Decision-making in economics: critical lessons from neurobiology

In this chapter, the authors consider some of the issues regarding the rational choice decision framework in neoclassical economics and how it can particularly be found wanting in the absence of due consideration for some of the underlying critical neurobiological factors which govern decision making. They develop a critical decision problem and explore the scenario where the solution predicted by formal economic theory may be in conflict with the decision that actually occurs. Such conflict is especially relevant in the context of economic decision making in emerging markets where there can be a lack of trust in the system by the agents operating within it. Based on logically consistent arguments derived from the extant literature, the authors argue that non-consideration of underlying neurobiological factors is a direct cause of this conflict

AN OPD BASED PROSPECTIVE EXPLORATORY STUDY OF DERMATOPHYTOSIS - FOCUS ON TREATMENT OUTCOMES, MEDICATION ADHERENCE, AND QUALITY OF LIFE

Objective: The study was planned primarily to judge the effectiveness, safety, and adherence of the prescribed treatments in dermatophytosis along with the effect on the Quality of Life (QoL) of the affected individuals. Methods: In this prospective observational study, spanning over 5 months, participants (dermatophytosis patients) were assessed at baseline and 6 week-follow-up at study site. Information about their clinical presentation, QoL (Quality of Life) parameters, medication adherence, and adverse drug reaction (ADR) were entered in the Case Report Form (CRF) prepared by utilizing global standard tools such as 5D-itch scale, Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS), and WHO-ADR reporting form respectively. Results: Total 60 subjects (33 males and 27 females) had completed the study. Overall, tinea cruris (40%) was the most common variety followed by combination of tinea corporis and cruris (35%), tinea corporis (20%), and tinea incognito (3%). Pruritus was the predominant symptom. There was a significant (p<0.001) improvement of both 5D-itch & DLQI scores from baseline to follow-up stage (after 6 weeks). Treatment regimens were well tolerated (only eight subjects reported any adverse event such as gastric irritation and sedation). Medication adherence to the prescribed treatment was good; (mean MARS score 7.588±1.82). Mostly prescribed regimen was a combination of antifungal (oral plus topical) and antihistamine tablet (58/60, 96.66%). The most common drug combination was capsule itraconazole, luliconazole cream, and cetirizine or levocetirizine tablet with or without ketoconazole soap (35/60, 58.33%). Conclusion: Prescribed treatment regimen for dermatophytosis was effective, tolerable, acceptable with high medication adherence and also improved the QoL of the study subjects

Hospital-based surveillance of enteric parasites in Kolkata

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diarrhoea is the second leading cause of illness and death in developing countries and the second commonest cause of death due to infectious diseases among children under five in such countries. Parasites, as well as bacterial and viral pathogens, are important causes of diarrhoea. However, parasitic infections are sometimes overlooked, leading after a period of time to an uncertain aetiology. In this paper we report the prevalence of <it>Giardia lamblia</it>, <it>Entamoeba histolytica </it>and <it>Cryptosporidium </it>sp. in and around Kolkata.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>A hospital-based laboratory surveillance study was conducted among the patients admitted between November 2007 and October 2008 to the Infectious Diseases (ID) Hospital (Population = 1103) with diarrhoeal complaints. Of the 1103 samples collected, 147 were positive for <it>Giardia lamblia</it>, 84 for <it>Cryptosporidium </it>sp. and 51 for <it>Entamoeba histolytica</it>. For all these parasites there was a high rate of mixed infection with common enteric viruses and bacteria such as Rotavirus, <it>Vibrio cholerae </it>and <it>Shigella </it>sp. There were also cases of co-infection with all other diarrheogenic pathogens. The age group ≥ 5 years had the highest prevalence of parasites whereas the age group >5 – 10 years was predominantly infected with <it>Giardia lamblia </it>(p =< 0.001; Odds ratio (OR) = 3.937; 95% Confidence interval (CI) = 1.862 – 8.326) and with all parasites (p = 0.040; OR = 2.043; 95% CI = 1.033 – 4.039). The age group >10 – 20 years could also be considered at risk for <it>G. lamblia </it>(p = 0.009; OR = 2.231; 95% CI = 1.223 – 4.067). Month-wise occurrence data showed an endemic presence of <it>G. lamblia </it>whereas <it>Cryptosporidium </it>sp. and <it>E. histolytica </it>occurred sporadically. The GIS study revealed that parasites were more prevalent in areas such as Tangra, Tiljala and Rajarhat, which are mainly slum areas. Because most of the population surveyed was in the lower income group, consumption of contaminated water and food could be the major underlying cause of parasitic infestations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides important information on the occurrence and distribution of three important intestinal parasites and indicates their diarrheogenic capacity in Kolkata and surrounding areas.</p

Multi-locus Genotyping Reveals High Occurrence of Mixed Assemblages in Giardia duodenalis within a Limited Geographical Boundary

Aim: 　To determine the common genotypes of Giardia duodenalis causing diarrhea in the study region and to assess the extent of genetic polymorphism among them.　 Study Design: 　Stool samples were collected from the patients attending IDBG Hospital, Kolkata with diarrheal complaints through a systemic sampling technique and were screened for Giardia duodenalis. The G. duodenalis positive samples were subjected to molecular genotyping through ‘PCR - Direct DNA sequencing’ procedure. All the sequence data obtained were incorporated into MEGA 4 software for multiple alignment and validation followed by phylogenetic analysis. The genotyping data obtained are stored in Excel spreadsheets and incorporated into EpiInfo 3.1 for analyzing possible association of genotype outcome with common physical factors such as age, sex etc.　 Place and Duration of Study: 　Department of parasitology, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, India from July 2009 to November 2011.　 Methodology: 　A total of 68 Giardia duodenalis positive stool samples were identified from the diarrhea patients attending IDBG hospital in the city and were subjected to multi-locus genotyping. Fragments of ß-giardin, Glutamate-dehydrogenase and Triosephosphate-isomerase genes of Giardia were amplified from those samples with specific primers and sequenced. All the sequences were analyzed using MEGA 4 software for obtaining the genotyping results. Results: Multi-locus genotyping identified 13 isolates as assemblage A and 41 as assemblage B, whereas 14 of them could not be assigned in a particular group. Detailed phylogenetic analysis revealed that multiple genotypes were observed in those 14 isolates depending upon the marker loci.　 Conclusion: 　The study could produce a preliminary idea about the G. duodenalis genotypes found in Kolkata city. High percentage of mixed assemblages in the study population also revealed the presence of genetic diversity among a small population of diarrheal patient within a limited geographical boundary. It has also hypothesized the possibility of inter-assemblage genetic exchange among Giardia

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

A novel green synthesis of silver nanoparticles and their catalytic action in reduction of Methylene Blue dye

Green synthesis processes are regarded as safer alternative to usual physical, chemical and microbial methods due to their cost effectiveness, environmental friendly nature and easy handling. In the present study, an eco-friendly and facile method for biogenic synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has been developed using fruit extract of Gmelina arborea, an abundantly available medicinal plant in North Eastern region of India. The prepared AgNPs were characterized by UV–Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction pattern and energy dispersive X-ray spectrum. TEM studies showed the as-synthesized AgNPs were stable, almost spherical and crystalline with the particles size varying from 8 to 32 nm. The average diameter of the particles was 17.0 ± 1.6 nm. The catalytic effectiveness of the prepared green catalyst, AgNP, was also investigated in catalytic degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) dye. The catalytic degradation reaction was completed within 10 min, signifying excellent catalytic properties of silver nanoparticles in reduction of MB

Multi-locus Genotyping Reveals High Occurrence of Mixed Assemblages in Giardia duodenalis within a Limited Geographical Boundary

Aim: To determine the common genotypes of Giardia duodenalis causing diarrhea in the study region and to assess the extent of genetic polymorphism among them. Study Design: Stool samples were collected from the patients attending IDBG Hospital, Kolkata with diarrheal complaints through a systemic sampling technique and were screened for Giardia duodenalis. The G. duodenalis positive samples were subjected to molecular genotyping through ‘PCR - Direct DNA sequencing’ procedure. All the sequence data obtained were incorporated into MEGA 4 software for multiple alignment and validation followed by phylogenetic analysis. The genotyping data obtained are stored in Excel spreadsheets and incorporated into EpiInfo 3.1 for analyzing possible association of genotype outcome with common physical factors such as age, sex etc. Place and Duration of Study: Department of parasitology, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, India from July 2009 to November 2011. Methodology: A total of 68 Giardia duodenalis positive stool samples were identified from the diarrhea patients attending IDBG hospital in the city and were subjected to multi-locus genotyping. Fragments of ß-giardin, Glutamate-dehydrogenase and Triosephosphateisomerase genes of Giardia were amplified from those samples with specific primers and sequenced. All the sequences were analyzed using MEGA 4 software for obtaining the genotyping results. Results: Multi-locus genotyping identified 13 isolates as assemblage A and 41 as assemblage B, whereas 14 of them could not be assigned in a particular group. Detailed phylogenetic analysis revealed that multiple genotypes were observed in those 14 isolates depending upon the marker loci. Conclusion: The study could produce a preliminary idea about the G. duodenalis genotypes found in Kolkata city. High percentage of mixed assemblages in the study population also revealed the presence of genetic diversity among a small population of diarrheal patient within a limited geographical boundary. It has also hypothesized the possibility of inter-assemblage genetic exchange among Giardia

Pre-emptive oral dexmethorphan reduces fentanyl-induced cough as well as immediate postoperative adrenocortico-tropic hormone and growth hormone level

Background : Fentanyl-induced cough is not always benign and brief and can be remarkably troublesome, spasmodic, and explosive. Dextromethorphan, an opioid derivative with an antitussive action, may be effective in reducing the fentanyl-induced cough. Dextromethorphan, a N-methyl D aspartate receptor antagonist, may have some effect on diminishing the stress response to surgery. This study was undertaken to determine whether preoperative dextromethorphan could effectively attenuate its incidence, severity, and effect on postoperative stress hormone levels. Materials and Methods : Three hundred and twenty patients of American society of anesthesiologists I-II, aged 18-60 years, undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy or appendicectomy were randomly allocated into two groups (Group C, control; Group D, dextromethorphan) consisting of 160 patients each. Patients in Group D received dextromethorphan 40 mg orally and in Group C received placebo tablets 60 minutes before induction of anesthesia. The incidence of cough was recorded for 1 minute after fentanyl injection and graded as none (0), mild (1-2), moderate (3-5), and severe (>5 cough). Blood samples were collected for estimation of stress hormone levels before surgery and again at 1 hour and 24 hours postoperatively and compared. The appearance of adverse reactions was recorded. Results : The incidence of reflex fentanyl cough was lower in dextromethorphan group (3.9%) in comparison to placebo (59.8%). Five patients developed mild and one moderate cough in the dextromethorphan group. In the control group, 31 patients developed mild, 29 moderate, and 32 severe cough. The stress hormones were significantly higher at 1 hour and 24 hours postoperatively in both groups in comparison to its preoperative values. However, at 1 hour postoperatively, adrenocorticotropic hormone, epinephrine, and growth hormone values were significantly low in the dextromethorphan group (61.5 ± 21.1 pg/ ml, 142.1 ± 11.2 pg/ml, and 3.8 ± 0.7 ng/ml) relative to the control group (73.4 ± 21.9 pg/ml, 158.9 ± 17.9 pg/ml, and 4.2 ± 1.3 ng/ml), but changes became insignificant at 24 hours postoperatively. Conclusion : Preoperative oral dextromethorphan 40 mg decreased the incidence and severity of fentanyl induced cough and reduced the rise in stress hormones at 1 hour postoperatively

Biodegradable Hybrid Nanocomposite of Chitosan/Gelatin and Green Synthesized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles for Food Packaging

In the context of emerging global concerns with synthetic plastic packaging, alternative natural biodegradable packaging materials are gaining increasing attention for food packaging applications. In this study, chitosan and gelatin nanocomposite hybrid films containing green synthesized zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) were developed and microstructural properties were studied. Antimicrobial activity of the developed films was evaluated using both Gram negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus). Green synthesis protocol was used for the precipitation of ZnO NPs using fruit extract of Cassia fistula. The as-synthesized polyhedral ZnO NPs were in the range of 20&ndash;40 nm (average size &asymp;29 nm). Reinforcement with ZnO NPs in the hybrid films lead to improved thermal stability, elongation-at-break (EAB), and compactness properties. The developed films with 2% and 4% ZnO NPs showed a smooth, compact, and heterogeneous surface morphology compared to the control (chitosan-gelatin hybrid) films. Disc diffusion assays showed that the nanocomposite film had significant antimicrobial activity against E. coli. The developed hybrid nanocomposite films have potential to be developed as biodegradable alternative for postharvest packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables

Green synthesis of iron oxide nanoparticles for arsenic remediation in water and sludge utilization

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) were synthesized via an affordable and environmentally friendly route using waste banana peel extract. The polyphenol-rich extract acted as a stabilizing and reducing agent resulting in formation of -Fe2O3 with a particle size of around 60nm. The composition, phase, morphology and size of the nanoparticles were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and a Zetasizer. The efficiency of the IONPs was assessed in terms of arsenic(V) remediation from contaminated water within the range of 0.1-2.0mg/L. Batch study showed that IONPs had a high As(V) adsorption capacity of about 2.715mg/g at 40 degrees C. A statistical approach, viz. an artificial neural network, was adapted for modeling and optimization of the process parameters for achieving maximum As(V) removal efficiency. A set of 54 experimental sets were conducted and the predicted model generated showed an R-2 value of 0.9971 and the corresponding mean squared error value was 0.0000601. Surface binding of the As(V) phenomenon on the green synthesized IONPs was explained on the basis of FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy of the control and the As(V)-loaded IONPs.The spent adsorbent was successfully immobilized in phosphate glass matrix with an objective to provide a complete and sustainable solution for arsenic contamination