Urban lakes and wetlands: opportunities and challenges in Indian cities - Case study of Delhi

12 p.International audienceIn India, urban water bodies commonly become cesspools due to lack of sanitation facilities. Delhi is continually urbanizing at a rapid pace that has affected the condition of water bodies. To identify water resource available within Delhi, an extensive field survey and remote sensing based mapping was carried out in Delhi to map all the water bodies including groundwater recharge sites - 44 lakes and 355 village ponds. Hauz Khas, a historical tank and important recharge site, was restored by sourcing secondary treated wastewater and further improving water quality through ecological methods including bio-remediation that are cost effective. Water quality, water recharge and avian diversity data was collected to record improvement. The water table rose by more than 6 m, biological oxygen demand decreased from 50 to 15 mg/L in 21 days, the number of resident and migratory birds increased with two resident water bird species breeding in the lake

Performance Analysis of Handwritten Marathi Character Recognition with RBF, Cascade, Elman and Feed Forward Neural Networks

Character recognition of handwritten Marathi curve scripts is one of the most challenging areas of research in neural networks due to high variability in writing styles. Marathi characters have shirolekhas and spines. This seriously affects many of the performance recognition parameters and much more.In this paper, we are performing the performance analysis of RBF neural network, Cascade Neural network, Elman Neural network and Feed forward neural network for the character recognition of handwritten Marathi curve scripts. For the experiment, we have taken in to account the six samples each of 48 Marathi characters. For every sampled character, the �Edge detection and dilation method of Feature extraction�with a set of image pre-processing operations have been performed. Here to study and analyze the performance of these four neural networks, firstly we have created the network, trained the network, simulated the network and plotted the regression plots. It has been analyzed that RBF neural networks has a high regression value as compared to the rest of the methods for the training set

Phenobarbitone induced drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS): a case report

Drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) is a life threatening cutaneous drug reaction with visceral involvement and hematological abnormalities. Being a rare side effect, it is often under-reported and misdiagnosed. The fatal adverse drug reaction is associated most commonly with aromatic anti-epileptics phenytoin, carbamazepine and less frequently with phenobarbitone. Here, we report a case of phenobarbitone induced DRESS in a 1 year old male child. He succumbed to fulminant hepatic failure inspite of being put on steroids, hepatoprotectives, antibiotics and ventilatory support

Comparative study of hypospadias morphology with normal age-matched subjects

Background: Hypospadias is the most common congenital malformation of the penis, affecting about 4-6 males per 1000 births, and ranging in severity from a ventrally located urethral meatus that is slightly off-center to tip of penis to up to the perineal area. The current research is intended towards studying the morphology of hypospadias and undertakes a comparison with the age matched population. Methods: It was an observational, cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of General Surgery, Himalayan institute of medical sciences, Swami Ram Nagar, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India over the period of 12 months. We included a total of 120 study subjects, consisting of 60 cases and 60 controls. All patients of hypospadias with no other genital pathology visiting the OPD for the 1st time were included. Patients were categorized as having distal (distal to corona), mid (proximal to corona & up to distal shaft), or proximal hypospadias (in the shaft). Mean maximum width, thickness and vertical length of the glans, stretched penile length, diameter and circumference of penile shaft were recorded. Results: Variables like stretched penile length, width and circumference of mid penile shaft and variables like urethral plate, urethral groove, breadth of dorsal hood, maximum width and thickness of glans were found to be insignificant when compared with controls. However, vertical length of glans among cases was significantly less when compared with controls. Conclusions: A significant association between vertical length of glans between controls and cases was found

A hospital based eye health survey to see the pattern of eye diseases in Uttarakhand, India

Background: The cause of blindness and low vision differs in different countries and communities. The requirements of eye services also vary according to the need of the native population. Studies showing the pattern of ocular morbidity are needed to build better infrastructure of eye care facilities.Methods: This prospective study was conducted in eye department of Government Doon Medical College, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India between April 2016 to May 2016.the patients were seen in eye OPD by ophthalmologists. Proper anterior and posterior segment evaluation was done and patients were treated accordingly. Data including the registration number, name of the patient, age, sex and diagnosis were recorded in OPD register and analysed.Results: Total 1259 patients were examined. 605 were male and 654 were female. The mean age of male patients was 43 years and for females was 41.33 years. Refractive error (20.97%) was the commonest ocular morbidity in our study followed by cataract (20.02%), follow ups of cataract surgeries and allergic conjunctivitis. Besides refractive errors total 137 (10.88%) patients were presbyopic.Conclusions: This study shows a slightly exceeding number of female patients, which shows that females are equally aware of their health problems. Refractive errors are the most common cause in present study with cataract being second, may be because of higher mean age of the patients presenting to OPD. In present study allergic conjunctivitis was third commonest cause of ocular morbidity in our district may be due to windy weather. The leading causes of ocular morbidity in our study were refractive errors, cataract, allergic conjunctivitis and, presbyopia. The high prevalence of refractive errors and cataracts shows that hospital still requires an improved infrastructure with spectacle provision to the patients

Molecular characterization of a novel isoform of rice (Oryza sativa L.) glycine rich-RNA binding protein and evidence for its involvement in high temperature stress response

A novel full-length cDNA encoding for glycine rich (GR)-RNA binding protein (RBP) (Osgr-rbp4) is isolated from rice heat shock cDNA library. Amino acid sequence of the deduced protein reveals existence of RNA recognition motif (RRM) comprising of highly conserved RNA binding RNPI and RNPII domains at the N-terminus. C-terminus of this protein is rich in arginine and glycine residues. Blast search analysis on rice genome sequence database shows that GR-RBP protein family is constituted of multiple members with high level of amino acid conservation in RNA recognition motif and glycine domain regions. Similar analysis across wider biological systems from NCBI database indicated that rice GR-RBP4 has homologs in different living genera. Osgr-rbp4 transcript in rice seedlings is constitutively expressed as well as regulated by different abiotic stresses including high temperature stress. Ectopic over-expression of Osgr-rbp4 cDNA imparts high temperature stress tolerance to wild type yeast cells. It is shown that OsGR-RBP4 in rice leaf cells and its immunologically homologous protein in tobacco BY2 protoplasts are nuclear proteins. Upon heat shock, bulk of these proteins appears to be localized in the cytoplasm. We suggest that OsGR-RBP4 probably bind and stabilize the stress-inducible transcripts under HS conditions

Relationship between anxiety, depression and quality of life in medical student with polycystic ovary syndrome

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder affecting 5-10% of women worldwide. It has clinical, hormonal and psychological manifestation like anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Aim was to evaluate prevalence of anxiety, depression, and quality of life in medical students with PCOS. Objectives were to study the prevalence of anxiety, depression among medical students suffering from PCOS; and to evaluate quality of life (QoL) in students with PCOS and its association with anxiety, depression and quality of life.Methods: The cross sectional study was conducted among 70 medical students at Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital, Udaipur, Rajasthan, from February 2019 – June 2020. Students were screened and selected as per the Rotterdam’s 2003 criteria after informed consent. Mental health assessment done by using Hamilton depression rating scale for depression, Hamilton anxiety rating scale for anxiety, and using 36-item short form survey for QoL.Results: Twenty five (35.7%) students suffered from anxiety while 20 (28.5%) had depressive disorders. Forty five (64%) patient both anxiety and depression. These students had significant psychological morbidity and poor QoL.Conclusions: Psychological morbidity with PCOS is undertreated and need to be addressed and treated in time so as to turn these students into a responsible happy adult