Correlation between vitamin D and lipid profile in patients with ischemic stroke

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum vitamin D level and lipid profile in ischemic stroke patients.Methods: 217 patients with ischemic stroke were selected for analysis between ages 45 and 80 years admitted at our hospital from January 2014 to December 2015. Measurement of serum vitamin-D concentration was made by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Confounding variables like diabetes, hypertension, smoking, alcohol, tobacco, BMI, CRP, S. uric acid, duration of sunlight exposure, prior history of drug intake or fracture and S. calcium were considered. 200 age and sex matched controls were taken. The source of data was questionnaires and multiple linear regression analysis and correlation analysis were used.Results: A positive correlation was seen between vitamin D and serum cholesterol, VLDL, LDL, triglycerides, cholesterol/HDL ratio and LDL/HDL ratio but inverse correlation between vitamin D and HDL.Conclusions: In ischemic stroke patients increase in vitamin D is associated with increase in atherogenic lipids

Save The King: Human-King Cobra, Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor 1836), conflicts and the need for conservation strategies in Nepal

Abstract.—Snake research tends to have a low priority in Nepal and very little information, mostly confined to populationsin small areas, addresses the biology and threats to the King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah). Herein we providedata that could facilitate an assessment of the species’ status in Nepal and begin to address its conservation needs.We recorded data on King Cobras from 2015–2020, crosschecking with previous studies to avoid any duplicationof records. A King Cobra from Siddhara, Arghakhachi District, was the first record of the species in the district. Werecorded a total of 50 King Cobra mortalities from 20 districts, with most of them killed near human settlementsadjacent to forested areas. We mapped the locations of all mortalities and recorded land-use changes within a 500-mbuffer around each site over a 30-year period (1990–2020), revealing extensive landscape fragmentation in previouslyconnected natural areas. Our data suggest that the major threats to King Cobras are deliberate killing by humans andlarge-scale habitat loss due to an increasing human population. We recommend increased research to better understandthe biology of this charismatic species and continued conservation education and community outreach programs tofacilitate the development of effective conservation strategies

Real-time speech emotion analysis for smart home assistants

Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) has been widely used in the consumer field for control of smart home personal assistants, with many such devices on the market. However, with the increase in computational power, connectivity and the need to enable people to live in the home for longer though the use of technology, then smart home assistants that could detect human emotion will improve the communication between a user and the assistant enabling the assistant of offer more productive feedback. Thus, the aim of this work is to analyze emotional states in speech and propose a suitable method considering performance verses complexity for deployment in Consumer Electronics home products, and to present a practical live demonstration of the research. In this paper, a comprehensive approach has been introduced for the human speech-based emotion analysis. The 1-D convolutional neural network (CNN) has been implemented to learn and classify the emotions associated with human speech. The paper has been implemented on the standard datasets (emotion classification) Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS) and Toronto Emotional Speech Set database (TESS) (Young and Old). The proposed approach gives 90.48%, 95.79% and94.47% classification accuracies in the aforementioned datasets. We conclude that the 1-D CNN classification models used in speaker-independent experiments are highly effective in the automatic prediction of emotion and are ideal for deployment in smart home assistants to detect emotion

Molecular phylogenetic analysis of the genus Gloydius (Squamata, Viperidae, Crotalinae), with description of two new alpine species from Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China

We provide a molecular phylogeny of Asian pit vipers (the genus Gloydius) based on four mitochondrial genes (12S, 16S, ND4, and cytb). Sequences of Gloydius himalayanus, the only member of the genus that occurs south of the Himalayan range, are included for the first time. In addition, two new species of the genus Gloydius are described based on specimens collected from Zayu, Tibet, west of the Nujiang River and Heishui, Sichuan, east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The new species, Gloydius lipipengi sp. nov., can be differentiated from its congeners by the combination of the following characters: the third supralabial not reaching the orbit (separated from it by a suborbital scale); wide, black-bordered greyish postorbital stripe extending from the posterior margin of the orbit (not separated by the postoculars, covering most of the anterior temporal scale) to the ventral surface of the neck; irregular black annular crossbands on the mid-body; 23-21-15 dorsal scales; 165 ventral scales, and 46 subcaudal scales. Gloydius swild sp. nov. can be differentiated from its congeners by the narrower postorbital stripe (only half the width of the anterior temporal scale, the lower edge is approximately straight and bordered with white); a pair of arched stripes on the occiput; lateral body lakes black spots; a pair of round spots on the parietal scales; 21 rows of mid-body dorsal scales; zigzag dark brown stripes on the dorsum; 168–170 ventral scales, and 43–46 subcaudal scales. The molecular phylogeny in this study supports the sister relationship between G. lipipengi sp. nov. and G. rubromaculatus, another recently described species from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, more than 500 km away, and indicate the basal position of G. himalayanus within the genus and relatively distant relationship to its congeners

Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height

Height is a highly heritable, classic polygenic trait with ~700 common associated variants identified so far through genome - wide association studies . Here , we report 83 height - associated coding variants with lower minor allele frequenc ies ( range of 0.1 - 4.8% ) and effects of up to 2 16 cm /allele ( e.g. in IHH , STC2 , AR and CRISPLD2 ) , >10 times the average effect of common variants . In functional follow - up studies, rare height - increasing alleles of STC2 (+1 - 2 cm/allele) compromise d proteolytic inhibition of PAPP - A and increased cleavage of IGFBP - 4 in vitro , resulting in higher bioavailability of insulin - like growth factors . The se 83 height - associated variants overlap genes mutated in monogenic growth disorders and highlight new biological candidates ( e.g. ADAMTS3, IL11RA, NOX4 ) and pathways ( e.g . proteoglycan/ glycosaminoglycan synthesis ) involved in growth . Our results demonstrate that sufficiently large sample sizes can uncover rare and low - frequency variants of moderate to large effect associated with polygenic human phenotypes , and that these variants implicate relevant genes and pathways