A giant submandibular sialolith - How to manage?

The presence of a sialolith is one of the most common diseases of salivary gland. It is relatively common in submandibular salivary glands and its duct. This case report is of a patient who presented at our unit with a history of severe pain and swelling on floor of the mouth, which was clinically and radiographically diagnosed as a sialolith. The diagnostic and treatment protocol in managing a patient with a giant sialolith is enumerated in this manuscript

Air Pollution Monitoring & Control at Foundry Clusters in Belgaum-A Case Study

Foundry in Belgaum is the only relatively modern. A foundry is a casting manufacturing system. Casting is the process of forming objects by pouring liquid metal into prepared mould and allowing the melt to solidify. The foundry operations generate different kinds of air pollution, depending upon the kinds of furnace in use and the kinds of energy inputs that they use.The present study indicates the air pollution concentration of foundry clusters area of Belgaum city divided in three zones and the concentration of different air pollutants such as Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), Ammonia (NH3), Particulate Matter 10 (PM10) and Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) are analyzed. Monitoring locations were divided in three zones Udyambag, Angol, Machhe sampling was done for 24 hours duration. The samples were collected during the month of January February, March and April 2014

Counterspeeches up my sleeve! Intent Distribution Learning and Persistent Fusion for Intent-Conditioned Counterspeech Generation

Counterspeech has been demonstrated to be an efficacious approach for combating hate speech. While various conventional and controlled approaches have been studied in recent years to generate counterspeech, a counterspeech with a certain intent may not be sufficient in every scenario. Due to the complex and multifaceted nature of hate speech, utilizing multiple forms of counter-narratives with varying intents may be advantageous in different circumstances. In this paper, we explore intent-conditioned counterspeech generation. At first, we develop IntentCONAN, a diversified intent-specific counterspeech dataset with 6831 counterspeeches conditioned on five intents, i.e., informative, denouncing, question, positive, and humour. Subsequently, we propose QUARC, a two-stage framework for intent-conditioned counterspeech generation. QUARC leverages vector-quantized representations learned for each intent category along with PerFuMe, a novel fusion module to incorporate intent-specific information into the model. Our evaluation demonstrates that QUARC outperforms several baselines by an average of 10% across evaluation metrics. An extensive human evaluation supplements our hypothesis of better and more appropriate responses than comparative systems.Comment: ACL 202

Biofouling Community Structure in a Tropical Estuary of Goa on the West Coast of India

Biofouling community structure was studied in a tropical monsoon-influenced Mandovi estuary in Goa, west coast of India. Monthly, seasonal and yearly observations on biofouling on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) panels immersed at subsurface water level were recorded and photographed from May 2012 to September 2013. The barnacle Balanus amphitrite was the dominant fouling organism followed by calcareous polychaetes. The settlement and recruitment of barnacles took place year-round, with the exception of July 2012 and June 2013 (monsoon months). However, their peak abundance was observed during the later months of monsoon (August and September). Polychaetes were dominant during late post-monsoon and pre-monsoon months (December 2012 to April 2013). Silt and slime were observed throughout the observation period. Comparing the fouling pressure of barnacles in the two monsoon seasons (2012 and 2013), fouling was more intense during the monsoon of 2013, indicating an inter-annual variation in the fouling community

Acetaminophen prevents aging-associated hyperglycemia in aged rats: effect of aging-associated hyperactivation of p38-MAPK and ERK1/2

Background Aging-related hyperglycemia is associated with increased oxidative stress and diminished muscle glucose transporter-4 (Glut4) that may be regulated, at least in part, by the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK). Methods To test the possibility that aging-related hyperglycemia can be prevented by pharmacological manipulation of MAPK hyperactivation, aged (27-month old) Fischer 344/NNiaHSD × Brown Norway/BiNia F1 (F344BN) rats were administered acetaminophen (30 mg/kg body weight/day) for 6 months in drinking water. Results Hepatic histopathology, serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase analyses suggested that chronic acetaminophen did not cause hepatotoxicity. Compared with adult (6-month) and aged (27-month) rats, very aged rats (33-month) had higher levels of blood glucose, phosphorylation of soleus p38-MAPK and extracellular-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), superoxide and oxidatively modified proteins (p \u3c 0.05), and these changes were associated with decreased soleus Glut4 protein abundance (p \u3c 0.05). Chronic acetaminophen treatment attenuated age-associated increase in blood glucose by 61.3% (p \u3c 0.05) and increased soleus Glut4 protein by 157.2% (p \u3c 0.05). These changes were accompanied by diminished superoxide levels, decrease in oxidatively modified proteins (−60.8%; p \u3c 0.05) and reduced p38-MAPK and ERK1/2 hyperactivation (−50.4% and − 35.4%, respectively; p \u3c 0.05). Conclusions These results suggest that acetaminophen may be useful for the treatment of age-associated hyperglycemia

Effect of hydrodynamic cavitation on zooplankton: a tool for disinfection

Application of hydrodynamic cavitation for disinfection of water is gaining momentum, as it provides environmentally and economically sound options. In this effort, the effect of cavitating conditions created by differential pump valve opening and that created by flowing through a cavitating element (orifice plates) on the microbes (zooplankton in sea water) is described. The experimental results are compared with modelling of cavitating conditions that includes cavity dynamics, turbulence generated by individual oscillating cavity, cell wall strength and geometrical and operating parameters of cavitation device. Theoretical model for quantifying the cavitationally generated turbulent shear and extent of microbial disinfection has been developed. Experimental results indicated that cavitation and/or turbulent fluid shear dominantly originating from cavitation are effective tools for sea water disinfection as more than 80% of the zooplankton present in the sea water were killed. It was also observed that shock waves generated due to cavitation is not the sole cause for zooplankton disruption. A correct physical mechanism accounting fluid turbulence and shear, generated from stable oscillation of cavity, significantly contribute towards the disruption. Further refinement of the model presented will serve as a basis for higher degree of disinfection and provide a practical tool for sea water disinfection

Liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma: Management after the transplant

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153700/1/ajt15697.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153700/2/ajt15697_am.pd

Barnacle larval transport in the Mandovi–Zuari estuarine system, central west coast of India

A two-dimensional hydrodynamic and particle tracking model was used to estimate the dispersion and retention of barnacle larvae from their possible spawning sites in a tropical monsoon-influenced estuarine system (central west coast of India). Validation of the hydrodynamic simulations yielded a good match with field measurements. The pattern of larval dispersal in the region varied with the winds and currents. The seasonal changes in abundance could be attributed to physical forcing and weather conditions. The extent of barnacle larval dispersal from spawning sites varied from 10 to 78 km for different sites and seasons. During a 24-h cycle, the larval abundance showed one to two peaks in the estuarine area. The increased larval abundance is favored by the flood currents, pushing the larvae into the estuary. Physical forcing in the region helps in transport of the larvae from their spawning sites hugging to the coast and contributing to the population within the estuary. Field observations and numerical experiments suggest the occurrence of higher larval abundance in the estuary during post-monsoon. The dispersal pattern indicated that the barnacle population present in the estuary is well mixed, and with a seasonally changing pattern

Being young in a changing world: how temperature and salinity changes interactively modify the performance of larval stages of the barnacle Amphibalanus improvisus

The fate of key species, such as the barnacle Amphibalanus improvisus, in the course of global change is of particular interest since any change in their abundance and/or performance may entail community-wide effects. In the fluctuating Western Baltic, species typically experience a broad range of environmental conditions, which may preselect them to better cope with climate change. In this study, we examined the sensitivity of two crucial ontogenetic phases (naupliar, cypris) of the barnacle toward a range of temperature (12, 20, and 28°C) and salinity (5, 15, and 30 psu) combinations. Under all salinity treatments, nauplii developed faster at intermediate and high temperatures. Cyprid metamorphosis success, in contrast, was interactively impacted by temperature and salinity. Survival of nauplii decreased with increasing salinity under all temperature treatments. Highest settlement rates occurred at the intermediate temperature and salinity combination, i.e., 20°C and 15 psu. Settlement success of “naive” cyprids, i.e., when nauplii were raised in the absence of stress (20°C/15 psu), was less impacted by stressful temperature/salinity combinations than that of cyprids with a stress history. Here, settlement success was highest at 30 psu particularly at low and high temperatures. Surprisingly, larval survival was not highest under the conditions typical for the Kiel Fjord at the season of peak settlement (20°C/15 psu). The proportion of nauplii that ultimately transformed to attached juveniles was, however, highest under these “home” conditions. Overall, only particularly stressful combinations of temperature and salinity substantially reduced larval performance and development. Given more time for adaptation, the relatively smooth climate shifts predicted will probably not dramatically affect this species