaluated and initiated on IPT [risk ratio 6.65 (95% CI; 3.06-14.42)]. CONCLUSION: Contact screening and IPT implementation under routine programmatic conditions is sub-optimal. There is an urgent need to sensitize all concerned programme staff on its importance and establishment of mechanisms for rigorous monitoring

Measuring V_ub and probing SUSY with double ratios of purely leptonic decays of B and D mesons

The experimental prospects for precise measurements of the leptonic decays B_u -> tau nu / mu nu, B_s -> mu+ mu-, D -> mu nu and D_s -> mu nu / tau nu are very promising. Double ratios involving four of these decays can be defined in which the dependence on the values of the decay constants is essentially eliminated, thus enabling complementary measurements of the CKM matrix element V_ub with a small theoretical error. We quantify the experimental error in a possible future measurement of |V_ub| using this approach, and show that it is competitive with the anticipated precision from the conventional approaches. Moreover, it is shown that such double ratios can be more effective than the individual leptonic decays as a probe of the parameter space of supersymmetric models. We emphasize that the double ratios have the advantage of using |V_ub| as an input parameter (for which there is experimental information), while the individual decays have an uncertainty from the decay constants (e.g. f_B_s), and hence a reliance on theoretical techniques such as lattice QCD.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure