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Efficient tools for the identification and discrimination of species are imperative in wildlife conservation since they can endow with information of species exploitation and also abet in solving problems related to forensic science. Herein, a non-destructive and rapid analytical method (ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy) coupled with PCA and PLS-DA was employed to analyze the dry blood samples for the species discrimination. Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus), Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca), and Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) species were used to construct the chemometric models. Additionally, Domestic Pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) and Human (Homo sapiens) blood were taken for the external validation study. The evaluation results illustrate that the ATR FT-IR Spectroscopy in combination with PLS-DA model showed statistically confident discrimination among selected species from dry blood traces. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy supported with predictive models has been a robust, ideal, and suitable tool for species discrimination from dry blood traces recovered in wildlife investigations.

Morphological processing of Indian languages is one of the most escalating fields in the era of Natural Language Processing (NLP) since the last decade. The evaluation of Asian languages is a highly relevant field in the times of text mining and information retrieval. The morphological evaluation of a text can be employed for extraction and classification of knowledge. This paper amalgamates morphological evaluation and sentiment prediction of Punjabi language text. The textual data for Punjabi language is concerned with farmer suicide cases reported for Punjab state of India. The pre-processing phase of this study involves morphological evaluation and normalization of Punjabi words to their respective canonical forms. The next phase carries out training and testing of deep neural network model on refined Punjabi tokens obtained from the earlier phase. The proposed model classifies Punjabi tokens into four negatively oriented classes tailored for farmer suicide cases. The average accuracies of sentiment prediction obtained after 10-fold cross validation are 93.85%, 88.53%, 83.3%, and 95.45% for the four respective classes. The proposed framework yields satisfactory results on 275 Punjabi text documents with the overall accuracy of 90.29% for sentiment classification.

Purpose: To compare rates of acute and late skin toxicities and cosmetic outcomes after accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) or whole breast irradiation (WBI) using 3-dimensional conformal external beam radiation therapy in women with breast cancer after breast conservation surgery (BCS). Methods and Materials: Women >35 years of age with invasive or noninvasive breast cancer ≤4 cm treated by BCS were randomized to 3D-CRT APBI (34 Gy/10 fractions/5 days) or WBI (40 Gy/16 fractions/3 weeks ± boost irradiation). The primary outcome was ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence. Important secondary outcomes were skin toxicities using Radiation Therapy Oncology Group scores, Late Effects Normal Tissue Task Force and Subjective, Objective, Management, Analytic scales, and adverse cosmetic outcome. This interim analysis focuses on the secondary endpoints of radiation toxicities and cosmesis. Patient and tumor characteristics and rates of adverse cosmetic outcomes and skin toxicities were compared using Fisher exact tests. All statistical tests were 2 sided, with P < .05 considered statistically significant. Results: Between June 2011 and December 2015, 133 women with breast cancer were randomized to 3D-CRT APBI or WBI. Patient and tumor characteristics were balanced between the 2 arms. Median follow-up was 60 months (range, 12-93 months). Grade 4 late toxicity was not seen in either of the treatment arms, and grade 3 toxicity was very low for each endpoint assessed in both the groups. The rates of grade ≥2 acute dermatitis were 8% and 15%, respectively, for APBI and WBI (P = .18). Rates of grade ≥1 late radiation toxicities were higher in the WBI arm compared with the APBI arm for breast shrinkage (P = .008), pigmentation (P = .028), fibrosis (P = .040), induration (P = .048), and edema (P = .33). Adverse cosmesis at last follow-up was significantly higher in patients treated with WBI: 33% compared with 6% with APBI (P < .001). Conclusions: In women with breast cancer after BCS, APBI was associated with better cosmetic outcome and fewer late radiation toxicities than WBI.

Lack of availability of commercial antibodies against whole-cell antigen or an antigenic epitope of Avibacterium paragallinarum (Av. paragallinarum) has hindered the development of novel immunoassays for the diagnose infectious coryza (IC). In this study, we raised polyclonal antisera against Av. paragallinarum and evaluated its antigenic-specificity using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We standardized antigen coating concentration(s), antibody detection limit, and optimal range of dilutions of primary antisera and secondary conjugated antibody. Our results show the development of antigen-specific antibody response in rabbits following repeated antigenic exposure with 0.5% formalinized antigen over a period of four weeks. Further, we showed its possible applicability in detection of pathogens in tissues by immunohistochemistry for confirmatory disease diagnosis and disease pathogenetic study.

Query optimization is a stimulating task of any database system. A number of heuristics have been applied in recent times, which proposed new algorithms for substantially improving the performance of a query. The hunt for a better solution still continues. The imperishable developments in the field of Decision Support System (DSS) databases are presenting data at an exceptional rate. The massive volume of DSS data is consequential only when it is able to access and analyze by distinctive researchers. Here, an innovative stochastic framework of DSS query optimizer is proposed to further optimize the design of existing query optimization genetic approaches. The results of Entropy Based Restricted Stochastic Query Optimizer (ERSQO) are compared with the results of Exhaustive Enumeration Query Optimizer (EAQO), Simple Genetic Query Optimizer (SGQO), Novel Genetic Query Optimizer (NGQO) and Restricted Stochastic Query Optimizer (RSQO). In terms of Total Costs, EAQO outperforms SGQO, NGQO, RSQO and ERSQO. However, stochastic approaches dominate in terms of runtime. The Total Costs produced by ERSQO is better than SGQO, NGQO and RGQO by 12%, 8% and 5% respectively. Moreover, the effect of replicating data on the Total Costs of DSS query is also examined. In addition, the statistical analysis revealed a 2-tailed significant correlation between the number of join operations and the Total Costs of distributed DSS query. Finally, in regard to the consistency of stochastic query optimizers, the results of SGQO, NGQO, RSQO and ERSQO are 96.2%, 97.2%, 97.45 and 97.8% consistent respectively.

The antibacterial activity of peppermint oil and different extracts of Mentha piperita against some Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains was evaluated in the present research work by agar well diffusion method. It was found that the distilled concentrations of essential oil inhibited the growth of microorganisms and the results were comparable with those of antibiotic gentamycin. Essential oils showed a wider spectrum of activity but less strong inhibition as compared to the investigated commercial antibiotic. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for the bacterial species ranged from 0.4% to 0.7% v/v. The oil and extracts also exhibited significant antioxidant activity and the oil showed about half potency when compared to the standard BHT. These results indicated the strong antibacterial and antioxidant activities of peppermint oil but additional investigations need to be performed in order to confirm the safety of these concentrations (MIC) for human consumption. Peppermint oil could be used as a good conservation agent by inhibiting some food borne pathogens.

Background: Clozapine is the cornerstone of therapy for refractory schizophrenia; however, the potential for cardiotoxicity is an important limitation in its use. In the current analysis we sought to evaluate the long term cardiac outcomes of clozapine therapy., Methods: All-cause mortality, incidence of sudden death and time to myocarditis were assessed in a cohort of patients maintained on clozapine between January 2009 and December 2015. All patients had regular electrocardiograms, complete blood count, clozapine levels and echocardiography as part of a formal protocol., Results: A total of 503 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia were maintained on clozapine during the study period of which 93 patients (18%) discontinued therapy with 29 (6%) deaths. The incidence of sudden death and myocarditis were 2% (n=10) and 3% (n=14) respectively. Amongst patients with sudden death, 7 out of 10 (70%) were documented to have used illicit drugs prior to death, with a tendency to weight gain also noted. The mean time to myocarditis post clozapine commencement was 15±7days. The reduction in left ventricular ejection fraction in those with myocarditis was 11±2%., Conclusion: Myocarditis and sudden cardiac death are uncommon but clinically important complications in a cohort of patients followed while maintained on clozapine undergoing regular cardiac assessment. Further studies are required to document the role of preventive measures for left ventricular dysfunction and sudden cardiac death in this population., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Aconitum heterophyllum Wall, popularly known as Atis or Patis, is an important medicinal herb of North-Western and Eastern Himalayas. No information exists on molecular aspects of aconites biosynthesis, including atisine- the major chemical constituent of A. heterophyllum. Atisine content ranged from 0.14% to 0.37% and total alkaloids (aconites) from 0.20% to 2.49% among 14 accessions of A. heterophyllum. Two accessions contained the highest atisine content with 0.30% and 0.37% as well as the highest alkaloids content with 2.22% and 2.49%, respectively. No atisine was detected in leaves and shoots of A. heterophyllum, thereby, suggesting that the biosynthesis and accumulation of aconite alkaloids occur mainly in roots. Quantitative expression analysis of 15 genes of MVA/MEP pathways in roots versus shoots, differing for atisine content (0-2.2 folds) showed 11-100 folds increase in transcript amounts of 4 genes of MVA pathway; HMGS, HMGR, PMK, IPPI, and 4 genes of MEP pathway; DXPS, ISPD, HDS, GDPS, respectively. The overall expression of 8 genes decreased to 5-12 folds after comparative expression analysis between roots of high (0.37%) versus low (0.14%) atisine content accessions, but their relative transcript amounts remained higher in high content accessions, thereby implying their role in atisine biosynthesis and accumulation. PCA analysis revealed a positive correlation between MVA/MEP pathways genes and alkaloids content. The current study provides first report wherein partial sequences of 15 genes of MVA/MEP pathways have been cloned and studied for their possible role in aconites biosynthesis. The outcome of study has potential applications in the genetic improvement of A. heterophyllum., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Vascular injury after total knee arthroplasty is a rare event with significant morbidity. To date there are a handful of cases of pseudoaneurysms affecting the popliteal artery and cases involving one of the geniculate arteries are even rarer. Most case reports involving injuries to the geniculate vessels have reported surgical intervention to treat the condition. We report a case where injury to the superior medial geniculate artery with formation of pseudoaneurysm resolved without any surgical intervention., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We report a 30-year-old man with superior vena cava syndrome due to fibrosis from a previously irradiated malignant thymoma. The patient presented 4 years after the initial treatment, after having been lost to follow-up. Investigations revealed total obstruction of the superior vena cava, and right subclavian and right internal jugular vein. The patient underwent an extra-anatomic bypass (ringed polytetrafluoroethylene graft 10-mm diameter) between the left internal jugular vein and the left femoral vein brought in a subcutaneous tunnel over the anterior chest and abdominal wall. Entry to the thoracic cavity was avoided due to extensive fibrotic changes visualized in the computed tomographic chest scan. Follow-up Doppler at 2 months, 6 months, 1 year, and 3 years showed a patent graft. An internal jugular vein to the femoral vein bypass is a simple method for palliation of superior vena cava syndrome.