IBRUTINIB IN THE MANAGEMENT OF NON-HODGKIN'S LYMPHOMA: A CASE REPORT

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) is a diverse group of lymphoid neoplasms, the prevalence of which has increased over the past few decades. NHL is diverse in the manner of presentation, response to various treatment and prognosis. The current case report describes a 40-year-old man who was diagnosed with small lymphocytic lymphoma/chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2006. The patient had disease progression during the course of 10 years from the time of diagnosis for which he received multiple lines of chemotherapy (chlorambucil/prednisolone; rituximab/cyclophosphamide/ fludarabine; bendamustine/rituximab; and ofatumumab). However, in 2016, his disease again showed signs of progression, and hence he was started on ibrutinib 140 mg 3 times daily. After treatment with ibrutinib, there were no clinical nodes and hepatosplenomegaly, and all counts also normalized. Since the commencement of this agent, no disease progression was observed for almost 16 months. However, in July 2017, again disease progression occurred, and the patient was started on with cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone (COP) regimen. He received one cycle of COP regimen and continued on treatment with ibrutinib, and the treatment was well tolerated. In December 2017, he expired due to the progression of the disease. Ibrutinib, a Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor, appears to be safe and effective in providing long-term disease control even in refractory cases of NHL

Development of Ferroelectricity in the Smectic Phases of 4-Cyanoresorcinol Derived Achiral Bent-Core Liquid Crystals with Long Terminal Alkyl Chains

Bent-core molecules can form numerous polar and symmetry broken liquid crystalline phases with fascinating properties. Here we report the characteristics of a previously unknown polar synclinic smectic phase, Sm C S P X , found in the phase sequence of an achiral bent-core material with a 4-cyanoresorcinol bisbenzoate core, terminated by long linear alkyl chains ( n = 18 ) on both ends. This phase exists over a narrow range of temperatures and is sandwiched in between the random polar synclinic smectic phase ( Sm C S P R ) and polar synclinic ferroelectric ( Sm C S P F ) phase with P S ∼ 250 nC / c m 2 . In a planar-aligned cell it exhibits only chirality flipping on application of a conventional ac field but it also exhibits optical switching by rotation of the molecular directors on the tilt cone subjected to a modified sequence of bipolar pulses. This changeover is discussed in terms of the model given by Nakata et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 067802 (2006)], involving a competition between the two forms of switching: the rotation around the long molecular axis and the switching through rotation of the molecular directors on the tilt cone. The model is modified to take account of the azimuthal pretilt and the molecular tilt angles. In addition to it, characteristics of Sm C S P R are also discussed

Stepwise Formation Constants of La(III), Ce(III), Pr(III) & Nd(III) with 4-H'ydroxy- 3-formyl-(2'/4')-methylazobenzenes

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Studies of planktonic Ostracoda collected from Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal

General distribution and numerical abundance of planktonic ostracods, as a whole, in the Exclusive Economic Zone of India and nearby seas based on 1086 collections (1985-'88) are discussed. The average density of ostracods in the area investigated was estimated to be 17395/1000 m . The ostracods occurred far more abundantly in the shelf waters than in the oceanic areas. Samples collected indicated that 95% of the ostracod population occurred off the west coast of India round the year. They were found remarkably high (61168/1000 m\ 63.3%) between 10°N and 15°N off the west coast, while their abundance between 10°N and 15°N off the east coast of India was the lowest (624/1000 m , 0.65%). The abundance of ostracods was always associated with monsoon when the maximum of 31920/1000 m was obtained and this was mainly due to the swarming nature of these organisms. The minimum was observed during the premonsoon period when an average of 1508/1000 m ostracods occurred. Comparison of ostracod distribution in the EEZ of India between day and night yielded values of 30.95 and 69.05% respectively, which showed that they are more abundant during night, thereby illustrating pronounced diurnal vertical migration

Optimal state space reconstruction via Monte Carlo decision tree search

A novel idea for an optimal time delay state space reconstruction from uni- and multivariate time series is presented. The entire embedding process is considered as a game, in which each move corresponds to an embedding cycle and is subject to an evaluation through an objective function. This way the embedding procedure can be modeled as a tree, in which each leaf holds a specific value of the objective function. By using a Monte Carlo ansatz, the proposed algorithm populates the tree with many leafs by computing different possible embedding paths and the final embedding is chosen as that particular path, which ends at the leaf with the lowest achieved value of the objective function. The method aims to prevent getting stuck in a local minimum of the objective function and can be used in a modular way, enabling practitioners to choose a statistic for possible delays in each embedding cycle as well as a suitable objective function themselves. The proposed method guarantees the optimization of the chosen objective function over the parameter space of the delay embedding as long as the tree is sampled sufficiently. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the classical time delay embedding methods using a variety of application examples. We compare recurrence plot-based statistics inferred from reconstructions of a Lorenz-96 system and highlight an improved forecast accuracy for map-like model data as well as for palaeoclimate isotope time series. Finally, we utilize state space reconstruction for the detection of causality and its strength between observables of a gas turbine type thermoacoustic combustor

Effect of nurse culture on inducing division of isolated pollen protoplasts of Hevea brasiliensis

Haploids are of great relevance in crop improvement of Hevea, a highly heterozygous tree species with a long breeding cycle. The isolation and culture of pollen protoplasts may be a viable proposition for raising haploid plants/ homozygous lines in Hevea. The present work envisages the development of a method for the isolation and culture of pollen protoplasts of Hevea. Effect of different nurse cultures on the development of cultured protoplasts has been studied. Intact pollen grains were isolated from mature male flowers of Hevea prior to opening. Viable protoplasts in high yield could be isolated from these pollen grains when exposed to a mixture of 0.5 per cent cellulase and 0.05 per cent pectolyase in the presence of the osmotic stabilizers 0.6 M mannitol and 0.3 M sorbitol. These protoplasts were partially purified and cultured in the nutrient medium with three different nurse cultures namely embryogenic calli from Hevea, tobacco and carrot. Division of the cultured protoplasts leading to the formation of a few micro-colonies was observed in the medium containing 0.8 mg l-1 2, 4-D and 0.5 mg l-1 BA and enriched with Hevea nurse culture. Cultures with micro-colonies are dark incubated for further development. This is the first report of division of pollen protoplasts and micro-colony formation in Hevea brasiliensis

A modified Langevin-Debye model for investigating the electro-optic behaviour of de Vries smectic liquid crystals

An external electric field applied across a planar-aligned cell in Smectic A* phase of de Vries smectic liquid crystal induces director redistribution over a cone, resulting in a substantial increase in the birefringence and the apparent optical tilt angle. Such an electro-optic response is modelled by Shen et al. [Y. Shen et al., Phys. Rev. E 88, 062504 (2013)], who modified their previous hollow cone with a diffuse cone model by introducing the molecular distribution function limited over a range of tilt angles, that lie in between θmin and θmax. The limits in these two tilt angles are assumed to be temperature independent though the tilt angle in between the two values can be temperature dependent. However, the high resolution measurements of birefringence and the layer thickness indicate the presence of temperature dependent diffuse cone angle in SmA* phase.. In the proposed model, we replace θmin by θT, a temperature dependent fitting parameter and the change shows that a better fit of the experimental data to the model is obtained. We determine the temperature dependence of θmin and show that this angle increases as SmA* to SmC* phase transition temperature is approached

Distribution and abundance of cladocerans in the eastern Arabian Sea

Of the two species, Penilia avirostris Dana and Evadne tergestina Claus encountered, 86% of the population of the former occurred within the 50 m depth zone and 75% of the total population of the latter in the 50 m-100 m depth zone. Striking day-night variations in the population densities of Penilia and Evadne were observed. The samples collected at night contained 99.7% and 88% of the populations of the former and latter species respectively. Swarming of Evadne and Penilia is a regular phenomenon during the southwest monsoon season.The highest concentration of the former species was observed in August and that of the latter in September. High concentrations of Penilia and Evadne were observed in the 30 m depth zone off Cochin and in the 40 m depth zone off Karwar. The abundance of Penilia observed in the 30 m depth zone of Wadge Bank off Cape Comorin coincided with its maximum recorded in August off Cochin. The length frequency studies on Penilia and Evadne showed that different size classes dominated in the different regions from 07°N to 19°N and that an increase in size of the individuals was evident from south to north in both Penilia and Evadne. Fecundity of Penilia was the highest in the southernmost region between 07°00'N and 09°00'N while that of Evadne was in the northern region, 15°N- 19°N. Gamogenetic females of both Penilia and Evadne were very few in number. Occurrence of large numbers of parthenogenetic females of Penilia and Evadne with well developed advanced embroys in their brood pouches in the night samples probably suggest nocturnal brood maturation

Perch fisheries in India - A critical analysis

Perches as a single group contribute substantially to the annual all India marine fish production. Due to various reasons there was a spurt in the production of perches from 1981 onwards. In this context an attempt is made to study the production of different groups of perches by the multi-gear system under operation in the Indian inshore coastal waters. Regionwise, Statewise, Gearwise, Groupwise, Quarterwise data were used for the present study. Maximum catchable potential of perches is arrived at 1.16 lakh tonnes by adopting Relative Response Model against the present all India annual average of 90,000 t

Indoor Positioning of Workers and Monitoring Climatology in Mines Using FM with RSSI

Location based services are becoming a most useful technology in our day-to-day life. Wide utilization of Global Positioning System (GPS) in devices like mobile phones combined with Wi-Fi and cellular networks have solved the problem of outdoor positioning or localization and emerged as a market trend. This, however, is the case only for outdoors. There are many areas, which require the knowledge of user position in indoors. Awareness of user’s location is important in such areas as smart environments, assisted daily living, behaviour analysis studies. The main objective of this thesis was A Dedicated RF Frequency Carrier with Modulated Signal is used for mapping the Movement of Object or Human being. The performance of indoor localization using FM transmitter and receivers are compared with Wi-Fi based indoor positioning which has significantly lower Frequency range when compared to FM