Leaching behavior of vitreous fertilizers for application as plant nutrients

In view of significant role of macro and micro nutrient elements for increasing the food production to feed the growing population along with maintaining soil fertility, glassy fertilizers to supply  the said need were prepared in the laboratory. The main objective of the present work is to study the role of different nutrient elements in the glass composition to be used as fertilizers. This has been aimed to provide a better substitution of chemical fertilizers because of its specific nature of leachability in aqueous medium. In the present research paper, the combined varying effect of different nutrient elements such as P, B, Zn, Fe, Cu, K and Si has been investigated using different experimental techniques

Compressed full-field Fourier transform spectrometry

Imaging Fourier transform spectrometry (IFTS) can be used for hyperspectral imaging in the wide-field mode. Wide-field hyperspectral imaging is a powerful technique for quantifying functional and morphological states of cells and tissues. Multiplexed fluoresce imaging, Multicolor spectral karyotyping of human chromosomes, spectral fluorescence resonance energy transfer(sp-FRET) and spontaneous Raman imaging are few examples. Unlike other hyperspectral imaging modalities, IFTS measures the Fourier transform of the spectrum of light at each pixel in the wide-field image, and traditionally, the inverse Fourier transform is used to extract the spectral information. The spectral recovery process (for each pixel) can be captured by a set of liner equations written in the matrix form below. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Sensory origin of lobeline-induced sensations: a correlative study in man and cat

1. Intravenous injections of lobeline HCl into twenty-six normal young male human volunteers produced sensations of choking, pressure or fumes in the throat and upper chest at a mean threshold dose of 12 μg kg-1. 2. Reflex changes in breathing pattern usually appeared just before the sensations. Increasing the dose of lobeline increased the intensity of the sensations gradually until a dry cough appeared at a mean threshold dose of 24.3 μg kg-1. At these doses there was a mean difference of 0.3 s in the latencies for sensation and respiratory reflex; in four subjects there was no difference at all. 3. In cats anaesthetized with 35 μg kg-1 sodium pentobarbitone, injecting 25-67 μg kg-1 lobeline into the right atrium sensitized thirteen out of seventeen rapidly adapting receptors (RARs). In three out of four cats lobeline had no excitatory effect on the RARs in the absence of normal activity (i.e. when it was injected while artificial respiration was suspended), but on restarting the respiration the activity increased greatly. After injecting lobeline, the activity increased during inflation or deflation or in both phases of the respiratory cycle. It also increased greatly during deflation produced by suction of air from the lungs after lobeline. Such presumed increased activity in the RARs of man produced by forced expiration to residual volume at the time lobeline-induced sensations were expected did not enhance the sensations in any subject. 4. In all the subjects tested, forced expiration alone, which should stimulate RARs, never produced a dry cough or sensations similar to those produced by lobeline.5. The results suggest that since the reflex respiratory effects of lobeline are due to J receptors, the sensations and cough can also be attributed to them, since both events occur at about the same time, and also because the RARs, and the slowly adapting receptors (SARs), do not seem to play a primary role in producing or potentiating the sensations

Rhabdomyosarcoma of the posterior chest wall in a newborn: a case report

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue malignancy of childhood, but may occur extremely rarely in the neonatal period. There are only a few reports of rhabdomyosarcoma in neonates. Although, it may arise anywhere in the body, the head and neck, and genitourinary regions are the most frequent sites. Truncal and chest wall rhabdomyosarcoma is relatively rare occurrence. We report a neonate with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma arising from the posterior chest wall muscles at birth. Computer Tomography scan raised the possibility of rhabdomyosarcoma or neurofibroma, fine-needle aspiration cytology was inconclusive. Total excision was done and chemotherapy given. At 6 months child is without recurrence

Recent scenario on psychotropic drug usage pattern among patients attending psychiatric outpatient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal

Background: Due to increasing burden of psychiatric illnesses, it is essential to study the psychotropic drug utilization pattern in actual clinical practice. The objective of the study was to study the psychotropic drug usage pattern among patients attending psychiatric OPD of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal.Methods: This observational retrospective study was conducted in Nepal Gunj Medical College, Nepal for a period of 6 months from January 2016 to June 2016. A total of 282 prescriptions from Psychiatric OPD were analysed for drug usage pattern. Prescriptions containing at least one psychotropic drug were included. Data was measured for number and percentage of prescriptions or drugs, using selected World Health Organization (WHO) drug use indicators.Results: A total of 282 prescriptions from Psychiatric OPD were analysed. Patients had a mean age of 35.01±1.17 years. Male and Female %age was 41.49% and 58.51% respectively. Majority of the patients (47.52%) were in 31-45 years age group. 70.57% patients were literate. Depression was the leading psychiatric illness seen in 144 (51.06%) patients followed by Anxiety disorders which were seen in 60 (21.28%) patients. A total of 2463 drugs were prescribed which included 591 (23.99%) antipsychotic drugs followed by 462 (18.76%) antidepressants, 390 (15.83%) antiepileptics, 312 (12.67%) supplements, 276 (11.21%) antianxiety, 171 (6.94%) antacids, 165 (6.7%) anticholinergics, 96 (3.9%) drugs in miscellaneous category. Drugs prescribed per prescription were 8.73 and psychotropic drugs per prescription were 6.09. Number of oral and injectable drugs were 2313 (93.91%) and 150 (6.09%) respectively. 87 fixed dose combinations (FDCs) of psychotropic drugs were prescribed. 903 (36.66%) drugs were prescribed from WHO’s 18th List of Essential Medicines.Conclusions: Depression was the most common psychiatric illness and antipsychotics were the most commonly prescribed medicines in psychiatry OPD. Majority of the prescriptions revealed polypharmacy

In search of a theory of supercooled liquids

Despite the absence of consensus on a theory of the transition from supercooled liquids to glasses, the experimental observations suggest that a detail-independent theory should exist.Comment: Commentary. 3 pages 2 figure

Reassignment of Scattered Emission Photons in Multifocal Multiphoton Microscopy

Multifocal multiphoton microscopy (MMM) achieves fast imaging by simultaneously scanning multiple foci across different regions of specimen. The use of imaging detectors in MMM, such as CCD or CMOS, results in degradation of image signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) due to the scattering of emitted photons. SNR can be partly recovered using multianode photomultiplier tubes (MAPMT). In this design, however, emission photons scattered to neighbor anodes are encoded by the foci scan location resulting in ghost images. The crosstalk between different anodes is currently measured a priori, which is cumbersome as it depends specimen properties. Here, we present the photon reassignment method for MMM, established based on the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, for quantification of crosstalk between the anodes of MAPMT without a priori measurement. The method provides the reassignment of the photons generated by the ghost images to the original spatial location thus increases the SNR of the final reconstructed image.RO1 EY017656Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and TechnologyNIH P41EB0158715 R01 NS0513204R44EB012415NSF CBET-0939511MIT Skoltech InitiativeDavid H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MI

Improving signal-to-noise ratio of structured light microscopy based on photon reassignment

In this paper, we report a method for 3D visualization of a biological specimen utilizing a structured light wide-field microscopic imaging system. This method improves on existing structured light imaging modalities by reassigning fluorescence photons generated from off-focal plane excitation, improving in-focus signal strength. Utilizing a maximum likelihood approach, we identify the most likely fluorophore distribution in 3D that will produce the observed image stacks under structured and uniform illumination using an iterative maximization algorithm. Our results show the optical sectioning capability of tissue specimens while mostly preserving image stack photon count, which is usually not achievable with other existing structured light imaging methods