Luteal phase serum progesterone level as a predictor of vaginal bleeding or adverse pregnancy outcome in patients undergoing assisted reproductive techniques

Background: With advances in assisted reproductive techniques its becoming increasingly important to identify pregnancies having a potential of adverse outcome in the form of per vaginal bleeding or early pregnancy loss. The objective of this study was to find out whether the value of luteal phase progesterone can be used as a marker to predict the possibility of per vaginal bleeding and early pregnancy loss in cases conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer (ET).Methods: A total of 40 women of age less than or equal to 40 years undergoing IVF and ET were included in this study depending upon inclusion criteria. Patients were excluded if they had any factor defined as exclusion criteria. on D14 after embryo transfer B-hCG was done in all the patients. If B-hCG levels were found to be ≥ 100 mIU/ml then serum progesterone levels were also done. B-hCG levels were repeated after 48 hours. Pregnancies were followed up and correlation between suboptimal rise in serum progesterone levels and adverse pregnancy outcome was studied.Results: Mean Beta-hCG and Serum progesterone levels on D14 of embryo transfer were found to be 388.86±34 mIU/ml and 54.24±4.32 ng/ml respectively. A repeat B-hCG and serum progesterone level 48 hours after initial estimation showed mean B-hCG and serum progesterone level to be 598.80±52.12 mIU/ml and 72. 24±5.24 ng/ml respectively. Out of 40 patients 26 patients showed >30% rise in serum progesterone level while 14 patients showed less than 30% rise in serum progesterone level.Conclusions: Suboptimal rise in serum progesterone level (<30%) was associated with increased incidence of adverse pregnancy outcome in women conceived after in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer

Voice Based Email System

As the technology advances the applications available for users can be made more user-friendly. This Voice Based Email System is developed for the people who require comfort and who are physically challenged. With the advent of technology, many technological solutions have been implemented so that people get benefited by utilizing them. Considering it as a key idea we propose to develop an application, Voice Based Email System which will be useful for every person to access the email functionalities in a hassle free manner. We have used 'Text to Speech' and �Speech to Text� voice converter named �Speech Recognition Anywhere� to facilitate sending and reading of emails. The speech synthesis can read aloud any written text avoiding eye strain and save time reading on computer. The existing email system, its drawbacks and our proposed methodology to overcome them have been discussed in this paper. Related work that has been done already is referred and taken as a guideline to finish our system

Glucocorticoid-Induced Bone Loss Is Associated with Abnormal Intravertebral Areal Bone Mineral Density Distribution

Individuals with glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis experience vertebral fractures at an increased rate and at higher vertebral areal bone mineral density (aBMD) than individuals with primary osteoporosis. Standard posteroanterior- (PA-) projection dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) lacks the diagnostic sensitivity required for reliable estimation of vertebral fracture risk in individuals. Assessment of subregional vertebral aBMD using lateral-projection DXA may improve the predictive value of DXA parameters for fracture. One hundred and four individuals were recruited and grouped for this study: primary osteoporosis with no history of vertebral fracture (n = 43), glucocorticoid-induced bone loss (n = 13), and healthy controls (n = 48). Standard PA-projection and supine-lateral scans were performed, and lateral scans were analysed according to an established protocol to measure aBMD within 6 subregions. Main effects for subregion and group were assessed and observed, by ANCOVA. Ratios were calculated between subregions and compared between groups, to overcome the potentially confounding influence of variability in subregional geometry. Significantly lower values were observed in the glucocorticoid group for the ratios of (i) anterior subregion: whole vertebral body and (ii) posterior: whole vertebral body when compared to the primary osteoporosis and control groups (P < 0.0 5). Lower anterior subregional aBMD in individuals on glucocorticoid therapy may help to explain the increased vertebral fracture risk in this patient group

Simultaneous measurement of HbA1C and Hemoglobin by Turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay from a single punch of dried blood spot samples

Hemoglobin and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) are frequently monitored health indicators in population based studies for information about the status of nutrition and diabetes control. We present here possibly for the first time the findings of simultaneous estimation of Hemoglobin and HbA1C on Dried blood spot (DBS) samples by a single test. Validation was done by turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay (TINIA) using Roche Integra 400 plus instrument. Paired whole blood and DBS samples were tested for HbA1C estimation by Integra 400 plus. Total hemoglobin values obtained during HbA1C estimation were compared with hemoglobin values estimated by Coulter AcT 5 Diff CP Hematology counter. Agreement in HbA1C and hemoglobin values between paired whole blood and DBS samples was found to be high with R2 values of 0.994 and 0.9349, respectively. Intra- and inter- assay precision was found to be within 10% for both parameters. Values obtained after assaying DBS samples prepared by spotting proficiency samples on Whatman 903 protein saver cards demonstrated acceptable standard deviation indices resulting in successful participation in EQAS programs for both these parameters. The results reveal the potential of TINIA for simultaneous estimation of hemoglobin and HbA1C from a single punch of the DBS samples

Tasty Spices as Nutraceuticals

Spices, food additives, which are the main sources of taste, colour, and perfume in foods and beverages, are becoming more and more important due to their wide range of applications. Spices are consumed as food additives to improve the sensory quality of foods. Traditional systems of medicine have employed spices for centuries since they have been known to have physiological effects that are good for human health. In the past few decades, pioneering experimental research involving both animal studies and human trials has been carried out which proved thatspices have therapeutic effects. The benefits of spices’ like nutritional, antioxidant, anti-microbial, and therapeutic characteristics are many. These potentials activities of spices also adds up with their far reaching nutraceutical values. The primary health challenges facing humanity today are diabetes, cardio-vascular illnesses, arthritis, and cancer. Thus the anti-diabetic, anti-hypercholesterolemic, anti-carcinogenic, digestive stimulant action, antilithogenic property, anti-inflammatory property, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenicand anti-inflammatory actions of spices are of utmost importance in the current situation. The present chapter deals with review of the nutraceutical and health benefits of various spices used in daily diet

WAVELET ANALYSIS BASED IMAGE SUPER RESOLUTION

The increase in demand and performance of personal computing digital image processing is widely being used in many applications. Digital image process has advantage in term of cost, speed and flexibility. The objective is to extract information from the scene is being viewed. Image resolution describes the amount of information contained by images. Resolution has been frequently referred as an important aspect of an image. Images are being processed in order to obtain more enhanced resolution. One of the commonly used techniques for image resolution enhancement is Interpolation. In this work, an image resolution enhancement technique has been proposed which generates sharper high resolution image. The proposed technique uses DWT to decompose a low resolution image into different subbands. Then the three high frequency sub-band images have been interpolated using bi-cubic interpolation. The high frequency sub-bands obtained by SWT of the input image are being incremented into the interpolated high frequency sub-bands in order to correct the estimated coefficients. In parallel, the input image is also interpolated separately. Although the time and frequency resolution problems are results of a physical phenomenon (the Eisenberg uncertainty principle) and exist regardless of the transform used, it is possible to analyze any signal by using an alternative approach called the multi resolution analysis (MRA

Simultaneous measurement of HbA1C and Hemoglobin by Turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay from a single punch of dried blood spot samples

7-13Hemoglobin and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) are frequently monitored health indicators in population based studies for information about the status of nutrition and diabetes control. We present here possibly for the first time the findings of simultaneous estimation of Hemoglobin and HbA1C on Dried blood spot (DBS) samples by a single test. Validation was done by turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay (TINIA) using Roche Integra 400 plus instrument. Paired whole blood and DBS samples were tested for HbA1C estimation by Integra 400 plus. Total hemoglobin values obtained during HbA1C estimation were compared with hemoglobin values estimated by Coulter AcT 5 Diff CP Hematology counter. Agreement in HbA1C and hemoglobin values between paired whole blood and DBS samples was found to be high with R2 values of 0.994 and 0.9349, respectively. Intra- and inter- assay precision was found to be within 10% for both parameters. Values obtained after assaying DBS samples prepared by spotting proficiency samples on Whatman 903 protein saver cards demonstrated acceptable standard deviation indices resulting in successful participation in EQAS programs for both these parameters. The results reveal the potential of TINIA for simultaneous estimation of hemoglobin and HbA1C from a single punch of the DBS samples

Oral administration of insulin receptor-interacting lectins leads to an enhancement in the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell pool of mice

Lectins form an important constituent of our daily diet, and thus, it is essential that their effect(s) on various tissues be examined systematically in order to assess whether they are beneficial or detrimental to human health. We examined the effect of oral administration of two dietary lectins that were isolated from banana (BL) and garlic (GL)-two quite commonly consumed food items-on the hematopoiesis of mice. Balb/c mice were fed weekly with lectins and their marrow mononuclear cells (MNCs) were subjected to various hematopoietic stem/progenitor (HSPC)-specific phenotypic and functional assays. It was observed that the lectin-fed mice harbored a considerably increased HSPC pool in their marrow. Marrow-derived MNCs isolated from these lectin-fed mice gave rise to large-sized colony-forming unit-fibroblast (CFU-F) colonies indicating that the lectins had a salutary effect on the stromal compartment. The molecular mechanisms involved in the process were examined by using a stromal cell line model, M210B4. The lectins pulled down pro-insulin and insulin receptors in an immunoprecipitation experiment and activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling in the treated cells, in a manner comparable to insulin, both in terms of kinetics as well as extent. M210B4 cells incubated with BL, GL, or insulin showed reduced levels of reactive oxygen species, suggesting that perhaps the lectins protected the stem cell pool of mice by activating ERK signaling and reducing the oxidative stress in the niche. Our data suggest that these lectins may serve as micronutrients for therapeutic purposes in hematological deficiencies

In vitro protection of umbilical cord blood–derived primitive hematopoietic stem progenitor cell pool by mannose-specific lectins via antioxidant mechanisms

BACKGROUND: Earlier we reported that an oral administration of two mannose-specific dietary lectins, banana lectin (BL) and garlic lectin (GL), led to an enhancement of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) pool in mice. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Cord blood–derived CD34+ HSPCs were incubated with BL, GL, Dolichos lectin (DL), or artocarpin lectin (AL) for various time periods in a serum- and growth factor–free medium and were subjected to various functional assays. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels were detected by using DCHFDA method. Cell fractionation was carried out using lectin-coupled paramagnetic beads. RESULTS: CD34+ cells incubated with the lectins for 10 days gave rise to a significantly higher number of colonies compared to the controls, indicating that all four lectins possessed the capacity to protect HSPCs in vitro. Comparative analyses showed that the protective ability of BL and GL was better than AL and DL and, therefore, further experiments were carried out with them. The output of long-term culture-initiating cell (LTC-IC) and extended LTC-IC assays indicated that both BL and GL protected primitive stem cells up to 30 days. The cells incubated with BL or GL showed a substantial reduction in the ROS levels, indicating that these lectins protect the HSPCs via antioxidant mechanisms. The mononuclear cell fraction isolated by lectin-coupled beads got enriched for primitive HSPCs, as reflected in the output of phenotypic and functional assays. CONCLUSION: The data show that both BL and GL protect the primitive HSPCs in vitro and may also serve as cost-effective HSPC enrichment tools

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHARMACY &amp; LIFE SCIENCES Microbubble and its applications

Abstract This review focuses on the characteristics of microbubbles that give them therapeutic properties and some important aspects of ultrasound parameters that are known to influence microbubbles-mediated drug delivery. In addition, current studies involving this novel therapeutic application of microbubbles will be discussed the microbubbles as drug carriers have an average size less than that of red blood cells .They are capable of penetrating even into the small blood capillaries and releasing drug and genes under the action of ultrasound field. Targeting ligands are attached to the surface of the microbubbles (i.e. targeted-microbubbles). Microbubbles dispersion method was investigated to improve oxygen transfer at low agitation rates and thus reduce power consumption and shear stress on the microorganisms. Myocardial contrast echocardiography is rapidly becoming a technique that can be utilized with intravenous with intravenous Microbubbles to detect myocardial perfusion abnormalities during stress echocardiography. Microbubbles destruction has been proposed as an innovative method for noninvasive delivering of drugs and genes to different tissues. Conventional flotation assisted with microbubbles (30-100 µm) finds application in the recovery of fine mineral particles (b13 µm) and flotation with these fine bubbles is being used as a solid/liquid separation to remove pollutants. Microbubble having boost utilization in formation of biofuel.Thus microbubbles having various applications in various fields