Sickle cell disease status among school adolescents and their tribal community in South Gujarat

Objectives: to create awareness, to screen samples of school adolescents and then to reach their community through them by doing surveillance for sickle cell disease. Design: Field based cross-sectional study. Settings: St Xavier`s high school and Vanraj high school of Umarpada taluka of Surat district. Subjects: School adolescents, their parents and friends. Method: After taking permission from school authority, blood samples of 948 school adolescents were taken for DTT test and then for electrophoresis. Blood samples of motivated parents and friends of those adolescents found positive for DTT was taken in subsequent visit and results were communicated to them. Results: Blood samples of 948 school adolescents, out of 1081 were tested for DTT test. It was positive in 242 samples, giving a prevalence of 25.5% for sickle cell disease. On subjecting the positive blood samples to electrophoresis, the proportion of sickle cell trait and sickle cell disease was found to be 92% and 8% respectively. Then electrophoresis was done in 64 parents and friends, 24 (37.5%) of them were found positive of which, 14 (58%) were having sickle cell trait and 10 (42%) having sickle cell disease. Conclusion: approaching community can be possible through school adolescents for conduction of surveillance of sickle cell anemi

Clinical study of feto-maternal outcomes in cases of gestational diabetes mellitus

Background: To study of prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus in the community, demographic parameters like age, gestational age at diagnosis, parity, complications related to gestational diabetes mellitus, and plan the management of gestational diabetes mellitus and to reduce the maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality.Methods: In this prospective observational study we included 50 patients with gestational diabetes mellitus were studied for feto-maternal outcome. The study was conducted from October 2018 to October 2020 at department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, B. J. Medical college and Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad.Results: Total 50 cases of gestational diabetes mellitus were studied. It was observed that gestational diabetes mellitus were more common in elderly age group (60%), multigravida patients wer more commonly involved (48%). Past history of gestational diabetes melllitus was present in 42.2% of cases, 74% of cases required insulin for glycemic control,64% cases required delivery by caesarean section, maternal complications like preeclampsia (10 cases), polyhydramnios (22), uteroplacental insufficiency (4), macrosomia, sudden intrauterine death (3) and operative delivery were more common. 6 neonates developed respiratory distress syndrome, 10 developed hypoglycemia, and 13 neonates required NICU admission, 6 neonates underwent perinatal mortality.Conclusions: Gestational diabetes mellitus has become a global public health burden. Gestational Diabetes Mellitus is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality for both mother and infant worldwide. Early detection of gestational diabetes mellitus, timely referral, frequent antenatal visits, management of the identified cases at tertiary centres can lead to decreased maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality

A study of AgNOR count in FNAC lymphnode in case of lymphadenopathy

Background: To study Argyrophilic Nucleolar Organizer Regions (AgNOR) count in FNAC lymph node in case of lymphadenopathy & to differentiate between malignant &non-malignant lesions Aim: To prove the diagnostic & Prognostic role of AgNOR in tumour pathology & application of AgNOR techniques to non-neoplastic& neoplastic growth & evaluation of AgNOR in cytology of various lesions of lymph nodes. Materials and Methods: Lymph node FNAC specimens were taken from 150 patients attending pathology department of Shri M.P.Shah Govt. Medical College & GGG hospital, Jamnagar, Gujarat, India during the period of January 2004 to February 2006. FNA of enlarged lymphnode was taken & smears were prepared & fixed in cytofix (50% ethly alcohol) also all smears were stained by H & E(were confirmed) as well as silver nitrate stain. 100 nuclei were assessed for each smear by 100x oil immersion lenses. Result: In this study a total number of 150 cases were included (80 benign & 70 malignant) in various lesions of lymphnode. Conclusion: AgNOR count is directly proportional to the severity of neoplastic lesions which increases with ascending grades of malignancy. Also it is a good technique in cytology

Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopic Approach for the Characterization of Soil Aggregate Size Distribution

Assessment of soil structure and soil aggregation remains a challenging task. Routine methods such as dry- and wet-sieving approaches are generally time consuming and tedious, which calls for a robust, fast, and nondestructive method of soil aggregate characterization. Over the last two decades, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) has emerged as a rapid and noninvasive technique for soil characterization. Combined with chemometric and data-mining algorithms, it provides an effective way of measuring several soil attributes and has the added advantage of being amenable to a remote sensing mode of operation. The objective of this study was to determine if the DRS approach could be used as a rapid, noninvasive technique to estimate soil aggregate characteristics. The DRS approach was examined for the estimation of soil aggregate characteristics such as the geometric mean diameter and two statistical parameters of the lognormal aggregate size distribution (ASD) functions using 910 soil samples from India representing three important soil groups. Results showed that the geometric mean diameter and the median aggregate size parameter provided excellent predictions, with ratio of performance deviation (RPD) values ranging from 1.99 to 2.28. The RPD value for the standard deviation of the ASD ranged from 1.36 to 1.72, suggesting moderate prediction. It was further observed that soil aggregates influence the incident electromagnetic radiation on soils primarily in the visible region and to some extent the shortwave- and near-infrared regions. Electronic transitions of Fe-bearing minerals, clay minerals, and C–H functional groups of organic matter may be responsible for modifying the spectral reflectance from soils in addition to the self-shadowing effects of surface roughness. The results of this study suggest that the chemometric approach may be combined with DRS to estimate soil aggregate size characteristics

Rethinking the study of human-wildlife coexistence

While coexistence with wildlife is a key goal of conservation efforts, little is known about it or how to study it. This essay briefly defines what we mean by coexistence, before considering issues arising from the conflict-oriented framing of human-wildlife interactions within conservation science. It proposes reasons for why conflict frameworks persist – and why much less work is done on coexistence. Methodological and fieldwork challenges for studying coexistence are outlined, with recommendations, based on the authors’ teaching experience and field experience in India and Africa. We recommend expanding the scope of our inquiries into the ways in which humans and wildlife already coexist beyond studies of rational behaviour, and the quantification of costs and benefits of wildlife to humans

Modelling of the effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W divertor of JET

Effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W target of JET ITER-Like Wall was studied with multi-scale calculations. Plasma input parameters were taken from ELMy H-mode plasma experiment. The energetic intra-ELM fuel particles get implanted and create near-surface defects up to depths of few tens of nm, which act as the main fuel trapping sites during ELMs. Clustering of implantation-induced vacancies were found to take place. The incoming flux of inter-ELM plasma particles increases the different filling levels of trapped fuel in defects. The temperature increase of the W target during the pulse increases the fuel detrapping rate. The inter-ELM fuel particle flux refills the partially emptied trapping sites and fills new sites. This leads to a competing effect on the retention and release rates of the implanted particles. At high temperatures the main retention appeared in larger vacancy clusters due to increased clustering rate

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)