Magnetic resonance imaging of post traumatic knee: injury pattern analysis in sports activities

Background: Musculoskeletal injuries of knee are commonly encountered in sportsmen during sports activities. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the modality of choice for evaluation of traumatic knee injuries and arthroscopic interventions. By knowing the pattern and burden of surgically significant injuries in sportsmen, the artificial intelligence (AI) software may be developed accordingly so that surgically significant injuries may be identified by the young radiologists. Methods: It was a retrospective study on MRI for knee injuries in sportsmen. The digital data from Radiology department at a zonal level hospital was analysed. The MRI findings were correlated with the arthroscopic records available. For surgically insignificant injuries, the literature was referred for the typical MRI findings of the injuries. Results: Of 272 cases of MRI knee, 74.3% cases were detected to have acute traumatic injuries. Among various types of injuries found in this study, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear (55.9%) was the commonest injury followed by medial meniscal tear (40%). 40 (19.8%) cases were found to have surgically significant MRI findings which were subsequently corroborated with knee arthroscopy.Conclusions: Since majority of soft tissue injuries of knee constitute ACL and meniscal tears, the industries involved in developing AI software for soft tissue injuries of knee, should primarily focus on identification of ACL and meniscal injuries. The AI software may also be helpful for the young radiologists in early training days in MRI for knee injuries and may also help in big scale research projects of post traumatic MRI knees

Optic nerve sheath diameter as a non-invasive indicator of intracranial hypertension in traumatic brain injury: correlation with CT head and prognostic implications

Background: Ultrasound guided measurement of optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD) is an emerging non invasive bedside tool that is being used to detect raised intracranial pressure (ICP) in patients with traumatic brain injury(TBI). Early detection of raised ICP can guide in the timely management of such patients with raised ICP due to TBI. Methods: A prospective, observational, open labelled study planned with a 30 patients of TBI of both genders, aged between 18 to 70 years. ONSD readings were taken 3 times a day for three days from the time of admission with portable SonoSite ultrasound machine. Data was expressed as mean ±standard deviation. Values were compared using T test and P value was calculated. Results: Highest reading recorded in patients with GCS <8 was 6.26±0.73 in comparison to 5.38±0.56 (p=0.001) in patients with GCS >8. Highest reading of ONSD  correlating  with a positive CT finding at admission was 6.22±.81 and was 5.46±.57 (p=0.006)  in patients with negative findings on CT. ROC curve with average cut off of 6 mm  correlated with positive CT findings with sensitivity of 80%, specificity of 70%  and negative predictive value of 87% was found. Conclusions: Ultrasound-guided ONSD monitoring shows promise for diagnosing intracranial hypertension in traumatic brain injury. Correlations with CT, GCS, and outcomes emphasize its clinical relevance, warranting further validatio

Comparative efficacy study of brimonidine tartrate 0.15% and timolol maleate 0.5% ophthalmic solution (benzalkonium chloride free) versus Brimolol® (with benzalkonium chloride) following single ocular instillation in New Zealand white rabbits

Background: Benzalkonium chloride (BKC) is the most used preservative in topical eye drops but it causes effects such as dry eye and trabecular meshwork degeneration. Polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) is a polymeric biguanide is a less harmful preservative used in ophthalmic solutions. The objective of this study to com-pare the efficacy of PHMB preserved versus BKC preserved ophthalmic solutions containing brimonidine tartrate and timolol maleate on intraocular pressure (IOP) following single ocular instillation in New Zealand white (NZW) rabbits.Methods: This study was conducted on 12 normotensive male NZW rabbits (2.9-3.6 kg) between 6-9 months of age. Animals received single ocular instillation of 35 µl ophthalmic solution containing brimonidine tartrate 0.15 %w/v and timolol maleate 0.5% w/v with PHMB as preservative (n=6, test) or BKC as preservative (n=6, reference) as per the randomization. Intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured before and 2, 4, 6, 8 and 24 hours after instillation using a pneumatonometer. Percentage change in IOP from pre-instillation values were calculated. Changes in IOP were analysed using the repeated-measures analysis of variance followed by Bonferroni post-test.Results: Single ocular instillation of PHMB and BKC formulations show significant IOP reduction up to 6 hours as compared with baseline (p<0.05). Reduction in IOP was 35.8% and 32.0% at 2 hours with PHMB and BKC formulations respectively. No differences were observed between the test and reference groups for change in IOP from baseline.Conclusions: PHMB preserved brimonidine tartrate 0.15% w/v and timolol maleate 0.5% w/v ophthalmic solution was comparable to BKC preserved solution in normotensive NZW rabbits

Quantum Security of FOX Construction based on Lai-Massey Scheme

The Lai-Massey scheme is an important cryptographic approach to design block ciphers from secure pseudorandom functions. It has been used in the designs of IDEA and IDEA-NXT. At ASIACRYPT\u2799, Vaudenay showed that the 3-round and 4-round Lai-Massey scheme are secure against chosen-plaintext attacks (CPAs) and chosen-ciphertext attacks (CCAs), respectively, in the classical setting. At SAC\u2704, Junod and Vaudenay proposed a new family of block ciphers based on the Lai-Massey scheme, namely FOX. In this work, we analyze the security of the FOX cipher in the quantum setting, where the attacker can make quantum superposed queries to the oracle. Our results are as follows: $-$ The 3-round FOX construction is not a pseudorandom permutation against quantum chosen-plaintext attacks (qCPAs), and the 4-round FOX construction is not a strong pseudorandom permutation against quantum chosen-ciphertext attacks (qCCAs). Essentially, we build quantum distinguishers against the 3-round and 4-round FOX constructions, using Simon\u27s algorithm. $-$ The 4-round FOX construction is a pseudorandom permutation against qCPAs. Concretely, we prove that the 4-round FOX construction is secure up to $O(2^{n/12})$ quantum queries. Our security proofs use the compressed oracle technique introduced by Zhandry. More precisely, we use an alternative formalization of the compressed oracle technique introduced by Hosoyamada and Iwata