The Humoral Immune Response to Various Domains of Protective Antigen of Bacillus anthracis in Cutaneous Anthrax Cases in India

Anthrax, caused by Bacillus anthracis is known to occur globally since antiquity. Besides being an important biothreat agent, it is an important public health importance pathogen also in countries like India. B. anthracis secretes three distinct toxins, namely protective antigen (PA), lethal factor (LF) and edema factor (EF). PA is the central moiety of the anthrax toxin complex and therefore has been a molecule of choice for vaccine development. PA has four different domains with different functions. In this study, the major domains of PA were cloned and expressed in bacterial system. The purified recombinant proteins were used to determine the humoral immune response by ELISA using 43 human cutaneous anthrax serum samples. The maximum immunoreactivity was observed with the whole PA protein followed by domain 2, 4 and 1. The study corroborated that in addition to full PA, individual domain 2 and 4 can also be good target for vaccine development as well as for serodiagnostic assays for cutaneous anthra

An Uncommon yet Treatable Cause of Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia is a life-threatening condition, especially if recurrent. Most common causes include patients with diabetes due to medications, nephropathy with oral hypoglycemic drugs, faulty dietary habits and other endocrine causes. In a patient presenting with recurrent hypoglycemia with central hypothyroidism, Sheehan syndrome must be suspected as diagnosis can prevent disastrous complication

Performance of SPV array fed pumping system with synchronous reluctance motor drive

This paper presents an analysis, design and control of a solar photovoltaic (SPV) array powered water pumping system driven by a synchronous reluctance motor (SyRM). In this proposed system, a boost converter is used for maximum utilization of solar PV energy through an incremental conductance maximum power point tracking (INC-MPPT) algorithm. Among several DC-DC converters, a boost converter is selected because it has low device stress and provides a constant output DC voltage. A SyRM is used here because it is singly excited and possess good structural integrity of its rotor without any windings or permanent magnets. This SyRM is relatively simple, low-cost configuration compared with other types of motors. Furthermore, the stator and an inverter power circuit are identical to those of an induction and permanent magnet brushless motors. The stator of SyRM is same as other AC machines and field orientation control technique is used for controlling it. The performance of the proposed system is studied for starting, steady state and dynamic conditions subjected to dynamic atmospheric conditions. The adequacy of proposed system is verified through simulated results using MATLAB/SIMULINK based developed model

Analysis of an Inhomogeneous Circularly Polarized Hollow Dielectric Resonator Antenna Using Perturbation Theory

The perturbation approach is presented here for the first time for the analysis of an inhomogeneous circularly polarized rectangular dielectric resonator (DR) antenna (DRA). The inhomogeneous permittivity is created by perturbing a rectangle-shaped region of different material inside the rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (RDRA). The orthogonal degenerate modes with a phase difference of TE111x, and TE111y, are excited simultaneously for achieving circular polarization. A simple expression for the calculation of the resonant frequency and optimal axial ratio point for a circularly polarized (CP) inhomogeneous RDRA is presented here. Theoretical results obtained from the proposed theory are compared with theoretical, simulated, and experimental data available in the literature. The proposed analysis results show optimal axial ratio point calculations within a 1% range of the simulated and experimental data, which is better than the previous transverse transmission line reported method, having an error of approximately 4%. The advantages, accuracy, and simplicity of perturbation theory for DR are discussed in detail. The proposed theory can be easily extended for higher order modes and other shapes of material perturbation and anisotropic DRAs. The proposed technique will help in incorporation of the perturbation in the DR so that CP radiation can be obtained in an easy way

An Uncommon yet Correctable Cause of Brain Hemorrhage in the Young

Intracranial bleed in the young is frequently due to congenital aneurysms, and infrequently due to secondary causes of hypertension. Hence, a detailed work-up of these patients is the need of the hour soas to promptly diagnose and treat such patients, thereby preventing future morbidity and mortality. We, hereby, present a case of intracranial bleed presenting in a patient with undiagnosed coarctation of aorta