Risk assessment for type 2 diabetes mellitus in Muttanallur village, Bangalore, India

Background: Diabetes is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. There are certain risk factors involved in the development of type 2 DM. Affordable, quick and easily available validated tools are required for assessment of risk factors for type 2 DM. Using one such questionnaire, Finnish Diabetes Risk Score [FINDRISK], we have conducted an observational study in a rural area to identify and assess the risks for the development of type 2 DM.Methods: This cross sectional, observational, community-based study was undertaken, in Muttanallur Village, Bangalore. After the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 487 subjects were included. According to the final score obtained with the FINDRISK questionnaire, the individuals were classified into mild, moderate, high and very high-risk groups.Results: After the analysis of the variables, 253 individuals (52%) came under moderate risk with a score of (7-14) and 6 (1.2%) were categorized as having very high risk. Females, subjects above the age group of 45 years, having BMI ≥30 kg/m2, waist circumference of ≥37 inches, not having 30 minutes of daily physical activity and consumption of vegetables and fruits, with history of hypertension, high blood glucose during pregnancy or in the past, were having higher moderate to high risk prevalence and had more chances of developing type 2 DM (p value <0.001).Conclusions: As per the results of this study authors concluded that there was a statistically significant association between certain clinical variables with the development of future type 2 DM

A prospective study to evaluate oral iron preparations in antenatal women at a tertiary care hospital

Background: Iron deficiency is the most common cause of anemia in pregnancy worldwide. It can be mild, moderate or severe. Severe anemia can have very serious consequences for mothers and babies. Pregnant women requiring medication represent a challenge to healthcare providers to avoid any teratogenic risk to foetus. The purpose of this study was to provide information about the most effective iron preparations prescribed to pregnant women and to evaluate the haemoglobin status before and after oral iron therapy.Methods: This was a Prospective observational study conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Rajarajeswari Medical College and Hospital, between October 2013 and March 2014.This study was conducted by reviewing the antenatal care Outpatient department case papers of 200 pregnant women who were anaemic.Results: Demographic profile, detailed medical history and drug intake in current pregnancy was noted. The prescription pattern was assessed. Of the three common iron preparations prescribed, Ferrous sulphate was the most common preparation. Findings of our study showed that all pregnant anaemic women included in the study were provided with iron and folic acid therapy and the most effective oral iron preparation was Ferrous sulphate.Conclusions: Present study shows that ferrous sulphate is the most common iron preparation prescribed. Ferrous sulphate and ferrous fumarate preparations showed better improvement in Hb levels. Anaemia is common among all pregnant women and therefore it raises the concern about high morbidity and mortality associated with pregnancy outcome. This can be minimized by educating pregnant women about importance of balanced diet and utilization of antenatal facilities even during early pregnancy.

Atypical presentation of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis type 8 in a sibling pair and review of the eye findings and neurological features.

Purpose:To report atypical presentation of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses type 8 (CLN8) to the eye clinic and review clinical features of CLN8. Observations:Detailed eye exam by slit lamp exam, indirect ophthalmoscopy, fundus photography, optical coherence tomography, visual fields and electroretinogram (ERG). Molecular genetic testing using Next Generation Sequencing panel (NGS) and array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (aCGH).The siblings in this study presented to the eye clinic with retinitis pigmentosa and cystoid macular edema, and a history of seizures but no severe neurocognitive deficits or regression. Genetic testing identified a c.200C > T (p.A67V) variant in the CLN8 gene and a deletion encompassing the entire gene. Electron microscopy of lymphocytes revealed fingerprint inclusions in both siblings. Conclusions:and Importance: Pathogenic variants in CLN8 account for the retinitis pigmentosa and seizures in our patients however, currently, they do not have regression or neurocognitive decline. The presentation of NCL can be very diverse and it is important for ophthalmologists to consider this in the differential diagnosis of retinal disorders with seizures or other neurological features. Molecular genetic testing of multiple genes causing isolated and syndromic eye disorders using NGS panels and aCGH along with additional complementary testing may often be required to arrive at a definitive diagnosis

FINDING BURST CONTENT IN ONLINE STREAM VIA URL BASED DETECTION

Detection of emerging topics is now receiving renewed interest motivated by the rapid growth of social networks. Conventional-term-frequency-based approaches may not be appropriate in this context, because the information exchanged in social-network posts include not only text but also images, URLs, and videos. We focus on emergence of topics signaled by social aspects of theses networks. Specifically, we focus on mentions of user links between users that are generated dynamically (intentionally or unintentionally) through replies, mentions, and retweets. We propose a probability model of the mentioning behavior of a social network user, and propose to detect the emergence of a new topic from the anomalies measured through the model. Aggregating anomaly scores from hundreds of users, we show that we can detect emerging topics only based on the reply/mention relationships in social-network posts. We demonstrate our technique in several real data sets we gathered from Twitter. The experiments show that the proposed mention-anomaly-based approaches can detect new topics at least as early as text-anomaly-based approaches, and in some cases much earlier when the topic is poorly identified by the textual contents in posts

Evaluation and identification of high yielding trees in Nigerian cocoa germplasm

Forty four Nigerian cocoa clones which are being conserved in the field gene banks of Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Regional Station, Vittal, Karnataka were assessed for their growth and yield performance. Six year old trees were observed for their morphological characters and annual pod yields were compiled over eight years from five to twelve years of age after planting. Pod and bean characteristics were also studied for all the clones. Precocious, potential high yielders were identified from their vigorous growth habit in the introduced environment with sturdy stems and optimal canopy spread. Among the clones, NC-37, NC-23, NC-26, NC-50, NC-20, NC-51, NC-27 and NC-25 were identified as heavy bearers with an average of 61.9, 53.3, 49.4, 48.4, 45.1, 44.2, 43.9 and 43.0 pods per tree per year respectively and with high dry bean yields of more than one kilogram per tree per year. These clones recorded single bean weight of more than 1 gram, 10-15 per cent shelling percentage and more than 50 percent fat which made them suitable for industries as well

Geometric multiaxial representation of N-qubit mixed symmetric separable states

Study of an N qubit mixed symmetric separable states is a long standing challenging problem as there exist no unique separability criterion. In this regard, we take up the N-qubit mixed symmetric separable states for a detailed study as these states are of experimental importance and offer elegant mathematical analysis since the dimension of the Hilbert space reduces from 2N to N + 1. Since there exists a one to one correspondence between spin-j system and an N-qubit symmetric state, we employ Fano statistical tensor parameters for the parametrization of spin density matrix. Further, we use geometric multiaxial representation (MAR) of density matrix to characterize the mixed symmetric separable states. Since separability problem is NP hard, we choose to study it in the continuum limit where mixed symmetric separable states are characterized by the P-distribution function λ (ᶿ, Φ) We show that the N-qubit mixed symmetric separable state can be visualized as a uniaxial system if the distribution function is independent of ᶿ, and Φ. We further choose distribution function to be the most general positive function on a sphere and observe that the statistical tensor parameters characterizing the N-qubit symmetric system are the expansion coefficients of the distribution function. As an example for the discrete case, we investigate the MAR of a uniformly weighted two qubit mixed symmetric separable state. We also observe that there exists a correspondence between separability and classicality of states

Probing ion channel functional architecture and domain recombination compatibility by massively parallel domain insertion profiling

Protein domains are the basic units of protein structure and function. Comparative analysis of genomes and proteomes showed that domain recombination is a main driver of multidomain protein functional diversification and some of the constraining genomic mechanisms are known. Much less is known about biophysical mechanisms that determine whether protein domains can be combined into viable protein folds. Here, we use massively parallel insertional mutagenesis to determine compatibility of over 300,000 domain recombination variants of the Inward Rectifier K+ channel Kir2.1 with channel surface expression. Our data suggest that genomic and biophysical mechanisms acted in concert to favor gain of large, structured domain at protein termini during ion channel evolution. We use machine learning to build a quantitative biophysical model of domain compatibility in Kir2.1 that allows us to derive rudimentary rules for designing domain insertion variants that fold and traffic to the cell surface. Positional Kir2.1 responses to motif insertion clusters into distinct groups that correspond to contiguous structural regions of the channel with distinct biophysical properties tuned towards providing either folding stability or gating transitions. This suggests that insertional profiling is a high-throughput method to annotate function of ion channel structural regions

Effects of communication and utility-based decision making in a simple model of evacuation

We present a simple cellular automaton based model of decision making during evacuation. Evacuees have to choose between two different exit routes, resulting in a strategic decision making problem. Agents take their decisions based on utility functions, these can be revised as the evacuation proceeds, leading to complex interaction between individuals and to jamming transitions. The model also includes the possibility to communicate and exchange information with distant agents, information received may affect the decision of agents. We show that under a wider range of evacuation scenarios performance of the model system as a whole is optimal at an intermediate fraction of evacuees with access to communication.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Elevated serum Homocysteine levels a possible non-invasive diagnostic biomarker in patients with Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Lack of independent biomarkers is very much evident in NAFLD. Early detection of NAFLD is difficult due to the absence of specific diagnostic and prognostic markers and clinical symptoms. We retrospectively collected the information of patients hospitalised with NAFLD diagnosis and metabolic syndrome during 2019-2020 using the tertiary care hospital inpatient sample database and evaluated the changes in their serum homocysteine levels. We found that 59.063% of NAFLD in the male population and 41.667% of NAFLD in the female population had increased serum homocysteine. This shows that elevated serum homocysteine can act as a potential biomarker for NAFLD

Milne Bay Province: Text summaries, maps, code lists and village identification

The major purpose of the Papua New Guinea Agricultural Systems Project is to produce information on small holder (subsistence) agriculture at provincial and national levels (Allen et al 1995). Information was collected by field observation, interviews with villagers and reference to published and unpublished documents. Methods are described by Bourke et al. (1993). This Working Paper contains a written summary of the information on the Agricultural Systems in this Province, maps of the location of agriculture systems, a complete listing of all information in the database in coded form, and lists of villages with National Population Census codes, indexed by agricultural systems. This information is available as a map-linked database (GIS) suitable for use on a personal computer in ESRI and MapInfo formats. An Agricultural System is identified when a set of similar agricultural crops and practices occur within a defined area. Six criteria are used to distinguish one system from another: 1. Fallow type (the vegetation which is cleared from a garden site before cultivation). 2. Fallow period (the length of time a garden site is left unused between cultivations). 3. Cultivation intensity (the number of consecutive crops planted before fallow). 4. The staple, or most important, crops. 5. Garden and crop segregation (the extent to which crops are planted in separate gardens; in separate areas within a garden; or are planted sequentially). 6. Soil fertility maintenance techniques (other than natural regrowth fallows). Where one or more of these factors differs significantly and the differences can be mapped, then a separate system is distinguished. Where variation occurs, but is not able to be mapped at 1:500 000 scale because the areas in which the variation occurs are too small or are widely dispersed within the larger system, a subsystem is identified. Subsystems within an Agricultural System are allocated a separate record in the database, identified by the Agricultural System number and a subsystem number. Sago is a widespread staple food in lowland Papua New Guinea. Sago is produced from palms which are not grown in gardens. Most of the criteria above cannot be applied. In this case, systems are differentiated on the basis of the staple crops only. The Papua New Guinea Resource Information System (PNGRIS) is a GIS which contains information on the natural resources of PNG (Bellamy 1986). PNGRIS contains no information on agricultural practices, other than an assessment of land use intensity based on air photograph interpretation by Saunders (1993. The Agricultural Systems Project is designed to provide detailed information on agricultural practices and cropping patterns as part of an upgraded PNGRIS geographical information system. For this reason the Agricultural Systems database contains almost no information on the environmental settings of the systems, except for altitude and slope. The layout of the text descriptions, the database code files and the village lists are similar to PNGRIS formats (Cuddy 1987). The mapping of Agricultural Systems has been carried out on the same map base and scale as PNGRIS (Tactical Pilotage Charts, 1:500 000). Agricultural Systems were mapped within the areas of agricultural land use established by Saunders (1993) from aerial photography. Except where specifically noted, Agricultural Systems boundaries have been mapped without reference to PNGRIS Resource Mapping Unit (RMU) boundaries. Agricultural Systems are defined at the level of the Province (following PNGRIS) but their wider distribution is recognised in the database by cross-referencing systems which cross provincial borders. A preliminary view of the relationships between PNGRIS RMUs and the Agricultural Systems in this Province can be obtained from the listing of villages by Agricultural System, where RMU numbers are appended. Allen, B. J., R. M. Bourke and R. L. Hide 1995. The sustainability of Papua New Guinea agricultural systems: the conceptual background. Global Environmental Change 5(4): 297-312. Bourke, R. M., R. L. Hide, B. J. Allen, R. Grau, G. S. Humphreys and H. C. Brookfield 1993. Mapping agricultural systems in Papua New Guinea. Population Family Health and Development. T. Taufa and C. Bass. University of Papua New Guinea Press, Port Moresby: 205-224. Bellamy, J. A. and J. R. McAlpine 1995. Papua New Guinea Inventory of Natural Resources, Population Distribution and Land Use Handbook. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation for the Australian Agency for International Development. PNGRIS Publication No. 6, Canberra. Cuddy, S. M. 1987. Papua New Guinea Inventory of Natural Resources, Population Distribution and Land Use: Code Files Part 1 Natural Resources. Division of Water and Land Resources, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Land Utilization Section, Department of Primary Industry, Papua New Guinea, Canberra