T1 and T2 mapping of articular cartilage and menisci in early osteoarthritis of the knee using 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging

Purpose: 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T1 and T2 mapping to detect and quantify cartilage matrix and meniscal degeneration between normal healthy volunteers and early osteoarthritis patients. Material and methods: A prospective study including 25 patients and 10 healthy volunteers was done. Patients with symptoms of early osteoarthritis and Kellgren-Lawrence grade I-II on plain radiograph were included for MRI knee. Patients with inflammatory arthritis, infection, trauma, and history of knee surgery were excluded. Healthy, normal adult volunteers (preferably age and sex matched) without symptoms of osteoarthritis of the knee were drawn from patient's relatives/hospital employees/colleagues for MRI knee. Results: T1 and T2 relaxation time values of articular cartilage and menisci were significantly higher in osteoarthritis patients as compared to healthy volunteers. No significant difference was found in morphological thickness of articular cartilage and menisci in early osteoarthritis patients and healthy volunteers. Conclusions: T1 and T2 mapping are noninvasive MRI techniques reflecting changes in the biochemical composition of cartilage and menisci. T1 values reflect changes in proteoglycan content, and T2 values are sensitive to interaction between water molecules and collagen network. Mapping techniques assess early cartilage and meniscal matrix degeneration in osteoarthritis of the knee, and help in initiating treatment and monitoring disease progression. MRI is a sensitive modality for assessment of pathological changes in articular cartilage. With use of T1 and T2 mapping techniques, it is possible to evaluate the collagen network and proteoglycan content in articular cartilage and meniscal matrix

DBO: Response Time Fairness for Cloud-Hosted Financial Exchanges

In this paper, we consider the problem of hosting financial exchanges in the cloud. Financial exchanges require predictable, equal latency to all market participants to ensure fairness for various tasks, such as high speed trading. However, it is extremely difficult to ensure equal latency to all market participants in existing cloud deployments, because of various reasons, such as congestion, and unequal network paths. In this paper, we address the unfairness that stems from lack of determinism in cloud networks. We argue that predictable or bounded latency is not necessary to achieve fairness. Inspired by the use of logical clocks in distributed systems, we present Delivery Based Ordering (DBO), a new approach that ensures fairness by instead correcting for differences in latency to the participants. We evaluate DBO both in our hardware test bed and in a public cloud deployment and demonstrate that it is feasible to achieve guaranteed fairness and sub-100 microsecond latency while operating at high transaction rates

A Comparative Study on Fetomaternal Outcome in Patients with Meconium-stained Amniotic Fluid vs Clear Amniotic Fluid

Aim: To compare and study the perinatal maternal outcome and complications in neonates in patients with meconium-stained amniotic fluid. Materials and methods: This was a randomized comparative analysis and prospective study conducted from 1st October 2021to 30th May 2022. 120 patients with meconium-stained amniotic fluid were studied for fetomaternal outcomes and compared to 120 patients with clear amniotic fluid. The patients were monitored for fetal heart rate, mode of delivery, Apgar score at 1 and 5 minutes, NICU admissions and neonatal complications. Result: An increased rate of caesarean section and operative vaginal deliveries was associated with meconium-stained amniotic fluid as compared to clear amniotic fluid. The commonest fetal abnormality seen was bradycardia in 35% of meconium-stained amniotic fluid cases. The APGAR score was less than 7 at 5 min in 5% of the meconium-stained amniotic fluid group and the major complication was birth asphyxia (18.18%) which was more in the thick MSL group (14.87%). Meconium aspiration syndrome was seen in 4 in the the MSL group and 2 in thin MSL group. NICU admission was required in 18% of cases in MSL group while 7% in the control group. The morbidity was more in the MSL group (52%) than thin MSL group (20%). Conclusion: The study proved that meconium staining of amniotic fluid affects the fetal outcome adversely

Influence of hospital policy on partograph use in tertiary care facilities in India: a cross sectional survey

Background: Partograph is an effective, but underutilized tool for monitoring labour. This study examined the influence of hospital policy on the knowledge, attitude, practice and skills of doctors towards partograph plotting.Methods: A cross-sectional survey among doctors posted in labour rooms of tertiary care public teaching hospitals of India was carried out, using self-administered questionnaire to assess knowledge, attitude and practice; and labour case scenarios were provided to assess partograph plotting skills. Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test were employed to test the significance of association between knowledge, attitude, practice and skills of 150 doctors working in hospitals with (n=3) and without (n=2) policy of routine partograph plotting.Results: The majority of doctors in both groups had correct knowledge about different partograph components. However, doctors working in hospitals with a policy of partograph use, demonstrated significantly better skills using case scenarios for plotting partographs (p<0.01), and a positive attitude towards plotting partograph and its use as a decision support tool (p=0.000) as compared to doctors working in hospitals without a routine partograph plotting policy.Conclusions: Hospital policy of routine partograph plotting may positively influence utilization of partograph in tertiary care public hospitals in India

Towards a More Stable Network Infrastructure

There have been many recent proposals to change the network infrastructure in order to meet different performance objectives. These changes are often difficult to deploy, either requiring specialized network switching hardware or greatly complicating network management. Rather than continuing to add new features to the network in an adhoc manner, we advocate a more principled approach for meeting different performance objectives, that leads to a more stable network infrastructure. This approach is based on the following two questions: (1) Can we avoid making changes to the network infrastructure by finding solutions that only change the end-points? Here, we focus on congestion control for both wide-area and datacenter networks, showing how the end-points can be updated to achieve near-optimal performance using commodity switches, and on redesigning RDMA NICs to eliminate their reliance on the in-network mechanism for loss avoidance. (2) When infrastructure changes are needed, can we make them universal in nature? Here, we focus on packet scheduling, examining whether we can have a universal packet scheduling algorithm that can mimic all others. We show, both theoretically and practically, that we can have an almost-universal packet scheduling algorithm that can closely mimic other scheduling algorithms and can achieve a variety of network-wide performance objectives

Climate change coverage in Indian print media : a discourse analysis

Climate change has attracted much political and media attention in recent years. While western media coverage of this issue has been well-documented, there is a paucity of media analysis for climate change coverage in developing economies. This paper examines the media discourse generated in India among three leading English-language dailies (with centrist and conservative news values) during globally prominent climate change events. A quantitative analysis shows a peak in coverage when the Fourth Assessment Report by the IPCC was released in February 2007, and when climate change crusaders won the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2007. A qualitative content analysis reveals that frames such as scientific certainty, energy challenge, social progress, public accountability and looming disaster are widely employed by the elite Indian press to raise relevant social, economic and political issues. Cross-cultural comparisons of media constructs, especially with Europe and America, help identify the further development of risk communication in this field. In a broader, global sense, this work can be tied in to the idea of the ‘climatic turn’ as suggested by European researchers with climate change evolving into a grand, transnational narrative.14 page(s

Towards a More Stable Network Infrastructure

There have been many recent proposals to change the network infrastructure in order to meet different performance objectives. These changes are often difficult to deploy, either requiring specialized network switching hardware or greatly complicating network management. Rather than continuing to add new features to the network in an adhoc manner, we advocate a more principled approach for meeting different performance objectives, that leads to a more stable network infrastructure. This approach is based on the following two questions: (1) Can we avoid making changes to the network infrastructure by finding solutions that only change the end-points? Here, we focus on congestion control for both wide-area and datacenter networks, showing how the end-points can be updated to achieve near-optimal performance using commodity switches, and on redesigning RDMA NICs to eliminate their reliance on the in-network mechanism for loss avoidance. (2) When infrastructure changes are needed, can we make them universal in nature? Here, we focus on packet scheduling, examining whether we can have a universal packet scheduling algorithm that can mimic all others. We show, both theoretically and practically, that we can have an almost-universal packet scheduling algorithm that can closely mimic other scheduling algorithms and can achieve a variety of network-wide performance objectives