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The XIII Banff meeting, held in conjunction the Canadian Society of Transplantation in Vancouver, Canada, reviewed the clinical impact of updates of C4d-negative antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR) from the 2013 meeting, reports from active Banff Working Groups, the relationships of donor-specific antibody tests (anti-HLA and non-HLA) with transplant histopathology, and questions of molecular transplant diagnostics. The use of transcriptome gene sets, their resultant diagnostic classifiers, or common key genes to supplement the diagnosis and classification of rejection requires further consensus agreement and validation in biopsies. Newly introduced concepts include the i-IFTA score, comprising inflammation within areas of fibrosis and atrophy and acceptance of transplant arteriolopathy within the descriptions of chronic active T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR) or chronic ABMR. The pattern of mixed TCMR and ABMR was increasingly recognized. This report also includes improved definitions of TCMR and ABMR in pancreas transplants with specification of vascular lesions and prospects for defining a vascularized composite allograft rejection classification. The goal of the Banff process is ongoing integration of advances in histologic, serologic, and molecular diagnostic techniques to produce a consensus-based reporting system that offers precise composite scores, accurate routine diagnostics, and applicability to next-generation clinical trials.

Collagen, a biopolymer finds its application in the preparation of pharmaceutical products that are used in wound management, ophthalmic, orthopaedic and oral surgeries. This wide applicability is due its special properties such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, easy availability and high versatility. Collagen is isolated from various sources such as bovine skin, fish skin, chicken skin, skin waste of marine organisms, solid wastes of leather industry, short tendons of slaughtered cattle and bone. The isolated collagen from biological wastes is found to be cost effective due to the adaptation of simple methods for its isolation when compared with other commercially available biological macromolecules. The functional groups such as amino and carboxylic acid present in collagen helps in its modification that suits for various end uses which include wound healing, ophthalmic defects, drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. These beneficial properties impart uniqueness to collagen molecule among the available bio molecules.

Aim: To measure the angle of anteversion of femoral neck in both gender types and on both sides and to correlate it clinically. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out to determine the average femoral neck anteversion in Indian population. The angle was measured mechanically on 164 dry femora 88 right and 76 left intact, dried adult human femora (unpaired) with 81 male type bones and 83 female type bones were studied by conventional methods. The results obtained were statiscally analysed. Results: The angle between centre head neck line to transcondylar line was measured using goniometer in 164 dry bones and the mean value was 9.8 deg. The mean value was 9.49 deg on the right side and 10.13 deg for the left side femora with a standard deviation of 1.66 and 1.50 respectively showing a higher angle in the left side femora. A statistically significant difference of 0.64 was found for the angle of anteversion between the right and left side bones with a ‘p’ value of

Introduction: Chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension, are often associated with psychiatric comorbidities such as anxiety, depression, and somatization. Approximately, one-fourth of the adults were diagnosed with hypertension, and the proportion will reach about one-third by 2025. The prevalence of hypertension throughout India is 29.8% and the burden of hypertension in a rural area of Tamil Nadu is 25.2%. The compliance of drug intake depends on the mental health of the patient and this study intends to take care of patients with chronic illnesses. This study is designed to assess the mental health of hypertensive patients and its association with their blood pressure. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among hypertensive patients in the field practice of a tertiary care medical college in the Kancheepuram district for a period of 3 months using a semi-structured validated schedule after obtaining the informed consent. The depression anxiety stress scale (DASS) scale was used to assess the mental health of hypertensive patients. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. Results: Most hypertensive patients were found in the age group of 40 to 60 years. About 53.4% of hypertensive patients with normal blood pressure were suffering from depression. In addition, about 44.6% of pre-hypertensive patients and 44.6% of stage II hypertensive patients were found to have severe depression. Conclusion: Overall, pre-hypertensive patients were suffering from depression when compared to other hypertensive patients. Family history and tobacco and alcohol intake were other factors associated with depression in hypertensive patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microalgae are receiving great attention towards biofuel and potential option for the removal of nutrients from wastewater as an alternative biological treatment. In the current study, five different food to algal biomass ratios (0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 1.75) experimented with Chlorella vulgaris and a ratio of 1.0 was found to be optimum. Further studies were carried out in a lab-scale tubular photobioreactor (PBR). The maximum removal efficiencies of ammoniacal nitrogen, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and total organic carbon were found to be 66.60%, 62.50%, and 69.09%, respectively. Grown microalgal biomass was subjected to biomethanation for recovery of bioenergy in the form of methane. The specific methane yield obtained was 233 mL/g VS (VS - volatile solids) added using a standard biomethane production test using automated methane potential test system II. The results of the study are promising, as it was observed that the coupling of both processes, that is, algal treatment integrated with anaerobic digestion of grown algal biomass will benefit wastewater treatment for nutrient removal as well as helps in energy production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: According to the 2010 estimates by the World Health Organization, nearly 285 million (4.24% of total population) people of all ages worldwide are visually impaired. Almost 18.9 million children under 15 years of age are visually impaired globally. In developing countries, 7%-31% of childhood blindness and visual impairment is avoidable. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted as a cross-sectional study among 1884 school students in Puducherry, in the age group of 10-14 years. A child with presenting maximum vision ≤6/12 Snellen equivalent in the better eye is considered visually impaired. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel 2013 and analyzed using the statistical software SPSS version 21.0. Chi-square test was applied for testing difference in proportion and a P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The overall prevalence of visual impairment (vision ≤6/12) among the study participants was 6.37% (95% confidence interval = 5.27-7.47). The prevalence of visual impairment increased with age and it was found to be high among male students (6.6%) when compared to female students (6%). Presenting vision of 6/6 was observed in 79.8% of the children while with pinhole correction, the proportion increased to 94.6%. Conclusion: The prevalence of visual impairment in our study population was found to be 6.37% and the prevalence was even higher among children who belonged to schools of urban region or private schools. Children with a positive family history of spectacle use were more likely to have visual impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was carried out to evaluate and compare the effects of organic and inorganic selenium (Se) sources on broiler male birds (Ross 308). Uniform broiler male chicks divided in to five groups with six replicates were fed with either normal feed (without supplemental Se, negative control), 0.25 ppm of inorganic Se, 0.5 ppm of inorganic Se, 0.25 ppm of inorganic Se + 0.25 ppm of organic Se and 0.5 ppm of organic Se. Sodium selenite and Se enriched yeast served as inorganic and organic sources of Se respectively. The birds were reared for 35 days and were analyzed for growth performance, carcass yield, and lymphoid organ yield. The meat and liver samples were also analyzed for the glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx), thio barbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), meat pH and water holding capacity. Results showed that Se supplementation regardless of the source and levels improved the broiler performance by increasing the feed intake and body weight. No significant (P>0.05) difference in feed conversion ratio (FCR), survival and carcass yield was evident among the treatment groups. The organic Se at the rate of 0.5 ppm was found to be an excellent source of Se as it improved the meat quality through enhanced Se retention, higher glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) activity and decreased lipid peroxidation rate. Further, supplemental organic Se at the rate of 0.5 ppm also improved the meat water holding capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The XIII Banff meeting, held in conjunction the Canadian Society of Transplantation in Vancouver, Canada, reviewed the clinical impact of updates of C4d‐negative antibody‐mediated rejection (ABMR) from the 2013 meeting, reports from active Banff Working Groups, the relationships of donor‐specific antibody tests (anti‐HLA and non‐HLA) with transplant histopathology, and questions of molecular transplant diagnostics. The use of transcriptome gene sets, their resultant diagnostic classifiers, or common key genes to supplement the diagnosis and classification of rejection requires further consensus agreement and validation in biopsies. Newly introduced concepts include the i‐IFTA score, comprising inflammation within areas of fibrosis and atrophy and acceptance of transplant arteriolopathy within the descriptions of chronic active T cell–mediated rejection (TCMR) or chronic ABMR. The pattern of mixed TCMR and ABMR was increasingly recognized. This report also includes improved definitions of TCMR and ABMR in pancreas transplants with specification of vascular lesions and prospects for defining a vascularized composite allograft rejection classification. The goal of the Banff process is ongoing integration of advances in histologic, serologic, and molecular diagnostic techniques to produce a consensus‐based reporting system that offers precise composite scores, accurate routine diagnostics, and applicability to next‐generation clinical trials.

The aim of this paper is to study the asymptotic behaviour (homogenization) of an optimal control problem in a periodically perforated domain with Dirichlet condition on the boundary of the holes. The optimal control problem considered here is governed by the Stokes system. The holes are assumed to be of the same order as that of the period. The homogenized limit of the Stokes system as well as its adjoint system arising from the optimal control problem is obtained. The convergence of the optimal control and cost functional is obtained on some specific control sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Estimation of multi-compartment intravoxel 'flow' in fD in ml/100g/min with multi-b-value diffusion weighted imaging and a multi-Gaussian model in the kidneys., Theory and Methods: A multi-Gaussian model of intravoxel flow using water transport time to quantify f D (ml/100g/min) is presented and simulated. Multi-compartment anisotropic DWI signal is simulated with Rician noise and SNR=50 and analyzed with a rigid bi-exponential, a rigid tri-exponential and diffusion spectrum imaging model of intravoxel incoherent motion (spectral diffusion) to study extraction of multi-compartment flow. The regularization parameter for spectral diffusion is varied to study the impact on the resulting spectrum and computation speed. The application is demonstrated in a two-center study of 54 kidney allografts with 9 b-value advanced DWI that were split by function (CKD-EPI 2021 eGFR<45ml/min/1.73m 2 ) and fibrosis (Banff 2017 interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy score 0-6) to demonstrate multi-compartment flow of various kidney pathologies., Results: Simulation of anisotropic multi-compartment flow from spectral diffusion demonstrated strong correlation to truth for both three-compartment anisotropic diffusion ( y = 1.08 x + 0.1 , R 2 = 0.71 ) and two-compartment anisotropic diffusion ( y = 0.91 + 0.6 , R 2 = 0.74 ), outperforming rigid models in cases of variable compartment number. Use of a fixed regularization parameter set to λ = 0.1 increased computation up to 208-fold and agreed with voxel-wise cross-validated regularization (concordance correlation coefficient=0.99). Spectral diffusion of renal allografts showed decreasing trend of tubular and vascular flow with higher levels of fibrosis, and significant increase in tissue parenchyma flow (f-stat=3.86, p=0.02). Tubular f D was significantly decreased in allografts with impaired function (eGFR<45ml/min/1.73m 2 )(Mann-Whitney U t-stat=-2.14, p=0.04)., Conclusions: Quantitative multi-compartment intravoxel 'flow' can be estimated in ml/100g/min with f D from multi-Gaussian diffusion with water transport time, even with moderate anisotropy such as in kidneys. The use of spectral diffusion with a multi-Gaussian model and a fixed regularization parameter is particularly promising in organs such as the kidney with variable numbers of physiologic compartments.