Skin Prick Test in Naso-Bronchial Allergies: A Cross Sectional Study

Allergy is defined as an overreaction of the immune system in response to the ingestion of certain foreign chemicals. The disease has been found to be more prevalent in males with predilection towards young adults who are less than 40 years of age. Indoor, outdoor or occupational agents are the most common classification for aero-allergens.  “Skin Prick Test (SPT)” is the most definite and reliable methodology for diagnosing various allergic diseases which are mediated by IgE, in a patient with Naso-Bronchial allergies. Material and Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted on 120 patients with Naso-Bronchial allergy. Detailed clinical history, examination was done and SPT was performed using 25 allergens.” Results: It was observed that insects were the most common allergen followed by mites, pollens and food respectively. Animal dander was the least common allergen. Amongst insects, Cockroach was the most common. Conclusion: On the basis of this study, we conclude that skin prick test is one of the most reliable, easily accessible and diagnostic test to detect IgE mediated allergic reactions.

Restoring the Esthetics in Hemiparalytic Patient with Detachable Prosthesis

Emphasis on facial esthetics has become an integral part of dental treatment. Restoring and improving facial appearance of a complete edentulous patient with hollow cheeks is achallenge to the prosthodontist. Thus, to improve patient’s lower lip contour that was paralyzed and to improve patient’s oral competency, a detachable prosthesis was fabricated. This clinical report describes the procedure for making a lip plumper prosthesis to improve patient esthetics, oral function

Comparative evaluation of linear dimensional changes of four commercially available heat cure acrylic resins

Context: Heat cured acrylic resins undergo dimensional changes during polymerization. Dimensional changes which occur in the heat cure acrylic resins are shrinkage and expansion which affects the fit of the denture and occlusal relationship. Aims: The purpose of this study was to access the linear dimensional changes of four heat cure acrylic resins before and after curing and compare the changes among four different acrylic brands. Materials and Methods: Twenty four patients irrespective of age and sex were taken and four commercially available brands were procured. After the teeth arrangement on the mandibular trial denture, two pins were fixed in central fossae of first molar on both sides and one pin in the cingulum of left central incisor. Meliodent heat cure acrylic resin was used in Group A; Trevalon heat cure acrylic resin was used in Group B; Triplex heat cure acrylic resin was used in Group C and Vertex heat cure acrylic resin was used in Group D. Linear measurements of the trial wax up before and after curing and before and after finishing and polishing were measured and compared. Collected data was analyzed with analysis of variance and ′t′ test at 95% level of confidence (P=0.05). Results: The maximum percentage changes were seen in cases of Group A (Meliodent) followed by Group B, Group C and Group D (Trevalon, Triplex and Vertex). Meliodent showed the highest percentage change i.e. 1.18% and Vertex showed least percentage change of 0.37 %. Conclusions: Shrinkage occurred after curing and after finishing and polishing, which varies significantly with the four commercially available heat cure acrylic resins. Among the four different brands of heat cure acrylic resin Group D (Vertex) had the least linear dimensional changes after curing and after finishing and polishing, so that D (Vertex) could be the material of choice for fabrication of complete denture among the four brands

Stylistic text classification using functional lexical features

Most text analysis and retrieval work to date has focused on determining the topic of a text, what it is about. However, a text also contains much useful information in its style, or how it is written. This includes information about its author, its purpose, feelings it is meant to evoke, and more. This paper addresses the problem of classifying texts by style (along several different dimensions), developing a new type of lexical feature based on taxonomies of various semantic functions of different lexical items (words or phrases). We show the usefulness of such features for text classification by author, author personality, gender of literary characters, sentiment (positive/negative feeling), and scientific rhetorical styles. We further show how the use of such functional features aids in gaining insight about stylistic differences between texts. ∗ Casey Whitelaw was a visiting scholar at the IIT Linguistic Cognition Laboratory during November 2004. 1

Original Article Section: Medicine A Comparative Study of Thyroid Function in Patients of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus without Nephropathy and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus With Nephropathy

ABSTRACT Background: Diabetes Mellitus is an important health problem affecting major population worldwide. It is characterized by absolute or relative deficiency in insulin secretion and/or insulin action associated with chronic hyperglycemia and disturbances of carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism. The prevalence of type II diabetes mellitus for all age groups worldwide was estimated to be 2.8% in 2000 and likely to increase to 4.4% in 2030. The number of people with diabetes is projected to rise from 285 million adults in 2010 to 439 million adults in 2030. In India, it is estimated that presently 31.7 million individuals are affected by this deadly disease, which are likely to increase to 79.4 million by the year 2030. Diabetes patients with nephropathy have higher prevalence of thyroid disorder than type 2 DM without nephropathy which may have an influence on diabetic management. Diabetic women are frequently affected than men and hypothyroidism is more common than thyrotoxicosis. Methods: In our study 100 patients with type 2 DM attending Guru Nanak Dev hospital attached to GMC Amritsar were recruited. These patients were divided into two groups of 50 patients each. Group 1 consisted of patients of type 2 DM without nephropathy and group 2 consisted of patients of type 2 DM with nephropathy. Results: Out of 100 patients thyroid dysfunction was more prevalent in diabetic nephropathy group as compared to diabetic without nephropathy group. P-value for thyroid dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy was statistically significant. In our study we found a statistically significant correlation between TSH and serum insulin levels in patients with diabetic and diabetic nephropathy. Higher prevalence of thyroid dysfunction like low T3 syndrome and subclinical hypothyroidism was found in women as compared to men. Conclusion: Routine assessment of thyroid hormone level in addition to other biochemical parameters in the early stage of diabetes and diabetes nephropathy will help in the management of those patients who are difficult to manage

OdoriFy: A conglomerate of Artificial Intelligence-driven prediction engines for olfactory decoding

The molecular mechanisms of olfaction, or the sense of smell, are relatively under-explored compared to other sensory systems, primarily due to its underlying molecular complexity and the limited availability of dedicated predictive computational tools. Odorant receptors allow the detection and discrimination of a myriad of odorant molecules and therefore mediate the first step of the olfactory signaling cascade. To date, odorant (or agonist) information for the majority of these receptors is still unknown, limiting our understanding of their functional relevance in odor-induced behavioral responses. In this study, we introduce OdoriFy, a webserver featuring powerful deep neural network-based prediction engines. OdoriFy enables 1) identification of odorant molecules for wild-type or mutant human odorant receptors (Odor Finder); 2) classification of user-provided chemicals as odorants/non-odorants (Odorant Predictor); 3) identification of responsive odorant receptors for a query odorant (OR Finder); and 4) Interaction validation using Odorant-OR Pair Analysis. Additionally, OdoriFy provides the rationale behind every prediction it makes by leveraging Explainable Artificial Intelligence. This module highlights the basis of the prediction of odorants/non-odorants at atomic resolution and for the odorant receptors at amino acid levels. A key distinguishing feature of OdoriFy is that it is built on a comprehensive repertoire of manually curated information of human odorant receptors with their known agonists and non-agonists, making it a highly interactive and resource-enriched webserver. Moreover, comparative analysis of OdoriFy predictions with an alternative structure-based ligand interaction method revealed comparable results. OdoriFy is available freely as a web service at https://odorify.ahujalab.iiitd.edu.in/olfy/.</p