In Vivo Evaluation of the Presence of Bone Marrow in Cortical Porosity in Postmenopausal Osteopenic Women

This is the first observational study examining cortical porosity in vivo in postmenopausal osteopenic women and to incorporate data from two different imaging modalities to further examine the nature of cortical porosity. The goal of this study was to combine high-resolution peripheral computed tomography (HR-pQCT) images, which contain high spatial resolution information of the cortical structure, and magnetic resonance (MR) images, which allow the visualization of soft tissues such as bone marrow, to observe the amount of cortical porosity that contains bone marrow in postmenopausal osteopenic women. The radius of 49 and the tibia of 51 postmenopausal osteopenic women (age 56 ± 3.7) were scanned using both HR-pQCT and MR imaging. A normalized mutual information registration algorithm was used to obtain a three-dimensional rigid transform which aligned the MR image to the HR-pQCT image. The aligned images allowed for the visualization of bone marrow in cortical pores. From the HR-pQCT image, the percent cortical porosity, the number of cortical pores, and the size of each cortical pore was determined. By overlaying the aligned MR and HR-pQCT images, the percent of cortical pores containing marrow, the number of cortical pores containing marrow, and the size of each cortical pore containing marrow were measured. While the amount of cortical porosity did not vary greatly between subjects, the type of cortical pore, containing marrow vs. not containing marrow, varied highly between subjects. The results suggest that cortical pore spaces contain components of varying composition, and that there may be more than one mechanism for the development of cortical porosity

Family-led rehabilitation after stroke in India (ATTEND): a randomised controlled trial

Background Most people with stroke in India have no access to organised rehabilitation services. The effectiveness of training family members to provide stroke rehabilitation is uncertain. Our primary objective was to determine whether family-led stroke rehabilitation, initiated in hospital and continued at home, would be superior to usual care in a low-resource setting. Methods The Family-led Rehabilitation after Stroke in India (ATTEND) trial was a prospectively randomised open trial with blinded endpoint done across 14 hospitals in India. Patients aged 18 years or older who had had a stroke within the past month, had residual disability and reasonable expectation of survival, and who had an informal family-nominated caregiver were randomly assigned to intervention or usual care by site coordinators using a secure web-based system with minimisation by site and stroke severity. The family members of participants in the intervention group received additional structured rehabilitation training—including information provision, joint goal setting, carer training, and task-specific training—that was started in hospital and continued at home for up to 2 months. The primary outcome was death or dependency at 6 months, defined by scores 3–6 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) as assessed by masked observers. Analyses were by intention to treat. This trial is registered with Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI/2013/04/003557), Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12613000078752), and Universal Trial Number (U1111-1138-6707). Findings Between Jan 13, 2014, and Feb 12, 2016, 1250 patients were randomly assigned to intervention (n=623) or control (n=627) groups. 33 patients were lost to follow-up (14 intervention, 19 control) and five patients withdrew (two intervention, three control). At 6 months, 285 (47%) of 607 patients in the intervention group and 287 (47%) of 605 controls were dead or dependent (odds ratio 0·98, 95% CI 0·78–1·23, p=0·87). 72 (12%) patients in the intervention group and 86 (14%) in the control group died (p=0·27), and we observed no difference in rehospitalisation (89 [14%]patients in the intervention group vs 82 [13%] in the control group; p=0·56). We also found no difference in total non-fatal events (112 events in 82 [13%] intervention patients vs 110 events in 79 [13%] control patients; p=0·80). Interpretation Although task shifting is an attractive solution for health-care sustainability, our results do not support investment in new stroke rehabilitation services that shift tasks to family caregivers, unless new evidence emerges. A future avenue of research should be to investigate the effects of task shifting to health-care assistants or team-based community care

Medicinal weeds of crop fields and role of women in rural health and hygiene in Nalbari district, Assam

501-504The paper presents 32 medicinally important weed species found in different crop fields along with some other plant species believed to have medicinal properties, which are being used by the rural people, particularly the women in Nalbari district, Assam. These weeds, although considered harmful to the crops, and are eradicated from the crop fields during cultural operation, may be fruitfully utilized to serve the medicinal purposes against various diseases. The herbal recipes recorded in the study may provide ample opportunities to study them critically for their efficacy and also for new drug development

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Not AvailableThe aim of the present study is to understand the people’s dependency on Hilsa fishery as their livelihood and to suggest the appropriate measures for its conservation and economic sustainability. The anadromous Hilsa enjoys the highest attraction due to its unique taste, flavour, and culinary properties. About 15-20 per cent of global Hilsa catch is reported by India. Though, a report revealing the decline of Hilsa yield, bountiful harvest of samewas reported in Brahmaputra river of Dhubri district. The primary data of 30 Hilsa fishers have been selected randomly to study the economic status, constraints faced by them, exploitation level. About 40% of respondents involved in both fishing and agriculture and 30% are only engaged in fishing. About 63.33% of fishers owned motorised boats and the gear used for Hilsa fishing is monofilament Gill net with mesh size 7cm to 12 cm. About 63.66% of respondents are found to be perennial fishers. The average Hilsa landing is 6.25 tonnes in one landing centre during the Hilsa season. The economic analysis shows that motorised boat owners have highest B:C ratio (1.7) against traditional fishers (1.4) during Hilsa season. Overcrowding of fishers during Hilsa season, Price fluctuations, lack of weighing system, Small and unhygienic auctioning centre, etc. are some of the constraint faced by the Hilsa fishers. Implementation of Licence system onnumber of boats to be operated, measures for habitat restoration, check on mess size regulationshave to be given focus to make the Hilsa fishery economical and sustainable.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableAn in-vitro toxicity study was undertaken for the validation, laydown the standards, supplement some of the information on assessment and define the nature of toxicity of different solvent extracts of Terminalia arjuna considering Artemia salina model, as a case study. In the present study, experimental conditions such as yellow color light of 100 W at 5% salinity for 48 hours with pH 8.0-8.5 at 30 0C, picking up of nauplii with 3mL dropper cut at its tip, 24 hours incubation in same experimental conditions and visualization with 50X magnifying glass were modified unlike previous studies. Functional screening of solvent extracts with their mother solvents revealed that hex, Etac, Chlo, Acet, Etoh, and Meoh exhibited, the LC50 values as 118.50, 101.75, 93.36, 278.32, 528.78 and 477.67 ppm, respectively, designating them as; medium, medium, high, medium, low, medium toxic, while in their solvent extract forms the toxicity nature gets changed indicating the effectiveness of the extracts. Study, also defines the toxicity level for universal solvents such as DMSO and Dw as to be non-toxic as per the Meyers toxicity index and Clarkson’s toxicity criterion. Among solvent extracts of T. arjuna, all were found to be toxic as per Meyers toxicity index. However, with reference to Clarkson’s toxicity criterion, solvent extracts comprehended extended toxicity classes as low, medium and high toxic. The PCA 1 and 2 showed, 69.46% and 19.74% variations indicating strong correlation between the parameters. The results confirmed that LC50 of any solvent extract could be treated as relative LC50, which is the fraction of mother solvent and could be treated as absolute LC50, which is the actual potential of the solvent extracts that might be positive for less effective and negative for highly effective solvent extracts. For smoothening of experimental results, negative sign was ignored. Relative LC50, relative LC50%, absolute LC50, and absolute LC50% could find liner relation with their % fractions and inverse relation with their counterparts. Thus present study advocates the inclusion of relative LC50, relative LC50%, absolute LC50, absolute LC50%, considerating 95% upper and lower fiducial class intervals and TI values while fixing the nature of toxicity and designating the safety aspect to the host. Also, the study recommends for the collective effort to make BSLA as an internationally accepted and robust standard by revisiting and supplementing the existing toxicity criterion for the BSLANot Availabl

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Not AvailableThe present study was an attempt to perform functional screening and evaluating the effects of solvent extracts of Terminalia arjuna against Argulus bengalensis. Solvent extracts were used at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 mg/L, at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hours and 12, 24, 36,48 and 60 hours under in-vitro and invivo conditions, respectively in moderately parasitically challenged (25-30, A. bengalensis/fish) Labeo rohita juveniles of 30±1.5 g. The 5% dimethyl sulphoxide was used as negative control (DMSO). The LC50 values of solvent extracts for L. rohita were 67.67±12.59, 78.13±14.17, 79.12±17.68, 56.47±12.67 and 256.43±8.93 mg/L for Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract, Terminalia arjuna methanolic bark extract and Terminalia arjuna acetone bark extract, respectively, at 60 hours interval. Under invitro condition, 100% anti-parasitic efficacy (AE) and minimum therapeutic index (TI) value (1.2) was ascertained by Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract at 50 mg/L in 2 hour, and minimum LC50 was reported by Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract under in-vitro condition (13.14±3.79 mg/L) and maximum by Terminalia arjuna acetone bark extract under in-vitro condition (75.8±12.69 mg/L) at 5 hour interval. While, under in-vivo conditions, minimum LC50 for immersion and bath treatments was observed with Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract (27.92±9.56 mg/L) and TAEBIM (33.6±7.58 mg/L), correspondingly, at 60 hours. The minimum TI was reported in bath treatment of Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract (1.1). The RPS was also improved in bath treatment as compare to the immersion treatment. The 100% anti-parasitic activity was observed in bath treatment of Terminalia arjuna ethanolic bark extract at 24 hours. The PCA bi-plot explains 79.34% and 14.32% variations for component 1 & 2, respectively. The efficacy of solvent extracts varied significantly in response to concentrations of the extracts and exposure times and toxicity of the extracts (Exposure time*extract *treatment: F=16.12, P= 0.04). The study provides, the evidences for safe and effective application of prospective solvent extracts of T. arjuna against A. bengalensis in L. rohita juveniles, and yield first-hand information on acute toxicity of solvent extract in L. rohita.Not Availabl