Case Report - Marfan syndrome: Report of two cases with review of literature

Marfan syndrome is a variable, autosomal dominant disorder of connective tissue whose cardinal features affect the cardiovascular system, eyes and skeleton. The minimal birth incidence is around 1 in 9800. About three quarters of patients have an affected parent; new mutations account for the remainder. The patient’s prognosis depends on the severity of cardiovascular complications and is mainly determined by progressive dilation of the aorta. If signs of Marfan syndrome are recognized, it is important to refer to the correct health care professional for further testing to prevent associated complications. If not properly treated, premature death may be caused by the severe cardiovascular and pulmonary complications associated with Marfan syndrome. Therefore, it is important to identify this potentially life‑threatening condition in general practice. This article reports two cases with a very typical features of Marfan syndrome

On reconciling ground-based with spaceborne normalized radar cross section measurements

©2002 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.This study examines differences in the normalized radar cross section, derived from ground-based versus spaceborne radar data. A simple homogeneous half-space model, indicates that agreement between the two improves as 1) the distance from the scatterer is increased; and/or 2) the extinction coefficient increases

Incorporating Robsons classification in analysis of caesarean section at rural territory centre for 18 months

Background: With the rise of caesarean sections (CS) over the last five decades, World Health Organization (WHO) proposed that health care facilities to use the Robsons 10 group classification system to audit their caesarean sections rates. This classification would help understand internal structure of the CS rates at individual health facilities identify population groups, indication in each group and formulate strategies to reduce these rates. Methods: This is a retrospective study for a period of 18 months at tertiary care hospital in rural area at department of obstetrics and gynaecology, Dr. PSIMS & RF, Chinnoutpalli, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Women who delivered during this period were analysed and classified into Robsons group 10 classification and percentages were calculated for the overall rate, the representation of groups, contribution of groups and caesarean percentage in each group in rural territory centre during the period of January 2021 to June 2022. Results: From January 2021 to June 2022 there were total of 547 deliveries. Out of which 224 had caesarean section accounting for a caesarean delivery rate of 40.9%. When data was analysed according to Robsons 10 group classification maximum contribution of caesarean section was with Robsons group 5.1 (36%), which comprised of patients with term cephalic multiparous with one previous scar. Followed by group 2A (21%), which comprised of patients with term cephalic nulliparous with labour induced. Breech pregnancies are completely undergoing caesarean section (groups 6 and 7). Conclusions: We identified the contribution of each group to the overall CS rate as well as the CS rate within each group. Women with previous caesarean delivery contribute to the increasing proportion of caesarean deliveries. Use of Robson criteria allows standardized comparisons of data and identifies clinical scenarios in caesarean rates. All institutes to audit themselves to evaluate quality of caesarean section rates and to rationalize caesarean rates. Impact of interventions to reduce caesarean rates should be studied and documented. Evaluation of existing management protocols and further studies into indications of CS and outcomes in our setting will helps us to design strategies and improve outcomes

An improved coherent radar depth sounder

This is the published version. Copyright International Glaciological SocietyThe University of Kansas developed a coherent radar depth sounder during the 1980s. This system was originally developed for glacial ice-thickness measurements in the Antarctic. During the field tests in the Antarctic and Greenland, we found the system performance to be less than optimum. The field tests in Greenland were performed in 1993, as a part of the NASA Program for Arctic Climate Assessment ( PARCA ). We redesigned and rebuilt this system to improve the performance. The radar uses pulse compression and coherent signal processing to obtain high sensitivity and fine along-track resolution. It operates at a center frequency of 150 MHz with a radio frequency bandwidth of about 17 MHz, which gives a range resolution of about 5 m in ice. We have been operating it from a NASA P-3 aircraft for collecting ice-thickness data in conjunction with laser surface-elevation measurements over the Greenland ice sheet during the last 4 years. We have demonstrated that this radar can measure the thickness of more than 3 km of cold ice and can obtain ice-thickness information over outlet glaciers and ice margins. In this paper we provide a brief survey of radar sounding of glacial ice, followed by a description of the system and subsystem design and performance. We also show sample results from the field experiments over the Greenland ice sheet and its outlet glaciers

Vertical and Horizontal Agency Problems in Private Firms: Ownership Structure and Operating Performance

We investigate how ownership structure influences op erating performance and implied agency costs. Our sample includes over 42,000 U.K. private and public firms. We document several new results of considerable economic significance relating to: (a) horizontal agency costs arising from unequal ownership within private firms, (b) amplification of agency costs from joint presence within the same firm of horizontal agency problems and vertical agency problems arising from separation of ownership and control, (c) mitigation in agency costs wrought by a second large shareholder, (d) impact of complex ownership structures, and (e) agency cost differences between public firms and comparable private firms.Ye

Clinicopathological characteristics of colon cancers in a tertiary care centre

Background: Colon cancer is a leading cause of increase in cancer incidence and now becoming a major cause of cancer related mortality.Methods: We evaluated data of patients diagnosed with colon cancer and managed under Aarogyasri program between 2013 and 2019 at a tertiary care cancer hospital in Rajamahenderi, Andhra Pradesh, India. We collected data regarding demography, clinical presentation, subsite, histology, stage and treatment.Results: A total of 142 patients with colon cancer were managed. The mean age was 53.6 years with males accounting for 57%. Most common clinical presentation was abdominal pain followed by vomiting. Most common histology was well differentiated adenocarcinoma. Left sided colon tumors accounted for 47%. Most common stage at presentation was stage III.Conclusions: Our data of colon cancer was different from that described in the western countries. Young age presentation, higher mucinous and signet ring carcinomas and advanced stage presentation were reported in our study. Socioeconomic factors, inadequate health care access might account for some of these differences

Radar Thickness Measurements over the Southern Part of the Greenland Ice Sheet

We performed ice thickness measurements over the southern part of the Greenland ice sheet during June and July 1993. We used an airborne coherent radar depth sounder for these measurements. The radar was operated from a NASA P-3 aircraft equipped with GPS receivers. Radar data were collected in conjunction with laser altimeter and microwave altimeter measurements of ice surface elevation. This report provides radio echograms and thickness profiles from data collected during 1993

Adaptive Graph Filters in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces: Design and Performance Analysis

This paper develops adaptive graph filters that operate in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. We consider both centralized and fully distributed implementations. We first define nonlinear graph filters that operate on graph-shifted versions of the input signal. We then propose a centralized graph kernel least mean squares (GKLMS) algorithm to identify nonlinear graph filters' model parameters. To reduce the dictionary size of the centralized GKLMS, we apply the principles of coherence check and random Fourier features (RFF). The resulting algorithms have performance close to that of the GKLMS algorithm. Additionally, we leverage the graph structure to derive the distributed graph diffusion KLMS (GDKLMS) algorithms. We show that, unlike the coherence check-based approach, the GDKLMS based on RFF avoids the use of a pre-trained dictionary through its data independent fixed structure. We conduct a detailed performance study of the proposed RFF-based GDKLMS, and the conditions for its convergence both in mean and mean-squared senses are derived. Extensive numerical simulations show that GKLMS and GDKLMS can successfully identify nonlinear graph filters and adapt to model changes. Furthermore, RFF-based strategies show faster convergence for model identification and exhibit better tracking performance in model-changing scenarios

Coherent radar ice thickness measurements over the Greenland ice sheet

This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001JD900183.We developed two 150-MHz coherent radar depth sounders for ice thickness measurements over the Greenland ice sheet. We developed one of these using connectorized components and the other using radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). Both systems are designed to use pulse compression techniques and coherent integration to obtain the high sensitivity required to measure the thickness of more than 4 km of cold ice. We used these systems to collect radar data over the interior and margins of the ice sheet and several outlet glaciers. We operated both radar systems on the NASA P-3B aircraft equipped with GPS receivers. Radar data are tagged with GPS-derived location information and are collected in conjunction with laser altimeter measurements. We have reduced all data collected since 1993 and derived ice thickness along all flight lines flown in support of Program for Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) investigations and the North Greenland Ice Core Project. Radar echograms and derived ice thickness data are placed on a server at the University of Kansas (http://tornado.rsl.ukans.edu/Greenlanddata.htm) for easy access by the scientific community. We obtained good ice thickness information with an accuracy of ±10 m over 90% of the flight lines flown as a part of the PARCA initiative. In this paper we provide a brief description of the system along with samples of data over the interior, along the 2000-m contour line in the south and from a few selected outlet glaciers