Clinical study of Sterile Collagen Particles (BIOFIL) in the management of Chronic Non Healing Ulcer

INTRODUCTION: Patients who are suffering from non healing ulcers may lead into a significant problems and prolonged stress. Pain and discomfort are the main complaint of chronic non healing ulcer patients. Pain may be mild or severe, pricking or burning which may exacerbate with frequent changing of dressings. Wound contracture and scar formation is the end result of any wound healing ulcers. Collagen plays a very important role in the stage of wound healing process. Collagen particles are used in chronic non healing ulcer management. To evaluate their efficacy when compared with conventional method dressings this study which was conducted by our department. OBJECTIVES: To compare the efficacy of healing process in chronic non healing ulcer patients using collagen particles with those of conventional method dressings (betadine dressings). MATERIALS &METHODS: This study was a non - randomized, a prospective type of study evaluated between September, 2014 to August, 2016 in Thanjavur Medical College and Hospital, Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India. This is the comparative study between collagen particles dressing study group and conventional method dressing control group. Around a total of 104 patients with chronic non healing ulcers in various region and various types were taken in this study. Study group consisting of 52 patients and control group have 52 patients. STUDY RESULTS: The study shows which was a significant increase in the wound healing rate percentage being 92.3% in the study group when compared to the control group percentage being 42.3%. CONCLUSION: Collagen particles dressings found to be effective in the management of chronic non healing ulcer patients compared to the conventional method of betadine dressing. Collagen particles plays an important role by forming an early granulation tissue and scar formation and reduces the duration of the hospital stay

Gluteal rhabdomyosarcoma in a newborn – A case report

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue malignancy of childhood; however, can be seen very rarelyin the neonatal period also. It may arise anywhere in the body; head and neck, and genitourinary regions beingthe most frequent sites. Truncal and gluteal rhabdomyosarcoma is relatively rare occurrence. We report aneonate with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma arising from the gluteal muscles at birth. Ultrasonography andMagnetic resonance imaging raised the possibility of hemangioma lymhangioma. Total excision was done andchemotherapy given. The child had a recurrence after 6 months where the nodule along with the scar wasexcised. A chemoport was introduced and the child underwent further 4 cycles of chemotherapy afterrecurrence. He is well on 2 years follow up without any disability

Adoption of recommended practices for cultivation of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton) in the Hill Zone of Karnataka, India

A study was conducted in the Hill Zone of Karnataka, India, to find out the relationship of selected independent variables with dependent variables on adoption of improved practices for cultivation of M-1 variety of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum). The study indicated that experience had a positive significant relationship with adoption of improved practices' and education and land holding had no significant relationship with the same. &nbsp

Adoption of recommended practices for cultivation of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton) in the Hill Zone of Karnataka, India

A study was conducted in the Hill Zone of Karnataka, India, to find out the relationship of selected independent variables with dependent variables on adoption of improved practices for cultivation of M-1 variety of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum). The study indicated that experience had a positive significant relationship with adoption of improved practices' and education and land holding had no significant relationship with the same. &nbsp

Groundwater Decline and Prolonged Drought Could Reduce Vigour, Enhance Vulnerability to Diseases and Pests and Kill Perennial Horticultural Crops: Needs Urgent Policy Intervention

Perennial horticulture in India has undergone a change from rainfed system to drip fertigation systems and from isolated hedge and bund trees to high intensity orchard systems with enhanced number of trees per unit area. In several parts, particularly in the Deccan plateau, the system has now become completely dependent on water pumped from tube wells. Severe competition for water from tube wells makes farmers to devote more water for cash rich annual crops and even sell water for city dwellers nearby. As a consequence, the groundwater level in the past three decades has fallen from few feet to above thousand feet. At several places it has crossed the “peak water”. Frequent and prolonged exposure of fruit trees and nuts to drought coupled with ground water depletion has led to soil profile drying leading to reduced vigour and enhanced vulnerability to diseases and pests. This has led to withering of fruit and nut trees. Perennial crops are likely to become increasingly maladapted to their environment, particularly in the earlier period of climate change they are more likely to be attacked by diseases and insects. Coconuts, areca nuts and mango trees have died in several places and the government constituted committees have recommended compensation to the farmers. As a country, we have dramatically increased our reliance on groundwater. 175 million Indians are now fed with food produced with the unsustainable use of groundwater. This increase has dried up rivers and lakes, because there is a hydrologic connection between groundwater and surface water. Yet the legal rules governing water use usually ignore the link between law and science. The issue needs thorough examination and needs policy interventions to come out of this vicious circle

Maturation-Dependent Response of the Piglet Brain to Scaled Cortical Impact

Object. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between maturational stage and the brain\u27s response to mechanical trauma in a gyrencephalic model of focal brain injury. Age-dependent differences in injury response might explain certain unique clinical syndromes seen in infants and young children and would determine whether specific therapies might be particularly effective or even counterproductive at different ages. Methods. To deliver proportionally identical injury inputs to animals of different ages, the authors have developed a piglet model of focal contusion injury by using specific volumes of rapid cortical displacement that are precisely scaled to changes in size and dimensions of the growing brain. Using this model, the histological response to a scaled focal cortical impact was compared at 7 days after injury in piglets that were 5 days, 1 month, and 4 months of age at the time of trauma. Despite comparable injury inputs and stable physiological parameters, the percentage of hemisphere injured differed significantly among ages, with the youngest animals sustaining the smallest lesions (0.8%, 8.4%, and 21.5%, for 5-day-, 1-month-, and 4-month-old animals, respectively, p = 0.0018). Conclusions. These results demonstrate that, for this particular focal injury type and severity, vulnerability to mechanical trauma increases progressively during maturation. Because of its developmental and morphological similarity to the human brain, the piglet brain provides distinct advantages in modeling age-specific responses to mechanical trauma. Differences in pathways leading to cell death or repair may be relevant to designing therapies appropriate for patients of different ages

Challenges in managing real-time data in health information system (HIS)

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. In this paper, we have discussed the challenges in handling real-time medical big data collection and storage in health information system (HIS). Based on challenges, we have proposed a model for realtime analysis of medical big data. We exemplify the approach through Spark Streaming and Apache Kafka using the processing of health big data Stream. Apache Kafka works very well in transporting data among different systems such as relational databases, Apache Hadoop and nonrelational databases. However, Apache Kafka lacks analyzing the stream, Spark Streaming framework has the capability to perform some operations on the stream. We have identified the challenges in current realtime systems and proposed our solution to cope with the medical big data streams

Mild head injury increasing the brain's vulnerability to a second concussive impact

Object. Mild, traumatic repetitive head injury (RHI) leads to neurobehavioral impairment and is associated with the early onset of neurodegenerative disease. The authors developed an animal model to investigate the behavioral and pathological changes associated with RHI. Methods. Adult male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to a single injury (43 mice), repetitive injury (two injuries 24 hours apart 49 m ice), or no impact (36 mice). Cognitive function was assessed using the Morris water maze test, and neurological motor function was evaluated using a battery of neuroscore, rotarod, and rotating pole tests. The animals were also evaluated for cardiovascular changes, blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown, traumatic axonal injury, and neurodegenerative and histopathological changes between 1 day and 56 days after brain trauma. No cognitive dysfunction was detected in any group. The single-impact group showed mild impairment according to the neuroscore test at only 3 days postinjury, whereas RHI caused pronounced deficits at 3 days and 7 days following the second injury. Moreover, RHI led to functional impairment during the rotarod and rotating pole tests that was not observed in any animal after a single impact. Small areas of cortical BBB breakdown and axonal injury, observed after a single brain injury, were profoundly exacerbated after RHI. Immunohistochemical staining for microtubule-associated protein-2 revealed marked regional loss of immunoreactivity only in animals subjected to RHI. No deposits of beta -amyloid or tau were observed in any brain-injured animal. Conclusions. On the basis of their results, the authors suggest that the brain has an increased vulnerability to a second traumatic insult for at least 24 hours following an initial episode of mild brain trauma

Data-Driven Understanding of Smart Service Systems Through Text Mining

Smart service systems are everywhere, in homes and in the transportation, energy, and healthcare sectors. However, such systems have yet to be fully understood in the literature. Given the widespread applications of and research on smart service systems, we used text mining to develop a unified understanding of such systems in a data-driven way. Specifically, we used a combination of metrics and machine learning algorithms to preprocess and analyze text data related to smart service systems, including text from the scientific literature and news articles. By analyzing 5,378 scientific articles and 1,234 news articles, we identify important keywords, 16 research topics, 4 technology factors, and 13 application areas. We define ???smart service system??? based on the analytics results. Furthermore, we discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of our work, such as the 5Cs (connection, collection, computation, and communications for co-creation) of smart service systems and the text mining approach to understand service research topics. We believe this work, which aims to establish common ground for understanding these systems across multiple disciplinary perspectives, will encourage further research and development of modern service systems