Theodore Alvin Hall: A Biographical Sketch and Personal Appreciation

As the first in a series of two papers contributed on the occasion of a special program held at the Scanning Microscopy/1989 meeting in Salt Lake City in honour of Dr. T.A. Hall, and in recognition of his achievements for biological electron probe X-ray microanalysis, this paper provides a biographical sketch of Dr. Hall, as well as a bibliography

Ted Hall and the Science of Biological Microprobe X-Ray Analysis: A Historical Perspective of Methodology and Biological Dividends

This review surveys the emergence of electron probe X-ray microanalysis as a quantitative method for measuring the chemical elements in situ. The extension of the method to the biological sciences under the influence of Ted Hall is reviewed. Some classical experiments by Hall and his colleagues in Cambridge, UK, previously unpublished, are described; as are some of the earliest quantitative results from the cryo-sections obtained in Cambridge and elsewhere. The progress of the methodology is critically evaluated from the earliest starts to the present state of the art. Particular attention has been focused on the application of the method in providing fresh insights into the role of ions in cell and tissue physiology and pathology. A comprehensive list of references is included for a further pursuit of the topics by the interested reader. [This paper is dedicated to the fond memory of Dr Vernon Ellis Cosslett who died in Cambridge on 21 November 1990 at the age of 82 years.

Impact of educational intervention on the awareness of undergraduate medical students towards teratogenicity: an observational study

Background: The term teratogenicity is defined as any morphological, behavioral or biochemical effect induced during embryonic life or fetal life detected at birth or later. the factors that lead to teratogenicity include both non-genetic and genetic factors. The objective of the present study was to assess the impact of educational interventions on the awareness of undergraduate medical students towards teratogenicityMethods: The present study was a questionnaire-based comparative observational study carried out at Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Government Medical College, Jammu (J&K) for a period of three months from 1st November 2017 to 31st January 2018. The questionnaire was designed and validated by conducting pilot study on a sample of ten students. The questionnaire comprised of two main parts. The first part comprised of questions pertaining to the demographic profile of the students and second part consisted of questions assessing the students’ knowledge and awareness towards teratogenicity. The scoring of the assessment of the performance of the students regarding knowledge of various aspects of teratogenicity was done before and after the educational intervention and was compared using paired t-test.Results: A total of 134 second year MBBS undergraduate students participated in the study. Mean age of students was 19.32±0.82 years. In the present study it was found that before the educational intervention about 98.5% of the students and after the intervention all the students were aware of the term teratogenicity. About 69.4% of students knew about all the causes that lead to teratogenicity but after the intervention about 76.1% of the students knew about it. Also, the percentage of students who knew about the name of two teratogenic drugs and two teratogenic defects associated with drugs were only 31.3% and 22.3% respectively. After the educational intervention it increased to 61.9% and 52.2% respectively.Conclusions: In the present study, it was found that after the educational intervention, there was a significant improvement in the mean knowledge score of the students. This reflects the need of early exposure of students to this important issue of teratogenicity

Mapping Global Research Output in Big Data during 2007-16

The paper examines global research in big data, as covered in Scopus database 2007-16, on a series of bibliometric indicators. The study finds that big data registered exceedingly fast growth (135.2%), but averaged low citation impact per paper (3.75) and accounted for very low share of highly cited papers (0.86%) in 10 years. The study reports publication trends in big data research by top countries, top institutions, top authors, top journals, major subject areas, publication modes, and country-level share of international collaborative publications. The study concludes that big data is a subject of recent origin. Given its major potential to impact business, governance, society, healthcare, industry and many other sectors, big data is fast emerging as a major discipline of interest and importance to nations, corporates, and institutions across developed and fast emerging economies

Prescription pattern of medicines in a tertiary care hospital: a cross-sectional study

Background: Prescribing drugs for any disease is not complete until it is rationally done. Irrational prescriptions often lead to treatment failure, toxicity or drug interactions which may prove detrimental to the patient. Antibiotics are very much prescribed in day to day practice but their rational use prevents treatment failure, resistance.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital to see the antibiotic prescribing pattern. Prescriptions were screened one time from different OPDs with prior permission from the doctor attending the respective OPD.Results: A total of 200 prescriptions were assessed out of which 121 had monotherapies prescribed, 79 had FDCs. Antibiotics were the most commonly prescribed drugs. Prescriptions having drug combinations were assessed and pantoprazole domperidone was the most commonly prescribed (32.91%).Conclusions: Drugs should be prescribed rationally for proper therapeutic benefit. It encourages the patient to properly use the medicine and properly comply to it

Knowledge, attitude and practices about adverse drug reaction among medical students in a medical college: an observational study

Background: Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) are usually associated with drugs which may or may not go unnoticed. ADRs are of great concern for any health care set up as they directly or indirectly add to the cost of treatment, prolongation of treatment, hospital stay or sometimes may even cause death. Spontaneous ADR reporting forms an important part of pharmacovigilance.Methods: An observational study was carried out in a medical college to know the knowledge, attitude and practice being followed by them in a Medical College.Results: In present study all the students had knowledge about ADRs. Only 86.7% of the students knew how and where to report an ADR. 73.3% of the students knew who can report an ADR and they had visited ADRM centre but only 60% of the students knew which ADR is to be reported. 88% of the students had an attitude that it is important to report an ADR and 86.7% told that it is useful to report an ADR. 99.3% of the students had never reported an ADR. Only 1.4% of the students had really visited ADRM centre of their institution but none of the students had ever visited wards or OPDs to look for ADRs. 26.7% of the students said that they will report an ADR if they see it ever.Conclusions: There is good knowledge about ADRs and ADRM centre among students, but it needs to bring ADR reporting into practice by actively doing hands on workshops or by adding this exercise into practical curriculum

Prostate cancer research in India: A scientometric analysis of publications output during 2004-13

This review article examines 1,368 publications on prostate cancer in India, as covered in Scopus database during 2004-13, experiencing an annual average growth rate of 18.77% and citation impact of 5.23. The world prostate cancer output (89,994 publications) came from several countries, of which the top 15 (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, and China) accounts for 94.80% share of the global output during 2004-13. India’s global publication share was 1.52% and hold 14th rank in global publication output during 2004-13. The Indian prostate cancer output came from several organizations and authors, of which the top 20 and 19 contributed 41.81% and 24.05% share, respectively, during 2004-13. India’s international collaborative share in prostate cancer was 23.39%, which decreased from 24.42% to 22.98% from 2004-08 to 2009-13. Medicine accounted for the largest share (59.50%) of output in prostate cancer followed by biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (40.13%), pharmacology, toxicology & pharmaceutics (27.63%), chemistry (8.55%), agricultural and biological sciences (4.31% share), and immunology and microbiology (2.70% share) during 2004-13. Diagnosis, screening, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, pathology and prognosis together account for 60.24% publications share among treatments methods used in Indian prostate cancer research during 2004-13. Only Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu together contributed 57.82% share in Indian publications output in prostate cancer during 2004-13. The authors stressed the need for developing national policy for prostate cancer which should take care of screening for detection and diagnosis, management and treatment options of the prostate cancer patients in India.

Prostate cancer research in India: A scientometric analysis of publications output during 2004-13

This review article examines 1,368 publications on prostate cancer in India, as covered in Scopus database during 2004-13, experiencing an annual average growth rate of 18.77% and citation impact of 5.23. The world prostate cancer output (89,994 publications) came from several countries, of which the top 15 (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, and China) accounts for 94.80% share of the global output during 2004-13. India’s global publication share was 1.52% and hold 14th rank in global publication output during 2004-13. The Indian prostate cancer output came from several organizations and authors, of which the top 20 and 19 contributed 41.81% and 24.05% share, respectively, during 2004-13. India’s international collaborative share in prostate cancer was 23.39%, which decreased from 24.42% to 22.98% from 2004-08 to 2009-13. Medicine accounted for the largest share (59.50%) of output in prostate cancer followed by biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (40.13%), pharmacology, toxicology &amp; pharmaceutics (27.63%), chemistry (8.55%), agricultural and biological sciences (4.31% share), and immunology and microbiology (2.70% share) during 2004-13. Diagnosis, screening, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, pathology and prognosis together account for 60.24% publications share among treatments methods used in Indian prostate cancer research during 2004-13. Only Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu together contributed 57.82% share in Indian publications output in prostate cancer during 2004-13. The authors stressed the need for developing national policy for prostate cancer which should take care of screening for detection and diagnosis, management and treatment options of the prostate cancer patients in India.  </p

A Novel DWT-CT approach in Digital Watermarking using PSO

The importance of watermarking is dramatically enhanced due to the promising technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Data analysis, and automation of identification in many sectors. Due to these reasons, systems are inter-connected through networking and internet and huge amounts of information is generated, distributed and transmitted over the World Wide Web. Thus authentication of the information is a challenging task. The algorithm developed for the watermarking needs to be robust against various attack such as salt & peppers, filtering, compression and cropping etc. This paper focuses on the robustness of the algorithm by using a hybrid approach of two transforms such as Contourlet, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). Also, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to optimize the embedding strength factor. The proposed digital watermarking algorithm has been tested against common types of image attacks. Experiment results for the proposed algorithm gives better performance by using similarity metrics such as NCC (Normalized Cross Correlation value) and PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio)