Impaired Glucose Tolerance in Acute ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction - A Perspective study.

INTRODUCTION : Acute Myocardial Infarction is a serious and life threatening disorder. There are various risk factors for the development of Acute Myocardial Infarction. Of them, the most important and the one which is causing havoc among South Asian and Indian population is the relationship between abnormal glucose metabolism and Acute Myocardial Infarction. It is a well known fact that Diabetes Mellitus, a full blown form of abnormal glucose metabolism is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events like AMI, unstable angina, Cerebrovascular events like stroke & also with peripheral vascular disease. Whether the new concept of Impaired Glucose Tolerance, Impaired Fasting Glucose also have similar effects on the morbidity and mortality of the patients with AMI & their relationship is either causal or casual needs to be urgently evaluated. Also, the incidence of Impaired Glucose Tolerance, Impaired Fasting Glucose is increasing in the population especially among the Indians and South East Asians. The Impaired Glucose Tolerance, Impaired Fasting Glucose are considered as prediabetic state, in the contemporary literature. Whether the detection of an individual in this prediabetic state & proper treatment with life style modification can bring down the risk of future cardio vascular events like Unstable Angina, AMI are questions to be answered. AIMS OF THE STUDY ; 1. To compare and contrast the in-hospital outcomes of patients with Acute Myocardial infarction with normal Glucose Metabolism and Abnormal Glucose Metabolism – Impaired Glucose Tolerance. 2. To study the effect of Impaired Glucose Tolerance on the left ventricular function in these patients. 3. To assess the functional capacity of the patients with Myocardial infarction with Impaired Glucose Tolerance. CONCLUSION : Impaired Glucose Tolerance in patients with Acute ST elevation Myocardial Infarction is associated with ; increased incidence of arrhythmias, increased incidence of Congestive Heart Failure, increased incidence of recurrent angina, increased incidence of Left Ventricular Clot, increased incidence of in-hospital death. Impaired Glucose Tolerance is also associated with decrease in the left ventricular function as suggested by decrease in the ejection fraction in this group of patients and increase in the Wall Motion Score Index. Impaired Glucose Tolerance is associated with decrease in the functional capacity during the Pre discharge Treadmill Test

Influence of active stiffening on dynamic behaviour of piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic composite plates and shells

The active stiffening and active compensation analyses are carried out to present the influence of active stiffness on the dynamic behaviour of piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic laminates. A coupled piezoelectric finite element formulation involving a hygrothermal strain field is derived using the virtual work principle and is employed in a nine-noded field consistent Lagrangian element. The closed-loop system is modelled with elastic stiffness, active stiffness introduced by isotropic actuator lamina and geometric stiffness due to stresses developed by hygrothermal strain. Through a parametric study, the influence of active stiffening and active compensation effects on the dynamics of cross-ply and angle-ply laminated plates and shells are highlighted. The active stiffening on thin shells is significantly influenced by boundary effects and the actuator efficiency further decreases with increase in curvature. The reduction in natural frequencies of cross-ply laminates due to hygrothermal strain is actively compensated by active stiffening; however, it is observed that the actuator performance reduces significantly with increase in curvature particularly in angle-ply laminates, which demands the use of directional actuators. The active stiffening and active compensation effects are low in moderately thick piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic plates and shells, which are less influenced by boundary conditions

Two-Party Threshold Key Agreement Protocol for MANETs using Pairings

In MANET environment, the nodes are mobile i.e., nodes move in and out dynamically. This causes difficulty in maintaining a central trusted authority say Certification Authority CA or Key Generation Centre KCG. In addition most of cryptographic techniques need a key to be shared between the two communicating entities. So to introduce security in MANET environment, there is a basic need of sharing a key between the two communicating entities without the use of central trusted authority. So we present a decentralized two-party key agreement protocol using pairings and threshold cryptography ideas. Our model is based on Joux2019;s three-party key agreement protocol which does not authenticate the users and hence is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack. This model protects from man-in-the-middle attack using threshold cryptography

FORMULATION AND IN VITRO EVALUATION OF GASTRORETENTIVE FAMOTIDINE HOLLOW MICROSPHERES

The main aim of this study is to develop a gastro retentive multiple unit floating drug delivery system for a drug which is poorly absorbed from lower gastrointestinal tract of famotidine. The hollow micro spheres were prepared by the emulsion solvent diffusion technique using eudragit RS 100 as a release rate controlling polymer in the ratios 1:1, 1:2 ,1:3,and 1:4.The prepared microspheres were evaluated for drug-polymer compatibility, micromeritic properties, drug entrapment efficiency, in-vitro buoyancy and drug release studies. The mean particle size increased with increase in the polymer concentration. The micromeritic properties were found to be improved when compared to pure drug .Scanning electron microscopy confirmed the hollow structure with smooth external surface. The drug and polymer were found to be compatible as seen in IR studies. The entrapment efficiency of formulation E1-E4 were 70.42%, 70.12%, 69.22% and 67.78% and for the formulation C1-C4 were 72.19%, 68.67%, 67.14% and 66.87%, cellulose acetate containing microspheres showed a desirable high drug content and entrapment efficiency respectively. The microspheres floated up to 10 h over the surface of the gastric buffer medium and the buoyancy percentage was found to be in the range of 60-39% of E1-E4and C1-C4. In-vitro drug release studies showed that the prepared microspheres exhibited prolonged drug release for more than 12 hours. The mechanism of drug release wasfound to be a combination of both peppas and zero order release kinetics. The developed floating microspheres of aceclofenac may be used for prolonged drug release for at least 12 h for maximizing the therapeutic efficacy along with patient compliance. Keywords: Famotidine, Ethyl acetate, acetone, Eudragit RL100, Higuchi's model, PVA, scanning electron microscopy

Impact of Ammonium on Syntrophic Organohalide-Respiring and Fermenting Microbial Communities

Citation: Delgado, A. G., Fajardo-Williams, D., Kegerreis, K. L., Parameswaran, P., & Krajmalnik-Brown, R. (2016). Impact of Ammonium on Syntrophic Organohalide-Respiring and Fermenting Microbial Communities. Msphere, 1(2), 10. doi:10.1128/mSphere.00053-16Syntrophic interactions between organohalide-respiring and fermentative microorganisms are critical for effective bioremediation of halogenated compounds. This work investigated the effect of ammonium concentration (up to 4 g liter(-1) NH4+-N) on trichloroethene-reducing Dehalococcoides mccartyi and Geobacteraceae in microbial communities fed lactate and methanol. We found that production of ethene by D. mccartyi occurred in mineral medium containing = 1 g liter(-1) NH4+-N, organohalide-respiring dynamics shifted from D. mccartyi and Geobacteraceae to mainly D. mccartyi. An increasing concentration of ammonium was coupled to lower metabolic rates, longer lag times, and lower gene abundances for all microbial processes studied. The methanol fermentation pathway to acetate and H-2 was conserved, regardless of the ammonium concentration provided. However, lactate fermentation shifted from propionic to acetogenic at concentrations of >= 2 g liter(-1) NH4+-N. Our study findings strongly support a tolerance of D. mccartyi to high ammonium concentrations, highlighting the feasibility of organohalide respiration in ammonium-contaminated subsurface environments. IMPORTANCE Contamination with ammonium and chlorinated solvents has been reported in numerous subsurface environments, and these chemicals bring significant challenges for in situ bioremediation. Dehalococcoides mccartyi is able to reduce the chlorinated solvent trichloroethene to the nontoxic end product ethene. Fermentative bacteria are of central importance for organohalide respiration and bioremediation to provide D. mccartyi with H2, their electron donor, acetate, their carbon source, and other micronutrients. In this study, we found that high concentrations of ammonium negatively correlated with rates of trichloroethene reductive dehalogenation and fermentation. However, detoxification of trichloroethene to nontoxic ethene occurred even at ammonium concentrations typical of those found in animal waste (up to >= 2 g liter(-1) NH4+-N). To date, hundreds of subsurface environments have been bioremediated through the unique metabolic capability of D. mccartyi. These findings extend our knowledge of D. mccartyi and provide insight for bioremediation of sites contaminated with chlorinated solvents and ammonium

Development of robust finite elements for general purpose structural analysis

The finite element method emerged out of the old work and energy methods and matrix structural analysis to become a numerical procedure to solve practical stress analysis problems in solid and structural mechanics. With the impetus given by the rapid development of computer technology, it became the most overwhelmingly popular analysis and design computational tool for a very wide spectrum of engineering science, e.g. fluid mechanics, heat transfer and electro-magnetics. Today, there are very powerful general-purpose software codes that make analyses and design tasks that were once considered to be intractable, routinely simple. Many of these are closely held proprietary codes owned and used in-house by large engineering firms or sold or licensed and supported by specialist companies. (Recent estimates indicate that the market for these codes has reached a turnover of a billion dollars and that industries and institutions spend several tens of billions of dollars in running such codes.) These codes are rarely given out in source code. In order to have an in-house code that could be continuously up-graded and enhanced, NAL initiated some work to develop a medium-sized general purpose code (about 20,000 lines of FORTRAN code) for the analysis of laminated composite structures (FEPACS - finite element package for analysis of composite structures), recognising the importance that laminated composites were assuming in aerospace structural technology. Several key elements commonly found in general purpose packages (GPP) used by the aerospace, automobile and mechanical engineering industries were identified. These were re-designed incorporating anisotropic composite capabilities and validated. Many hurdles were faced during this task and required an examination of the basic issues at a paradigmatic level. Concepts such as consistency and variational correctness were introduced and studied critically. These guidelines played a critical role in developing robust versions of the elements and are briefly covered in this review. The paradigms also helped to identify procedures to performa priori error estimates for the quality of approximation and this allowed the elements being developed to be critically validated. The article concludes with a summary of what has been achieved and also suggests areas where the concepts can be applied fruitfully in the study of the displacement type finite element method

A Rejoinder on Energy versus Impact Indicators

Citation distributions are so skewed that using the mean or any other central tendency measure is ill-advised. Unlike G. Prathap's scalar measures (Energy, Exergy, and Entropy or EEE), the Integrated Impact Indicator (I3) is based on non-parametric statistics using the (100) percentiles of the distribution. Observed values can be tested against expected ones; impact can be qualified at the article level and then aggregated.Comment: Scientometrics, in pres

Proof over promise: towards a more inclusive ranking of Dutch academics in Economics & Business

The Dutch Economics top-40, based on publications in ISI listed journals, is - to the best of our knowledge - the oldest ranking of individual academics in Economics and is well accepted in the Dutch academic community. However, this ranking is based on publication volume, rather than on the actual impact of the publications in question. This paper therefore uses two relatively new metrics, the citations per author per year (CAY) metric and the individual annual h-index (hIa) to provide two alternative, citation-based, rankings of Dutch academics in Economics & Business. As a data source, we use Google Scholar instead of ISI to provide a more comprehensive measure of impact, including citations to and from publications in non-ISI listed journals, books, working and conference papers. The resulting rankings are shown to be substantially different from the original ranking based on publications. Just like other research metrics, the CAY or hIa-index should never be used as the sole criterion to evaluate academics. However, we do argue that the hIa-index and the related citations per author per year metric provide an important additional perspective over and above a ranking based on publications in high impact journals alone. Citation-based rankings are also shown to inject a higher level of diversity in terms of age, gender, discipline and academic affiliation and thus appear to be more inclusive of a wider range of scholarship

Detecting h-index manipulation through self-citation analysis

The h-index has received an enormous attention for being an indicator that measures the quality of researchers and organizations. We investigate to what degree authors can inflate their h-index through strategic self-citations with the help of a simulation. We extended Burrell’s publication model with a procedure for placing self-citations, following three different strategies: random self-citation, recent self-citations and h-manipulating self-citations. The results show that authors can considerably inflate their h-index through self-citations. We propose the q-index as an indicator for how strategically an author has placed self-citations, and which serves as a tool to detect possible manipulation of the h-index. The results also show that the best strategy for an high h-index is publishing papers that are highly cited by others. The productivity has also a positive effect on the h-index