ISOLATION, PARTIAL PURIFICATION AND IMMUNOBIOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF INHIBIN FROM GOAT OVARIAN FOLLICULAR FLUID

In the present study Inhibin was purified from goat ovarian follicular fluid by Gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-200. SDS PAGE of purified inhibin revealed the molecular weight of 55 kDa. The purified follicular fluid had been found to be immunoreactive by DID test and Western Blot analysis when treated against hyperimmune sera

PARTIAL PURIFICATION AND IMMUNO-BIOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISATION OF FERTILITY ASSOCIATED PROTEIN OF KARAN FRIES BULL SEMINAL PLASMA

The objective of the present study was detection, isolation, partial purification and immunobiochemical characterization of fertility associated protein in the seminal plasma of high prolific Karan fries bull. Seminal plasma of Karan Fries bull was partially purified by gel filtration chromatography and analyzed by 10% SDS-PAGE for their polypeptide profile. PAGE analysis revealed major band of 55 kDa, and 26 kDa. Hyperimmune serum was raised in rabbit against crude seminal plasma protein. Single precipitin line was observed in DID test when each of the partially purified 26 kDa and 55 kDa proteins were reacted with hyperimmune serum. These proteins were also found to be immunoreactive against hyperimmune serum in Western blot technique

Study of coagulation profile and platelet indices in pregnancy induced hypertension with special reference to preeclamptic and eclamptic patients

Background: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy affect about 10% of all pregnant women around the world. A variety of haematological abnormalities may occur in women with Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH), thrombocytopenia being the most common. There is also a definite exaggeration of the hypercoagulable state during PIH. A strong relationship exists between the two most important causes of maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide: Preeclampsia and Post-partum hemorrhage. The aim of this study was to find out the changes that occur in the coagulation profile and platelet indices in PIH as compared to that in normal pregnancy and if they can be used as a reliable indicator of the onset and severity of Preeclampsia and eclampsia.Methods: This was a hospital based analytical prospective study carried out in R. G. Kar Medical College, between January 2017 to June 2018 on 120 patients with PIH. The study parameters included Platelet count, Platelet Distribution Width (PDW), Mean Platelet Volume (MPV), Prothrombin Time (PT) and Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT).Results: The results showed significant decrease in platelet count in preeclampsia and eclampsia patients when compared to normotensive patients. Also, there was significant increase in MPV and PDW in preeclamptic and eclamptic patients. Coagulation profile showed increased PT and APTT both in preeclamptic and eclamptic patients with eclamptic patients having significantly higher APTT than other groups.Conclusions: Thus, authors came to the conclusion that platelet indices and coagulation profile can be used as a reliable early indicator of onset and severity of preeclampsia and eclampsia

Study of correlation between adequacy of dialysis and glycemic control in patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus with chronic kidney disease stage 5

Background: The adequacy of haemodialysis in patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus with chronic kidney disease stage 5 depends on several clinical as well as laboratory parameters. Previous studies from Western literature have identified several clinical and laboratory markers for predicting adequacy of dialysis. There is a dearth of literature regarding the same in Indian patient populace. Authors aimed to find correlation, if any, between glycemic control and adequacy of dialysis in this cohort of patients.Methods: A set of 200 patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus who have undergone hemodialysis at a tertiary care hospital were included in the study. Random blood sugar (RBS), Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured at admission. After 4 hours of dialysis, the urea reduction ratio (URR) and Kt/V was measured for each patient. The correlation coefficient as well as linear equation of the association between these variables were calculated. Standard statistical method and software were used in the process.Results: The study revealed a linear negative correlation between the variables RBS, HbA1c and URR as well as Kt/V. This suggests the importance of pre dialysis glycemic control in patients undergoing hemodialysis.Conclusions: Authors formulate the hypothesis that glycated hemoglobin and random blood sugar at admission correlate well with the outcome and adequacy of dialysis in patients of stage 5 chronic kidney disease undergoing haemodialysis.  Good glycemic control (HbA1c <6.5 % and RBS <120 mg/dL) have shown to be important predictive markers of adequate dialysis. The hypothesis needs to be tested with a larger study

Multimodal Decorations of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles for Improved Cancer Therapy

The presence of leaky vasculature and the lack of lymphatic drainage of small structures by the solid tumors formulate nanoparticles as promising delivery vehicles in cancer therapy. In particular, among various nanoparticles, the mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) exhibit numerous outstanding features, including mechanical thermal and chemical stability, huge surface area and ordered porous interior to store different anti-cancer therapeutics with high loading capacity and tunable release mechanisms. Furthermore, one can easily decorate the surface of MSN by attaching ligands for active targeting specifically to the cancer region exploiting overexpressed receptors. The controlled release of drugs to the disease site without any leakage to healthy tissues can be achieved by employing environment responsive gatekeepers for the end-capping of MSN. To achieve precise cancer chemotherapy, the most desired delivery system should possess high loading efficiency, site-specificity and capacity of controlled release. In this review we will focus on multimodal decorations of MSN, which is the most demanding ongoing approach related to MSN application in cancer therapy. Herein, we will report about the recently tried efforts for multimodal modifications of MSN, exploiting both the active targeting and stimuli responsive behavior simultaneously, along with individual targeted delivery and stimuli responsive cancer therapy using MSN

Likelihood-Based Inference for Semi-Parametric Transformation Cure Models with Interval Censored Data

A simple yet effective way of modeling survival data with cure fraction is by considering Box-Cox transformation cure model (BCTM) that unifies mixture and promotion time cure models. In this article, we numerically study the statistical properties of the BCTM when applied to interval censored data. Time-to-events associated with susceptible subjects are modeled through proportional hazards structure that allows for non-homogeneity across subjects, where the baseline hazard function is estimated by distribution-free piecewise linear function with varied degrees of non-parametricity. Due to missing cured statuses for right censored subjects, maximum likelihood estimates of model parameters are obtained by developing an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Under the EM framework, the conditional expectation of the complete data log-likelihood function is maximized by considering all parameters (including the Box-Cox transformation parameter $\alpha$) simultaneously, in contrast to conventional profile-likelihood technique of estimating $\alpha$. The robustness and accuracy of the model and estimation method are established through a detailed simulation study under various parameter settings, and an analysis of real-life data obtained from a smoking cessation study.Comment: 20 page

Modeling and Analysis of ArtificialArm

A precise modeling and an analysis on an artificial arm have a very significant role in the control action applications. The control activities are useful to identify the system performance and design requirements. The efforts have been made by the researchers to initiate different approaches to direct the best effective model. The state-space analysis has been introduced to analyze different control performances such as controllability, observability and stability testing of the standard artificial arm model after producing the closed loop representation by the simulation approach using Jury stability and Lyapunov stability analysis. The control action analysis shows the relevancy and the precision of the proposed mathematical model

The watershed transform in pathological image analysis: application in rectiulocyte count from supravital stained smears

Background: Morphometric studies based on image analysis are a useful adjunct for quantitative analysis of microscopic images. However, effective separation of overlapping objects if often the bottleneck in image analysis techniques. We employ the watershed transform for counting reticulocytes from images of supravitally stained smears.Methods: The algorithm was developed with the Python programming platform, using the Numpy, Scipy and OpenCV libraries. The initial development and testing of the software were carried out with images from the American Society of Hematology Image Library. Then a pilot study with 30 samples was then taken up. The samples were incubated with supravital stain immediately after collection, and smears prepared. The smears were microphotographed at 100X objective, with no more than 150 RBCs per field. Reticulocyte count was carried out manually as well as by image analysis.Results: 600 out of 663 reticulocytes (90.49%) were correctly identified, with a specificity of 98%. The major difficulty faced was the slight bluish tinge seen in polychromatic RBCs, which were inconsistently detected by the software.Conclusions: The watershed transform can be used successfully to separate overlapping objects usually encountered in pathological smears. The algorithm has the potential to develop into a generalized cell classifier for cytopathology and hematology

A study to assess the occurrence and factors of maternal near-miss among women admitted in maternal unit in selected hospitals of Kolkata, India

Background: Assessment of the occurrence of maternal near-miss (an event in which a woman comes close to maternal death, but survive), identify the factors of maternal near-miss and to find out the association between determining factors and selected sample characteristics of maternal near-miss women.Methods: A descriptive survey is carried out among purposively selected women admitted in the maternity unit of two tertiary hospitals of Kolkata. Data are collected by face-to-face interview using valid and reliable semi-structured interview schedule to identify factors of maternal near-miss. WHO selected maternal near-miss proforma (2011) is used for assessment of occurrence of maternal near-miss by using record analysis.Results: The occurrence of maternal near-miss is identified as 100 out of 1669 women admitted in maternity unit. Eclampsia occurred maximum (27%) followed by severe pre-eclampsia (19%), severe PPH (6%) among potentially life-threatening conditions. Multigravida (65%), multipara (54%), non-booked cases (5%), duration of labour more than 18 hours (65%), caesarean section (78%), referred cases (79%), maternal type 1 delay (53%) and type 2 delay (67%) all are the factors mainly responsible for developing maternal near-miss. Significant association present between reproductive and obstetrical factors and maternal education, marital age (p<0.01). Significant association is also present between maternal delay factors and residence, maternal education, monthly family income, marital age (p<0.01).Conclusions: Exploring the factors of maternal near-miss may help to identify the factors early, which in turn will prevent the condition. Lesson can be learned from cases of near-miss which can serve as a useful tool in reducing maternal mortality ratio

A Novel Approach to Threshold Quantum Images by using Unsharp Measurements

We propose a hybrid quantum approach to threshold and binarize a grayscale image through unsharp measurements (UM) relying on image histogram. Generally, the histograms are characterized by multiple overlapping normal distributions corresponding to objects, or image features with small but significant overlaps, making it challenging to establish suitable thresholds. The proposed methodology uses peaks of the overlapping Gaussians and the distance between neighboring local minima as the variance, based on which the UM parameters are chosen, that maps the normal distribution into a localized delta function. To demonstrate its efficacy, subsequent implementation is done on noisy quantum environments in Qiskit. This process is iteratively repeated for a multimodal histogram to obtain more thresholds, which are then applied to various life-like pictures to get high-contrast images, resulting in comparable peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity index measure values. The obtained thresholds are used to binarize a grayscale image by using novel enhanced quantum image representation integrated with a threshold encoder and an efficient quantum comparator (QC) that depicts the whole binarized picture. This approach significantly reduces the complexity of the proposed QC and of the whole algorithm when compared to earlier models