Maternal and perinatal outcome in eclampsia complicated by posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome; a three years’ experience in a tertiary care hospital

Background: PRES can be associated with number of medical conditions and was observed frequently in patients with preeclampsia and eclampsia. Neuroimaging is important for the diagnosis of PRES. Study was conducted to find out the maternal and perinatal outcome in patients with eclampsia complicated by posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES).Methods: This is a retrospective study done at St. Johns Medical College Bangalore, between October 2013 and October 2016. We reviewed case records of all the patients with eclampsia who underwent neuro imaging studies and a diagnosis of PRES was made. The maternal and perinatal outcomes in these women were studiedResults: In the past three years we had 55 cases of eclampsia who underwent neuroimaging studies for persistent neurological symptoms after 24 hours of MgSO­4 treatment. Of these women 30 were diagnosed to have PRES. In the present study PRES was common in multiparous women and more in patients with antepartum eclamptic women. Mean age at diagnosis of PRES was 26±5.1 years. Common presenting symptoms were headache (93.3%) and vomiting (53.3%). The mean SBP/DBP was 180/110 mmHg. All patients who had recurrent seizures were controlled with MgSO­4 alone. 53.3% of our patients had eclampsia related complications and 36.7% required ICU care. There were 3 maternal deaths (10%). Perinatal mortality was 20%.Conclusions: Neuroimaging in eclamptic patients with persistent neurological symptoms could help in early diagnosis of PRES and multidisciplinary approach in management could contribute significantly in reducing the maternal mortality and morbidity

Bringing the Tiger Back from the Brink—The Six Percent Solution

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Movement and activity pattern of a collared tigress in a human-dominated landscape in central India

Tigers (Panthera tigris) are wide-ranging species, and a permeable landscape matrix outside Protected Areas (PAs) is extremely important for their dispersal. A tigress which had fallen in a water duct in the Nagpur district was rescued by the Forest Department on 12th October, 2011 and released on 27th November, 2011 in a forest adjacent to the site of capture. A GPS-GSM collar that we fitted on her indicated that she remained in the same forest area until 25th December, 2011, and then moved eastwards into a human-dominated landscape where she was present until 25th March, 2012, after which the GPS battery ceased to function. She moved a minimum distance of 454.65 km from the time of her release up to 25th March, 2012, using a total area of 726 km² (95% MCP), but between 30th December, 2011 and 25th March, 2012, after moving into the human-dominated forest-agricultural landscape her home range was 431 km² (95% MCP). Her home range also encompassed villages, roads and croplands. Her activity was largely nocturnal and she rested in dense foliage inside forest patches during the day. About half of all the prey items that we identified during this period (n = 12) were wild pigs (Sus scrofa). Although, she was present very close to areas where humans were active in the day, no untoward incident occurred. She was photographed in April 2013, a year after the collar stopped functioning, in the same region about 40 km from the release site, indicating that she is still present in the human-dominated area. Very little is known about tiger ecology, and their temporal and spatial patterns of movement, outside PAs. These areas will be crucial in terms of dispersal between PAs as well as sensitive in terms of conflict

A tablet computer-assisted motor and language skills training programme to promote communication development in children with autism: development and pilot study

Autism is a heterogenous condition, encompassing many different subtypes and presentations. Of those people with autism who lack communicative speech, some are more skilled at receptive language than their expressive difficulty might suggest. This disparity between what can be spoken and what can be understood correlates with motor and especially oral motor abilities, and thus may be a consequence of limits to oral motor skill. Point OutWords, tablet-based software targeted for this subgroup, builds on autistic perceptual and cognitive strengths to develop manual motor and oral motor skills prerequisite to communication by pointing or speaking. Although typical implementations of user-centred design rely on communicative speech, Point OutWords users were involved as co-creators both directly via their own nonverbal behavioural choices and indirectly via their communication therapists’ reports; resulting features include vectorised, high-contrast graphics, exogenous cues to help capture and maintain attention, customisable reinforcement prompts, and accommodation of open-loop visuomotor control

Relational approaches to poverty in rural India: social, ecological and technical dynamics

Poverty is now widely recognised as multidimensional, with indicators including healthcare, housing and sanitation. Yet, relational approaches that foreground political-cultural processes remain marginalised in policy discourses. Focusing on India, we review a wide range of relational approaches to rural poverty. Beginning with early approaches that focus on structural reproduction of class, caste and to a lesser extent gender inequality, we examine new relational approaches developed in the last two decades. The new approaches examine diverse ways in which poverty is experienced and shapes mobilisations against deprivation. They draw attention to poor people’s own articulations of deprivation and alternate conceptions of well-being. They also show how intersecting inequalities of class, caste and gender shape governance practices and political movements. Despite these important contributions, the new relational approaches pay limited attention to technologies and ecologies in shaping the experience of poverty. Reviewing studies on the Green Revolution and wider agrarian transformations in India, we then sketch the outlines of a hybrid relational approach to poverty that combines socio-technical and -ecological dynamics. We argue that such an approach is crucial to challenge narrow economising discourses on poverty and to bridge the policy silos of poverty alleviation and (environmentally) sustainable development

STROCSS 2021: Strengthening the reporting of cohort, cross-sectional and case-control studies in surgery

Introduction: Strengthening The Reporting Of Cohort Studies in Surgery (STROCSS) guidelines were developed in 2017 in order to improve the reporting quality of observational studies in surgery and updated in 2019. In order to maintain relevance and continue upholding good reporting quality among observational studies in surgery, we aimed to update STROCSS 2019 guidelines. / Methods: A STROCSS 2021 steering group was formed to come up with proposals to update STROCSS 2019 guidelines. An expert panel of researchers assessed these proposals and judged whether they should become part of STROCSS 2021 guidelines or not, through a Delphi consensus exercise. / Results: 42 people (89%) completed the DELPHI survey and hence participated in the development of STROCSS 2021 guidelines. All items received a score between 7 and 9 by greater than 70% of the participants, indicating a high level of agreement among the DELPHI group members with the proposed changes to all the items. / Conclusion: We present updated STROCSS 2021 guidelines to ensure ongoing good reporting quality among observational studies in surgery

The Development of Three Long Universal Nuclear Protein-Coding Locus Markers and Their Application to Osteichthyan Phylogenetics with Nested PCR

BACKGROUND: Universal nuclear protein-coding locus (NPCL) markers that are applicable across diverse taxa and show good phylogenetic discrimination have broad applications in molecular phylogenetic studies. For example, RAG1, a representative NPCL marker, has been successfully used to make phylogenetic inferences within all major osteichthyan groups. However, such markers with broad working range and high phylogenetic performance are still scarce. It is necessary to develop more universal NPCL markers comparable to RAG1 for osteichthyan phylogenetics. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We developed three long universal NPCL markers (>1.6 kb each) based on single-copy nuclear genes (KIAA1239, SACS and TTN) that possess large exons and exhibit the appropriate evolutionary rates. We then compared their phylogenetic utilities with that of the reference marker RAG1 in 47 jawed vertebrate species. In comparison with RAG1, each of the three long universal markers yielded similar topologies and branch supports, all in congruence with the currently accepted osteichthyan phylogeny. To compare their phylogenetic performance visually, we also estimated the phylogenetic informativeness (PI) profile for each of the four long universal NPCL markers. The PI curves indicated that SACS performed best over the whole timescale, while RAG1, KIAA1239 and TTN exhibited similar phylogenetic performances. In addition, we compared the success of nested PCR and standard PCR when amplifying NPCL marker fragments. The amplification success rate and efficiency of the nested PCR were overwhelmingly higher than those of standard PCR. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our work clearly demonstrates the superiority of nested PCR over the conventional PCR in phylogenetic studies and develops three long universal NPCL markers (KIAA1239, SACS and TTN) with the nested PCR strategy. The three markers exhibit high phylogenetic utilities in osteichthyan phylogenetics and can be widely used as pilot genes for phylogenetic questions of osteichthyans at different taxonomic levels

Tigers of Sundarbans in India: Is the Population a Separate Conservation Unit?

The Sundarbans tiger inhabits a unique mangrove habitat and are morphologically distinct from the recognized tiger subspecies in terms of skull morphometrics and body size. Thus, there is an urgent need to assess their ecological and genetic distinctiveness and determine if Sundarbans tigers should be defined and managed as separate conservation unit. We utilized nine microsatellites and 3 kb from four mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genes to estimate genetic variability, population structure, demographic parameters and visualize historic and contemporary connectivity among tiger populations from Sundarbans and mainland India. We also evaluated the traits that determine exchangeability or adaptive differences among tiger populations. Data from both markers suggest that Sundarbans tiger is not a separate tiger subspecies and should be regarded as Bengal tiger (P. t. tigris) subspecies. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses of the mtDNA data revealed reciprocal monophyly. Genetic differentiation was found stronger for mtDNA than nuclear DNA. Microsatellite markers indicated low genetic variation in Sundarbans tigers (He= 0.58) as compared to other mainland populations, such as northern and Peninsular (Hebetween 0.67- 0.70). Molecular data supports migration between mainland and Sundarbans populations until very recent times. We attribute this reduction in gene flow to accelerated fragmentation and habitat alteration in the landscape over the past few centuries. Demographic analyses suggest that Sundarbans tigers have diverged recently from peninsular tiger population within last 2000 years. Sundarbans tigers are the most divergent group of Bengal tigers, and ecologically non-exchangeable with other tiger populations, and thus should be managed as a separate "evolutionarily significant unit" (ESU) following the adaptive evolutionary conservation (AEC) concept.Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun (India)

Collective oscillations of a stored deuteron beam close to the quantum limit

We investigated coherent betatron oscillations of a deuteron beam in the storage ring COSY, excited by a detuned radio-frequency Wien filter. These beam oscillations were detected by conventional beam position monitors, read out with lock-in amplifiers. The response of the stored beam to the detuned Wien filter was modelled using the ring lattice and time-dependent 3D field maps of the radio-frequency Wien filter. The influence of uncertain system parameters related to manufacturing tolerances and electronics was investigated using the polynomial chaos expansion. With the currently available apparatus, we show that oscillation amplitudes down to \SI{1}{\micro \meter} can be detected. Future measurements of the electric dipole moment of protons will, however, require control of the relative position of counter-propagating beams in the sub-picometer range. Since the stored beam can be considered as a rarefied gas of uncorrelated particles, we moreover demonstrate that the amplitudes of the zero-point betatron oscillations of individual particles are within a factor of 10 of the Heisenberg uncertainty limit. As a consequence of this, we conclude that quantum mechanics does not preclude the control of the beam centroids to sub-picometer accuracy. The smallest Lorentz force exerted on a single particle that we have been able to determine is \SI{10}{aN}.Comment: 38 pages, 16 figure