Set Augmented Finite Automata over Infinite Alphabets

A data language is a set of finite words defined on an infinite alphabet. Data languages are used to express properties associated with data values (domain defined over a countably infinite set). In this paper, we introduce set augmented finite automata (SAFA), a new class of automata for expressing data languages. We investigate the decision problems, closure properties, and expressiveness of SAFA. We also study the deterministic variant of these automata.Comment: This is a full version of a paper with the same name accepted in DLT 2023. Other than the full proofs, this paper contains several new results concerning more closure properties, universality problem, comparison of expressiveness with register automata and class counter automata, and more results on deterministic SAF

A Study of Insulin Resistance and its Clinico.Metabolic Associations Among Apparently Healthy Individuals Attending a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Insulin resistance (IR), as a result of unhealthy life.styles and westernization, most likely contributes to the increased incidence of metabolic abnormalities and consequently, the development of metabolic syndrome (MS). Aim: The present study was undertaken to determine the magnitude of IR and associated clinico.metabolic risk factors among the out-patients of a tertiary care hospital in Bihar, India. Subjects and Methods: Anthropometric profile, lipid profile, fasting blood glucose, C-reactive protein (CRP) and C-peptide of 112 individuals were measured using the standard procedures. IR was assessed using the homeostasis model (Homeostatic model assessment [HOMA]-IR).Results: The mean IR was 1.5 (1.0). Individuals with MS, higher body mass index and CRP ≥6 mg/l had higher IR. Linear regression showed, among the components of MS, waist circumference had the highest contribution toward IR. The optimal cut-off value to detect IR by HOMA2-IR was 1.35.Conclusion: IR was found to have a strong association with various clinico-metabolic risk factors. Keywords: C-reactive protein, Homeostatic model assessment insulin resistance, Insulin resistance, Metabolic syndrom

Multimodal Noisy Segmentation based fragmented burn scars identification in Amazon Rainforest

Detection of burn marks due to wildfires in inaccessible rain forests is important for various disaster management and ecological studies. The fragmented nature of arable landscapes and diverse cropping patterns often thwart the precise mapping of burn scars. Recent advances in remote-sensing and availability of multimodal data offer a viable solution to this mapping problem. However, the task to segment burn marks is difficult because of its indistinguishably with similar looking land patterns, severe fragmented nature of burn marks and partially labelled noisy datasets. In this work we present AmazonNET -- a convolutional based network that allows extracting of burn patters from multimodal remote sensing images. The network consists of UNet: a well-known encoder decoder type of architecture with skip connections commonly used in biomedical segmentation. The proposed framework utilises stacked RGB-NIR channels to segment burn scars from the pastures by training on a new weakly labelled noisy dataset from Amazonia. Our model illustrates superior performance by correctly identifying partially labelled burn scars and rejecting incorrectly labelled samples, demonstrating our approach as one of the first to effectively utilise deep learning based segmentation models in multimodal burn scar identification.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. Accepted at IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics 2020. Earlier draft presented at Harvard CRCS AI for Social Good Workshop 202

Cervical Cancer in Women with Unhealthy Cervix in a Rural Population of a Developing Country

Background: Cervical cancer, the most common malignancy among Indian women, is the second most common and fi fth most fatal cancer in women world-wide.Aim: The study is aimed to determine the risk factors, incidence of cervical malignancy in women with grossly unhealthy cervix in a rural population and to get an overview of eff ectiveness of the existing screening programs.Subjects and Methods: This cross-sectional prospective pilot study was carried in a tertiary care hospital in a span of 6 months. A total of 300 females with grossly unhealthy cervix with suspicions of malignancy, who had never undergone cervical cytology or any other cervical neoplasia screening procedure, were included. Unaided visual inspection with Cusco’s speculum was performed followed by digital examination. Clinical staging was carried out in patients according to International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO’S) Classifi cation. Cervical punch biopsy was taken under colposcopic guidance and histopathological examinations were done. Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 15.0 (Chicago Illinois, USA) and presented as simple percentages.Results: Among 300 females, 63.4% (190/300) were aged between 40 and 59 years. Nearly, 70.7% were illiterate and 52.6% had monthly family income between Rs. 2,000 and 5,000. Majority was married and 72.7% had parity between 1 and 3 and 58.7% had early marriages. Unaided visual examination of the women showed 62.7% of them had visible growth and 48.7% of them had bleeding erosions. Visible growths along with bleeding erosions were present in 11.3% cases. Histopathological examination of cervical biopsy specimens revealed mild, moderate and severe dysplasia in 14, 22 and 36 cases, respectively. A total of 212 patients had invasive squamous cell carcinoma. Only 16 patients had normal histopathology fi ndings. Nearly, 56.61% had Stage II disease; among them 27 had Stage IIa and 33 had Stage IIb disease, 26 patients had Stage I disease. Stage IIIa and IIIb have been found in 50 and 12 cases respectively. Four cases had cancer extending to urinary bladder and rectum (Stage IVa). Conclusions: Cervical carcinoma not only has a biomedical spectrum, but also has a wide cultural and socio-economic background. Extensive screening campaigns needs to be implemented with immediate eff ect to early diagnose cases to decrease the social burden of the disease.  Keywords: Africa, cervical cancer, screening procedure

Septic Abortion Managed in a Tertiary Hospital in West Bengal

Background: Septic abortion is still a challenging problem and a major cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in developing countries.Aim: The present study was conducted to estimate incidence, causes, risk factors, associated microorganisms, and treatment modalities of cases of septic abortion managed in a tertiary health care in West Bengal.Subjects and Methods: It was a cross‑sectional study carried out in Burdwan Medical College and Hospital in West Bengal between July 2011 and June 2012. On admission a thorough history was taken, examination was done, and investigations were carried. Depending on the examination findings the cases were grouped into three grades‑grade I: The infection localized in the uterus; grade II: The infection spread beyond the uterus to the parametrium, tubes, and ovaries or pelvic peritoneum; grade III: Generalized peritonitis and/or endotoxic shock or jaundice or acute renal failure. Statistical analysis was done by using Epi Info™ software (Version 3.5.1, CDC) after proper arrangement of all the data in tabular form and presented as simple percentage.Results: During the period, 1297 cases of abortion were admitted among which 107 were septic abortions, thus giving the incidence of the latter as 8.2% (107/1297). Forty‑three percent cases of septic abortion (46/107) were in grade I, 21.5% (23/107) in grade II, and 35.5% (38/107) in grade III. The modal age group of the patients was 15‑25 years (49.5%). Majority of the subjects were married (77.6%; 83/107) and multiparous (60.7%; 65/107). Similarly, most of them (71%; 76/107) were from low socioeconomic class. Ninety percent of the patients (96/107) had induced abortion. The common clinical features at presentation were pallor (88.8%; 95/107) and fever (86.0%; 92/107). Escherichia coli (62.6%; 67/107) and Klebsiella pneumonia (32.75%; 35/107) were the most common organism isolated. The case fatality from septic abortion in this study was 13.1% and the condition accounted for 15.4% of total maternal mortality within the period reviewed.Conclusion: The incidence of septic abortion in this study is relatively high, and majority of the cases resulted from attempted termination of pregnancy. It is a significant contributor to maternal mortality. Promotion of family planning and legalization of abortion services will go a long way in reducing the incidence of septic abortion and itsassociated complications. Keywords: Asia, management, maternal mortality, outcome, septic abortio

Comparison of tremor induced by valproate and lithium in bipolar disorder using a hand steadiness tester

Background: Quantitative measurement of valproate and lithium induced tremor using hand steadiness tester and their comparison in bipolar disorder.Methods: 200 newly diagnosed patients of bipolar disorder were randomly allocated into two equal groups receiving lithium (300mg twice daily) and sodium valproate (500 mg twice daily) after they fulfilled the inclusion / exclusion criteria of the study. 87 patients from Lithium group and 93 from Valproate completed the study.  Hand Tremor was assessed quantitatively at 0, 6, 12, 18 and 24 weeks using hand steadiness tester. Anxiety level of the study subjects was assessed to be insignificant using a standardized anxiety scale.  Final data was assessed after 24 weeks by using Stat Calc and Z test. P value <0.05 was considered to be significant.Results: No significant difference was found in terms of the development and transition of tremor induced by valproate and lithium (p=0.22).  However more men developed tremor with lithium when compared with females (p<0.05) and the mean age of patients who developed tremor appeared to be significantly higher in lithium group (54.7±3.9) than valproate (39.6±5.1).Conclusions: Tremor of hands is a common side effect of lithium and valproate treatment. Timely, objective assessment of onset and extent of tremor has always remained a challenge to the clinicians. Hand Steadiness tester is a simple, portable, inexpensive, non-invasive instrument that can be used to ascertain the development and transition of tremor in a quantitative manner. This would guide the clinicians as when to intervene for better management of such tremors

A Prospective Study of Doppler Velocimetry in Pregnancy-induced Hypertension in a Rural Population of a Developing Country

Background: Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) remains a great challenge to obstetricians. Doppler velocimetry can detect fetal compromise much before other antepartum tests.Aim: The aim of this study is to detect the changes of uterine artery, umbilical artery and middle cerebral artery in PIH by Doppler velocimetry.Subjects and Methods: This prospective study was conducted on hundred subjects with PIH. Doppler studies were carried, and parameters recorded in uterine, umbilical and middle cerebral artery (MCA) were Systolic/Diastolic ratio, Resistance Index, Cerebro Placental Index (CPI). Fetal outcomes were monitored. Statistical analysis was performed using Epi InfoTM software (Version 3.5.1, CDC, Atlanta). Test for significance was done with student’s t-test and Chi-square where applicable. A P- value of&lt;0.05 was considered as significant.Results: Among the 100 subjects, 76 (76%) of fetuses had abnormal and 24% normal umbilical artery Doppler velocimetry; 62% had abnormal and 38% normal MCA Doppler velocimetry; 64% fetuses had abnormal and 36% normal CPI. In 95% of subjects having abnormal umbilical Doppler studies, caesarean section had to be done for acute fetal distress. Incidence of caesarean section was 61% in abnormal MCA group and 63% in abnormal CPI group. Among 14 patients who had abnormal uterine artery Doppler, four developed pre-eclampsia, 2 IUGR. In patients with notches in uterine artery Doppler, 38% developed pre-eclampsia, 38% had IUGR, 13% babies were still born and 25% of newborns required NICU admission. In umbilical artery Doppler, when S/D ratio was abnormal, 60% developed pre-eclampsia, 40% had IUGR and 40% of newborns had to be admitted in NICU.Conclusion: Doppler study for fetal surveillance in pregnancy-induced hypertension is a very useful device and abnormal umbilical artery and uterine artery velocimetry seems to have worse pregnancy outcomes in the present study. Notch as a single parameter is the best indicator with highest sensitivity and positive predicative values. However, combination of parameters is the best indicator.  Keywords: Doppler study, fetomaternal outcome, pregnancy-induced hypertensio

Small-signal stability analysis of hybrid power system with quasi-oppositional sine cosine algorithm optimized fractional order PID controller

This article deals with the frequency instability problem of a hybrid energy power system (HEPS) coordinated with reheat thermal power plant. A stochastic optimization method called a sine-cosine algorithm (SCA) is, initially, applied for optimum tuning of fractional-order proportional-integral-derivative (FOPI-D) controller gains to balance the power generation and load profile. To accelerate the convergence mobility and escape the solutions from the local optimal level, quasi-oppositional based learning (Q-OBL) is integrated with SCA, which results in QOSCA. In this work, the PID-controller's derivative term is placed in the feedback path to avoid the set-point kick problem. A comparative assessment of the energy-storing devices is shown for analyzing the performances of the same in HEPS. The qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the results shows the best performance with the proposed QOSCA: FOPI-D controller compared to SCA-, grey wolf optimizer (GWO), and hyper-spherical search (HSS) optimized FOPI-D controller. It is also seen from the results that the proposed QOSCA: FOPI-D controller has satisfactory disturbance rejection ability and shows robust performance against parametric uncertainties and random load perturbation. The efficacy of the designed controller is confirmed by considering generation rate constraint, governor dead-band, and boiler dynamics effects

Cobalt-sulfur coordination chemistry drives B\u3csub\u3e12\u3c/sub\u3e loading onto methionine synthase

Cobalt-sulfur (Co-S) coordination is labile to both oxidation and reduction chemistry and is rarely seen in Nature. Cobalamin (or vitamin B12) is an essential cobalt-containing organometallic cofactor in mammals, and is escorted via an intricate network of chaperones to a single cytoplasmic target, methionine synthase. In this study, we report that the human cobalamin trafficking protein, MMADHC, exploits the chemical lability of Co-S coordination, for cofactor off-loading onto methionine synthase. Cys-261 on MMADHC serves as the -axial ligand to cobalamin. Complex formation between MMADHC and methionine synthase is signaled by loss of the lower axial nitrogen ligand, leading to five-coordinate thiolato-cobalamin. Nucleophilic displacement by the vicinal thiolate, Cys-262, completes cofactor transfer to methionine synthase and release of a cysteine disulfide-containing MMADHC. The physiological relevance of this mechanism is supported by clinical variants of MMADHC, which impair cofactor binding and off-loading, explaining the molecular basis of the associated homocystinuria