Role of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing leprosy: in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Leprosy, a chronic inflammatory granulomatous disease chiefly involving skin and peripheral nerves and occasionally other organ systems, caused by Mycobacterium leprae. It has tormented the human civilization through time immemorial. Leprosy remains a significant public health problem worldwide, especially in developing countries like India. The diagnosis of leprosy is not always easy because of long incubation period, over dependence of clinical expertise and a lack of rapid and simple diagnostic tool, patients remain undiagnosed for longer time. Fine needle aspiration (FNAC) technique is an inexpensive, rapid and accurate procedure for diagnosis of leprosy. We conducted a prospective study evaluating the ability of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing and classifying leprosy lesions on Ridley-Jopling scale (R-J scale). The aim of this prospective study was to assess the usefulness of fine needle aspiration cytology in early diagnosis of leprosy, to identify specific cytological characteristics of diagnosis and to correlate the cytological smear findings with histopathology and to evaluate merits of relatively non-invasive procedure of FNAC over more invasive procedure - biopsy.Methods: The study is a hospital based prospective study carried out in the Department of Pathology and Department of Skin, Venereal Diseases, Leprosy, N.S.C.B. Medical College & Hospital, Jabalpur (M.P.) September 2010 to September 2013. Patients with new skin lesions were selected for the study. FNAC was performed and aspirates were evaluated for cytology using Hematoxylin and Eosin staining (H&E staining), Ziehl-Neelsen staining (ZN staining) and punch biopsy was collected.Results: Out of 50 cases, clinical and cytological correlation was seen in 88% tuberculoid leprosy, 93.7% of borderline tuberculoid, 33% of borderline lepromatous leprosy and 66% of lepromatous leprosy. While clinical with histopathological correlation revealed 100% specificity in tuberculoid leprosy, 100% in borderline tuberculoid, 66.6% in borderline lepromatous, 83.3% in lepromatous leprosy and 80% in indeterminate leprosy and 100% in histoid leprosy in our study. The overall cytodiagnostic accuracy has been 92% in present study.  Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that the combination of FNAC and ZN staining for Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) can provide a rapid diagnosis in majority of leprosy suspected cases. FNAC is a safe, simple, rapid, less-invasive, OPD procedure for early diagnosis and classification of leprosy cases.

Implementation of High Efficiency, High Lifetime and Low Cost Converter for an Automatic Photovoltaic Water Pumping Station

A novel idea of photovoltaic (PV) energy based converter for water pumping system without the USAge of fuel cells or batteries. In proposed system, the design of a three phase induction motor drive is directly supplied by using photovoltaic system energy. Presence of a three phase induction motor has better performance with optimized efficiency compared to the commercial water pumping system of DC motor. The developed resonant of Two Inductor Boost Converter (TIBC) and voltage quadruple with three phase Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) are based on the current fed multi resonant converter. Low input current ripple and high voltage gain are the features of TIBC. So the classical topology used to improve the system with a constant duty cycle control and a non dissipative snubber circuit along with a hysteresis controller to improve its efficiency. Due to the non existence of electrolytic capacitors the system is required to have a high lifetime and total system cost is low. As a result, in isolated locations the system has an optimistic solution and it provide water to poor societies

A Disciplined Approach to Accident Analysis Development and Control Selection

Abstract The development and use of a Safety Input Review Committee (SIRC) process promotes consistent and disciplined Accident Analysis (AA) development to ensure that it accurately reflects facility design and operation; and that the credited controls are effective and implementable. Lessons learned from past efforts were reviewed and factored into the development of this new process. The implementation of the SIRC process has eliminated many of the problems previously encountered during Safety Basis (SB) document development. This process has been subsequently adopted for use by several Savannah River Site (SRS) facilities with similar results and expanded to support other analysis activities

A prospective study on clinico-epidemiological profile and outcome in management of poisonous snake bite

Background: Snake bite is a major health problem in Nepal. According to WHO, annual morbidity due to snake bite is 162 out of 100,000 people in Nepal. Aim of the study is to observe epidemiology, clinical features, and analysis of possible relationship between time delay in administration of anti-snake venom (ASV) and mortality. Methods: This prospective observational study analyses the data of 81 patients admitted to the Lumbini zonal hospital, Butwal, Rupandehi, Nepal with history of snake bite between April to September, 2017.Results: In this study 56% patients were female. Patients of age group (15-30) years were maximum (38.27%). The study showed that 50.61% of snake bites were occurred outside home. Most of patients (84%) were from the Terai region. Average no. of vials used per case was (28±10) vials. Most of victims of snake bite were from rural areas. In most of cases we found that prothrombin time was prolonged. It was found that most of patients 57% reach hospital before 4 hours of snake bite. The mean days of hospital stay was 6±2.86. Most of case of snake bite was unknown (62%). The mortality rate in this study was 6.17%.Conclusions: There is a great need to improve in existing health care conditions for effective management of snake bite; it requires training of the personnel engaged in the emergency health care management, development of national guidelines based on the clinical trials, improving the distribution and easy availability of antivenom.

Facile synthesis and photoluminescence spectroscopy of 3D-triangular GaN nano prism islands

We report a strategy for fabrication of 3D triangular GaN nano prism islands (TGNPI) grown on Ga/Si(553) substrate at tow temperature by N-2(+) ions implantation using a sputtering gun technique. The annealing of Ga/Si(553) (600 degrees C) followed by nitridation (2 key) shows the formation of high quality GaN TGNPI cross-section. TGNPI morphology has been confirmed by atomic force microscopy. Furthermore, these nano prism islands exhibit prominent ultra-violet luminescence peaking at 366 nm upon 325 nm excitation wavelength along with a low intensity yellow luminescence broad peak at 545 nm which characterizes low defects density TGNPI. Furthermore, the time-resolved spectroscopy of luminescent TGNPI in nanoseconds holds promise for its futuristic application in next generation UV-based sensors as well as many portable optoelectronic devices

Metatranscriptome Analysis Deciphers Multifunctional Genes and Enzymes Linked With the Degradation of Aromatic Compounds and Pesticides in the Wheat Rhizosphere

Agricultural soils are becoming contaminated with synthetic chemicals like polyaromatic compounds, petroleum hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), phenols, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides due to excessive dependency of crop production systems on the chemical inputs. Microbial degradation of organic pollutants in the agricultural soils is a continuous process due to the metabolic multifunctionalities and enzymatic capabilities of the soil associated communities. The plant rhizosphere with its complex microbial inhabitants and their multiple functions, is amongst the most live and dynamic component of agricultural soils. We analyzed the metatranscriptome data of 20 wheat rhizosphere samples to decipher the taxonomic microbial communities and their multifunctionalities linked with the degradation of organic soil contaminants. The analysis revealed a total of 21 different metabolic pathways for the degradation of aromatic compounds and 06 for the xenobiotics degradation. Taxonomic annotation of wheat rhizosphere revealed bacteria, especially the Proteobacteria, actinobacteria, firmicutes, bacteroidetes, and cyanobacteria, which are shown to be linked with the degradation of aromatic compounds as the dominant communities. Abundance of the transcripts related to the degradation of aromatic amin compounds, carbazoles, benzoates, naphthalene, ketoadipate pathway, phenols, biphenyls and xenobiotics indicated abundant degradation capabilities in the soils. The results highlighted a potentially dominant role of crop rhizosphere associated microbial communities in the remediation of contaminant aromatic compounds

High density linkage mapping of genomic and transcriptomic SNPs for synteny analysis and anchoring the genome sequence of chickpea

This study presents genome-wide discovery of SNPs through next generation sequencing of the genome of Cicer reticulatum. Mapping of the C. reticulatum sequenced reads onto the draft genome assembly of C. arietinum (desi chickpea) resulted in identification of 842,104 genomic SNPs which were utilized along with an additional 36,446 genic SNPs identified from transcriptome sequences of the aforementioned varieties. Two new chickpea Oligo Pool All (OPAs) each having 3,072 SNPs were designed and utilized for SNP genotyping of 129 Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs). Using Illumina GoldenGate Technology genotyping data of 5,041 SNPs were generated and combined with the 1,673 marker data from previously published studies, to generate a high resolution linkage map. The map comprised of 6698 markers distributed on eight linkage groups spanning 1083.93 cM with an average inter-marker distance of 0.16 cM. Utility of the present map was demonstrated for improving the anchoring of the earlier reported draft genome sequence of desi chickpea by ~30% and that of kabuli chickpea by 18%. The genetic map reported in this study represents the most dense linkage map of chickpea , with the potential to facilitate efficient anchoring of the draft genome sequences of desi as well as kabuli chickpea varieties