Association and correlation of thyroid dysfunction with anemia types in pregnant women of northern Andhra Pradesh, India

Background: Thyroid dysfunction is a common disorder in pregnancy along with anemia. But no study has evaluated the association between them. To estimate the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction and its association with anemia types in pregnant women during 1st trimester.Methods: Three hundred and eighty pregnant women with <12 weeks of gestational age were selected for the study with no history of thyroid dysfunction and anemia. All the pregnant women were classified into A, euthyroid and B, thyroid dysfunction groups. The B group was again subdivided into hypothyroid, subclinical hypothyroid (SCH), hyperthyroid according to nature of dysfunction. 5 ml of blood sample was collected from all subjects to analyse thyroid hormones and erythrocyte indices.Results: Out of 380 subjects, euthyroid was found to be 77.9%, and rest 22.1% were with thyroid dysfunction. Out of 84 thyroid dysfunction, hypothyroid was found to be 7.9%, SCH 13.9% and hyperthyroid was 0.3%. Out of 296 euthyroid women, anemia was identified in 97 pregnant women (32.8%) whereas in thyroid dysfunction women it was 43 women out of 84 (51.2%) which is a statistically significant. Significantly higher frequency of microcytic hypochromic anemia and normocytic normochromic anemia types were also found in thyroid dysfunction groups compared to euthyroid group (p<0.05). However, no significance between the thyroid dysfunction groups, Statistically significant difference was observed in the Hb concentration, RBC count, MCV, MCH and PCV between euthyroid and different thyroid dysfunction conditions (p<0.05). A statistically significant positive correlation was found between fT4 and erythrocyte indices.Conclusions: As fT4 and TSH correlated with erythrocyte indices, it is advisable to screen for thyroid dysfunction and vice versa so as to prevent the complications associated with anemia and thyroid dysfunction

Prevalence of thyroid dysfunction in pregnant women and the need for universal screening: an observational study in Northern Andhra Pradesh population

Background: The maternal thyroid dysfunction is associated with adverse outcomes such as miscarriage, preterm delivery, preeclampsia, postpartum haemorrhage in mother whereas increased risk of impaired neurological development in foetus. The present study was designed with an aim to determine the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction and the need for universal screening in pregnant women.Methods: Three hundred and eighty pregnant women between 8-36 weeks of gestation with age group 20-32 years were recruited. Serum free T3, free T4 and TSH levels were assayed by chemiluminescence method. The pregnant women were classified into euthyroid, subclinical hypothyroid (SH), overt hypothyroid (OH) and overt hyperthyroid groups based on the results obtained in the study.Results: In the present study, the mean ± SD age (in years) and BMI of all pregnant women was 23.9±3.9 and 22.9±1.6 respectively. The maternal age was high in OH and overt hyperthyroid and was statistically significant (p&lt;0.05). Similarly, women with high BMI were prone to OH than normal BMI (p&lt;0.05). The prevalence of thyroid dysfunction was found to be 18.7%. The prevalence of hypothyroidism was 17.4% in which the SH was 13.4% and overt hypothyroidism 3.9%, but overt hyperthyroidism was 1.3%. TSH levels increased with the advancement of gestational age from 2.72±1.85 in first trimester to 3.4±2.05 µIU/mL in third trimester, and the difference was statistically significant (p&lt;0.05). Finally, it was also noticed that the prevalence of raised TSH in high-risk pregnant women was high compared to low-risk women (35.6% vs 5.1%) relative risk (RR) 7.64, 95% confidence interval (CI) 4.62-12.65, (p&lt;0.0001). However, 14 out of 51 (27.5%) with SH were in low-risk group.Conclusions: The present study states that the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction was 18.7% and also emphasizes the importance of screening all pregnant women for thyroid dysfunction rather than targeted high-risk pregnant women to prevent both maternal and fetal morbidity

Geomagnetic storm effects on GPS based navigation

The energetic events on the sun, solar wind and subsequent effects on the Earth&apos;s geomagnetic field and upper atmosphere (ionosphere) comprise space weather. Modern navigation systems that use radio-wave signals, reflecting from or propagating through the ionosphere as a means of determining range or distance, are vulnerable to a variety of effects that can degrade the performance of the navigational systems. In particular, the Global Positioning System (GPS) that uses a constellation of earth orbiting satellites are affected due to the space weather phenomena. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Studies made during two successive geomagnetic storms that occurred during the period from 8 to 12 November 2004, have clearly revealed the adverse affects on the GPS range delay as inferred from the Total Electron Content (TEC) measurements made from a chain of seven dual frequency GPS receivers installed in the Indian sector. Significant increases in TEC at the Equatorial Ionization anomaly crest region are observed, resulting in increased range delay during the periods of the storm activity. Further, the storm time rapid changes occurring in TEC resulted in a number of phase slips in the GPS signal compared to those on quiet days. These phase slips often result in the loss of lock of the GPS receivers, similar to those that occur during strong(&amp;gt;10 dB) L-band scintillation events, adversely affecting the GPS based navigation

Visualisation of an entangled channel spin-1 system

Co-variance matrix formalism gives powerful entanglement criteria for continuous as well as finite dimensional systems. We use this formalism to study a mixed channel spin-1 system which is well known in nuclear reactions. A spin-j state can be visualized as being made up of 2j spinors which are represented by a constellation of 2j points on a Bloch sphere using Majorana construction. We extend this formalism to visualize an entangled mixed spin-1 system.Comment: 4 pages,4 figure

Plant extract effect on seed-borne pathogenic fungi from seeds of paddy grown in Southern India

A total of 40 seed samples of different cultivars of paddy, collected from southern part of India, were mycologicaly analyzed by agar plating method on Czapek's-Dox-Agar (CzA) medium and Standard Blotter Method (SBM), revealed the occurrence of 33 diverse fungal species belonging to 16 genera. The species of Drechslera oryzae (RP 82.5) was recorded with the incidence and relative preponderance (RP), followed by Curvularia lunata (RP 67.5) and Aspergillus niger (RP 65.0) respectively. The data on the diversity and incidence of fungal species would be a great importance in the region for predicting the extent of pre-and post-infections.In vitro antifungal activity assay of methanol extract of 12 plants belonging to different families were tested against eight pathogenic fungal species viz., Alternaria alternata, Aspergillus flavus, Curvularia lunata, Drechslera oryzae, D. halodes, Fusarium moniliforme, Pyricularia oryzae and Trichoconis padwickii by poisoned food technique. The results revealed that, methanol extract of Acacia nilotica, Caesalpinia coriaria, Decalepis hamiltonii, Emblica officinalis, Lawsonia inermis and Mimosops elengi showed significant antifungal activity at 3500 μg/ml concentration. Comparative evaluation of the extracts with the synthetic fungicides viz., bavistin, blitox, captan, dithane M-45 and thiram at the recommended dosage revealed that, antifungal activity of methanol extract of D. hamiltonii, L. inermis and M. elengi was almost equivalent. These plants can possibly be exploited in the management of seed-borne pathogenic fungi and prevention of biodeterioration of paddy in an eco-friendly way

Audit of caesarean deliveries in a tertiary care hospital of northern Andhra Pradesh using modified Robson criteria

Background: Today, there is an increased trend in the incidence of caesarean section (CS) rate worldwide particularly in India, even with the lack of evidence supporting considerable maternal and perinatal benefits with higher CS rates. The main objective of our study was to find the incidence of CS rate, auditing the data on the basis of modified Robson criteria, factors responsible for the most common group, to know the changing trends of CS and finally put forth the strategies to reduce CS rate.Methods: This is a retrospective study of 472 CS cases carried out in a tertiary care hospital during the year 2016. All the cases were grouped according to the modified Robson criteria and the data was analyzed. The data were grouped into 3 different slots of 4 months each (FF = first four months; MF = middle four months and LF = last four months of the year 2016).Results: A significant increasing trend was observed in the groups of 2B and 5C where as a significant decreasing trend was noticed in 6C and 7C. The most common indications for caesarean delivery were cephalo-pelvic disproportion (CPD) (28%) and fetal distress (22%) in group 1 whereas in group 2A CPD, fetal distress and failed induction were found to be 12%, 24% and 30% respectively.Conclusions: The change in trend has been noticed in the last few months particularly in 2B and 5C groups suggesting that there is a change in the attitude of obstetricians in conducting caesarean deliveries before the onset of labour rather than performing CS after the onset of labour. Targeting 2B along with 5C would help our efforts in reducing the CS rate

Use of vaginal misoprostol before endometrial biopsy in premenopausal women: an observational study

Background: It is well-known since long time the beneficial effects of misoprostol particularly as a cervical softening agent in obstetric practice. Keep in view, study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of vaginal misoprostol 400 mcg before endometrial biopsy in premenopausal women.Methods: All the 200 patients were classified into two groups viz. study group (Group I) with 100 patients and control group (Group II) with 100 patients. To Group I patients, 400 mcg of misoprostol was given vaginally, 4 hours prior to the commencement of endometrial biopsy whereas no medication was received by Group II patients.Results: In the present study, the base line cervical dilatation is found to be 5.8±1.3 mm in Group I patients whereas 3.8±0.92 mm in Group II patients which is significantly higher (p<0.05). Only 32 patients in Group I required further dilatation whereas 88 patients in Group II underwent further dilatation. The mean time required for further dilatation in Group I and Group II patients was 42.6±17.4, 64.6±16.8 sec respectively and was significantly higher in Group II patients (p<0.05). Out of 100 patients in Group I, only 2% of patients complained severe pain whereas in Group II 48% of patients experienced intolerable pain and required anesthesia.Conclusions: Vaginal administration of 400 mcg misoprostol 4 hours prior to endometrial biopsy in premenopausal women had a significant effect on cervical resistance and cervical dilatation

An extensible product structure model for product lifecycle management in the make-to-order environment

This paper presents a product structure model with a semantic representation technique that make the product structure extensible for developing product lifecycle management (PLM) systems that is flexible for make-to-order environment. In the make-to-order business context, each product could have a number of variants with slightly different constitutions to fulfill different customer requirements. All the variants of a family have common characteristics and each variant has its specific features. A master-variant pattern is proposed for building the product structure model to explicitly represent common characteristics and specific features of individual variants. The model is capable of enforcing the consistency of a family structure and its variant structure, supporting multiple product views, and facilitating the business processes. A semantic representation technique is developed that enables entity attributes to be defined and entities to be categorized in a neutral and semantic format. As a result, entity attributes and entity categorization can be redefined easily with its configurable capability for different requirements of the PLM systems. An XML-based language is developed for semantically representing entities and entity categories. A prototype as a proof-of-concept system is presented to illustrate the capability of the proposed extensible product structure model