Highly sensitive N-(1-naphthyl)ethylene diamine method for the spectrophotometric determination of trace amounts of nitrite in various water samples

A rapid, simple, sensitive and selective spectrophotometric determination of trace nitrite is described. The method is based on a diazotization-coupling reaction between dapsone and N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine dihydrochloride (NEDA) in a hydrochloric acid medium. The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity were found to be 7.2x10(4) 1 mol(-1) cm(-1) and 0.00063 mug ml(-1), respectively. The calibration graph is linear for 0.002-0.6 mug ml(-1) of nitrite. The interference effects of various cations and anions were also studied and reported. This method has been found to be applicable to the determination of nitrite in various water samples

Management of the hospitalized transplant patient.

Significant hyperglycemia is commonly observed immediately after solid organ and bone marrow transplant as well as with subsequent hospitalizations. Surgery and procedures are well known to cause pain and stress leading to secretion of cytokines and other hormones known to aggravate insulin action. Immunosuppression required for transplant and preexisting risk are also major factors. Glucose control improves outcomes for all hospitalized patients, including transplant patients, but is often more challenging to achieve because of frequent and sometimes unpredictable changes in immunosuppression doses, renal function, and nutrition. As a result, risk of hypoglycemia can be greater in this patient group when trying to achieve glucose control goals for hospitalized patients. Key to successful management of hyperglycemia is regular communication between the members of the care team as well as anticipating and rapidly implementing a new treatment paradigm in response to changes in immunosuppression, nutrition, renal function, or evidence of changing insulin resistance

Efficacy and safety of sitagliptin for the treatment of new-onset diabetes after renal transplantation.

New-onset diabetes after transplantation (NODAT) is a common comorbidity after renal transplantation. Though metformin is the first-line agent for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, in renal transplant recipients, metformin is frequently avoided due to concerns about renal dysfunction and risk for lactic acidosis. Therefore, alternative first-line agents for the treatment of NODAT in renal transplant recipients are needed. Sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor, has a low incidence of hypoglycemia, is weight neutral, and, in a small study, did not affect immunosuppressant levels. However, long-term sitagliptin use for the treatment of NODAT in kidney transplant recipients has not been studied. We retrospectively analyzed renal transplant recipients diagnosed with NODAT and treated with sitagliptin to assess safety and efficacy. Twenty-two patients were started on sitagliptin alone. After 12 months of followup, 19/22 patients remained on sitagliptin alone with a significant improvement in hemoglobin A1c. Renal function and immunosuppressant levels remained stable. Analysis of long-term followup (32.5 ± 17.8 months) revealed that 17/22 patients remained on sitagliptin (mean hemoglobin A1c \u3c 7%) with 9/17 patients remaining on sitagliptin alone. Transplant-specific adverse events were rare. Sitagliptin appears safe and efficacious for the treatment of NODAT in kidney transplant recipients

Theory and Applications of Robust Optimization

In this paper we survey the primary research, both theoretical and applied, in the area of Robust Optimization (RO). Our focus is on the computational attractiveness of RO approaches, as well as the modeling power and broad applicability of the methodology. In addition to surveying prominent theoretical results of RO, we also present some recent results linking RO to adaptable models for multi-stage decision-making problems. Finally, we highlight applications of RO across a wide spectrum of domains, including finance, statistics, learning, and various areas of engineering.Comment: 50 page

Knowledge, attitude and behaviour regarding self-care practices among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients residing in an urban area of South India

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a major health problem in India with individual, social and economical consequences. Knowledge, attitude and practice surveys are effective in providing baseline for evaluating intervention programmes. This study was conducted with the aim to know the level of awareness about type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methodology: A cross sectional study conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviour (KAB) among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. KAB questionnaire was used to collect data. Results: Out of 1058 patients 992 patients were included for the analysis, rest were excluded due to various reasons. 43.15% were males. Mean age of patients was 55.82 ± 10.2 years. Mean duration of diabetes was 10.2 ± 6.8 years. The mean knowledge score was 4.94, attitude score was 6.29 and behavior score was 1.64. Nearly 38.5% knew definition and types of diabetes. Majority of the participants believed they can control the disease. Dietary modification and exercise among the interviewed subjects was poor.  Conclusion: Results revealed good attitude but poor knowledge and practices (behaviour) towards diabetes. We concluded that there is a need for structured programmes to improve attitude and practices of diabetic patients to promote better compliance towards diet, exercise and drug regimen

Efficacy and Safety of Sitagliptin for the Treatment of New-Onset Diabetes after Renal Transplantation

New-onset diabetes after transplantation (NODAT) is a common comorbidity after renal transplantation. Though metformin is the first-line agent for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, in renal transplant recipients, metformin is frequently avoided due to concerns about renal dysfunction and risk for lactic acidosis. Therefore, alternative first-line agents for the treatment of NODAT in renal transplant recipients are needed. Sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor, has a low incidence of hypoglycemia, is weight neutral, and, in a small study, did not affect immunosuppressant levels. However, long-term sitagliptin use for the treatment of NODAT in kidney transplant recipients has not been studied. We retrospectively analyzed renal transplant recipients diagnosed with NODAT and treated with sitagliptin to assess safety and efficacy. Twenty-two patients were started on sitagliptin alone. After 12 months of followup, 19/22 patients remained on sitagliptin alone with a significant improvement in hemoglobin A1c. Renal function and immunosuppressant levels remained stable. Analysis of long-term followup (32.5 ± 17.8 months) revealed that 17/22 patients remained on sitagliptin (mean hemoglobin A1c < 7%) with 9/17 patients remaining on sitagliptin alone. Transplant-specific adverse events were rare. Sitagliptin appears safe and efficacious for the treatment of NODAT in kidney transplant recipients

Assessment of India’s virtual water trade in major food products

This paper analyzes virtual water trade flows through food products between India and its trading partners. It relies on the gravity model of trade and estimates a panel data fixed effect regression to identify drivers of virtual water trade. Our results show that India was the net exporter of virtual water in food products during 1990-2013; however later it turned out to be its net importer. Further our analysis shows distance between trading partners as the primary driver of virtual water trade. India prefers trading with its neighbours to reduce transportation costs. The availability of arable land and water used in crop production are limiting factors for production of food crops and thus act as essential factors in deciding the virtual water trade flows. These findings indicate that resource endowment factors influence bilateral virtual water trade flows

Robustness and Generalization

We derive generalization bounds for learning algorithms based on their robustness: the property that if a testing sample is "similar" to a training sample, then the testing error is close to the training error. This provides a novel approach, different from the complexity or stability arguments, to study generalization of learning algorithms. We further show that a weak notion of robustness is both sufficient and necessary for generalizability, which implies that robustness is a fundamental property for learning algorithms to work

Quantitative test of the barrier nucleosome model for statistical positioning of nucleosomes up- and downstream of transcription start sites

The positions of nucleosomes in eukaryotic genomes determine which parts of the DNA sequence are readily accessible for regulatory proteins and which are not. Genome-wide maps of nucleosome positions have revealed a salient pattern around transcription start sites, involving a nucleosome-free region (NFR) flanked by a pronounced periodic pattern in the average nucleosome density. While the periodic pattern clearly reflects well-positioned nucleosomes, the positioning mechanism is less clear. A recent experimental study by Mavrich et al. argued that the pattern observed in S. cerevisiae is qualitatively consistent with a `barrier nucleosome model', in which the oscillatory pattern is created by the statistical positioning mechanism of Kornberg and Stryer. On the other hand, there is clear evidence for intrinsic sequence preferences of nucleosomes, and it is unclear to what extent these sequence preferences affect the observed pattern. To test the barrier nucleosome model, we quantitatively analyze yeast nucleosome positioning data both up- and downstream from NFRs. Our analysis is based on the Tonks model of statistical physics which quantifies the interplay between the excluded-volume interaction of nucleosomes and their positional entropy. We find that although the typical patterns on the two sides of the NFR are different, they are both quantitatively described by the same physical model, with the same parameters, but different boundary conditions. The inferred boundary conditions suggest that the first nucleosome downstream from the NFR (the +1 nucleosome) is typically directly positioned while the first nucleosome upstream is statistically positioned via a nucleosome-repelling DNA region. These boundary conditions, which can be locally encoded into the genome sequence, significantly shape the statistical distribution of nucleosomes over a range of up to ~1000 bp to each side.Comment: includes supporting materia

Modelling dynamics of institutional credit to agriculture in India

Not AvailableCredit is considered as one of the most important and basic input in agricultural production process. The prime source of agricultural credit in India has drastically shifted from non-institutional (money lenders) to institutional source in the last five decades due to various policy initiatives of Government of India. Grass root level analysis of the dynamic helps in further policy framework. Hence in this study based on district wise average outstanding agricultural credit by scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) for the TE ending 2017-18, three districts from each state indicating high, medium and low exposure categories is selected using clustering technique. For these study districts outstanding agricultural credit by SCBs was extracted (1976-2017) and analysed. From the Bai-Perron test years viz., 1983, 1990, 1997, 2004 and 2011 are identified to be most common structural breaks in the time series data of each district owing to various policy reforms in the field of agricultural finance. Based on these breaks the time series further subdivided into six phases viz., phase-I (1976-1982), phase-II (1983-1989), phase-III (1990-1996), phase-IV (1997-2003), phase-V (2004-2010) and phase-VI (2011-2017). Phase-wise CAGR was calculated for all the districts and Garrett ranking technique is employed for further ranking of phases across six regions of the country. Phase-I is identified as the phase with high rate of growth in agricultural advances in selected districts across all regions except southern where it is ranked second. The policy initiatives of that period i.e. setting of priority sector lending targets and establishment of Regional Rural Banks have played crucial role in this growth phenomenon of agricultural advances. Further recent policies like doubling agricultural package and ground level credit policies have also played crucial role in the growth of agricultural advances at grass root level in all regions except eastern and north-eastern regions. Whereas in the eastern and north-eastern region districts the growth in initial phases was relatively better than in the recent phases indicating the effectiveness of initial policy measures in those regions. Institutional credit to agriculture is influenced by various drivers. Hence factors like number of scheduled commercial bank branches, share of GIA in GSA, share of AUC in GSA and annual rainfall are regressed on district wise outstanding agricultural credit by SCBs. To explore the variability panel dataset was created with the above mentioned variables and the impact of these important drivers on institutional credit to agriculture is quantified at different levels (region level, credit exposure category wise and at national level) by employing panel data regression technique. The consistency and suitability of fixed effect model over random effect model is highlighted by Hausman test. Number of operating branches in the district is one of the important variables with positive influence indicates the institutional credit to agriculture is found to be more responsive for branch expansion especially in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Paducherry. In this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the performance of models like ARIMA, ARIMAX and ARIMA intervention on district level agricultural credit series. In the ARIMAX model number of SCB branches in the district is used as explanatory variable and in the ARIMA intervention model year 2004 is used as intervention point. District wise best model was identified and forecasted the institutional credit supply to agriculture at district level for the next five years. We have also made an attempt to estimate the direct credit requirement for agriculture of the district under certain assumptions. Short term and term credit requirement of the district is arrived separately by using the district level data on area under crops, scale of finance and unit cost. Term credit requirement of southern region districts like Guntur and Belgaum is relatively high and in districts of north eastern region viz, West Tripura and Papumpure it is very low. Hence there is need for counterproductive policy of first estimation of agricultural credit requirements depending on crop patterns and later meeting the requirements through effective policies.Not Availabl