HOSPITAL-BASED CLINICAL STUDY ON PREVALENCE OF TPO ANTIBODIES IN ASSOCIATION TO AUTOIMMUNE THYROID DISEASES IN TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Objective: Autoimmune thyroid disease is one of the organs specific autoimmune disorders. The onset is much more common in women than in men. Worldwide, 2–4% of women and only 1% of men have affected and the rate increases with age. Thyroperoxidase (TPO) antibodies (Abs) level helps to diagnose autoimmune thyroid disease along with levels of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), Free Tri-iodotyrosine (Free T3), and Free Thyroxin(Free T4) and it helps in differentiation between subclinical and overt thyroidism. The core objective of clinical study was to evaluate prevalence of anti-TPO Abs in association to autoimmune thyroid disease in a tertiary care hospital – Punjab. Methods: A cross-sectional study of random patient (n=200 patients) at a tertiary care hospital, Mohall – Punjab was carried out. All the patients fall in the age group 12–89 years. The parameters, which were used for the diagnosis of autoimmune thyroid disease, were anti-TPO level, Free T3 level, and Free T4 level. The patients were divided in different group on the basis of their age, gender, and their clinical conditions. The level of TPO Abs, TSH, Free T3, and Free T4 was noted for each patient. Electrochemiluminescence immunoassay method was used for determination of TPO Abs and other thyroid parameters. After a period of 16 weeks, subjects from different groups had great difference in their anti-TPO values in the autoimmune thyroid disease. Results: TPO Abs positive is one of the most common associated with hypothyroidism which was 36.5%, among them 20.5% suffered from subclinical hypothyroidism, whereas other remaining suffered from clinical hypothyroidism, clinical hyperthyroidism, and other autoimmune disease. Conclusion: TPO Abs level helps to diagnose autoimmune thyroid disease, along with this the level of TSH, Free T3, and Free T4 helps in differentiation between subclinical and overt thyroidism

A compact and highly collimated atomic/molecular beam source

We describe the design, characterization and application of a simple, highly collimated and compact atomic/molecular beam source. This source is based on a segmented capillary design, constructed using a syringe needle. Angular width measurements and free molecular flow simulations show that the segmented structure effectively suppresses atoms travelling in off-axis directions, resulting in a narrow beam of Helium atoms having a width of 7 mrad (full width half maximum). We demonstrate an application of this source by using it for monitoring real-time changes in surface coverage on a clean Cu(110) surface exposed to oxygen, by measuring specular reflectivity of the Helium beam generated using this source.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, supplementary information (1 figure

Simultaneous parametric optimization of micro-EDM drilling of brass C360 using Taguchi based grey relation analysis

Micro-EDM (Electro Discharge Machining) is widely used for precision manufacturing and drilling micro-holes in materials used in fuel nozzles, micro sensors and robots, surgical instruments, turbines etc. Present paper deals with drilling common C360 brass components by micro-machining and optimizing the process parameter using a hybrid approach of design of experiments (DoE) and grey relation analysis (GRA) concept. The three process responses considered are material removal rate (MRR), tool wear rate (TWR) and taper in drilled hole while the four selected controllable process parameters are capacitance(C), voltage(V), feed rate(f) and rotational speed of electrode (N). Significance of input factors on each response is analyzed with the help of a 24 full factorial by conducting 16 experiments at two levels for factors. Optimum levels of robustness for each process response are established through Taguchi’s S/N ratio. A combined grey relation grade is applied to find the process levels conducive for optimizing MRR and TWR simultaneously

CORRELATION OF BODY MASS INDEX WITH THYROID-STIMULATING HORMONES IN THYROID PATIENT

Objective: The present study was investigated to determine the correlation of body mass index (BMI) with thyroid-stimulating hormones (TSH) in thyroid patient.Methods: The data which are used in this study were taken in Tagore Hospital and Heart Care Centre (Jalandhar). A total of 90 volunteers both males and females in the age group between 17 and 85 years were included in this study. The following information taken on pro forma such as age in years, height (cm), weight (kg), and history (including: Chief complaints, family thyroid history, blood pressure, temperature, and head and neck examination) from the subjects were collected. Serum T3, T4 and TSH test are performed by the use of instrument ADVIA Centaur@CP Immunoassay System (SIEMENS). The total data were divided into three groups named as: Subclinical hypothyroid (SH) (n=30), euthyroid (n=57), and hyperthyroid including only three patients, and according to age, weight (kg), height (m2), and BMI, the mean±standard deviation (S.D) values were calculated. The BMI is calculated with the formula given by the WHO.Results: For correlation analysis, according to total male and female population in euthyroid group, the mean and SD values of TSH and BMI were calculated. Maximum values of T3 (4.7) and T4 (22.1) in hyperthyroid and TSH (9.9) in SH group were found. The high mean values of T3 (2.92) and T4 (18.46) in hyperthyroid and TSH (29.1) in SH group were observed. Low mean values of T3 (0.97) and T4 (7.7) in SH and low mean TSH (0.04) in hypothyroid group were noticed.Conclusion: Based on the data analysis, it can interpreted that a poor positive correlation between TSH and BMI and poor negative correlation between TSH and BMI are associated in euthyroid subjects. It indicates that, when TSH increases, the BMI will also be increased in total and female euthyroid subjects

Orthodontic repositioning of traumatically intruded permanent incisors - A report of three cases

Intrusive luxation of permanent teeth is one of the most serious traumatic dental injuries involving damage to the gingival tissue, periodontal ligament, cementum, bone and to the neurovascular supply of the pulp. In addition to disruption of normal tooth development and eruption, it can also lead to pulpal necrosis, root resorption and marginal bone loss. Based on the extent/severity, intrusion maybe classified into mild (<3 mm), moderate (3-6mm) and severe (>6mm). Available techniques for managing intrusive luxation include a wait-and-watch approach to allow for spontaneous re-eruption, orthodontic traction and surgical repositioning. The type of treatment approach employed depends upon the stage of root development, severity of intrusive luxation and the presence or absence of alveolar fractures. It is difficult to predict reliable outcomes with these approaches, since the presence of variables such as the severity of intrusion, associated crown/root fracture, stage of root development and presence of alveolar fractures may alter the prognosis. The present article presents a series of three cases with intrusive luxation of permanent incisors successfully treated using an interdisciplinary approach involving orthodontic traction along with endodontic rehabilitation

Resveratrol and Black Tea Polyphenol Combination Synergistically Suppress Mouse Skin Tumors Growth by Inhibition of Activated MAPKs and p53

Cancer chemoprevention by natural dietary agents has received considerable importance because of their cost-effectiveness and wide safety margin. However, single agent intervention has failed to bring the expected outcome in clinical trials; therefore, combinations of chemopreventive agents are gaining increasing popularity. The present study aims to evaluate the combinatorial chemopreventive effects of resveratrol and black tea polyphenol (BTP) in suppressing two-stage mouse skin carcinogenesis induced by DMBA and TPA. Resveratrol/BTP alone treatment decreased tumor incidence by ∼67% and ∼75%, while combination of both at low doses synergistically decreased tumor incidence even more significantly by ∼89% (p<0.01). This combination also significantly regressed tumor volume and number (p<0.01). Mechanistic studies revealed that this combinatorial inhibition was associated with decreased expression of phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase family proteins: extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2, c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1/2, p38 and increased in total p53 and phospho p53 (Ser 15) in skin tissue/tumor. Treatment with combinations of resveratrol and BTP also decreased expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen in mouse skin tissues/tumors than their solitary treatments as determined by immunohistochemistry. In addition, histological and cell death analysis also confirmed that resveratrol and BTP treatment together inhibits cellular proliferation and markedly induces apoptosis. Taken together, our results for the first time lucidly illustrate that resveratrol and BTP in combination impart better suppressive activity than either of these agents alone and accentuate that development of novel combination therapies/chemoprevention using dietary agents will be more beneficial against cancer. This promising combination should be examined in therapeutic trials of skin and possibly other cancers

Near-Optimal Nonmyopic Contact Center Planning using Dual Decomposition

We address the problem of minimizing staffing cost in a contact center subject to service level requirements over multiple weeks. We handle both the capacity planning and agent schedule generation aspect of this problem. Our work incorporates two unique business requirements. First, we develop techniques that can provide near-optimal staffing for 247 contact centers over long term, upto eight weeks, rather than planning myopically on a week-on-week basis. Second, our approach is usable in an online interactive setting in which staffing managers using our system expect high quality plans within a short time period. Results on large real world and synthetic instances show that our Lagrangian relaxation based technique can achieve a solution within 94% of optimal on an average, for eight week problems within ten minutes, whereas a generic integer programming solver can only achieve a solution within 80% of optimal. Our approach is also deployed in live business environment and reduces headcount by a decile over techniques used previously by our client business units

Enabling accurate indoor localization for different platforms for smart cities using a transfer learning algorithm

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley in Internet Technology Letters on 17/09/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/itl2.200 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Indoor localization algorithms in smart cities often use Wi‐Fi fingerprints as a database of Received Signal Strength (RSS) and its corresponding position coordinate for position estimation. However, the issue of fingerprinting is the use of different platform‐devices. To this end, we propose a Long Short‐Term Memory (LSTM)‐based novel indoor positioning mechanism in smart city environment. We used LSTM, a type of recurrent neural network to process sequential data of users’ trajectory in indoor buildings. The proposed approach first utilizes a database of normalizing fingerprint landmarks to calculateWiFi Access Points (WAPs) RSS values to mitigate the fluctuation issue and then apply the normalization parameters on the RSS values during the online phase. Afterwards, we constructed a transfer model to adapt the RSS values during the offline phase and then applying it on the RSS values from the different smartphones during the online phase. Thorough simulation results confirm that the proposed approach can obtain 1.5 to 2 meters positioning accuracy for indoor environments, which is 60 % higher than traditional approaches