A case control study of serum vitamin D levels in alopecia areata

Background: Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disorder of anagen hair follicle leading to distressing and relapsing non-scarring hair loss. Vitamin D is an immunomodulator and plays a role in regulating normal hair cycle. Recent evidence suggests inconsistent association between vitamin D deficiency and alopecia areata.Methods: This case control study included 70 newly diagnosed cases of alopecia areata and 70 healthy controls. Competitive chemiluminescence immunoassay was used to determine and compare the serum vitamin D (25‑hydroxyvitamin D) levels between these groups. Also, the serum vitamin D levels correlation with severity of the disease was studied. ANOVA test and student t test were used for the statistical analysis.Results: Serum Vitamin D levels were significantly decreased in alopecia areata patients than in controls (p<0.05). There was no stastically significant relationship between serum 25-OH Vitamin D levels and severity of the disease (p=0.06).Conclusions: Prevalence of serum 25 (OH) deficiency was significantly higher in alopecia areata group. However no significant relation was found with disease severity

Metabolic syndrome in south Indian population with skin tags: a hospital-based case control study

Background: Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of several clinical and laboratory cardiovascular risk factors that have been linked with numerous medical and dermatologic conditions. Recent evidence suggests a strong association between skin tags and insulin resistance and obesity, yet there is a paucity of data on relation of skin tags with metabolic syndrome as a whole. Aim of the study was to evaluate the strength of association between skin tags and metabolic syndrome.Methods: 70 patients with skin tags and an equal number of age and gender matched controls were enrolled in a hospital-based case control study. Anthropometric measures, blood pressure, fasting glucose, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides were measured. Metabolic syndrome was diagnosed by the presence of 3 or more of the south Asian modified national cholesterol education program’s adult panel III criteria. Statistical analysis was performed using chi square test, and odds ratio was calculated. P≤0.05 were considered significant.Results: Metabolic syndrome was significantly more common in patients with skin tags than in controls (70% vs. 26%, p<0.001). Triglycerides and waist circumference values were significantly increased in cases as compared to controls (p<0.05).  There was no statistically significant difference in the high-density lipoprotein levels, fasting blood glucose levels and presence of hypertension among cases and controls.Conclusion: Skin tags when present in multiple could be an early warning sign for Metabolic syndrome. They serve a cutaneous marker to initiate early detection and intervention of at-risk patients for cardiovascular disorders

Visual Environment Assessment for Safe Autonomous Quadrotor Landing

Autonomous identification and evaluation of safe landing zones are of paramount importance for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of aerial robots in the event of system failures, low battery, or the successful completion of specific tasks. In this paper, we present a novel approach for detection and assessment of potential landing sites for safe quadrotor landing. Our solution efficiently integrates 2D and 3D environmental information, eliminating the need for external aids such as GPS and computationally intensive elevation maps. The proposed pipeline combines semantic data derived from a Neural Network (NN), to extract environmental features, with geometric data obtained from a disparity map, to extract critical geometric attributes such as slope, flatness, and roughness. We define several cost metrics based on these attributes to evaluate safety, stability, and suitability of regions in the environments and identify the most suitable landing area. Our approach runs in real-time on quadrotors equipped with limited computational capabilities. Experimental results conducted in diverse environments demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively assess and identify suitable landing areas, enabling the safe and autonomous landing of a quadrotor.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 202

Online Webshoppe

Shopping is among the oldest economic institutions. They have been used since antiquity to sell a wide variety of goods, and their basic form has remained unchanged. In this dissertation, we explore the efficiency of common shopping when values are interdependent - the value to a particular product may depend on shops available in the market and we need to search for different kind of products. With the invention of E-commerce technologies over the Internet the opportunity to bid from the comfort of ones own home has seen a change like never seen before. Within the span of a few short years, what may have began as an experimental idea has grown to an immensely popular hobby, and in some cases, a means of livelihood, the online shopping gathers tremendous response everyday, all day. With the point and click of the mouse, one may buy an item they may need or just want, and in moments they find that is easy. The excitement of shopping all from the comfort of home is a completely different experience. The levels of comfort may rise in the near future but the rules to be followed remain the same. Society cannot seem to escape the criminal element in the physical world, and so it is the same with online shopping. This is one area wherein a question can be raised as to how safe online shopping

B\"uchi VASS recognise w-languages that are Sigma^1_1 - complete

This short note exhibits an example of a Sigma^1_1-complete language that can be recognised by a one blind counter B\"uchi automaton (or equivalently a B\"uchi VASS with only one place)

Design and optimisation of process parameters in an in-line CIGS evaporation pilot system

This is the final version of the article. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Substantial efforts have been made globally towards improving Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin film solar cell efficiencies with several organisations successfully exceeding the 20% barrier on a research level using the three-stage CIGS process, but commercial mass production of the three-stage process has been limited due to the technological difficulties of scaling-up. An attempt has been made to identify these issues by designing and manufacturing an in-line pilot production deposition system for the three-stage CIGS process which is capable of processing 30 cm × 30 cm modules. The optimisation of the process parameters such as source and substrate temperature, deposition uniformity, flux of copper, indium, gallium and selenium and thickness control has been presented in this investigation. A simplistic thickness distribution model of the evaporated films was developed to predict and validate the designed deposition process, which delivers a comparable simulation compared with the experimental data. These experiments also focused on the optimisation of the temperature uniformity across 30 cm × 30 cm area using a specially designed graphite heating system, which is crucial to form the correct α-phase CIGS in the desired time period. A three-dimensional heat transfer model using COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2a software has been developed and validated with the help of experimental data.This research work was supported partially through the funding support received from EPSRC UK–India programme APEX (EP/H040218/1) and partially supported by Excitonic Supergen (EPSRC (EP(G03101088/1)) programme

Motion for a resolution tabled by Mr. Puletti, Mr. Ferri, Mr. Cariglia and Mr. Orlandi on behalf of the Socialist Group with request for urgent debate pursuant to Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure on the earthquake which struck the region of Umbria on 17 October 1982. Working Documents 1982-1983, Document 1-852/82, 19 October 1982

An experimental investigation has been carried out to find the pressure difference of the process of steam condensation across the port to channel in plate heat exchangers. In the present study, low corrugation angle (30 degrees) plates have been used for different number of channels, namely, 10 and 80. The process steam entered at 1 bar with a small degree of superheat. Water has been used as the cold fluid. The pressure probes are inserted through the plate gasket into both the inlet and exit ports of the channel. The pressure drop of the process steam has been measured and recorded at the first, middle, and last channels at different flow and exit conditions for each plate package of the heat exchanger. Also, the overall pressure drop has been measured at different conditions at the outlet of the process steam, i.e., full and partial condensation. The pressure drop measurements have indicated that there is a considerable variation in pressure drop from the first channel to the last channel due to flow maldistribution. The experimental data has been analyzed to show how the flow maldistribution affects the pressure drop of a plate condenser

Inverse relationship between chitobiase and transglycosylation activities of chitinase-D from Serratia proteamaculans revealed by mutational and biophysical analyses

Serratia proteamaculans chitinase-D (SpChiD) has a unique combination of hydrolytic and transglycosylation (TG) activities. The TG activity of SpChiD can be used for large-scale production of chito-oligosaccharides (CHOS). The multiple activities (hydrolytic and/or chitobiase activities and TG) of SpChiD appear to be strongly influenced by the substrate-binding cleft. Here, we report the unique property of SpChiD substrate-binding cleft, wherein, the residues Tyr28, Val35 and Thr36 control chitobiase activity and the residues Trp160 and Trp290 are crucial for TG activity. Mutants with reduced (V35G and T36G/F) or no (SpChiD&#916;30–42 and Y28A) chitobiase activity produced higher amounts of the quantifiable even-chain TG product with degree of polymerization (DP)-6, indicating that the chitobiase and TG activities are inversely related. In addition to its unprecedented catalytic properties, unlike other chitinases, the single modular SpChiD showed dual unfolding transitions. Ligand-induced thermal stability studies with the catalytically inactive mutant of SpChiD (E153A) showed that the transition temperature increased upon binding of CHOS with DP2–6. Isothermal titration calorimetry experiments revealed the exceptionally high binding affinities for E153A to CHOS with DP2–6. These observations strongly support that the architecture of SpChiD substrate-binding cleft adopted to control chitobiase and TG activities, in addition to usual chitinase-mediated hydrolysis