A clinical study to evaluate the effect of Dashamoola Trivrit Taila Paana in Kashtartava w.s.r. Dysmenorrhoea

Dysmenorrhoea means difficult menstruation but the term is used to mean painful menstruation, but a more practical definition includes cases of painful menstruation of sufficient magnitude so as to incapacitate day to day activities.[1] Kashtartava is Pratyama Laxana of various Yonivyapads like - Vatala, Paripluta, Udavartini, Mahayoni, Antarmukhi, Sukimukki and also in Vataja Artava Dhushti, Khsina Artava Dhushuti, Asrgdara that affects approximately 50% of menstruating women. It is common reason for losing time at school or work or for visiting the family doctor. Pain is the biggest problem since the beginning of mankind. Morbid Vata Dosha especially Apana Vata is causative factor of Kashtartava. Drugs which have Vatahara Artava Doshahara properties are beneficial. Considering the morbidity and the complications that are caused by Kashtartava, combination of above herbal preparation has been tried here. Here, in this study Dashmoola Trivrit Taila having property of Shula Prashamana Vatanulomana and Vatashamaka is indicated in the form of Paana

BULLOUS PEMPHIGOID A RARE AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE: A CASE REPORT

Background. Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is a rare autoimmune blistering skin disease in the elderly and it is manifested by cutaneous blisters on the skin lesions. The objective was to emphasize the rare case of BP. Methods. A case report of BP in a 58-year-old male patient admitted to a dermatology ward is presented. Results. A 58-year-old male patient with complaints of fluid-filled skin lesions, was examined initially over the trunk, gradually progressed involving B/L upper and lower extremities. Even though the patient was treated with the recommended therapy of corticosteroid (Dexamethasone) along with adjuvant drugs, new skin lesions continued to develop, and the patient’s condition worsened. The Prednisolone was started in place of Dexamethasone on the fifth day of treatment at its higher dose (50mg/day), the Prednisolone proved its efficacy to combat the extensive condition of BP. Conclusions. Bullous pemphigoid is a distressing blistering skin disease. Untreated disease is often fatal because of the susceptibility to infection and fluid-electrolyte disturbances. The mortality of patients with bullous pemphigoid has been significantly reduced with the advent of new therapies and treatment modalities. The treatment with systemic and topical corticosteroids forms the mainstay of treatment along with other adjuvant drugs. In the present case study, the use of Prednisolone has proven its efficacy in the extensive disease state of BP and improved the patient’s quality of life

Lactic acidosis occurrence during exercises in the smoke chamber in a 53-year-old firefighter with no significant medical history

Lactic acidosis is a form of metabolic acidosis with a high anion gap, reduced rate of arterial blood pH under 7.35 mmol/l, and lactic acid concentration over 7 mmol/l. In the literature we can find some descriptions of the cases of lactic acidosis in patients with severe systemic diseases (cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, sepsis, diabetes with cardiovascular disease and after organ transplantations). We present the case of lactic acidosis in a patient with no chronic disease - a firefighter in whom lactic acidosis has developed during standard exercises in the smoke chamber

Influence of Resolution in Irrigated Area Mapping and Area Estimation

The overarching goal of this paper was to determine how irrigated areas change with resolution (or scale) of imagery. Specific objectives investigated were to (a) map irrigated areas using four distinct spatial resolutions (or scales), (b) determine how irrigated areas change with resolutions, and (c) establish the causes of differences in resolution-based irrigated areas. The study was conducted in the very large Krishna River basin (India), which has a high degree of formal contiguous, and informal fragmented irrigated areas. The irrigated areas were mapped using satellite sensor data at four distinct resolutions: (a) NOAA AVHRR Pathfinder 10,000 m, (b) Terra MODIS 500 m, (c) Terra MODIS 250 m, and (d) Landsat ETM+ 30 m. The proportion of irrigated areas relative to Landsat 30 m derived irrigated areas (9.36 million hectares for the Krishna basin) were (a) 95 percent using MODIS 250 m, (b) 93 percent using MODIS 500 m, and (c) 86 percent using AVHRR 10,000 m. In this study, it was found that the precise location of the irrigated areas were better established using finer spatial resolution data. A strong relationship (R2 = 0.74 to 0.95) was observed between irrigated areas determined using various resolutions. This study proved the hypotheses that “the finer the spatial resolution of the sensor used, greater was the irrigated area derived,” since at finer spatial resolutions, fragmented areas are detected better. Accuracies and errors were established consistently for three classes (surface water irrigated, ground water/conjunctive use irrigated, and nonirrigated) across the four resolutions mentioned above. The results showed that the Landsat data provided significantly higher overall accuracies (84 percent) when compared to MODIS 500 m (77 percent), MODIS 250 m (79 percent), and AVHRR 10,000 m (63 percent)

Genetic diversity revealed utility of SSR markers in classifying parental lines and elite genotypes of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench)

Abstract Genetic diversity among 82 rainy and post-rainy sorghum genotypes from India was studied using a set of 35 SSR markers distributed across all the linkage groups. A total of 198 alleles were recorded with an average of 5.71 per primer pair. The polymorphism information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.02 (Xisep 0310) to 0.86 (sb5-206) with a mean of 0.49, indicating high discriminating ability of the SSR markers used. Jaccard's similarity coefficients and cluster analysis revealed substantial diversity among the genotypes. Very high estimate of fixation index (F ST = 0.35, P= 0.001) was obtained when genotypes were structured as rainy and post-rainy season adaptation, and a much higher estimate (F ST = 0.40, P= 0.001) was obtained when the genotypes were classified as varieties, maintainers, restorers and germplasm lines. This indicates strong distinction based on usage groups. Pairwise F ST values based on usage groups corresponded well with the Nei's genetic distances. We were able to distinguish parental lines of hybrids based on their fertility groups, especially lines from rainy season sorghum, using SSR markers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in sorghum demonstrating the utility of SSR markers in classifying lines based on their fertility groups. Our results have significant implications in classifying parental lines into heterotic groups for their use in heterosis breeding. The divergent maintainer and restorer lines identified based on Jaccard's similarity coefficients could serve as effective candidates for hybrid development

Genetic Differences for Iron Absorption Efficiency Related Traits in Groundnut

Iron deficiency chlorosis (IDC) is of common occurrence in groundnut growing areas with calcareous, alkaline and black SOils which accounts to one-third of the Indian soils. Groundnut is sensitive to iron deficiency, but shows genotypic differences for iron absorption efficiency (IAE) response. A pot experiment was conducted using five genotypes with varying degree of IAE [ICGV 86031 , A30b (efficient), TG 26 (moderately effiCient), TAG 24, TMV 2 (inefficient)] in normal and deficit Fe soil types to determine underlying mechanisms. They were assessed for IAE related traits like visual chlorotic rating (VCR), SPAD chlorophyll meter reading (SCMR), chlorophyll (a, b and total) content, active iron (Fe2+) content. and peroxidase activity in initial expanded leaves across five crop growth stages (20, 40, 60, 60, 100 days) and also for productivity traits. Iron absorption efficient groundnut genotypes recorded significantly lower VCR, higher SCMR, higher active iron, chlorophyll (a, b and total) and peroxidase activity across all five crop growth stages compared to inefficient genotypes. Severity of chlorosis was highest at 60 days during which significant negative correlation was observed between VCR and IAE related traits like SCMR, chlorophyll (a, band total) content, active iron content, and peroxidase activity indicating their utility as surrogate traits In screening for IAE in groundnut. IAE related traits showed significant positive association with productivity traits like pod yield, 100 seed weight, number of pods and primary branches. Pod yield reduction due to iron chlorosis in efficlent genotypes was very less compared to inefficient genotypes

Study of Prescribing Pattern, Identification of Drug Related Problems and Therapeutic Intervention in Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVD) Patients

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a disorder of heart and blood vessels. CVD is one of the major causes of deaths in India, which contributed around 30 to 40%. The aim of the study was to study the prescribing pattern of drugs, identification of drug related problems and therapeutic intervention in CVD patients. A hospital based prospective and observational study was carried out for a period of nine months in a south Indian tertiary care hospital. Among 120 selected patients, 79 were male  (65.83%) and 41 were female  (34.16%), more number of patients (35) were between the age group of 55-64 (29.16%) of which 27 were males & 8 were females, and very less number of patients (6) were between the age group 85-94 (5%) of which all the 6 were male. Hypertension is the most commonest and dominant disorder, which affected 47(39.16%) patients, in which 30 were male (25%) and 17 were female (14.16%). Most common risk factor is HTN followed with smoking and diabetes of 45 patients (37.5%). The most often prescribed pattern adopted in CVD is Dual therapy, it is most frequently used therapy 50 (41.66%) and quadruple therapy is less frequently 6(6.5%) used. The diuretics and calcium channel blocker combination were maximally prescribed class of drugs as a dual therapy. A total of 47 drug-drug interactions were found, among 12 were major, 15 were moderate and 20 were minor interactions. Clinical pharmacist has intervened with the help of other health care professionals in order to reduce the risk factor and minimise the drug-drug interactions. The study provides the benefits of presence of clinical pharmacist in a hospital setting, in order to prevent the medication related errors and provide the expertise pharmacotherapy opinion in CVD patients, which improves the patient compliance.  Hence study justifies a need of active collaboration between clinical pharmacist, physician and other health care professionals for the better management of CVD patients. Keywords: Prescribing Pattern; Cardio Vascular Diseases; Drug Related Problems; Therapeutic Intervention

White Paper: Shifting the goal post - from high impact journals to high impact data

The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of the ongoing initiatives at center level to respond to changing public expectations and to the challenge of improving the conduct of science by making research data widely available. We also attempt to provide a framework for implementing open access for research data to maximize CGIAR’s impact on development. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows; firstly a summary of the diversity of research data produced by the centers is given, followed by an overview of the existing infrastructure for data management for each Center. Secondly, some of the limitations and barriers faced by the centers in their process to mainstream research data publishing are addressed. The paper concludes with recommendations for how these limitations and barriers can be tackled

The association of alcohol consumption with glaucoma and related traits: findings from the UK Biobank

PURPOSE: To examine the associations of alcohol consumption with glaucoma and related traits; to assess whether a genetic predisposition to glaucoma modified these associations; and to perform Mendelian randomization (MR) experiments to probe causal effects. DESIGN: Cross-sectional observational and gene-environment interaction analyses in the UK Biobank. Two-sample MR experiments using summary statistics from large genetic consortia. PARTICIPANTS: UK Biobank participants with data on intraocular pressure (IOP) (n=109 097), OCT derived macular inner retinal layer thickness measures (n=46 236) and glaucoma status (n=173 407). METHODS: Participants were categorized according to self-reported drinking behaviors. Quantitative estimates of alcohol intake were derived from touchscreen questionnaires and food composition tables. We performed a two-step analysis, first comparing categories of alcohol consumption (never, infrequent, regular, and former drinkers), before assessing for a dose-response effect in regular drinkers only. Multivariable linear, logistic and restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression, adjusted for key sociodemographic, medical, anthropometric and lifestyle factors, were used to examine associations. We assessed whether any association was modified by a multi-trait glaucoma polygenic risk score. The inverse-variance weighted method was used for the main MR analyses. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: IOP, macular retinal nerve fiber layer (mRNFL) thickness, macular ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (mGCIPL) thickness, and prevalent glaucoma. RESULTS: Compared to infrequent drinkers, regular drinkers had higher IOP (+0.17mmHg; P<0.001) and thinner mGCIPL (-0.17μm; P=0.049); while former drinkers had a higher prevalence of glaucoma (OR 1.53; P=0.002). In regular drinkers, alcohol intake was adversely associated with all outcomes in a dose-dependent manner (all P<0.001). RCS regression analyses suggested non-linear associations, with apparent threshold effects at approximately 50g (∼6 UK or 4 US alcoholic units)/week, for mRNFL and mGCIPL thickness. Significantly stronger alcohol-IOP associations were observed in participants at higher genetic susceptibility to glaucoma (Pinteraction<0.001). MR analyses provided evidence for a causal association with mGCIPL thickness. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol intake was consistently and adversely associated with glaucoma and related traits, and at levels below current UK (<112g/week) and US (women: <98g/week; men: <196g/week) guidelines. While we cannot infer causality definitively, these results will be of interest to people with, or at risk of, glaucoma and their advising physicians