Prevalence of osteoporosis in hysterectomised as compared to non-hysterectomized women in 7th decade of life

Background: Osteoporosis is considered as a major public health issue with fragility fractures of the hip, vertebrae and distal radius being the most important consequences. It has been said to be an age-related degenerative process. However, postmenopausal women develop this disease due to age-related bone mineral loss as well as due to declining levels of estrogen in the body following menopause leading to increased risk of fractures. Objectives of this study were to find out the prevalence of osteoporosis in hysterectomised and non-hysterectomised postmenopausal women in 7th decade of life.Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study done on a total of 66 postmenopausal women who were in their 7th decade of life. They were divided into two groups, one consisting of 36 women who underwent natural menopause and the other group of 30 women who had surgical menopause. The bone mineral density of both the groups was measured using DEXA scan and comparison was done between these study groups.Results: Out of 30 hysterectomised subjects, 24 (80%) were found to be having osteoporosis, 6 (20%) had osteopenia and none had normal BMD. While out of 36 subjects in the non-hysterectomised group, 14 (38.88%) had osteoporosis, 16 (44.44%) had osteopenia and 6 (16.66%) subjects had normal BMD. Significant relation (p-value 0.001) was found on comparison of the study groups. In addition, significant positive correlation was between BMD and BMI whereas negative correlation was seen between BMD and parity.Conclusions: Hysterectomy was found to increase the incidence of osteoporosis. Obesity was found to have protective effect against bone mineral loss while increasing parity had a negative relation with BMD

Exploring the role of nanocellulose as potential sustainable material for enhanced oil recovery:New paradigm for a circular economy

Presently, due to growing global energy demand and depletion of existing oil reservoirs, oil industry is focussing on development of novel and effective ways to enhance crude oil recovery and exploration of new oil reserves, which are typically found in challenging environment and require deep drilling in high temperature and high-pressure regime. The nanocelluloses with numerous advantages such as high temperature and pressure stability, ecofriendly nature, excellent rheology modifying ability, interfacial tension reduction capability, etc., have shown a huge potential in oil recovery over conventional chemicals and macro/micro sized biopolymers-based approach. In present review, an attempt has been made to thoroughly investigate the potential of nanocellulose (cellulose nanocrystals/nanofibers) in development of drilling fluid and in enhancement of oil recovery. The impact of various factors such as nanocellulose shape, charge density, inter-particle or inter-fibers interactions after surface functionalization, rheometer geometries, additives, post processing techniques, etc., which provides insight into the attributes of nanocellulose suspension and exemplify their behaviour during oil recovery have also been reviewed and discussed. Finally, the conclusion and challenges in utility of nanocellulose for oilfield applications are addressed. Knowing how to adjust/quantify nanocrystals/nanofibers shape and size; and monitor their interactions might promote their utility in oilfield industry.</p

Real-Time Traffic Management in Smart Cities: Insights from the Traffic Management Simulation and Impact Analysis

Using simulation and empirical data analysis, this research examines the efficacy of real-time traffic control in smart cities. Traffic data collected in real time from strategically placed sensors shows that traffic volume was reduced by 8.33% on Main Street after a traffic light timing change was implemented. Traffic volume at Highway Junction was also significantly reduced by 5.56% as a result of traffic sign updates. On the other hand, interventions result in a relatively small decrease in traffic volume (2.78%) in the City Center. The influence of these actions is shown by the traffic simulation models, which show average vehicle speeds rising from 25 to 28 mph on Main Street, 45 to 50 mph at Highway Junction, and 30 to 32 mph in the Residential Area. The aforementioned research highlights the crucial function of data-driven decision-making in traffic management, guaranteeing effective distribution of resources and quantifiable enhancements in urban mobility. Urban planners and legislators may use these discoveries to build smart cities that are more accessible, sustainable, and efficient

A Case Study of the Phenotypic Variations in Barilius Bendelisis (Hamilton) from a Perennial Stream and a Fish Pond of Garhwal Himalayan Region of Uttarakhand, India

A comparative study on the morphometric and meristic variables of Barilius bendelisis (Ham.) from two different water bodies, i.e., Khanda Gad, a perennial spring fed stream and fish pond in the Garhwal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand was made during the present study. A total of 100 specimens were analysed for 26 different morphometric variables and 14 meristic counts. The majority of morphometric variables showed linear relationship when expressed in relation to total length and head length, whereas meristic counts remained constant with increasing body length. Standard length was found to be the highly correlated character in samples from both sites. Principal Component Analysis of 10 significant morphometric variables yielded three components accounting for 73.38% of the total variation. Principal Component Analysis of 3 meristic variables yielded single component accounting for 62.3% of total variation. Discriminant Function Analysis for morphometric and meristic variables showed that 98% and 83% of individuals were allocated into their original populations respectively. The cluster analysis for morphometric characters showed of fish populations from both sites formed two major clades, thus significantly differentiating the two stocks of fish population

Phenotypic characterization, genetic diversity assessment in 6,778 accessions of Barley ( Hordeum vulgare L. ssp. vulgare) germplasm conserved in national genebank of India and development of a core set

The entire collection of cultivated barley germplasm accessions conserved in the Indian National Genebank (INGB) was characterized for nine qualitative and 8 quantitative traits to assess the nature and magnitude of prevailing genetic variability and to develop a core set. A wide range of variability was observed for days to spike emergence (51–139 days), days to physiological maturity (100–152 days), plant height (45.96–171.32 cm), spike length (3.44–13.73 cm), grain number/spike (10.48–82.35), and 100-grain weight (1.20–6.86 g). Initially, seven independent core sets were derived using 3 core construction tools– MSTRAT, PowerCore, and Core Hunter 3 by employing the maximization method, heuristic sampling, and optimisation of average genetic distances, respectively. The core set-3 generated by Core Hunter 3 by simultaneous optimisation of diversity and representativeness, captured maximum genetic diversity of the whole collection as evident from the desirable genetic distance, variance difference percentage (VD; 87.5%), coincidence rate of range (CR; 94.27%) and variable rate of coefficient of variance (VR; 113.8%), which were more than threshold value of VD (80%), CR (80%), and VR (100%) required for good core collection. The coefficient of variation and Shannon–Weaver diversity indices were increased in the core set as compared with the whole collection. The low value of Kullback-Leibler distance (0.024–0.071) for all traits and quantile-quantile plots revealed a negligible difference between trait distribution patterns among the core set and entire assembly. Correlogram revealed that trait associations and their magnitude were conserved for most of the traits after sampling of the core set. The extraction of the INGB barley core set and identification of promising accessions for agronomically important traits in different genetic backgrounds will pave the way for expedited access to genetically diverse and agronomically important germplasm for barley breeding

Evaluation of chemiluminescence, toluidine blue and histopathology for detection of high risk oral precancerous lesions: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Early detection holds the key to an effective control of cancers in general and of oral cancers in particular. However, screening procedures for oral cancer are not straightforward due to procedural requirements as well as feasibility issues, especially in resource-limited countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a cross-sectional study to compare the performance of chemiluminescence, toluidine blue and histopathology for detection of high-risk precancerous oral lesions. We evaluated 99 lesions from 55 patients who underwent chemiluminescence and toluidine blue tests along with biopsy and histopathological examination. We studied inter-as well as intra-rater agreement in the histopathological evaluation and then using latent class modeling, we estimated the operating characteristics of these tests in the absence of a reference standard test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a weak inter-rater agreement (kappa < 0.15) as well as a weak intra-rater reproducibility (Pearson's r = 0.28, intra-class correlation rho = 0.03) in the histopathological evaluation of potentially high-risk precancerous lesions. When compared to histopathology, chemiluminescence and toluidine blue retention had a sensitivity of 1.00 and 0.59, respectively and a specificity of 0.01 and 0.79, respectively. However, latent class analysis indicated a low sensitivity (0.37) and high specificity (0.90) of histopathological evaluation. Toluidine blue had a near perfect high sensitivity and specificity for detection of high-risk lesions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In our study, there was variability in the histopathological evaluation of oral precancerous lesions. Our results indicate that toluidine blue retention test may be better suited than chemiluminescence to detect high-risk oral precancerous lesions in a high-prevalence and low-resource setting like India.</p

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

Effects of antiplatelet therapy after stroke due to intracerebral haemorrhage (RESTART): a randomised, open-label trial

Background: Antiplatelet therapy reduces the risk of major vascular events for people with occlusive vascular disease, although it might increase the risk of intracranial haemorrhage. Patients surviving the commonest subtype of intracranial haemorrhage, intracerebral haemorrhage, are at risk of both haemorrhagic and occlusive vascular events, but whether antiplatelet therapy can be used safely is unclear. We aimed to estimate the relative and absolute effects of antiplatelet therapy on recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage and whether this risk might exceed any reduction of occlusive vascular events. Methods: The REstart or STop Antithrombotics Randomised Trial (RESTART) was a prospective, randomised, open-label, blinded endpoint, parallel-group trial at 122 hospitals in the UK. We recruited adults (≥18 years) who were taking antithrombotic (antiplatelet or anticoagulant) therapy for the prevention of occlusive vascular disease when they developed intracerebral haemorrhage, discontinued antithrombotic therapy, and survived for 24 h. Computerised randomisation incorporating minimisation allocated participants (1:1) to start or avoid antiplatelet therapy. We followed participants for the primary outcome (recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage) for up to 5 years. We analysed data from all randomised participants using Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusted for minimisation covariates. This trial is registered with ISRCTN (number ISRCTN71907627). Findings: Between May 22, 2013, and May 31, 2018, 537 participants were recruited a median of 76 days (IQR 29–146) after intracerebral haemorrhage onset: 268 were assigned to start and 269 (one withdrew) to avoid antiplatelet therapy. Participants were followed for a median of 2·0 years (IQR [1·0– 3·0]; completeness 99·3%). 12 (4%) of 268 participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy had recurrence of intracerebral haemorrhage compared with 23 (9%) of 268 participants allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (adjusted hazard ratio 0·51 [95% CI 0·25–1·03]; p=0·060). 18 (7%) participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy experienced major haemorrhagic events compared with 25 (9%) participants allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (0·71 [0·39–1·30]; p=0·27), and 39 [15%] participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy had major occlusive vascular events compared with 38 [14%] allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (1·02 [0·65–1·60]; p=0·92). Interpretation: These results exclude all but a very modest increase in the risk of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage with antiplatelet therapy for patients on antithrombotic therapy for the prevention of occlusive vascular disease when they developed intracerebral haemorrhage. The risk of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage is probably too small to exceed the established benefits of antiplatelet therapy for secondary prevention