Retinopathy of prematurity in preterm babies in a local medical college and hospital

Background: Retinopathy of prematurity is a multifactorial vasoproliferative retinal disease that increases in incidence with decreasing gestational age and is one of the leading causes of preventable childhood blindness in India. Advances in neonatology have led to dramatic increase in survival of preterm neonates and in turn, to the risk of developing ROP. Since most of the risk factors associated with ROP mentioned above arise in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) itself and most of them are avoidable, cautious monitoring of the risk factors, early screening, follow up and surgical intervention have been shown to reduce the incidence and improve the outcome of ROP.Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted for a period of 2 years. A total of 151 infants admitted in NICU /SNCU who satisfied the inclusion criteria were enrolled in this study. Initial and follow up screening was conducted in three phases the results were documented in proforma after ethical clearance.Results: Comparison of risk factors between eyes with and without ROP was done using Chi-square test. A p-value of<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Incidence of ROP in centre is found to be 33.8%. Among maternal risk factors, multiple gestation and PROM/PPROM is found to be significant in the development of ROP from this study. However, mode of delivery and gestational hypertension, were found to be not significant in ROP. Among neonatal risk factors, low birth weight, lower gestational age, prolonged oxygen exposure, blood transfusion, mechanical ventilation, sepsis, phototherapy was found to be significant in this study.Conclusions: ROP, being an emerging cause for potentially blinding visual disability, needs to be diagnosed early. Due to the advancements in neonatology and better survival of preterm babies, timely screening, regular follow up, early detection and intervention is mandatory. A multidisciplinary approach is required in diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Proper counselling and motivation for parents of preterm and low birth weight babies for regular follow up is also essential

INBAND MULTICAST FAULT DETECTION TO REDUCE SERVICE COST

Techniques herein define a simple, but very useful, extension to hop-by-hop signaling that can be utilized to determine a failed node in a network, which may help to reduce fault detection time. In one instance, techniques described herein may involve multicast Label Distribution Protocol (mLDP)-based signaling, however, other replication technologies that involve underlay signaling may be utilized in accordance with techniques described herein

The database of quantitative cellular signaling: management and analysis of chemical kinetic models of signaling networks

Motivation: Analysis of cellular signaling interactions is expected to pose an enormous informatics challenge, perhaps even larger than analyzing the genome. The complex networks arising from signaling processes are traditionally represented as block diagrams. A key step in the evolution toward a more quantitative understanding of signaling is to explicitly specify the kinetics of all chemical reaction steps in a pathway. Technical advances in proteomics and high-throughput protein interaction assays promise a flood of such quantitative data. While annotations, molecular information and pathway connectivity have been compiled in several databases, and there are several proposals for general cell model description languages, there is currently little experience with databases of chemical kinetics and reaction level models of signaling networks. Results: The Database of Quantitative Cellular Signaling is a repository of models of signaling pathways. It is intended both to serve the growing field of chemical-reaction level simulation of signaling networks, and to anticipate issues in large-scale data management for signaling chemistry

MULTICAST VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK PER-FLOW MONITORING FOR AN AGGREGATED TUNNEL IN A MULTIPROTOCOL LABEL SWITCHING CORE

Typically, when a service provider carries customer multicast traffic over a core network, it is often carried over a tunnel, which are often aggregated. There are many reasons for aggregated tunnel use, such as issues of scale and/or hardware limitations. While aggregated tunnels can be useful for carrying multicast traffic, it can be difficult to monitor network health when tunnels are aggregated. Techniques of this proposal provide for the ability to monitor network health by supporting per-flow counters for aggregated tunnels for both Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 and version 6 (IPv4/IPv6) traffic in a manner that is scalable and can be provided on-demand

Availability and Accessibility of Research Outputs in NARS: A case study with IARI

This article focuses on the trends in publication, authorship pattern, availability, and accessibility of articles during 2008&ndash;2010 from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), a constituent of the National Agricultural Research System in India. The data reveal that during the period of study, researchers from IARI produced 1,833 publications, most of which were jointly authored, and that the most preferred journal for publication by researchers is the Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, which is now an Open Access journal. While publications from IARI are available to subscribers of the Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA), public availability to IARI publications is very meager. Hence, in order to make their research output more accessible and available to a wider audience, IARI researchers should deposit their work in IARI&rsquo;s Open Access repository Eprints@IARI. However, making such a deposit requires an Open Access policy, which IARI is yet to adopt

LHC Magnet Tests: Operational Techniques and Empowerment for Successful Completion

The LHC magnet tests operation team developed various innovative techniques, particularly since early 2004, to complete the superconductor magnet tests by Feb. 2007. Overall and cryogenic priority handling, rapid on-bench thermal cycling, rule-based goodness evaluation on round-the-clock basis, multiple, mashed web systems are some of these techniques applied with rigour for successful tests completion in time. This paper highlights these operation empowerment tools which had a pivotal role for success. A priority handling method was put in place to enable maximum throughput from twelve test benches, having many different constraints. For the cryogenics infrastructure, it implied judicious allocation of limited resources to the benches. Rapid On-Bench Thermal Cycle was a key strategy to accelerate magnets tests throughput, saving time and simplifying logistics. First level magnet appraisal was developed for 24 hr decision making so as to prepare a magnet further for LHC or keep it on standby. Web based systems (Tests Management and E-Traveller) were other essential ideas to track & coordinate various stages of tests handled by different teams

Optimizing Village-Level Targeting of Active Case Detection to Support Visceral Leishmaniasis Elimination in India.

Background: India has made major progress in improving control of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in recent years, in part through shortening the time infectious patients remain untreated. Active case detection decreases the time from VL onset to diagnosis and treatment, but requires substantial human resources. Targeting approaches are therefore essential to feasibility. Methods: We analyzed data from the Kala-azar Management Information System (KAMIS), using village-level VL cases over specific time intervals to predict risk in subsequent years. We also graphed the time between cases in villages and examined how these patterns track with village-level risk of additional cases across the range of cumulative village case-loads. Finally, we assessed the trade-off between ACD effort and yield. Results: In 2013, only 9.3% of all villages reported VL cases; this proportion shrank to 3.9% in 2019. Newly affected villages as a percentage of all affected villages decreased from 54.3% in 2014 to 23.5% in 2019, as more surveillance data accumulated and overall VL incidence declined. The risk of additional cases in a village increased with increasing cumulative incidence, reaching approximately 90% in villages with 12 cases and 100% in villages with 45 cases, but the vast majority of villages had small cumulative case numbers. The time-to-next-case decreased with increasing case-load. Using a 3-year window (2016-2018), a threshold of seven VL cases at the village level selects 329 villages and yields 23% of cases reported in 2019, while a threshold of three cases selects 1,241 villages and yields 46% of cases reported in 2019. Using a 6-year window increases both effort and yield. Conclusion: Decisions on targeting must consider the trade-off between number of villages targeted and yield and will depend upon the operational efficiencies of existing programs and the feasibility of specific ACD approaches. The maintenance of a sensitive, comprehensive VL surveillance system will be crucial to preventing future VL resurgence

Impact of IRS: Four-years of entomological surveillance of the Indian Visceral Leishmaniases elimination programme

BACKGROUND In 2005, Bangladesh, India and Nepal agreed to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis (VL) as a public health problem. The approach to this was through improved case detection and treatment, and controlling transmission by the sand fly vector Phlebotomus argentipes, with indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticide. Initially, India applied DDT with stirrup pumps for IRS, however, this did not reduce transmission. After 2015 onwards, the pyrethroid alpha-cypermethrin was applied with compression pumps, and entomological surveillance was initiated in 2016. METHODS Eight sentinel sites were established in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. IRS coverage was monitored by household survey, quality of insecticide application was measured by HPLC, presence and abundance of the VL vector was monitored by CDC light traps, insecticide resistance was measured with WHO diagnostic assays and case incidence was determined from the VL case register KAMIS. RESULTS Complete treatment of houses with IRS increased across all sites from 57% in 2016 to 70% of houses in 2019, rising to >80% if partial house IRS coverage is included (except West Bengal). The quality of insecticide application has improved compared to previous studies, average doses of insecticide on filters papers ranged from 1.52 times the target dose of 25mg/m2 alpha-cypermethrin in 2019 to 1.67 times in 2018. Resistance to DDT has continued to increase, but the vector was not resistant to carbamates, organophosphates or pyrethroids. The annual and seasonal abundance of P. argentipes declined between 2016 to 2019 with an overall infection rate of 0.03%. This was associated with a decline in VL incidence for the blocks represented by the sentinel sites from 1.16 per 10,000 population in 2016 to 0.51 per 10,000 in 2019. CONCLUSION Through effective case detection and management reducing the infection reservoirs for P. argentipes in the human population combined with IRS keeping P. argentipes abundance and infectivity low has reduced VL transmission. This combination of effective case management and vector control has now brought India within reach of the VL elimination targets