Measurement of the Angle of Plantar Flexion An Objective Way of Assessing Muscle Relaxation in Children with Spastic Cerebral Palsy

Infants and young children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) do well with a single daily dose of diazepamgiven at bedtime, as the muscle relaxation decreases the spasticity and faciltates both passive and voluntarymovements. This double blind randomized control trial showed that reducing the hypertonia enhanced thechild’s mobility and quality of life without causing daytime drowsiness. The traditional method of assessingthe muscle tone is by using the Ashworth’s scale. However this is a subjective measurement and inter-rater variability is invariably present. The angle of plantar flexion at the ankle was measured in this study using a goniometer and compared with the Ashworth scores to study if it is a valid and reliable indicator of musclerelaxation. Measuring the angle of plantar flexion is easy to perform and is an effective and objective tool to monitor the dose of diazepam required for optimum muscle relaxation

Does the revised cardiac risk index predict cardiac complications following elective lung resection?

Background: Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI) score and Thoracic Revised Cardiac Risk Index (ThRCRI) score were developed to predict the risks of postoperative major cardiac complications in generic surgical population and thoracic surgery respectively. This study aims to determine the accuracy of these scores in predicting the risk of developing cardiac complications including atrial arrhythmias after lung resection surgery in adults. Methods: We studied 703 patients undergoing lung resection surgery in a tertiary thoracic surgery centre. Observed outcome measures of postoperative cardiac morbidity and mortality were compared against those predicted by risk. Results: Postoperative major cardiac complications and supraventricular arrhythmias occurred in 4.8% of patients. Both index scores had poor discriminative ability for predicting postoperative cardiac complications with an area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.59 (95% CI 0.51-0.67) for the RCRI score and 0.57 (95% CI 0.49-0.66) for the ThRCRI score. Conclusions: In our cohort, RCRI and ThRCRI scores failed to accurately predict the risk of cardiac complications in patients undergoing elective resection of lung cancer. The British Thoracic Society (BTS) recommendation to seek a cardiology referral for all asymptomatic pre-operative lung resection patients with > 3 RCRI risk factors is thus unlikely to be of clinical benefit

Hydrography and water masses in the southeastern Arabian Sea during March-June 2003

This paper describes the hydrographic observations in the southeastern Arabian Sea (SEAS) during two cruises carried out in March-June 2003 as part of the Arabian Sea Monsoon Experiment. The surface hydrography during March-April was dominated by the intrusion of low-salinity waters from the south; during May-June, the low-salinity waters were beginning to be replaced by the high-salinity waters from the north. There was considerable mixing at the bottom of the surface mixed layer, leading to interleaving of low-salinity and high-salinity layers. The flow paths constructed following the spatial patterns of salinity along the sections mimic those inferred from numerical models. Time-series measurements showed the presence of Persian Gulf and Red Sea Waters in the SEAS to be intermittent during both cruises: they appeared and disappeared during both the fortnight-long time series

Design and Process control of Siemens polysilicon CVD reactor

The novelty in this paper is to develop a process control for the poly-silicon CVD reactor to achieve optimum productivity of Poly-silicon seed by controlling the process parameters. The production of ingot is done through Siemens process of decomposing Trichlorosilane by Chemical Vapor Deposition on slim tungsten rods. The hardware architecture proposed monitors and controls the systematic sequential stages furnishing dynamics of the plant at a high temperature around 1050°C-1100°C. The HMI communicates through NI's LabVIEW 8.6 package, alarming the user with Process mimic, Report generation, Data and Security management. The plant simulation is realized and verified with LabVIEW 8.6 Version and MATLab 7.5 software tools to obtain the effectiveness of proposed control technique. This GUI based SCADA handles likelihood of fault tolerance, ensuring risk controlled process with optimum productivity of poly-silicon by making system compliant to Industrial standards

Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of form and function in the amniote jaw.

The amniote jaw complex is a remarkable amalgamation of derivatives from distinct embryonic cell lineages. During development, the cells in these lineages experience concerted movements, migrations, and signaling interactions that take them from their initial origins to their final destinations and imbue their derivatives with aspects of form including their axial orientation, anatomical identity, size, and shape. Perturbations along the way can produce defects and disease, but also generate the variation necessary for jaw evolution and adaptation. We focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate form in the amniote jaw complex, and that enable structural and functional integration. Special emphasis is placed on the role of cranial neural crest mesenchyme (NCM) during the species-specific patterning of bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and other jaw tissues. We also address the effects of biomechanical forces during jaw development and discuss ways in which certain molecular and cellular responses add adaptive and evolutionary plasticity to jaw morphology. Overall, we highlight how variation in molecular and cellular programs can promote the phenomenal diversity and functional morphology achieved during amniote jaw evolution or lead to the range of jaw defects and disease that affect the human condition

Infective endocarditis in intravenous drug abusers: an update

Infective endocarditis despite advances in diagnosis remains a common cause of hospitalization, with high morbidity and mortality rates. Through literature review it is possible to conclude that polymicrobial endocarditis occurs mainly in intravenous drug abusers with predominance in the right side of the heart, often with tricuspid valve involvement. This fact can be associated with the type of drug used by the patients; therefore, knowledge of the patient's history is critical for adjustment of the therapy. It is also important to emphasize that the most common combinations of organisms in polymicrobial infective endocarditis are: Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as well as mixed cultures of Candida spp. and bacteria. A better understanding of the epidemiology and associated risk factors are required in order to develop an efficient therapy, although PE studies are difficult to perform due to the rarity of cases and lack of prospective cohorts.This work was supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the grants SFRH/BPD/47693/2008, SFRH/BPD/20987/2004 and SFRH/BPD/72632/2010 attributed to Claudia Sousa, Claudia Botelho and Diana Rodrigues, respectively

Pattern of radiographic findings in patient with gunshot injuries in university of maiduguri teaching hospital.

Gunshot injuries (GSI) are a global public health problem and causes considerable problem in developing countries. Objectives: To determine the radiographic pattern of findings of gunshot injuries with its age and sex association and to find out its causes and anatomical part most involved. Method: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted reviewing 397 records of patients with gunshot injuries with age range from 6-70 years, from December 2010 to December 2012, in Accident and emergency department of University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. Ethical clearance was obtained from the research ethical committee of the institution. Data collected was organized into groups according to age, sex, cause of gunshot injuries, patterns of findings and anatomical part affected. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 statistical software package, where the mean, percentages and frequencies were calculated. Result: The result showed that more males 92.7% were affected than the females 7.3% with a ratio of 13:1. More teenagers,within the age group of 11-20 years (20.4%) and young adults with age range from 21-30 years (38.3%) were mostly affected.Secondary assault 84.13% and armed robbery attack 10.8% were the highest cause of gunshot injuries. Fracture 44.8%, soft tissue bullets pellets injury 31.9% were the common findings, with the lower limb 53.6% and the upper limb 30.2% were the anatomical site commonly affected. Conclusion: The study found that more males were affected than the female with a ratio of 13:1. Extremities were the anatomical site commonly affected, with fractures and pellet injuries as the common injuries. Secondary assault (insurgence) and armed robbery attack were the major causes of these injuries which affected the most active age group (11-30 years) in the society

Kualitas Hidup Pasien Diabetes Melitus Tipe 2 di Puskesmas Se Kota Kupang

Diabetes Mellitus is well known as a chronic disease which can lead to a decrease in quality of life in all domains. The study aims to explore the diabetic type 2 patient\u27s quality of life and find out the factors affecting in type 2 diabetic mellitus patients. The cross-sectional study design is used that included 65 patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus, in 11 public health centers of Kupang City. Data were collected by using Short Form Survey (SF-36) that assessed 8-scale health profile. Independent sample t-test is used to analyze the correlation between the factors affecting and the quality of life. the study showed that the QoL of DM patients decreased in all 8- health profile including physical functioning, social functioning, mental health, general health, pain, change in the role due to physical problems and emotional problems. The Study also showed there was a relationship between gender, duration of suffering from Diabetes mellitus, and complications to the quality of life. Male perceived a better quality of life than female

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio