Foetal growth standards: Does one size fit all?

Antenatal ultrasonography to monitor foetal growth and well-being is an essential component of obstetric care. Measurement of foetal anthropometric parameters including head circumference, bi-parietal diameter, abdominal circumference and femur length, and the estimated foetal weight derived from these parameters is used for diagnosing restricted or excessive foetal growth and congenital anomalies, such as, small or large head size and skeletal dysplasias. These diagnoses have major therapeutic implications.Thus, it is quite imperative that the reference data should be accurate and representative of the population for which it is being used. There are two major categories of foetal growth charts—those based on serial foetal measurements by ultrasonography, and those based on measurements at birth plotted against gestational age based on last menstrual period. Many different charts of both categories are currently being used to serve as reference normative data. Recently, Intergrowth-21st Consortium has published international foetal growth standards, based on prospectively collected foetal biometric data. The study has been conducted with highly standardized methodology on healthy, affluent, low-risk pregnant women in 8 countries, including India. For the present paper, we have reviewed the merits and drawbacks of these standards, as well as, several other Indian and international charts. None of the currently available charts come up to our expectations from an ‘ideal’ foetal growth chart. We suggest that for a country of our magnitude and diversity, there is an urgent need to construct our national foetal growth standards based on carefully selected population and using robust techniques and methodology

The prevalence of AGN feedback in massive galaxies at z~1

We use the optical--infrared imaging in the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey field, in combination with the new deep radio map of Arumugam et al., to calculate the distribution of radio luminosities among galaxies as a function of stellar mass in two redshift bins across the interval 0.4<z<1.2. This is done with the use of a new Bayesian method to classify stars and galaxies in surveys with multi-band photometry, and to derive photometric redshifts and stellar masses for those galaxies. We compare the distribution to that observed locally and find agreement if we consider only objects believed to be weak-lined radio-loud galaxies. Since the local distribution is believed to be the result of an energy balance between radiative cooling of the gaseous halo and mechanical AGN heating, we infer that this balance was also present as long ago as z~1. This supports the existence of a direct link between the presence of a low-luminosity ('hot-mode') radio-loud active galactic nucleus and the absence of ongoing star formation.Comment: 10 pages, MNRAS, in pres

Heart Rate Variability based Classification of Normal and Hypertension Cases by Linear-nonlinear Method

The aim of this study is to analyse and compare the heart rate variability (HRV) of normal and hypertension cases using time domain, frequency domain, and nonlinear methods. For short term HRV analysis, a five-minute electrocardiogram (ECG) of 57 normal and 56 hypertension subjects were recorded with prior verification of their clinical status by a cardiologist. Most time domain features of hypertension cases have clearly reduced values over normal subjects, frequency domain features, like power in different spectral bands, also have the distinguishable decreased values, whereas sympathovagal balance has clear edge over hypertension cases than normal cases. Nonlinear parameters of Poincare plot, approximate entropy and sample entropy, have higher values in normal cases when compared with hypertension cases. Support vector machine-based binary system classifies these two classes with 100 per cent accuracy and 100 per cent sensitivity when all time domain, frequency domain, and nonlinear features were used. It may work as a better predictor for in patients with hypertension.Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 6, November 2014, pp.542-548, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.786

Entropy of water and the temperature-induced stiffening of amyloid networks

In water, networks of semi-flexible fibrils of the protein $\alpha$-synuclein stiffen significantly with increasing temperature. We make plausible that this reversible stiffening is a result of hydrophobic contacts between the fibrils that become more prominent with increasing temperature. The good agreement of our experimentally observed temperature dependence of the storage modulus of the network with a scaling theory linking network elasticity with reversible crosslinking enables us to quantify the endothermic binding enthalpy and an estimate the effective size of hydrophobic patches on the fibril surface.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

‘We Were an Afterthought’: Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Communities in New South Wales, Australia

This paper investigates the impact on Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities in Australia of government and community responses to the coronavirus pandemic of 2019 in the domains of education, employment, housing, social connectedness, and public health communication. Most of the examples are drawn from the state of New South Wales. In Australia, CALD refers to people from countries not classified as main English speaking. Most CALD communities reported in this article are from refugee backgrounds, are recently arrived migrants or do not use English in most of their communication. Inadequate, and in some instances, inappropriate or absent support, adversely impacts CALD communities. We used a multidisciplinary bricolage approach that draws on media, government, and community support publications and concluded that CALD communities experienced heightened pressures due to lower resource availability and poor communication. This led to disruption of support services, exposing gaps and vulnerability. The results reported here challenge Australian government, schools, community agencies, researchers to include proactively CALD community perspectives when planning and responding to such crises in future. Improving communication, pandemic response planning, addressing needs and ensuring participation are key considerations

NMR and Impedance Spectroscopy Studies on Lithium Ion Diffusion in Microcrystalline γ-LiAlO2

In this work nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and impedance spectroscopy (IS) studies on Li ion dynamics in microcrystalline γ-LiAlO2 are presented. The sample was prepared by solid state synthesis between Li2CO3 and Al2O3 in air, followed by a quenching procedure. The presence of phase-pure γ-LiAlO2 was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction including Rietveld refinement. Further structural characterization was done with 6Li, 7Li and 27Al NMR. Several NMR techniques such as spin-lattice relaxation measurements, motional narrowing experiments, as well as spin-alignment echo were employed for the investigation of Li ion diffusion. The measurements were carried out at high temperatures (up to 970 K) in order to access the regime of Li ion motion being very slow. The dc conductivities measured by IS in the temperature range from 680 K to 870 K were converted to diffusion coefficients being compatible with those obtained by NMR. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter