Raman spectroscopy and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for diagnosis of human cancer and acanthosis nigricans

Cancer and diabetes are common chronic diseases in today\u27s world causing numerous deaths in adults as well as children. Most common types of cancers in adults include prostate, lung, breast, colorectal and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, while among children; leukemia, and brain and central nervous system cancers are quite common. In each of these cases, early detection of the cancer or disease dramatically increases the chances of successful treatment. In recent years, there has been much interest in using Raman spectroscopy and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy as analytical optical spectroscopic methods for early diagnosis of diseases. Raman spectroscopy can be used to measure changes in the bio-molecular composition of a tissue specimen, and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy can measure chromophores of the skin. In this research, archived (formalin-fixed paraffin processed) tissues of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, prostate, and pediatric tumors have been investigated using Raman spectroscopy. We have utilized statistical methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant function analysis (DFA) to analyze the spectral output and distinguish between normal and cancerous tissues. The results show cancerous tissues can be successfully distinguished from normal tissues in three cancer types in ex vivo. However, due to loss of biochemical in the tissue processing (paraffinizing and deparaffinizing procedure), the prediction ability of the archived tissues are less compared to frozen tissues as observed in the pediatric tumor investigation. We also investigated the diagnostic capability of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and colorimetry on a skin disease, acanthosis nigricans in vivo. The aim is to quantify and characterize the skin color change associated with acanthosis nigricans skin disease in insulin-resistant obese individuals. We observe both the instruments can be utilized to detect acanthosis nigricans with more than 87% sensitivity and 94% specificity when combined with advanced chemometric methods

Packet Compression in GPU Architectures

Graphical processing unit (GPU) can support multiple operations in parallel by executing it on multiple thread unit known as warp i.e. multiple threads running the same instruction. Each time miss happens at private cache of Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), the request is migrated over the network to shared L2 cache and then later down to Memory Controller (MC) for supplying memory block. The interconnect delay becomes a bottleneck due to a large number of requests from different SM and multiple replies from the MCs. The compression technique can be used to mitigate the performance bottleneck caused by a large volume of data. In this work, I apply various compression algorithms and propose a new compression scheme, Data Segment Matching (DSM). I apply approximation to the floating-point elements to improve compressibility and develop a prediction model to identify number of approximation bits. I focus on compression techniques to resolve this bottleneck. The evaluations using a cycle accurate simulator show that this scheme improves Instructions per Cycle (IPC) by 12% on an average across various benchmarks with compressibility 50% in integer type benchmarks and 35% in floating-point type benchmarks when the proposed scheme is applied to packet compression in the interconnection network

VOLATILITY SPILLOVER OF INTRADAY EXCHANGE RATES ON SOME SELECTED ASEAN COUNTRIES

In this paper, we use hourly exchange rate data for selected ASEAN countries (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines) to test the hypothesis that exchange rate own shocks dominate exchange rate volatility. We find strong evidence that own exchange rate volatility explains between 64% to 86% of their own exchange rate volatility movements. These results do not change when we include the Chinese CNY currency in the analysis. Moreover, we find that exchange rate shocks of ASEAN countries explain 36%, 24% and 23% of exchange rate volatility movements of Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore, suggesting that for these countries are more synchronized

Raman spectroscopy can discriminate between normal, dysplastic and cancerous oral mucosa: a tissue-engineering approach.

Head and neck cancer (HNC) is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide. Squamous cell carcinoma, the primary cause of HNC, evolves from normal epithelium through dysplasia before invading the connective tissue to form a carcinoma. However, less than 18% of suspicious oral lesions progress to cancer, with diagnosis currently relying on histopathological evaluation, which is invasive and time consuming. A non-invasive, real-time, point-of-care method could overcome these problems and facilitate regular screening. Raman spectroscopy is a non-invasive optical technique with the ability to extract molecular level information to help determine the functional groups present in a tissue and the molecular conformations of tissue constituents. In the present study, Raman spectroscopy was assessed for its ability to discriminate between normal, dysplastic and HNC. Tissue engineered models of normal, dysplastic and HNC were constructed using normal oral keratinocytes, dysplastic and HNC cell lines, and their biochemical content predicted by interpretation of spectral characteristics. Spectral differences were evident in both the fingerprint (600/cm to 1800/cm) and high wave-number compartments (2800/cm to 3400/cm). Visible differences were seen in peaks relating to lipid content (2881/cm), protein structure (amide I, amide III), several amino acids and nucleic acids (600/cm to 1003/cm). Multivariate data analysis algorithms successfully identified subtypes of dysplasia and cancer, suggesting that Raman spectroscopy not only has the potential to differentiate between normal, pre-malignant and cancerous tissue models but could also be sensitive enough to detect subtypes of dysplasia or cancer on the basis of their subcellular differences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Clinicoepidemiological Profile and Micronutrient Deficiencies in Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition

Introduction: Malnutrition is widely prevalent in developing countries and is considered a common denominatorin infant and under-5 mortalities. Most child deaths are associated with inappropriate feeding practices and specificmicronutrient deficiencies during the first year of life. There is a lack of data about severe acute malnutrition (SAM) andspecific micronutrient deficiencies in India; hence, the present study was conducted to study the iron profile, includingfolic acid, and vitamin B12 levels and their correlation with the clinicoepidemiological profile of children with SAM.Materials and methods: This hospital-based cross-sectional study included 95 children with SAM, aged 6 months to 5 years.A predesigned structured proforma was used to collect information. Data concerning clinical examination and history givenby the mother and a reliable attendant was collected. The quantitative data were expressed as mean and standard deviationand qualitative data as percentage and proportion. The difference in proportion was analyzed by the Chi-square test andthe difference in means was analyzed by ANOVA. P-value <0.05 was taken as significant. All calculations were done byMicrosoft Excel, Primer. SPSS Software [version 21] was used for doing statistical analysis. Results: In the present study,a total of 95 SAM patients were included with mean age 19.74 months and an F:M ratio of 1.2:1. Weight-for-height wasfound to be the most reliable criterion to identify children with SAM (78.95%). Edema was present in 18 (18.95%) patients.Around 68.42% of patients had mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) <11.5 cm; 25.26% of children were found completelyimmunized, remaining 74.74% were either partially immunized or unimmunized. According to the Kuppuswamy scale forthe socioeconomic class, more than two-thirds of the parents belonged to the upper-lower class. About 44.21% of childrenreceived exclusive breastfeeding till 6 months of age, while complementary feeding was started in only 25.26% of childrenat 6 months of age. Anemia was present in 93 children with a prevalence of 97.89%. Of these, 30 patients had vitamin B12deficiency anemia, 20 patients had iron deficiency anemia, and 6 patients had folate deficiency anemia. Conclusions: Severeacute malnutrition is an important preventable and treatable cause of morbidity and mortality in children below 5 years ofage in India. Although malnutrition is highly prevalent in Indian children, there are very limited data that use biochemicalindexes to characterize the epidemiology of micronutrient deficiencies in children with SAM. A detailed understanding ofmicronutrient deficiencies and clinical and epidemiological profile of children may help in micronutrient supplementationand fortification programs and targeting the basic causes of pediatric mortalities

Effect of low-cost white reflecting sling application on efficacy of phototherapy in healthy term neonates with non-hemolytic jaundice: A randomized controlled trial

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of white reflecting material (slings) hung from the sides of compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) phototherapy equipment in reducing the duration of phototherapy in healthy term neonates with non-hemolytic jaundice. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Setting: Postnatal ward of a tertiary level neonatal unit. Participants and Intervention: Healthy term neonates with non-hemolytic jaundice between 24 h and 14 days of age were randomly assigned to receive single surface phototherapy with (n=50) or without slings (n=50). Outcome Measure: Primary outcome was rate of reduction of serum bilirubin levels and secondary outcome was duration of phototherapy (hour) required. Results: Birth weight (2780±360 vs. 2790±260 g), gestation (38.22±1.0 vs. 38.08±0.90 week), and initial serum total bilirubin (17.36±1.06 vs. 16.96±1.20 mg/dL) were comparable between the two groups. There was a significant difference in the duration of phototherapy (mean ± standard deviation [SD]) between the sling (53.28±21.02 h) and no sling (62.88±20.22 h) groups (p=0.02). The irradiance of phototherapy equipment (μW/cm2/nm, mean±SD) was higher in sling group compared to no sling group (24.17±0.13 vs. 22.11±0.21). Conclusion: Hanging of white reflective sling on sides of CFL phototherapy equipment resulted in marginal increase in irradiance and reduction in the duration of phototherapy

Degradation of Chrysene by Enriched Bacterial Consortium

Chrysene is a high molecular weight (HMW), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) known for its recalcitrance and carcinogenic properties and sparsely soluble (0.003 mg/L) in aqueous medium. Due to these refractory properties, bioavailability of chrysene is very low and therefore is persistence in the environment escaping the metabolism by microorganisms. However, few bacterial and fungal strains are reported to degrade chrysene, but with lower efficiency, requiring additional/extraneous carbon sources (co-substrates) for it’s complete mineralization. In this study, development, enrichment and characterization of bacterial consortium ASDC, consisting of Rhodococcus sp., ASDC1; Bacillus sp. ASDC2; and Burkholderia sp. ASDC3 were reported. Chrysene was utilized as a sole source of carbon and energy by the consortium, having maximum degradation rate of 1.5 mg/L/day and maximum growth rate of 0.125/h, under optimized conditions of pH 7.0, 37°C under aeration of 150 rpm on gyrating shaking. Chrysene degradation was unaffected in presence of other PAHs like pyrene, fluoranthene, naphthalene, phenanthrene, benzene, toluene and xylene, individually as well as in mixture. The results revealed that peptone, ammonium nitrate, sodium succinate have enhanced the chrysene degradation rate during first 24 h of experimentation, which was later on inhibited with increase in incubation time. The chrysene degradation was inhibited by mercury even at lower concentration (1 mM). The results also revealed that SDS has enhanced its degradation by 5.2-fold for initial 24 h of growth, but with increasing in the incubation period, it decreases by 1.2-fold on 7th day of experimentation. The HPLC studies suggested that chrysene was degraded through phthalic acid pathway by the consortium ASDC and the stoichiometric measurements indicated the complete mineralization of chrysene. The flask scale results were validated at simulated microcosm models, where enriched consortium ASDC exhibited maximum degradation (96%) in polluted, non-sterile soil sediment, indicating that consortial strains along with indigenous metabolism showed synergistic metabolism for degradation of chrysene. Thus, the above study revealed the useful enrichment of bacterial community for synergistic degradation of PAHs (chrysene) which could be further exploited for in situ remediation of PAH contaminated sites