Nutritional Status and Menarcheal Age of Rural Adolescent Girls of Salboni Block of Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India

Age at menarche is a significant indicator of growth and sexual maturation in girls. During adolescence, anthropometry provides a tool for monitoring and evaluating the hormone-mediated changes in growth and reproductive maturation. Menarche is defined as the first menstrual period. It is considered to be the most obvious sign of puberty in girls. It has been regarded in many cultures as a transitional step to womanhood. This is a cross-sectional study which is done on 1009 school girls who belonged to Salboni block of district Paschim Medinipur of West Bengal, India. To study effect of nutrition on age at menarche, different anthropometric measurements were applied. The study had been done on 10-19 adolescents school girls (1009). For this study, different types of anthropometric measurements were taken like weight and height. Height is measured through anthropometric rod, and weight by a weighing machine. Triceps and biceps Skinfolds are taken by skinfold caliper. Structured questionnaires were followed to know details of socio-economic status. Height was measured to the nearest 0.1 cm and weight to the nearest 0.5 kg. Each subject was weighed with minimum clothing and no footwear. Among studied sample, 896 girls had experienced menarche. Their mean age at menarche was 11.88 years (1.23). To compare anthropometric variable premenarchel and postmenarcheal girls that mean anthropometric measurement of premenarcheal girls more higher than post menarcheal girls in studied girls minimum age at menarche is 9 years and maximum age at menarche was 17 years. Body mass index increased progressively from 13 years to 19 years of age where overall increase was 1.89 kg/m2 from 10 to 19 years which was statistically significant with age (F=17.3, P<0.001), percent body fat was statistically significant with age (F=38.7, P<0.001). Nutritional status was better in postmenarcheal girls than in premenarcheal girls. The study represents typical differential rates of positive change in different body composition measures after the attainment of menarche

Understanding the relationship between micro and macro-scale properties in sodium silicate activated slag-fly ash binders

Sodium silicate activated slag-fly-ash binders (SFBs) are room temperature hardening binders that have excellent mechanical properties and significantly lower carbon footprint than OPC. The aim of this study is two-fold. One is to understand setting in slag fly ash binders as a function of slag/fly ash ratio by using two complementary methods namely, Ultrasonic Wave Reflectometry (UWR), and modified Procter penetration test (ASTM C403). The other aim is to develop a method to differentiate and quantify all poorly-ordered phases (unreacted slag, unreacted fly ash, C(A)SH and geopolymer) present in slag fly ash binders as a function of curing time, curing temperature and slag/fly ash ratio. This was achieved by using selective chemical extractions and nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS-NMR) spectroscopy of binders and extraction residues. The results from MAS-NMR were used to explain the observed trend in compressive strength, as a function of the same variables listed above. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Obesity, body fat distribution and other risk factors of non-insulin- dependent diabetes mellitus in different ethnic groups living in East Anglia.

Digitisation of this thesis was sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

Respondent or non-respondent comparison post cardiac resynchronisation therapy implantation in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy can be treated using cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) effectively. In our study, we compared the clinical and biochemical profile of responders and non-responders to CRT device (CRTD) implantation suffering from DCM. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was performed in 47 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy for CRTD implantation for a period of 18 months. The tools used for the study include electrocardiography 12 lead, echocardiography: 2D, M mode, Doppler, strain echo, Holter monitoring, coronary angiography and CRTD implantation. Statistical analysis was performed using Epi Info (TM) 7.2.2.2. Results: The proportion of responders (68.1%) was significantly higher than non-responder (31.9%). Almost 60% of patients in non-responder group had smoking as a risk factor. Around 60% were suffering from hypertension and 33% from T2DM in non-respondent group. Parameters of dyssynchrony has significantly improved in responder group than in non-responder group. LVEDV, LVESV has shown an increase and EF has decreased considerably in DCM patients. Many patients in non-responder category have shown mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. Strain echocardiography parameters-GLS, GRS and GCS were significantly decreased. Post CRTD echocardiographic parameter has improved considerably and LVESV was reduced in more than 15% of responders. Conclusions: The CRTD implantation improves patients’ clinical and Echocardiographic data which can help in better patient management, improving quality of life and decreased healthcare cost. By this study we can improve patients’ selection and predict accordingly for CRT responders and non-responders and can take necessary measures for better patient’s management

Know Thy Strengths: Comprehensive Dialogue State Tracking Diagnostics

Recent works that revealed the vulnerability of dialogue state tracking (DST) models to distributional shifts have made holistic comparisons on robustness and qualitative analyses increasingly important for understanding their relative performance. We present our findings from standardized and comprehensive DST diagnoses, which have previously been sparse and uncoordinated, using our toolkit, CheckDST, a collection of robustness tests and failure mode analytics. We discover that different classes of DST models have clear strengths and weaknesses, where generation models are more promising for handling language variety while span-based classification models are more robust to unseen entities. Prompted by this discovery, we also compare checkpoints from the same model and find that the standard practice of selecting checkpoints using validation loss/accuracy is prone to overfitting and each model class has distinct patterns of failure. Lastly, we demonstrate how our diagnoses motivate a pre-finetuning procedure with non-dialogue data that offers comprehensive improvements to generation models by alleviating the impact of distributional shifts through transfer learning.Comment: EMNLP202

On the use of varied natural fibers as sustainable sources to tailor highly efficient geopolymer composite materials

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Coexistence of surface oxygen vacancy and interface conducting states in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 revealed by low-angle resonant soft X-ray scattering

Oxide heterostructures have shown rich physics phenomena, particularly in the conjunction of exotic insulator-metal transition (IMT) at the interface between polar insulator LaAlO3 and non-polar insulator SrTiO3 (LaAlO3/SrTiO3). Polarization catastrophe model has suggested an electronic reconstruction yielding to metallicity at both the interface and surface. Another scenario is the occurrence of surface oxygen vacancy at LaAlO3 (surface-Ov), which has predicted surface-to-interface charge transfer yielding metallic interface but insulating surface. To clarify the origin of IMT, one should probe surface-Ov and the associated electronic structures at both the surface and the buried interface simultaneously. Here, using low-angle resonant soft X-ray scattering (LA-RSXS) supported with first-principles calculations, we reveal the co-existence of the surface-Ov state and the interface conducting state only in conducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (001) films. Interestingly, both the surface-Ov state and the interface conducting state are absent for the insulating film. As a function of Ov density, while the surface-Ov state is responsible for the IMT, the spatial charge distribution is found responsible for a transition from two-dimensional-like to three-dimensional-like conducting accompanied by spectral weight transfer, revealing the importance of electronic correlation. Our results show the importance of surface-Ov in determining interface properties and provides a new strategy in utilizing LA-RSXS to directly probe the surface and buried interface electronic properties in complex oxide heterostructures

Association of SUMOlation Pathway Genes With Stroke in a Genome-wide Association Study in India

OBJECTIVE: To undertake a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic variants for stroke in an Indian population. METHODS: In a hospital-based case-control study, 8 teaching hospitals in India recruited 4,088 participants, including 1,609 stroke cases. Imputed genetic variants were tested for association with stroke subtypes using both single-marker and gene-based tests. Association with vascular risk factors was performed with logistic regression. Various databases were searched for replication, functional annotation, and association with related traits. Status of candidate genes previously reported in the Indian population was also checked. RESULTS: Associations of vascular risk factors with stroke were similar to previous reports and show modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, and alcohol consumption as having the highest effect. Single-marker–based association revealed 2 loci for cardioembolic stroke (1p21 and 16q24), 2 for small vessel disease stroke (3p26 and 16p13), and 4 for hemorrhagic stroke (3q24, 5q33, 6q13, and 19q13) at p < 5 × 10(−8). The index single nucleotide polymorphism of 1p21 is an expression quantitative trait locus (p(lowest) = 1.74 × 10(−58)) for RWDD3 involved in SUMOylation and is associated with platelet distribution width (1.15 × 10(−9)) and 18-carbon fatty acid metabolism (p = 7.36 × 10(−12)). In gene-based analysis, we identified 3 genes (SLC17A2, FAM73A, and OR52L1) at p < 2.7 × 10(−6). Eleven of 32 candidate gene loci studied in an Indian population replicated (p < 0.05), and 21 of 32 loci identified through previous GWAS replicated according to directionality of effect. CONCLUSIONS: This GWAS of stroke in an Indian population identified novel loci and replicated previously known loci. Genetic variants in the SUMOylation pathway, which has been implicated in brain ischemia, were identified for association with stroke

Tumor-Shed PGE2 Impairs IL2Rγc-Signaling to Inhibit CD4+ T Cell Survival: Regulation by Theaflavins

BACKGROUND:Many tumors are associated with decreased cellular immunity and elevated levels of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), a known inhibitor of CD4+ T cell activation and inducer of type-2 cytokine bias. However, the role of this immunomodulator in the survival of T helper cells remained unclear. Since CD4+ T cells play critical roles in cell-mediated immunity, detail knowledge of the effect tumor-derived PGE2 might have on CD4+ T cell survival and the underlying mechanism may, therefore, help to overcome the overall immune deviation in cancer. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:By culturing purified human peripheral CD4+ T cells or Jurkat cells with spent media of theaflavin- or celecoxib-pre-treated MCF-7 cells, we show that tumor-shed PGE2 severely impairs interleukin 2 receptor gammac (IL2Rgammac)-mediated survival signaling in CD4+ T cells. Indeed, tumor-shed PGE2 down-regulates IL2Rgammac expression, reduces phosphorylation as well as activation of Janus kinase 3 (Jak-3)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (Stat-5) and decreases Bcl-2/Bax ratio thereby leading to activation of intrinsic apoptotic pathway. Constitutively active Stat-5A (Stat-5A1 6) over-expression efficiently elevates Bcl-2 levels in CD4+ T cells and protects them from tumor-induced death while dominant-negative Stat-5A over-expression fails to do so, indicating the importance of Stat-5A-signaling in CD4+ T cell survival. Further support towards the involvement of PGE2 comes from the results that (a) purified synthetic PGE2 induces CD4+ T cell apoptosis, and (b) when knocked out by small interfering RNA, cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2)-defective tumor cells fail to initiate death. Interestingly, the entire phenomena could be reverted back by theaflavins that restore cytokine-dependent IL2Rgammac/Jak-3/Stat-5A signaling in CD4+ T cells thereby protecting them from tumor-shed PGE2-induced apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:These data strongly suggest that tumor-shed PGE2 is an important factor leading to CD4+ T cell apoptosis during cancer and raise the possibility that theaflavins may have the potential as an effective immunorestorer in cancer-bearer

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat