Prescription pattern of antiepileptic drugs in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder which affects about 0.5% to 1% of the population. The older antiepileptic drugs like carbamazepine and phenytoin are the mainstay of treatment of epilepsy. With the development of newer drugs for various type of epilepsy, the prescribing pattern for epilepsy has changed over the last decade. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prescription pattern of antiepileptic drugs in outpatient department of a tertiary care health care centre in Kerala and to assess how adherent they are to the available treatment guidelines of epilepsy.Methods: Data was collected from patients attending the outpatient department of Neurology in Government Medical College, Kozhikode for 2 months from January 2018 to February 2018. A total of 442 patients were enrolled in the study and data regarding the type of epilepsy, the antiepileptic drug prescribed, and the demographic profile were recorded and analysed.Results: Among the study participants, 237 were males (53.6%) and 205 females (46.2%). The study showed that among the 442 participants enrolled, the most common type of epilepsy was focal seizures (64.5%) and the most commonly prescribed drug was carbamazepine (28%), followed by levetiracetam (22%) and valproate (20%). Majority of the patients were treated with a single drug (79.2%).Conclusions: Newer drugs have been increasingly added to the list of antiepileptic drugs, but most of them serve as adjuvant to older ones and the important drugs used as monotherapy are still the older ones

Radio Recombination Lines from Starbursts: NGC 3256, NGC 4945 and the Circinus Galaxy

A renewed attempt to detect radio recombination lines from external galaxies has resulted in the measurement of lines from several bright starburst galaxies. The lines are produced by hydrogen ionized by young, high-mass stars and are diagnostic of the conditions and gas dynamics in the starburst regions without problems of dust obscuration. We present here detections of the lines H91alpha and H92alpha near 8.6 GHz from the starburst nuclei in NGC 3256, NGC 4945, and the Circinus galaxy using the ATCA and VLA. Modelling the line emitting region as a collection of H II regions, we derive the required number of H II regions, their temperature, density, and distribution.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in "Proc 331. Heraeus Seminar: The Evolution of Starbursts", Bad Honnef, Germany, Aug 16 - 20, 2004, Eds: S. Huettemeister, S. Aalto, D.J. Bomans, and E. Manthe

Studies on Genetic Variability in Dolichos Bean (Lablab purpureus L.)

Fifty seven pole-type vegetable dolichos bean [Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet] germplasm lines were evaluated for genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance at the experimental farm of Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bangalore, during 2010-12. GCV was comparatively high in days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length, pod weight, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and pod width. High heritability estimates were observed for number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant, pod weight, days to 50% flowering, pod length, days to pod maturity, pod width and number of pods per cluster. High genetic advance, along with relatively high heritability percent, was observed for number of pods per cluster and pod width. Existence of wide variation along with high heritability and genetic advance for number of pods per cluster, pod length, pod width and pod yield per plant indicate that selection would be effective for these traits. Among the accessions studied, IIHR 177 was early for 50% flowering (43 days) and pod maturity (65 days). IIHR 6 and IIHR 11 had maximum pod length (16.5cm) and pod width (4.1cm), respectively. Ten-pod weight was highest in IIHR 7(122g), while the number of pods per plant was high in IIHR 159 (91.0). Maximum pod yield was seen in IIHR 150 (576.9g per plant). These accessions having green, purple or creamy-white pods can be used in future breeding programmes

Influence of spin fluctuations near the Mott transition: a DMFT study

Dynamics of magnetic moments near the Mott metal-insulator transition is investigated by a combined slave-rotor and Dynamical Mean-Field Theory solution of the Hubbard model with additional fully-frustrated random Heisenberg couplings. In the paramagnetic Mott state, the spinon decomposition allows to generate a Sachdev-Ye spin liquid in place of the collection of independent local moments that typically occurs in the absence of magnetic correlations. Cooling down into the spin-liquid phase, the onset of deviations from pure Curie behavior in the spin susceptibility is found to be correlated to the temperature scale at which the Mott transition lines experience a marked bending. We also demonstrate a weakening of the effective exchange energy upon approaching the Mott boundary from the Heisenberg limit, due to quantum fluctuations associated to zero and doubly occupied sites.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. V3 was largely expande

Towards a guided atom interferometer based on a superconducting atom chip

We evaluate the realization of a novel geometry of a guided atom interferometer based on a high temperature superconducting microstructure. The interferometer type structure is obtained with a guiding potential realized by two current carrying superconducting wires in combination with a closed superconducting loop sustaining a persistent current. We present the layout and realization of our superconducting atom chip. By employing simulations we discuss the critical parameters of the interferometer guide in particular near the splitting regions of the matter waves. Based on measurements of the relevant chip properties we discuss the application of a compact and reliable on-chip atom interferometer.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for New Journal of Physic

Design and development of Propulsion System for Antitank Guided Missile

A Propulsion system is designed and developed for the third generation antitank guided missile (ATGM). It consists of a separate booster and sustainer. Booster is ahead of sustainer, having four nozzles canted to the missile axis. Sustainer discharges through a supersonic blast tube. Low smoke, high energy nitramine propellant for this propulsion system developed by the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL), Pune, has been successfully flight-tested. The booster grain is tube-in-tube configuration with end inhibition and the sustainer grain is of end burning configuration. High strength aluminium alloy, HE-15, is used for rocket motor components. Glass-phenolic composite ablative material is used for thermal protection of motors and high density graphite is used for nozzle throats. The design considerations and approach, including grain configuration, nozzle, and ignitersare briefly discussed. The propulsion system has been extensively tested in static tests and in flights, establishing the satisfactory performance of the system

An interesting case of early onset of cerebral edemia during diabetic ketoacidosis treatment - a case Report

A young girl with type 1 diabetes presented with diabetic ketoacidosis due to missing of insulin following a respiratory tract infection. Within the first hour of starting intravenous fluids and insulin she developed cerebral edema. This case is being reported because of the unusual presentation of early onset of cerebral edema in the management of DKA and to emphasize the importance of recognizing this complication early as it helped to save this patient

Determining the sign of Δ31\Delta_{31} at long baseline neutrino experiments

Recently it is advocated that high intensity and low energy $(E_\nu \sim 2 GeV)$ neutrino beams should be built to probe the $(13)$ mixing angle $\phi$ to a level of a few parts in $10^4$. Experiments using such beams will have better signal to background ratio in searches for $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ oscillations. We propose that such experiments can also determine the sign of $\Delta_{31}$ even if the beam consists of {\it neutrinos} only. By measuring the $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ transitions in two different energy ranges, the effects due to propagation of neutrinos through earth's crust can be isolated and the sign of $\Delta_{31}$ can be determined. If the sensitivity of an experiment to $\phi$ is $\epsilon$, then the same experiment is automatically sensitive to matter effects and the sign of $\Delta_{31}$ for values of $\phi \geq 2 \epsilon$.Comment: Title changed and paper rewritten. 4 pages, 1 figure, revte

Systematically improvable optimized atomic basis sets for {\it ab inito} calculations

We propose a unique scheme to construct fully optimized atomic basis sets for density-functional calculations. The shapes of the radial functions are optimized by minimizing the {\it spillage} of the wave functions between the atomic orbital calculations and the converged plane wave calculations for dimer systems. The quality of the bases can be systematically improved by increasing the size of the bases within the same framework. The scheme is easy to implement and very flexible. We have done extensive tests of this scheme for wide variety of systems. The results show that the obtained atomic basis sets are very satisfactory for both accuracy and transferability

Numerical Study of the Lowest Energy Configurations for Global String-Antistring Pairs

We investigate the lowest energy configurations for string - antistring pairs at fixed separations by numerically minimizing the energy. We show that for separations smaller than a critical value, a region of false vacuum develops in the middle due to large gradient energy density. Consequently, well defined string - antistring pairs do not exist for such separations. We present an example of vortex - antivortex production by vacuum bubbles where this effect seems to play a dynamical role in the annihilation of the pair. We also study the dependence of the energy of an string-antistring pair on their separation and find deviations from a simple logarithmic dependence for small separations.Comment: 14 pages, in LATEX, 7 figures (not included