Inadvertent trypan blue staining of posterior capsule during cataract surgery associated with Argentinian flag event

Trypan blue is common in visualizing the anterior capsule during cataract surgery. Inadvertent staining of the posterior capsule during phacoemulsification is a rare complication and there are few reports in the literature. The proposed mechanism of posterior capsule staining in previous reports includes a compromised zonular apparatus or iris retractors facilitating the posterior flow of trypan blue. We report the first case of trypan blue staining of the posterior capsule associated with the “Argentinian flag” sign. In our case, the “Argentinian flag” allowed the trypan blue to seep between the posterior capsule and the lens, staining the anterior surface of the posterior capsule

Lung Rest During Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Neonatal Respiratory Failure-Practice Variations and Outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Describe practice variations in ventilator strategies used for lung rest during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for respiratory failure in neonates, and assess the potential impact of various lung rest strategies on the duration of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and the duration of mechanical ventilation after decannulation. DATA SOURCES: Retrospective cohort analysis from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization registry database during the years 2008-2013. STUDY SELECTION: All extracorporeal membrane oxygenation runs for infants less than or equal to 30 days of life for pulmonary reasons were included. DATA EXTRACTION: Ventilator type and ventilator settings used for lung rest at 24 hours after extracorporeal membrane oxygenation initiation were obtained. DATA SYNTHESIS: A total of 3,040 cases met inclusion criteria. Conventional mechanical ventilation was used for lung rest in 88% of cases and high frequency ventilation was used in 12%. In the conventional mechanical ventilation group, 32% used positive end-expiratory pressure strategy of 4-6 cm H2O (low), 22% used 7-9 cm H2O (mid), and 43% used 10-12 cm H2O (high). High frequency ventilation was associated with an increased mean (SEM) hours of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (150.2 [0.05] vs 125 [0.02]; p \u3c 0.001) and an increased mean (SEM) hours of mechanical ventilation after decannulation (135 [0.09] vs 100.2 [0.03]; p = 0.002), compared with conventional mechanical ventilation among survivors. Within the conventional mechanical ventilation group, use of higher positive end-expiratory pressure was associated with a decreased mean (SEM) hours of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (high vs low: 136 [1.06] vs 156 [1.06], p = 0.001; mid vs low: 141 [1.06] vs 156 [1.06]; p = 0.04) but increased duration of mechanical ventilation after decannulation in the high positive end-expiratory pressure group compared with low positive end-expiratory pressure (p = 0.04) among survivors. CONCLUSIONS: Wide practice variation exists with regard to ventilator settings used for lung rest during neonatal respiratory extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Use of high frequency ventilation when compared with conventional mechanical ventilation and use of low positive end-expiratory pressure strategy when compared with mid positive end-expiratory pressure and high positive end-expiratory pressure strategy is associated with longer duration of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Further research to provide evidence to drive optimization of pulmonary management during neonatal respiratory extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is warranted

Presence of rd8 mutation does not alter the ocular phenotype of late-onset retinal degeneration mouse model.

PurposeA spontaneous frameshift mutation, c.3481delC, in the Crb1 gene is the underlying cause of dysplasia and retinal degeneration in rd8 mice. The rd8 mutation is found in C57BL/6N but not in C57BL/6J mouse sub-strains. The development of ocular pathology in single knockout Ccl2-/-, Cx3cr1-/- and in double knockout Ccl2-/-, Cx3cr1-/- mice raised on a C57BL/6 background has been reported to depend on the presence of a rd8 mutation. In this study, we investigated the influence of the rd8 mutation on the retinal pathology that we previously described in the late-onset retinal degeneration (L-ORD) mouse model with a heterozygous S163R mutation in the C1q-tumor necrosis factor-related protein-5Ctrp5+/- gene that was generated on a C57BL/6J background.MethodsMouse lines carrying the Ctrp5 S163R and rd8 mutations (Ctrp5+/-;rd8/rd8), corresponding controls without the rd8 mutation (Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt), and wild-type mice with and without the rd8 mutation (Wtrd8/rd8 and Wtwt/wt, respectively) were generated by systematic breeding of mice in our L-ORD mouse colony. Genotyping the mice for the rd8 (del C at nt3481 in Crb1) and Ctrp5 S163R mutations was performed with allelic PCR or sequencing. Retinal morphology was studied with fundus imaging, histology, light microscopy, electron microscopy, and immunohistochemistry.ResultsGenotype analysis of the mice in L-ORD mouse colony detected the rd8 mutation in the homozygous and heterozygous state. Fundus imaging of wild-type mice without the rd8 mutation (Wtwt/wt) revealed no autofluorescence (AF) spots up to 6-8 months and few AF spots at 21 months. However, the accumulation of AF lesions accelerated with age in the Ctrp5+/- mice that lack the rd8 mutation (Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt). The number of AF lesions was significantly increased (p<0.001), and they were small and uniformly distributed throughout the retina in the 21-month-old Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt mice when compared to the age-matched controls. Wild-type and Ctrp5+/- mice with the rd8 mutation (Wtrd8/rd8 and Ctrp5+/-;rd8/rd8, respectively) revealed an integrated retinal architecture with well-defined outer segments/inner segments (OS/IS), outer nuclear layer (ONL), outer plexiform layer (OPL), and inner nuclear layer (INL). The presence of pseudorosette structures reported in the rd8 mice between the ONL and the INL in the ventral quadrant of the retina was not observed in all genotypes studied. Further, the external limiting membrane was continuous in the Ctrp5+/-;rd8/rd8 and Wtrd8/rd8 mice. Evaluation of the retinal phenotype revealed that the Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt mice developed characteristic L-ORD pathology including age-dependent accumulation of AF spots, development of sub-retinal, sub-RPE, and basal laminar deposits, and Bruch's membrane abnormalities at older age, while these changes were not observed in the age-matched littermate WTwt/wt mice.ConclusionsThe Wtrd8/rd8 and Ctrp5+/-;rd8/rd8 mice raised on C57BL/6J did not develop early onset retinal changes that are characteristic of the rd8 phenotype, supporting the hypothesis that manifestation of rd8-associated pathology depends on the genetic background. The retinal pathology observed in mice with the Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt genotype is consistent with the L-ORD phenotype observed in patients and with the phenotype we described previously. The lack of rd8-associated retinal pathology in the Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt mouse model raised on the C57BL/6J background and the development of the L-ORD phenotype in these mice in the presence and absence of the rd8 mutation suggests that the pathology observed in the Ctrp5+/-;wt/wt mice is primarily associated with the S163R mutation in the Ctrp5 gene

Various forms of tobacco usage and its associated oral mucosal lesions

Background: To study the various forms of tobacco usage and its associated oral mucosal lesions among the patients attending Vishnu Dental College Bhimavaram. Material and Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was conducted in a total of 450 patients who were divided into three groups based upon type of tobacco use, as Group-1 Reverse smoking, Group-2 Conventional smoking, Group-3 Smokeless tobacco group and each group consists of 150 subjects. Results: Reverse smoking was observed to be more prevalent among old females with smoker’s palate and carcinomatous lesions being the most common. Conventional smoking was observed more in male patients with maximum occurrence of leukoplakia and tobacco associated melanosis. Smokeless tobacco habit was predominantly seen in younger males. Habit specific lesions like tobacco pouch keratosis, Oral Submucous Fibrosis (OSMF), Quid induced lichenoid reaction were noticed in smokeless tobacco habit group except for erythroplakia which was noticed only in conventional smoking group and it was not significant statistically . Conclusions: In the present study it was found that the usage of reverse smoking habit was most commonly seen in females and this habit is practiced in and surrounding areas of Bhimavaram with more occurrence of carcinoma compared to conventional smoking and smokeless tobacco

Atomistic simulations of lipid bilayers in the presence of dimethylsulfoxide

In a typical cryopreservation protocol, the system to be preserved is first equilibrated with chemicals known as cryoprotective agents (CPAs). CPAs have been shown to alleviate cell damage from either the solute effects or the formation of intracellular ice during the subsequent freezing process. Thus, an extensive body of literature reporting the effects of CPAs on cellular systems has been accumulated over the last 50 years; detailing largely experimental interactions between cell systems and chemicals. Recent advances in computational methodology now offer an additional dimension in our ability to understand the molecular interactions between cell membranes, idealized as lipid bilayers and CPAs at atomistic scales. Computer simulations provide unique capabilities for analyzing biomembrane properties from atomistic perspective with a degree of detail that is hard to reach by other techniques. Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulations have been performed on phospholipid bilayers composed of Dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) lipids. The focus of our MD simulations was on the development of a fundamental understanding of the effects of low and moderate concentrations of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) on lipid bilayers membranes when exposed symmetrically or asymetrically to the water-DMSO solution. The molecular dynamic investigations show that the increase in concentration of DMSO leads to increase in area per lipid which in turn decreases the thickness of the bilayer. Moreover, the DMSO also has a significant effect on several other structural properties such as ordering of lipid tails and dipolar orientation ordering of the water molecules located near the water-bilayer interface

Computational Methods for Evaluation of Protein Structural Models

Proteins are essential parts of organisms and participate in virtually every process within the cells. The function of a protein is closely related to its structure than to its amino acid sequence. Hence, the study of the protein’s structure can give us valuable information about its functions. Due to the complex and expensive nature of the experimental techniques, computational methods are often the only possibility to obtain structural information of a protein. Major advancements in the field of protein structure prediction have made it possible to generate a large number of models for a given protein in a short amount of time. Hence, to assess the accuracy of any computational protein structure prediction method, evaluation of the similarity between the predicted protein models and the experimentally determined native structure is one of the most important tasks. Existing approaches in model quality assessment suffer from two key challenges: (1) difficulty in efficiently ranking and selecting optimal models from a large number of protein structures (2) lack of a similarity measure that takes into consideration the side-chain orientation along with main chain Carbon alpha (Cα) and Side-Chain (SC) atoms for comparing two protein structures. This thesis attempts to address these challenges by (1) developing a rapid protein decoy clustering algorithm, called clustQ, that employs a multi-model pairwise comparison approach for model quality assessment, based on weighted internal distance comparisons and (2) developing a Superposition-based Protein Embedded Cα-SC (SPECS) score, that integrates the high accuracy version of the Global Distance Test (GDT-HA) metric, and side-chain distance and orientation in a singular framework for protein structure comparison. We show that our methods outperform many traditional and state-of-the-art model quality assessment approaches and similarity measures in terms of accuracy, speed and robustness. In particular, the clustQ method was ranked 6th among the model quality estimators in the 13th edition of the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction. All of these methods are freely available to the scientific community in the form of software and web-servers

Popular Culture and Individual Empowerment in the Global World

Popular culture studies are central to the study of Liberal Arts, which enhance the spirit of the academia. They help people to understand their own culture, appreciate it, and grow up as participating members of the community. The present study focuses attention to analyze popular culture in relation to the domains of governance and self-help literature. The study is significant because it helps understand the trajectory adopted for individual empowerment. Existence of multicultural societies across the Globe is more in the present day as the world has become a global village. It can, therefore, be understood that popular culture studies are imminent for promoting goodwill and mutual understanding among members of different societies. One of the major facets in this respect is politics, which focuses on governing of a state. In tune with the changing trends, political parties need to update and upgrade their strategies to influence the emotions of people through several means. Self-Help Books (SHBs) emphasize on the individual well-being while cutting across the social and psychological barriers in terms of culture. It is an established fact that, millions of SHBs are sold annually worldwide with promises of making a person slimmer, calmer, smarter, richer and more attractive. Individual empowerment has always been the central focus throughout the world cultures. The present study is significant as it helps to analyze and understand popular culture in relation to the governing of human life by the State and the individual over himself

An Interactive Health Data Science Platform for Exploratory Analysis of Health Outcomes – a Case Study with Colon Cancer

Disease prediction is an important aspect of early disease detection and preventive care with wide range of applications in healthcare domain. Previous studies used image processing techniques, statistical and machine learning models to predict diseases. Prediction accuracies vary with data type and the target. Often the data is processed through models under different data conditions to identify what works best for a scenario. This results in tweaking the code, running multiple iterations making these methods usable only for people with technical skills. An interactive platform is developed that hides the technicalities and allows the users to change options like target disease for prognosis, feature selection method, sample size, ML algorithm. With this, multiple approaches can be tried and compared to find a combination of the options for an efficient outcome. Colon cancer is used to perform a case study to test this platform. 2 selection algorithms and 3 ML models are used. Although both selection methods identified identical features as significant for colon cancer prediction, the order of the features based on the scores is different. Hence, the machine learning algorithms performed similarly with both the selection methods. Random Forest, Logistic Regression, and Decision Tree had accuracies 87%, 86%, and 83% respectively

PARTAKE survey of public knowledge and perceptions of clinical research in India.

BACKGROUND: A public that is an informed partner in clinical research is important for ethical, methodological, and operational reasons. There are indications that the public is unaware or misinformed, and not sufficiently engaged in clinical research but studies on the topic are lacking. PARTAKE - Public Awareness of Research for Therapeutic Advancements through Knowledge and Empowerment is a program aimed at increasing public awareness and partnership in clinical research. The PARTAKE Survey is a component of the program. OBJECTIVE: To study public knowledge and perceptions of clinical research. METHODS: A 40-item questionnaire combining multiple-choice and open-ended questions was administered to 175 English- or Hindi-speaking individuals in 8 public locations representing various socioeconomic strata in New Delhi, India. RESULTS: Interviewees were 18-84 old (mean: 39.6, SD ± 16.6), 23.6% female, 68.6% employed, 7.3% illiterate, 26.3% had heard of research, 2.9% had participated and 58.9% expressed willingness to participate in clinical research. The following perceptions were reported (% true/% false/% not aware): 'research benefits society' (94.1%/3.5%/2.3%), 'the government protects against unethical clinical research' (56.7%/26.3%/16.9%), 'research hospitals provide better care' (67.2%/8.7%/23.9%), 'confidentiality is adequately protected' (54.1%/12.3%/33.5%), 'participation in research is voluntary' (85.3%/5.8%/8.7%); 'participants treated like 'guinea pigs'' (20.7%/53.2%/26.0%), and 'compensation for participation is adequate' (24.7%/12.9%/62.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest the Indian public is aware of some key features of clinical research (e.g., purpose, value, voluntary nature of participation), and supports clinical research in general but is unaware of other key features (e.g., compensation, confidentiality, protection of human participants) and exhibits some distrust in the conduct and reporting of clinical trials. Larger, cross-cultural surveys are required to inform educational programs addressing these issues