Unusual Large Sporadic Angiomyolipoma Co-existing with Huge Simple Renal Cyst

Renal Angiomyolipoma (AML) is an unusual benign mesenchymal tumor with no malignant potential. It is composed of adipose tissue, smooth muscle and abnormal thick walled blood vessels. It can occur sporadically or may be associated with tuberous sclerosis. Sporadic angiomyolipoma (AML) coexisting with simple renal cyst is extremely rare and only one case report is available in the literature. In our case, unique combination of sporadic AML along with simple renal cyst with huge size and weight was noted. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the second such case and first case from India. Due to its large size, complete nephrectomy was performed to avoid chances of rupture and retroperitoneal hemorrhage. Post-operative period was uneventful and the patient ahs been on regular follow-up

Heterogeneous Video Transcoder for H.264/AVC to HEVC

The new video coding standard, High Efficiency Video Coding, was developed to succeed the current standard, H.264/Advance Video Coding. However, there is a lot of legacy content encoded with H.264. So the new efficient method is proposed for transcoding the H.264 encoded video into high efficiency video coding format. In proposed method, two stages are implemented. In training stage, transcoding is done using SSD method and different coding parameters or features are extracted from incoming H.264. In transcoding stage, the best mode of outgoing coding unit partitions are decided by calculating threshold value and optimum weight using extracted features. Then it is evaluated by doing experiments on different videos. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150615

Towards A Framework for Holistic Contextual Design for Low-Resource Settings

Healthcare inequality is ubiquitous globally, but the effects are most striking in low-resource settings. In these settings, current methods for the design of medical devices are failing to address specific needs. The associated publications rarely describe how the context was studied at the front-end of design. There is a latent need for a holistic contextual framework for guiding the design decision-making process for devices in these complex contexts. We present results from a systematic literature review and expert interviews that informed the development of a framework for contextualized design for low-resource settings. The contextual factors identified are described and compared for different types of medical devices. This taxonomical framework aims to guide designers towards gaining a better understanding of the context of use when designing products for global challenges in low-resource settings.The National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico supported this research

Ethnomedical Knowledge of Plants used by the Tribal people of Purandhar in Maharashtra, India

This study presents the results of a field survey of the plants used medically by the tribal people of Purandhar in Maharashtra, India. Tribes like Dhangars and Gowlis inhabit the dry deciduous forests of the region. This is an effort to record the valuable ethnomedical knowledge of these Purandhar tribes. A total of 77 species belonging to 30 families and 56 genera were included. These plants are used to treat various aliments, discomforts and diseases like whooping cough, asthma, diabetes, diphtheria, conjunctivitis, snake bite, scorpion bite, etc

A circularity indicator tool for measuring the ecological embeddedness of manufacturing

Circularity in manufacturing is critical to reducing raw material usage and waste. Ecological embeddedness examines circular relationships intended to benefit both economic actors and the natural environment. By understanding circular relationships in the value chain, manufacturers can formulate strategies that are eco-effective. This work develops and validates an original circularity tool to measure the ecological embeddedness of manufacturers using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The tool is tested on process manufacturers selling products in the United Kingdom. The three main results are that the tool is useful and comprehensive (87% of users), enables simple comparisons with competitors, and identifies weaknesses in strategies related to the five dimensions connecting manufacturers, consumers, and the environment: understanding, realising, utilising, negotiating, and reclaiming. Manufacturers may use the tool to improve their ecological embeddedness, and sector-based circularity levels may be established for policy development. The novelty of the tool is in the use of ecological relationships to support achievement of a circular economy

Spatio-Temporal Linear Stability Analysis of Stratified Planar Wakes: Velocity and Density Asymmetry Effects

This paper explores the hydrodynamic stability of bluff body wakes with non-uniform mean density, asymmetric mean density, and velocity profiles. This work is motivated by experiments [S. Tuttle et al., “Lean blow off behavior of asymmetrically-fueled bluff body-stabilized flames,” Combust. Flame 160, 1677 (2013)], which investigated reacting wakes with equivalence ratio stratification and, hence, asymmetry in the base flow density profiles. They showed that highly stratified cases exhibited strong, narrowband oscillations, suggestive of global hydrodynamic instability. In this paper, we present a local hydrodynamic stability analysis for non-uniform density wakes that includes base flow asymmetry. The results show that increasing the degree of base density asymmetry generally has a destabilizing effect and that increasing base velocity asymmetry tends to be stabilizing. Furthermore, we show that increasing base density asymmetry slightly decreases the absolute frequency and that increasing the base velocity asymmetry slightly increases the absolute frequency. In addition, we show that increasing the degree of base density asymmetry distorts the most absolutely unstable hydrodynamic mode from its nominally sinuous structure. This distorted mode exhibits higher amplitude pressure and velocity oscillations near the interface with the smaller density jump than near the one with the bigger density jump. This would then be anticipated to lead to strongly non-symmetric amplitudes of flame flapping, with much stronger flame flapping on the side with lower density ratio. These predictions are shown to be consistent with experimental data. These comparisons support the analytical predictions that increased base density asymmetry are destabilizing and that hydrodynamic velocity fluctuation amplitudes should be greatest at the flame with the lowest density jump

Geriatric prescription analysis with respect to “STOPP” and “START” criteria: a descriptive study in the Indian scenario

Background: Patients; sixty-five years of age and above, are a special risk group as far as drug prescribing is concerned. Prescription irregularities in such patients may be hazardous. STOPP/START criteria are considered as the most up to-date set of explicit criteria for evaluating geriatric prescriptions. To analyse geriatric prescriptions in a tertiary care centre with respect to STOPP/START criteria and WHO core drug prescribing indicators so as to get an idea of pattern of drug prescription in geriatric patients as well as frequency of potentially inappropriate prescriptions. Descriptive cross-sectional study in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: All inpatients aged 65 years and above who were prescribed at least one allopathic medication and consented to participate in the study were included and patients admitted for medical emergencies were excluded. Demographic data and details of drugs prescribed were collected from prescription chits and indoor case papers.Results: There was a high frequency of polypharmacy, prescription of antimicrobials and injections. Proportion of patients receiving at least one potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) as per STOPP criteria was 21.01%. Proportion of patients subjected to at least one potential prescribing omission (PPO) as per START criteria was 33.33%. Proportion of patients exposed to potentially inappropriate drug prescriptions as a whole (PIPs=PIMs+PPOs) was 46.37%. Statistical analysis used as descriptive statistics like numbers and percentages were used for data analysis.Conclusions: With regards to geriatric prescribing, adherence to WHO core prescribing indicators, prescription of drugs as per STOPP and START guidelines are indicative of scope for improvement

LIQUISOLID COMPACTS: A PROMISING APPROACH FOR SOLUBILITY ENHANCEMENT

At present 40% of the drugs within the development pipelines, and approximately 60 % of the drugs coming directly from synthesis area unit poorly soluble.  Solubility is one of the important parameter to obtain desired concentration of drug in systemic circulation. Liquisolid compacts technique is a new and promising approach to overcome this consequence and that can change the dissolution rate of water insoluble drugs and increase the bioavailability of the drugs. This technique is an efficient method for formulating water insoluble and water soluble drugs. This technique relies upon the admixture of drug loaded solutions with applicable carrier and coating materials. Liquisolid system is characterized by flow behaviour, wettability, powder bed hydrophilicity, saturation solubility, drug content, differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, in-vitro release and in-vivo evaluation. This review article explains the preparation, classification and application of liquisolid system. Key word: Liquisolid system, water insoluble drug, carrier material, coating materialÂ

metaQuantome : an integrated, quantitative metaproteomics approach reveals connections between taxonomy and protein function in complex microbiomes

Microbiome research offers promising insights into the impact of microorganisms on biological systems. Metaproteomics, the study of microbial proteins at the community level, integrates genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data to determine the taxonomic and functional state of a microbiome. However, standard metaproteomics software is subject to several limitations, commonly supporting only spectral counts, emphasizing exploratory analysis rather than hypothesis testing and rarely offering the ability to analyze the interaction of function and taxonomy -that is, which taxa are responsible for different processes. Here we present metaQuantome, a novel, multifaceted software suite that analyzes the state of a microbiome by leveraging complex taxonomic and functional hierarchies to summarize peptide-level quantitative information, emphasizing label-free intensity-based methods. For experiments with multiple experimental conditions, metaQuantome offers differential abundance analysis, principal components analysis, and clustered heat map visualizations, as well as exploratory analysis for a single sample or experimental condition. We benchmark metaQuantome analysis against standard methods, using two previously published datasets: (1) an artificially assembled microbial community dataset (taxonomy benchmarking) and (2) a dataset with a range of recombinant human proteins spiked into an Escherichia coli background (functional benchmarking). Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of metaQuantome on a previously published human oral microbiome dataset. In both the taxonomic and functional benchmarking analyses, metaQuantome quantified taxonomic and functional terms more accurately than standard summarization- based methods. We use the oral microbiome dataset to demonstrate metaQuantome's ability to produce publication- quality figures and elucidate biological processes of the oral microbiome. metaQuantome enables advanced investigation of metaproteomic datasets, which should be broadly applicable to microbiome-related research. In the interest of accessible, flexible, and reproducible analysis, metaQuantome is open source and available on the command line and in Galaxy