Ovarian cyst impacted in the pouch of Douglas at 20 weeks' gestation managed by laparoscopic ovarian cystectomy: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>The frequency of ovarian cysts in pregnancy is reported to be 1 in 1000 pregnancies. Laparoscopic ovarian cystectomy has been described in the literature as case series but this is the first case where an ovarian cyst at 20 weeks' gestation impacted in the pouch of Douglas was managed exclusively by laparoscopy.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 31-year-old primigravida woman was diagnosed as having an 11 cm ovarian cyst at 20 weeks' gestation. At the 19th week routine ultrasound scan, the mass appeared to be cystic with no solid component. She was asymptomatic. In view of the size of the cyst, options were discussed with her including laparoscopic ovarian cystectomy which she agreed to. Laparoscopic surgery during pregnancy is reported to be safe and beneficial for pregnant women. At laparoscopy, a transvaginal scan was performed to localize the cyst and an ovarian cystectomy was carried out. The patient had an uneventful recovery and subsequent antenatal period. She had a lower segment caesarean section for non-progress of labour when both ovaries were found to be normal and mobile.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Laparoscopic surgery during pregnancy has numerous advantages compared to open laparotomy. This is a rare example of an ovarian cyst in the pouch of Douglas impacted behind the uterus which was managed by laparoscopy and shows the safety of the technique in the presence of an expert laparoscopic surgeon.</p

Development of a Sensor to Detect Condensation of Super-Sonic Steam

This paper explains the development and functioning of AC driven electrodes based sensor which is used for the study of condensation phenomena of steam. Time for the AC signals starts form 20 msecond to 1 second. Data acquisition system is employed against each time interval and the output data is fed into EIDORS (a free software algorithm). Images show the clear boundaries between pure steam, its interface and water

Filtration and Synthesis of Different types of Human Voice Signals: An application of digital signal processing

An observation of the effect in audio signal by using digital filter plays an important role in the field of digital signal processing (DSP). Day by day the digital form of signal is becoming more preferable than the analog one which is increasing the need of DSP in the rapidly changing world. Yet, there are many attractive schemes for designing a digital filter; we adopt windowing technique for design a FIR low pass filter in the frequency domain for the short period. However, the main task of our work is to perform filtration of the different types of practical human voice signals by using digital filter and synthesis of those signals to reduce the memory size (kB) by remaining the same quality of the signal. We used MATLAB for the design of digital filter and synthesis of those audio signals. MATLAB provides different options for signal synthesis. Finally, this paper gives an idea about reconstructed signals and filtrated signals. Keywords: Digital filter, Cutoff frequency, Fourier transform, Inverse Fourier transforms, normalized frequency

Pressure stresses generated due to supersonic steam jet induced hydrodynamic instabilities

The phenomenon that involves direct contact of steam with water is called Direct Contact Condensation (DCC). This phenomenon has been observed/prevailed in most of the power and process industries. The phenomenon of direct contact condensation involves heat, mass and momentum transfer across the highly fluctuating interface between steam jet and surrounding water giving this process an intricate nature to be studied. More recently the observation of hydrodynamic instabilities at the interface between supersonic steam jet and water has given a new facet to the study of DCC. In the current study the equivalent von-Mises Stress, equivalent elastic strain and total deformation in the Perspex vessel that has been incurred due to the pressure stresses has been studied. These pressure stresses have been generated due to the condensing supersonic steam jet induced hydrodynamic instabilities. It has been investigated first by experimentally observing the temperature fluctuations in axial and radial directions across supersonic steam jet which actually depicts these instabilities. Then Direct Contact Condensation (DCC) model has been used to conduct the CFD study using a commercial code Ansys®. Accompanied with this a mock up study has been done in which the pressure loads computed using DCC model have been coupled to the Perspex vessel structure using one way Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis in Ansys® to compute the true scale equivalent von-Mises Stress, equivalent elastic strain and total deformation generated by hydrodynamic instabilities induced pressure stresses. On true scale, hundreds of Pico scale deformation has been computed in the Perspex vessel confinement

How do microbial communities in top- and subsoil respond to root litter addition under field conditions?

© 2016 Elsevier LtdContrasting microbial community composition and activity at different soil depths may affect root litter decomposition. These effects have up to now been investigated mainly in laboratory studies, which may not be able to take into account complex in situ conditions. Our study aimed to analyze the composition and activity of microbial communities after addition of 13C labeled wheat root litter to a loamy soil under grassland at 30, 60 and 90 cm depths, during a three-year field experiment. We investigated the dynamics of bacterial and fungal abundances and community structures by DNA genotyping and pyrosequencing of 16S and 18S rDNAs. The genetic structures of bacterial and fungal communities were evaluated by automated ribosomal intergenetic spacer analysis. The functions of these communities were analysed by determination of extracellular enzyme activities and viable microbial communities involved in 13C labeled organic matter decomposition studied by 13C PLFAs. The abundance of fungal and bacterial communities (16S and 18S rDNAs and PLFA) and the potential activities of enzymes involved in the C- and N-cycles were significantly higher at the top 30 cm compared with deeper soil throughout the experiment. Both were stimulated by fresh litter input. A trend to decreasing bacterial and fungal richness was noted after root litter addition at 30 cm, while richness of bacteria at 90 cm and those of fungi at 60 and 90 cm increased. Moreover, root litter addition caused a reduction of the Shannon Weaver Diversity index and a shift in microbial community structure at all three depths, which was more pronounced for bacteria at 30 and 60 cm and for fungi at 90 cm. The changes during litter degradation resulted in similar dynamics of most enzyme activities at all depths. Chitinase activity was enhanced after 29 months compared to initial conditions indicating the availability of high amounts of microbial detritus. The degrading microbial community as assessed by 13C PLFA showed similar temporal dynamics at all three depths. Fungal contribution to this community decreased during later stages of litter degradation, while the contribution of Gram+ bacteria increased. We conclude that litter addition led to convergence of microbial communities of top- and subsoil through stimulation of copiotrophic populations. Soil microbial community structures are thus connected with the amount of fresh litter input. Enzyme activities and 13C PLFA reflect to some extent the changes occurring during degradation, i.e. exhaustion of fresh plant material and accumulation of detritus

Photocatalytic treatment technology for palm oil mill effluent (POME) – A review

This review provides insight into various techniques utilized for the treatments of palm oil mill effluents (POME). Generally, POME treatment is achieved in two ways, these are (1) pre-treatment stages, involving majorly the reduction of oil and grease and suspended matter and (2) an advanced treatment stage, in which wastewater contaminants (e.g. BOD5, COD) are reduced to standard discharge limits. Different methods utilized in the treatment of POME such as coagulation-flocculation, anaerobic, aerobic and membrane technology are explained fully and recent trends in their advancement and improvement are outlined. Though, various pilot or industrial scale treatment plants have been reported in scientific literature for POME treatments methods such as anaerobic, aerobic and membrane technology, the literature is still scarce for application of photocatalytic degradation technology to POME treatment as the technology is still in development stage and has not been fully utilized on an industrial scale in palm oil mill industries. This is mainly as a result of inadequate investigation involving POME degradation. The review presented here is focused on photocatalytic degradation technology and reflects published outcomes with the aim of offering the technique as an attractive and sustainable process units. Also the potential of the process to replace some of the well-known separation and degradation technologies has been highlighted at advanced treatment stage for POME

Synthesis and Characterization of Poly(styrene)-block-Poly(acrylic acid) and Organoclay Based Hybrid Composite Materials

Abstract—Polystyrene (PS) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) are organic and synthetic polymers. Generally, a composite needs a matrix and reinforcement. Montmorillonite (MMT) is used as reinforcement to form a hybrid matrix by ultra-sonication. Block polymers of PS and PAA were first synthesized and then hybrid nanocomposite material of synthesized block polymeric matrix was fabricated by incorporating organoclay as reinforcement through 6 and 12 hours of ultra-sonication. The characterizations of the hybrid nanocomposite material were done by UV-visible and infrared (IR) spectroscopy, which confirm the successful synthesis of PS and PAA block polymer. The UV-visible spectroscopic measurements revealed that hybrid composite material is different from PS-block-PAA and that absorbance increases on increasing concentration. After successful ultra-sonication the hybrid composite is analyzed through scan electron microscopy (SEM) regarding surface morphology, distribution, uniformity, porosity, matrix compatibility, and matrix reinforcements. Sonication (for 6 hours) demonstrates a heterogeneous porous surface and an increase in roughness and porosity of surface morphology at different optical zooms

Aurora kinase-C-T191D is constitutively active mutant

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Aurora kinases (Aurora-A, B and C) belong to a family of conserved serine/threonine kinases which are key regulators of cell cycle progression. Aurora-A and Aurora-B are expressed in somatic cells and involved in cell cycle regulation while aurora-C is meiotic chromosome passenger protein. As Aurora kinase C is rarely expressed in normal somatic cells and has been found over expressed in many cancer lines. It is suggested that Aurora-C-T191D is not hyperactive mutant.</p> <p>Result</p> <p>Aurora-C-T191D variant form was investigated and compared with wild type. The overexpression of Aurora-C-T191D was observed that it behaves like Aurora-C wild type (aurC-WT). Both Aurora-C-T191D and aurC-WT induce abnormal cell division resulting in centrosome amplification and multinucleation in transiently transfected cells as well as in stable cell lines. Similarly, Aurora-C-T191D and aurC-WT formed foci of colonies when grown on soft agar, indicating that a gain of Aurora-C activity is sufficient to transform cells. Furthermore, we reported that NIH-3 T3 stable cell lines overexpressing Aurora-C-T191D and its wild type partner induced tumour formation when injected into nude mice, demonstrating the oncogenic activity of enzymatically active Aurora kinase C. Interestingly enough tumour aggressiveness was positively correlated with the rate of kinase activity, making Aurora-C a potential anti-cancer therapeutic target.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings proved that Aurora C-T191D is not hyperactive but is constitutively active mutant.</p

Design-time formal verification for smart environments: an exploratory perspective

Smart environments (SmE) are richly integrated with multiple heterogeneous devices; they perform the operations in intelligent manner by considering the context and actions/behaviors of the users. Their major objective is to enable the environment to provide ease and comfort to the users. The reliance on these systems demands consistent behavior. The versatility of devices, user behavior and intricacy of communication complicate the modeling and verification of SmE's reliable behavior. Of the many available modeling and verification techniques, formal methods appear to be the most promising. Due to a large variety of implementation scenarios and support for conditional behavior/processing, the concept of SmE is applicable to diverse areas which calls for focused research. As a result, a number of modeling and verification techniques have been made available for designers. This paper explores and puts into perspective the modeling and verification techniques based on an extended literature survey. These techniques mainly focus on some specific aspects, with a few overlapping scenarios (such as user interaction, devices interaction and control, context awareness, etc.), which were of the interest to the researchers based on their specialized competencies. The techniques are categorized on the basis of various factors and formalisms considered for the modeling and verification and later analyzed. The results show that no surveyed technique maintains a holistic perspective; each technique is used for the modeling and verification of specific SmE aspects. The results further help the designers select appropriate modeling and verification techniques under given requirements and stress for more R&D effort into SmE modeling and verification researc

Brief intervention to reduce risky drinking in pregnancy: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Risky drinking in pregnancy by UK women is likely to result in many alcohol-exposed pregnancies. Studies from the USA suggest that brief intervention has promise for alcohol risk reduction in antenatal care. However, further research is needed to establish whether this evidence from the USA is applicable to the UK. This pilot study aims to investigate whether pregnant women can be recruited and retained in a randomized controlled trial of brief intervention aimed at reducing risky drinking in women receiving antenatal care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The trial will rehearse the parallel-group, non-blinded design and procedures of a subsequent definitive trial. Over 8 months, women aged 18 years and over (target number 2,742) attending their booking appointment with a community midwife (n = 31) in north-east England will be screened for alcohol consumption using the consumption questions of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C). Those screening positive, without a history of substance use or alcohol dependence, with no pregnancy complication, and able to give informed consent, will be invited to participate in the trial (target number 120). Midwives will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to deliver either treatment as usual (control) or structured brief advice and referral for a 20-minute motivational interviewing session with an alcohol health worker (intervention). As well as demographic and health information, baseline measures will include two 7-day time line follow-back questionnaires and the EuroQoL EQ-5D-3 L questionnaire. Measures will be repeated in telephone follow-ups in the third trimester and at 6 months post-partum, when a questionnaire on use of National Health Service and social care resources will also be completed. Information on pregnancy outcomes and stillbirths will be accessed from central health service records before the follow-ups. Primary outcomes will be rates of eligibility, recruitment, intervention delivery, and retention in the study population, to inform power calculations for a definitive trial. The health-economics component will establish how cost-effectiveness will be assessed, and examine which data on health service resource use should be collected in a main trial. Participants’ views on instruments and procedures will be sought to confirm their acceptability.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The study will produce a full trial protocol with robust sample-size calculations to extend evidence on effectiveness of screening and brief intervention.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN43218782</p