Doctrine of corporate opportunity: Indian perspective

The officers and directors of a corporation have a fiduciary duty towards the corporation. This imposes a duty upon them to take positive steps to protect the interests of the corporations and also ensure that they are not putting themselves in a position that gives rise to a conflict between the personal interests of the director with that of the company. The Doctrine of Corporate Opportunity is a legal principle that bars the directors or officers of the company from diverting a corporate opportunity that belongs to the company, towards themselves or their affiliates. Here, corporate opportunity refers to business opportunities that may be beneficial for the corporation. The rationale behind this doctrine is that, if any information is received as the consequence of the person's role as a director, then in such cases the information is to be used solely for the benefit of the company. This doctrine is an extension of the fiduciary duty that the director owes to the corporation. The Directors are trustees of a company. Though in the strict sense information may not be property, however, in multiple instances, the property was considered to include information. Therefore as a trustee, a director is obligated to disclose such information to the company and not misappropriate it for his benefit

High Medicaid Nursing Homes: Organizational and Market Factors Associated With Financial Performance

High Medicaid nursing homes (85% and higher of Medicaid residents) operate in resource-constrained environments. High Medicaid nursing homes (on average) have lower quality and poorer financial performance. However, there is significant variation in performance among high Medicaid nursing homes. The purpose of this study is to examine the organizational and market factors that may be associated with better financial performance among high Medicaid nursing homes. Data sources included Long-Term Care Focus (LTCFocus), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare Cost Reports, CMS Nursing Home Compare, and the Area Health Resource File (AHRF) for 2009-2015. There were approximately 1108 facilities with high Medicaid per year. The dependent variables are nursing homes operating and total margin. The independent variables included size, chain affiliation, occupancy rate, percent Medicare, market competition, and county socioeconomic status. Control variables included staffing variables, resident quality, for-profit status, acuity index, percent minorities in the facility, percent Medicaid residents, metropolitan area, and Medicare Advantage penetration. Data were analyzed using generalized estimating equations with state and year fixed effects. Results suggest that organizational and market slack resources are associated with performance differentials among high Medicaid nursing homes. Higher financial performing facilities are characterized as having nurse practitioners/physician assistants, more beds, higher occupancy rate, higher Medicare and Medicaid census, and being for-profit and located in less competitive markets. Higher levels of Registered Nurse (RN) skill mix result in lower financial performance in high Medicaid nursing homes. Policy and managerial implications of the study are discussed

Stem Cell Therapy in Motor Neuron Disease

Motor neuron disease (MND) is an insidious, fatal disorder that progresses with the selective loss of anterior horn cells of the spinal column. Over 150 years since it was first described, various therapeutic approaches have been tested in the quest of a cure but with little success. Current standard therapy only improves lifespan by a few months; palliative care is the only option available for patients. Stem cell therapy is a potent approach for the treatment of this devastating disease. A multitude of vitalizing effects, both paracrine and somatic, a robust safety profile, as well as ease of availability make a strong case for using these cells for therapeutic purposes. Coupled with rigorous rehabilitation, this powerful treatment modality has been shown to slow disease progression, improve quality of life, and increase survival, along with being well tolerated by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)/MND patients. Compelling preclinical as well as clinical evidence abounds that stem cells hold great potential as a therapy for ALS/MND. Although not a definitive solution yet, stem cells have been verified to have slowed and/or halted disease progression in a subset of ALS/MND patients

Systematics of nemipterid fishes (Perciformes: Nemipteridae) of Odisha coast, north-western Bay of Bengal with first records of four species

The north-eastern coast of India is rich in marine floral and faunal biodiversity, yet relatively less studied. This study aims to review and update the species diversity of nemipterids along the north-eastern coast of India, particularly Odisha, and provide a simple key for easy identification. An ichthyofaunal survey piloted during 2017 – 2020 along the Odisha coast confirmed the occurrence of seven valid species of nemipterids namely, Nemipterus bipunctatus (Valenciennes, 1830), N. japonicus (Bloch, 1791), N. nematophorus (Bleeker, 1854), N. peronii (Valenciennes, 1830), N. randalli Russell, 1986, Parascolopsis aspinosa (Rao & Rao, 1981), and Scolopsis vosmeri (Bloch, 1792), adding four species to the previously annotated checklist of 2007. The present paper reports the first record of four species namely, N. nematophorus, N. peronii, N. randalli, and P. aspinosa from the Odisha coast in the Bay of Bengal. Based on the findings of the present study and available literature, a key to the reported and identified species of the family Nemipteridae from the Odisha coast was developed with a detailed description of taxonomic characters for easy identification

New Record of Ariomma brevimanum (Klunzinger, 1884) (Perciformes: Ariommatidae) from Indian Waters

Nine specimens (584–670 mm standard length) of Ariomma brevimanum (Klunzinger 1884) were collected from the Cochin Fishing Harbour (south-eastern Arabian Sea) in 2016. Morphometric and meristic parameters, along with the DNA barcoding confirmed the identity of the specimens. The majority of the proportional morphometric measurement and meristic counts were concurrent with the previous description of A. brevimanus: body elongated (depth at first dorsal and second dorsal fin origin was about 22.8–25.2% and 22.0–22.7%of the standard length respectively); first dorsal fin with XI spine and second dorsal fin with I spine and 15 rays; anal fin with II spine and 15 rays; pectoral fin with 22–24 rays; scales large, cycloid, thin and deciduous; lateral line with 52–55 pored scales; pre-dorsal scale patch extending to about the hind margin of the eye; pre-opercular margin angular; horizontal eye diameter 18–22% of head length; gill rakers, 30–32 on first gill arch. In the present study, the partial sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene of A. brevimanum were generated. The analysis using the sequences of the COI gene produced a phylogenetic tree considering the maximum likelihood tree showed distinct clustering among species of Ariomma and revealed an identical phylogenetic relationship. The present study represents the first record for Indian waters, as well as the south-eastern Arabian Sea record of this species

Ramp Tear among Patients Undergoing Arthroscopic Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction in a Tertiary Care Centre

Introduction: Ramp tear is a specific injury that affects the posterior horn of the medial meniscus and its meniscosynovial or meniscocapsular attachments. The actual prevalence of ramp lesion is unknown due to the high probability of misdiagnosis or underdiagnosis caused by the low sensitivity of imaging modalities and poor visualization during arthroscopy. This study aimed to find out the prevalence of ramp tear among patients undergoing arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in a tertiary care centre. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among patients undergoing arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction after getting ethical approval from the Institutional Review Committee. Data from 1 March 2019 to 31 December 2022 was collected between 1 May 2023 to 30 May 2023 from medical records. The study included all patients who underwent arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Patients with a previous history of medial meniscus injury or repair and undergoing revision anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction were excluded. Convenience sampling method was used. The point estimate was calculated at a 95% Confidence Interval. Results: Out of 412 patients who underwent arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, 53 (12.86%) (9.63-16.09, 95% Confidence Interval) had ramp tears. The mean age of patients with ramp tears was 28.64±7.57 years. Among 53 patients, 42 (79.24%) were male and 11 (20.75%) were female. Conclusions: The prevalence of ramp tears in patients undergoing arthroscopic anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in a tertiary care centre was found to be lower than other studies done in other international studies

A Foundation Model for Cell Segmentation

Cells are the fundamental unit of biological organization, and identifying them in imaging data - cell segmentation - is a critical task for various cellular imaging experiments. While deep learning methods have led to substantial progress on this problem, models that have seen wide use are specialist models that work well for specific domains. Methods that have learned the general notion of "what is a cell" and can identify them across different domains of cellular imaging data have proven elusive. In this work, we present CellSAM, a foundation model for cell segmentation that generalizes across diverse cellular imaging data. CellSAM builds on top of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) by developing a prompt engineering approach to mask generation. We train an object detector, CellFinder, to automatically detect cells and prompt SAM to generate segmentations. We show that this approach allows a single model to achieve state-of-the-art performance for segmenting images of mammalian cells (in tissues and cell culture), yeast, and bacteria collected with various imaging modalities. To enable accessibility, we integrate CellSAM into DeepCell Label to further accelerate human-in-the-loop labeling strategies for cellular imaging data. A deployed version of CellSAM is available at https://label-dev.deepcell.org/

Diversity and distribution of jellyfish along the Odisha coast - First aid measures of jellyfish stings

Diversity and distribution of jellyfish along the Odisha coast - First aid measures of jellyfish sting

Large Pelagics fisheries along Odisha coast – An overview

The large pelagics fishery along Odisha coast is supported by resources such as seerfish, queenfish, tuna, barracuda, cobia, needlefish, billfish, dolphinfish and rainbow runner. The annual landings of large pelagics during the period 2007-2019 showed marked fluctuations with a declining trend and average landings of 5711 tonnes. Seerfish contributed 43% of total large pelagic landings followed by queen fish (31%), tuna (14%) and barracuda (7%). Major gears contributing to the landings were long lines (36%), followed by trawl nets (24%), gill nets (22%) and ringseines (11%). The fishery for large pelagics peaks during January to March and October – December periods with lowest landings during the April -June months and coinciding with a monsoon fishing ban period. These fishes which have low demand in local markets due to its large size and high prices are mostly iced immediately after auctioning and sent to distant markets

Doppler ultrasound scoring to predict chemotherapeutic response in advanced breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Doppler ultrasonography (US) is increasingly being utilized as an imaging modality in breast cancer. It is used to study the vascular characteristics of the tumor. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the standard modality of treatment in locally advanced breast cancer. Histological examination remains the gold standard to assess the chemotherapy response. However, based on the color Doppler findings, a new scoring system that could predict histological response following chemotherapy is proposed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fifty cases of locally advanced infiltrating duct carcinoma of the breast were studied. The mean age of the patients was 44.5 years. All patients underwent clinical, Doppler and histopathological assessment followed by three cycles of CAF (Cyclophosphamide, Adriamycin and 5-Fluorouracil) chemotherapy, repeat clinical and Doppler examination and surgery. The resected specimens were examined histopathologically and histological response was correlated with Doppler findings. The Doppler characteristics of the tumor were graded as 1–4 for <25%, 25–50%, >50% and complete disappearance of flow signals respectively. A cumulative score was calculated and compared with histopathological response. Results were analyzed using Chi square test, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The maximum Doppler score according to the proposed scoring system was twelve and minimum three. Higher scores corresponded with a more favorable histopathological response. Twenty four patients had complete response to chemotherapy. Sixteen of these 24 patients (66.7%) had a cumulative Doppler score more than nine. The sensitivity of cumulative score >5 was 91.7% and specificity was 38.5%. The area under the ROC curve of the cumulative score >9 was 0.72.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Doppler scoring can be accurately used to objectively predict the response to chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced breast cancer and it correlates well with histopathological response.</p