Benign giant cell tumor of bone with pulmonary metastasis- report of two cases and review of literature

Tumors that are metastasizing generally considered as malignant. But there are exceptions. Giant cell tumor of bone is well known for its potential to metastasize without sarcomatous transformation. Potential of benign GCT to metastasize was first reported by Jaffe et al in 1940. Prevalence of pulmonary metastasis in benign GCT is between 1-9%. Factors favoring metastasis include recurrence of tumor, surgical manipulation of initial bone tumor, location of femur etc. Peripheral or basilar portion of pulmonary parenchyma is involved commonly. Eventhough death reported in 16-25% of cases, overall it has a favorable prognosis. Surgical resection is preferred treatment for pulmonary metastasis. In the present study 2 case studies were done. In 1st study 18 year old female, known case of GCT Lt tibia, with history of curetting and cementing presented with pain and swelling at same site and pulmonary metastasis 1 year later. Biopsy from initial as well as recurrent tumor confirmed benign GCT without any features of atypia, mitosis or necrosis. Aspirate from pulmonary lesion showed osteoclastic giant cells. No treatment given to metastatic deposits and is asymptomatic even though size of pulmonary lesions is increasing. And in second study a 22 year old female, with past history of GCT referred to our institution for evaluation of lung lesion detected in X-ray. Patient underwent metastatectomy here and histopathology was similar to that of bone lesion. There was no evidence of sarcomatous transformation both in initial and recurrent lesion. Patient is asymptomatic other wise and doing well

Return emigrants in Kerala : rehabilitation problems and development potential

This research report is aimed at three aspects of return emigrants in Kerala – their occupational mobility, utilisation of their human and material resources in Kerala’s development and their rehabilitation. It describes their demographic, social and economic characteristics before emigration, after emigration and, after return to Kerala. Also included are the financial costs of and benefits from emigration and the problems faced by them in the Gulf countries and in Kerala after return. A few suggestions for their rehabilitation and their possible role in the state’s development effort are made in the concluding part. The study shows that there was indeed considerable difference between the industrial affiliation of the return emigrants in Kerala before emigration and after their return to Kerala. As much as 43 percent of the return emigrants had changed their industrial sector in between emigration and return. However, real transition in the economic sector, in the sense of a systematic movement from primary sector to secondary sector and from secondary sector to tertiary sector was only about 18 percent, less than half of the total movements. Thus, there were movements, but very little meaningful transition. Some workers moved from agriculture and allied sectors to manufacturing or service sectors, but some others moved back from the manufacturing and the service sectors to the primary sector. The Government of Kerala has been looking up to the emigrants and return emigrants for help in the state’s development programmes. How much could the return emigrants actually contribute? This study shows that while emigrants while abroad could play a significant role in this matter, the role that the return emigrants would be able to play is limited. There are about three-quarters of a million return emigrants in Kerala today. However, they are relatively old with an average age of 41.7 years. A few are even too old and/or too sick to work. Some feel that there is no need for them to work at all; with the money they have earned abroad, they would rather enjoy a leisurely life back at home. The majority of them have, however, neither the human nor the material resources to make a real contribution to Kerala’s development. They have relatively poor levels of general education and technical education. Nor do there exist much of entrepreneurial abilities and leadership qualities among them. Most of them have already spent their savings and are looking for assistance to keep up the relatively high levels of living they have been accustomed to, following migration. There is, however, one factor, an important factor in the Kerala context, in their favour: they constitute a much more disciplined and committed work force than the general breed of ‘conscientised’ workers of Kerala. If it is possible to instil entrepreneurial skills and leadership qualities among them and supply them with technical skills and required finance, they might possibly make a real contribution to the development of Kerala. This is however a tall order of demand: the Government could at best act only as a facilitator in this effort. The richer and the more endowed with human resources and entrepreneurial leadership qualities do not seem to have returned to Kerala in considerable numbers. They are still out there in the Gulf and other countries employed in tenured jobs or engaged in secure businmess activities. They are the ones to be roped in to work for the economic resurgence of Kerala. For that effort to succeed, however, an entirely new approach to NRIs is needed. This research report does not pertain to this aspect of the NRIs. While the Government wants assistance from the return emigrants in the state’s development, what the majority of the return emigrants expect the most from the Government is help for their own rehabilitation. In our view, in a large number of cases they do deserve help.When they had been abroad they had made significant contribution to the state’s development. Emigration has been the single-most factor in the otherwise dreary development scenario of Kerala in the last quarter of the last century. An emigrant who returned to Kerala in recent years had, on an average, earned a total of about Rs 750,000 during the 6 years and 3 months period, he was out there. The contribution of emigrants to reduction of unemployment and poverty levels and improving the housing conditions of Kerala is widely acclaimed. But almost all their foreign savings have been used up for subsistence, buying land, constructing houses, paying dowries, paying back debts, etc. What little was left with a few was invested in selfemployment projects which in practice yielded little in terms of income and the majority of which have met with natural death in the course of a few years. Return emigrants are now a disillusioned lot, hoping that the Government would bail them out. Among the return emigrants there exists a small proportion, about one-fifth, whose emigrations were misadventures and had resulted in their loss of wealth, wastage of energy and loss of health. This group finds its survival precarious. There is not much economic justification for any agency to dole out social welfare assistance except perhaps to this small proportion. In general, the Government may not find it justifiable to implement social welfare programmes for all return emigrants. The return emigrants have time and again proved that financial assistance given to them by way of loans for small-scale industries won’t cut much ice. Many of them want pension, but we find little justification for any special treatment for the return emigrants in preference to other deserving segments of the population. We make two suggestions for the rehabilitation of return emigrants, for those who have already come back and for those who would be returning in future: establishment of a welfare scheme and organisation of co-operatives for specific tasks (example, public works, tourism projects etc) in which the work discipline the return emigrants have acquired abroad could be of immense use. The seed money for both should come from the commercial banks of Kerala, the institutions which have received and continue to receive, massive inflows of funds by way of emigrants’ remittances. But the maintenance of the welfare schemes on a continuing basis should be the responsibility of the emigrants still abroad and that of the co-operatives of the returned emigrants themselves. JEL Classification : J10, J18, J22, J31 Key Words: Return migration, remittances, rehabilitation, Keral

Of Genes and Antigens: The Inheritance of Psoriasis

Psoriasis is one of a number of autoimmune diseases that display significant HLA associations. In particular, individuals with onset of disease prior to 40 years of age display striking associations with HLA-Cw6 and are much more likely to have a positive family for psoriasis. However, only about 10% of Cw6-positive individuals develop disease, suggesting that other genetic and/or environmental factors must be involved. Several compelling lines of epidemiologic evidence indicate that psoriasis susceptibility is inherited, albeit not in a simple monogenic fashion, and that genetic, rather than environmental, factors are primarily responsible for the variability in inheritance of psoriasis. Taken together, these observations suggest that one or more loci in addition to HLA are necessary for the development of psoriasis. The number of additional loci is likely to be small, because i) the disease is very common ii) substantial excess risk of psoriasis is observed in first degree relatives, and iii) nevoid variants of psoriasis have been reported, suggestive of somatic mutation of a single gene during development. The substantial homogeneity of the psoriatic phenotype and the clear evidence for increased HLA association and heritability in juvenile onset disease indicate that despite its complexity, psoriasis is a common disease whose etiology is amenable to elucidation through the techniques of modern molecular genetics. J Invest Dermatol 103:150S-153S, 199

Prenatal Exclusion of Lamellar Ichthyosis Based on Identification of Two New Mutations in the Transglutaminase 1 Gene

Lamellar ichthyosis is a severe, generalized, autosomal recessive genodermatosis characterized clinically by large, parchment-like scales and histologically by acanthosis and marked hyperkeratosis. Genetic heterogeneity in lamellar ichthyosis has been recognized with reports of two linked loci (on chromosomes 14q11 and 2q33–35). In a cohort of four small families with lamellar ichthyosis we found confirmatory evidence for linkage (p ≤ 0.01) to D14S275, a microsatellite marker close to transglutaminase 1 on chromosome 14q11. We also identified two novel transglutaminase 1 mutations in an affected sibling pair from one of these families. The paternal mutation in exon 3, 1387insCAGC, causes a frameshift predicted to result in premature termination of translation within the same exon. The maternal mutation in exon 8, 4561delAC, also causes a frameshift and a premature stop codon in this exon. The mother of these siblings recently became pregnant with twins. Genotyping and direct sequencing of DNA isolated from fetal amniotic fluid cultures revealed the presence of the paternal but the absence of the maternal mutation, thus predicting a normal skin phenotype. Both twins were born with normal-appearing skin. Our findings demonstrate that mutations of both alleles of the transglutaminase 1 gene are the cause of lamellar ichthyosis in this family, and illustrate an emerging clinical application of molecular genetics in dermatology

Nanocrystals of a New Complex Perovskite Dielectric Ba2TmSbO6

Nanocrystals of a new complex perovskites ceramic oxide, barium thulium antimony oxide – Ba2TmSbO6,were synthesized using a single step auto-ignition combustion process. The combustion product was single phase and composed of aggregates of nanocrystals of sizes in the range 20–50 nm. Ba2TmSbO6 crystallized in cubic perovskite structure with lattice parameter, a = 8.4101A˚ . The polycrystalline fluffy combustion product was sintered to high density (∼97%) at ∼1450 ◦C for 4 h. Resistivity of the sintered specimen was ∼5 M/cm. The Ba2TmSbO6 has dielectric constant (ε) and dielectric loss (tan ı) of 17 and ∼10−4 at 5 MHz; the new material would probably be developed as a low-loss dielectric material

Comparison of MHC class I risk haplotypes in Thai and Caucasian psoriatics shows locus heterogeneity at PSORS1

Earlier studies have shown that psoriasis in Japan and Thailand is associated with two different major histocompatibility complex (MHC) haplotypes – those bearing HLA-Cw6 and those bearing HLA-Cw1 and HLA-B46. In an independent case-control sample from Thailand, we confirmed the association of psoriasis with both haplotypes. No association was seen in Thai HLA-Cw1 haplotypes lacking HLA-B46 , nor was HLA-Cw1 associated with psoriasis in a large Caucasian sample. To assess whether these risk haplotypes share a common origin, we sequenced genomic DNA from a Thai HLA-Cw1-B46 homozygote across the ∼300 kb MHC risk interval, and compared it with sequence of a HLA-Cw6-B57 risk haplotype. Three small regions of homology were found, but these regions share equivalent sequence similarity with one or more clearly non-risk haplotypes, and they contain no polymorphism alleles unique to all risk haplotypes. Differences in psoriasis phenotype were also observed, including lower risk of disease, greater nail involvement, and later age at onset in HLA-Cw1-B46 carriers compared with HLA-Cw6 carriers. These findings suggest locus heterogeneity at PSORS1 (psoriasis susceptibility 1), the major psoriasis susceptibility locus in the MHC, with HLA-Cw6 imparting risk in both Caucasians and Asians, and an allele other than HLA-Cw1 on the HLA-Cw1-B46 haplotype acting as an additional risk variant in East Asians.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79072/1/TAN_1526_sm_tables1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79072/2/j.1399-0039.2010.01526.x.pd

Hatchery Production of Shrimp Seeds

T he pioneering efforts of Hudinaga in the successful spawning of Penaeus japonicus under controlled conditions and their subsequent rearing upto the juvenile stage have paved way for the large scale hatchery production of seed of penaeid prawns for aquaculture. There are two basic hatchery techniques for mass rearing of larvae of penaeid prawns - Japanese techniques and Galveston technique. These techniques have been appropriately modified to suit different geographical and climatic conditions and different species of prawns used for aquaculture. Thus m any gradations between these two techniques have been noticed in different parts of the world. Som etim es combinations o f these two techniques have also been used

Shrimps

Among edible crustaceans (shelled organism s) shrimp is considered as a highly valuable commodity. The great economic use of this resource for domestic and export purposes has led to over exploitation of most of the major shrimp stocks of the world. According to World Fishery Statistics, the global shrimp production, showing a rather slow annual growth rate of 4.5 to 10% during 1981-87 period, has been stagnating at about 2.5 million tonnes per year during 1988-90 period. The Indian ocean accounts for an average of about 3.6 lakh tonnes (17%) annually, of which nearly 65% com es from the Eastern region. While the fishery of this region showed an upward trend during the past few years mainly due to increased landings in Indonesia, Bangladesh and East coast of India, the fishery of Western Indian Ocean remained more or less steady at about 2.3 lakh tonnes. From the present level of shrimp production against the effort input it is universally believed that further increase in production of this resource from the conventional shrimp grounds is not possible to any appreciable extent. This being the case, development of deep-sea shrimping and aquaculture of shrimp has been given considerable stress as alternate means of augmenting production through out the world

Modification of Capacitive Charge Storage of TiO2 with Nickel Doping

For practical deployment of supercapacitors characterized by high energy density, power density and long cycle life, they must be realized using low cost and environmentally benign materials. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is largely abundant in the earth's crust; however, they show inferior supercapacitive electrochemical properties in most electrolytes for practical deployment. In this paper, we show that nickel doped TiO2 (Ni:TiO2) nanowires developed by electrospinning showed five times larger capacitance (∼200 F g−1) than the undoped analogue (∼40 F g−1). Electrochemical measurements show that the Ni:TiO2 nanowires have 100% coulombic efficiency. The electrodes showed no appreciable capacitance degradation for over 5000 cycles. The superior charge storage capability of the Ni:TiO2 could be due to its high electrical conductivity that resulted in five orders of magnitude higher ion diffusion as determined by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements