A case control study of role of lipid profile in polycystic ovarian syndrome: is there any role in non-obese polycystic ovary syndrome?

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is characterized by hyperinsulinemia, impaired glucose tolerance, obesity, hyperandrogenism and abnormal lipid profile. Most of the studies involving lipid profile in PCOS are confounded by the factor of obesity. Here in our study we have tried to compare lipid profile in PCOS cases and healthy controls excluding obesity as a confounding factor.Methods: This is a case control study done between January 2013 to january2014 in VSS MCH, Burla, Odisha, India. The cases(n=50) diagnosed as PCOS based on Rotterdam's criteria and 50 controls of equivalent age group and body mass index without any endocrinopathy and not on hormonal therapy were selected. Lipid profile was compared for both the groups.Results: The Mean level of total cholesterol in the study and control group is 202.12±40.18 mg/dl and 171.48±17.74 mg/dl respectively and this is statistically highly significant (p value < 0.0001). Similarly the mean of triglyceride level in cases and controls is 162.38 ± 70.40 mg/dl and 131.46 ± 27.16 mg/dl respectively which is also statistically significant (p- value = 0.0046). In contrast to the above finding the change in mean level of HDL, LDL and VLDL is statistically not significant. So it’s found that the atherogenic lipid profile found in PCOS patients is independent of their age and body mass index.Conclusions: So we recommend that both lean as well as obese PCOS patients should be screened for lipid profile to prevent cardiac complications

Portal Vein Aneurysm: Incidental Detection of Uncommon Entity as Cause of Chronic Abdominal Pain

Portal vein aneurysm is an uncommon anomaly. Both congenital and acquired cases are reported. We report a case of idiopathic probably congenital portal vein aneurysm incidentally detected on contrast CT. There was no evidence of any chronic liver disease or portal hypertension in this patient

Vegetation indices based farm-level mustard crop classification for the analysis of cropping pattern in Rabi 2021 and change in crop trend 2019 to 2021 of Kota District, Rajasthan

Remote sensing technology is used to quickly investigate as an innovative, standardized, potentially cost-effective, and faster method for crop acreage estimation. Furthermore, when compared to previous monitoring systems, Sentinel-2 satellite data has tremendous advantages since it delivers five-day interval, topographical, and up-to-date crop info at multiple phases. The main Rabi oil seed crop in Rajasthan is rapeseed and mustard. This study explores the use of the time series NDVI based farm level acreage estimation depending on the condition of the chlorophyll content. It also studies the changes in the cropping patterns and trends in Kota district, Rajasthan using the Google Earth Engine cloud platform along with the NCMS Mobile application for ground truth. Results indicate the reliability of the developed method for estimating acreage down to the farm level. Estimated Results for found to be in close agreement with authenticated government data. Two of the studied sub-districts showed significant cropping patterns. Classification accuracy for mustard ranged between 78-90 percent, while the overall classification accuracy 80-90 percent. The study concludes with the use of technology-based acreage estimations for faster and more reliable results

Predictors of acute myocardial infarct size in STEMI patients receiving thrombolytic therapy: A delayed contrast enhanced cardiac MRI study

AbstractIntroductionDelayed contrast enhanced Cardiac MRI has been accepted as a standard tool worldwide for determination of infarcted myocardium and viability. Infarct size as determined by cardiac MRI has important therapeutic and prognostic information.MethodsTwenty six STEMI patients who had received thrombolytic therapy were subjected to cardiac MRI assessment at 5–7 day of admission. Base line variables of the study population were compared with the acute infarct size as determined by the Cardiac MRI.ResultsThe mean acute infarct size in our study population was 27.2 ± 17.4% of LV. We found through univariate analysis that final infarct size was dependent on time to thrombolysis (p = 0.04), Status of Thrombolysis (p = 0.01), smoking status (p = 0.02), location of infarct (p < 0.00001), presence of microvascular obstruction (p = 0.01) and viability status (p = 0.0004). Thus, larger acute infarct size was seen in delayed time to thrombolysis, failed status of thrombolysis, smokers, anterior location of the infarct, presence of microvascular obstruction and non viable myocardial status.ConclusionInfarct size as determined by Cardiac MRI has been shown to carry important therapeutic and prognostic information. We have tried to evaluate predictors of acute infarct on cardiac MRI in STEMI patients during their initial hospital stay. Knowing the predictors of acute infarct size can help in early intervention and provide prognostic information for future cardiac events

Rhythm and Refrain: In Between Philosophy and Arts (2016)

<p>Pictorial representation of few important host defense response and apoptosis related genes that were differentially expressed (up regulated [green]; down regulated [red]) in HEV replicon transfected cell cultures compared to pcDNA3 only control.</p

Interfacial and thermodynamic approach of surfactants with α-chymotrypsin and trypsin: A comparative study

1128-1135This work deals with the interactions among cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) with α-chymotrypsin (α-CT) and trypsin in aqueous medium on pH 7.75 by conductivity and surface tension measurements. The critical micelle concentrations (CMC), surface parameters i.e., the maximum surface excess concentration (Γmax), minimum area per surfactant molecule (Amin), the surface pressure at CMC (πCMC) and thermodynamic parameters i.e., degree of ionization (α), Gibbs free energy of micellization (ΔG°m), the standard Gibbs energy of adsorption (ΔG°ads), the free energy at air-water interface (ΔGsmim) have been evaluated. The CMC has increased and surface tension of CMC (γCMC) values have decreased (at maximum μL of α-CT and trypsin), significantly in the presence of different μL of the added α-CT and trypsin. In this study, ΔG0ads value is established to be greater than ΔG0m, showing that adsorption is more favored in aqueous surfactants systems. Thermodynamic parameters show that enzyme-CTAB/SDS monomeric aggregation started to form micelles at a higher concentration of surfactant to compare with the CMC of pure CTAB/SDS micelles. It is significant that increasing the μL of α-CT and trypsin results in an increase in the spontaneity CMC on surfactants, α-CT and trypsin have more affinity for SDS compared to CTAB

Transcriptomic and metabolomic shifts in rice roots in response to Cr (VI) stress

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Widespread use of chromium (Cr) contaminated fields due to careless and inappropriate management practices of effluent discharge, mostly from industries related to metallurgy, electroplating, production of paints and pigments, tanning, and wood preservation elevates its concentration in surface soil and eventually into rice plants and grains. In spite of many previous studies having been conducted on the effects of chromium stress, the precise molecular mechanisms related to both the effects of chromium phytotoxicity, the defense reactions of plants against chromium exposure as well as translocation and accumulation in rice remain poorly understood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Detailed analysis of genome-wide transcriptome profiling in rice root is reported here, following Cr-plant interaction. Such studies are important for the identification of genes responsible for tolerance, accumulation and defense response in plants with respect to Cr stress. Rice root metabolome analysis was also carried out to relate differential transcriptome data to biological processes affected by Cr (VI) stress in rice. To check whether the Cr-specific motifs were indeed significantly over represented in the promoter regions of Cr-responsive genes, occurrence of these motifs in whole genome sequence was carried out. In the background of whole genome, the lift value for these 14 and 13 motifs was significantly high in the test dataset. Though no functional role has been assigned to any of the motifs, but all of these are present as promoter motifs in the Database of orthologus promoters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings clearly suggest that a complex network of regulatory pathways modulates Cr-response of rice. The integrated matrix of both transcriptome and metabolome data after suitable normalization and initial calculations provided us a visual picture of the correlations between components. Predominance of different motifs in the subsets of genes suggests the involvement of motif-specific transcription modulating proteins in Cr stress response of rice.</p

Challenges and opportunities in mixed method data collection on mental health issues of health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Background: The present paper describes the key challenges and opportunities of mixed method telephonic data collection for mental health research using field notes and the experiences of the investigators in a multicenter study in ten sites of India. The study was conducted in public and private hospitals to understand the mental health status, social stigma and coping strategies of different healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative interviews were conducted telephonically. The experiences of data collection were noted as a field notes/diary by the data collectors and principal investigators.Results: The interviewers reported challenges such as network issues, lack of transfer of visual cues and sensitive content of data. Although the telephonic interviews present various challenges in mixed method data collection, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face data collection using available technology.Conclusions: It is important that the investigators are well trained keeping these challenges in mind so that their capacity is built to deal with these challenges and good quality data is obtained