Investigation in W/O developed microemulsions with DMSO as a cosurfactant

In this study the effect of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) radii on the droplets and on the required non-ionic surfactant volume for preparing water-in-oil microemulsions (MEs) was investigated. Five series of MEs were prepared either with the aid of isopropylpalmitate or medium chain triglycerides (MCTG) as continuous phases. The MEs were stabilized via either Tween80 or Span20 or a mixture of both. A mixture of water:DMSO (W:DMSO) with different ratios formed the colloidal phase of the first four MEs series. Only DMSO was used as colloidal phase of the fifth series. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) was used for measuring the radii of the droplets of MEs. The results showed that the consumed volumes of the surfactants were related to the W:DMSO ratio and the surfactant type. Moreover, the consumed surfactant volumes increased with decreasing radii of the droplets of the MEs. The MEs stabilized with Span20 had lower radii of the droplets (4-15 nm) than MEs stabilized by Tween80 (25-65 nm). It was evident that DMSO changed the interfacial tension which is reflected by changing the the volume of the surfactant consumed and by altering the droplets sizes. Consequently, DMSO acted as co-surfactant in stabilizing the MEs by reducing the required volumes of the surfactant which is important for reducing their toxicity.

A homozygous nonsense variant in IFT52 is associated with a human skeletal ciliopathy

Intraflagellar transport (IFT) is vital for the functioning of primary cilia. Defects in several components of IFT complexes cause a spectrum of ciliopathies with variable involvement of skeleton, brain, eyes, ectoderm and kidneys. We examined a child from a consanguineous family who had short stature, narrow thorax, short hands and feet, postaxial polydactyly of hands, pigmentary retinopathy, small teeth and skeletal dysplasia. The clinical phenotype of the child shows significant overlap with cranioectodermal dysplasia type I (Sensenbrenner syndrome). Whole-exome sequencing revealed a homozygous nonsense variant p.R142* in IFT52 encoding an IFT-B core complex protein as the probable cause of her condition. This is the first report of a human disease associated with IFT52.

Non-small cell lung cancer with distal cutaneous metastases in a patient with a previously treated colorectal carcinoma

Cutaneous manifestations of visceral carcinomas are scarce, occurring in around 0.7-12% of internal malignancies. Lung cancer is one of the most common sources of skin metastasis, particularly in male patients. We present a case of cutaneous metastasis in a man with concurrent lung lesions and a previously treated colorectal carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry markers for both skin and lung lesions were strongly positive for carcinoembryonic antigen and cytokeratin 20, suggesting an intestinal primary tumour. However, colonoscopy excluded new and metastatic bowel lesions. After multidisciplinary team meetings, which reviewed the clinical, radiological and immunohistochemistry findings, it was concluded to be a non-small cell lung cancer with skin metastasis. This case presented an interesting diagnostic challenge, and highlighted the importance of cross-specialty liaison and investigation to reach the correct diagnosis.

EVALUATION OF MULTIPLEX LIGATION DEPENDENT PROBE AMPLIFICATION AS A TOOL FOR DIAGNOSIS AND CARRIER DETECTION IN FAMILIES WITH A DYSTROPHINOPATHY

We set out to evaluate multiplex ligation dependent probe amplification (MLPA) as a tool for diagnosis and carrier detection in families with a dystrophinopathy. Fifty three Indian families with provisional diagnosis of Duchene muscular dystrophy or Becker muscular dystrophy were evaluated by MLPA and multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Sanger sequencing was used to analyze the entire gene in one patient. Mothers were tested for carrier status whenever possible. Molecular analysis of DMD gene by combining MLPA and multiplex PCR yielded a mutation detection rate of 62% (33/53). Deletions were detected in 27/53 (51%) cases, duplications in 5/53 (9%) cases, a small deletion one case and Sanger sequencing detected a nonsense mutation in one case. Mutation was not detected in 36% (19/53) cases. Fifty six percent of mothers (9/16) were found to be carriers. MLPA helped to refine the results of multiplex PCR testing in 22 patients (5 duplications, 16 deletions and one small deletion). We also describe a situation where a deletion of single exon on MLPA (but not detected by multiplex PCR) was actually due to a deletion of two nucleotides in the probe ligation site. MLPA appears to score over multiplex PCR in diagnosis and carrier detection, specifically by detecting deletions and duplications that are not detected by traditional multiplex PCR.

Geomorphic and geologic controls of geohazards induced by Nepal's 2015 Gorkha earthquake

The Gorkha earthquake (magnitude 7.8) on 25 April 2015 and later aftershocks struck South Asia, killing ~9000 people and damaging a large region. Supported by a large campaign of responsive satellite data acquisitions over the earthquake disaster zone, our team undertook a satellite image survey of the earthquakes' induced geohazards in Nepal and China and an assessment of the geomorphic, tectonic, and lithologic controls on quake-induced landslides. Timely analysis and communication aided response and recovery and informed decision-makers. We mapped 4312 coseismic and postseismic landslides. We also surveyed 491 glacier lakes for earthquake damage but found only nine landslide-impacted lakes and no visible satellite evidence of outbursts. Landslide densities correlate with slope, peak ground acceleration, surface downdrop, and specific metamorphic lithologies and large plutonic intrusions.

Sacrococcygeal Teratoma: Experience with 36 Patients in a Teritiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Sacrococcygeal teratomas (SCT) are the most common solid tumours in the neonatal period, originate from embryonic totipotent cells. Most of them are benign however some that present later in life and have major intra-pelvic component have greater malignant potential. Complete surgical excision provides an excellent prognosis. The aim of this study was to describe the clinical profile, age of presentation, sex distribution, diagnostic evaluation and management of children with a histological confirmed diagnosis of sacrococcygeal teratoma.Material and Methods: Patients with histological diagnosis of sacrococcygeal teratoma during a period from January 2011 to December 2012 were included in this retrospective study. Data collected included age of presentation, sex distribution, symptoms, associated anomalies, diagnostic evaluation, operative approach technique employed, tumour histology, operative complications and outcome.Results: Thirty six patients with diagnosis of sacrococcygeal teratoma were included in the study. Of these children, 58.33% were females and 41.66% were males. The median age at presentation was four days. 69.44% of patients presented during the neonatal period. 77.77% of patients presented with sacrococcygeal mass followed by lower abdominal mass in 11.11%. The tumour was resected by sacral approach in 27 patients and abdomino sacral approach in nine patients. Tumour was resectable in 34 patients and two had incomplete resection. Follow up duration varied from six months to 24 months.Conclusion: Sacrococcygeal teratomas represent a group of benign and malignant lesions of children. Neonates present with benign disease and aggressive lesions are seen as age progresses. Overall survival of SCT is high.J Nepal Paediatr Soc 2015;35(1):89-93

Religious/spiritual characteristics of indian and indonesian physicians and their acceptance of spirituality in health care: a cross-cultural comparison

Religious/spiritual (r/s) characteristics of physicians influence their attitude toward integrative medicine and spiritual care. Indonesia physicians collaborate with traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) professionals within modern healthcare system, while Indian physicians are not reported to do so. The aim of the study was to understand the r/s characteristics and their influence on Indian and Indonesian physicians' acceptance of TCAM/spirituality in modern healthcare system. An exploratory, pilot, cross-cultural, cross-sectional study, using Religion and Spirituality in Medicine, and Physician Perspectives (RSMPP) survey questionnaire, compared r/s characteristics and perspectives on integrative medicine of 169 physicians from two allopathic, Sweekar-Osmania University (Sweekar-OU), India, University of Airlanga (UNAIR), Indonesia, and a TCAM/Central Research Institute of Unani Medicine (CRIUM) institute from India. More physicians from UNAIR and CRIUM (89.1 %) described themselves as "very"/"moderately" religious, compared to 63.5 % Sweekar-OU (p = 0.0000). Greater number of (84.6 %) UNAIR physicians described themselves as "very" spiritual and also significantly high (p < 0.05) in intrinsic religiosity as compared to Sweekar-OU and TCAM physicians; 38.6 % of UNAIR and 32.6 % of CRIUM participants reported life-changing spiritual experiences in clinical settings as against 19.7 % of Sweekar-OU; 92.3 % of UNAIR, compared to CRIUM (78.3 %) and Sweekar-OU (62 %), felt comfortable attending to patients' spiritual needs, (p = 0.0001). Clinical comfort and not r/s characteristics of participants was the significant (p = 0.05) variable in full regression models, predictive of primary outcome criteria; "TCAM or r/s healing as complementary to allopathic treatment." In conclusion, mainstreaming TCAM into healthcare system may be an initial step toward both integrative medicine and also improving r/s care interventions by allopathic physicians.

p53 Expression in Oral cancer: A study of 50 cases

Background: Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world. P53 mutations are associated with the development of oral squamous cell carcinomas. This study is to determine the presence of p53 oncogene expression in cases of oral malignant, premalignant and benign lesions and to show association of p53 oncogene and lymph node enlargement in malignant lesion.Materials and Methods: Four to five micron-thick sections of formalin fixed, paraffin embedded biopsy material from various intra-oral sites of 50 patients were collected, in the series of 50 cases, 35 oral squamous cell carcinoma, 10 dysplastic lesions and 05 hyperplastic lesions were assessed for p53 expression. The tissue sections were immunohistochemically analyzed for the expression of p53 gene.Results: Out of 50; 22/35 (63%) cases of squamous cell carcinoma, 02/10 (20%) cases of dysplasia (20%), were positive for p53. Five hyperplastic lesions were negative for p53. The P53 protein was not identified in benign lesion.Conclusion: Results indicate that p53 over-expression is seen in oral squamous cell carcinomas. It is a significant marker of carcinogenesis and can be considered as an important marker for clinical evaluation, diagnosis as well as prognosis of disease.Journal of Pathology of Nepal (2015) Vol. 5, 747-751

Energy efficient acquisition and reconstruction of EEG signals

In Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) the energy consumption is dominated by sensing and communication. Previous Compressed Sensing (CS) based solutions to EEG tele-monitoring over WBAN's could only reduce the communication cost. In this work, we propose a matrix completion based formulation that can also reduce the energy consumption for sensing. We test our method with state-of-the-art CS based techniques and find that the reconstruction accuracy from our method is significantly better and that too at considerably less energy consumption. Our method is also tested for post-reconstruction signal classification where it outperforms previous CS based techniques. At the heart of the system is an Analog to Information Converter (AIC) implemented in 65nm CMOS technology. The pseudorandom clock generator enables random under-sampling and subsequent conversion by the 12-bit Successive Approximation Register Analog to Digital Converter (SAR ADC). AIC achieves a sample rate of 0.5 KS/s, an ENOB 9.54 bits, and consumes 108 nW from 1 V power supply.

ALOBAR HOLOPROSENCEPHALY, CLEFT LIP/PALATE, URORECTAL SEPTUM MALFORMATION SEQUENCE AND CONGENITAL PERINEAL HERNIA IN A FETUS

We report on a fetus with alobar holoprosencephaly, complete cleft lip and palate, urorectal septum malformation sequence and perineal hernia. To our knowledge this appears to be a novel fetal malformation syndrome.

The GALAXIES beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron: inelastic X-ray scattering and photoelectron spectroscopy in the hard X-ray range

The GALAXIES beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron is dedicated to inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS) and photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) in the 2.3-12 keV hard X-ray range. These two techniques offer powerful complementary methods of characterization of materials with bulk sensitivity, chemical and orbital selectivity, resonant enhancement and high resolving power. After a description of the beamline components and endstations, the beamline capabilities are demonstrated through a selection of recent works both in the solid and gas phases and using either IXS or HAXPES approaches. Prospects for studies on liquids are discussed.

Indian health care professionals' attitude towards spiritual healing and its role in alleviating stigma of psychiatric services

Persons with mental illnesses in India and rest of developing world continue to consult religious/spiritual (R/S) healers or traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) professionals prior to seeking psychiatric services that are devoid of spiritual components of care. We aim to understand TCAM and allopathic professionals' perspectives on patients' R/S needs within mental health services, cross-sectional study was conducted at five TCAM and two allopathic tertiary care hospitals in three different Indian states; 393 participants completed RSMPP, a self-administered, semi-structured survey questionnaire. Perspectives of TCAM and allopathic health professionals on role of spirituality in mental health care were compared. Substantial percentage, 43.7 % TCAM and 41.3 % allopathic, of participants believe that their patients approach R/S or TCAM practitioners for severe mental illness; 91.2 % of TCAM and 69.7 % of allopaths were satisfied with R/S healers (p = 0.0019). Furthermore, 91.1 % TCAM and 73.1 % allopaths (p = 0.000) believe that mental health stigma can be minimized by integrating with spiritual care services. Overall, 87 % of TCAM and 73 % of allopaths agreed to primary criterion variable: 'spiritual healing is beneficial and complementary to psychiatric care.' A quarter of allopaths (24.4 %) and 38 % of TCAM physicians reportedly cross-refer their grieving patients to religious/TCAM healer and psychiatrist/psychologist, respectively; on logistic regression, significant (p < 0.05) predictors were clinical interactions/references to r/s healers. Providing spiritual care within the setup of psychiatric institution will not only complement psychiatric care but also alleviate stigma against mental health services. Implications on developing spiritual care services like clinical chaplaincy are discussed.

Perspectives of Indian traditional and allopathic professionals on religion/spirituality and its role in medicine: basis for developing an integrative medicine program

Allopathic medical professionals in developed nations have started to collaborate with traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) to enquire on the role of religion/spirituality (r/s) in patient care. There is scant evidence of such movement in the Indian medical community. We aim to understand the perspectives of Indian TCAM and allopathic professionals on the influence of r/s in health. Using RSMPP (Religion, Spirituality and Medicine, Physician Perspectives) questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was conducted at seven (five TCAM and two allopathic) pre-selected tertiary care medical institutes in India. Findings of TCAM and allopathic groups were compared. Majority in both groups (75% of TCAM and 84.6% of allopathic practitioners) believed that patients' spiritual focus increases with illness. Up to 58% of TCAM and allopathic respondents report patients receiving support from their religious communities; 87% of TCAM and 73% of allopaths believed spiritual healing to be beneficial and complementary to allopathic medical care. Only 11% of allopaths, as against 40% of TCAM, had reportedly received 'formal' training in r/s. Both TCAM (81.8%) and allopathic (63.7%) professionals agree that spirituality as an academic subject merits inclusion in health education programs (p = 0.0003). Inclusion of spirituality in the health care system is a need for Indian medical professionals as well as their patients, and it could form the basis for integrating TCAM and allopathic medical systems in India.

Neuroprotective potentials of neurotrophin rich olfactory ensheathing cell's conditioned media against 6OHDA-induced oxidative damage

On the basis of recent reports, we propose that impaired neurotrophin signaling (PI3k/Akt), low antioxidant levels, and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) conjointly participate in the progressive events responsible for the dopaminergic cell loss in Parkinson's disease (PD). In the present study we tried to target these deficits collectively through multiple neurotrophic factors (NTFs) support in the form of Olfactory Ensheathing Cell's Conditioned Media (OEC CM) using human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line exposed to 6 hydroxydopamine (6OHDA). 6OHDA exposure induced, oxidative stress-mediated apoptotic cell death viz. enhanced ROS generation, diffused cytosolic cytochrome c (cyt c), impaired Bcl-2: Bax levels along with decrease in GSH content. These changes were accompanied by loss in Akt phosphorylation and TH levels in SH-SY5Y cells. OEC CM significantly checked apoptotic cell death by preserving pAkt levels which coincided with enhanced GSH and suppressed oxidative injury. Functional integrity of OEC CM supported cells was evident by maintained tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression. Intercepting Akt signaling by specific inhibitor LY294002 blocked the protective effect. Taken together our findings provide important evidence that the key to protective effect of multiple NTF support via OEC CM is enhanced Akt survival signaling which promotes antioxidant defense leading to suppression of oxidative damage.

Candidates for twin chiral bands in 102Rh

Excited states in 102Rh, populated in the fusion-evaporation reaction Zr94(11B,3n)102Rh at a beam energy of 36 MeV, were studied using the Indian National Gamma Array spectrometer at Inter University Accelerator Center, New Delhi. The angular correlations and the electromagnetic character of some of the gamma-ray transitions observed were investigated in detail. A new chiral candidate sister band was found. Lifetimes of exited states in both chiral candidate bands of 102Rh were measured for the first time in the A∼100 mass region by means of the Doppler-shift attenuation technique. The derived reduced transition probabilities are compared to the predictions of the two quasiparticles plus triaxial rotor model. Both experimental results and calculations do not support the presence of static chirality in 102Rh.