Impact of Supplemental Oxygen on Obstructive Sleep Apnea of Infants

Abstract: Treatment options may be limited for infants with obstructive sleep apnea when there is no surgically correctable upper airway lesion. We therefore evaluated, retrospectively, the efficacy of low-flow oxygen as a therapeutic option for infant obstructive sleep apnea. We reviewed the medical charts of 23 infants who had undergone a therapeutic trial of low-flow oxygen during polysomnography. Split-night polysomnography was used in 21/23 subjects while 2/23 had undergone two separate, full-night polysomnography sleep architecture and respiratory findings on the baseline polysomnogram segment that was obtained in room air were compared with the segment on low-flow oxygen (0.25–1 L/min). Wilcoxon signed rank or McNemar’s test were used as indicated for comparing apnea hypopnea index and measures of sleep architecture at baseline and with oxygen therapy. The mean (plus/minus SD) age of subjects was 4.8 (plus/minus 2.7) months, with 52% being males. The median apnea hypopnea index fell from a baseline of 18 (range 7–43) to 3 (range 1–19; p = 0.001) on oxygen. The baseline median obstructive/mixed apnea index decreased from 2 (range 1–16) to 1 during oxygen therapy (range 0–1; p = 0.003). Additionally, a significant decrease in central apnea index (median interquartile range (IQR) 1 (0–2) vs. 0 (0–1), p = 0.002) was noted. Sleep efficiency remained unaffected, while O2 saturation (SaO2) average and SaO2 nadir improved on oxygen. We were able to confirm the utility of low-flow oxygen in reducing central, obstructive, and mixed apneas and improving average oxygen saturation in infants with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)

Assessment of biochemical and physiological tolerance mechanism of the multipurpose paradise tree (Simarouba amara Aubl.) under zinc and copper stress

Simarouba amara Aubl., commonly known as paradise tree, is a multipurpose, evergreen, poly-gamodioecious, and oil yielding tree. The plant is famous for its seeds containing 55-65% oil, a potent source of biodiesel production and is being utilized in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and other industries. The study aimed to evaluate the physiological and biochemical changes that occur in S. amara seedlings under heavy metals stress. Two-month-old S. amara seedlings were exposed to different concentrations of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) (Zn and Cu: 10 mg Kg-1, 50 mg Kg-1, 100 mg Kg-1, 200 mg Kg-1). The study indicated that both the heavy metals resulted in a significant decrease in leaf relative water content (LRWC), photosynthetic pigments and an increase in lipid peroxidation and antioxidant levels. Regarding lipid peroxidation, Cu proved to be more toxic to seedlings compared to Zn. However, in terms of LRWC and photosynthetic pigments, Zn showed higher toxic effects than Cu. Proline and cysteine content increased by 234% and 270%, respectively, due to Zn stress and 117% and 102%, respectively, due to Cu stress at 200 mg Kg-1. Among antioxidant enzymes, a maximum increase in glutathione reductase (GR) activity was observed (600% due to Cu stress and 320% due to Zn stress) at 200 mg Kg-1. At the same concentration, a minimum increase was seen in glutathione peroxidase (GPX) activity (60% under Cu stress) and catalase (CAT) activity (69% under Zn stress). The present study revealed that S. amara has a better antioxidant defensive mechanism against oxidative stress and can be used for its large scale cultivation on wastelands

Indigenous Lakadong turmeric of Meghalaya and its future prospects

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has long been used in traditional Indian medicine. India accounts for 80% of total global turmeric production. Lakadong turmeric gets its name from the tiny village of Lakadong, which is located in the foothills of the Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, India. It is known for having a high curcumin content of more than 7%, as opposed to 2 - 4% in regular varieties. The tribes of this region brought Lakadong turmeric from the forest and domesticated it for medicinal purposes centuries ago. Growth in local coal industries and a gradual decline in the market have had a significant impact on and reduced Lakadong turmeric production. To resurrect the industry, the Meghalaya government has embarked on a mission to increase production of Lakadong turmeric to 50,000 metric tons (MT) per year by 2023, up from 20,000 MT currently. However, most farmers in this region have abandoned Lakadong turmeric cultivation due to low returns. To ensure farmers’ livelihoods, policymakers and the government must address future production challenges and create a viable market for such commodities. This review paper discusses the traditional history of Lakadong cultivation and its current status, challenges, and prospects. The paper also discusses the agronomic, phytochemical, and medicinal properties of turmeric

Jointly trained image and video generation using residual vectors

In this work, we propose a modeling technique for jointly training image and video generation models by simultaneously learning to map latent variables with a fixed prior onto real images and interpolate over images to generate videos. The proposed approach models the variations in representations using residual vectors encoding the change at each time step over a summary vector for the entire video. We utilize the technique to jointly train an image generation model with a fixed prior along with a video generation model lacking constraints such as disentanglement. The joint training enables the image generator to exploit temporal information while the video generation model learns to flexibly share information across frames. Moreover, experimental results verify our approach's compatibility with pre-training on videos or images and training on datasets containing a mixture of both. A comprehensive set of quantitative and qualitative evaluations reveal the improvements in sample quality and diversity over both video generation and image generation baselines. We further demonstrate the technique's capabilities of exploiting similarity in features across frames by applying it to a model based on decomposing the video into motion and content. The proposed model allows minor variations in content across frames while maintaining the temporal dependence through latent vectors encoding the pose or motion features.Comment: Accepted in 2020 Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV '20

Erythematous papules over the neck: a diagnostic conundrum

Syringomas are common appendageal neoplasms, manifested as skin-colored papules, most commonly distributed over the periorbital region. We describe a patient with syringoma localized over the neck and upper chest