A COMPARISON OF LEUPROLIDE ACETATE VERSUS BILATERAL ORCHIECTOMY FOR PATIENTS WITH METASTATIC PROSTATE CANCER

ABSTRACTObjective: Prostate cancer is the most common visceral malignancy and leading cause of cancer‑related death in men. Androgen deprivation therapyis the established treatment of metastatic prostate cancer and has different approaches in the reduction of androgen activity including surgicalcastration (bilateral orchiectomy) and medical castration (luteinizing hormone‑releasing hormone agonists/antagonists). Our purpose was to studythe clinical profile, effectiveness, and outcome of South Indian patients with metastatic prostate cancer undergoing treatment with surgical andmedical castration.Methods: A total of 30 surgical and 30 medical castration patients diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer between (2008 and 2009) were followedup to 5 years. Serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels at the time of the first diagnosis, post‑treatment nadir PSA levels, time to nadir PSA, timeto hormonal resistance between the study groups were assessed, retrospectively. The Kaplan–Meier method was used with log‑rank test for survivalrate calculations. Gleason score, PSA levels, skeletal‑related events, and sites of metastasis of the study groups were studied.Result: The average survival time after medical castration was 60 months and 42 months for surgical castration. No significant difference could beestablished between the groups. Bone was the most common site of metastasis and radiation was the major skeletal‑related events in medical groups.Conclusion: There were no statistical differences between the groups in terms of treatment modalities in metastatic prostate cancer.Keywords: ??

A Correlational Analysis of Academic Stress in Adolescents in Respect of Socio-economic Status

For students, the adolescent is a major transition in their lives since they make various decisions regarding all aspects of their lives such as academics, social life, and leisure activities. They have to struggle to meet the expectations of their parents which include desires related to their academic performance. In addition, society believes that studies with a high-rank from the reputed institute are a “passport” to a good job, high salaries, and high social status which is expected from students. As a result, the students are indirectly subjected to a variety of stressors mainly linked to academic success

The Time-Varying Risk and Return Trade Off in Indian Stock Markets

This paper investigates the relationship between stock market returns and volatility in the Indian stock markets using AR(1)-EGARCH(p, q)-in-Mean model. The study considers daily closing prices of two major indexes of Indian stock exchanges, viz., S&P CNX NIFTY and the BSE-SENSEX of National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), respectively for the period from July 1, 1997 to December 31, 2013. The empirical results show positive but insignificant relationship between stock returns and conditional variance in the case of NSE Nifty and BSE SENSEX stock markets. Besides, the analysis reveals that volatility is persistent and there exists leverage effect supporting the work of Nelson (1991) in the Indian stock markets. The present study suggests that the capital market regulators, investors and market participants should employ the asymmetric GARCH-type model that sufficiently captures the stylized characteristics of the return, such as time varying volatility, high persistence and asymmetric volatility responses, in determining the hedging strategy and portfolio management and estimating and forecasting volatility for risk management decision making at Indian Stock Exchange

The Time-Varying Risk and Return Trade Off in Indian Stock Markets

This paper investigates the relationship between stock market returns and volatility in the Indian stock markets using AR(1)-EGARCH(p, q)-in-Mean model. The study considers daily closing prices of two major indexes of Indian stock exchanges, viz., S&P CNX NIFTY and the BSE-SENSEX of National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), respectively for the period from July 1, 1997 to December 31, 2013. The empirical results show positive but insignificant relationship between stock returns and conditional variance in the case of NSE Nifty and BSE SENSEX stock markets. Besides, the analysis reveals that volatility is persistent and there exists leverage effect supporting the work of Nelson (1991) in the Indian stock markets. The present study suggests that the capital market regulators, investors and market participants should employ the asymmetric GARCH-type model that sufficiently captures the stylized characteristics of the return, such as time varying volatility, high persistence and asymmetric volatility responses, in determining the hedging strategy and portfolio management and estimating and forecasting volatility for risk management decision making at Indian Stock Exchange

BMSQABSE: Design of a Bioinspired Model to Improve Security & QoS Performance for Blockchain-Powered Attribute-based Searchable Encryption Applications

Attribute-based searchable encryption (ABSE) is a sub-field of security models that allow intensive searching capabilities for cloud-based shared storage applications. ABSE Models require higher computational power, which limits their application to high-performance computing devices. Moreover, ABSE uses linear secret sharing scheme (LSSS), which requires larger storage when compared with traditional encryption models. To reduce computational complexity, and optimize storage cost, various researchers have proposed use of Machine Learning Models (MLMs), that assist in identification & removal of storage & computational redundancies. But most of these models use static reconfiguration, thus cannot be applied to large-scale deployments. To overcome this limitation, a novel combination of Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO) with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) model to improve Security & QoS performance for Blockchain-powered Attribute-based Searchable Encryption deployments is proposed in this text. The proposed model augments ABSE parameters to reduce its complexity and improve QoS performance under different real-time user request scenarios. It intelligently selects cyclic source groups with prime order & generator values to create bilinear maps that are used for ABSE operations. The PSO Model assists in generation of initial cyclic population, and verifies its security levels, QoS levels, and deployment costs under multiple real-time cloud scenarios. Based on this initial analysis, the GWO Model continuously tunes ABSE parameters in order to achieve better QoS & security performance levels via stochastic operations. The proposed BMSQABSE model was tested under different cloud configurations, and its performance was evaluated for healthcare deployments. Based on this evaluation, it was observed that the proposed model achieved 8.3% lower delay, with 4.9% lower energy consumption, 14.5% lower storage requirements when compared with standard ABSE models. It was able to mitigate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Masquerading, Finney, and Sybil attacks, which assists in deploying the proposed model for QoS-aware highly secure deployments

AN EFFECTIVE APPROACH FOR HIDING ENCRYPTED MESSAGES WITH NEURAL KEY USING LSB IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY

The network security is becoming more essential as the number of data being exchanged on the Internet increases. The data transmitted over the network may be detected, altered or hacked by the intruder. Therefore, privacy and data consistency are required to protect against unauthorized access and use. To overcome these problems, techniques such as Steganography and Cryptography can be adapted. This has resulted in an explosive development of the field of information hiding. This research work is a combination of Steganography and Cryptography, which provides a strong backbone for its security. In this research work, the secret message is encrypted before the actual embedding process starts. The main goal of this work is to hide a text of a secret message in the pixels of the image so that the Human Visual System is not able to distinguish between the original and the stego image. For this Image Steganography, We focus on the Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique in hiding messages in an image. This LSB technique embeds the bits of the message in the image and thus making it harder for unauthorized people to extract the original message encryption is used to protect the confidentiality of messages. Here, the sender sends the encrypted message by embedding using LSB technique with neural key. On the other end the receiver decrypts the message with the same key. The hidden message is encrypted using an encryption algorithm using secret key and hence it will be nearly impossible for the intruder to unhide the real secret message from the embedded cover file without knowing secret key. This present work focuses on enhancing the technique to secure data or message with authenticity and integrit

Solar cycle variation and its impact on critical frequency of F layer

20-29The ionosphere exhibits the variability over different time scales. In the present paper we present the long term solar activity variations of mid latitude ionosphere. To accomplish this study we have considered a famous Australian station namely Hobart (42.88°S, 147.32°E), which falls in the mid latitudinal region. The variability has been examined over the previous three solar cycles i.e, 21, 22 and 23 solar cycles. To characterize the long term variability of the solar activity we have used four indices namely sunspot number (Rz), solar radio flux (F 10.7cm), Mg II core to wing ratio and solar flare index. Similarly, for ionospheric variability we have the critical frequency of F2 layer (foF2). From our study, we found that the long term changes in the solar activity indices which are closely and synchronously reflected in the ionospheric foF2. To quantify the magnitude of association between the long term solar activity variations and the ionsopehric variations we have performed the single regression analysis and computed the correlation coefficients between the two types of indicies, and found that there exists an extremely strong correlation between the two types of indices for all the three solar cycles. Hence, it has been concluded that the ionospheric foF2 is strongly influenced by solar activity with an 11-year variability

Women Education in Rural India

In India, the status of the girl child has been a subject of much discussion, contro­versy, and debate. From the start, girl children are seen as burdens rather than blessings, bearers of exorbitant dowries, who will eventually move into the homes of their husbands. There are some overwhelming cultural and economic reasons why female children are not receiving the same medical, emotional, and educational attention as their male counterparts. The result is a low literacy rate among women in rural areas. There has been an increasing proportion of women, who are literate in just 20 years. Despite the improvements, there continues to be a large gap between the educational levels of men and women in rural India. The present study is focused on status, causes, and recommendations for rural women education

Introduction About Child Health Status in India

Child health is a multifaceted problem which is directly linked to a large extent to mother’s health conditions, safe delivery conditions, socio-economic conditions of the family and the health care system. Over the time, the nation has implemented a number of child-centric programs, the poor health status of women and children in terms of high mortality and morbidity was another health priority in this country. Health facilities like hospitals and health centers were established for providing Maternal and Child Healthcare through antenatal, intra-natal and postnatal services. In addition, a number of special programs and schemes like immunization against vaccine-preventable diseases, nutrition interventions like iron and folic acid distribution and vitamin A supplementation, diarrheal disease control through Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT), Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) control program etc. were implemented over the past. In order to, ensure maximum benefit from these programs and to provide services in an integrated manner to these vulnerable groups strong monitoring system required

Impaired LRP6-TCF7L2 Activity Enhances Smooth Muscle Cell Plasticity and Causes Coronary Artery Disease

SummaryMutations in Wnt-signaling coreceptor LRP6 have been linked to coronary artery disease (CAD) by unknown mechanisms. Here, we show that reduced LRP6 activity in LRP6R611C mice promotes loss of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) differentiation, leading to aortic medial hyperplasia. Carotid injury augmented these effects and led to partial to total vascular obstruction. LRP6R611C mice on high-fat diet displayed dramatic obstructive CAD and exhibited an accelerated atherosclerotic burden on LDLR knockout background. Mechanistically, impaired LRP6 activity leads to enhanced non-canonical Wnt signaling, culminating in diminished TCF7L2 and increased Sp1-dependent activation of PDGF signaling. Wnt3a administration to LRP6R611C mice improved LRP6 activity, led to TCF7L2-dependent VSMC differentiation, and rescued post-carotid-injury neointima formation. These findings demonstrate the critical role of intact Wnt signaling in the vessel wall, establish a causal link between impaired LRP6/TCF7L2 activities and arterial disease, and identify Wnt signaling as a therapeutic target against CAD