Comparative evaluation of therapeutic efficacy of cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen versus oral terbinafine pulse in finger nail onychomycosis

Background: Onychomycosis is a fungal infection of the nail unit and can be caused by dermatophytes, yeasts and non-dermatophyte moulds. None of the treatment modalities yield consistent results. Cryotherapy as a treatment modality has not been studied in its management.Methods: 80 clinically confirmed cases of onychomycosis were enrolled for the study. Cases in group 1 were given liquid nitrogen cryotherapy with dipstick method for 12 weeks at 2 weekly intervals and cases in group 2 were given oral terbinafine in a dose of 500 mg daily for a week/month for 3 months. After 12 weeks cases in both groups were followed up at intervals of 3 weeks till 24 weeks.Results: At week 12 ,40% of the patients in group 1 achieved clinical cure which was comparable to treatment with oral terbinafine pulse which was 45% and G3 response was attained by 20% of the patients in group 1 and 17.5% patients in group 2. The results at 12 weeks were comparable in two groups and p value was insignificant. At the end of study duration, clinical cure was achieved in 32.5% in group 1 and 62.5% of patients in group 2 and p value was highly significant.Conclusions: The results of cryotherapy were inferior to oral terbinafine pulse. Though results with cryotherapy were comparable to oral terbinafine pulse at 12 weeks, at 24 weeks oral terbinafine pulse proved to be a treatment option in finger nail onychomycosis

Self-assembled Supramolecular Structures Of Chiral Phospholipids: Structure, Mechanical Properties And Patterning

Lipid molecule is well known natural building block to form different supramolecular structures with specific shape, size and functionality. In my thesis work, I have used DC8,9PC 1,2-bis(tricosa-10,12-dinoyl)-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine), a type of chiral lipid to form the vesicles, tubules and ribbons . By using Atomic Force Microscope, I have studied the morphological features of these particular structures. Also, the mechanical properties of lipid tubules have been studied using AFM. Softlithography has been used to pattern the lipid vesicles and tubules into 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional ordered arrays. The structure of self-assembled hollow spherical vesicles was studied using AFM. The applications of soft lithography in patterning polymerized lipid vesicles of DC8,9PC on glass substrates are reported. It has been demonstrated that the lipid vesicles can be used as a high-molecular weight ink to be transferred from a PDMS stamp onto a glass substrate to form two-dimensional stripes with a controlled separation over a large area. By combining channel flow with dewetting within microfluidic networks, vesicles were assembled into one-dimension lines on a glass substrate. The vesicle lines can also be selectively removed from the substrate with lift-up process. The direct and precise assembly of lipid vesicles on solid substrates will open up the possibility of integrating them in biosensors and microelectronic devices. Lipid tubules and helices are other extremely interesting superstructures that have captured the imagination of scientists in disciplines from biology through material science to chemistry and physics. Lipid tubules are self-assembled hollow cylindrical structures with opened ends, composed of rolled-up bilayers. They have been used as a template for the synthesis of inorganic materials, a substrate for the crystallization of proteins, a controlled release system for drug deliver, and a colorimetric material for chemical sensors. However, due to the high aspect ratio, the formation of ordered arrays of lipid tubules on substrates still remains to be challenging. In this thesis work, the application of well-known soft lithography techniques in assembling and manipulating lipid tubules on substrates has been reported. I show that lipid nano- and microtubules can be assembled into two-dimensional (2-D) parallel arrays with controlled separations by combining fluidic alignment with dewetting, which occur within microchannels. It has also been shown that lipid tubules can be assembled into 3-D crossbar arrays with fluidic alignment, which occurs within microfluidic networks. The deposition experiments with silica colloidal particles show that the 2-D parallel-aligned tubules can be used as a template to synthesize silica films with controlled morphologies and patterns on substrates in a single-step process. Atomic force microscopy studies show that the resulting silica films replicate the shape, orientation, and pattern of aligned tubule templates. Though, the structures of the lipid tubules have been extensively studied, but very little is known about their mechanical properties. In my work, the mechanical properties of the lipid tubules of DC8,9PC were studied with atomic force microscope. The deformation of the lipid tubules with different outer diameters is directly observed in both tapping and contact modes with increasing loading forces

Trends in maternal mortality in a tertiary hospital in West Delhi

Background: Aim of current study was to find out incidence, causes and complications leading to maternal deaths in a tertiary care hospital and possible prevention of maternal deaths. Methods: Individual records of all maternal deaths over a period of five years from January 2006 to December 2010 were studied and causes of death and avoidable factors in each case were studied. Results: Major causes of maternal deaths were same throughout the study. The causes of maternal deaths were Hemorrhage (19.21%), Sepsis (15.76%), PIH (12.80%), Jaundice (8.37%). Direct obstetric causes contributed to 65.51% of cases. Indirect causes of maternal death contributed to 45.81%. Anemia alone accounted for 26.1% deaths.  Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) was 362.57/100000 live births. There were 31.03% referred cases and 44.8% cases were admitted to ICU. Unbooked cases accounted for 84.72% of maternal deaths and these were mostly uneducated. Conclusions: Interventions for reduction of MMR are regular antenatal care, risk screening, skilled personnel at childbirth, good transport facilities, family planning services and safe abortion services. These facilities not only reduce burden on tertiary hospitals but also help in improving maternal prognosis

Metastatic signet ring cell adenocarcinoma of bone marrow with bilateral ovarian masses: a case report

We present a case of metastatic signet ring cell adenocarcinoma of bone marrow with radiologically proven bilateral ovarian masses in a 50 year old Asian Indian female. Even after thorough search no extraovarian primary site could be found. Based on overall clinicopathologic correlation, a diagnosis of metastatic signet ring cell adenocarcinoma of bone marrow with uncertain primary was established

Notes on an Archipelagic Ethnography: Ships, Seas, and Islands of Relation in the Indian Ocean

This paper explores a mobile anthropological method, or what I call an archipelagic ethnography. This archipelagic ethnography focuses on relationality to think through not only islandness and archipelagoes—land, ship, and sea—but also considers relationality as a starting point for examining connections across space. Based on over ten years of ethnographic research among dhow sailors in the Indian Ocean, I argue that navigation, social interactions, notions of patronage, and protection alongside memories and histories of mobility draw together these multiple spaces across the Indian Ocean. Moving between dhows docked in port, on islands, and at sea, I elaborate on an archipelagic ethnographic method that is a mode of thinking relationally about different kinds of spaces and places. Taking relationality as a central point in thinking through relations between ship, land, and sea, I hope to think about the notion of society in relational terms as a starting point for an anthropological method that is attuned to both difference and connection

Teaching French as a foreign language through french songs to native Hindi speakers : analysis and suggestions

Le présent travail a pour but d’analyser et de montrer comment une chanson, dans toute sa richesse langagière, musicale et socioculturelle peut devenir un réel outil d’apprentissage. Tout d’abord, une étude de la situation actuelle de l’enseignement du FLE en Inde, révèle l’emploi limité à la grammaire et au vocabulaire des chansons et démontre l’insuffisance de l’exploitation des chansons françaises dans leur intégralité : les aspects esthétiques et artistiques sont très peu abordés. Ensuite, une réflexion théorique porte sur les domaines de la didactique de l’oral, de la musique et plus particulièrement, des chansons. Elle met en relation les concepts interdisciplinaires tels que la musique, l’émotion, le plaisir, la réception et l’expérience esthétique, la motivation, la culture, les chansons, l’oral, etc. du point de vue de l’enseignement/apprentissage d’une langue. Cette recherche vise l’identification des manques et des besoins, à travers une pré-enquête et des entretiens réalisés dans des établissements différents de New Delhi. Enfin, une remédiation sous forme d’un projet artistique appliquée à des apprenants indiens hindiphones de 3ème année de FLE, montre les effets bénéfiques de l’étude transversale en évoquant le rôle pertinent des chansons sur le développement cognitif, affectif et socioculturel. Le côte ludique de l’apprentissage à travers les chansons suscite le plaisir esthétique et un nouveau désir de s’exprimer dans une langue. Cette thèse concerne non seulement plus de 300,000 apprenants indiens du FLE mais également, tous les domaines de la didactique, des neurosciences, de la psychologie, de l’interculturalité, de la linguistique et de la musicologie. Les propositions développées ici sont également applicables à d’autres langues.The present work aims at analysing and showing how a song, in all its linguistic, musical and sociocultural richness, can become a real tool of learning. First of all, the current situation of the teaching of French as a foreign language (FLE) has been studied, that reveals the use of the songs being limited to their grammar and vocabulary. Its analysis brings to the forefront the insufficient use of French songs in their entirety:aesthetic and artistic aspects being the less addressed aspects. In order to address this situation, the focus has been put on studying the theoretical notions in the domain of teaching of oral, music and particularly, songs. These notions are furthermore analyzed in the light of teaching/learning of a language to study the interdisciplinary concepts such as music, emotion, pleasure, aesthetic reception and experience, motivation, culture, songs, oral, etc. This research aims at identifying what is lacking and needed, with the help of pre-survey and interviews conducted in different institutes of New Delhi. Last but not the least, an art based project has been suggested to the native Hindi speakers studying in the 3rd year of FLE. This project highlights the advantages of the cross-sectional study referring to the important role of songs on the cognitive, emotional and sociocultural development. The playful side of learning through songs arouses aesthetic pleasure and new desire to express oneself in a language. This thesis not only concerns more than 300,000 Indians students of FLE but also relates to the fields of didactics, neurosciences, psychology, interculturality, linguistics and musicology. The suggestions developed here in this project apply equally to other languages as well

Moorings: Indian Ocean Trade And The State In East Africa

Ever since the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, especially post - 9/11 and the "War on Terror," the Kenyan coast and the Indian Ocean beyond have become flashpoints for national and international security. The predominantly Muslim sailors, merchants, and residents of the coast, with transnational links to Somalia, the Middle East, and South Asia have increasingly become the object of suspicion. Governments and media alike assume that these longstanding transnational linkages, especially in the historical sailing vessel or dhow trade, are entwined with networks of terror. This study argues that these contemporary security concerns gesture to an anxiety over the coast's long history of trade and social relations across the Indian Ocean and inland Africa. At the heart of these tensions are competing notions of sovereignty and territoriality, as sovereign nation-states attempt to regulate and control trades that have historically implicated polities that operated on a loose, shared, and layered notion of sovereignty and an "itinerant territoriality." Based on over twenty-two months of archival and ethnographic research in Kenya and India, this dissertation examines state attempts to regulate Indian Ocean trade, and the manner in which participants in these trades maneuver regulatory regimes. Ethnographic research on board sailing vessels or dhows as they are docked at Mombasa's Old Port, and amongst residents of Mombasa and Lamu suggests that regulation has pushed these trades into the shadow economy where the lines between legal and illegal trade are blurred. This has led to increased insecurity, giving rise to many rumors that attempt to make sense of uncertainty. In an environment of increased regulation and surveillance, participants of these trades and residents of these port cities also respond by seeking to establish social orders that are not anchored in the modern nation-state, harnessing imaginaries that gesture to an Indian Ocean past and alternative conceptions of belonging. Focusing on the everyday life and maneuvers of sailors, merchants, and activists, this dissertation demonstrates that Indian Ocean trade and social relations persist in the contemporary era, these linkages only made visible through a focus on trade and social relations that lie at the margins of the Kenyan state

L’apprentissage du français langue étrangère par le biais des chansons françaises aux hindiphones : analyse et propositions

The present work aims at analysing and showing how a song, in all its linguistic, musical and sociocultural richness, can become a real tool of learning. First of all, the current situation of the teaching of French as a foreign language (FLE) has been studied, that reveals the use of the songs being limited to their grammar and vocabulary. Its analysis brings to the forefront the insufficient use of French songs in their entirety:aesthetic and artistic aspects being the less addressed aspects. In order to address this situation, the focus has been put on studying the theoretical notions in the domain of teaching of oral, music and particularly, songs. These notions are furthermore analyzed in the light of teaching/learning of a language to study the interdisciplinary concepts such as music, emotion, pleasure, aesthetic reception and experience, motivation, culture, songs, oral, etc. This research aims at identifying what is lacking and needed, with the help of pre-survey and interviews conducted in different institutes of New Delhi. Last but not the least, an art based project has been suggested to the native Hindi speakers studying in the 3rd year of FLE. This project highlights the advantages of the cross-sectional study referring to the important role of songs on the cognitive, emotional and sociocultural development. The playful side of learning through songs arouses aesthetic pleasure and new desire to express oneself in a language. This thesis not only concerns more than 300,000 Indians students of FLE but also relates to the fields of didactics, neurosciences, psychology, interculturality, linguistics and musicology. The suggestions developed here in this project apply equally to other languages as well.Le présent travail a pour but d’analyser et de montrer comment une chanson, dans toute sa richesse langagière, musicale et socioculturelle peut devenir un réel outil d’apprentissage. Tout d’abord, une étude de la situation actuelle de l’enseignement du FLE en Inde, révèle l’emploi limité à la grammaire et au vocabulaire des chansons et démontre l’insuffisance de l’exploitation des chansons françaises dans leur intégralité : les aspects esthétiques et artistiques sont très peu abordés. Ensuite, une réflexion théorique porte sur les domaines de la didactique de l’oral, de la musique et plus particulièrement, des chansons. Elle met en relation les concepts interdisciplinaires tels que la musique, l’émotion, le plaisir, la réception et l’expérience esthétique, la motivation, la culture, les chansons, l’oral, etc. du point de vue de l’enseignement/apprentissage d’une langue. Cette recherche vise l’identification des manques et des besoins, à travers une pré-enquête et des entretiens réalisés dans des établissements différents de New Delhi. Enfin, une remédiation sous forme d’un projet artistique appliquée à des apprenants indiens hindiphones de 3ème année de FLE, montre les effets bénéfiques de l’étude transversale en évoquant le rôle pertinent des chansons sur le développement cognitif, affectif et socioculturel. Le côte ludique de l’apprentissage à travers les chansons suscite le plaisir esthétique et un nouveau désir de s’exprimer dans une langue. Cette thèse concerne non seulement plus de 300,000 apprenants indiens du FLE mais également, tous les domaines de la didactique, des neurosciences, de la psychologie, de l’interculturalité, de la linguistique et de la musicologie. Les propositions développées ici sont également applicables à d’autres langues

Two-Dimensional Ordered Arrays Of Aligned Lipid Tubules On Substrates With Microfluidic Networks

Microfluidic networks is a powerful tool for aligning one-dimensional materials over a large area on solid substrates. Here we show that lipid nano- and microtubules can be assembled into two-dimensional (2-D) parallel arrays with controlled separations by combining fluidic alignment with dewetting, which occurs within microchannels. We also demonstrate that lipid tubules can be bent into a well-defined shape at the entrance of the channels by the capillary force. Atomic force microscopy is used to study the structure and stability of the aligned lipid tubules on substrates. The deposition experiments with silica colloidal particles show that the 2-D parallel-aligned tubules can be used as a template to synthesize silica films with controlled morphologies and patterns on substrates in a single-step process. © 2005 American Chemical Society