Classical supravalvar aortic stenosis and peripheral pulmonary stenosis

Supravalvar aortic stenosis as well as peripheral pulmonary stenosis are rare forms of congenital heart disease, which occur, however, relatively frequently in association. This article reports and discusses the classical findings of SVAS and PPS upon clinical examination and imaging in a sixyear-old girl that presented with repeated respiratory tract infections and failure to thrive.peer-reviewe

A REVIEW STUDY ON BIOLOGICAL ILL EFFECTS AND HEALTH HAZARDS OF AFLATOXINS

Aflatoxins are a group of secondary metabolites produced mainly by Aspergillus flavus and also by Aspergillus parasiticus, that are acutely toxic to warm blooded animals including human beings. Aflatoxin producing species of Aspergillus are quite common and widespread in nature. They can colonise and contaminate grains before harvest or during storage. Host crops are particularly susceptible to infection by Aspergillus following prolonged exposure to a high humidity environment. Other favourable conditions include high moisture content and high temperature. The aflatoxins can be found on a wide range of commodities including cereals, pulses, oilseeds, spices and dry fruits. In India, aflatoxins have been reported from a variety of edible substances such as cereals, oil seeds, spices, vegetables, dry fruits, pulses, areca nut, coconut and fast foods. The aflatoxins became the focus of intense investigations when outbreaks of disease called "Turkey X' disease" occurred in Poultry during 1960 in U.K. Since the beginning of mycotoxin research the aflatoxin problem has been an economic burden for the food crops, livestock and poultry industry. The aflatoxins are acutely toxic being carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic to rat and other experimental animals, so there has always been a concern about contamination of food with aflatoxins and threat to both human and animal health. Primarily aflatoxin B1, B2, G1, G2 and M1 are of interest. The aflatoxin M1 is hydroxylated metabolite of B1 that is the most frequently occurring aflatoxin. Further aflatoxin B1, is one of the most potent hepato- carcinogens known, hence levels of aflatoxins in the diet are an important consideration for human health. It is therefore, essential to device suitable cheap and safe control measures to minimize the deleterious effects of these mycotoxins. The aim of this review study was to explore the biological ill effects and health hazards due to these aflatoxins

BIOPESTICIDES ARE THE NEED OF PRESENT TIME FOR SAFE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTHY HUMANS

India is one of the most populous countries in the world therefore food problems are of prime importance. Poor population of India amounts to more than 300 million people therefore to achieve food security; grain produced must be protected from depredating agents such as insects and other pests during harvesting as well as storage. The easy handling and relatively cheaper synthetic chemical pesticide controls measure are very common and most widely used in India. One of the major causes of cancer in agriculture workers is excessive use of chemical pesticides. These chemical pesticides cause negative effects on human health and quality of the environment. Ecofriendly alternatives to chemical pesticides are biopesticides because they generally affect only the target pest without any negative effect on human health and the environment. The aim of this review study was to explore the need of biopesticides in present time due to their useful aspects and also due to biological ill effects of synthetic chemical pesticide

Shear-strain-induced Spatially Varying Super-lattice Structures on Graphite studied by STM

We report on the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) observation of linear fringes together with spatially varying super-lattice structures on (0001) graphite (HOPG) surface. The structure, present in a region of a layer bounded by two straight carbon fibers, varies from a hexagonal lattice of 6nm periodicity to nearly a square lattice of 13nm periodicity. It then changes into a one-dimensional (1-D) fringe-like pattern before relaxing into a pattern-free region. We attribute this surface structure to a shear strain giving rise to a spatially varying rotation of the affected graphite layer relative to the bulk substrate. We propose a simple method to understand these moire patterns by looking at the fixed and rotated lattices in the Fourier transformed k-space. Using this approach we can reproduce the spatially varying 2-D lattice as well as the 1-D fringes by simulation. The 1-D fringes are found to result from a particular spatial dependence of the rotation angle.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Computational Investigation of Novel Tip Leakage Mitigation Methods for High Pressure Turbine Blades

This paper presents preliminary findings on a possible approach to reducing tip leakage losses. In this paper a computational study was conducted on the Energy Efficient Engine (EEE) High Pressure Turbine (HPT) rotor tip geometry using the commercial numerical solver ANSYS FLUENT. The flow solver was validated against aerodynamic data acquired in the NASA Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade facility. The scope of the ongoing study is to computationally investigate how the tip leakage and overall blade losses are affected by (1) injection from the tip near the pressure side, (2) injection from the tip surface at the camber line, and (3) injection from the tip surface into the tip separation bubble. The objective is to identify the locations on the tip surface at which to place appropriately configured blowing keeping in mind the film cooling application of tip blowing holes. The validation was conducted at Reynolds numbers of 85,000, 343,000, and 685,000 and at engine realistic flow conditions. The coolant injection simulations were conducted at a Reynolds number of 343,000 based on blade chord and inlet velocity and utilized the SST turbulence model in FLUENT. The key parameters examined are the number of jets, jet angle and jet location. A coolant to inlet pressure ratio of 1.0 was studied for angles of +30 deg, -30 deg, and 90 deg to the local free stream on the tip. For the 3 hole configuration, 3 holes spaced 3 hole diameters apart with length to diameter ratio of 1.5 were used. A simulation including 11 holes along the entire mean camber line is also presented (30 deg toward suction side). In addition, the effect of a single hole is also compared to a flat tip with no injection. The results provide insight into tip flow control methods and can be used to guide further investigation into tip flow control. As noted in past research it is concluded that reducing leakage flow is not necessarily synonymous with reducing losses due to leakage

Evaluating serum bilirubin levels in acute appendicitis and appendiceal perforation

Background: Acute appendicitis is one of the commonest surgical emergencies. Authors undertook this study to evaluate serum bilirubin levels in acute appendicitis and appendiceal perforation.Methods: A retrospective study evaluating the serum bilirubin levels in acute appendicitis and appendiceal perforation was carried out for 6 years at three tertiary care hospitals at India from 2014 to 2019. Patients having acute appendicitis and appendiceal perforation, confirmed on histopathology, with no other medical or surgical comorbidity were included in the study.Results: The total number of our study subjects was 927. 306 patients had appendiceal perforation, amongst these, 226 (74%) had hyperbilirubinemia. Out of the 621 patients having acute appendicitis only 186 (30%) had hyperbilirubinemia. The lowest and the highest serum bilirubin levels of this study group were 0.6 and 3.1 mg/dl, respectively, with an average of 1.6 mg/dl. In patients diagnosed to be having acute appendicitis, the lowest and highest serum bilirubin levels were 0.6 and 2.4 mg/dl, respectively, with an average of 1.3 mg/dl. As for the patients having appendiceal perforation the lowest and highest serum bilirubin levels were 0.8 and 3.1 mg/dl, respectively, with an average of 1.8 mg/dl.Conclusions: Hyperbilirubinemia is seen in acute appendicitis but predominantly in appendiceal perforation, so serum bilirubin estimation may help us in diagnosing appendiceal perforation pre-operatively if and when used in conjunction with other available diagnostic modalities

Coastal management to protect the fisheries resources of Gujarat coast - a case study

Gujarat, a unique maritime state has the longest coastline of 1 ,663 km length and characterized by presence of two gulfs namely the Gulf of Kachchh and the Gulf of Khambhat. The four major rivers of Gujarat (Sabarmati, Mahi, Narmada and Tapti) discharged 70387 Mm3IYear to the Gulf of Khambhat as of 1975. Since then several dams have been constructed on these rivers and their tributaries reducing the volumes of the outflow. It can, safely be assumed that the outflow of nutrient-laden silt from these rivers has, also reduced proportionately/ significantly changing the hydrological cycles