Search

Byline: Richa. Kumar, Manas. Chatterjee, R. Ranjan Sir, A 42-year-old male, resident of Ajmer district, Rajasthan, and armed forces personnel by occupation presented with complaints of swelling and pain over [...]

Byline: Richa. Kumar, Manas. Chatterjee Sir, Toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) is a severe life-threatening mucocutaneous adverse reaction, most commonly triggered by medications.[1] Lupus erythematosus (LE) is a multisystem, autoimmune disorder [...]

We hereby present a case of a 41-year-old female with hypertension and right mastectomy, who presented with bilateral visual loss, weakness of all four limbs, and livedo reticularis of acute onset and was found to have multifocal areas of infarct in bilateral occipital lobes and left external capsule due to antiphospholipid syndrome. Various differentials in the form of sepsis-induced posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, posterior circulation stroke, and purpura fulminans confused the final diagnosis of an orphan disease – Sneddon syndrome. This case is reported for the rarity of the disease and the diagnostic dilemmas faced by the nondermatologist in diagnosing this condition even in the presence of striking skin changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By tracing specific moments in the history of the more‐than‐human landscape constituting the food geography of western Avadh, a long settled agricultural heartland in the Indo‐Gangetic plains, this paper challenges the neat formulations of the Anthropocene laying out decisive global impacts of humans on the environment. Building upon the concept of the 'patchy Anthropocene', we show how outcomes are shaped by an imbrication of humans and non‐humans—where powerful human actors seek to coerce people and corral the environment into their projects of remaking the landscape, but also where recalcitrant ecologies and resistant people thwart these intentions, especially during the colonial encounter. Contestations across power hierarchies and unintended outcomes litter the wake of the Anthropocene — as we show, efforts to save the non‐human cow in the last decade have intensified processes associated with the Great Acceleration. Instead of treating the trajectory of food geographies like western Avadh as outliers and marginal to the normative process of defining change, we argue for treating it as constitutive of the norm. Only through such a process of decolonisation, by 'provincialising the Anthropocene', can we hope to push for epistemic justice, ecological sustainability and a more equitable world. By tracing the history of the more‐than‐human landscape constituting the food geography of western Avadh, a long settled agricultural heartland in the Indo‐Gangetic plains, this paper challenges the neat Anthropocene formulations of decisive global impacts of humans on the environment. We show how powerful human actors seek to coerce people and corral the environment into their landscape remaking projects, but also how recalcitrant ecologies and resistant people thwart these intentions. We also describe unintended outcomes – efforts to save the nonhuman cow in the last decade have intensified processes associated with the Great Acceleration. Only through decolonisation and 'provincialising the Anthropocene', can we hope to push for epistemic justice, ecological sustainability and a more equitable world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Psoriasis assessment tools in use presently lack reproducibility and are cumbersome to use. An easily reproducible, objective tool with ability to maintain visual records for follow up is hence desirable. We conducted a study with the aim to assess dermoscopic changes in psoriasis while on treatment by recording the number of hemorrhagic dots (Hemorrhagic Dot Score‐HDS) in a representative plaque and comparing it to the PASI score. Settings and design: A longitudinal prospective study was conducted between October 2018 to March 2020 in a dermatology centre of a tertiary hospital on cases of chronic plaque psoriasis on treatment over 6 months, assessed at baseline and thereafter monthly for 6 months. Methods: Hundred consenting patients of chronic plaque psoriasis were assessed, clinically, PASI and dermoscopically. HDS and other dermoscopic features were noted at every visit. Statistical analysis used: ANOVA and F test of testing of equality of Variance; effect size in terms of Cohen were used to report the strength of an apparent relationship. Results and Interpretation: Percentage improvement in the mean PASI scores and HDS and percentage improvement of mean was found significant in each month on follow up. Systemic therapy as compared to topical therapy showed higher effect size of 6.1 and 1.7, respectively. Conclusion: Hemorrhagic dot score can be used as an objective, definite assessment tool correlating with clinical severity of psoriasis with more accuracy which shows changes early following institution of therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) face serious challenges in addressing the growing wave of cybercrime across Europe. They have limited human and financial resources to push back against this wave. Their tools and technologies are often a generation behind those of cybercriminals and terrorists on the dark web, deep web and dark nets. LEAs have to operate with ethical, data protection and social constraints that are meaningless to cybercriminals. They also have to respect national borders that don't exist in cyberspace. This article briefly refers to the economic and social impacts of cybercrime, before discussing some of the principal challenges facing LEAs in responding to those impacts. We then focus on the EU-funded CC-DRIVER project, which is helping LEAs to address those challenges. Finally, we draw some conclusions on the near-term future of responses to cybercrime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conversation, Bharat Bhushan Tyagiji, national award winning farmer from western Uttar Pradesh, and social anthropologist Richa Kumar, together attempt to analyse the alternative perspective of Tyagiji on the current crisis of farming in India, especially Punjab. Unlike typical alternative perspectives that uncritically glorify 'tradition', romanticise nature, and dismiss science and machines, Tyagiji's views are refreshingly different. His focus is on the present; he is not enamoured by tradition or by so-called traditional knowledge. At the same time, he seeks to put science back in its place—within a larger discourse and appreciation of the knowledge of living in this world with meaning and purpose. He argues for working with scientific knowledge rather than dismissing it entirely, and he wants to use technology as part of a system that also centrally values human labour. But before we can change agriculture, he argues, we have to first contend with questions of how we want to live, and what we want to value. This conversation is a small contribution towards helping us think through some of these vexing questions in the context of the future of farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baptisia tinctoria (Wild indigo; Fabaceae) has long tradition of use in Indian systems of medicine for the treatment of depression. This investigation deals with the evaluation of the antidepressant activity of various extracts and fractions of B. tinctoria roots and estimation of the content of bioactive principle using thin-layer chromatography densitometry. Roots of B. tinctoria were successively extracted to obtain n-hexane, chloroform, methanol and water extracts. The chloroform, methanol and water extracts were screened for antidepressant activity at doses of 200 or 400 mg/kg, p.o., in mice subjected to forced swim test. Methanol extract showed significant activity at a dose of 400 mg/kg. The methanol extract was further fractionated successively to obtain ethyl acetate and 1-butanol fractions. Antidepressant activity of these fractions was assessed using forced swim test at the doses of 90 and 80 mg/kg, p.o., respectively. The ethyl acetate fraction showed significant antidepressant activity at the dose of 90 mg/kg in mice. Further, specific antidepressant activity without psychostimulant effects of bioactive methanol extract and ethyl acetate fraction was confirmed through evaluation of locomotor behaviour in mice using open field test. Phytochemical screening showed the presence of flavonoids as major class of phytoconstituents in the methanol extract. Comparative thin-layer chromatography fingerprint studies confirmed the presence of hesperitin in methanol extract. Hesperitin was used as a chemical marker to standardize B. tinctoria roots using validated thin-layer chromatography densitometric method and the content of hesperitin was found to be 0.0085% w/w. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of a 'good farmer' who adheres to scientific methods of crop production and produces high yields was commonly articulated by scientists and some farmers in Malwa, central India, while evaluating soybean farming. However, through detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of soybean farmers in Malwa, this paper argues that there is no direct link between scientific methods and high productivity, defined as yield per unit of land, because the outcome is dependent on variables that cannot be controlled by farmers. Rather, the metaphor of a 'good farmer' was selectively used by upper-caste farmers to reinforce their power and authority in the face of declining state support to emphasize their continued importance to agriculture and the state. When upper-caste farmers were less productive, they placed the blame on the environment, but when lower-caste farmers produced less, the blame was placed on their (lack of) capability to understand scientific techniques that were expected to increase productivity. This paper suggests that instead of using the productivity discourse to evaluate farming, a different valuation reveals the positive contribution of soybean as a poor farmer's crop due to its agronomic characteristics and market environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Price information provision and disintermediation have often been considered means to empower farmers, since lack of information and multiple intermediaries are seen as major obstacles preventing farmers from obtaining a higher price for their produce. Using the example of soybean in Malwa, central India, which is a cash crop that links farmers to global consumers, this article argues that the very expectation of disintermediation in the soybean supply chain is misleading. India's position in these global networks puts farmers and intermediaries in Malwa in the position of price receivers: they are unable to influence the global price of soybean or manipulate its local price in any way. In this context, providing price information has negligible impact on the final price obtained by farmers. The potential for empowerment has to be understood more broadly, by mapping out the ways in which power is exercised by various actors in the marketplace - one of which is the determination of the quality of a farmer's crop. This article maps such possibilities by examining how norms regarding quality in soybean are created and enforced, and how they are influenced by broader logics that go beyond the soybean marketplace itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, the long-term sustainability of ICT initiatives has increasingly come under question. Despite persistent doubts, governments, international agencies, NGOs, and private companies are pressing ahead to set up more such projects. This paper studies the financial sustainability of India's largest rural ICT initiative known as eChoupal. The eChoupals are distinct from other telecenter projects in that the value added is not in providing ICT infrastructure alone, but rather, in enabling efficiencies in the agricultural sector through greater information exchange and creation of an alternative market structure. An analysis of available data indicates that this project has a potential payback period of 3.9 years. Although several assumptions have been used in these calculations, a sensitivity analysis has been performed to provide a range of possible scenarios that show the profitability of the project. Through this analysis it seems that ICT projects can be financially sustainable when they are viewed not as an end in themselves but as tools to facilitate information exchange whereby, use of the technology enables higher efficiencies in another existing or new business setting, which provides the source of revenue to recover the initial investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background A major factor contributing to global trauma mortality and morbidity is the lack of effective prehospital trauma services in developing settings. We developed a 2-d training course for nondoctor first responders featuring high-fidelity simulation and video-assisted debriefing, self-directed learning videos, and native language instruction. Materials and methods A pilot session was conducted in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Eighteen local instructors were recruited to train 48 layperson first responders in 10 essential subjects. Didactic sessions of 15-20 min consisting of self-directed learning videos were followed by 30-40 min skill sessions featuring high-fidelity simulation, and concluded with 15-20 min video-debriefing periods. Changes in competence were evaluated using pretraining and posttraining surveys. Results Results demonstrated that statistically significant competence increases in all areas of trauma management assessed: airway (t[46] = 7.30, P < 0.000), hemorrhage (t[46] = 9.96, P < 0.000), fractures (t[46] = 9.22, P < 0.000), cervical spine injury (t[46] = 12.12, P = 0.000), chest injury (t[46] = 7.84, P < 0.000), IV line placement (t[46] = 4.36, P < 0.000), extrication (t[46] = 2.81, P < 0.005), scene assessment (t[46] = 7.06, P < 0.000), triage (t[46] = 5.92, P < 0.000), and communication (t[46] = 5.56, P < 0.000). Highest increases in competence were observed in cervical spine injury and hemorrhage management, with lowest increases in IV line placement and extrication. Conclusions Results suggest this approach may be effective in imparting prehospital trauma management concepts to layperson first responders. This study highlights an innovative educational avenue through which trauma management capacity can be enhanced in developing settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.

Background: Nail involvement in psoriasis may be assessed clinically, ultrasonologically, and dermoscopically. The aim of this study was to assess the dermoscopic features of nails in psoriasis, to compare them with the clinical findings, and to correlate them with the Nail Psoriasis Severity Index (NAPSI) score., Methods: We recruited 120 patients with psoriatic nail changes for the study. The Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) was used to assess the severity of disease. Clinical and dermoscopic (Derm-Lite DL4, ×10, polarized and non-polarized) nail examination determined NAPSI, modified NAPSI (mNAPSI), and NAPSI determined with dermoscopic findings (dermoscopic NAPSI [dNAPSI] and dermoscopic modified NAPSI [dmNAPSI]) were used to assess severity of nail involvement., Results: Subungual hyperkeratosis (50.8%) and nail plate thickening (56.7%) were the commonest clinical nail changes found, and dermoscopically, they were subungual hyperkeratosis and pitting (68.3% each). The average median with interquartile range of PASI and NAPSI scores were 7.5 [5.7-10.8] and 8.0 [6-12], respectively. NAPSI scores increased significantly with the increase in PASI scores (P < 0.001). A comparison of NAPSI and mNAPSI with dNAPSI and dmNAPSI revealed that NAPSI, mNAPSI, and dNAPSI increased significantly with an increase in PASI scores. The dNAPSI scores increased significantly with increased mNAPSI and dmNAPSI, and mNAPSI and dmNAPSI were significantly good predictors of joint involvement in psoriasis., Conclusions: Dermoscopy allows for better visualization of nail findings. Evaluating NAPSI and mNAPSI scores in conjunction with dNAPSI and dmNAPSI increases their helps detect early psoriasis, detection of worsening moderate-to-severe psoriasis (PASI >10) and predict joint involvement and their severity., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None., (©2022 Arora et al.)