Dynamic Rank/Select Dictionaries with Applications to XML Indexing

We consider a central problem in text indexing: Given a text T over an alphabet C, construct a conlpressed data structure answering the queries char(i), rank,(i); and select,(i) for a synlbol s E C. Wlany data structures consider these queries for static text T [GGVOS; FI\/IOl, SGOG, GMROG]. We consider the dynainic version of the problem, where we are allowed to insert and delete symbols at arbitrary positions of T. This problenl is a key challenge in compressed text illdexing and has direct applicatioil to dynaillic XI\/IL iildexing structures that answer subpath queries [FLMM05]. We build on the results of [RRROZ, GMROG] and give the best known query bounds for the dynanlic version of this problem, supporting arbitrary insertions and deletions of sylllbols in T. Specifically, with an amortized update time of O((l/e)ne), we suggest how to support rank,(i), select,(i): and char(i) queries in O((~/E) loglogn) time, for ally e < 1. The best previous query tinles for this problem were O(logn1og ICI): given by [MNOG]. Our bounds are conlpetitive with state-of-the-art static structures [GhlROG]. Sonle applicable lower bounds for the partial sunls probleln [PD06] show that our update/query tradeoff is also nearly optimal. In addition, our space bound is conlpetitive with the corresponding static structures. For the special case of bitvectors (i.e., 1x1 = 2); we also show the best tradeoffs for query/update time, inlproving upoil the results of [MNOG, HSSO3; RRR021. Finally, our focus on fast query/slower update is well-suited for a query-intensive XhlIL indexing ellvironment. Using the XBW transform [FLhllM05], we also present a dynamic data structure that succinctly maintains an ordered labeled tree T and supports a powerful set of queries on T

Role of nicotine in depression through dopaminergic mechanism

Background: There are interesting reports in the literature indicating relationship of smoking /nicotine and depression. Smokers use nicotine to treat depression. The objectives of present study were to evaluate the role of nicotine in depression through Dopaminergic mechanism by using haloperidol induced catalepsy model in rats and to estimate Dopamine level in brain of depressed rats after nicotine and imipramine.Methods: Dopaminergic activity was evaluated in haloperidol induced catalepsy in rats. Levels of dopamine in normal as well as in depressed rats brain was estimated using fluorimetric method. The study treatment were administered as follows - Vehicle (s.c.), Imipramine (i.p.) - 7days, Nicotine (subcutaneous), Nicotine (inhalation) were administered in a dose of 1ml/kg,10mg/kg,0.4mg/kg,0.2mg/kg respectively.Results: In haloperidol induced catalepsy model, vehicle treated group showed cataleptic effect starting at 1 hour and lasting for 6 hours. Nicotine administered by subcutaneous route significantly reduced cataleptic score as compared to vehicle treated group till 6 hours. Nicotine administered by inhalation route reduced cataleptic score up to 6 hours compared with that of vehicle. Catalepsy score in nicotine (inhalation) group was significantly less as compared to nicotine (subcutaneous) at all time points period except 2 hours. Isolation induced hyperactivity model was used to induce depression in rats. Dopamine levels in rats after isolation were significantly less as compared to normal rats (before isolation). After isolation, dopamine levels in imipramine treated rats were significantly higher as compared to vehicle treated group. After isolation, dopamine levels were significantly high in both groups i.e., nicotine (subcutaneous) and nicotine (inhalation). Imipramine (7 days) and single dose of nicotine (inhalation) showed comparable results with normal dopamine level i.e. before isolation rats.Conclusions: Nicotine has increased dopaminergic activity as evident by reversal of haloperidol induced catalepsy. Dopamine level reduced in depressed rats. Dopamine brain levels were increased, when depressed rats were treated with Imipramine (i.p.), nicotine (s.c.), nicotine(inhaled). Single dose nicotine given by inhalation route has produced significant antidepressant action comparable to that of seven days’ treatment of standard antidepressant drug imipramine in rats. In rats, nicotine by both routes i.e subcutaneous and inhalational increased dopaminergic activity

The SBC-Tree: An Index for Run-Length Compressed Sequences

Run-Length-Encoding (RLE) is a data compression technique that is used in various applications, e.g., biological sequence databases. multimedia: and facsimile transmission. One of the main challenges is how to operate, e.g., indexing: searching, and retriexral: on the compressed data without decompressing it. In t.his paper, we present the String &tree for _Compressed sequences; termed the SBC-tree, for indexing and searching RLE-compressed sequences of arbitrary length. The SBC-tree is a two-level index structure based on the well-knoxvn String B-tree and a 3-sided range query structure. The SBC-tree supports substring as \\re11 as prefix m,atching, and range search operations over RLE-compressed sequences. The SBC-tree has an optimal external-memory space complexity of O(N/B) pages, where N is the total length of the compressed sequences, and B is the disk page size. The insertion and deletion of all suffixes of a compressed sequence of length m taltes O(m logB(N + m)) I/O operations. Substring match,ing, pre,fix matching, and range search execute in an optimal O(log, N + F) I/O operations, where Ip is the length of the compressed query pattern and T is the query output size. Re present also two variants of the SBC-tree: the SBC-tree that is based on an R-tree instead of the 3-sided structure: and the one-level SBC-tree that does not use a two-dimensional index. These variants do not have provable worstcase theoret.ica1 bounds for search operations, but perform well in practice. The SBC-tree index is realized inside PostgreSQL in t,he context of a biological protein database application. Performance results illustrate that using the SBC-tree to index RLE-compressed sequences achieves up to an order of magnitude reduction in storage, up to 30 % reduction in 110s for the insertion operations, and retains the optimal search performance achieved by the St,ring B-tree over the uncompressed sequences.!I c 0,

Double Investment Technique of Hollow Bulb Denture Obturator Fabrication in a Completely Edentulous Patient

Introduction: Prosthodontic management of palatal defects has been employed for many years. Palatal defects of any extent cause multiple problems in speech, mastication and aesthetics. Obturator prosthesis for an edentulous patient is more critical in terms of its movements as there is no mechanical retention available. Obturators and facial prostheses are important not only for rehabilitation and aesthetics, but also in patient resocialisation. Maxillary defects are created by surgical treatments of benign or malignant neoplasms and by trauma, in which case, denture is supported only by the underlying residual ridge and the defect. This clinical report describes the rehabilitation of a maxillary resected patient with a single piece hollow bulb denture obturator fabricated by double investment technique. Materials & Methods: In this double investment technique of hollow bulb denture obturator fabrication two same size transposable flasks were used for flasking and curing of the prosthesis. Results: Hollow bulb denture obturator was obtained by this double investment technique. Conclusion:  Decreased weight of prosthesis positively affects retention leading to improved physiologic function, and it also does not cause excessive atrophy in muscle balance

Preterm birth among pregnancies conceived by assisted reproduction techniques in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Background: Preterm births are an enormous global problem on families, medical system and economy. The rates of preterm birth are increasing and one of the contributors is growing use of Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) leading to multifetal gestations. Some risk factors for preterm birth are specific to women who conceive by ART. Since there is limited data from India, this pilot study was undertaken to assess the magnitude of preterm birth among pregnancies conceived by ART and to study the contributing factors.Methods: Clinic based descriptive cohort study through eight ART clinics in Mumbai for one year. Data was collected using an in-depth questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, medical history, ART details, course and complications during pregnancy, mode of delivery, pregnancy outcome, risk factors related to preterm birth and neonatal outcome. Complete details of 113 participants who completed the study were analyzed.Results: Study showed high incidence of preterm birth (76.23%) among women conceived with ART. Multiple gestations were observed in 45.1%. Pregnancy related complications like heterotrophic pregnancy (3%), pre eclampsia (15%) and gestational diabetes (11%) were high. Incidence of caesarean section was very high (98%). Neonatal outcome was good with 98% live births and only 2 still births.Conclusions: Present study highlights that preterm birth, multiple pregnancies, pregnancy related complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and caesarean sections are very high among women conceived by ART. With growing use of ART there is an urgent need to develop a National ART Surveillance system in India like the one in Centre for Disease Control Atlanta to get complete data on the pregnancy course and outcomes of ART conceptions. Efforts to limit the number of embryos transferred should be strengthened to prevent multiple births

Detubularized isolated ureterosigmoidostomy in a complicated common cloaca: A case report

Urinary incontinence in a child secondary to a severe congenital anatomical disorder or due to complication of a previous surgery can be difficult to manage. Decisions can be especially hard when a redo procedure is being considered. We present one such case where a 6 year old girl previously operated for cloaca was brought with incontinence and after much consideration of options available, underwent a modified ureterosigmoidostomy to aid in her continence. The modification used was detubularized isolated ureterosigmoidostomy, described by Atta et al in 1996

Finerenone: A New Era for Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonism and Cardiorenal Protection.

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system is a neurohormonal system responsible for maintaining homeostasis of fluid regulation, sodium balance, and blood pressure. The complexity of this pathway enables it to be a common target for blood pressure and volume-regulating medications. The mineralocorticoid receptor is one of these targets, and is found not only in the kidney, but also tissues making up the heart, blood vessels, and adipose. Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists have been shown to slow progression of chronic kidney disease, treat refractory hypertension and primary aldosteronism, and improve morbidity and mortality in management of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. The more well-studied medications were derived from steroid-based compounds, and thus come with a distinct side-effect profile. To avoid these adverse effects, developing a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) from a non-steroidal base compound has gained much interest. This review will focus on the novel non-steroidal MRA, Finerenone, to describe its unique mechanism of action while summarizing the available clinical trials supporting its use in patients with various etiologies of cardiorenal disease

Assessment of Disparities Associated with a Crisis Standards of Care Resource Allocation Algorithm for Patients in 2 US Hospitals during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Importance: Significant concern has been raised that crisis standards of care policies aimed at guiding resource allocation may be biased against people based on race/ethnicity. Objective: To evaluate whether unanticipated disparities by race or ethnicity arise from a single institution\u27s resource allocation policy. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study included adults (aged ≥18 years) who were cared for on a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ward or in a monitored unit requiring invasive or noninvasive ventilation or high-flow nasal cannula between May 26 and July 14, 2020, at 2 academic hospitals in Miami, Florida. Exposures: Race (ie, White, Black, Asian, multiracial) and ethnicity (ie, non-Hispanic, Hispanic). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was based on a resource allocation priority score (range, 1-8, with 1 indicating highest and 8 indicating lowest priority) that was assigned daily based on both estimated short-term (using Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score) and longer-term (using comorbidities) mortality. There were 2 coprimary outcomes: maximum and minimum score for each patient over all eligible patient-days. Standard summary statistics were used to describe the cohort, and multivariable Poisson regression was used to identify associations of race and ethnicity with each outcome. Results: The cohort consisted of 5613 patient-days of data from 1127 patients (median [interquartile range {IQR}] age, 62.7 [51.7-73.7]; 607 [53.9%] men). Of these, 711 (63.1%) were White patients, 323 (28.7%) were Black patients, 8 (0.7%) were Asian patients, and 31 (2.8%) were multiracial patients; 480 (42.6%) were non-Hispanic patients, and 611 (54.2%) were Hispanic patients. The median (IQR) maximum priority score for the cohort was 3 (1-4); the median (IQR) minimum score was 2 (1-3). After adjustment, there was no association of race with maximum priority score using White patients as the reference group (Black patients: incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.00; 95% CI, 0.89-1.12; Asian patients: IRR, 0.95; 95% CI. 0.62-1.45; multiracial patients: IRR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.72-1.19) or of ethnicity using non-Hispanic patients as the reference group (Hispanic patients: IRR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.88-1.10); similarly, no association was found with minimum score for race, again with White patients as the reference group (Black patients: IRR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.90-1.14; Asian patients: IRR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.62-1.49; multiracial patients: IRR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.61-1.07) or ethnicity, again with non-Hispanic patients as the reference group (Hispanic patients: IRR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.89-1.13). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study of adult patients admitted to a COVID-19 unit at 2 US hospitals, there was no association of race or ethnicity with the priority score underpinning the resource allocation policy. Despite this finding, any policy to guide altered standards of care during a crisis should be monitored to ensure equitable distribution of resources