Biochemical assessment of liver in sickle cell disease patients at a tertiary care hospital of north India

Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is frequently associated with liver disease. The constant state of hemolysis due to reduced red cell survival; and multiple blood transfusions will lead to hepatic sinusoidal congestion, viral hepatitis, cholestasis, and haemosiderosis, all of these may contribute to the development of liver disease. The aim of the study was to assess the biochemical liver function tests in steady state adult SCD patients in a tertiary care hospitalMethods: Fifty seven adult SCD patients in steady state and sixty hemoglobin AA controls were enrolled in the study. Liver function tests were carried out in all subjects.Results: The serum total bilirubin, aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), direct and indirect bilirubin and total protein were significantly higher in SCD patients (P <0.001) than in controls. Serum iron and ferritin were higher in SCD patients with hepatic disease (p<0.01), which could be due to iron overload, whereas serum transferrin and total iron binding capacity were decreased in these patients.Conclusions: Steady state SCD patients had elevation of Transaminases and remaining liver function parameters compared to age matched controls. It is advisable that liver function tests be interpreted with caution in these patients

Cytomorphology of gastrointestinal stromal tumours: a comprehensive study

Background: Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are a heterogenous group of neoplasms. The main aim of the study is to review cases of spindle cell and epithelioid cell neoplasms of the GI tract and classify them as GIST and Non GIST morphologically.Methods: The present study included 30 cases of ‘gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST). GIST cases were reviewed based on morphology and were classified into “Risk of metastasis” categories based on the size and mitotic activity.Results: The small intestine was the most commonly involved site (46.67%), followed by stomach (30%). Based on the size of the tumour and mitotic activity, the tumours were categorized as high risk (70%), intermediate risk (16.67%), low risk (6.67%), and very low risk (6.67%). High risk tumours predominated in all sites except the oesophagus. There was spindle cell predominance (76.8%) among all the cases. Epithelioid cells were seen in 36.7% of the cases.Conclusions: Identifying mitotic figures and counting of GIST was associated with problems and were due to uneven distribution of the mitotic figures, variable thickness of the section and presence of inflammatory cells. Inspite of the difficulty mitoses is still considered as a good prognostic marker

Role of Artificial Intelligence in High Throughput Diagnostics for Colorectal Cancer Current Updates

The existence of cancer has been stated as a century’s oldest challenge for the entire human race around theglobe recording a large amount of mortality per year and as per the WHO data nearly 10 million deaths were reported in 2021 worldwide besides others. Colorectal cancer is considered a major threat as this is cancer-related to the colon and rectum with an incidence of 41/1,00,000 recorded annually to overcome this challenge our medical system&nbsp;requires more advanced, accurate and efficient high throughput techniques for the prognosis and effective treatment&nbsp;of this disease. Artificial intelligence’s role in healthcare has been a matter of discussion among experts over the&nbsp;past few years, but more recently the spotlight has focused more specifically on the role that this technology can&nbsp;play in improving patient outcomes and improving the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment processes. Artificial&nbsp;intelligence refers to a broad category of technologies, including machine learning, natural language processing&nbsp;and deep learning. Exploration of Molecular pathways with characteristics that helps in subtyping of Colorectal&nbsp;Cancer (CRC) leading to specific treatment response or prognosis, for the effective treatment, classification and&nbsp;early detection done using Artificial Intelligence based technologies have shown promising results so far, that it&nbsp;may be utilized to create prediction models in the current environment to distinguish between polyps, metastases,&nbsp;or normal cells in addition to early detection and effective cancer therapy. Nowadays many scientists are putting&nbsp;effort into designing such fabricating models by combining natural language processes and deep learning that&nbsp;can differentiate between non-adenomatous and adenomatous polyps to identify hyper-mutated tumours, genetic&nbsp;mutations and molecular pathways known as IDaRS strategy or iterative draw-and-rank sampling. The review study&nbsp;primarily focuses on the significance of emerging AI-based approaches for the diagnosis, detection, and prognosis&nbsp;of colorectal cancer in light of existing obstacles

Detection of a quasi-periodic oscillation in gamma-ray light curve of the high redshift blazar B2 1520+31

We detected a possible quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) of ~ 71 days in the 0.1 -- 300 GeV gamma-ray Fermi-LAT light curve of the high redshift flat spectrum radio quasar B2 1520+31. We identify and confirm that quasi-period by Lomb Scargle periodogram (LSP), and weighted wavelet z-transform (WWZ) analyses. Using this QPO period, and assuming it originates from accretion-disc fluctuations at the innermost stable circular orbit, we estimate the central supermassive black hole mass to range between ~ 5.4 * 10$^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$ for a non-rotating black hole and ~ 6.0 * 10$^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$ for a maximally rotating black hole. We briefly discuss other possible radio-loud active galactic nuclei emission models capable of producing a gamma-ray QPO of such a period in a blazar.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to MNRA

White Organic Light Emitting Diodes Via Complementary Color Mixing Approach Through Multilayer Device Architecture

105-110White organic light emitting diodes (WOLEDs) are emerging as potential light emitting technology and have found many applications from back light for liquid crystal displays to next generation displays and solid-state lighting. We report here the fabrication of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), which emit white light via multilayer color approach. These WOLEDs incorporated the materials emitting two complementary colors greenish-blue and reddish-orange to make white. The amount of light emitted from each layer was chosen in such a way that the mixture of the two emitted lights gave white light. The amount of light emitted from each layer was controlled by taking optimum thickness of each layer and incorporating a thin hole blocking layer of BCP in between the emissive layers. For greenish-blue light, we used a phosphorescent dopant FIrPic whereas for reddish-orange light we used the phosphorescent dopant Ir(btp)2(acac) and both of these dopants were doped in the host CBP. We studied the effect of operating voltage on the color of the emitted light of these WOLEDs and found that the color of the emitted light was almost independent of operating voltage. The WOLEDs emitted 1600 cd/m2 at 15 V with Commission Internationale de I’Eclairage (CIE) coordinates (0.25, 0.32). We also studied the current density vs voltage (J-V) and voltage vs luminescence (V-L) characteristics of these devices and calculated their efficiency which was found to be 0.35 cd/A. We also prepared some WOLEDs based numeric displays just of the demonstration purpose

Efficient Green Phosphorescent Organic Light Emitting Diode using Iridium Complex

415-421We report here the fabrication and characterization of an efficient green phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes (PhOLED) using phosphorescent iridium complex, tris(2-phenylpyridine) iridium (III) (Ir(ppy)3). Ir(ppy)3 is an organic phosphorescent material, which emits green light via both the singlet as well as triplet exciton relaxation. To avoid triplettriplet annihilation and for efficient light emission, the phosphorescent emitters should be doped in a suitable host material which has band-gap larger than the doped guest material and the band gap of the guest should lie within the band-gap of the host. We optimally doped phosphorescent Ir(ppy)3 into a fluorescent 4,4'-bis(9-carbazolyl) biphenyl (CBP) host and used it as the emitter to prepare PhOLEDs. The PhOLED exhibited green electroluminescence (EL) in the range ~ 480-650 nm with EL peak at 550 nm along with a shoulder at 510 nm. The Commission Internationale de-I’eclairage (CIE) colour coordinate of the device was measured to be (0.25, 0.60). The current density vs voltage vs luminescence (J-V-L) characteristics of the device led us to calculate its current efficiency, which was found to be 28.9 cd/A at 7V. The efficiency of PhOLED decreased with increment in the applied voltage beyond 7 V and has been attributed to the triplet-triplet annihilation due to high injected current densities

Determination of Electron Mobility in Small Molecular1,4-di(bis(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum-oxy)benzene by Transient Electroluminescence

Transient electroluminescence is an important tool to determine the charge carrier dynamics in light emitting organic semiconductors. We have used this method to determine the electron mobility in one of the important organic semiconductors 1,4-di(bis(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum-oxy)benzene (Alq(1)), used as emissive layer in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). For transient electroluminescence studies, we prepared OLEDs using Alq(1) as the emitter. The OLEDs were prepared on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates using N, N’-diphenyl -N,N’- bis (3-methylphenyl)-(1,1’-biphenyl)-4,4- diamine (TPD) as hole transport layer (HTL) and lithium fluoride (LiF) as electron injecting buffer layer. The temporal evaluation of the electroluminescence (EL) was studies with respect to a voltage pulse of different amplitudes applied to the device at different temperatures. A delay was observed in the onset of EL from the device with respect to the applied voltage pulse. The EL exhibited a fast initial rise followed by tending to saturate. The EL decayed rapidly as the applied voltage became zero and the decay did not depend upon the amplitude of the applied voltage pulse. The delay time in the onset of EL with respect to the applied voltage pulse is correlated to the electron mobility in Alq(1). The electron mobility in Alq(1) calculated by transient EL method, showed strong dependency on the applied electric field and temperature at low electric fields however at quite high electric fields, the electron mobility in Alq(1) showed poor dependency on the applied electric field and temperature. This behavior of electron mobility in Alq(1) has been explained in terms of shallow charge carrier traps in Alq(1) film. The electron mobility in Alq(1) at 295 K and 2.7´106 V/cm, has been determined to be 5.4´10-6 cm2V-1s-1, which is much higher than that in the well-studied Alq3

Developing public health capacities of Frontline Public Health Workforce in Uttarakhand

Recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of increase in the ability of public health workforce to detect and respond to the public health threats. For timely implementation of an adequate response and mitigation measure, the standardized and sustainable capacity building programme for frontline public health workforce is the need of hour. National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in partnership with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed a three-month in-service Basic Epidemiology Training programme. This is a tailor-made programme for frontline public health workforce to strengthen epidemiological skills. This training was a practical interactive approach to field epidemiology for three months on the job training for frontline public health workforce that addressed the critical skills needed to conduct surveillance effectively at the local level while focusing on improving disease detection, reporting and feedback. The training also demonstrated the role of learning model in form of interaction between the mentor and the mentees. The importance of handhold support given by the mentors to the mentees in quality outbreak investigations and documentation

Training on an Appetitive (Delay)-Conditioning Task Enhances Oscillatory Waves During Sleep in the Cortical and Amygdalar Network

Oscillating waves during sleep play an essential role in memory consolidation. The cortical slow wave activity (SWA) and sigma waves during NREM sleep and theta waves during REM sleep increase after a variety of memory tasks including declarative, procedural and associative learning tasks. These oscillatory waves during sleep help to promote neural dialog between circuitries, which possibly plays a causal role in memory consolidation. However, the role of sleep-associated oscillating waves in a complex appetitive-conditioning paradigm is not clear. The parietal cortex and amygdala are involved in the cognitive evaluation of the environmental stimuli, and appetitive conditioning. Here, we have studied the changes in sleep architecture and oscillatory waves during NREM and REM sleep in the parietal cortices and amygdalar-local field potential (A-LFP) after appetitive-conditioning in the rat. We observed that REM sleep increased significantly after appetitive conditioning, which significantly positively correlated with performance on the appetitive-conditioning task. Further, the cortical SWA (0.1–4.5 Hz), and sigma (12–14.25 Hz) waves during NREM sleep, theta (6–9 Hz) waves during REM sleep, the amygdalar SWA (0.1–3.75 Hz) during NREM sleep and theta (6–8.25 Hz) waves during REM sleep significantly increased after appetitive conditioning. Interestingly, the augmented oscillatory waves significantly positively correlated with the performances on the appetitive-conditioning task. Our results suggest that the augmented REM sleep after conditioning may be required for the consolidation of appetitive-conditioned memory. Further, a significant correlation between augmented power in oscillatory waves during sleep and performance suggesting that these waves may be playing a crucial role in the consolidation of appetitive-conditioned memory

Ketamine but not glycine potentiates antidepressant like action of citalopram in mice exposed to chronic mild stress

Background: The present study was designed to investigate the effect of citalopram, ketamine, glycine and their combinations on animal models of depression. Methods: Swiss Albino male mice were subjected to chronic mild stress for 6 weeks for inducing depression, and randomly divided into different groups: citalopram (5 and 10 mg/kg), ketamine (17.5 and 35 mg/kg), glycine (50 and 100 mg/kg), ketamine (17.5 mg/kg) + citalopram (5 mg/kg) and ketamine (17.5 mg/kg) + glycine (50 mg/kg). Two behavioural tests were utilized for the assessment of depression, namely tail suspension test (TST) and forced swim test (FST). Immobility time was recorded for 6 min, before and after administration of drug. Results: Citalopram (10 mg/kg) administration caused significant decrease in the immobility time in TST model only but not in FST. Citalopram (5 mg/kg) and ketamine (17.5 mg/kg) caused insignificant decrease in immobility time in both the models. Moreover, ketamine in combination with Citalopram significantly reduced the immobility time in both the models. Glycine at a dose of 100 mg/kg (but not 50 mg/kg) significantly increased the immobility time in both the models as compared to control group. Further, ketamine when administered with glycine caused increase in the immobility time on both the paradigms, though insignificant. Conclusions: Ketamine demonstrated antidepressant like action in both TST and FST models. Moreover, it potentiated the antidepressant effect of citalopram that might be due to the role of NMDA receptors