Light fishing - conflicts and concerns in Maharashtra

Technological intervention in the Indian fishing industry are intended to increase marine fish production of the country. Crude light fishing methods practiced in Mandapam was reported for catching silverbellies (Sekharan 1955, Indian J. Fish., 1955; Anon., 1957, Indian J. Fish). Fishing experiments with light attraction for pelagic fishes using purseseines was conducted by Fishery Survey of India (Ninan and Sudarsan, 1988, Occasional papers of Fishery Survey of India No. 5) who reported that no aggregation was noticed in the areas where water turbidity was high and strong current (above 2 Knots) was present. Mohamed (2016) reviewed light fishing practices in India and suggested restrictions in power of lights used, area of operation, mesh size for exploitation etc (Marine Fisheries Policy Brief No. 4, 2016, ICAR- CMFRI)

Baseline representativeness of patients in clinics enrolled in the PRimary care Opioid Use Disorders treatment (PROUD) trial: comparison of trial and non-trial clinics in the same health systems

BACKGROUND: Pragmatic primary care trials aim to test interventions in real world health care settings, but clinics willing and able to participate in trials may not be representative of typical clinics. This analysis compared patients in participating and non-participating clinics from the same health systems at baseline in the PRimary care Opioid Use Disorders treatment (PROUD) trial. METHODS: This observational analysis relied on secondary electronic health record and administrative claims data in 5 of 6 health systems in the PROUD trial. The sample included patients 16-90 years at an eligible primary care visit in the 3 years before randomization. Each system contributed 2 randomized PROUD trial clinics and 4 similarly sized non-trial clinics. We summarized patient characteristics in trial and non-trial clinics in the 2 years before randomization ( baseline ). Using mixed-effect regression models, we compared trial and non-trial clinics on a baseline measure of the primary trial outcome (clinic-level patient-years of opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment, scaled per 10,000 primary care patients seen) and a baseline measure of the secondary trial outcome (patient-level days of acute care utilization among patients with OUD). RESULTS: Patients were generally similar between the 10 trial clinics (n = 248,436) and 20 non-trial clinics (n = 341,130), although trial clinics\u27 patients were slightly younger, more likely to be Hispanic/Latinx, less likely to be white, more likely to have Medicaid/subsidized insurance, and lived in less wealthy neighborhoods. Baseline outcomes did not differ between trial and non-trial clinics: trial clinics had 1.0 more patient-year of OUD treatment per 10,000 patients (95% CI: - 2.9, 5.0) and a 4% higher rate of days of acute care utilization than non-trial clinics (rate ratio: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.76, 1.42). CONCLUSIONS: trial clinics and non-trial clinics were similar regarding most measured patient characteristics, and no differences were observed in baseline measures of trial primary and secondary outcomes. These findings suggest trial clinics were representative of comparably sized clinics within the same health systems. Although results do not reflect generalizability more broadly, this study illustrates an approach to assess representativeness of clinics in future pragmatic primary care trials

Value of risk scores in the decision to palliate patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm

Background: The aim of this study was to develop a 48-h mortality risk score, which included morphology data, for patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm presenting to an emergency department, and to assess its predictive accuracy and clinical effectiveness in triaging patients to immediate aneurysm repair, transfer or palliative care. Methods: Data from patients in the IMPROVE (Immediate Management of the Patient With Ruptured Aneurysm: Open Versus Endovascular Repair) randomized trial were used to develop the risk score. Variables considered included age, sex, haemodynamic markers and aortic morphology. Backwards selection was used to identify relevant predictors. Predictive performance was assessed using calibration plots and the C-statistic. Validation of the newly developed and other previously published scores was conducted in four external populations. The net benefit of treating patients based on a risk threshold compared with treating none was quantified. Results: Data from 536 patients in the IMPROVE trial were included. The final variables retained were age, sex, haemoglobin level, serum creatinine level, systolic BP, aortic neck length and angle, and acute myocardial ischaemia. The discrimination of the score for 48-h mortality in the IMPROVE data was reasonable (C-statistic 0·710, 95 per cent c.i. 0·659 to 0·760), but varied in external populations (from 0·652 to 0·761). The new score outperformed other published risk scores in some, but not all, populations. An 8 (95 per cent c.i. 5 to 11) per cent improvement in the C-statistic was estimated compared with using age alone. Conclusion: The assessed risk scores did not have sufficient accuracy to enable potentially life-saving decisions to be made regarding intervention. Focus should therefore shift to offering repair to more patients and reducing non-intervention rates, while respecting the wishes of the patient and family

Transition, Integration and Convergence. The Case of Romania

This volume comprises several studies and papers published in the last decades. They have been selected and ranged so that to provide a minimum of coherence concerning the phases which Romania has crossed in her way to the advanced socio-economic system of European type: transition to the market economy, accession to the EU, the economic convergence in the three fundamental domains: institutions, real economy, and nominal economy. The readers may find in this volume a description of debates, difficulties and solutions adopted for building-up the market economy by a state being in a profound transformation from weak transition institutions towards hard democratic institutions. Because the transition to the market economy and the association of Romania with the EU and then the integration presenting strategic political decisions, I have included in this work two studies devoted to the political forces state and political parties that elaborated and applied these strategic decisions underlining their structure, role and function and their transformation. Integration into the EU of a country like Romania, which emerged from a different system comparing with the West-European one, has proved to be difficult and lasting many years because of the structural transformations. In five chapters I am referring to the essential characteristics of the integration process, such as: market liberalization, competitiveness of the local (national) firms on the national and EU markets, institutional reforms so that the institutions of candidate countries have to become compatible with those of the EU and finally the perspective assessment to find out the real and nominal convergence. Putting into practice the EU competitivity and cohesion principles, Romania has good prospects to close, in a reasonable time, the economic gap and to be admitted into the Euro Zone. Although the real convergence of Romania with the EU requires higher growth rates for the former, a new approach is compulsory to take into consideration the environment quality, the natural resources and the equity between the present and the future generations as natural resource consumers. Just these problems have determined me to include in this volume the last two chapters which, on the one hand, try to prove the necessity of the economy growth harmonization with the environment evolution as well as the saving of the energy resources, and, on the other hand, to point out the main ways to be followed and instruments to be used

<b>Production of fermented cereal powders</b>

90-94The white and yellow varieties of maize (Zea mays Linn.), millet [Pennisetum typhoides (Burm.f.) Stapf & C.E. Hubbard] and sorghum [Sorghum bicolor(Linn.) Moench] were used to produce durable and storable dry powders using a fluidized drying technique at 70°C for 40 minutes. The powders were blended with fruit extracts essentially to provide flavours. Microbial counts of the powders indicated presence of scanty growth of non-pathogenic colonies and these were significantly lower than data obtained for locally prepared wet pastes. The proximate composition of the dry powdery products obtained from the cereals did not change significantly after a shelf-life of 12 months. The relative advantages of the products over the wet pastes are discussed

Morphological and functional alterations in glycerol preserved rat aortic allografts

Glycerol preservation is an effective method for long-term preservation of skin allografts and has a potential use in preserving arterial allografts. We evaluated the effect of glycerol concentration and incubation period on vessel-wall integrity of rat aortic allografts. No significant differences were measured in breaking strength (2.3 +/- 0.3 N) and bursting pressure (223 +/- 32kPa) between standard glycerolized and control segments (1.7 +/- 0.3 N. 226 +/- 17 kPa). Isometric tension measurements showed complete lack of functional contraction and relaxation capacity in allograft segments prepared according to all preservation protocols. Morphologically, thickness of the vassel-wall media diminished after preservation using low (30/50/75 %) or high (70/85/98 %) concentrations of glycerol, as compared to control segments (i.e. 81 +/- 2.4 mum. 95 +/- 5.6 mum and 125 +/- 3.5 mum respectively). Confocal microscopy and Fourier analysis demonstrated that vascular Collagen and elastin bundle orientation had remained unaltered. Electron microscopy showed detragmentation of luminal endothelial cells. In conclusion, glycerol preservation of rat aorta resulted in an acellular tissue matrix. which maintained biomechanical integrity and extracellular matrix characteristics. The next step in the investigation will be to test the concept of glycerol preservation of arterial allogratts in a vascular transplantation mode

Morphological and functional alterations in glycerol preserved rat aortic allografts

Glycerol preservation is an effective method for long-term preservation of skin allografts and has a potential use in preserving arterial allografts. We evaluated the effect of glycerol concentration and incubation period on vessel-wall integrity of rat aortic allografts. No significant differences were measured in breaking strength (2.3 +/- 0.3 N) and bursting pressure (223 +/- 32kPa) between standard glycerolized and control segments (1.7 +/- 0.3 N. 226 +/- 17 kPa). Isometric tension measurements showed complete lack of functional contraction and relaxation capacity in allograft segments prepared according to all preservation protocols. Morphologically, thickness of the vassel-wall media diminished after preservation using low (30/50/75 %) or high (70/85/98 %) concentrations of glycerol, as compared to control segments (i.e. 81 +/- 2.4 mum. 95 +/- 5.6 mum and 125 +/- 3.5 mum respectively). Confocal microscopy and Fourier analysis demonstrated that vascular Collagen and elastin bundle orientation had remained unaltered. Electron microscopy showed detragmentation of luminal endothelial cells. In conclusion, glycerol preservation of rat aorta resulted in an acellular tissue matrix. which maintained biomechanical integrity and extracellular matrix characteristics. The next step in the investigation will be to test the concept of glycerol preservation of arterial allogratts in a vascular transplantation mode

Not Available

Not AvailableTechnological intervention in the Indian fishing industry are intended to increase marine fish production of the country. Crude light fishing methods practiced in Mandapam was reported for catching silverbellies (Sekharan 1955, Indian J. Fish., 1955; Anon., 1957, Indian J. Fish). Fishing experiments with light attraction for pelagic fishes using purseseines was conducted by Fishery Survey of India (Ninan and Sudarsan, 1988, Occasional papers of Fishery Survey of India No. 5) who reported that no aggregation was noticed in the areas where water turbidity was high and strong current (above 2 Knots) was present. Mohamed (2016) reviewed light fishing practices in India and suggested restrictions in power of lights used, area of operation, mesh size for exploitation etc (Marine Fisheries Policy Brief No. 4, 2016, ICAR- CMFRI).Not Availabl

First clinical experience with polysol solution: pilot study in living kidney transplantation

In this study, we assessed the safety of the new organ preservation solution polysol solution in the clinical setting of living kidney transplantation. We conducted a prospective pilot study in nine adult donor-recipient couples using polysol solution for washout and cold storage of kidney grafts. Adverse reactions possibly related to the use of polysol solution as well as renal function at 1, 6, and 12 months after transplantation were monitored. All living kidney transplantation performed in adults in our center within 2002 to 2008 using the University of Winconsin solution served as controls (n = 190). The use of polysol solution was associated with a higher acute rejection rate compared to University of Wisconsin solution at all time points. Also, antibody-mediated rejection occurred more frequently in the polysol group. Renal function at all time points was also comparable between the groups. This pilot study in living kidney transplantation is the first clinical study on the use of polysol solution. Although the study was not powered on the endpoint rejection, we observed a high number of acute rejection and antibody-mediated rejection episodes in recipients of polysol solution preserved grafts as compared to University of Wisconsin solution controls. As a consequence the study was terminated prematurel