Skylab experiment performance evaluation manual. Appendix B: Experiment M-415, thermal control coatings (MSFC)

Performance tests to determine the thermodynamic properties of thermal control coatings for application to the Skylab corollary experiments under preflight, inflight, and postflight conditions are described. Malfunction analyses and procedures for working around contingency situations are discussed. The specifications for various sensors and instruments are presented in tables of data

Skylab experimental performance evaluation manual. Appendix O: Experiment T002 manual navigation sightings (MSFC)

A series of analyses for Experiment T002, Navigation Sightings (MSFC), to be used for evaluating the performance of the Skylab corollary experiments under preflight, inflight, and post-flight conditions are presented. Experiment contingency plan workaround procedure and malfunction analyses are presented in order to assist in making the experiment operationally successful

Evaluation of Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytology with histopathological correlation

Background: The Bethesda system of reporting thyroid cytopathology is a standardised system, improving communication between cytopathologists and clinicians, leading to more consistent management approaches. The aim of the research work was to study the utility of Bethesda system in reporting thyroid cytology with histopathological correlation of all the cases undergoing surgical resection.Methods: We studied all the thyroid cytology cases received between November 2012 to April 2014, and classified them according to the Bethesda system. Histopathological correlation was done for all the cases which underwent surgical resection with evaluation of cyto-histological discrepancies.Results: Out of 484 cases studied, 432(89.2%) were benign lesions, 20(4.1%) were malignant,18 (3.7%) were Unsatisfactory/Nondiagnostic, 10(2%) were Follicular neoplasm/Suspicious for neoplasm, 3 (0.6%) were suspicious for malignancy, and 1(0.002%) case was reported as Atypia of undetermined significance. Out of the 54 cases available for histopathological follow-up, cyto-histological discrepancies were noted in 5 cases (9.2%). Statistical analysis of the present study showed that cytological analysis of thyroid lesions by Bethesda system has got high sensitivity (72.72%), high specificity (95.3%) with a positive predictive value of 80% and negative predictive value of 93.1% and a high accuracy (90.7%).Conclusions: Reviewing the thyroid FNAs (fine needle aspirates) using Bethesda system allowed a more specific cytological diagnosis with better interlaboratory agreement. As evidenced by its high sensitivity and specificity, Bethesda system has proven to be a very effective guide for the clinical management of thyroid nodules

Astrocytic modulation of neuronal signalling

Neuronal signalling is a key element in neuronal communication and is essential for the proper functioning of the CNS. Astrocytes, the most prominent glia in the brain play a key role in modulating neuronal signalling at the molecular, synaptic, cellular, and network levels. Over the past few decades, our knowledge about astrocytes and their functioning has evolved from considering them as merely a brain glue that provides structural support to neurons, to key communication elements. Astrocytes can regulate the activity of neurons by controlling the concentrations of ions and neurotransmitters in the extracellular milieu, as well as releasing chemicals and gliotransmitters that modulate neuronal activity. The aim of this review is to summarise the main processes through which astrocytes are modulating brain function. We will systematically distinguish between direct and indirect pathways in which astrocytes affect neuronal signalling at all levels. Lastly, we will summarize pathological conditions that arise once these signalling pathways are impaired focusing on neurodegeneration

Microscopic changes in the spinal extensor musculature in people with chronic spinal pain: a systematic review.

Chronic spinal pain is one the most common musculoskeletal disorders. Previous studies have observed microscopic structural changes in the spinal extensor muscles in people with chronic spinal pain. This systematic review synthesizes and analyses all the existing evidence of muscle microscopic changes in people with chronic spinal pain. To assess the microscopy of spinal extensor muscles including the fiber type composition, the area occupied by fiber types, fiber size/cross sectional area (CSA) and narrow diameter (ND) in people with and without chronic spinal pain. Further, to compare these outcome measures across different regions of the spine in people with chronic neck, thoracic and low back pain. Systematic review with meta-analysis METHODS: MEDLINE (Ovid Interface), Embase, PubMed, CINAHL Plus and Web of Science were searched from inception to October 2020. Key journals, conference proceedings, grey literature and hand searching of reference lists from eligible studies were also searched. Two independent reviewers were involved in the selection process. Only studies examining the muscle microscopy of the spinal extensor muscles (erector spinae (ES) and/or multifidus (MF)) between people with and without chronic spinal pain were selected. The risk of bias from the studies was assessed using modified Newcastle Ottawa Scale and the level of evidence was established using the GRADE approach. Data were synthesized based on homogeneity on the methodology and outcome measures of the studies for ES and MF muscles and only four studies were eligible for analysis. All the five studies included were related to chronic low back pain (CLBP). Meta-analysis (inverse variance method for random effect to calculate mean difference and 95% CI) was performed for the ES fiber type composition by numbers for both type I and type II fibers (I =43% and 0% respectively indicating homogeneity of studies) and showed no difference between the people with and without CLBP with an overall effect estimate Z= 1.49 (p=0.14) and Z=1.06 (p=0.29) respectively. Meta-analysis was performed for ES fiber CSA for both type I and type II fibers (I =0 for both) and showed no difference between people with and without CLBP with an overall effect estimate Z= 0.08 (p=0.43) and Z=0.75 (p=0.45) respectively. Analysis was not performed for ES area occupied by fiber types and ND due to heterogeneity of studies and lack of evidence respectively. Similarly, meta-analysis was not performed for MF fiber type composition by numbers due to heterogeneity of studies. MF analysis for area occupied by fiber type, fiber CSA and ND did not yield sufficient evidence. For the ES muscle, there was no difference in fiber type composition and fiber CSA between people with and without CLBP and no conclusions could be drawn for ND for the ES. For the MF, no conclusions could be drawn for any of the muscle microscopy outcome measures. Overall, the quality of evidence is very low and there is very low evidence that there are no differences in microscopic muscle features between people with and without CLBP. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A prospective study of pattern of prescription for acne vulgaris in a tertiary care hospital: an observational study

Background: Acne vulgaris is a common dermatological disorder of the pilosebaceous unit affecting younger age groups but presenting usually at puberty and is of cosmetic concern. There are various treatment modalities available ranging from topical/oral anti-acne preparations to hormonal therapy depending on the severity of acne. Use of synthetic retinoid is highly regulated due to its potential for severe adverse events, primarily teratogenicity. There is a need for periodic prescription auditing. By providing feedback to the prescribers to formulate the guidelines enhances therapeutic efficacy by rational use, minimizes the adverse effects and cost of treatment. Objectives: to assess the prescription pattern for Acne vulgaris.Methods: A medication details and prescribers information are collected in pre-designed proforma along with the demographic details from 210 study subjects after personal briefing about the study. The data was analyzed using SPSS.Results: Out of 210 prescriptions of acne patients, majority were in between 21-40 years (48.09%), M:F ratio was1:1.41, female were 58.57% when compared to males 41.43%. Topical agents accounted for 54.13% and 36.36% of oral antibiotics (most common was azithromycin). Fixed dose combinations accounted for 4.39% and concomitantly administered drugs (antihistaminics, proton pump inhibitors, H2 blockers, emollients and skin protective agents) accounted for 53.82% of the prescribed drugs.Conclusions: Drug utilization study periodically can be an eye opener for the prescribers to prescribe the drugs in a rational way and it could reduce the prescription error and minimizing the untoward effects will subsequently reduce the cost of treatment

Collaborative Deep Learning for Recommender Systems

Collaborative filtering (CF) is a successful approach commonly used by many recommender systems. Conventional CF-based methods use the ratings given to items by users as the sole source of information for learning to make recommendation. However, the ratings are often very sparse in many applications, causing CF-based methods to degrade significantly in their recommendation performance. To address this sparsity problem, auxiliary information such as item content information may be utilized. Collaborative topic regression (CTR) is an appealing recent method taking this approach which tightly couples the two components that learn from two different sources of information. Nevertheless, the latent representation learned by CTR may not be very effective when the auxiliary information is very sparse. To address this problem, we generalize recent advances in deep learning from i.i.d. input to non-i.i.d. (CF-based) input and propose in this paper a hierarchical Bayesian model called collaborative deep learning (CDL), which jointly performs deep representation learning for the content information and collaborative filtering for the ratings (feedback) matrix. Extensive experiments on three real-world datasets from different domains show that CDL can significantly advance the state of the art