Impact Of Air Pollution Among Labours In Chidambaram Block

Air pollution stems gases and air borne particles which, in excess, are harmful to human health, buildings and ecosystems. Air pollutionindevelopingcountriesisderivednot only from stack emission of pollutants from relatively large industries, where inadequate pollution control measures exist and pollutants are allowed to escape to atmosphere. The kind of air pollution emitted vary from industry vary from industry to another, the concentrations of different pollutants in the atmosphere also vary widely from process to process, and from place to place with different geographic and climatic conditions.. In general, the workplace exposure levels are much higher than that the general population, because the emissions are rapidly diluted and dispersed by the wind. But the exposure duration of the general population is much longer than that of workers. Air pollution is the presence of substances in air in sufficient concentration and for sufficient time, so as to be, or threaten to be injurious to human, plant or animal life, or to property, or which reasonably interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property. Air pollutants arise from both manmade and natural processes. Air pollutants arise from both manmade and natural processes. Air pollution has been considered as the one of types of pollution which causes different disease in various labourers in Chidambaram Block and this leads to increase the expenditure of sample respondents on their health care. In this context the researcher taken this title

A Study of Clinical Spectrum of 30 cases of Herpeszoster and Therapeutic Trial of Acyclovir Vs Famcyclovir of 10 cases each

INTRODUCTION : Varicella Zoster virus (VZV) belongs to Herpesviridae family (Sub family: Alpha herpesviridae). Herpes viruses measure approximately 200 nm in diameter and contain linear, double stranded DNA core enclosed within a protein capsid, covered by a tegument and glycoprotein containing envelope. Biological properties unique to herpes viruses include latency and reactivation. Varicella zoster (Chicken Pox) and Herpes zoster (Shingles) are caused by same varicella zoster virus. Herpes zoster is a localized disease characterised by multiple superficial painful grouped vesicles on an erythematous base involving a particular dermatome due to reactivation of varicella zoster virus that is lying dormant in sensory ganglion. Most often Varicella is a self-limited infection of childhood. Zoster is mainly a disease of adults. A prerequisite for developing zoster is a prior episode of varicella, which on occasion may have been sub-clinical. During Varicella infection, Varicella zoster virus remains latent inside the sensory nerve ganglion. Zoster results when the latent virus reactivates and returns from the ganglion to infect the skin. Most often Varicella zoster virus reactivation occurs in the setting of relative immunological compromise, such as aging, local trauma immunosuppression (Steroids, HIV), frontal sinusitis, radiation and tumor involvement of spinal cord. AIM OF THE STUDY : A. The Study of clinical spectrum of Herpes zoster was undertaken to find out: 1. Age Distribution, 2. Sex Distribution, 3. Prevalence of Prodromal symptoms, 4. Prevalence of presenting complaints and, Constitutional symptoms, 5. Pattern of dermatomal involvement, 6. Prevalence of Risk factors, 7. Association with cutaneous and systemic diseases if any, 8. Prevalence of complications. B. Therapeutic Trial : To compare the efficacy of Famcyclovir 500 mg 3 times daily Vs Acyclovir 800 mg 5 times daily for 7 days of 10 cases each. MATERIALS & METHODS : A. Clinical Study : The study was conducted between August 2007 and July 2009 at the department of dermatology, Chengalpattu Medical College, Chengalpattu, on 30 cases of herpes zoster. All cases of herpes zoster attending skin out patient department and referred cases of zoster from other department were studied. Preliminary information including demographic data was taken from all patients followed by a clinical examination. This included general physical examination, complete systemic examination and thorough dermatological examination. A detailed history regarding the prodromal and presenting symptoms, day of occurrence of skin lesions, nature of pain and its intensity and duration, and other symptoms if any, were elicited and recorded. Also, history of chicken pox and previous attack of herpes zoster was noted. History suggestive of provocative factors like drug, recent trauma, surgical manipulation of spine, irradiation, immunosuppression, and tumor involvement of cord and ganglion are noted. Patients were screened for signs and symptoms of cutaneous, systemic and neoplastic diseases and also diabetes mellitus, pulmonary tuberculosis and exposure to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, A thorough dermatological examination regarding the following features like segment (s) involvement, morphological pattern of lesions, presence of tenderness/hyperesthesia, lymphnode enlargement, dissemination of lesion in other areas of the body and other dermatological diseases related or unrelated to zoster. Whenever necessary, opinions from ophthalmologist, neurologist, chest physician and general physician were sought. Diagnosis of herpes zoster lesion was made clinically. Investigations such as Tzanck Smear (in Leishman’s Stain), skin biopsy, complete hemogram, urine examination, blood sugar, blood VDRL, ELISA and radiological examinations were carried out in relevant patients. All Patients were treated with acyclovir 800 mg 5 times daily For 7-10 days. Antibiotics, analgesics were also instituted in some of cases, with topical application included calamine lotion, 1% silver sulfadiazine. All the patients were treated in the outpatient department and subsequently they were followed depending upon the cases and complications encountered, till the resolution of signs and symptoms. Complications like secondary bacterial infection, ulceration, delayed healing, scarring, and post herpetic neuralgia were also noted and treated accordingly. A. Therapeutic trial : This randomized prospective comparative study was carried out at Chengalpattu Medical College, Chengalpattu, during the year from August 2008 to August 2009 on 20 herpes zoster patients. The patients were assigned into two groups. Group I : Includes 10 patients in whom Acyclovir 800 mg 5 times a day was given for 7 days. Group II : Includes 10 patients in which Famcyclovir 500 mg 3 times a day was given for 7 days. Inclusion criteria: The following patients were included in the study 1. Age over 18 years, 2. Patients presenting within 72 hrs of onset of lesions. Exclusion criteria: 1. Patients with visceral involvement, 2. Patients with motor neuropathies, encephalitis or cerebro vascular complication, 3. Pregnancy or lactating females, 4. Patients with concurrent malignancies, 5. Patients with auto immune diseases. Efficacy assessment: Patients were evaluated for pain and healing of cutaneous lesion on each of 7 days which receiving treatment and every other day for 7 days post therapy then every 7 days for at least a total of 4 months. CONCLUSION : In this study, herpes zoster mainly occurred in fifth and sixth decades of life. • No sex preponderance in incidence was found with the sex ratio of 1.3:1 • Prodromal symptoms were present in 76 % of cases and pain was the commonest prodromal symptom. • Most common presenting symptom was pain followed by skin rash. • Thoracic dermatome was the most common dermatome involved and sacral segment was the least common dermatome affected. • The risk factors noted were diabetes, HIV infection and steroid therapy. • HIV infection was present in 2 cases. Out of 2 cases, 1 case was already diagnosed as HIV positive and developed herpes zoster during the course of HIV disease. This indicates the importance of HIV testing in all patients presenting with herpes zoster, especially in patients below age of 50 years. • The systemic diseases associated with herpes zoster were hypertension, bronchial asthma and tuberculosis. • No significant association of herpes zoster was found with any other skin disorder in this study. • Duration of time taken for resolution of lesions, ranged from 2 to 3 weeks. • Post herpetic neuralgia was noted in patients with increasing age. Therapeutic Trial : This study indicates that Famcyclovir is more effective than Acyclovir interms of parameters such as incidence and duration of post herpetic neuralgia, patient’s compliance and adverse effects. However, there was no statistical significant difference in the duration of resolution of lesions between acyclovir and famcyclovir treated patients (P=0.78)

Pattern of specific dermatoses of pregnancy: a hospital based study

Background: The specific dermatoses of pregnanc represent a heterogenous group of ill-defined pruritic skin diseases related specifically to pregnancy and/or the immediate postpartum period. The objective of the study is to determine the patterns of specific dermatoses of pregnancy in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: A total of 450 pregnant females, irrespective of their parity and gestational age were screened for various pruritic skin conditions and those with specific pregnancy dermatoses were identified and evaluated.Results: The age of the study population ranged from 18 to 36 years (mean age 24 years). The study population included 261 (58%) primigravidae and 189 (42%) multigravidae. Seventeen (3.77%) pregnant females had specific dermatoses of pregnancy. Out of these, 9 (52.94%) had pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP), followed by pruritic folliculitis of pregnancy in 5 (29.41%), pruritic gravidarum in 2 (11.76%) and pemphigoid gestationis in 1 (5.88%). PUPPP was the commonest specific dermatoses noted in our study.Conclusions: The present study highlights the pattern of specific dermatoses of pregnancy in our hospital. Early diagnosis of specific dermatoses of pregnancy may prevent harmful effect on mother and fetus. The pruritic eruptions of pregnancy, which are not a rare entity can be a source of significant distress to the pregnant female and need timely therapeutic intervention

A comparative study on univariate time series based crude palm oil price prediction model using machine learning algorithms

Crude palm oil (CPO) price prediction plays an important role in the agricultural economic development. It requires an in-depth knowledge in both economics and agricultural domain. The aim of this paper is to propose a CPO price prediction model to help the plantation organizations in the palm oil sector to effectively anticipate CPO price fluctuations and managing the resources more effectively. The CPO price behavior are non-linear in nature, thus prediction is very difficult. In this paper, a recurrent network, Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) based CPO price prediction system is compared with artificial neural network (ANN) and Holt-Winter method. The findings of this study shows that the LSTM based forecasting model outperformed other models in forecasting the CPO price movement. This study recommends that a LSTM based forecasting could better help the farmer and planters in the agriculture sector in managing the demand of CPO and the operation processes for a better return on investment