PUO with multiple abscesses due to Burkholderia pseudomallei: a case report

Melioidosis is an infectious disease of humans and animals caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, previously called as Pseudomonas pseudomallei. We reported a case of a 14 year old female patient presented with fever for last 3 months and multiple swellings of joints, misdiagnosed as M.D.R. T.B. But after proper evaluation diagnosed as multiple joint abscess due to Pseudomonas pseudomallei mimiking tuberculosis. Sporadic cases of melioidosis from various parts of South Indiaand Western costal India have been reported, but remained underdiagnosed due to lack of awareness

Identification of Shocks in the Spectra from Black Holes

We study the spectral properties of a low angular momentum flow as a function of the shock strength, compression ratio, accretion rate and flow geometry. In the absence of a satisfactory description of magnetic fields inside the advective disk, we consider the presence of only stochastic fields and use the ratio of the field energy to the gravitational energy density as a parameter. We not only include `conventional' synchrotron emission and Comptonization by Maxwell-Bolzmann electrons in the gas, but we also compute these effects due to power-law electrons. For strong shocks, a bump is produced due to the post-shock flow. A power-law spectral components due to the thermal and non-thermal electrons appear after this bump.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Astronomy and Space Science (in press), Proceedings of the Hong Kong Conference (2004) Edited by Cheng and Romer

Evaluation of morphine, methadone, digoxin, and dronabinol poisoning during the years 2017 to 2019 in Ilam, Iran

Background: Every year, drug poisoning is the most prevalent reason for referring patients to medical centers. This study aimed to evaluation of morphine, methadone, digoxin, and dronabinol poisoning in Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital in Ilam. Methods: In this In this Cross-sectional study, patient samples suspected of morphine, methadone, digoxin, and dronabinol poisoning referred to the toxicology laboratory of Ilam University of Medical Sciences were analyzed using the HPLC method, and the results were analysed using SPSS software. Results: Results showed that the percentage of drug use is greater in men than in women. The highest percentage of morphine and methadone poisonings were detected in those under the age of 40, whereas the highest percentage of digoxin poisonings were recorded in those over the age of 80. As a result, the average age of digoxin users was substantially greater in men than in women. Methadone consumers showed significantly greater blood levels than others. In addition, there was a significant difference (P<0.01) in blood levels between men and women who used morphine. Conclusion: In general, it is important to understand the status of drug poisoning with drugs such as morphine, methadone, digoxin, and dronabinol, as well as the prognosis associated with the treatment process of such poisoning. &#160

Biocontrol of larval mosquitoes by Acilius sulcatus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Problems associated with resistant mosquitoes and the effects on non-target species by chemicals, evoke a reason to find alternative methods to control mosquitoes, like the use of natural predators. In this regard, aquatic coleopterans have been explored less compared to other insect predators. In the present study, an evaluation of the role of the larvae of <it>Acilius sulcatus </it>Linnaeus 1758 (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) as predator of mosquito immatures was made in the laboratory. Its efficacy under field condition was also determined to emphasize its potential as bio-control agent of mosquitoes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In the laboratory, the predation potential of the larvae of <it>A. sulcatus </it>was assessed using the larvae of <it>Culex quinquefasciatus </it>Say 1823 (Diptera: Culicidae) as prey at varying predator and prey densities and available space. Under field conditions, the effectiveness of the larvae of <it>A. sulcatus </it>was evaluated through augmentative release in ten cemented tanks hosting immatures of different mosquito species at varying density. The dip density changes in the mosquito immatures were used as indicator for the effectiveness of <it>A. sulcatus </it>larvae.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A single larva of <it>A. sulcatus </it>consumed on an average 34 IV instar larvae of <it>Cx. quinquefasciatus </it>in a 24 h period. It was observed that feeding rate of <it>A. sulcatus </it>did not differ between the light-on (6 a.m. – 6 p.m.), and dark (6 p.m. – 6 a.m.) phases, but decreased with the volume of water i.e., space availability. The prey consumption of the larvae of <it>A. sulcatus </it>differed significantly (P < 0.05) with different prey, predator and volume combinations, revealed through univariate ANOVA. The field study revealed a significant decrease (p < 0.05) in larval density of different species of mosquitoes after 30 days from the introduction of <it>A. sulcatus </it>larvae, while with the withdrawal, a significant increase (p < 0.05) in larval density was noted indicating the efficacy of <it>A. sulcatus </it>in regulating mosquito immatures. In the control tanks, mean larval density did not differ (p > 0.05) throughout the study period.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>the larvae of the dytiscid beetle <it>A. sulcatus </it>proved to be an efficient predator of mosquito immatures and may be useful in biocontrol of medically important mosquitoes.</p

Excited-state proton transfer of 1-naphthol in micelles

The fast deprotonation of 1-naphthol, which occurs in 35 ps in aqueous solution, is studied in neutral (triton X 100, reduced, TX-100R), cationic (cetyl trimethylammonium bromide, CTAB), and anionic (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS) micelles. Drastically different effects on the proton transfer process and the relative emission intensities of the neutral form (360 nm) and the anion (460 nm) are observed in the three micelles. The intensities of the anion and the neutral emission of 1-naphthol exhibit a break around the reported critical micellar concentration (cmc) of the three micelles. Above cmc, intensity of the neutral emission is enhanced by a factor of nearly 90, 66, and 20 in 20 mM TX-100R, 200 mM SDS, and 96 mM CTAB, respectively. The anion emission is enhanced for CTAB and TX-100R, while for SDS its intensity decreases, compared to water. In CTAB, the rise time of the 460 nm emission (600 ± 100 ps) is similar to the lifetime of decay at 360 nm. However, for TX-100R and SDS, the rise time of the anion emission (at 460 nm) is found to be faster than the decay of the neutral emission (at 360 nm). This indicates that in TX-100R and SDS, there is no parental relation between the normal and the anion emission and they originate from the probe, 1-naphthol molecules, at distinctly different locations. The rise times at 460 nm are 1.8 ± 0.1 ns and 600 ± 100 ps for TX-100R and SDS, respectively, while the corresponding decay times at 360 nm are 2.5 ± 0.1 ns and 1.8 ± 0.1 ns

Photophysical processes of ethidium bromide in micelles and reverse micelles

Photophysical processes of ethidium bromide (EB) in homogeneous solutions, micelles, and reverse micelles have been investigated. In acetonitrile, the fluorescence intensity and lifetime of EB are 6.3 &#177; 0.3 times those in water and 1.25 &#177; 0.1 times those in acetone. This is attributed to the weaker hydrogen-bond acceptor property of acetonitrile, compared to water and acetone. Addition of water to acetonitrile leads to a marked quenching of the EB emission, with a quenching constant of (1.7 &#177; 0.3) &#215; 107 M<SUP>-1</SUP> s<SUP>-1</SUP>. In aqueous solution, hydroxyl ion quenches EB emission more dramatically with a quenching constant of (4.4 &#177; 0.4) &#215; 1010 M<SUP>-1</SUP> s<SUP>-1</SUP>. This is ascribed to the abstraction of the amino proton of the excited ethidium ion by the hydroxyl ion. Emission properties of EB are found to be good monitors for the micellization of an anionic micelle, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). In AOT microemulsion, EB exhibits nearly (1.8 &#177; 0.1)-fold emission enhancement relative to water. The emission properties of EB are found to be independent of the water-to-surfactant ratio, w0. In AOT microemulsion when instead of water D<SUB>2</SUB>O is injected, a further 2.3 times emission enhancement is observed. However, in AOT microemulsion, the hydroxyl ion does not quench the EB emission, even when a highly alkaline aqueous solution of EB (pH = 12.6) is injected into the reverse micelle. It is proposed that the anionic surfactant, AOT, strongly attracts the ethidium cation to the AOT-water interface but expels the hydroxyl anion from the AOT-water interface to the water pool, and hence, the hydroxyl anion cannot access the ethidium cation

Breast Cancer Prediction Using Stacked GRU-LSTM-BRNN

Breast Cancer diagnosis is one of the most studied problems in the medical domain. Cancer diagnosis has been studied extensively, which instantiates the need for early prediction of cancer disease. To obtain advance prediction, health records are exploited and given as input to an automated system. The paper focuses on constructing an automated system by employing deep learning based recurrent neural network models. A stacked GRU-LSTM-BRNN is proposed in this paper that accepts health records of a patient for determining the possibility of being affected by breast cancer. The proposed model is compared against other baseline classifiers such as stacked simple-RNN model, stacked LSTM-RNN model, stacked GRU-RNN model. Comparative results obtained in this study indicate that the stacked GRU-LSTM-BRNN model yields better classification performance for predictions related to breast cancer disease