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Background: Human serum paraoxonase (PON1) residing on HDL can prevent the oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL), the initiating factor in atherosclerosis. Statins are commonly used to treat dyslipidemia, aknown risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD).The aim of the studyis to evaluate the alterations in the concentrationof PON1 along with that of other parameters of lipid profile in patients of CAD before and after 3 months of statin therapy. Materials and Methods: The study included 30 new patients who were put on statin therapy following the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome. The activity of PON1 (units-IU/L) and the concentration of lipid profile parameters (units-mg/dl) were estimated before starting statin therapy and again after three months. Patients with co-morbidities like diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease and other cardiac diseases of infectious aetiology were excluded. Results and Analysis: As expected, both PON1 and HDL have increased after 3 months. There was a statistically significant increase in both PON1 (p<0.05)and HDL (p<0.001) and a decrease (p <0.05, also statistically significant) in LDL after 3 months of statin therapy. Conclusion: This knowledge may be exploited in the follow up CAD patients. The increase in PONI and the similar increase in HDL after 3 months of statin therapy may be exploited in the follow-up of cardiac patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Covid 19 pandemic has thrown a big challenge in terms of available manpower, space and financial recourses at all levels of healthcare facilities. The disease manifestation ranges from asymptomatic to severe but a pro-inflammatory milieu is the underlying ongoing event. Detection of pro- inflammatory markers in early stages of the disease is instrumental to avert future complications. Method: For the present study 35 RT-PCR positive Covid patients were chosen from indoor admissions along with 35 age and sex matched controls. C Reactive Protein (CRP) and cobalt binding activity of albumin measured in both groups and compared statistically. The values of CRP is elevated in cases (153.92± 87.56) as compared to controls (3.71± 3.07) which is statistically significant (p value= 0.001).Elevation of Cobalt binding activity of albumin is statistically significant (p value= 0.0001) in cases (151.04± 37.38) when compared to controls (81.96± 29.49). Moreover elevation of cobalt binding activity of albumin bears moderate positive correlation (r=0.609) with the elevation of CRP levels. Conclusion: As laboratory assay of cobalt binding albumin has manifold advantages, when compared to assay of CRP, the former may emerge as a promising marker if similar result are obtained with a larger study population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) being major public health problems in India, including West Bengal needs to be continuously monitored through recommended methods and indicators. Present study is aiming to assess the total goiter rate, urinary iodine excretion, iodine content of salts at households’ level among primary school children and to find association with the socio-demographic characteristics of the study population. Method: A school-based, cross-sectional study was conducted during March 2019 to August 2019 among 540 schoolchildren of class three and four. Goiter was assessed by standard palpation technique, urinary iodine excretion (UIE) was analyzed by wet digestion method and salt samples were tested by spot iodine testing kits. The total goiter rate (TGR) was 10.56 %. About 97.22 % of the salt samples tested were adequately iodized. Though consumption of iodized salt was adequate irrespective of socio demographic characteristics; goiter prevalence was significantly different with respect to mother’s education level. Median urinary iodine excretion was found to be with in normal range. Lastly, a comparison is made between indicators of IDD over years which showed significant fall of TGR % of North 24 Pgs and a significant increase of adequately iodized salt consumption from 2004 to 2019. Conclucion: 2019 resurvey of North 24 parganas indicates that the district achieved close to the goal of NIDDCP i.e. prevalence of IDD should be below 10%. It also proved that universal salt iodinization program has increased the household’s iodine consumption above national goal of 91.2%. Goiter prevalence is found to be less in children whose mother attend the education upto 12th standard and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe study examines whether there exist any similarities in impact, author collaboration, and prestige between Open Access (OA) and Subscription based (SB) Library and Information Science (LIS) journals. The study selected highly appearing 32 core LIS journals in all four quartiles of SCImago database during 2018–2022. The Scopus database was utilized to extract CiteScore, SNIP, Total Articles, Citations, and publications data from 2018 to 2022, while h5-index was calculated manually and SJR scores were extracted from SCImago. Statistical tests (Student’s t-test and Mann-Whitney U-test) were conducted in R software, guided by normality and variance checks. The study reveals that SB LIS journals outperformed OA LIS journals in terms of impact and prestige based on several statistical tests on CiteScore and h5-index data. However, there was no significant difference in SNIP indicator for both datasets. On the contrary, the study revealed similarities in the degree of author collaboration in both datasets, with no significant difference. Besides, the study also determines SB LIS journals have a significant advantage in articles published per year and citations garnered per year during the study period. The insights of this study would help LIS researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers to consider OA publishing as an alternate medium for scholarly communication. It is vital for OA LIS journal stakeholders to consistently improve productivity, quality, and the peer review process, to slowly diminish the gap between OA and SB journals in terms of impact and prestige. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]