Study of serum cobalamin level in vegetarian v/s nonvegetarian geriatric individuals

Background: Vegetarianism is found in all geographic areas, they may have lower B-12 levels than nonvegetarian; problem could be graver in elderly. This study intended to recognise geriatric individuals with B-12 deficiency so as to save them from anaemia, dementia & neuropsychiatric disturbances by timely recommendations for supplementation.Methods: Current study was conducted on 200 healthy attendants divided in to two groups- A comprised of 100 vegetarian and B of 100 nonvegetarian geriatric individuals (> 60yrs.), they had no previous chronic disease and an attempt was made to exclude diabetes mellitus, hypertension, chronic gastritis, hypoplastic & aplastic anaemia. Those with history of alcohol intake, PPI therapy & regular vitamin supplementation were excluded. Complete clinical examination and routine blood tests were done. Serum cobalamin level was determined by ACCU-BIND ELISA Microwells method.Results: Total of 58 vegetarians were found to be B-12 deficient compared to 42 normal (>350pg/ml) this was statistically significant. Out of 100 nonvegetarian 48 were deficient while 52 had normal levels this too was statistically significant. On comparing the vegetarians and non vegetarian groups significant result was obtained (p <0.01). When different age groups were statistically compared insignificant result was obtained, same was true for gender distribution. Statistically significant result was obtained on comparing vegetarian Vs nonvegetarian group.Conclusions: Irrespective of the dietary habit B-12 deficiency is prevalent in elderly, as 58% of vegetarian & 48% of nonvegetarian were found B-12 deficient, detailed dietary analysis revealed that majority of them consumed nonvegetarian food only occasionally. No significant effect of increasing age & gender was found on B-12 levels in either group. Every elderly vegetarian or non vegetarian irrespective of gender should get their B-12 levels checked & if found low should receive B-12 supplement.

First Record of Neogerris Assimilis Anderson, 1975 From India with Description of Copulatory Complex

The genus Neogerris is recorded for the first time from India. The copulatory complex, a feature of a great taxonomic significance is studied and described for the first time

CD and NMR investigations on trifluoroethanol-induced step-wise folding of helical segment from scorpion neurotoxin

A 14 amino acid residue peptide from the helical region of Scorpion neurotoxin has been structurally characterized using CD and NMR spectroscopy in different solvent conditions. 2,2,2-Trifluoroethanol (TFE) titration has been carried out in 11 steps from 0 to 90% TFE and the gradual stabilization of the conformation to form predominantly &#945;-helix covering all of the 14 residues has been studied by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. Detailed information such as coupling constants, chemical shift indices, NOESY peak intensities and amide proton temperature coefficients at each TFE concentration has been extracted and analysed to derive the step-wise preferential stabilization of the helical segments along the length of the peptide. It was found that there is a finite amount of the helical conformation in the middle residues 5-11 even at low TFE concentrations. It was also observed that &gt; 75% TFE (v/v) is required for the propagation of the helix to the N and C termini and for correct packing of the side chains of all of the residues. These observations are significant to understanding the folding of this segment in the protein and may throw light on the inherent preferences and side chain interactions in the formation of the helix in the peptide

TRANSDERMAL DELIVERY OF CALCIUM CHANNEL BLOCKER: DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION

  Objective: Felodipine, a BCS class II calcium channel blocker, is used in the management of hypertension and angina pectoris. Due to the poor solubility and low bioavailability of the drug, there is a necessity to design an alternative route to achieve a constant plasma concentration of felodipine for its maximum therapeutic utility and can be achieved by transdermal route.Methods: In this study, matrix type transdermal patches were prepared using different combinations of hydrophilic polymer, namely, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and hydrophobic polymer, namely, ethyl cellulose (EC) by solvent evaporation technique and were subjected for characterization.Results: The Fourier transform infrared studies confirmed the compatibility between drug and polymers. Hydrophilic nature of the polymers greatly influenced physical characteristics and dissolution rate. Equal percentage of PVP and EC yielded patches with good folding endurance. The concentration of plasticizer present in the patches gave them desired folding endurance, and it increased with the presence of hydrophilic polymer. The formulation with highest PVP concentration, F3, exhibited a maximum drug release of 96.23% for 24 hrs. While the formulation with highest EC concentration, F5, exhibited only 74.45% drug release for 24 hrs.Conclusion: From the data, formulation F2 (PVP/EC, 2:1) can be concluded as best formulation due to its desired physical characteristics, good initial drug release, sustained release behavior, and good in vitro permeation. This formulation can be further studied in a clinical scenario

Planning in action language BC while learning action costs for mobile robots

The action language BC provides an elegant way of formalizing dynamic domains which involve indirect effects of actions and recursively defined fluents. In complex robot task planning domains, it may be necessary for robots to plan with incomplete information, and reason about indirect or recursive action effects. In this paper, we demonstrate how BC can be used for robot task planning to solve these issues. Additionally, action costs are incorporated with planning to produce optimal plans, and we estimate these costs from experience making planning adaptive. This paper presents the first application of BC on a real robot in a realistic domain, which involves human-robot interaction for knowledge acquisition, optimal plan generation to minimize navigation time, and learning for adaptive planning

Cervical Pap smear study and detection of abnormal epithelial lesions and determination of its accuracy by cytohistological correlation in patients of tertiary care teaching hospital in central India

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in females and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Pap smear is simple, cost effective and sensitive tool for screening of various non-neoplastic and neoplastic lesions of cervix. The objective of this study was to determine the pattern of various cervical smear abnormalities in our center, to study the prevalence of epithelial cell abnormalities in our study population and to determine the accuracy of Pap test by correlating with histopathology.Methods: This was a retrospective study of 7127 cervical pap smears screened and reported at department of pathology, Sri Aurobindo institute of medical sciences Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India during the period of January 2013 to December 2015. Pap smear was done by the conventional method and reporting was done based on the Bethesda system .Emphasis was put on epithelial cell abnormalities and the findings of abnormal epithelial lesions were correlated with histopathology.Results: In this study, the epithelial cell abnormalities constituted 2% of all cases. Low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion was the most common epithelial cell abnormality found in our study group followed by HSIL and then squamous cell carcinoma. About two thirds of the abnormal epithelial lesions were found in the age group above 40 years. Our cytological diagnosis correlated well with histopathology.Conclusions: Pap smear is a cost effective and sensitive screening method for detection of cancerous, pre-cancerous and non-cancerous lesions of cervix

Physics of the Insulating Phase in the Dilute Two-Dimensional Electron Gas

We propose to use the radio-frequency single-electron transistor as an extremely sensitive probe to detect the time-periodic ac signal generated by sliding electron lattice in the insulating state of the dilute two-dimensional electron gas. We also propose to use the optically-pumped NMR technique to probe the electron spin structure of the insulating state. We show that the electron effective mass and spin susceptibility are strongly enhanced by critical fluctuations of electron lattice in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, as observed in experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, uses jetpl.cls (included). v.4: After publication in JETP Letters, two plots comparing theory and experiment are added, and a minor error is correcte