Diagnostic accuracy of multidetector computed tomography scan in mediastinal masses assuming histopathological findings as gold standard

Purpose: Aim of the study was to: 1) present MDCT characteristics of different mediastinal mass lesions, 2) estimate proportion of benign and malignant mediastinal mass lesions based on MDCT findings, and 3) find out the diagnostic accuracy with sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of MDCT in mediastinal mass lesions assuming histopathology as gold standard. Material and methods: This study was an analysis of 60 patients who underwent MDCT scan for characterisation of mediastinal mass lesion, and subsequently imaging findings were verified with pathological diagnosis. Results: Out of 60 patients 65% were malignant and 35% were benign. Metastatic carcinoma was the leading diagnosis. Sensitivity of MDCT in this study came out to be 94%, specificity is 90%, with a positive predictive value of 94% and negative predictive value of 90% with diagnostic accuracy of 93%. Conclusions: Mediastinal mass lesion can be accurately diagnosed with MDCT which is a non-invasive and easily available modality requiring clinical data for accurate diagnosis and management. Co-relation of MDCT findings with other imaging findings is complex and requires adequate clinical data for optimum diagnostic confidence

Eco-friendly management of Sitophilus oryzae and Rhyzoper thadominica in stored wheat at Pantnagar, Uttarakhand

he laboratory experiments were conducted to study the efficacy of some indigenous products such as plant products (chopped neem leaves ajwain seed powder, garlic capsules, saw dust), animal derivedproducts ( cow dung cake powder, cow urine) and inert materials ( ash powder, sand, talcum powder, salt) @ 2g/100g of wheat grains against rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.) and lesser grain borer, Rhyzoper thadominica (Fab.) on stored wheat by undertaking various parameters viz., percent adult emergence, percent seed damage, per cent weight loss and per cent germination after six months of storage during April to October 2015. After 180 days of treatments, the minimum number of adults weevils of S. oryzae( 4.00, 6.00,7.67, 9.00, 9.67 and 10.33) were emerged in wheat grains treated with ash powder, sand, cow dung powder, talcum powder, ajwain seed powder and neem leaf powder, respectively with minimum grain damage (7.33 %, 8.67 %,11.67 % and 12.00 %) was observed on ash powder, sand, ajwain seed powder and talcum powder, respectively, whereas minimum weight loss (2.67 %, 3.67 %, 5.67 % and 6.67 %) was recorded on ash powder, sand, cow dung powder, talcum powder and ajwain seed powder, respectively. Similarly, the minimum number of adult beetles of R. dominica were emerged (2.00,2.33, 6.67,7.00 and 8.33) in ash power, sand, talcum powder, cow dung cake powder and ajwain seed powder, respectively with minimum grain damage (4.00 %,8.00 %. 8.67 % and 12.67 % and weight loss (1.33 %, 4.00 %, 7.33 % and 11.67 %) in sand, ash powder, talcum powder and cow dung cake treated wheat grains, respectively. It has been clearly observed that seed germination was not affected adversely in any treatment during six months of storage. The present study clearly revealed that these naturally occurring indigenous products could be used to manage the storage insect pests in wheat

Comparison of analgesic efficacy between TAP block and local site infiltration post operatively in caesarean section

Background: Patients undergoing caesarean section need to be alert, comfortable and mobile in order to take care of their babies, for which they must be pain free in post operative period. The aim of present study is to compare the analgesic efficacy of TAP block with local anaesthetic infiltration specifically in LSCS patients in reducing patient pain postoperatively, as well as to decrease the analgesic requirements.Methods: The study population consisted of 60 patients posted for elective and emergency caesarean section. They were blindly divided into two groups of 30 patients each. Group T received 40ml 0.25% Ropivacaine in Transverses abdominis plane (TAP) block for postoperative analgesia and group I received 40ml 0.25% ropivacaine as infiltration at incision site for postoperative analgesia. Patients were observed for numeric pain score NPS, analgesic requirements, total analgesic consumption and adverse effects if any.Results: There was highly significant difference in numeric pain scores at 2nd, 6th, 12th and 24th hours (p<0.0001). Both the time for first rescue analgesic and total amount of analgesic consumed are statistically significant (p<0.0001).Conclusions: TAP block is an effective postoperative analgesic procedure for post caesarean section patients

MPP-MLO: Multilevel Parallel Partitioning for Efficiently Matching Large Ontologies

221-229The growing usage of Semantic Web has resulted in an increasing number, size and heterogeneity of ontologies on the web. Therefore, the necessity of ontology matching techniques, which could solve these issues, is highly required. Due to high computational requirements, scalability is always a major concern in ontology matching system. In this work, a partition-based ontology matching system is proposed, which deals with parallel partitioning of the ontologies at multilevel. At first level, the root based ontology partitioning is proposed. Match able sub-ontology pair is generated using an efficient linguistic matcher (IEI-Sub) to uncover anchors and then based on maximum similarity values, pairs are generated. However, a distributed and parallel approach of Map Reduce-based IEI-sub process has been proposed to efficiently handle the anchor discovery process which is highly time-consuming. In second level partitioning, an efficient approach is proposed to form non-overlapping clusters. Extensive experimental evaluation is done by comparing existing approaches with the proposed approach, and the results shows that MPP-MLO turns out to be an efficient and scalable ontology matching system with 58.7% reduction in overall execution time

ANALOGY OF MODERN CHEMICAL PROCESSES WITH PRINCIPLES OF ‘RASA SHASTRA' OF AYURVEDIC MEDICINE SYSTEM

Ayurveda is basically a medical science but different branches of science were nurtured by it like biology, genetics, microbiology, clinical medicine, surgery, astronomy, pharmaceutics and metallurgy etc. In this traditional therapeutic system, various categories of formulations have been described in official and traditional literature. Similar to modern system of therapeutics, various units operations were adopted in developing various dosage forms to obtain the desired effect upto the optimum time. Every step has been explained in detail in traditional literature and sight modifications have also been mentioned in some texts. Besides these, numbers of metals, their alloys, metallurgy etc. have also been elaborated for the well being of the society. Hitherto, ‘Rasayan’ (chemistry) and the associated studies were also familiar in ancient time. Various chemical like common salt, alkali, borax and compounds of elements like Fe, Cu, Hg and Au etc., were commonly used from in that period and the techniques for making alloys of bronze, brass, and bell metal etc. were also very common. The applicability of natural preservatives like oil, salt and sugar were also much known in ancient time. However; the terms used as stated in traditional literature were not similar to modern time. Also, the alcoholic and acidic fermented products were prepared very commonly. The present study has been focused to assess the similarity of chemical terms mentioned in literature with modern science and technology

MPP-MLO: Multilevel Parallel Partitioning for Efficiently Matching Large Ontologies

The growing usage of Semantic Web has resulted in an increasing number, size and heterogeneity of ontologies on the web. Therefore, the necessity of ontology matching techniques, which could solve these issues, is highly required. Due to high computational requirements, scalability is always a major concern in ontology matching system. In this work, a partition-based ontology matching system is proposed, which deals with parallel partitioning of the ontologies at multilevel. At first level, the root based ontology partitioning is proposed. Matchable Sub-ontologies pair is generated using an efficient linguistic matcher (IEI-Sub) to uncover anchors and then based on maximum similarity value, pairs are generated. However, a distributed and parallel approach of MapReduce-based SEI-sub process has been proposed to efficiently handle the anchor discovery process which is highly time-consuming. In second level partitioning, an efficient approach is proposed to form non overlapping clusters. Extensive experimental evaluation is done by comparing existing approaches with the proposed approach, and the results shows that MPP-MLO turns out to be an efficient and scalable ontology matching system

RASAYANA: THE REJUVENATING REMEDY FOR HEALTH

Gradual increase of Population in urban area may leads to environmental pollution and microbial infection in air and water increases exponentially. Most of the persons in the population are in trap of mental stress and depression due to struggle in the life and overload of work. So both of these conditions are responsible for so many disease and ill-health, and one more important thing is that due to increase negligence and uninhabited use of processed food, the ill effects on health are compound manifold when coupled with unhealthy lifestyle and food habits. So there is a need of taking dietary supplementary food or nutraceutical. The main aim of Ayurveda has been working upon a twofold process i.e., to maintain the health of a healthy individual and to treat the one with the disease. Thus by laying emphasis on the first aspect and combining it with the knowledge of the role of phytochemical as, one can gradually deduce an effective module for living healthy and line of treatment of metabolic and geriatric disorders. The phytochemical are the essential nutrients, which are naturally contained in plants and are required for normal physiological functions. The Rasayan not only boost general health but also provide the necessary raw materials to strengthen the defense mechanism of the body.

Evaluation of Ultrasound Guided Measurement of Tongue Thickness in Predicting Difficult Tracheal Intubation in Patients Undergoing Elective Surgery: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Preoperative airway assessment is necessary to identify airway difficulties to the earliest, ensure adequate preparation to airway management before induction and to avoid airway related complications. Various Imaging techniques have been studied for prediction of the difficult airway. the ultrasound is a quick and simple technique. Aim of the study was to evaluate ultrasound guided measurement of tongue thickness in predicting difficult tracheal intubation in patients undergoing elective surgery. Methods: Sixty-one patients American Society of Anesthesiologist class I and II,18-65 years of age, either sex, were included. Tongue thickness was measured by ultrasound as the distance from the surface of tongue to the submental skin. Modified mallampatti score was also recorded. Results: Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of tongue thickness showed an AUC of 0.879 for a cut off value of >6 cm. This shows it has an excellent predictive value. Tongue thickness (>6cm) was found to have 90.16% combined diagnostic accuracy with 75% sensitivity and 94.74% specificity for prediction of difficult intubation. No correlation between tongue thickness and modified mallampatti score. (Correlation coefficient was 0.013, p value 0.920). Conclusion: We conclude that ultrasound guided measurement of tongue thickness> 6 cm can reliably predict difficult tracheal intubation in patients undergoing elective surgery

ANTI-OXIDANT AND ANTI-MICROBIAL ACTIVITIES OF SYNTHETIC 3-FORMYL, 7-FLAVONOL INTERMEDIATES OBTAINED BY MICROWAVE ASSISTED TECHNIQUE

Objective: The synthesized compounds of 3-formyl, 7-flavonols*, after characterization, aimed to be tested for their anti-oxidant and anti-microbial activities.Methods: i) anti-oxidant activities by hydrogen peroxide-nitric oxide-and by alkaline DMSO-methods and ii) anti-microbial activities against various gram-negative and gram-positive pathogens and against candida albicans by disc diffusion method.Results: Findings were found to be dose dependent and IC50 value was 30-60 µg/ml and the results revealed that the dinitro-, trinitro-and acetyl, dinitro derivatives showed better and/or equipotent activity to that of the standard, ascorbic acid. The synthesized compounds at a concentration of (1 μg/10 μl/disc) showed variable inhibitory activities against all bacteria with inhibition zone diameters ranging from 7-26 mm and a good antifungal activity against Candida albicans at the concentration of (1 μg/10 μl/disc) with inhibition of 10-24 mm. Klebsiella tribatta are more susceptible to the action of the formylated samples, giving high inhibition values comparing to the other organisms. Compounds Ie and Ih resulted to a higher activity index (AI&gt;1); compounds Id, Ig and Ii showed an equal value (AI=1); whereas, Ia, Ib, Ic and If showed only a moderate activity (AI&lt;1) compared to the standard, Amikacin.Conclusion: The findings confirmed that the synthetic compounds of 3-formyl, 7-flavonol derives have significant anti-oxidant and anti-microbial activities.*Synthesis and characterization work of 3-formyl, 7-flavonols has already been accepted for publication by the journal Elseveir, Procedio Chemistry and is in process.Â