Multiple Foci Drill-Down through Tuple and Attribute Polyarchies in Tabular Data.

Information analysis often involves decomposing data into sub-groups to allow for comparison and identification of relationships. Breakdown Visualization provides a mechanism to support this analysis through user guided drill-down of polyarchical metadata. This metadata describes multiple hierarchical structures for organizing tuple aggregation and table attributes. This structure is seen in sport statistics, financial data, organizational structures, and other fields. A spreadsheet format enables comparison of visualizations at each level of the hierarchy. Breakdown Visualization allows users to drill-down a single hierarchy then pivot into another hierarchy within the same view. We utilize a fix and move technique that allows users to select multiple foci for drill-down. We present an analysis scenario that demonstrates how Breakdown Visualization can be used to perform financial statement analysi

Microstructural characterization and mechanical performance along the thickness of electron beam welded stabilized AISI 321 stainless steel

The Electron Beam welding (EBW) process was employed to fabricate 18 mm thick fully penetrated butt welds of AISI 321 stainless steel. Nail shaped weld wide at the top and narrow at the bottom was obtained. Characterization of the weld joint was carried out using optical microscopy, scan electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, microhardness, impact toughness test and tensile strength test. The microstructure of the weld metal was found to be free from defects like cracks porosity etc. The weld metal consisted of the primarily austenitic matrix with skeletal and vermicular morphology of δ-ferrite by the side of the grain boundaries. Carbides of Cr and Ti were found in the weld metal after the thermal aging treatment of 750°C for 24 hours as reveled by the XRD analysis. The tensile strength study revealed a maximum strength of 575 MPa at the root of the weld joint in the as-welded state. The maximum impact toughness of 129.3 J was obtained in the top section of the weld in the as-welded condition. The results in terms of structure-property correlaterelationship. This study recommends the effectiveness of EBW for joining 18 mm thick AISI 321

Transforming Imagined Thoughts into Speech Using a Covariance-Based Subset Selection Method

180-183With the advancement of engineering solutions in the medical domain, the patient’s life can become comfortable. This work recognizes the silent speech of three words. The decoding of silent speech can be useful for patients who are in a locked-in syndrome state. Moreover, it is also applicable to entertainment, cognitive biometrics, and brain-computer interfacing. Brain waves of these imagined words in the delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma, and high gamma frequency bands are analysed. Covariance based connectivity features are extracted in each frequency band. The principal features which represent more than 95% of the variance are selected as a subset of the covariance connectivity matrix. This sub-set is tested on five classifiers. The maximum accuracy achieved is 76.4% in the theta band. Also, theta and high gamma band contain maximum information about imagined speech with average accuracies of 68.32% and 62.09% respectively

Transforming Imagined Thoughts into Speech Using a Covariance-Based Subset Selection Method

With the advancement of engineering solutions in the medical domain, the patient’s life can become comfortable. This work recognizes the silent speech of three words. The decoding of silent speech can be useful for patients who are in a locked-in syndrome state. Moreover, it is also applicable to entertainment, cognitive biometrics, and brain-computer interfacing. Brain waves of these imagined words in the delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma, and high gamma frequency bands are analysed. Covariance based connectivity features are extracted in each frequency band. The principal features which represent more than 95% of the variance are selected as a subset of the covariance connectivity matrix. This sub-set is tested on five classifiers. The maximum accuracy achieved is 76.4% in the theta band. Also, theta and high gamma band contain maximum information about imagined speech with average accuracies of 68.32% and 62.09% respectively

Current evidence-based therapy does not restore plasma apelin level in phenotypically diverse chronic heart failure patients

Background: Apelin, endogenous peptide acting through its receptor (APJ), is the most potent inotropic agent known to man. Plasma apelin and cardiac APJ mRNA levels rise in early stages of chronic heart failure (CHF) but fall later in decompensated CHF. The effect of current evidence-based management of CHF on plasma apelin level is not known. We estimated change in plasma apelin level in CHF patients of diverse phenotypes treated with standard pharmacotherapy and compared it with the corresponding change in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level and quality of life (QoL).Methods: With ethical approval and written informed consent, venous blood samples were collected from 39 CHF [dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) (n=21), restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM) (n=9) and chronic constrictive pericarditis (CCP) (n=9)] patients and 10 age-matched healthy controls, at baseline and after 12 weeks. Plasma apelin and BNP were estimated by competitive ELISA (RayBiotech Inc.) and an auto-analyzer (Triage, Allere Inc.), respectively. QoL was assessed using Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ). Nonparametric tests were applied and p-value <0.05 was considered significant.Results: Low LVEF, KCCQ score and high BNP levels were observed in all CHF patients compared to controls. Plasma apelin level was depressed in RCM and CCP patients compared to controls but not in DCM patients. These parameters did not change in any group after 3 months of standard pharmacotherapy.Conclusions: Current evidence-based management of CHF does not restore the depressed apelin-APJ axis. New drugs are required for specifically modulating this promising therapeutic target in CHF

Eosinophilic Esophagitis in Children and Adolescents with Abdominal Pain: Comparison with EoE-Dysphagia and Functional Abdominal Pain

Aim. Compare EoE-AP with EoE-D for clinical, endoscopy (EGD), histology and outcomes and also with FAP-N. Method. Symptoms, physical findings, EGD, histology, symptom scores, and treatments were recorded for the three groups. Cluster analysis was done. Results. Dysphagia and abdominal pain were different in numbers but not statistically significant between EoE-AP and EoE-D. EGD, linear furrows, white exudates were more in the EoE-D and both combined were significant (p < 0.05). EoE-D, peak and mean eosinophils (p  0.06) and eosinophilic micro abscesses (p  0.001) were higher. Follow-Up. Based on single symptom, EoE-AP had 30% (p  0.25) improvement, EoE-D 86% (p < 0.001) and similar with composite score (p  0.57 and <0.001, resp.). Patients who had follow-up, EGD: 42.8% with EoE-AP and 77.8% with EoE-D, showed single symptom improvement and the eosinophil count fell from 38.5/34.6 (peak and mean) to 31.2/30.4 (p  0.70) and from 43.6/40.8 to 25.2/22.8 (p < 0.001), respectively. FAP-N patients had similar symptom improvement like EoE-D. Cluster Analysis. EoE-AP and FAP-N were similar in clinical features and response to treatment, but EoE-D was distinctly different from EoE-AP and FAP-N. Conclusion. Our study demonstrates that EoE-AP and EoE-D have different histology and outcomes. In addition, EoE-AP has clinical features similar to the FAP-N group

Fat Plug Myringoplasty Vs Trichloroacetic Acid Cauterization as Office Procedures for Managing Small Central Perforation

Introduction In a series of day care office procedures, techniques like fat plug myringoplasty and Trichloroacetic acid (TCA) cauterization are becoming increasingly popular for managing small central perforations now-a-days[Office1] . These are minor, cost effective procedures and have success rates that match success rates of conventional tympanoplasty[Office2] . The aim of this prospective randomized controlled trial, was to compare the effectiveness of fat plug myringoplasty and chemical cauterization in the management of small centrally located perforations of the pars tensa. Materials and Methods The study was carried out over a period of 2 years on 62 patients selected from ENT OPD in our tertiary health care setup of central India. All the selected patients were grouped into two using a random allocation software EPi Info7.1.1.14. Group A included those who underwent fat plug myringoplasty while group B were those who underwent TCA cauterization. Results At 6 months follow up there was closure of perforation in 29 out of 30(96.6%) patients of group A and 29 out of 32(91%) patients of group B. In both groups success was defined by closure of perforation. Comparison of results was done using Fisher Exact Test. The difference between the success rates of the two procedures was statistically insignificant with p value of 0.6624, indicating that both the office procedures are equally effective and can be used according to the needs of the patients. Conclusion These office procedures can revolutionize the protocol of tympanoplasty which has an obvious higher morbidity and more days of absenteeism as compared to these minor procedures

Is Transcription Factor Binding Site Turnover a Sufficient Explanation for Cis-Regulatory Sequence Divergence?

The molecular evolution of cis-regulatory sequences is not well understood. Comparisons of closely related species show that cis-regulatory sequences contain a large number of sites constrained by purifying selection. In contrast, there are a number of examples from distantly related species where cis-regulatory sequences retain little to no sequence similarity but drive similar patterns of gene expression. Binding site turnover, whereby the gain of a redundant binding site enables loss of a previously functional site, is one model by which cis-regulatory sequences can diverge without a concurrent change in function. To determine whether cis-regulatory sequence divergence is consistent with binding site turnover, we examined binding site evolution within orthologous intergenic sequences from 14 yeast species defined by their syntenic relationships with adjacent coding sequences. Both local and global alignments show that nearly all distantly related orthologous cis-regulatory sequences have no significant level of sequence similarity but are enriched for experimentally identified binding sites. Yet, a significant proportion of experimentally identified binding sites that are conserved in closely related species are absent in distantly related species and so cannot be explained by binding site turnover. Depletion of binding sites depends on the transcription factor but is detectable for a quarter of all transcription factors examined. Our results imply that binding site turnover is not a sufficient explanation for cis-regulatory sequence evolution

DNA Clasping by Mycobacterial HU: The C-Terminal Region of HupB Mediates Increased Specificity of DNA Binding

BACKGROUND: HU a small, basic, histone like protein is a major component of the bacterial nucleoid. E. coli has two subunits of HU coded by hupA and hupB genes whereas Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has only one subunit of HU coded by ORF Rv2986c (hupB gene). One noticeable feature regarding Mtb HupB, based on sequence alignment of HU orthologs from different bacteria, was that HupB(Mtb) bears at its C-terminal end, a highly basic extension and this prompted an examination of its role in Mtb HupB function. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: With this objective two clones of Mtb HupB were generated; one expressing full length HupB protein (HupB(Mtb)) and another which expresses only the N terminal region (first 95 amino acid) of hupB (HupB(MtbN)). Gel retardation assays revealed that HupB(MtbN) is almost like E. coli HU (heat stable nucleoid protein) in terms of its DNA binding, with a binding constant (K(d)) for linear dsDNA greater than 1000 nM, a value comparable to that obtained for the HUalphaalpha and HUalphabeta forms. However CTR (C-terminal Region) of HupB(Mtb) imparts greater specificity in DNA binding. HupB(Mtb) protein binds more strongly to supercoiled plasmid DNA than to linear DNA, also this binding is very stable as it provides DNase I protection even up to 5 minutes. Similar results were obtained when the abilities of both proteins to mediate protection against DNA strand cleavage by hydroxyl radicals generated by the Fenton's reaction, were compared. It was also observed that both the proteins have DNA binding preference for A:T rich DNA which may occur at the regulatory regions of ORFs and the oriC region of Mtb. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data thus point that HupB(Mtb) may participate in chromosome organization in-vivo, it may also play a passive, possibly an architectural role

Estimation of linear quadratic (LQ) model parameter alpha/beta (α/β) and biologically effective dose (BED) for acute normal tissue reactions in head and neck malignancies

Purpose: Linear-Quadratic (LQ) model has been widely used for describing radiobiological effectiveness of various fractionation schedules on tumour as well as normal tissues. This study estimates α/β for acute normal tissue reactions using Fe-plot method.Methods: 50 cases of locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (stage III and IV) treated with external beam radiotherapy were included in this study. Patients were randomly distributed into Hyper-fractionation (HF) arm (1.2 Gy/fraction, twice daily, 6 hours apart) and conventional fractionation (CF) arm (2 Gy/fraction, once daily) with 25 cases in each arm. α/β and BED were calculated for acute normal tissue reactions using Fe-plot method.Results: In our study, the estimated values of α/β for RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 11.2 Gy, 10.1 Gy and 9 Gy respectively. Estimated values of α/β for RTOG grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 9.7 Gy, 8.0 Gy and 9.1 Gy respectively. For Hyper-fractionation arm, calculated BED values for grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 54.45 Gy11.239, 66.90 Gy10.114 and 73.43Gy9.001 respectively and for grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 33.5 Gy9.797, 57.8 Gy8.011 and 70.8 Gy9.106 respectively. For conventional fractionation arm, calculated BED values for grade 1, 2 and 3 skin reactions were 54.09 Gy11.239, 66.88 Gy10.114 and 73.33 Gy9.001 respectively and for grade 1, 2 and 3 mucosal reactions were 33.52 Gy9.797, 57.68 Gy8.011 and 70.73 Gy9.106 respectively.Conclusion: LQ model and the concept of BED provide an excellent tool to compare different fractionation schedules in radiotherapy. The estimated values of α/β for acute reacting normal tissues are in good agreement with the available literature