A study of clinical and functional outcome of primary total knee arthroplasty using posterior cruciate substitute design

Background: To study the clinical and functional outcome in a consecutive series of Total Knee Arthroplasty using Posterior cruciate substituting (PS) design using the Knee Society Score(KSS). The objectives of the study was 1) To assess the improvement in pain relief post-operatively, stability, mobility of the joint and to assess the correction of deformities. 2) To compare the knee clinical score (KCS) pre-operatively and post-operatively. 3) To compare the knee functional score (KFS) pre-operatively and post-operatively. 4) To assess the radiological outcome of total knee arthroplasty. 5) To study the association between the KCS and the KFS.Methods: The study was conducted on patients who have undergone Primary total knee replacement, in Department of Orthopaedics, KIMS hospital from June 2014 to February 2017. The patient was assessed clinically, functionally using the Knee Society Score and a radiographic evaluation was done. These evaluations were performed at 6weeks, 12 weeks, 24 weeks and 1year follow up visits.Results: At 1 year follow up of 60 knees, the average pre-op knee clinical score and functional score of 24.7 and 41.2 improved to an average post-op score of 89.9 and 87.8 respectively. Knee clinical and functional score grade of excellent to good was seen in 96.7% (58 knees of 60). Significant association was seen between KCS and KFS. 5 patients had delayed wound healing and one patient had deep infection. Alignment of prosthesis was found satisfactory in all patients. Flexion deformity, valgus and varus correction achieved in all the patients. Conclusions: Total knee arthroplasty using posterior cruciate substituting designs resulted in excellent relief of pain, range of motion, restoration of function, low prevalence of patellofemoral complications and continues to function well during the follow-up period. Improvement in clinical score correlated significantly with improvement in functional score. Knee society scoring system effective in evaluating clinical, functional and radiological outcomes.

Examination of smears for tubercle bacilli by Fluorescence Microscopy

IN underdeveloped countries, laboratory facilities for the bacteriological diagnosis of tuberculosis are at present, very limited. Cultural methods are unlikely to be used on a large scale for many years to come. It is, therefore, important to investigate the most economical method of examining smears for tubercle bacilli. Fluorescence microscopy was introduced by Hagemann (1937) and has since been described by many authors, including Tanner (1941, 1948), Lind and Shaughnessy (1941), Lempert (1944), Norman and Jelks (1945), Clegg and Foster-Carter (1946), Wilson (1952), Von Haebler and Murray (1954), and Needham (1957). The great advantage claimed for this method is that stained bacilli can be detected using a much lower magnification than with the usual Ziehl-Neelsen method. Considerable time is saved in examining smears and larger areas can be searched. The method has not been widely employed for two reasons. In the first place, the light source must be very bright and many of the optical systems described previously have only supplied sufficient light if the equipment was used in a darkened room. Secondly, some workers (Ritterhoff and Bowman, 1945; Kuster, 1939; Holm and Plum, 1943) consider that false positive results can be obtained, since some smears may contain small naturally fluorescent particles which can be confused with bacilli. Equipment for fluorescence microscopy that can be used in normal daylight has been in use at the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras, for over two years. When it was first introduced, a comparison between this method and the conventional Ziehl-Neelsen method was undertaken to test their relative sensitivities, and to see whether fluorescence microscopy yielded false positive results. The results of this comparison are described

A qualitative test for the determination of isoniazid acetylator phenotype

A qualitative test procedure for phenotyping isoniazid acetylators is described. It is based on a colour reaction which depends on the free sulphadimidine content in the total urine excreted over any one-hour period between 21 and 26 hours following a dose of sulphadimidine 1.0 or 1.5 g. depending on body-weight. The test correctly classified 96 per cent of 109 slow and 96 per cent of 68 rapid inactivators. Storage of urine samples at room-temperature up to 14 days did not affect the accuracy of the results

Diversity and Functions of Chromophores in Insects: A Review

Insects are the most diverse among the animal kingdom. The diversity of insects is ever increasing due to their fast adaptability to the rapidly changing environmental conditions. The physiology of insects plays a vital role in the adaptation and competing adjustments in the nature with other species. The mechanism of vision and the involvement of visual pigments, like chromophores particularly in flies, have proved to be landmarks in the field of research. This has been achieved with the discovery of novel pathways involved in the mechanism of pigment development. However, certain visual pigments and their relationship with various chromophores need to be further elaborated. The role of insect pigments in vision, to identify the hosts, prays, and predators, is also discussed. Many naturally occurring pigments of insect origin are continuously being explored for better prospects and human welfare. The abundant availability of insect species all over the world and the never ending task of exploring their potential at morphological, physiological, evolutionary, and genetic levels have a tremendous potential to explore the subject like entomology

Diversity of Pigments in Insects, Their Synthesis and Economic Value for Various Industries

Pigments play an essential role in imparting colors to the various organs of invertebrates particularly, insects. Genetic evolution and adaptive pigmentation of invertebrates have been studied which depicted that insect colors respond to the climatic changes. The physical, chemical and structural properties of insect pigments are being studied by researchers for years to elucidate their evolutionary aspects of physiology, metabolism, and economic importance for human welfare. Color development in insects varies within the species of different genera. In this state-of-the-art literature review, we discuss the variety of pigments other than visual ones found in different species of insects. The review also highlights the potential benefits or functions of pigments to insects

Gut Microbiome Analysis of Snails: A Biotechnological Approach

Mollusks are a diverse group of animals not only at the species level but also with respect to their habitat and behavior. Gastropods comprise 80% of the mollusks with approximately 62,000 living species including snails. Over the period of time, snails have evolved into marine, freshwater and terrestrial forms with a transitional shift in their feeding habits. From prehistoric times, mollusks have established an intimate relationship with humans. These animals are used as food, medicine, offering to gods and are also responsible for economic losses in the form of agricultural pests. As most of these animals feed on plant biomass, their guts have evolved to digest such lignocellulosic biomass with extraordinary efficiency. The plant fiber digestion in their guts depends predominantly on the metabolic activities of the gastro‐intestinal microflora. Besides digestive functions, the seasonal dynamic and spatial distribution of bacterial gut community largely influences cold hardiness and many other metabolic properties in snails. Here, we assessed an overview of the various bacterial populations dwelling in digestive tracts of snails. This chapter provides insights into the gut microbiome of various snails that can be exploited for various industrial applications such as biomass degradation, production of biofuel, paper, wine and laundry detergents

Self consistent determination of plasmonic resonances in ternary nanocomposites

We have developed a self consistent technique to predict the behavior of plasmon resonances in multi-component systems as a function of wavelength. This approach, based on the tight lower bounds of the Bergman-Milton formulation, is able to predict experimental optical data, including the positions, shifts and shapes of plasmonic peaks in ternary nanocomposites without using any ftting parameters. Our approach is based on viewing the mixing of 3 components as the mixing of 2 binary mixtures, each in the same host. We obtained excellent predictions of the experimental optical behavior for mixtures of Ag:Cu:SiO2 and alloys of Au-Cu:SiO2 and Ag-Au:H2 O, suggesting that the essential physics of plasmonic behavior is captured by this approach.Comment: 7 pages and 4 figure

Determination of Acetylator Phenotype Based on the Ratio of Acetylisoniazid to Isoniazid in Urine Following an Oral Dose of Ordinary Isoniazid

A simple method for classifying subjects as slow or rapid inactivators of isoniazid has been described. A uniform dose of 300 mg. of ordinary isoniazid was administered orally to 150 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. The ratio of acetylisoniazid to isoniazid was determined in urine collected at hourly intervals from 4 to 8 h. At each hour the distribution of the ratios was clearly bimodal. The test based on the 5-6 h. urine collection is recommended for its convenience and excellent discrimination between slow and rapid inactivators. The agreement between this method and a ‘standard method was of the order of 97 per cent

The Virulence in the Guinea-pig of Tubercle Bacilli Isolated before Treatment from South Indian Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis: 1. Homogeneity of the Investigation and a Critique of the Virulence Test

A series of studies on the virulence in the guinea-pig of tubercle bacilli isolated before treatment from Indian tuberculous patients admitted to a controlled comparison of different regimens of domiciliary chemotherapy has recently been undertaken by the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras. The main object of these studies was to determine whether the differences in virulence of the tubercle bacilli obtained from Indian patients before the start of chemotherapy were related to the severtiy or type of the patients’ disease at that time and to the subsequent response to treatment. Before these relationships could be‘ investigated, however, it was necessary to find out whether the results of the virulence tests, which were carried out over a period of two-and-a-half years at the Centre and at the Microbiological Research Establishment, Porton, England, could be considered as a unified whole-that, is, as if they had all been done on the same day in the same laboratory. A proportion of the cultures was stored at – 20°C for 44-78 weeks, but this did not affect their virulence. Inter-experimental variation was found to be small in the Porton series of tests and undetectable in the Madras series, and the results in the latter series could be successfully adjusted to those in the former by allowing for differences in the means and standard deviations of the distributions for the two series. The measure of virulence used was found to be reasonably acceptable for the analysis of variance technique. Suggestions are made as to ways of improving the efficiency of the experimental design in future studies

Sensitivity of WRF cloud microphysics to simulations of a severe thunderstorm event over southeast India

In the present study, we have used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate the features associated with a severe thunderstorm observed over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), over southeast India, on 21 May 2008 and examined its sensitivity to four different microphysical (MP) schemes (Thompson, Lin, WSM6 and Morrison). We have used the WRF model with three nested domains with the innermost domain of 2 km grid spacing with explicit convection. The model was integrated for 36 h with the GFS initial conditions of 00:00 UTC, 21 May 2008. For validating simulated features of the thunderstorm, we have considered the vertical wind measurements made by the Indian MST radar installed at Gadanki, reflectivity profiles by the Doppler Weather Radar at Chennai, and automatic weather station data at Gadanki.There are major differences in the simulations of the thunderstorm among the MP schemes, in spite of using the same initial and boundary conditions and model configuration. First of all, all the four schemes simulated severe convection over Gadanki almost an hour before the observed storm. The DWR data suggested passage of two convective cores over Gadanki on 21 May, which was simulated by the model in all the four MP schemes. Comparatively, the Thompson scheme simulated the observed features of the updraft/downdraft cores reasonably well. However, all the four schemes underestimated strength and vertical extend of the updraft cores. The MP schemes also showed problems in simulating the downdrafts associated with the storm. While the Thompson scheme simulated surface rainfall distribution closer to observations, the other three schemes overestimated observed rainfall. However, all the four MP schemes simulated the surface wind variations associated with the thunderstorm reasonably well. The model simulated reflectivity profiles were consistent with the observed reflectivity profile, showing two convective cores. These features are consistent with the simulated condensate profiles, which peaked around 5-6 km. As the results are dependent on initial conditions, in simulations with different initial conditions, different schemes may become closer to observations. The present study suggests not only large sensitivity but also variability of the microphysical schemes in the simulations of the thunderstorm. The study also emphasizes the need for a comprehensive observational campaign using multi-observational platforms to improve the parameterization of the cloud microphysics and land surface processes over the Indian region