ASSESSMENT OF MICROALBUMINURIA IN ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSIVES AND ITS RESPONSE TO ANGIOTENSIN-CONVERTING ENZYME INHIBITOR THERAPY

ABSTRACTObjective: Objective is to study the prevalence of microalbuminuria among patients suffering from essential hypertension and also to evaluate theresponse of microalbuminuria to angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors therapy.Methods: The study conducted at Santosh Medical College and Hospital, Ghaziabad, on 300 patients with essential hypertension. After attainingbaseline parameters in all patients, those newly diagnosed essential hypertensives with microalbuminuria not on any treatment were started on anACE inhibitor (ramipril), for 8 weeks, after which all parameters were reassessed and comparison and statistical analysis were done to establish theprevalence of microalbuminuria and its response to therapy.Results: In our study, mean microalbuminuria excretion was 101.79 mcg/mg creatinine at the beginning of the study and 80.20 mcg/mg creatinineafter 8 weeks of ACE inhibitor therapy, with 21.2% fall rate.Conclusion: Microalbuminuria is an independent risk factor for the development or worsening of hypertensive nephropathy and endothelialdysfunction, thereby increasing the risk of micro- and macro-vascular complications.Keywords: Microalbuminuria, Essential hypertension, Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor therapy

BIOMARKERS IN SERUM, URIC ACID AS A RISK FACTOR FOR TYPE 2 DIABETES ASSOCIATED WITH HYPERTENSION

ABSTRACTObjectives: Uric acid (UA) is the end product of purine metabolism in humans. UA is the final oxidation product of purine catabolism and has beenimplicated in diabetes mellitus (DM) as well as in hyperlipidemias. Hyperuricemia can cause serious health problems including renal insufficiency.Hyperuricemia is associated with many diseases including hypertension (HTN), DM, hypertriglyceridemia, and obesity. The aim was to determine theserum UA (SUA) level in Patients of Type 2 DM with HTN.Methods: Out of 100 samples, 50 were found as cases of Type 2 diabetic with HTN, and the 50 control samples were without Type 2 diabetic HTN.Results: SUA, glycosylated hemoglobin, and low-density lipoprotein of male and female cases of Type 2 DM with HTN compared to control were(p<0.05) highly significant and also serum triglycerides and total cholesterol of both sex groups of Type 2 DM with HTN compared to control werefound to be (p<0.05) highly significance.Conclusion: It is concluded from our present study that level of SUA >7.0 mg/dl were significantly seen in cases of diabetes with HTN. SUA ≤5.0 mg/dlwas significantly seen in subjects without diabetes with HTN. Our data showed hyperuricemia and glycated hemoglobin as significant risk factors inthe progression of DM, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, renal disorder, hypertriglyceridemia, and obesity. Further large sample size studies areneeded to be done in the direction with more focused mechanistic approaches to fortify the fact. Very little is known about the relationship betweenUA, DM, and HTN in India.Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Hypertension, Uric acid, Glycosylated hemoglobin, Lipid profil

Ensemble Sales Forecasting Study in Semiconductor Industry

Sales forecasting plays a prominent role in business planning and business strategy. The value and importance of advance information is a cornerstone of planning activity, and a well-set forecast goal can guide sale-force more efficiently. In this paper CPU sales forecasting of Intel Corporation, a multinational semiconductor industry, was considered. Past sale, future booking, exchange rates, Gross domestic product (GDP) forecasting, seasonality and other indicators were innovatively incorporated into the quantitative modeling. Benefit from the recent advances in computation power and software development, millions of models built upon multiple regressions, time series analysis, random forest and boosting tree were executed in parallel. The models with smaller validation errors were selected to form the ensemble model. To better capture the distinct characteristics, forecasting models were implemented at lead time and lines of business level. The moving windows validation process automatically selected the models which closely represent current market condition. The weekly cadence forecasting schema allowed the model to response effectively to market fluctuation. Generic variable importance analysis was also developed to increase the model interpretability. Rather than assuming fixed distribution, this non-parametric permutation variable importance analysis provided a general framework across methods to evaluate the variable importance. This variable importance framework can further extend to classification problem by modifying the mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) into misclassify error. Please find the demo code at : https://github.com/qx0731/ensemble_forecast_methodsComment: 14 pages, Industrial Conference on Data Mining 2017 (ICDM 2017

Comparative evaluation of egg based solid media for primary isolation of Paratuberculosis bacilli

81-87Paratuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is a prevalent infection and is highly expensive to livestock industry. Paratuberculosis also has zoonotic concerns with Crohn’s disease. Isolation of MAP from infected individuals/samples is the most vital for downstream studies. However, MAP is extremely fastidious organism and primary isolation is extremely difficult. Mycobacterial growth indicator tube (MGIT) medium is most recommended for primary isolation, but this medium is highly expensive and requires sophisticated instrument and is unaffordable for developing and underdeveloped world. Present study aimed to investigate the comparative performance of three different egg based solid media (MB7H10, LJ and HEYM) for the primary isolation of MAP from clinically suspected animals. Animals having signs of paratuberculosis were sampled either from farms in Jaipur District of Western India or slaughterhouse. Slaughtered animals were sampled having swollen & enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) with thickened/ corrugated intestine near ileo-cecal junction (ICJ). Fecal samples were collected from suspected cattle, buffalo, goat and sheep. MB7H10 medium showed maximum recovery of MAP isolates from clinical samples. Most of the isolates grew on MB7H10 (41.9 %) followed by LJ (22.3%) and HEYM (6.25 %). In case single medium is to be used MB7H10 is the first choice and combination of MB7H10+LJ is better. In conclusion, combination of MB7H10+LJ is the best choice for solid media for the isolation of the MAP in laboratories

Health and lifestyle of Nepalese migrants in the UK

Background: The health status and lifestyle of migrants is often poorer than that of the general population of their host countries. The Nepalese represent a relatively small, but growing, immigrant community in the UK, about whom very little is known in term of public health. Therefore, our study examined the health and lifestyle of Nepalese migrants in the UK. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of Nepalese migrants in UK was conducted in early 2007 using a postal, self-administered questionnaire in England and Scotland (n = 312), and telephone interviews in Wales (n = 15). The total response rate was 68% (327 out of 480). Data were analyzed to establish whether there are associations between socio-economic and lifestyle factors. A multivariate binary logistic regression was applied to find out independent effect of personal factors on health status. Results: The majority of respondents was male (75%), aged between 30 and 45 (66%), married or had a civil partner (83%), had university education (47%) and an annual family income (69%) ranging from £5,035 to £33,300. More than one third (39%) of the respondents have lived in the UK for 1 to 5 years and approximately half (46%) were longer-term residents. Most (95%) were registered with a family doctor, but only 38% with a dentist. A low proportion (14%) of respondents smoked but more than half (61%) consumed alcohol. More than half (57%) did not do regular exercises and nearly one fourth (23%) of respondents rated their health as poor. Self reported 'good' health status of the respondents was independently associated with immigration status and doing regular exercise Conclusion: The self reported health status and lifestyle, health seeking behaviour of Nepalese people who are residing in UK appears to be good. However, the overall regular exercise and dentist registration was rather poor. Health promotion, especially aimed at Nepalese migrants could help encourage them to exercise regularly and assist them to register with a dentist

Ethylene induced stay-green gene expression regulates drought stress in wheat

761-769Stay-green is an integrated drought adaptation trait characterized by a green leaf phenotype during grain filling under terminal drought. Ethylene is the key hormone for regulating the leaf senescence pathway under natural and stress conditions. The present study was conducted to assess the associative function of ethylene in regulating chlorophyll degrading enzymes viz., chlorophyllase (TaCHLase) and pheophorbide a oxygenase (TaPaO) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under drought stress. Three wheat genotypes (HW 4059, HW 4022 and HW 2078) differing in drought tolerance efficiency were subjected to drought stress for ten days at the reproductive stage. A decline in stay-green traits was found in susceptible genotypes (HW 4059) with yield losses compared to tolerant ones (HW 4022 and HW 2078). The expression level of TaCHLase1 and TaPaO was higher in susceptible genotypes than tolerant ones under drought/osmotic stress. Ethylene upregulated, while ethylene inhibitors downregulated the gene expression. In this study, a novel gene annotated as TaCHLase1 was cloned. The complete cDNA sequence of TaCHLase1 is composed of 1054 bp nucleotides containing an open reading frame of 960 bp encoding 319 amino acids. The encoded protein contained conserved residues such as lipase motif GXSXGG at position 143-148 and putative active site Ser145. Sequence alignment showed TaCHLase1 shares a higher degree of identity with other species. The result suggested that ethylene upregulates the expression of TaCHLase1 gene, inducing chlorophyll degradation. The study further helps in understanding the mechanism of stay-green trait-induced drought tolerance mechanism in wheat

Comparative evaluation of egg based solid media for primary isolation of Paratuberculosis bacilli

Paratuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is a prevalent infection and is highly expensive to livestock industry. Paratuberculosis also has zoonotic concerns with Crohn’s disease. Isolation of MAP from infected individuals/samples is the most vital for downstream studies. However, MAP is extremely fastidious organism and primary isolation is extremely difficult. Mycobacterial growth indicator tube (MGIT) medium is most recommended for primary isolation, but this medium is highly expensive and requires sophisticated instrument and is unaffordable for developing and underdeveloped world. Present study aimed to investigate the comparative performance of three different egg based solid media (MB7H10, LJ and HEYM) for the primary isolation of MAP from clinically suspected animals. Animals having signs of paratuberculosis were sampled either from farms in Jaipur District of Western India or slaughterhouse. Slaughtered animals were sampled having swollen & enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) with thickened/ corrugated intestine near ileo-cecal junction (ICJ). Fecal samples were collected from suspected cattle, buffalo, goat and sheep. MB7H10 medium showed maximum recovery of MAP isolates from clinical samples. Most of the isolates grew on MB7H10 (41.9 %) followed by LJ (22.3%) and HEYM (6.25 %). In case single medium is to be used MB7H10 is the first choice and combination of MB7H10+LJ is better. In conclusion, combination of MB7H10+LJ is the best choice for solid media for the isolation of the MAP in laboratories