Systemic Therapy in Endometrial Cancer: Recent Advances.

Endometrial cancer is a chemosensitive disease. Studies have established a clear benefit of chemotherapy in advanced stages and trials are ongoing to define its role in early stages as well. As more molecular pathways are being elucidated there is increasing role for targeted agents and future looks quite promising. We did an extensive search both online and offline for all the relevant articles including chemotherapy and targeted therapy for endometrial cancer

Contribution of macrophages to fetomaternal immunological tolerance

The semi-allogeneic fetus develops in a uniquely immune tolerant environment within the uterus. For successful pregnancy, both the innate and adaptive immune systems must favor acceptance of the fetal allograft. Macrophages are the second most abundant immune cells after natural killer (NK) cells in the decidua. In coordination with decidual NK cells and dendritic cells, macrophages aid in implantation, vascular remodeling, placental development, immune tolerance to placental cells, and maintenance of tissue homeostasis at the maternal-fetal interface. Decidual macrophages show the classical activated (M1) and alternatively activated (M2) phenotypes under the influence of the local milieu of growth factors and cytokines, and appropriate temporal regulation of the M1/M2 switch is vital for successful pregnancy. Disturbances in the mechanisms that control the M1/M2 balance and associated functions during pregnancy can trigger a spectrum of pregnancy complications ranging from preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction to preterm delivery. This review addresses various mechanisms of tolerance, focusing on the basic biology of macrophages, their plasticity and polarization, and their protective roles at the immune-privileged maternal-fetal interface, including direct and indirect roles in promoting fetomaternal immune tolerance

Planning Instrumentation Monitoring in Dams

This paper outlines the seismic instrumentation being adopted for river valley projects in India, More than 60% of Indian sub-continent lies in an active seismic belt. Of this the middle and lower Himalayas constitute a major area wherein lies a huge untapped hydro-power potential, Being primarily constituted of younger rock formations, frequented by faults, thursts and shear zones and lying in a high seismic risk zone, observations through instruments play a significant role in perspective planning of projects in this area. Setting up of seismological observatories in advance of construction of dam projects, forms a part of investigative planning to assess the seismic status of the area. The observations are continued after construction to monitor any changes in seismicity due to reservoir impounding. Present approach is to also provide instrumentation and continued observation to a possible prediction of earthquake. A typical case of instrumentation for a dam on active fault is also cited

Segmentation and Classification of Skin Lesions for Disease Diagnosis

In this paper, a novel approach for automatic segmentation and classification of skin lesions is proposed. Initially, skin images are filtered to remove unwanted hairs and noise and then the segmentation process is carried out to extract lesion areas. For segmentation, a region growing method is applied by automatic initialization of seed points. The segmentation performance is measured with different well known measures and the results are appreciable. Subsequently, the extracted lesion areas are represented by color and texture features. SVM and k-NN classifiers are used along with their fusion for the classification using the extracted features. The performance of the system is tested on our own dataset of 726 samples from 141 images consisting of 5 different classes of diseases. The results are very promising with 46.71% and 34% of F-measure using SVM and k-NN classifier respectively and with 61% of F-measure for fusion of SVM and k-NN.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 Tables in Elsevier, Proceedia Computer Science, International Conference on Advanced Computing Technologies and Applications (ICACTA-2015

Single-Sink Fractionally Subadditive Network Design

We study a generalization of the Steiner tree problem, where we are given a weighted network G together with a collection of k subsets of its vertices and a root r. We wish to construct a minimum cost network such that the network supports one unit of flow to the root from every node in a subset simultaneously. The network constructed does not need to support flows from all the subsets simultaneously. We settle an open question regarding the complexity of this problem for k=2, and give a 3/2-approximation algorithm that improves over a (trivial) known 2-approximation. Furthermore, we prove some structural results that prevent many well-known techniques from doing better than the known O(log n)-approximation. Despite these obstacles, we conjecture that this problem should have an O(1)-approximation. We also give an approximation result for a variant of the problem where the solution is required to be a path

Solvent mediated centric/non-centric polymorph pairs of an indole derivative: subtle variation of C-HO hydrogen bonds and C-Hπ interactions

Centric (P21/n) and non-centric (P21) polymorphic pairs of biologically active 1-(4-fluorophenyl)-6,6-dimethyl-2-phenyl-1,5,6,7-tetrahydro-4H-indol-4-one crystallized from different solvents have been elucidated via single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction studies, morphological observations and calorimetric measurements. C-H...O hydrogen bonding and weak intermolecular C-H...π interactions generate distinct packing features in the two forms

Magnetoresistance in ordered and disordered double perovskite oxide, Sr2_2FeMoO6_6

We have prepared crystallographically ordered and disorder specimens of the double perovskite, Sr$_2$FeMoO$_6$ and investigated their magnetoresistance behaviour. The extent of ordering between the Fe and Mo sites in the two samples is determined by Rietveld analysis of powder x-ray diffraction patterns and reconfirmed by M\"{o}ssbauer studies. While the ordered sample exhibits the sharp low-field response, followed by moderate changes in the magnetoresistance at higher fields, the disordered sample is characterised by the absence of the spectacular low-field response. We argue that the low field response depends crucially on the half-metallic ferromagnetism, while the high-field response follows from the overall magnetic nature of the sample, even in absence of the half-metallic state.Comment: accepted in Solid State Communicatio

General relationships of mammalian orders and evolutionary development of primates inferred from best-fit α-globin phylogenies

A best-fit α-globin phylogeny was identified by means of a global minimization approach from among the topologies generated by a parsimony strategy. Zip parsimony method was used to derive a set of near-parsimonious trees. For each of these topologies, a difference matrix was computed; and the topology with the best goodness of fit with the original matrix was retained as the best tree. Based on this phylogenetic scheme inter-relationships among eutherian orders and the evolutionary development of primates has been discussed

A study on abuse of topical corticosteroids in patients who attended dermatology venerology leprosy outpatient department

Background: Topical corticosteroids (TCs) are widely used in the patients affected with dermatoses. Abuse of these agents may cause severe adverse effects. Aim of the study was to study the abuse of TCs in patient who attend Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprosy (DVL) outpatient department. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted in department of DVL at Rajah Muthiah Medical college, Tamil Nadu during the period of six months from November 2018 to April 2019. The patients were enrolled for the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria.Results: Totally 50 patients with adverse drug reactions (ADRs) by the abuse of TCs were enrolled for the study. It was found that TCs were abused in all ages and equally in both genders. Nearly 72% of the people used TCs for Tinea infection and 20% of the people used TCs for acne vulgaris. Very high potent TCs such as betamethasone and beclomethasone were abused by 55% of the patient. Tinea incognito (TI) was found as common ADRs by the abuse of TCs (74%). Nearly 88% of the people bought TCs from pharmacies without prescription. Sixteen brands were found as easily accessible and affordable for the patients. Medication adherence were increased by 60% after the patient counselling.Conclusion: This study concludes, TI was found as a common ADR in patients who abused TCs such as betamethasone, beclomethasone and clobetasol. High potent TCs should not be allowed to dispense without prescription. Withdrawal of TCs will reduce the risk of ADRs