A study to determine the efficacy and safety of Limbal Conjunctival Autograft Transplantation (LCAT) in the surgical management of pterygium.

INTRODUCTION: Pterygia, the wing shaped fleshy growth on corneal limbus have been known to physicians for thousands of years. Sushrutha (Circa 1000 BC) has recorded pterygium removal. The term pterygium meaning wing (pteryx – wing ) was introduced by Walton in 1875. Despite being recognised for many years, very little is known about about its pathogenesis. It has been accepted for sometime now that environmental factors are responsible for development of pterygium. More recently, it has been clear that UV light exposure is most important environmental influence. Majority of pterygia occurring on nasal limbus has been attributed to the fact that reflected sunlight is preferentially focused at this point. But exact way in which UV light interacts with limbus and cornea to produce a pterygium is unknown. AIM OF THE STUDY: To study the efficacy and safety of limbal conjunctival autografting in the surgical management of pterygium. To compare the recurrence rates and complications of limbal conjunctival autografting with primary conjunctival closure (Merest sclera technique) and adjuvant use of MMC (Mitomycin C) with conjunctival closure. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective randomised controlled study was done over a period of 12 months. 75 cases of pterygia needing surgery who presented to Government Rajaji Hospital, Ophthalmology Department, Madurai from June 2008 to June 2009 were entered in this study. The patients were randomly divided into three groups irrespective of their age and sex. SUMMARY: In this study of 75 patients with pterygia, most patients (58%) were in age group of 30-50 years. 59% of the patients in this study group were women. 96% of patients had nasal pterygium. The mean size of pterygium operated was 2.66mm. The commonest indication for surgery was ocular irritation (38%) followed by cosmetic disfigurement (32%) followed by recurrent inflammation & visual impairment (15%). The average follow up period was 6 months to 18 months and 90% of the patients were followed for 18 months. The recurrence rate was 20% with Merest sclera technique, 16% with Mitomycin C group and 12% with Limbal Conjunctival Autograft group. Most of the recurrences (58%) were found during 6 weeks to 3 months after surgery. Most of the patients who developed recurrence were in the age group 40-60years. Graft retraction was the commonest side effect following LCAT. 2 patients showed suture irritation which was removed at the end of 6 weeks. Corneal dellen formation &granulation at donor site were other complications. 1 patient developed raised IOP in MMC group which returned to normal after steroid withdrawal. Other complications were avascularity near limbus & suture irritation. Graft dehiscence, infection, suture irritation and suture site granuloma were associated with Merest sclera technique. CONCLUSION: Limbal conjunctival autografting is a safe and effective procedure in the management of pterygium. The recurrence rate following limbal conjunctival autografting is significantly lower than that following primary conjunctival closure and adjunctive use of Mitomycin C. The advantages of Limbal Conjunctival Autografting over other modalities of treatment are •Low recurrence rates •Fewer and no sight threatening complications •Offers anatomical and physiological restoration of ocular surface •Simple procedure not requiring additional surgical skill or instrumentation •Cost effective •Does not require any special post operative care

Efficacy of Ajna Chakra Meditation in Primary Insomnia

OBJECTIVE: The intended research work aims at assessing the effectiveness of Ajna chakra Meditation in primary insomnia. Many studies reported that the practice of yoga, especially meditation influences sleep. The current study was conducted to determine the positive effect of practicing ajna chakra meditation in improving the quality of sleep through the measurement of Athens insomnia scale and Pittsburgh sleep quality Index. STUDY DESIGN: The current research work employed prospective intervention study. METHOD: 43 participants of age group between 20-40yrs are participated in the study. On the first visit Athens sleep scale, Pittsburgh sleep quality index, has been given to collect the details about patients sleep history, trigger factors, relieving factors, treatment history and to assess their lifestyle pattern. Patients are given ajna chakra meditation 30 mins thrice in a week in alternative days for 12 weeks. After the period of 3 months same Pittsburgh sleep quality index and Athens sleep scale is given to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. RESULTS: The study showed significant improvement in the quality of sleep of the study participants. CONCLUSION: The practice of ajna chakra meditation facilitates in improving the quality of sleep

Fecundity and viability of eggs in wild breeders of spiny lobsters, Panulirus homarus (Linnaeus, 1758), Panulirus versicolor (Latrielle, 1804) and Panulirus ornatus (Fabricius, 1798)

Berried lobsters collected from landing centres and lobster holding centres were used for larval rearing of the spiny lobsters, Panulirus homarus (Linnaeus, 1758), Panulirus ornatus (Fabricius, 1798) and Panulirus versicolor (Latrielle, 1804). Fecundity of the lobsters used for larval rearing was calculated as the number of eggs deposited on the ovigerous setae on the pleopods. The number of eggs in a single brood ranged from 1,20,544 to 4,49,585 in P. homarus. 5,18,181 to P.ornatus 1,979,522 and that of P. versicolor as 1,70,212 to P.versicolor 7,33,752. The tropical lobsters are reported to and therefore breed two times or more in a year. The absolute (annual) fecundity of these lobsters is expected to be higher. The phyllosoma larvae released, as percentage of fecundity, was maximum in P. homarus 85.7, 49.7 in P. ornatus and 74.0 in P. versicolor. Handling of lobsters at the landing and holding centres and aerial transport resulted in high percentage of eggs in arrested development, complete or partial shedding of eggs and release of weak phyllosoma larvae. Severe bacterial infection leading to complete shedding of eggs was recorded in a few breeders collected from holding centres

Structure-Activity Relationships in Toll-like Receptor 2-Agonists Leading to Simplified Monoacyl Lipopeptides

Toll-like receptor 2-agonistic lipopeptides typified by S-[2,3-bis(palmitoyloxy)-(2RS)-propyl]-R-cysteinyl-S-serine (PAM2CS) compounds are potential vaccine adjuvants. In continuation of previously reported structure-activity relationships on this chemotype, we have determined that at least one acyl group of optimal length (C16) and an appropriately orientated ester carbonyl group is essential for TLR2-agonistic activity. The spacing between one of the palmitoyl ester carbonyl and the thioether is crucial to allow for an important H-bond, which observed in the crystal structure of the lipopeptide:TLR2 complex; consequently, activity is lost in homologated compounds. Penicillamine-derived analogues are also inactive, likely due to unfavorable steric interactions with the carbonyl of Ser 12 in TLR2. The thioether in this chemotype can be replaced with a selenoether. Importantly, the thioglycerol motif can be dispensed with altogether, and can be replaced with a thioethanol bridge. These results have led to a structurally simpler, synthetically more accessible, and water-soluble analogue possessing strong TLR2-agonistic activities in human blood

FPGA-Based Portable Ultrasound Scanning System with Automatic Kidney Detection

Bedsides diagnosis using portable ultrasound scanning (PUS) offering comfortable diagnosis with various clinical advantages, in general, ultrasound scanners suffer from a poor signal-to-noise ratio, and physicians who operate the device at point-of-care may not be adequately trained to perform high level diagnosis. Such scenarios can be eradicated by incorporating ambient intelligence in PUS. In this paper, we propose an architecture for a PUS system, whose abilities include automated kidney detection in real time. Automated kidney detection is performed by training the Viola–Jones algorithm with a good set of kidney data consisting of diversified shapes and sizes. It is observed that the kidney detection algorithm delivers very good performance in terms of detection accuracy. The proposed PUS with kidney detection algorithm is implemented on a single Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA, integrated with a Raspberry Pi ARM processor running at 900 MHz

Gravitational Waves From Known Pulsars: Results From The Initial Detector Era

We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.United States National Science FoundationScience and Technology Facilities Council of the United KingdomMax-Planck-SocietyState of Niedersachsen/GermanyAustralian Research CouncilInternational Science Linkages program of the Commonwealth of AustraliaCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research of IndiaIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of ItalySpanish Ministerio de Economia y CompetitividadConselleria d'Economia Hisenda i Innovacio of the Govern de les Illes BalearsNetherlands Organisation for Scientific ResearchPolish Ministry of Science and Higher EducationFOCUS Programme of Foundation for Polish ScienceRoyal SocietyScottish Funding CouncilScottish Universities Physics AllianceNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationOTKA of HungaryLyon Institute of Origins (LIO)National Research Foundation of KoreaIndustry CanadaProvince of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and InnovationNational Science and Engineering Research Council CanadaCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid and Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationAstronom

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Searches for continuous gravitational waves from nine young supernova remnants

We describe directed searches for continuous gravitational waves in data from the sixth LIGO science data run. The targets were nine young supernova remnants not associated with pulsars; eight of the remnants are associated with non-pulsing suspected neutron stars. One target's parameters are uncertain enough to warrant two searches, for a total of ten. Each search covered a broad band of frequencies and first and second frequency derivatives for a fixed sky direction. The searches coherently integrated data from the two LIGO interferometers over time spans from 5.3-25.3 days using the matched-filtering F-statistic. We found no credible gravitational-wave signals. We set 95% confidence upper limits as strong (low) as $4\times10^{-25}$ on intrinsic strain, $2\times10^{-7}$ on fiducial ellipticity, and $4\times10^{-5}$ on r-mode amplitude. These beat the indirect limits from energy conservation and are within the range of theoretical predictions for neutron-star ellipticities and r-mode amplitudes.Comment: Science summary available at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S6DirectedSNR/index.ph

Methods and results of a search for gravitational waves associated with gamma-ray bursts using the GEO 600, LIGO, and Virgo detectors

Paper producido por "The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration". (En el registro se mencionan solo algunos autores de las decenas de personas que participan).In this paper we report on a search for short-duration gravitational wave bursts in the frequency range 64 Hz–1792 Hz associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), using data from GEO 600 and one of the LIGO or Virgo detectors. We introduce the method of a linear search grid to analyze GRB events with large sky localization uncertainties, for example the localizations provided by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). Coherent searches for gravitational waves (GWs) can be computationally intensive when the GRB sky position is not well localized, due to the corrections required for the difference in arrival time between detectors. Using a linear search grid we are able to reduce the computational cost of the analysis by a factor of Oð10Þfor GBM events. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our analysis pipeline can improve upon the sky localization of GRBs detected by the GBM, if a high-frequency GW signal is observed in coincidence. We use the method of the linear grid in a search for GWs associated with 129 GRBs observed satellite-based gamma-ray experiments between 2006 and 2011. The GRBs in our sample had not been previously analyzed for GW counterparts. A fraction of our GRB events are analyzed using data from GEO 600 while the detector was using squeezed-light states to improve its sensitivity; this is the first search for GWs using data from a squeezed-light interferometric observatory. We find no evidence for GW signals, either with any individual GRB in this sample or with the population as a whole. For each GRB we place lower bounds on the distance to the progenitor, under an assumption of a fixed GWemission energy of 10−2M⊙c2, with a median exclusion distance of 0.8 Mpc for emission at 500 Hz and 0.3 Mpc at 1 kHz. The reduced computational cost associated with a linear search grid will enable rapid searches for GWs associated with Fermi GBM events once the advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors begin operation.http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.122004publishedVersionFil: Aasi, J. LIGO. California Institute of Technology; Estados Unidos de América.Fil: Domínguez, E. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Fil: Maglione, C. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Fil: Reula, O. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Fil: Ortega, W. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Fil: Wolovick, N. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Fil: Schilman, M. Argentinian Gravitational Wave Group; Argentina.Física de Partículas y Campo