A prospective study on neonatal outcome of preterm births and associated factors in a South Indian tertiary hospital setting

Background: In spite of the manifold advances in obstetric care, preterm births are still a nightmare for the obstetrician, the pregnant women and her family. The present study aims to study the neonatal outcome in preterm births and its association with sociodemographic, medical and obstetric risk factors.Methods: A prospective observational study done in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in a tertiary level hospital in South India for a period of two years.Results: Majority of the preterm births in this study were in 32-34 weeks which accounted for 53.43% of the preterm births. The immediate neonatal mortality in this study is around 18.25%. The partner’s occupation, the booking status of the mother is strongly associated with preterm births. Pregnancies above the third order were also significantly associated with risk of preterm birth. 44.8% of preterm births are idiopathic, 18.64% have hypertension complicating pregnancy, 14.4% were multiple pregnancies. Neonatal mortality was 30.8 % in pregnancies with hypertension complicating pregnancies. Most common complication of prematurity in present study was Hyaline Membrane Disease and pneumonia.Conclusions: Preventive measures, early identification of risk factors and strengthening the referral system will improve the outcome of the preterm babies and to ensure a positive pregnancy outcome to all pregnant women

A prospective study on the efficacy of Pipelle biopsy to diagnose endometrial pathology in patients with abnormal uterine bleeding

Background: Abnormal uterine bleeding is one of the most common problem encountered in gynaecology clinics. Assessment of endometrial pathology is recommended to rule out malignancy and premalignant conditions. Endometrial sampling can be done by Pipelle biopsy in outpatient units as well as by conventional dilatation and curettage in an operation theatre setup. Our study aims to find out the efficacy of office endometrial biopsy in terms of its sample adequacy, diagnostic accuracy and patient acceptability.Methods: 120 women presenting with abnormal uterine bleeding were included. A detailed history along with clinical examination findings are entered in the proforma. Ultrasound scan was done for all of them to identify pelvic pathology and endometrial thickness. Endometrial sampling was then done with Pipelle without anaesthesia. Histopathology reports are collected and sample adequacy and pattern were analysed. Patients are subsequently followed up for a period up to one year. Those who underwent hysterectomy are analysed for the endometrial pathology in hysterectomy specimen which is used as gold standard and compared with Pipelle endometrial sampling histopathology.Results: Sample adequacy for Pipelle biopsy was found to be 96%. Diagnostic accuracy for atypical hyperplasia and adenocarcinoma is 92.5% and 94% respectively. In hysterectomy specimens, carcinoma endometrium coexisted with atypical hyperplasia in 40% of cases with atypical hyperplasia in pipelle biopsy report.Conclusions: Thus, Pipelle endometrial biopsy is a cost-effective method for endometrial sampling except for focal lesions

NU-AIR -- A Neuromorphic Urban Aerial Dataset for Detection and Localization of Pedestrians and Vehicles

This paper presents an open-source aerial neuromorphic dataset that captures pedestrians and vehicles moving in an urban environment. The dataset, titled NU-AIR, features 70.75 minutes of event footage acquired with a 640 x 480 resolution neuromorphic sensor mounted on a quadrotor operating in an urban environment. Crowds of pedestrians, different types of vehicles, and street scenes featuring busy urban environments are captured at different elevations and illumination conditions. Manual bounding box annotations of vehicles and pedestrians contained in the recordings are provided at a frequency of 30 Hz, yielding 93,204 labels in total. Evaluation of the dataset's fidelity is performed through comprehensive ablation study for three Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) and training ten Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to validate the quality and reliability of both the dataset and corresponding annotations. All data and Python code to voxelize the data and subsequently train SNNs/DNNs has been open-sourced.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Structural modification of phloic rays in Hevea brasiliensis with reference to tapping panel dryness and stimulation

Hevea brasiliensis, the prime source of natural rubber, when tapped intensively showed the symptoms of gradual cessation of latex flow from the tapping wound and this phenomenon is termed as tapping panel dryness (TPD), leading to a number of structural deformations in the bark tissues. The unproductive bark thus formed due to TPD is subjected to ethephon stimulation resume latex flow for a period. The study was initiated to trace the structural modifications occurred in phloic rays as an alternative route for translocation under necessity. The dimension of phloic rays also showed significant variation in TPD trees in comparison with both healthy stimulated trees. A decrease in length and an increase in width of phloic rays were evident in TPD affected trees over healthy trees. Average height of ray (µm) in the bark of healthy, TPD affected, unaffected zone above the TPD affected area and TPD panel under ethephon was 495, 259, 416 and 285 respectively. In healthy trees, 57 per cent of the rays fall in the stratified height class of 300-500 µm but in TPD trees, 78 per cent of the phloic rays is having a height less than 300 µm. The average width of the ray measured 56.81 and 74.25 µm respectively for healthy and TPD trees. In healthy trees 61 per cent of the ray falls under width strata of 40-60 µm and in TPD trees 68 per cent is in the 60-80 and 24 per cent in 80-100 µm width strata. For the production of latex from unproductive bark of TPD tree on stimulation, adequate nourishments is being mobilized to the site of action by strengthening radial transport system in the affected area

Comparison between imprint cytology and frozen sections in intraoperative consultation of ovarian tumours

Background: The ovaries frequently are the site for various primary tumors. Correct intraoperative diagnosis is crucial. The application of imprint cytology is very useful where frozen section facility is not available. The present study is a comparison of imprint cytology and frozen section during intraoperative consultation for various types of benign and malignant ovarian neoplasms in different age groups.Methods: Seventy-six cases of ovarian tumors were examined using both imprint cytology and frozen section and evaluated, taking histopathological report as gold standard. The histopathological diagnoses consisted of benign (54), borderline (9), and malignant (13). The malignant tumors consisted of various types including serous carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, endometrioid carcinoma, clear cell carcinoma and carcinoid.Results: All 54 benign cases were accurately diagnosed as benign by imprint cytology. With frozen section 53 cases were correctly diagnosed as benign but one case was over diagnosed as borderline. Among 13 malignant cases 11 (84.6%) were correctly diagnosed with both techniques. Borderline tumors were not able to be diagnosed with imprint smear, 3 out of 9 cases were correctly diagnosed with frozen section.Conclusion: When compared with frozen section, imprint cytology is a simple, inexpensive and useful diagnostic tool in intraoperative diagnosis of benign and malignant ovarian tumors. Imprint smear is not useful in borderline tumors where only frozen section is useful. Imprint cytology can be used as an adjunct to frozen section for better diagnosis

Parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on children’s sexual health education:A qualitative study in Makwanpur Nepal

Sex education is taught to secondary school students in Nepal. Nevertheless, there are concerns that the school-based sexual health education is not effective and adequate to address young people’s necessities. We carried out a qualitative study comprising key informant interviews with teachers (n=8) and parents (n=6) in Makwanpur district in Nepal. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and translated into English. Thematic analysis was performed to identify patterns or themes within the qualitative data. Most participants (both teachers and parents) had thought of delivering sex education preferably from grade seven to avoid the effects of globalised mass media and the internet. The practical aspects of school sex education programme and the importance of parent-child communication were of major concerns. Comprehensive training to health teachers, an informal approach to teaching sex education and seeking outside health professionals, such as health facilitators were the frequently reported issues. There is a need to offer sexual health services along with sex education to protect young people from potential dangers of STIs including HIV infection. Particularly, health teachers should be trained properly to mitigate the social and cultural impacts, and to allow a smooth sex education discussion in the classroom. The curriculum for sex education should be relevant, engaging and developmentally suitable with clear progressive avenues for learning experience

Dynamics of Membrane Tethers Reveal Novel Aspects of Cytoskeleton-Membrane Interactions in Axons

AbstractMechanical properties of cell membranes are known to be significantly influenced by the underlying cortical cytoskeleton. The technique of pulling membrane tethers from cells is one of the most effective ways of studying the membrane mechanics and the membrane-cortex interaction. In this article, we show that axon membranes make an interesting system to explore as they exhibit both free membrane-like behavior where the tether-membrane junction is movable on the surface of the axons (unlike many other cell membranes) as well as cell-like behavior where there are transient and spontaneous eruptions in the tether force that vanish when F-actin is depolymerized. We analyze the passive and spontaneous responses of axonal membrane tethers and propose theoretical models to explain the observed behavior

Nanomechanical IR spectroscopy for fast analysis of liquid-dispersed engineered nanomaterials

AbstractThe proliferated use of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs), e.g. in nanomedicine, calls for novel techniques allowing for fast and sensitive analysis of minute samples. Here we present nanomechanical IR spectroscopy (NAM-IR) for chemical analysis of picograms of ENMs. ENMs are nebulized directly from dispersion and efficiently collected on nanomechanical string resonators through a non-diffusion limited sampling method. Even very small amounts of sample can convert absorbed IR light into a measurable frequency detuning of the string through photothermal heating. An IR absorption spectrum is thus readily obtained by recording this detuning of the resonator over a range of IR wavelengths. Results recorded using NAM-IR agree well with corresponding results obtained through ATR-FTIR, and remarkably, measurement including sample preparation takes only a few minutes, compared to ∼2 days sample preparation for ATR-FTIR. Resonator dimensions play an important role in NAM-IR, a relationship which will be elaborated here

Simulation of a Diesel Engine with Variable Geometry Turbocharger and Parametric Study of Variable Vane Position on Engine Performance

Modelling of a turbocharger is of interest to the engine designer as the work developed by the turbine can be used to drive a compressor coupled to it. This positively influences charge air density and engine power to weight ratio. Variable geometry turbocharger (VGT) additionally has a controllable nozzle ring which is normally electro-pneumatically actuated. This additional degree of freedom offers efficient matching of the effective turbine area for a wide range of engine mass flow rates. Closing of the nozzle ring (vanes tangential to rotor) result in more turbine work and deliver higher boost pressure but it also increases the back pressure on the engine induced by reduced turbine effective area. This adversely affects the net engine torque as the pumping work required increases. Hence, the optimum vane position for a given engine operating point is to be found through simulations or experimentation. A thermodynamic simulation model of a 2.2l 4 cylinder diesel engine was developed for investigation of different control strategies. Model features map based performance prediction of the VGT. Performance of the engine was simulated for steady state operation and validated with experimentation. The results of the parametric study of VGT’s vane position on the engine performance are discussed