N-ACETYLCYSTEINE REVERSES LATE GESTATIONAL STRESS INDUCED MATERNAL OXIDATIVE DAMAGE

Objective: This study was intended to investigate the effect of early and late gestational stress, on the levels of antioxidants and antioxidant enzymes in maternal serum that reflects oxidative damage. We also aimed at evaluating the protective role of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) against this oxidative stress. This study was carried out with speculation in mind that maternal oxidative damage could be the cause for developmental defects in off spring.Methods: Pregnant rats were exposed to restrain stress thrice daily, either during the first half or during the second half of gestation. Other groups were treated with N-acetylcysteine throughout pregnancy, along with exposure to either early gestational stress or late gestational stress. Control group was kept undisturbed throughout pregnancy. Immediately after delivery, blood was drawn to estimate the serum antioxidant levels.Results: Pregnant rats exposed to stress during the late gestational period showed significant variation in the level of serum MDA, Glutathione Reductase, reduced glutathione, SOD and total antioxidant capacity although, administration of NAC brought about improvement in the antioxidant status.Conclusion: NAC is an effective antioxidant that can bring down the oxidative damage caused by late gestational stress in rats.Â

Why is the Arkavathy River drying? A multiple-hypothesis approach in a data-scarce region

Water planning decisions are only as good as our ability to explain historical trends and make reasonable predictions of future water availability. But predicting water availability can be a challenge in rapidly growing regions, where human modifications of land and waterscapes are changing the hydrologic system. Yet, many regions of the world lack the long-term hydrologic monitoring records needed to understand past changes and predict future trends. We investigated this “predictions under change” problem in the data-scarce Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) catchment of the Arkavathy sub-basin in southern India. Inflows into TG Halli reservoir have declined sharply since the 1970s. The causes of the drying are poorly understood, resulting in misdirected or counter-productive management responses. Five plausible hypotheses that could explain the decline were tested using data from field surveys and secondary sources: (1) changes in rainfall amount, seasonality and intensity; (2) increases in temperature; (3) groundwater extraction; (4) expansion of eucalyptus plantations; and (5) fragmentation of the river channel. Our results suggest that groundwater pumping, expansion of eucalyptus plantations and, to a lesser extent, channel fragmentation are much more likely to have caused the decline in surface flows in the TG Halli catchment than changing climate

Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis: A peculiar presentation of Scrub typhus

Scrub typhus is a disease endemic to the Indian subcontinent caused by the obligate intracellular pleomorphic organism, Orientia tsutsugamushi. Scrub typhus among other acute febrile illnesses present with prodromal symptoms of fever, malaise, myalgia, anorexia followed by a distinct maculopapular rash, hepatosplenomegaly, and lymphadenopathy. In this case report, we present a patient who developed a rare cutaneous vasculitis secondary to infection with Orientia tsutsugamushi. After performing the Weil Felix test, a diagnostic titer of 1:640 against OX-K was obtained. Furthermore, a skin biopsy was carried out which confirmed the diagnosis of leukocytoclastic vasculitis. The patient was treated with Doxycycline and showed a drastic improvement in his symptoms. Keywords: Scrub Typhus, Rickettsia; Vasculitis; Doxycycline

AS-level topology collection through looking glass servers

While accurate and complete modeling of the Internet topol-ogy at the Autonomous System (AS) level is critical for future protocol design, performance evaluation, simulation and analysis, still it remains a challenge to construct its ac-curate representation. In this paper, we collect BGP route announcements of ASes from Looking glass (LG) servers. By querying LG servers, we build an AS topology estimate of around 116 K AS links, from which we discover 11 K new AS links and 686 new ASes. We conclude that collecting BGP traces from LG servers can help enhance the current view of the AS topology from the BGP collector projects (e.g., RouteViews)

A Tweet-based Dataset for Company-Level Stock Return Prediction

Public opinion influences events, especially related to stock market movement, in which a subtle hint can influence the local outcome of the market. In this paper, we present a dataset that allows for company-level analysis of tweet based impact on one-, two-, three-, and seven-day stock returns. Our dataset consists of 862, 231 labelled instances from twitter in English, we also release a cleaned subset of 85, 176 labelled instances to the community. We also provide baselines using standard machine learning algorithms and a multi-view learning based approach that makes use of different types of features

Stereoselectivity in quaternization of thebaine. 270 MHz PMR spectroscopic studies

The quaternization of thebaine (I) with Pr iodide and iso-Pr iodide was studied by PMR spectroscopy. The results indicate that the major diastereomer is formed to the extent of approximate 75% of the diastereomeric mixture by axial attack of the alkyl halide. There is no significant change in the ratio of the diastereomers with solvent or with large excess of the alkyl halide used. The diastereomers were separated by column chromatog. on neutral alumina, characterized by various phys. data and the configuration at the quaternary nitrogen assigned on the basis of PMR spectra (270 MHz). The stereoselectivity in quaternization further proved by reverse quaternization

Neuroprotective Role of N-acetylcysteine against Learning Deficits and Altered Brain Neurotransmitters in Rat Pups Subjected to Prenatal Stress

Prenatal adversaries like stress are known to harm the progeny and oxidative stress, which is known to be one of the causative factors. N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), which is a potent antioxidant, has been shown to play a neuroprotective role in humans and experimental animals. This study examines the benefits of NAC on the prenatal stress-induced learning and memory deficits and alteration in brain neurotransmitter in rat pups. Pregnant dams were restrained (45 min; 3 times/day) during the early or late gestational period. Other groups received early or late gestational restrain stress combined with NAC treatment throughout the gestational period. At postnatal day (PND) 28, offspring were tested in a shuttle box for assessing learning and memory, which was followed by a brain neurotransmitter (dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin) estimation on PND 36. Late gestational stress resulted in learning deficits, the inability to retain the memory, and reduced brain dopamine content while not affecting norepinephrine and serotonin. NAC treatment in prenatally stressed rats reversed learning and memory deficits as well as brain dopamine content in offspring. These findings suggest that NAC protect the progeny from an undesirable cognitive sequel associated with prenatal stress

Executive attention networks show altered relationship with default mode network in PD

Attention dysfunction is a common but often undiagnosed cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease that significantly reduces quality of life. We sought to increase understanding of the mechanisms underlying attention dysfunction using functional neuroimaging. Functional MRI was acquired at two repeated sessions in the resting state and during the Attention Network Test, for 25 non-demented subjects with Parkinson's disease and 21 healthy controls. Behavioral and MRI contrasts were calculated for alerting, orienting, and executive control components of attention. Brain regions showing group differences in attention processing were used as seeds in a functional connectivity analysis of a separate resting state run. Parkinson's disease subjects showed more activation during increased executive challenge in four regions of the dorsal attention and frontoparietal networks, namely right frontal eye field, left and right intraparietal sulcus, and precuneus. In three regions we saw reduced resting state connectivity to the default mode network. Further, whereas higher task activation in the right intraparietal sulcus correlated with reduced resting state connectivity between right intraparietal sulcus and the precuneus in healthy controls, this relationship was absent in Parkinson's disease subjects. Our results suggest that a weakened interaction between the default mode and task positive networks might alter the way in which the executive response is processed in PD