A retrospective pilot study analyzing the effects of various factors and benefits of various drugs used in treating late admitted cases of acute ischemic stroke

Background: In Indian scenario, most of the cases of acute ischemic stroke are admitted and initiated treatment when the stipulated period of 4-6h for thrombolytic therapy is crossed. It is unclear on to benefits of treating such patients and our study aims at analysing the clinical and demographic factors associated with achieving improvement in functional ability in this special category of patients.Methods: Review of case records of acute ischemic stroke patients admitted after 6h of onset of stroke to a tertiary care teaching hospital of north Karnataka, India, over a period of one year with minimum of seven days of treatment was done. Drug utilization pattern, severity of ischemic stroke, baseline demographic and clinical data were extracted. The neurological recovery at the end of treatment period was analysed by using Barthel Index (BI) score. All the factors and drug utilization pattern were described using descriptive statistics and their correlation with BI score was analysed by spearman’s correlation coefficient.Results: Of the total 446 case records with diagnosis of stroke, only 39 met the eligibility criteria and included in the study. Statistically significant correlation to BI score was seen with severity of stroke, day-1 SBP, use of physiotherapy, time lapsed in initiating treatment, amount of decrease in SBP and baseline serum creatinine level.Conclusions: Our study helped in generating the hypothesis on effects of various factors and therapeutic modalities on neurological recovery of late admitted cases of acute ischemic stroke

Analysis of C-shape slotted MSPA for 5G sub band applications on three different substrates

A comparative analysis of a compact planar Squarepatch Microstrip Multiband antenna on three different substratesis proposed. The proposed design has a C-shaped slot etched on thesquare radiating part and the antenna is energized usingmicrostrip feed line. RT Duroid

Elusive Origins of the Extra Genes in Aspergillus oryzae

The genome sequence of Aspergillus oryzae revealed unexpectedly that this species has approximately 20% more genes than its congeneric species A. nidulans and A. fumigatus. Where did these extra genes come from? Here, we evaluate several possible causes of the elevated gene number. Many gene families are expanded in A. oryzae relative to A. nidulans and A. fumigatus, but we find no evidence of ancient whole-genome duplication or other segmental duplications, either in A. oryzae or in the common ancestor of the genus Aspergillus. We show that the presence of divergent pairs of paralogs is a feature peculiar to A. oryzae and is not shared with A. nidulans or A. fumigatus. In phylogenetic trees that include paralog pairs from A. oryzae, we frequently find that one of the genes in a pair from A. oryzae has the expected orthologous relationship with A. nidulans, A. fumigatus and other species in the subphylum Eurotiomycetes, whereas the other A. oryzae gene falls outside this clade but still within the Ascomycota. We identified 456 such gene pairs in A. oryzae. Further phylogenetic analysis did not however indicate a single consistent evolutionary origin for the divergent members of these pairs. Approximately one-third of them showed phylogenies that are suggestive of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from Sordariomycete species, and these genes are closer together in the A. oryzae genome than expected by chance, but no unique Sordariomycete donor species was identifiable. The postulated HGTs from Sordariomycetes still leave the majority of extra A. oryzae genes unaccounted for. One possible explanation for our observations is that A. oryzae might have been the recipient of many separate HGT events from diverse donors

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Sectoral conjunctive use planning for optimal cropping under hydrological uncertainty

The rising demand for water, specifically for irrigated agriculture, which consumes nearly 80% of the world’s developed water resources (Wolff and Stein 1999), has brought new challenges to water resources planners and managers. A major part of the consumable water resources exists as groundwater. Sustainability of irrigated agriculture, therefore, demands either the development of additional water resources or efficient management of the available water resources under the existing scenarios. Shortages of surfacewater supplies necessitate the development of groundwater in many canal commands that can be used optimally in conjunction with surface supplies. The joint use and management of surface-water and groundwater resources to maximize reliable supply and minimize damage to the quantity or quality of the resources is known as conjunctive use (Hanson et al. 2010). Conjunctive-use management has been the most suitable alternative for optimum utilization of available land and water resources

Synthesis & Absorption Spectral Studies of Praseodymium (III) & Neodymium (III) Complexes with Amino Acids

275-27

Spectral & Magnetic Studies of Complexes of Bis-(dimethylglyoximato)cobalt(II) with Thioureas

610-61