Ignorance based inference of optimality in thermodynamic processes

We derive ignorance based prior distribution to quantify incomplete information and show its use to estimate the optimal work characteristics of a heat engine.Comment: Latex, 10 pages, 3 figure

BLOCKING IN PARTIAL DIALLEL CROSSES

Generally the parents are included in the experimental material for combining ability analysis for comparing the performance of crosses with parents and also for calculating heterosis. But unfortunately the parents are ignored for combining ability analysis because of non-availability of analysis procedure. Method of analysis of partial diallel crosses in incomplete blocks for the method -2 of Griffing (1956) has been given

The Correlative Study Of Carrying Angle And Height Of Body Among Male Population Of Rajasthan

Carrying angle is defined as the angle formed by the axis of the arm and the forearm when the elbow is completely extended. It varies between sexes, ages, races and could also show changes with various morphological features. Aim and objectives: To study correlation of degrees of carrying angle and height of body in male sex of RUHS-CMS Students. Materials & Methods: In this cross sectional study, carrying angle of 246 healthy male students of RUHS-CMS, Jaipur between 17- 35 year of age were evaluated. The correlation between carrying angle and height of participants were also done. Carrying angle (in degree) is measured by a manual goniometer with two drawing axes of the arm and forearm in anatomical position at point of measurement. The axis of arm is defined by the lateral border of the cranial surface of the acromian to the midpoint of the lateral and medial epicondyles of the humerus. Standard deviation, t-tests, P- values and correlations were obtained. A p-value 0.05<P<0.10 was considered suggestive significant and p-value P≤0.001 was considered highly significant. Observation and Result: In the present cross sectional study, the mean bilateral range of 17, 18, 19 and 20-35 years of age participants were 9.91˚- 12.39˚, 12.77˚-14.66˚, 13.80˚- 13.60˚ and 8.18˚- 8.64˚ respectively. The left side of 18 year of age participant’s angle was greater and on the right side 19 year of age participant’s angle was greater. Bilateral significant difference was observed for the height, right carrying angle (RCA) and left Carrying angle (LCA) (p- value ≤0.05). The mean values of RCA and LCA were almost equal without any significant difference while the 17 and 20-35 years of age group found significant differences. Conclusion: The use of simple method to measure carrying angle adopted in this study makes the researcher to recommend it to be used in the actual future researches and clinical practice. Also, the values obtained here might be useful in the management of elbow disorders and the significant difference between females and males might be used in forensic medicine as a basis for sex discriminatio

Sitagliptin reduces cardiac apoptosis, hypertrophy and fibrosis primarily by insulin-dependent mechanisms in experimental type-II diabetes. Potential roles of GLP-1 isoforms

Background:Myocardial fibrosis is a key process in diabetic cardiomyopathy. However, their underlying mechanisms have not been elucidated, leading to a lack of therapy. The glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) enhancer, sitagliptin, reduces hyperglycemia but may also trigger direct effects on the heart.Methods:Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats developed type-II diabetes and received sitagliptin, an anti-hyperglycemic drug (metformin) or vehicle (n=10, each). After cardiac structure and function assessment, plasma and left ventricles were isolated for biochemical studies. Cultured cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts were used for in vitro assays.Results:Untreated GK rats exhibited hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, plasma GLP-1 decrease, and cardiac cell-death, hypertrophy, fibrosis and prolonged deceleration time. Moreover, cardiac pro-apoptotic/necrotic, hypertrophic and fibrotic factors were up-regulated. Importantly, both sitagliptin and metformin lessened all these parameters. In cultured cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts, high-concentration of palmitate or glucose induced cell-death, hypertrophy and fibrosis. Interestingly, GLP-1 and its insulinotropic-inactive metabolite, GLP-1(9-36), alleviated these responses. In addition, despite a specific GLP-1 receptor was only detected in cardiomyocytes, GLP-1 isoforms attenuated the pro-fibrotic expression in cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts. In addition, GLP-1 receptor signalling may be linked to PPARδ activation, and metformin may also exhibit anti-apoptotic/necrotic and anti-fibrotic direct effects in cardiac cells.Conclusions:Sitagliptin, via GLP-1 stabilization, promoted cardioprotection in type-II diabetic hearts primarily by limiting hyperglycemia e hyperlipidemia. However, GLP-1 and GLP-1(9-36) promoted survival and anti-hypertrophic/fibrotic effects on cultured cardiac cells, suggesting cell-autonomous cardioprotective actionsThis work was supported by national funding from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (SAF2009-08367), Comunidad de Madrid (CCG10-UAM/ BIO-5289), and a unrestricted grant from by Merck/MS

Enhancements in nocturnal surface ozone at urban sites in the UK

Analysis of diurnal patterns of surface ozone (O3) at multiple urban sites in the UK shows the occurrence of prominent nocturnal enhancements during the winter months (November–March). Whilst nocturnal surface ozone (NSO) enhancement events have been observed at other locations, this is the first time that such features have been demonstrated to occur in the UK and the second location globally. The observed NSO enhancement events in the UK were found to be so prevalent that they are clearly discernible in monthly diurnal cycles averaged over several years of data. Long-term (2000–2010) analysis of hourly surface ozone data from 18 urban background stations shows a bimodal diurnal variation during the winter months with a secondary nighttime peak around 0300 hours along with the primary daytime peak. For all but one site, the daily maxima NSO concentrations during the winter months exceeded 60 μg/m3 on >20 % of the nights. The highest NSO value recorded was 118 μg/m3. During the months of November, December, and January, the monthly averaged O3 concentrations observed at night (0300 h) even exceeded those observed in the daytime (1300 h). The analysis also shows that these NSO enhancements can last for several hours and were regional in scale, extending across several stations simultaneously. Interestingly, the urban sites in the north of the UK exhibited higher NSO than the sites in the south of the UK, despite their daily maxima being similar. In part, this seems to be related to the sites in the north typically having lower concentrations of nitrogen oxides

Prognostic significance of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) provide prognostic value in invasive breast cancer and guidelines for their assessment have been published. This study aims to evaluate: (a) methods of TILs assessment, and (b) their prognostic significance in breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Hematoxylin and eosin sections from two clinically annotated DCIS cohorts; a training set (n = 150 pure DCIS) and a validation set (n = 666 comprising 534 pure DCIS and 132 cases wherein DCIS and invasive breast carcinoma were co-existent) were assessed. Seven different scoring methods were applied to the training set to identify the most optimal reproducible method associated with strongest prognostic value. Among different methods, TILs touching ducts' basement membrane or away from it by one lymphocyte cell thickness provided the strongest significant association with outcome and highest concordance rate [inter-cluster correlation coefficient = 0.95]. Assessment of periductal TILs at increasing distances from DCIS (0.2 , 0.5 , and 1 mm) as well as percent of stromal TILs were practically challenging and showed lower concordance rates than touching TILs. TILs hotspots and lymphoid follicles did not show prognostic significance. Within the pure DCIS validation set, dense TILs were associated with younger age, symptomatic presentation, larger size, higher nuclear grade, comedo necrosis and estrogen receptor negativity as well as shorter recurrence-free interval (p = 0.002). In multivariate survival analysis, dense TILs were independent predictor of shorter recurrence-free interval (p = 0.002) in patients treated with breast conservation. DCIS associated with invasive carcinoma showed denser TILs than pure DCIS (p = 9.0 × 10-13). Dense TILs is an independent prognostic variable in DCIS. Touching TILs provides a reproducible method for their assessment that can potentially be used to guide management

Informative priors and the analogy between quantum and classical heat engines

When incomplete information about the control parameters is quantified as a prior distribution, a subtle connection emerges between quantum heat engines and their classical analogs. We study the quantum model where the uncertain parameters are the intrinsic energy scales and compare with the classical models where the intermediate temperature is the uncertain parameter. The prior distribution quantifying the incomplete information has the form $\pi(x)\propto 1/x$ in both the quantum and the classical models. The expected efficiency calculated in near-equilibrium limit approaches the value of one third of Carnot efficiency.Comment: Revtex 6 pages, Submitted for Proceedings of Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics (FQMT-2011) Conferenc