A 3D FEM COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE IMPACT RESPONSE BETWEEN HUMAN HEAD AND NOCSAE HEAD DUE TO FREE FALL

We all enjoy sports be it watching or playing. Concussion is well known topic when it comes sports related injuries. However, concussion and brain injury is not exclusive to sports and outdoor activities. Sometimes, even the impact due to slip and fall at small heights can cause serious damage to the head and brain. This report studies the response generated in the human head model and the commercially use dummy NOCSAE headform due to drop from height of 2, 3, 4 and 5 feet. Earlier studies have related brain kinetics and head kinematics to concussion and traumatic brain injury (TBI). There are also studies that relate the linear and angular accelerations between different commercial dummy head models and the human head model, which were done experimentally. The main purpose of his study is to compare these parameters for the both models analytically using simulations. The linear velocity corresponding to each drop height were calculated and used as input data for the simulations. The impacts were simulated using RADIOSS solver in Hypermesh. Various parameters like contact force, linear acceleration and its components along each of the co-ordinate axes were extracted from the FE analysis. These values were utilized to calculate linear and angular acceleration for the entire models. These values were plotted against tolerance limits for various levels of brain injury. v It was observed that linear acceleration values for both the Human Head model and the dummy NOCSAE Headform confirm each other. Superior impact of the head was found most susceptible to traumatic brain injury followed by lateral impact when linear acceleration was considered as the criteria. The values of angular acceleration though did not represent glaring similarities between the two models, but there was a general trend of increase in angular acceleration with increase in drop height

Medication adherence and its determinants amongst anti-hypertensive patients in a tertiary care hospital in Navi Mumbai

Background: Anti-hypertensive drugs can effectively control hypertension, subject to good adherence. Uncontrolled hypertension can lead to numerous complications, some even potentially fatal, such as myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, thromboembolism, shock and stroke.Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted with the help of a pre-validated questionnaire during the course of 6 months in the medicine outpatient department and the inpatient department (wards) at a tertiary care hospital, Navi Mumbai in 200 hypertensive patients to calculate the correlation of the sociodemographic factors with adherence by the chi-squared test.Results: The overall percentage of adherence to antihypertensive medication was 34.8%. It was the highest (72.1%) in the younger age group, i.e., below 50 years. It was observed that as the age increases, the adherence to treatment decreases. Adherence rates were significantly higher among females and those individuals who had never attended school. Among the employed, 70.3% were adherent to their treatment and among the unemployed, 64.4% were adherent. The percentage of adherence was lower in alcohol consumers (9.5%) as compared to nonusers (76% and 32%, respectively).Conclusions: The clinician advising anti-hypertensive therapy should provide thorough counselling and stress on the issues created due to poor medication adherence as hypertension can be associated with severe outcomes. Treatments should be given in accordance with each patient’s lifestyles in mind such that they may continue taking their medications till the completion of their therapy

Self-organizing maps: a tool to ascertain taxonomic relatedness based on features derived from 16S rDNA sequence

Exploitation of microbial wealth, of which almost 95% or more is still unexplored, is a growing need. The taxonomic placements of a new isolate based on phenotypic characteristics are now being supported by information preserved in the 16S rRNA gene. However, the analysis of 16S rDNA sequences retrieved from metagenome, by the available bioinformatics tools, is subject to limitations. In this study, the occurrences of nucleotide features in 16S rDNA sequences have been used to ascertain the taxonomic placement of organisms. The tetra- and penta-nucleotide features were extracted from the training data set of the 16S rDNA sequence, and was subjected to an artificial neural network (ANN) based tool known as self-organizing map (SOM), which helped in visualization of unsupervised classification. For selection of significant features, principal component analysis (PCA) or curvilinear component analysis (CCA) was applied. The SOM along with these techniques could discriminate the sample sequences with more than 90% accuracy, highlighting the relevance of features. To ascertain the confidence level in the developed classification approach, the test data set was specifically evaluated for Thiobacillus, with Acidiphilium, Paracocus and Starkeya, which are taxonomically reassigned. The evaluation proved the excellent generalization capability of the developed tool. The topology of genera in SOM supported the conventional chemo-biochemical classification reported in the Bergey manual

A unique RET EXON 11 (G691S) polymorphism in an Indian patient with a collision tumor of the thyroid

BACKGROUND: Collision tumors of the thyroid are rare, with occasional reports dealing with their genetic analysis. CASE PRESENTATION: A 59 year old lady presented with a neck mass, associated with hoarseness of voice of 5 years duration. Radiological examination revealed nodular masses in the left lobe of her thyroid, along with one in the isthmus, extending into the right lobe and associated with enlarged neck nodes. FNAC from the left thyroid showed features of medullary carcinoma. On total thyroidectomy, 2 distinct tumor nodules were identified in the left lobe with another in the isthmus, showing features of medullary carcinoma (MTC), papillary carcinoma and follicular variant of papillary carcinoma, respectively, accompanied with nodal metastasis. Subsequently, she underwent radioablation. RET gene analysis of the patient, her 2 daughters and a grandson revealed a unique G691S polymorphism on Exon 11. CONCLUSION: This unique case of a collision tumor of thyroid, including component of an MTC deals with the value of RET gene analysis and therapeutic implications in the index case and in family members

Extraction, Characterization and Evaluation of Okara Mucilage

Mucilage is the thick, gluey substances produced by nearly all plant and some microorganisms. Okra mucilage is extracted from the plant of the malavaceae [A. esculantus]. Which is originally from Egypt, but it also in cropped in southern Asia elsewhere for nutritional purposes. Their use as potential reinforcement in polymer composites requires the understanding of their microstructure and mechanical properties. This work investigates the extraction methods, solubility behavior, TLC, loss on drying, ash value, FTIR spectra, surface tension, organoleptic properties. Extracted mucilage is soluble in warm water while insoluble in organic solvents. This can shows that it safely used in dosage form without causing any adverse effect. Keywords: Okara Mucilage, Pharmaceutical Excipients, Controlled-Release Formulatio

Machine-Learning-Based Radiomics for Classifying Glioma Grade from Magnetic Resonance Images of the Brain

Grading of gliomas is a piece of critical information related to prognosis and survival. Classifying glioma grade by semantic radiological features is subjective, requires multiple MRI sequences, is quite complex and clinically demanding, and can very often result in erroneous radiological diagnosis. We used a radiomics approach with machine learning classifiers to determine the grade of gliomas. Eighty-three patients with histopathologically proven gliomas underwent MRI of the brain. Whenever available, immunohistochemistry was additionally used to augment the histopathological diagnosis. Segmentation was performed manually on the T2W MR sequence using the TexRad texture analysis softwareTM, Version 3.10. Forty-two radiomics features, which included first-order features and shape features, were derived and compared between high-grade and low-grade gliomas. Features were selected by recursive feature elimination using a random forest algorithm method. The classification performance of the models was measured using accuracy, precision, recall, f1 score, and area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve. A 10-fold cross-validation was adopted to separate the training and the test data. The selected features were used to build five classifier models: support vector machine, random forest, gradient boost, naive Bayes, and AdaBoost classifiers. The random forest model performed the best, achieving an AUC of 0.81, an accuracy of 0.83, f1 score of 0.88, a recall of 0.93, and a precision of 0.85 for the test cohort. The results suggest that machine-learning-based radiomics features extracted from multiparametric MRI images can provide a non-invasive method for predicting glioma grades preoperatively. In the present study, we extracted the radiomics features from a single cross-sectional image of the T2W MRI sequence and utilized these features to build a fairly robust model to classify low-grade gliomas from high-grade gliomas (grade 4 gliomas)

Project and Community Management in Polar Sciences – Challenges and Opportunities

Because geoscientific research often occurs via community-instigated bursts of activity with multi-investigator collaborations variously labelled as e.g., years (The International Polar Year IPY), experiments (World Ocean Circulation Experiment WOCE), programs (International Ocean Discovery Program), missions (CRYOSAT spacecraft), or decades (The International Decade of Ocean Exploration IDOE), successful attainment of research goals generally requires skilful scientific project management. In addition to the usual challenges of matching scientific ambitions to limited resources, on-going coordination and specifically project management, planning and implementation of polar science projects often involve many uncertainties caused by, for example, unpredictable weather or ocean and sea ice conditions, large-scale logistical juggling; and often these collaborations are spatially distributed and take place virtually. Large amounts of funding are needed to procure the considerable infrastructure and technical equipment required for polar expeditions; permissions to enter certain regions must be requested; and potential risks for expedition members as well as technical issues in extreme environments need to be considered. All these aspects are challenging for polar science projects, which therefore need a well thought-through program including a realistic alternative “plan B” and possibly also a “plan C” and “plan D”. The four most challenging overarching themes in polar science project management have been identified: international cooperation, interdisciplinarity, infrastructure, and community management. In this paper, we address ongoing challenges and opportunities in polar science project management based on a survey among 199 project and community managers and an additional of 85 project team members active in the field of polar sciences. Case studies and survey results are discussed with the conclusive goal to provide recommendations on how to fully reach the potential of polar sciences project and community management

Polar Research Education, Outreach and Communication during the fourth IPY: How the 2007–2008 International Polar Year has contributed to the future of education, outreach and communication.

One year after the launch of the International Polar Year (IPY) Education, Outreach and Communication (EOC) Assessment Project the task of inventorying and investigating the hundreds of IPY EOC programmes that occurred during the IPY 2007-08 is now complete. Supported by APECS, IASC and SCAR, this ICSU funded project is the only global examination of what happened in outreach during IPY. The latest IPY event was one of the most ambitious polar research programmes to date, tens of thousands of scientists and students participated, but IPY also set out to involve members of the general public in active polar science endeavours on a global scale. How successful was this part of the IPY plan? With over 550 IPY EOC activities, from more than 70 countries in 25 languages IPY EOC is one of the largest global investments in science outreach to date. The IPY EOC Assessment brought together educators, communications personnel and researchers and the resulting report examines the success of IPY EOC efforts, and discusses why IPY EOC was able to reach its goals and beyond. From the experience of IPY, the report also outlines a set of lessons learned on how to improve science outreach across a variety of disciplines. These lessons will be useful for other science outreach projects - large or small - regional, national or international. IPY EOC went to new heights, depths and extremes to take people to the poles and to take the poles to the people. Now the legacy of IPY outreach is helping to shape the future of science education and outreach. You can also search the online Polar Outreach Catalogue - a growing inventory of these IPY projects and new outreach efforts to help educate the world about the global importance of the polar regions. http://apecs.is/education-outreach/catalogu

Uncemented and cemented primary total hip arthroplasty in the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register: Evaluation of 170,413 operations

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Since the introduction of total hip arthroplasty (THA) in Sweden, both components have most commonly been cemented. A decade ago the frequency of uncemented fixation started to increase, and this change in practice has continued. We therefore analyzed implant survival of cemented and uncemented THA, and whether the modes of failure differ between the two methods of fixation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients registered in the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register between 1992 and 2007 who received either totally cemented or totally uncemented THA were identified (n = 170,413). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis with revision of any component, and for any reason, as the endpoints was performed. Cox regression models were used to calculate risk ratios (RRs) for revision for various reasons, adjusted for sex, age, and primary diagnosis. RESULTS: Revision-free 10-year survival of uncemented THA was lower than that of cemented THA (85% vs. 94%, p < 0.001). No age or diagnosis groups benefited from the use of uncemented fixation. Cox regression analysis confirmed that uncemented THA had a higher risk of revision for any reason (RR = 1.5, 95% CI: 1.4-1.6) and for aseptic loosening (RR = 1.5, CI: 1.3-1.6). Uncemented cup components had a higher risk of cup revision due to aseptic loosening (RR = 1.8, CI: 1.6-2.0), whereas uncemented stem components had a lower risk of stem revision due to aseptic loosening (RR = 0.4, CI: 0.3-0.5) when compared to cemented components. Uncemented stems were more frequently revised due to periprosthetic fracture during the first 2 postoperative years than cemented stems (RR = 8, CI: 5-14). The 5 most common uncemented cups had no increased risk of revision for any reason when compared with the 5 most commonly used cemented cups (RR = 0.9, CI: 0.6-1.1). There was no significant difference in the risk of revision due to infection between cemented and uncemented THA. INTERPRETATION: Survival of uncemented THA is inferior to that of cemented THA, and this appears to be mainly related to poorer performance of uncemented cups. Uncemented stems perform better than cemented stems; however, unrecognized intraoperative femoral fractures may be an important reason for early failure of uncemented stems. The risk of revision of the most common uncemented cup designs is similar to that of cemented cups, indicating that some of the problems with uncemented cup fixation may have been solved.Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the source is credited