Determination and Correlation of Anticardiolipin Antibody with High Sensitivity C- reactive Proteins and its Role in Predicting Short Term Outcome in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome

Anticardiolipin antibody (aCL) is considered to be an independent risk factor while high sensitivity C reactive protein (hsCRP) is an established marker for coronary artery disease. This study was conducted to determine levels of aCL antibodies and hsCRP, their correlation and role in predicting recurrence of events in patients presenting with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS). Sixty patients admitted with Acute Coronary Syndrome were followed up for 7 days or until discharge. Patients were classified into two groups as those having experienced an ischemic event needing intervention within 7 days (Group I) and other having an event free recovery (Group II). aCL antibody and hsCRP levels were estimated and compared in these two groups. Twenty age and sex matched disease free persons served as controls. The levels of aCL were significantly higher in patients with ACS as compared to the controls (p=0.020). However the levels of aCL in Group I (13.39±9.46 GPL-U/ml) and Group II (13.51±9.93 GPL-U/ml) were not significantly different (p =0.838). The mean hsCRP levels were higher in cases with an event (23.30±10.68 mg/dl) than in cases without an event (20.60±11.45mg/dl) though it was not significant statistically (p=0.389). aCL and CRP were not found to be significantly correlated in causing the recurrence of events(p=0.178). Therefore anticardiolipin antibody is an independent risk factor which could be implicated in the pathogenesis of ACS. However it is not significantly associated with recurrence of short-term events in patients with ACS. Also, aCL antibody does not have significant correlation with hSCRP in causing recurrence of events in the patients of acute coronary syndrome

Distillation of genuine tripartite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering

We show that a perfectly genuine tripartite EPR steerable assemblage can be distilled from partially genuine tripartite EPR steerable assemblages. In particular, we consider two types of hybrid scenarios: one-sided device-independent (1SDI) scenario (where one observer is untrusted, and other two observers are trusted) and two-sided device-independent (2SDI) scenario (where two observers are untrusted, and one observer is trusted). In both the scenarios, we show distillation of perfectly genuine steerable assemblage of three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states or three-qubit W states from many copies of initial partially genuine steerable assemblages of the corresponding states. In each of these cases, we demonstrate that at least one copy of a perfectly genuine steerable assemblage can be distilled with certainty from infinitely many copies of initial assemblages. In case of practical scenarios employing finite copies, we show that the efficiency of our distillation protocols reaches near perfect levels using only a few number of initial assemblages

Allogeneic cell therapy bioprocess economics and optimization: downstream processing decisions

To develop a decisional tool to identify the most cost effective process flowsheets for allogeneic cell therapies across a range of production scales

Using Beatboxing for Creative Rehabilitation After Laryngectomy:Experiences From a Public Engagement Project

Laryngectomy is the surgical removal of the larynx (voice box), usually performed in patients with advanced stages of throat cancer. The psychosocial impact of losing the voice is significant, affecting a person’s professional and social life in a devastating way, and a proportion of this patient group subsequently must overcome depression (22–30%) and social isolation (40%). The profound changes to anatomical structures involved in voicing and articulation, as a result of surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy (separately or in combination with one another), introduce challenges faced in speech rehabilitation and voice production that complicate social reintegration and quality of life. After laryngectomy, breathing, voicing, articulation and tongue movement are major components in restoring communication. Regular exercise of the chest, neck and oropharyngeal muscles, in particular, is important in controlling these components and keeping the involved structures supple. It is, however, a difficult task for a speech therapist to keep the patient engaged and motivated to practice these exercises. We have adopted a multidisciplinary approach to explore the use of basic beatboxing techniques to create a wide variety of exercises that are seen as fun and interactive and that maximize the use of the structures important in alaryngeal phonation. We herein report on our empirical work in developing patients’ skills, particularly relating to voiced and unvoiced consonants to improve intelligibility. In collaboration with a professional beatboxing performer, we produced instructional online video materials to support patients working on their own and/or with support from speech therapists. Although the present paper is focused predominantly on introducing the structure of the conducted workshops, the rationale for their design and the final public engagement performance, we also include feedback from participants to commence the critical discourse about whether this type of activity could lead to systematic underlying research and robustly assessed interventions in the future. Based on this exploratory work, we conclude that the innovative approach that we employed was found to be engaging, useful, informative and motivating. We conclude by offering our views regarding the limitations of our work and the implications for future empirical research

In vivo Evaluation Of Antidiarrhoeal Activity Of Rhus semialata Fruit Extract In Rats

Rhus semialata Murr. (Anacardiaceae) is a deciduous tree of north eastern India. The fruit of this plant is traditionally used to control diarrhoea and dysentery. The Present study was undertaken to evaluate anti-diarrhoeal potency of methanol extract of fruits of Rhus semialata using Wister albino rats to substantiate folklore claims. The extract at graded doses (100, 200, 400 and 600 mg/kg body weight) was investigated for anti-diarrhoeal activity in term of reduction in the rate of defecation in castor oil induced diarrhoea. To understand the mechanism of its antidiarrhoeal activity, the gastrointestinal transit and PGE2-induced intestinal fluid accumulation (enteropooling) were further evaluated. At graded doses, the extract showed a remarkable anti-diarrhoeal activity evidenced by the reduction in the rate of defecation up to 80.70 % of control diarrhoeal animals at the dose of 600 mg/kg body weight. Results are comparable to that of standard drug diphenoxylate (50 mg/kg body weight). Extract produced profound decrease in intestinal transit (8.02 – 47.05 %) at selected doses comparable to that of single intraperitoneal injection of standard drug atropine sulphate at doses of 0.1 mg/kg body weight. It significantly inhibited PGE2 - induced enteropooling (21.98 – 56.03 %). The results indicated that the methanol extract of the fruits of R. semialata possesses significant anti-diarrhoeal effect and substantiated the use of this herbal remedy as a non-specific treatment for diarrhoea in folk medicine. Keywords: Atropin sulphate, Castor oil, Diarrhoea, Diphenoxylate, Rhus semialata. African Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine Vol. 5 (1) 2008: pp. 97-10

Future changes to the upper ocean Western Boundary Currents across two generations of climate models

Western Boundary Currents (WBCs) are important for the oceanic transport of heat, dissolved gases and nutrients. They can affect regional climate and strongly influence the dispersion and distribution of marine species. Using state-of-the-art climate models from the latest and previous Climate Model Intercomparison Projects, we evaluate upper ocean circulation and examine future projections, focusing on subtropical and low-latitude WBCs. Despite their coarse resolution, climate models successfully reproduce most large-scale circulation features with ensemble mean transports typically within the range of observational uncertainty, although there is often a large spread across the models and some currents are systematically too strong or weak. Despite considerable differences in model structure, resolution and parameterisations, many currents show highly consistent projected changes across the models. For example, the East Australian Current, Brazil Current and Agulhas Current extensions are projected to intensify, while the Gulf Stream, Indonesian Throughflow and Agulhas Current are projected to weaken. Intermodel differences in most future circulation changes can be explained in part by projected changes in the large-scale surface winds. In moving to the latest model generation, despite structural model advancements, we find little systematic improvement in the simulation of ocean transports nor major differences in the projected changes

Generating reversible circuits from higher-order functional programs

Boolean reversible circuits are boolean circuits made of reversible elementary gates. Despite their constrained form, they can simulate any boolean function. The synthesis and validation of a reversible circuit simulating a given function is a difficult problem. In 1973, Bennett proposed to generate reversible circuits from traces of execution of Turing machines. In this paper, we propose a novel presentation of this approach, adapted to higher-order programs. Starting with a PCF-like language, we use a monadic representation of the trace of execution to turn a regular boolean program into a circuit-generating code. We show that a circuit traced out of a program computes the same boolean function as the original program. This technique has been successfully applied to generate large oracles with the quantum programming language Quipper.Comment: 21 pages. A shorter preprint has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of Reversible Computation 2016. The final publication is available at http://link.springer.co

Polyphenolic acetates: A newer anti-Mycobacterial therapeutic option

The objective of our research project was screening of various highly specific substrates of Acetoxy Drug: Protein Transacytylase (M.TAase) for antimycobacterial activity. Mycobacterial culture was done in Middlebrook’s 7H9 media. Protein purification (Mycobacterial Tranacetylase, M.TAase) was done by ion exchange chromatography and its demonstration was done on SDS- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and western blot. Middlebrook’s 7H9 broth was procured from Becton Dickinson. CM-Sepharose, DEAE-Sepharose and Q-Sephharose were purchased from Amersham Pharmacia. Anti acetyl lysine polyclonal antibody was purchased from Cell Signaling. The Middlebrook 7H9 medium was used for M. smegmatis culture. The media was prepared according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The various Polyphenol acetate compounds were tested for their antimycobacterial activities. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were calculated by Alamar blue dye assay method. The GST protein was used as a receptor protein and purified Mycobacterial Glutamine Synthetase (GS) as TAase for acetylation by DAMC. To demonstrate the TAase catalyzed acetylation of GST by DAMC, purified M.TAase (GS) was preincubated with GST and DAMC followed by western blot using anti acetyl lysine antibody, which avidly react with the acetylated proteins. The growth pattern of M. smegmatis was diminished under the influence of various polyphenolic acetates (PA) tested for their anti-mycobacterial activity. DAMC and DAMC-5-carboxylic acid was found to have MIC of 40μg/ml whereas DAMC-6-carboxylic acid was reported to have MIC value of 35μg/ml and for ellagic acid tetra acetate (EATA) it was 60μg/ml. Previous work in our lab has led to discovery of a novel enzyme acetoxy drug: protein transacetylase (TAase), catalyzing transfer of acetyl group from various polyphenolic peracetate (PA) to certain receptor proteins such as cytochromes P-450, NADPH cytochrome reductase, nitric oxide synthase (NOS) has been established in various eukaryotic as well as prokaryotic sources. PA(s) irreversible inhibitors of mammalian CYP linked MFO, possibly due to modification of cytochrome p- 450 by acetylation in a reaction catalysed by M.TAase (GS) utilizing PA(s) as a donor of acetyl groups. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that the CYP51 of mycobacteria involved in the cell wall sterol synthesis could possibly be modified by our PA(s) through the novel unknown action of GS as transacetylase leading to the death of mycobacterial cell by way of acetylation catalyzed by acetoxy drug: protein transacetylase (M.TAase or GS).Keywords: Transacetylase; Glutamine synthetase; Mycobacterium smegmatis; Polyphenolic acetates; Acetoxy drug: protein transacetylas

Prioritized Sweeping Neural DynaQ with Multiple Predecessors, and Hippocampal Replays

During sleep and awake rest, the hippocampus replays sequences of place cells that have been activated during prior experiences. These have been interpreted as a memory consolidation process, but recent results suggest a possible interpretation in terms of reinforcement learning. The Dyna reinforcement learning algorithms use off-line replays to improve learning. Under limited replay budget, a prioritized sweeping approach, which requires a model of the transitions to the predecessors, can be used to improve performance. We investigate whether such algorithms can explain the experimentally observed replays. We propose a neural network version of prioritized sweeping Q-learning, for which we developed a growing multiple expert algorithm, able to cope with multiple predecessors. The resulting architecture is able to improve the learning of simulated agents confronted to a navigation task. We predict that, in animals, learning the world model should occur during rest periods, and that the corresponding replays should be shuffled.Comment: Living Machines 2018 (Paris, France