HIV seropositivity in high risk individuals and in pulmonary tuberculosis

Background: The association between tuberculosis and HIV has been well known. South Asia especially India is witnessing largest number of new AIDS cases and the epidemic is well established. TB shortens the life expectancy of HIV positive people. Keeping the association between TB and HIV in mind, this study was planned to screen HIV seropositivity in all patients of pulmonary and extra pulmonary tuberculosis. The aim was to study HIV seroprevalence in patients of pulmonary tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis of population of Bundelkhand region, India.Methods: 282 patients of pulmonary or extrapulmonary tuberculosis attending OPD or admitted in wards were included in the study as per inclusion criteria over two years.  ELISA was done to detect HIV seropositivity in these patients.Results: A total of 184 patients were male and 98 were female with 16 and 2 patients who were seropositive respectively. Out of 282 patients of pulmonary and extra pulmonary tuberculosis 35 (12.4%) had heterosexual promiscuity. Out of these 15 (42.35%) were HIV seropositive. A total of 115 patients were sputum smear positive for TB and 167 were confirmed as cases of sputum smear negative TB.Conclusions: The prevalence of HIV seropositivity among pulmonary and extra pulmonary TB in the present study was 6.38%. Tuberculosis was associated with an increased incidence of HIV. HIV was associated most with heterosexual promiscuity as a risk factor and presented more with extra pulmonary tuberculosis.

Absence of bones at birth - A diagnostic dilemma

We present a male stillborn baby, born with disproportionate body and omphalocele. The infantogram revealed the absence of mineralization of all the bones, except for a minimal ossification of the ribs and spine. The possibilities that can be considered in such a case of absent mineralization at birth are very few. A definite diagnosis can be made on detailed clinical examination and the specific pattern of bone mineralization. The classical phenotypic features, associated anomalies, and the pattern of mineralization facilitated in diagnosing the rare entity, boomerang syndrome. Although the diagnosis should be confirmed by genetic studies, it is important to know the classical phenotypic and radiological features of boomerang dysplasia as it is often mistaken as achondrogenesis

Prevalence of peripheral artery disease in diabetes mellitus: research article

Background: Peripheral artery disease is a major macrovascular complication of diabetes mellitus. Patients with diabetes mellitus have an increased prevalence of PAD. The ankle brachial pressure index is an easy, non invasive and often under utilised tool for diagnosis of PAD.Methods: In the present study, 100 patients from Western Uttar Pradesh with diabetes mellitus were enrolled to find out prevalence of peripheral vascular disease using ankle brachial pressure index and study the associated risk factors.Results: 59 percent of the subjects were female and 41 percent were male. Ankle-brachial index (ABI) examination of patients indicated Abnormal (ABI= <0.9), in 40 cases.Conclusions: it can be concluded that peripheral vascular disease in Diabetes Mellitus is more commonly associated than is generally believed

Molecular tools for identification and classification of Myxozoan parasites (Cnidaria: Myxosporea) in India: Current status

A substantial literature on myxosporea has been published to date using morphological characters and specificity of host tissue. Currently, there are some 2400 nominal species of myxosporea classified to 17 families and 64 genera. Approximately 300 species have been described from India and most of them have been described solely on the basis of morphological characteristics. Molecular markers like small subunit ribosomal (SSU) and large subunit ribosomal (LSU) DNA have been used worldwide for the identification and validation of fish myxosporeans. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree based on SSU rDNA sequences was used to study the phylogenetic relationship among myxosporeans infecting Indian fishes. Myxospore phylogenies disagree with traditional spore-based classification systems, probably due to extreme plasticity in myxospores morphologies that have resulted in extensive convergence. Morphological similarities exist among myxosporea that encounter several problems in categorizing them. That’s why present-day research has shifted to molecular techniques for identification and correct systematics of myxosporeans. Molecular studies of myxozoans in India are still scarce and in infancy. To address persisting taxonomic and phylogenetic discrepancies, validation of these species by molecular tools is needed, because earlier species were reported only on the basis of morphological data. Therefore, the present study has summarized existing molecular data and current status of molecular taxonomy of myxosporeans parasitizing fresh and marine water fishes of India along with the approaches of myxozoan phylogenetics and information about the molecular markers, their interpretation in the identification of myxozoans parasitizing fishes

Color-Perception-Guided Display Power Reduction for Virtual Reality

Battery life is an increasingly urgent challenge for today's untethered VR and AR devices. However, the power efficiency of head-mounted displays is naturally at odds with growing computational requirements driven by better resolution, refresh rate, and dynamic ranges, all of which reduce the sustained usage time of untethered AR/VR devices. For instance, the Oculus Quest 2, under a fully-charged battery, can sustain only 2 to 3 hours of operation time. Prior display power reduction techniques mostly target smartphone displays. Directly applying smartphone display power reduction techniques, however, degrades the visual perception in AR/VR with noticeable artifacts. For instance, the "power-saving mode" on smartphones uniformly lowers the pixel luminance across the display and, as a result, presents an overall darkened visual perception to users if directly applied to VR content. Our key insight is that VR display power reduction must be cognizant of the gaze-contingent nature of high field-of-view VR displays. To that end, we present a gaze-contingent system that, without degrading luminance, minimizes the display power consumption while preserving high visual fidelity when users actively view immersive video sequences. This is enabled by constructing a gaze-contingent color discrimination model through psychophysical studies, and a display power model (with respect to pixel color) through real-device measurements. Critically, due to the careful design decisions made in constructing the two models, our algorithm is cast as a constrained optimization problem with a closed-form solution, which can be implemented as a real-time, image-space shader. We evaluate our system using a series of psychophysical studies and large-scale analyses on natural images. Experiment results show that our system reduces the display power by as much as 24% with little to no perceptual fidelity degradation

Bioactive Materials: A Short Review

In every field of dentistry and medicine, bioactive materials have&nbsp;been widely used. These materials are used for regeneration,&nbsp;repair, and reconstruction in the field of conservative dentistry&nbsp;and endodontics. These materials are used in different forms&nbsp;and composition and act directly on vital tissue, helping in its&nbsp;healing and repair. These materials directly function because&nbsp;of induction of various growth factors and different cells. This&nbsp;article summarizes the types and uses of bioactive materials

Dental Smart Materials

Dental materials are stable and have greater durability if they&nbsp;do not react with the environment and remain passive. At the&nbsp;same time, it is hoped that the materials will be well accepted&nbsp;and will cause neither harm nor injury. This is an entirely negative&nbsp;approach to material tolerance and biocompatibility. This&nbsp;outlook hides the possibility through which positive gains can&nbsp;be achieved by using materials that behave in a more dynamic&nbsp;fashion in the environment in which they are placed. The current&nbsp;dental materials are improvised. The use of smart materials&nbsp;has made a great revolution in dentistry, which includes the&nbsp;use of restorative materials, such as smart composites, smart&nbsp;ceramics, compomers, resin-modified glass ionomer, amorphous&nbsp;calcium phosphate–releasing pit, and fissure sealants&nbsp;and other materials, such as orthodontic shape memory alloys,&nbsp;smart burs, etc.&nbsp

Esthetic Design

An attractive face is of utmost priority to people. Attractiveness&nbsp;is based on symmetry and various proportions of the face.&nbsp;This helps us to design the smile beautifully and add a lot to&nbsp;facial esthetics. It is a multidisciplinary approach that includes&nbsp;orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry, and plastic surgery. It is veryimportant to carefully analyze and plan the treatment according&nbsp;to the patient’s demand, which will lead us to a beautiful smile

Berberine modulates AP-1 activity to suppress HPV transcription and downstream signaling to induce growth arrest and apoptosis in cervical cancer cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background-</p> <p>Specific types of high risk Human papillomaviruses (HR-HPVs) particularly, HPV types 16 and 18 cause cervical cancer and while the two recently developed vaccines against these HPV types are prophylactic in nature, therapeutic options for treatment and management of already existing HPV infection are not available as yet. Because transcription factor, Activator Protein-1 (AP-1) plays a central role in HPV-mediated cervical carcinogenesis, we explored the possibility of its therapeutic targeting by berberine, a natural alkaloid derived from a medicinal plant species, <it>Berberis </it>which has been shown to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties with no known toxicity; however, the effect of berberine against HPV has not been elucidated.</p> <p>Results-</p> <p>We studied the effect of berberine on HPV16-positive cervical cancer cell line, SiHa and HPV18-positive cervical cancer cell line, HeLa using electrophoretic mobility gel shift assays, western and northern blotting which showed that berberine could selectively inhibit constitutively activated AP-1 in a dose- and time-dependent manner and downregulates HPV oncogenes expression. Inhibition of AP-1 was also accompanied by changes in the composition of their DNA-binding complex. Berberine specifically downregulated expression of oncogenic c-Fos which was also absent in the AP-1 binding complex. Treatment with berberine resulted in repression of E6 and E7 levels and concomitant increase in p53 and Rb expression in both cell types. Berberine also suppressed expression of telomerase protein, hTERT, which translated into growth inhibition of cervical cancer cells. Interestingly, a higher concentration of berberine was found to reduce the cell viability through mitochondria-mediated pathway and induce apoptosis by activating caspase-3.</p> <p>Conclusion-</p> <p>These results indicate that berberine can effectively target both the host and viral factors responsible for development of cervical cancer through inhibition of AP-1 and blocking viral oncoproteins E6 and E7 expression. Inhibition of AP-1 activity by berberine may be one of the mechanisms responsible for the anti-HPV effect of berberine. We propose that berberine is a potentially promising compound for the treatment of cervical cancer infected with HPV.</p