The Structure and Content of Zen Stories

Zen stories are believed to have been used by priests for centuries to teach disciples. The priests have structured and presented their experiences and their ancestors as stories.  Zen stories record the cultural changes that took place in the society and is about the concepts necessary for people's lives.  These stories explain the structures like family, group, society and the feelings that unite people in the name of God, caste, religion, tolerance, equality, faith etc.  Such Zen stories has folklore elements. Zen stories are thought-provoking, makes us to laugh-out-loud and conveys the traditional ideas. This article discusses other folk motifs found in Zen stories.  Also, in this article, the Zen stories are compiled and sorted into four categories: wisdom and ignorance, action, desire less-ness and impermanence

Equilibrium in the Food Chain System in the Novels of R. Murugavel

Literature is composed based on the theme of the natural environment. Literature expresses the nature of environment either explicitly or implicitly. It remains as a constant canon from the Sangam literature to the contemporary literature. Thus, there are many records in the literature about the natural food chain system and the effects of human production methods on their balance. Literary genre novel also records all these things. After India's independence, the Indian government focused on conserving natural resources and maximizing its productivity.  Its influences are reflected in modern literature. In the drive to maximize productivity, little attention has been paid in protecting the natural environment. Novels carry all such messages both explicitly and implicitly.  Among them, the above-mentioned food chain system, their balance and the impact of human production methods on their balance is revealed in this article

Auditory processing in individuals with auditory neuropathy

BACKGROUND: Auditory neuropathy is a disorder characterized by no or severely impaired auditory brainstem responses in presence of normal otoacoustic emissions and/or cochlear microphonics. Speech perception abilities in these individuals are disproportionate to their hearing sensitivity and reported to be dependent on cortical evoked potentials and temporal processing abilities. The disproportionate loss of auditory percept in presence of normal cochlear function is suggestive of impairment of auditory neural synchrony. METHODS: We studied the auditory evoked potentials and psychophysical abilities in 14 adults with auditory neuropathy to characterize their perceptual capabilities. Psychophysical tests included measurement of open set speech identification scores, just noticeable difference for transition duration of syllable /da/ and temporal modulation transfer function. Auditory evoked potentials measures were, recording of P(1)/N(1), P(2)/N(2 )complex and mismatch negativity (MMN). RESULTS: Results revealed a significant correlation between temporal processing deficits and speech perception abilities. In majority of individuals with auditory neuropathy P(1)/N(1), P(2)/N(2 )complex and mismatch negativity could be elicited with normal amplitude and latency. None of the measured evoked potential parameters correlated with the speech perception scores. Many of the subjects with auditory neuropathy showed normal MMN even though they could not discriminate the stimulus contrast behaviorally. CONCLUSION: Conclusions drawn from the study are 1. Individuals with auditory neuropathy have severely affected temporal processing. 2. The presence of MMN may not be directly linked to presence of behavioral discrimination and to speech perception capabilities at least in adults with auditory neuropathy

Metformin and nitrosamine impurities

Metformin is considered as gold standard anti-diabetic drug and is the preferred initial pharmacologic agent for most of the patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Metformin is cheap, widely available and safe, backed by pharmaco-epidemiological evidence of more than 60 years regular use in clinical practice. Due to its durable efficacy, once initiated, metformin will be continued as long as it is tolerated and not contraindicated.  It has got additional benefits on cholesterol, liver, cardio vascular system and cancer. Recent evidence and recall of metformin extended release formulation due to detection of excess amount of cancer-causing nitrosamine impurities has created concern among health care providers and patients. Adherence to regulatory guidelines and use of approved technologies in manufacturing and quality control may help in solving the issue

Expression of survivin in different grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma: A Retrospective Immunohistochemical study

AIM OF THE STUDY: To compare the immunohistochemical expression of survivin and further evaluate its prognostic significance among three grades (well differentiated, moderately differentiated, and poorly differentiated) of oral squamous cell carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study material consisted of 60 formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples: 15 cases each of well differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma and normal oral mucosal epithelium as control. Survivin expression was analyzed immunohistochemically and data analysis was accomplished using SPSS version 22.0. Fisher’s chi square test was opted to compare the variance in distribution, intensity of staining, percentage of immunopositivity and assess pairwise comparison between the groups (WDSCC & MDSCC, MDSCC & PDSCC and WDSCC & PDSCC). Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique was used to compare the immunoreactivity score of survivin within the four groups. A 'p' value less than 0.05 denotes significant relationship. RESULTS: Survivin was expressed in all grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma, but absent in normal oral tissue samples. There was a statistically significant difference among the three grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma in relation to survivin immunopositivity and immunoreactivity (p < 0.01). High immunopositivity and strong staining intensity for survivin, predominantly in nuclear areas were observed in poorly differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma whereas moderate immunopositivity and staining intensity were observed in well and moderately differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Higher survivin expression and its nuclear localization appeared to correlate with higher grade of malignancy. Survivin was highly expressed in poorly differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma compared to well and moderately differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma suggesting unfavourable prognosis. Based on the present study, it was concluded that survivin may be used as an important diagnostic and prognostic marker for aggressive form of oral squamous cell carcinoma. To further validate survivin as a prognostic marker, a large scale study with greater sample size along with clinical follow-up data is needed. Due to its selective expression in tumor cells and absence in normal tissues, it may be used as a therapeutic target for oral cancer

Juvenile whale shark, Rhinocodon typus (Smith) caught at Vizhinjam

The present report is based on the landing of a juvenile whale shark in live condition entangled in Chala vala (gill net for sardines), on 26.12.2002 at Vizhinjam fish landing center. This paper also describes the morphometric measurements (in cm) of the whale juvenile shark in detail

Implantless press fit graft fixation technique at Patella for MPFL reconstruction

Patellofemoral instability is one of the most prevalent knee disorders in adolescents. It is often multifactorial and complex. Often accompanied by insufficiency or tear of MPFL ligament. MPFL is primary soft tissue stabiliser of patella and acts as checkrein of lateral patella dislocation. There have been variations in surgical techniques including different choices of surgical techniques, graft material and fixation methods, despite these there is no conclusive evidence that a particular surgical option is superior to another. Recurrent Patella instability requires individualised surgical planning . In this article we present a surgical technique which is implantless socket type of press-fit fixation at patella

Generative Model for Conceptual Design of Defence Equipment

Requirement study and analysis forms a key component in conceptual design of new products and systems. For complex systems like defence equipment, concept design is very important and should primarily satisfy all user requirements. Brings out a new generative model for concept design of defence systems using principles of systems engineering. A structured model and methodology is presented starting from capturing the user requirements, developing multiple solutions, short listing the candidate solutions and finally selecting one or two feasible designs. The model and process is illustrated with the help of a case study on the development of a torpedo defence system for naval ships.

Clinical profile of dengue fever in a tertiary care centre in North Kerala

Background: Dengue fever is the most common arboviral disease and fifty percent of world population is at risk. Frequent outbreaks are reported from all states of our country and incidence increases every year. This case study is of 305 patients from Academy of Medical Sciences, which is a tertiary care centre and research Institute in North Kerala. The objective of this study was to study the clinical profile of dengue fever.Methods: Study was prospective observational study conducted during the epidemic for a period of one year. All the cases which fulfilled WHO criteria for diagnosis of dengue fever and those who are positive for IGM antibody detected by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (IgM ELISA) were only included in this study.Results: There is male preponderance, and those above the age of 30 years affected more. All patients had fever. Gastrointestinal manifestation like nausea and vomiting were commonly observed symptoms. Hepatomegaly, rash and conjuctival suffusion were important physical findings, whereas splenomegaly noted only in 8.2% cases. Thrombocytopenia is noticed in 73.96%.Conclusions: The mortality is 2.6%. Hypotension and thrombocytopenia are the two important determinants of mortality. Dengue Shock syndrome and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever were relatively less when compared to other epidemics from different regions

Modernized Wildlife Surveillance and Behaviour Detection using a Novel Machine Learning Algorithm

In a natural ecosystem, understanding the difficulties of the wildlife surveillance is helpful to protect and manage animals also gain knowledge around animals count, behaviour and location. Moreover, camera trap images allow the picture of wildlife as unobtrusively, inexpensively and high volume it can identify animals, and behaviour but&nbsp; it has the issues of high expensive, time consuming, error, and low accuracy. So, in this research work, designed a novel wildlife surveillance framework using DCNN for accurate prediction of animals and enhance the performance of detection accuracy. The executed research work is implemented in the python tool and 2700 sample input frame datasets are tested and trained to the system. Furthermore, analyze whether animals are present or not using background subtraction and features extracted is performed to extract the significant features. Finally, classification is executed to predict the animal using the fitness of seagull. Additionally, attained results of the developed framework are compared with other state-of-the-art techniques in terms of detection accuracy, sensitivity, F-measure and error