Study of the Clinical Patterns in Varicella in a Tertiary Hospital at Coastal Karnataka

Context: There are very few studies regarding the clinical patterns and manifestations of a very common viral infection, Varicella, especially from south India. Aims: To study the cutaneous manifestation of Varicella with an emphasis on vaccination status. Settings and Design: Cross sectional study. Methods and Material: A total of 118 patients attending the Dermatology OPD of a private medical college in coastal Karnataka with cutaneous manifestations of varicella were enrolled. Study period was from January 2010 to December 2010. Statistical analysis used: Data was analysed using SPSS version 11.5. Various frequency distribution tables, diagrams and chi square test were used to describe and analyse the data. Results: Majority of the patients were males (62.7%) and 21-30 years was the most common age group involved. There were 74 students, out of which eight were in the preschool group aged between 3-4 years. Most of the patients visited the hospital on the second day after onset of the symptoms. 108(91.5%) patients complained about the presence of various prodromal symptoms. Scalp was the most common (39.8%) site of onset of the rash. Itching was experienced by 76(64.4%) patients. Peak number of cases (35.6%) was seen in the month of January. The cutaneous rash was most commonly (57.7%) distributed over face, scalp, trunk, upper and lower limbs, with predominantly central distribution. Soft palate was the most common site (87%) involved in the oral cavity. Conclusions: A wide variety of combination symptoms with classical cutaneous polymorphic vesicular rash and oral lesions was seen

Practical design considerations for secondary air injection in wood-burning cookstoves: An experimental study

Billions of households worldwide cook using biomass fires and suffer from the toxic smoke emitted into their homes. Laboratory studies of wood-burning cookstoves demonstrate that secondary air injection can greatly reduce the emission of harmful air pollution, but these experimental advancements are not easily translated into practical cookstove designs that can be widely adopted. In this study, we use a modular cookstove platform to experimentally quantify the practical secondary air injection design requirements (e.g., flow rate, pressure, and temperature) to reduce mass emissions of particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), and black carbon (BC) by at least 90% relative to a traditional cooking fire. Over the course of 111 experimental trials, we illuminate the physical mechanisms that drive emission reductions, and outline fundamental design principles to optimize cookstove performance. Using the experimental data, we demonstrate that low-cost (<$10) fans and blowers are available to drive the secondary flow, and can be independently powered using an inexpensive thermoelectric generator mounted nearby. Furthermore, size-resolved PM measurements show that secondary air injection inhibits particle growth, but the total number of particles generated remains relatively unaffected. We discuss the potential impacts for human health and investigate methods to mitigate the PM formation mechanisms that persist

methane concentrations and source strengths in urban locations

Higher atmospheric concentrations of methane are found in air samples from urban locations than in contemporary samples at the same latitude in remote locations. Higher concentrations of several trace chlorocarbon gases are also found in the same urban samples than in the corresponding remote samples. The “urban excess”, i.e. urban concentration minus remote concentration, is generally 1000 to 2000 times larger on a molar basis for CH4 than for CCl3F. Because almost all CCl3F is emitted in urban environments, the urban release of CH4 is estimated from the observed molar ratios to be 30 to 60 megatons per year world‐wide. The fraction of world‐wide methane release occurring in the urban environment can be estimated from the concentration ratios, urban to remote, for CH4 vs. CCl3F. About 8% to 15% of the atmospheric methane release is observed to occur in urban locations. Copyright 1984 by the American Geophysical Union

RNA interference is ineffective as a routine method for gene silencing in chick embryos as monitored by fgf8 silencing

The in vivo accessibility of the chick embryo makes it a favoured model system for experimental developmental biology. Although the range of available techniques now extends to miss-expression of genes through in ovo electroporation, it remains difficult to knock out individual gene expression. Recently, the possibility of silencing gene expression by RNAi in chick embryos has been reported. However, published studies show only discrete quantitative differences in the expression of the endogenous targeted genes and unclear morphological alterations. To elucidate whether the tools currently available are adequate to silence gene expression sufficiently to produce a clear and specific null-like mutant phenotype, we have performed several experiments with different molecules that trigger RNAi: dsRNA, siRNA, and shRNA produced from a plasmid coexpressing green fluorescent protein as an internal marker. Focussing on fgf8 expression in the developing isthmus, we show that no morphological defects are observed, and that fgf8 expression is neither silenced in embryos microinjected with dsRNA nor in embryos microinjected and electroporated with a pool of siRNAs. Moreover, fgf8 expression was not significantly silenced in most isthmic cells transformed with a plasmid producing engineered shRNAs to fgf8. We also show that siRNA molecules do not spread significantly from cell to cell as reported for invertebrates, suggesting the existence of molecular differences between different model systems that may explain the different responses to RNAi. Although our results are basically in agreement with previously reported studies, we suggest, in contrast to them, that with currently available tools and techniques the number of cells in which fgf8 gene expression is decreased, if any, is not sufficient to generate a detectable mutant phenotype, thus making RNAi useless as a routine method for functional gene analysis in chick embryos

Evaluation of the conservation status and risks for some endangered plant species in Ba Be National Park, B̆ác Kan Province, Vietnam

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Science.Ba Be National Park, in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam, is an important conservation area with numerous rare, endangered and endemic plant and animal species. The plant resources of the park are exploited by local ethnic minority (hill tribe) people to provide food, medicines and wood products; their high birth rate, general ignorance of plant propagation and husbandry and their dependence on the forest resources to maintain a subsistence level of life has placed many plant species in the Park at increasing risk of local extinction. Moreover, many essential plants are becoming so difficult to find that the local peoples’ lifestyle is threatened. This thesis evaluates the socio-economic features of the threat to plant species in the Park, the broad ecological determinants of the distribution of plants in the area and the genetic diversity of a selected number of plant species. The results demonstrate that national and international schemes for the classification of the conservation status of plant species is of limited relevance in the local context and a mixture of national, international and local criteria enabled the compilation of a plant species conservation ranking for the Park. A suite of environmental factors was chosen to investigate their collective influence on plant species distribution; the main determinants of floristic composition appear to be topography and disturbance, with soil factors being important for endangered species, though other factors not measured here may influence species composition at small scales. The genetic diversity of four priority plant species was determined using the Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique and the Random Amplified Microsatellite Polymorphisms (RAMP) technique was used to further investigate genetic diversity in two of the four species; the latter proved somewhat more useful in distinguishing between populations than the former. A preliminary evaluation of the location of high-genetic-diversity populations and individuals should allow an informed selection of source plants for future propagation. Some recommendations on future management of the National Park are made

Functional protection by acute phase proteins alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein and alpha(1)-antitrypsin against ischemia/reperfusion injury by preventing apoptosis and inflammation.

BACKGROUND: Ischemia followed by reperfusion (I/R) causes apoptosis, inflammation, and tissue damage leading to organ malfunction. Ischemic preconditioning can protect against such injury. This study investigates the contribution of the acute phase proteins alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein (AGP) and alpha(1)-antitrypsin (AAT) to the protective effect of ischemic preconditioning in the kidney. METHODS AND RESULTS: Exogenous AGP and AAT inhibited apoptosis and inflammation after 45 minutes of renal I/R in a murine model. AGP and AAT administered at reperfusion prevented apoptosis at 2 hours and 24 hours, as evaluated by the presence of internucleosomal DNA cleavage, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling, and the determination of renal caspase-1- and caspase-3-like activity. AGP and AAT exerted anti-inflammatory effects, as reflected by reduced renal tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression and neutrophil influx after 24 hours. In general, these agents improved renal function. Similar effects were observed when AGP and AAT were administered 2 hours after reperfusion but to a lesser extent and without functional improvement. Moreover, I/R elicited an acute phase response, as reflected by elevated serum AGP and serum amyloid P (SAP) levels after 24 hours, and increased hepatic acute phase protein mRNA levels after 18 hours of renal reperfusion. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that the antiapoptotic and anti-inflammatory effects of AGP and AAT contribute to the delayed type of protection associated with ischemic preconditioning and other insults. This mechanism is potentially involved in the course of many clinical conditions associated with I/R injury. Moreover, exogenous administration of these proteins may provide new therapeutic means of treatmen