213 research outputs found
Evaluation of efficacy of two drug regimens of anti-retro viral therapy
Background: CD4 count is an important marker to assess the effectiveness of treatment, mortality and survival rates in HIV patients on treatment. It is an important guide to treatment as it reflects drug resistance, treatment failure and need to switch over to different regimen. Objective of the study was to assess the efficacy of tenofovir (TDF) and efavirenz (EFV) versus zidovudine (AZT) and nevirapine (NVP), in combination with lamivudine (3TC) in HIV-infected patients taking basal and after treatment CD4 count levels as tools.Methods: A retrospective observational study on 40 adult HIV patients, receiving AZT+3TC+NPV (ZLN) (group I) and 18 patients on TDF+3TC+EFV (TLE) (group II) was carried out. Demographic profile, medication prescribed, baseline CD4 cell counts, serially monitored CD4 count values and Hb% were recorded from patient's medical record. Student’s paired ‘t’ test was done to compare CD4 counts before and after treatment in individual groups. Unpaired ‘t’ test was used for the comparison of CD4 counts between the groups.Results: A very highly significant (p<0.0001) increment in CD4 count was observed in group I after treatment. Improvement in CD4 count was highly significant in group II as well with p<0.0004. The extent of improvement was significantly better (p<0.05) in group I as compared to group II. Patients in group I were better staged clinically.Conclusions: We conclude that ART regimen containing AZT/3TC/NVP is proved to be superior to TDF/3TC/EFV. However further studies need to be done, by taking drug adherence into account in a larger patient population
Griffiths phase-like behaviour and spin-phonon coupling in double perovskite TbNiMnO
The Griffiths phase-like features and the spin-phonon coupling effects
observed in TbNiMnO are reported. The double perovskite compound
crystallizes in monoclinic space group and exhibits a magnetic phase
transition at 111 K as an abrupt change in magnetization. A negative
deviation from ideal Curie-Weiss law exhibited by 1/ curves and
less-than-unity susceptibility exponents from the power-law analysis of inverse
susceptibility are reminiscent of Griffiths phase-like features. Arrott plots
derived from magnetization isotherms support the inhomogeneous nature of
magnetism in this material. The observed effects originate from
antiferromagnetic interactions which arise from inherent disorder in the
system. Raman scattering experiments display no magnetic-order-induced phonon
renormalization below in TbNiMnO which is different from the
results observed in other double perovskites and is correlated to the smaller
size of the rare earth. The temperature evolution of full-width-at-half-maximum
for the {\it stretching} mode at 645 cm presents an anomaly which
coincides with the magnetic transition temperature and signals a close
connection between magnetism and lattice in this material.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures; accepted in J. Appl. Phy
Biochemical and immunological aspects of riboflavin carrier protein
Riboflavin carrier protein which is obligatorily involved in yolk deposition of the vitamin in the chicken egg, is a unique glycophosphoprotein present in both the yolk and white compartments. The yolk and egg white proteins are products of a single estrogen-inducible gene expressed in the liver and the oviduct respectively of egg laying birds. Despite the fact that the carbohydrate composition of the yolk and white riboflavin carrier proteins differ presumably due to differential post-translational modification, the proteins are immunologically similar and have identical amino acid sequence (including a cluster of 8 phosphoser residues towards the C-terminus) except at the carboxy terminus where the yolk riboflavin carrier protein lacks 13 amino acids as a consequence of proteolytic cleavage during uptake by oocytes. The protein is highly conserved throughout evolution all the way to humans in terms of gross molecular characteristics such as molecular weight and isoelectric point, and in immunological properties, preferential affinity for free riboflavin and estrogen inducibility at the biosynthetic locusviz., liver. Obligatory involvement of the mammalian riboflavin carrier protein in transplacental flavin transport to subserve fetal vitamin nutrition during gestation is revealed by experiments using pregnant rodent or subhuman primate models wherein immunoneutralisation of endogenous maternal riboflavin carrier protein results in fetal wastage followed by pregnancy termination due to selective yet drastic curtailment of vitamin efflux into the fetoplacental unit. Using monoclonal antibodies to chicken riboflavin carrier protein, it could be shown that all the major epitopes of the avian riboflavin carrier protein are highly conserved throughout evolution although the relative affinities of some of the epitopes for different monoclonal antibodies have undergone progressive changes during evolution. Using these monoclonal antibodies, an attempt is being made to map the different epitopes on the riboflavin carrier protein molecule with a view to delineate the immunodominant regions of the vitamin carrier to understand its structure-immunogenicity relationship
On the constant term of the minimal polynomial of cos (2 pi/n) over Q
The algebraic numbers cos (2 pi/n) and 2 cos (pi/n) play an important role in the theory of discrete groups and has many applications because of their relation with Chebycheff polynomials. There are some partial results in literature for the minimal polynomial of the latter number over rationals until 2012 when a complete solution was given in [5]. In this paper we determine the constant term of the minimal polynomial of cos(2 pi/n) over Q by a new method
Boxicity of graphs on surfaces
The boxicity of a graph is the least integer for which there
exist interval graphs , , such that . Scheinerman proved in 1984 that outerplanar graphs have boxicity
at most two and Thomassen proved in 1986 that planar graphs have boxicity at
most three. In this note we prove that the boxicity of toroidal graphs is at
most 7, and that the boxicity of graphs embeddable in a surface of
genus is at most . This result yields improved bounds on the
dimension of the adjacency poset of graphs on surfaces.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure
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