Personalizing the web using site descriptions

Journal ArticleThe information overload on the Web has created a great need for efficient filtering mechanisms. Many sites (e.g., CNN and Quicken) address this problem by allowing a user to create personalized pages that contain only information that is of interest to the user. We propose a new approach for personalization that improves on existing services in three significant ways: the user can create personalized pages with information from any site (without being restricted to sites that offer personalization); personalized pages may contain information from multiple Web sites (e.g., a user can create a personalized page that contains not only news categories from her favorite news sources, but also information about the prices of all stocks whose names appear in the headlines of selected news, and weather information for a particular city); and users have more privacy since they are not required to sign up for the service. In order to build a personalization service that is general and easy to maintain, we make use of site descriptions that facilitate access to the data stored in and generated by Web sites. Site descriptions encode information about the contents, structure, and services offered by a Web site, and they can be created semi-automatically

Repercussions of intraalveolar placement of combination of 0.2% chlorhexidine & 10 Mg metronidazole gel on the occurrence of dry sockets- A randomized control trial

To evaluate the effects of intraalveolar placement of gel containing 0.2% chlorhexidine and 10gm of metronidazole on the incidence of alveolar osteitis. A total of 300 impacted third molars were extracted in 150 patients enrolled in this trial. In each subject a socket was randomly selected and packed to the crest of alveolar ridge with the gel. The contralateral socket was packed with placebo dressing. The occurrence of dry socket was assessed during 3rd and 5th postoperative days .The data was analysed using a meta analytical program. Double blind, prospective, placebo controlled trial. The combination of metronidazole + chlorhexidine gel significantly reduced dry socket incidence from 22.6% to 6.6% (P ≤ 0.001) [McNemar and chi-square tests]. The decrease in incidence of adverse reactions and complications related to local application of metronidazole and chlorhexidine gel explains its clinical use, specifically in mandibular molar extractions where the chances of dry sockets are high

Report of the three-day workshop on 'Regeneration of the Banas-Bisalpur Socio-ecological Complex'

Executive summaryThe ‘Regeneration of the Banas-Bisalpur Socio-ecological Complex’ workshop (JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur, December 2017) brought together approximately 70 participants from government, NGOs, academia, village governance institutions and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes sharing an interest in reversal of the currently degrading cycle of linked ecological and socioeconomic degradation across the Banas River catchment in Rajasthan. The workshop was run in association with the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol, UK), JK Lakshmipat University (Jaipur, India), and WaterHarvest – India Liaison Office (Udaipur, India), and was kindly sponsored by Wetlands International – South Asia Office (Delhi, India).Like many catchments globally, the Banas has not been treated in modern times as a living resource. Rather, it has been subject to high levels of abstraction without proportional rebalancing resource renewal, putting the socio-ecological system into degrading cycle. Yet, for four-and-a-half thousand years of pre-industrial history, the people of Rajasthan had subsisted and thrived on scarce water by innovation and operation of a diversity of ‘water wise’ recharge, storage and efficient use solutions attuned to local geography and culture. A key challenge for reversal of the currently rapidly degrading cycle in the Banas catchment, with its associated vulnerabilities for all inherently interconnected urban and rural people co-dependent on its water, is to recognise the central role played by the primary resource of ecosystem processes.Workshop participants welcomed the opportunity to work together to explore problems, emerging needs and potential solutions, and to do so as part of an ongoing strategy of ‘action learning’ towards a vision of a regenerative socio-ecological system. Future progress entails working together to co-develop solutions that work with natural processes, hybridising traditional knowledge and modern techniques to achieve a regenerative socio-ecological cycle better connected across the catchment in a modern world of significant population growth, urbanisation and climate change. Cross-catchment connections include closer integration and equitable balance between needs and appropriate solutions that work for all people, with the current fracture of perspectives between urban and rural regions highlighted as a particular priority for action. Economic and regulatory reforms attuned to supporting environmental processes are essential, backed up by research in environmental and social systems, engineering, economics and governance mechanisms. Shared awareness and responsibility by all people across the catchment is necessary to achieve a more integrated approach to catchment sustainability, including reducing current fragmentation of institutions and knowledge. NGOs, village governance institutions and faith leaders have significant roles to play in integrating effort and knowledge, along with government, CSR and academic programmes.All technologies, both ecosystem-based and ‘hard’ engineering techniques, have roles to play, but the ramifications of their deployment need to be understood. An agreed foundational goal within the Banas vision is sustainable hybridisation of water management technologies –natural infrastructure, traditional management, ‘green’ technologies and ‘hard’ engineering – in ways that are beneficial to local people and catchment processes. This is vital to reverse current and cumulative cumulate pressures arising from proliferation of unlicenced tube wells and large dam-and-transfer schemes that are not today balanced with recharge, constituting primary drivers of catchment decline. Water efficiency in urban area, responsible for a high density of demand, is substantially underinvested today. Novel urban self-sufficiency, benefit sharing and investment mechanisms to regenerate the resource are required, overcoming former narrow exploitation-based approaches founded on limited knowledge and power asymmetries. Novel ideas include limiting water diversions from the Bisalpur to the city of Jaipur, quantitatively or on a time-limited basis, as a means to force greater awareness and self-reliance on local urban sources (such as investment in infiltration pits and local storage) and ‘green infrastructure’ solutions (rooftop water harvesting, greywater reuse, etc.) to redress power asymmetries and assumptions, and to promote urban self-sufficiency.Some knowledge gaps and incorrect assumptions need to be addressed. This includes in particular divergent opinions about the impact of small anicuts in upper sub-catchments, seen by some a stopping water reaching the Bisapur Dam but by others as sustaining local livelihoods whilst also regenerating groundwater systems that store and buffer flows downstream. There is also a need to better understand underground and surface flows of water in the catchment as a robust basis for more sustainable management, and to improve the protection of this vital natural capital to combat poverty and better support human needs.Novel livelihood practices could be innovated to make better beneficial use of water within the catchment, rather than depending on abstraction from the ecosystem to drive short-term consumptive economic uses. The economics of water include thinking in a cyclic way consistent with the water cycle, for example directing investment in upstream practices that recharge the catchment system rather than simply using it to increase the technical efficiency of extractive technologies that the current declines in water quantity and quality will render unsustainable. Reformed economic instruments are part of a wider transition to cyclic thinking and behaviour, also addressing equity issues, creating a regulatory environment across the catchment that works in synergy with its natural supportive and regenerative processes.Reaching for a regenerative vision necessarily includes innovating effective, nested governance systems. A ‘top down’ catchment-scale vision and enabling policy environment is necessary to inform and facilitate progress towards the catchment-wide vision, also helping enforce practices such as driving roof water harvesting, water efficiency and reuse, and other necessary efficiency measures in urban areas. However, practical delivery requires a high level of delegation to identify and deploy solutions closely tuned to specific geographical and cultural situations, that are best innovated and governed on a highly localised basis. Enabling, nested and co-creative governance arrangement are required. This includes far closer integration of the disparate CSR, NGO, local, faith leader and government programmes (MGNREGA, Smart Cities, Rajasthan’s MJSA programme, and many more departmental initiatives and associated budgets that are currently narrowly deployed). This can be implemented with far greater synergy and cross-departmental co-benefits leading towards the ultimate vision of a regenerative socio-ecological system.'Business as usual’ – today’s overemphasis on technically efficient extraction, overlooking ecosystem processes underpinning resource recharge and availability – is not a sustainable option, and can only perpetuate ecological depletion and associated human vulnerabilities. There is now no viable, equitable or sustainable alternative than acting upon what we now know about the systemic nature of catchments, and refocusing energies, investment and innovation on an ecosystem- and community-based regeneration programme for the Banas socio-ecological system. There is a pressing need to change paradigm from narrowly short-term exploitation, leading to the depletion of water and associated ecological and human wellbeing, towards more informed and strategic stewardship with efficient uses balanced with resource protection and regeneration.Workshop participants saw substantial value in bringing people together from a diversity of societal sectors associated with the catchment, welcoming future opportunities to share perspectives and make strides towards co-created sustainable solutions. Ecosystems and their processes were acknowledged as the fundamental resource underpinning continuing human security and opportunity, and need to be valued on that basis in all management and use decisions within a bold vision of a regenerative socio-ecological Banas system. Though the challenges of attaining it are daunting, confronting many assumed norms and vested interests, this vision can be focal for progressive innovation, evolution and integration of initiatives, to get as close as possible to a baseline of natural catchment functioning and sustainable human interactions with it.Above all, the tight interlinkage between all people co-dependent on the catchment system needs to be recognised within a collaborative approach to balance water use with recharge, regenerating the entire socio-ecological system. This is “a journey, not a destination” that all participants are happy to progress

PanGFR-HM: A Dynamic Web Resource for Pan-Genomic and Functional Profiling of Human Microbiome With Comparative Features

The conglomerate of microorganisms inhabiting various body-sites of human, known as the human microbiome, is one of the key determinants of human health and disease. Comprehensive pan-genomic and functional analysis approach for human microbiome components can enrich our understanding about impact of microbiome on human health. By utilizing this approach we developed PanGFR-HM (http://www.bioinfo.iicb.res.in/pangfr-hm/) – a novel dynamic web-resource that integrates genomic and functional characteristics of 1293 complete microbial genomes available from Human Microbiome Project. The resource allows users to explore genomic/functional diversity and genome-based phylogenetic relationships between human associated microbial genomes, not provided by any other resource. The key features implemented here include pan-genome and functional analysis of organisms based on taxonomy or body-site, and comparative analysis between groups of organisms. The first feature can also identify probable gene-loss events and significantly over/under represented KEGG/COG categories within pan-genome. The unique second feature can perform comparative genomic, functional and pathways analysis between 4 groups of microbes. The dynamic nature of this resource enables users to define parameters for orthologous clustering and to select any set of organisms for analysis. As an application for comparative feature of PanGFR-HM, we performed a comparative analysis with 67 Lactobacillus genomes isolated from human gut, oral cavity and urogenital tract, and therefore characterized the body-site specific genes, enzymes and pathways. Altogether, PanGFR-HM, being unique in its content and functionality, is expected to provide a platform for microbiome-based comparative functional and evolutionary genomics

Launching a global network of virologists : the World Society for Virology (WSV)

PostprintPeer reviewe

Case Reports1. A Late Presentation of Loeys-Dietz Syndrome: Beware of TGFβ Receptor Mutations in Benign Joint Hypermobility

Background: Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) and dissections are not uncommon causes of sudden death in young adults. Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) is a rare, recently described, autosomal dominant, connective tissue disease characterized by aggressive arterial aneurysms, resulting from mutations in the transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) receptor genes TGFBR1 and TGFBR2. Mean age at death is 26.1 years, most often due to aortic dissection. We report an unusually late presentation of LDS, diagnosed following elective surgery in a female with a long history of joint hypermobility. Methods: A 51-year-old Caucasian lady complained of chest pain and headache following a dural leak from spinal anaesthesia for an elective ankle arthroscopy. CT scan and echocardiography demonstrated a dilated aortic root and significant aortic regurgitation. MRA demonstrated aortic tortuosity, an infrarenal aortic aneurysm and aneurysms in the left renal and right internal mammary arteries. She underwent aortic root repair and aortic valve replacement. She had a background of long-standing joint pains secondary to hypermobility, easy bruising, unusual fracture susceptibility and mild bronchiectasis. She had one healthy child age 32, after which she suffered a uterine prolapse. Examination revealed mild Marfanoid features. Uvula, skin and ophthalmological examination was normal. Results: Fibrillin-1 testing for Marfan syndrome (MFS) was negative. Detection of a c.1270G > C (p.Gly424Arg) TGFBR2 mutation confirmed the diagnosis of LDS. Losartan was started for vascular protection. Conclusions: LDS is a severe inherited vasculopathy that usually presents in childhood. It is characterized by aortic root dilatation and ascending aneurysms. There is a higher risk of aortic dissection compared with MFS. Clinical features overlap with MFS and Ehlers Danlos syndrome Type IV, but differentiating dysmorphogenic features include ocular hypertelorism, bifid uvula and cleft palate. Echocardiography and MRA or CT scanning from head to pelvis is recommended to establish the extent of vascular involvement. Management involves early surgical intervention, including early valve-sparing aortic root replacement, genetic counselling and close monitoring in pregnancy. Despite being caused by loss of function mutations in either TGFβ receptor, paradoxical activation of TGFβ signalling is seen, suggesting that TGFβ antagonism may confer disease modifying effects similar to those observed in MFS. TGFβ antagonism can be achieved with angiotensin antagonists, such as Losartan, which is able to delay aortic aneurysm development in preclinical models and in patients with MFS. Our case emphasizes the importance of timely recognition of vasculopathy syndromes in patients with hypermobility and the need for early surgical intervention. It also highlights their heterogeneity and the potential for late presentation. Disclosures: The authors have declared no conflicts of interes

A nationwide study of adults admitted to hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state and COVID‐19

AimsTo investigate characteristics of people hospitalized with coronavirus-disease-2019 (COVID-19) and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) or hyperosmolar hyperglycaemic state (HHS), and to identify risk factors for mortality and intensive care admission.Materials and methodsRetrospective cohort study with anonymized data from the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists nationwide audit of hospital admissions with COVID-19 and diabetes, from start of pandemic to November 2021. The primary outcome was inpatient mortality. DKA and HHS were adjudicated against national criteria. Age-adjusted odds ratios were calculated using logistic regression.ResultsIn total, 85 confirmed DKA cases, and 20 HHS, occurred among 4073 people (211 type 1 diabetes, 3748 type 2 diabetes, 114 unknown type) hospitalized with COVID-19. Mean (SD) age was 60 (18.2) years in DKA and 74 (11.8) years in HHS (p < .001). A higher proportion of patients with HHS than with DKA were of non-White ethnicity (71.4% vs 39.0% p = .038). Mortality in DKA was 36.8% (n = 57) and 3.8% (n = 26) in type 2 and type 1 diabetes respectively. Among people with type 2 diabetes and DKA, mortality was lower in insulin users compared with non-users [21.4% vs. 52.2%; age-adjusted odds ratio 0.13 (95% CI 0.03-0.60)]. Crude mortality was lower in DKA than HHS (25.9% vs. 65.0%, p = .001) and in statin users versus non-users (36.4% vs. 100%; p = .035) but these were not statistically significant after age adjustment.ConclusionsHospitalization with COVID-19 and adjudicated DKA is four times more common than HHS but both associate with substantial mortality. There is a strong association of previous insulin therapy with survival in type 2 diabetes-associated DKA