Palatalization and velarization in Malayalam nasals

The current study builds upon the literature on secondary articulations in Malayalam liquids to investigate whether another set of sonorants, i.e. the nasals, also involve palatalization, velarization, or varying configurations of the tongue root. Specifically, the current study focuses on the anterior nasals, i.e. dental n vs. alveolar ṉ a marginal contrast which has not been examined phonetically for secondary articulations. What is known about these two nasals is that they stem from different historical sources, they contrast in precise place of articulation, and they have been described impressionistically as distinguishable by velarization on the dental n and palatalization on the alveolar ṉ, although no phonetic evidence has ever been provided to support either claim. Preliminary acoustic results from a single speaker in the current study suggest that these claims are in fact borne out: back vowels are generally fronted when adjacent to geminate alveolar ṉṉ, compared to those adjacent to geminate dental nn. This suggests palatalization on the former and/or velarization on the latter, in line with the acoustic results for liquids in previous studies. These acoustic results thus suggest that Malayalam speakers can use secondary articulations to exaggerate the differences between otherwise very similar nasals, in the same ways that they use those articulations to distinguish the “clear” and “dark” classes of liquids

The intonation of South Asian languages: towards a comparative analysis

South Asia has long been considered a region of widespread convergence in phonology, morphology, and syntax. While these claims have not explicitly been extended to intonation in previous work, researchers such as Féry (2010) have suggested that multiple South Asian languages (SALs) from different families can be covered with the same intonational description, and that prominence and weight play no role in its implementation. The current study examines what is arguably the most characteristic unit of SAL prosody, the repeated rising contour (RRC), produced in recordings of The North Wind and the Sun in six SALs to confirm the existence of some crosslinguistic similarities while also identifying areas of substantial variation. I highlight the roles played by lexical accent, vowel peripherality, and vowel length in the alignment of tones, and describe variation within and across languages. I also suggest directions in which research must be carried out to expand our typological understanding of the region and propose a model flexible enough to cover its diverse languages.

Sigmoid volvulus in pregnancy and puerperium: a surgical and obstetric catastrophe Report of a case and review of the world literature

Sigmoid volvulus is a rare surgical complication occurring in pregnancy and puerperium. Only 84 cases of sigmoid volvulus in pregnancy have been reported in the English literature so far. We have reviewed the available literature on this subject and present another case recently managed at our institution. The available literature suggests that over the years, there has been an improvement in the maternal and fetal outcome for this critical condition, but delay in presentation and a further delay in diagnosis remain a challenge for the treating physicians. Our patient was a 30-week pregnant lady, who presented late with 6days history of abdominal pain, distension and absolute constipation. She had evidence of multi-organ dysfunction at presentation due to complicated sigmoid volvulus. She was resuscitated and surgical exploration revealed gangrenous large bowel. Bowel resection with diverting ileostomy was performed, but she succumbed to the septic shock due to late presentation. Acute surgical pathology may be overlooked in pregnant patients due to reluctance in radiological workup and a high index of suspicion is essential for enhanced outcome. There is a need to increase the awareness amongst the obstetricians and general practitioners. Early diagnosis and referral and timely surgical intervention could significantly improve the outcome of this surgical and obstetric catastrophe

Mirizzi\u27s syndrome masquerading as cholangiocarcinoma: a case report

Introduction: Mirizzi\u27s syndrome is a rarely observed disorder that presents with obstructive jaundice. The condition is caused by a stone impacted in the gall bladder neck or cystic duct that impinges on the common hepatic duct, with or without a cholecystocholedochal fistula. The condition is often confused with other serious conditions such as hilar cholangiocarcinoma, which present with similar clinical and imaging findings, and a pre-operative diagnosis may be a serious challenge.CASE PRESENTATION: We present the case of a 44-year-old Asian man with Mirizzi\u27s syndrome who was initially diagnosed as having cholangiocarcinoma based on his clinical presentation, raised cancer antigen 19-9 levels and radiological findings. Our patient was diagnosed as having Mirizzi\u27s syndrome intra-operatively and subsequently a cholecystectomy was performed with restoration of biliary drainage. Careful clinical assessment during surgery with the help of intra-operative frozen section helped in establishing the definitive diagnosis and altered the surgical procedure for our patient.CONCLUSIONS: Pre-operative diagnosis of Mirizzi\u27s syndrome could be challenging as the clinical, biochemical and radiological presentation is similar to other conditions causing obstructive jaundice such as choledocholithiasis, bile duct stricture or cholangiocarcinoma. A high index of suspicion and careful surgical assessment may help in establishing a diagnosis and alter the clinical course for our patient

Exhaustive movement, exhaustive tone: A syntactic-prosodic investigation of Gujarati

Based on data collected from speakers of Gujarati, we investigate whether exhaustivity and narrow focus have same eect on the syntactic position of an object and on sentence prosody. The pre-verbal position, which is immediately above the vP in Gujarati has been associated with narrow focus (Joshi 2020), and here we also investigate whether that position also conveys exhaustivity (Kiss 2010). To probe how syntactic position and prosody influence and are influenced by interpretations of exhaustivity and narrow focus on an argument, we conducted production and listening tasks on 10 native speakers of Gujarati. Novel experimental data from the production task suggests that Gujarati speakers are primarily concerned in ensuring that the argument is conveyed as a narrow-focused argument vis-a-vis an exhaustively focused one, irrespective of syntactic position, whereas results from the listening task suggest that once prosody was controlled, participants were able to consider syntactic variation as a marker of exhaustivity and not just of narrow focus

Relationship of natural occlusal plane with different anatomical landmarks

Objective: To evaluate the parallelism of natural maxillary occlusal plane with inter-pupillary line and ala-tragus line, and to evaluate the anatomic relationship of natural mandibular occlusal plane with retromolar pad among dentate subjects.Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2017 to February 2018 at Fatima Jinnah Dental College, Karachi, and comprised front and profile photographs of subjects aged 20-28 years while holding the camper\u27s plane against the maxillary occlusal plane. The photographs were imported in a software and an interpupillary line was drawn and the angle with Camper\u27s plane was measured. On both profile pictures, lines were drawn from base of the ala to the superior, middle and inferior points on the tragus. The angle between ala-tragus line and Camper\u27s plane were measured. Intra-orally, height of the mandibular occlusal plane in relation to the retromolar pad was evaluated using a stainless steel scale. Data was analysed using SPSS 23.Results: Of the 109 subjects with a mean age of 23.03±1.36 years, 76(69.72%) were females. Horizontal parallelism of occlusal plane with inter-pupillary line was observed with a mean angle of 1.17±1.27 degrees. The angle between the occlusal plane and the inferior ala-tragus line was 4.25 degrees on the right side, and 4.50 degrees on the left. Intraorally, mandibular occlusal plane coincided with the inferior 48(44%) and the middle third 48(44%) of the retromolar pad.Conclusions: Inter-pupillary line and retromolar pad area should be used as a guide in the determination of plane of occlusion. The ala-tragus line was not found to be a reliable guide

Practice Management & Patient Health Record System

General Physicians or Specialists who has less number of patients often cannot afford to buy high end Practice management software which often costs thousands of dollars. Online Personal health record (PHR) sharing system is an emerging patient oriented model created for health information exchange following all HIPAA regulations, Using this application patient can share his/her health record with organizations (Hospitals, Health insurance firms.. etc.). It is an application which helps connect doctors and billers together and provides hassle free experience and it does not need any additional plugins or hardware and can be accessed from any device like personal computer, laptop or tablets instantly. In this application we are providing two registration forms, one for Patient and another for organization, unless patient or organization registers they will not be able use this application. If patient wants to share information with a third person who is not registered with the application they can do it so without any fright of exploitation of their record as the files would be encrypted and can only be accessed by the key. This key is system generated and it is generated at the time of patient sending his/her Health Record. For the patients, it gives the pleasure of staying at ease about their scheduled appointments with the doctor also providing them a platform to save their medical history at one organized easily accessible place to share, study and review. For the medical billers, PHR is a boon which saves the staff a lot of time to access the record and bill the patients’ insurances effectively complying with HIPAA norms

Big data and a smarter university: a literature review

Using big data in a university is ‘the thing’ today since almost all information today is digitalized. Big data ensures better data processing, analysis and sharing, thus increasing productivity and researchers would have a great time doing their researches. A smart university is a university which uses technologies which could increase the productivity of knowledge management. Changing into a smart university is definitely a smart move because it is important to be competitive in a world full of formidable competitors. Research has proven that smart universities such as Caltech University and Northwestern University which are among the top universities in the world has also endeavored into the big data arena

Disservice to Children; Advertising an Ethical issue

This study is conducted to expose the evidence about the effects of food advertising on children in Karachi, Pakistan. Advertising in itself is a powerfully suasive medium. Does food advertising leads to over weight and obese children? If it does than it raises questions about certain other serious health issues. What are the other supporting elements besides advertising leading to obesity? A small scale qualitative study was performed on school children and their parents to gather crucial information about the phenomenon. Results show that along with other elements of the society advertising is having and affect on children's eating and consumption behaviour and other activities

Perception of Breathy Phonation in Gujarati

The correlates of breathiness are similar across consonants and vowels, raising a question about whether breathy consonant/breathy vowel contrasts are confusable in languages with both, e.g. Gujarati. We investigate the perception of phonemically breathy Cs and Vs in Gujarati via three tasks: free-sort, AX discrimination, and picture-matching identification. Results from six native listeners indicate that breathiness is indeed confusable: participants reliably identify the presence of breathiness if the acoustic correlates thereof are strong enough, but cannot reliably assign it to the appropriate segment (consonant or vowel), rendering it difficult to distinguish CɦV from CV̤ .