Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Sri Lanka

Distorted incentives, agricultural and trade policy reforms, national agricultural development, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, Q17, Q18,

Traumatic deep vein thrombosis in a soccer player: A case study

A 42 year-old male former semi-professional soccer player sustained a right lower extremity popliteal contusion during a soccer game. He was clinically diagnosed with a possible traumatic deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and sent for confirmatory tests. A duplex doppler ultrasound was positive for DVT, and the patient was admitted to hospital for anticoagulation (unfractionated heparin, warfarin). Upon discharge from hospital the patient continued oral warfarin anticoagulation (six months), and the use of compression stockings (nine months). He followed up with his family doctor at regular intervals for serial coagulation measurements, and ultrasound examinations. The patient's only identified major thrombotic risk factor was the traumatic injury. One year after the initial deep vein thrombosis (DVT) the patient returned to contact sport, however he continued to have intermittent symptoms of right lower leg pain and right knee effusion. Athletes can develop vascular injuries in a variety of contact and non-contact sports. Trauma is one of the most common causes of lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (DVT), however athletic injuries involving lower extremity traumatic DVT are seldom reported. This diagnosis and the associated risk factors must be considered during the initial physical examination. The primary method of radiological diagnosis of lower extremity DVT is a complete bilateral duplex sonography, which can be augmented by other methods such as evidence-based risk factor analysis. Antithrombotic medication is the current standard of treatment for DVT. Acute thrombolytic treatment has demonstrated an improved therapeutic efficacy, and a decrease in post-DVT symptoms. There is a lack of scientific literature concerning the return to sport protocol following a DVT event. Athletic individuals who desire to return to sport after a DVT need to be fully informed about their treatment and risk of reoccurrence, so that appropriate decisions can be made

Systematic Experimental Evaluation of Aeroelastic Characteristics of a Highly Flexible Wing Demonstrator

This paper presents a comprehensive experimental analysis of the evolutionary modal characteristics of a highly flexible wing that exhibits bending–torsion coupling-driven instability. By implementing operational modal analysis on responses triggered by a combination of an external pulse-like stimulation and turbulence within the flow, this paper presents the airspeed-driven variations of the modal frequencies, damping ratios, and the underlying modal coupling behavior, leading to instability. This analysis is extended to varying the wing root pitch angles through which the effects of geometrical nonlinearity are exercised. Their effects are particularly noted on the hump feature of the airspeed-driven damping ratio locus of the mode responsible for instability. The decreasing critical damping ratio is shown to result in amplified turbulence-driven responses, which pose significant challenges to identification procedures by masking the visibility of other modes. Furthermore, through a novel technique used to analyze the modal coupling, the relative phase and magnitude properties of the coupled bending–torsion composition of the critical mode before and at flutter onset are evidenced experimentally. It is demonstrated that these relative participation measures provide a strong indication of the response content of the limit cycle oscillations that emerge after the flutter speed

The role of secreted aspartyl proteinases in Candida tropicalis invasion and damage of oral mucosa

Candida virulence attributes include the ability to colonize and invade host tissues, and the secretion of hydrolytic enzymes. Although Candida albicans is regarded as the principal fungi causing infections in humans, other species, particularly Candida tropicalis, are increasingly being recognized as human pathogens. Relatively little is known, however, about the virulence attributes associated with C. tropicalis. The present study aimed to investigate epithelial infection by C. tropicalis using a reconstituted human oral epithelium (RHOE) together with confocal laser scanning microscopy and real-time PCR. A comparison of clinical strains was made in terms of tissue colonization, invasion and C. tropicalis secreted aspartyl proteinase (SAPT) gene expression. All C. tropicalis strains were able to colonize RHOE in a strain-dependent manner. After 12 h of infection, C. tropicalis was found to be highly invasive, with extensive tissue damage occurring after 24 h. Real-time PCR of C. tropicalis SAPT1-4 genes showed that expression was strain-dependent, with SAPT2-4 transcripts being frequently detected and SAPT1 rarely detected. Tissue invasion and damage was not inhibited by the presence of pepstatin A. Accordingly, and given that an increase in infection time was not accompanied with an increase in SAPT gene expression, it can be suggested that the proteinases are not involved in invasion and damage of RHOE by C. tropicalis. In summary, C. tropicalis can be considered as highly invasive with the ability to induce significant tissue damage. These features, however, do not appear to be related to specific SAPT gene expression.We would like to thank Mrs Kath Allsopp for processing and sectioning the tissue samples. This work was supported by grant SFRH/BD/28341/2006 from 'Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia' (FCT), Portugal

Abnormalities of the p53 MDM2 and DCC genes in human leiomyosarcomas.

In this study we have screened a series of 29 primary leiomyosarcomas for abnormalities of both the p53 gene and the MDM2 gene, which encodes a p53-associated protein. SSCP (single-strand conformation polymorphism) analysis and direct sequencing of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified DNA were used to establish that 6/29 tumours possessed point mutations of the p53 gene. Using a monoclonal antibody that recognises the p53 protein in immunohistochemical staining experiments, we observed overexpression of the p53 protein in five of the six tumours containing point mutations in the p53 gene. Southern analysis of tumour DNA revealed that 2/29 tumours demonstrated amplification of the MDM2 gene. When considered together, these results indicate that alterations in both the p53 gene and MDM2 gene are important in the development of a significant minority of leiomyosarcomas. In addition, we have demonstrated a significant association between the presence of abnormalities of the p53 gene or MDM2 genes in leiomyosarcomas and a more advanced clinicopathological stage (P = 0.03). We have also examined the role of the DCC tumour-suppressor gene in the development of human soft-tissue tumours in a variety of histological types. Except for evidence of a rearrangement in a single leiomyosarcoma cell line, SK-UT-1, we have found no direct evidence to support a role for mutation of the gene in the development of human soft-tissue tumours

Women Managers and Their Personal Barriers for Upward Mobility in Private and Public Sectors

Women’s participation in the paid workforce is one of the most significant social changes of the last century. Therefore, significant progress has been achieved by women with their increase movements into the occupations and the proportion of women in management of different levels of the organizations has increased. However, towards the end of year 2012 the proportion of women in decision making is very low and still there are only around 20 per cent women are represent the managerial positions. Qualitative case study methodology was used to answer the question ‘what are the perceived personal barriers that inhibit to career development of women managers in Sri Lanka’? By this study, it has been analyzed the experiences of 40 Sri Lankan women who are holding senior-level management positions in five public and five private sector organizations in the occupational categories of Education, Accountancy, Engineering, Insurance, Banking and Medical Service. The Grounded Theory analysis method was applied to analyze the data. The study found out that there are barriers in organizational support, number of task and working load, nearest colleagues and friendship and fellow managers and support.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/kjm.v2i1.6545 Kelaniya Journal of Management Vol.2(1) 2013:92-112 </p

Morphometry-based radiomics for predicting therapeutic response in patients with gliomas following radiotherapy

IntroductionGliomas are still considered as challenging in oncologic management despite the developments in treatment approaches. The complete elimination of a glioma might not be possible even after a treatment and assessment of therapeutic response is important to determine the future course of actions for patients with such cancers. In the recent years radiomics has emerged as a promising solution with potential applications including prediction of therapeutic response. Hence, this study was focused on investigating whether morphometry-based radiomics signature could be used to predict therapeutic response in patients with gliomas following radiotherapy.Methods105 magnetic resonance (MR) images including segmented and non-segmented images were used to extract morphometric features and develop a morphometry-based radiomics signature. After determining the appropriate machine learning algorithm, a prediction model was developed to predict the therapeutic response eliminating the highly correlated features as well as without eliminating the highly correlated features. Then the model performance was evaluated.ResultsTumor grade had the highest contribution to develop the morphometry-based signature. Random forest provided the highest accuracy to train the prediction model derived from the morphometry-based radiomics signature. An accuracy of 86% and area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.91 were achieved for the prediction model evaluated without eliminating the highly correlated features whereas accuracy and AUC value were 84% and 0.92 respectively for the prediction model evaluated after eliminating the highly correlated features.DiscussionNonetheless, the developed morphometry-based radiomics signature could be utilized as a noninvasive biomarker for therapeutic response in patients with gliomas following radiotherapy

Mutations of the BRAF gene in human cancer

Cancers arise owing to the accumulation of mutations in critical genes that alter normal programmes of cell proliferation, differentiation and death. As the first stage of a systematic genome-wide screen for these genes, we have prioritized for analysis signalling pathways in which at least one gene is mutated in human cancer. The RAS RAF MEK ERK MAP kinase pathway mediates cellular responses to growth signals. RAS is mutated to an oncogenic form in about 15% of human cancer. The three RAF genes code for cytoplasmic serine/threonine kinases that are regulated by binding RAS. Here we report BRAF somatic missense mutations in 66% of malignant melanomas and at lower frequency in a wide range of human cancers. All mutations are within the kinase domain, with a single substitution (V599E) accounting for 80%. Mutated BRAF proteins have elevated kinase activity and are transforming in NIH3T3 cells. Furthermore, RAS function is not required for the growth of cancer cell lines with the V599E mutation. As BRAF is a serine/threonine kinase that is commonly activated by somatic point mutation in human cancer, it may provide new therapeutic opportunities in malignant melanoma

Vulnerability to Climate Change: Adaptation Strategies and Layers of Resilience- Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change in Sri Lanka, Quantitative Analysis. Research Report No. 18

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Sri Lanka Council for Agricultural Research Policy (SLCARP), recognized the complimentarity of their objectives and the need to facilitate the implementation of the research project on natural resources management, entitled ‘’Vulnerability to Climate Change: Adaptation Strategies and Layers of Resilience’’ in seven Asian countries, including India, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand. Accordingly, they have been working together to implement the project in Sri Lanka. Climate change is the most important global environmental challenge facing humanity today. Farmers in the Asian countries need to adjust to climate that is changing and accordingly adapt with layers of resilience in their farming practices and investment decisions..