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The analysis of estrogen receptor (ER) expression in breast carcinomas plays a crucial role in determining the endocrine responsiveness of tumors for systemic adjuvant therapy. Conventionally, the ER levels in breast carcinomas had been detected using the dextran-coated charcoal assay and radioimmunoassay, which are now substituted with safer and economic antibody-based assays such as immunohistochemistry (IHC) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Despite a gold (Au) standard method, the IHC has been criticized for factors such as tissue fixation, antibody selection, and threshold staining for result interpretation that could falsify test accuracy and reproducibility. The quest for alternative methods of ER quantification in tissue samples paved the way for aptamer-based diagnostics. Previously, we have isolated a DNA aptamer against human ER alpha (ERα) using an in vitro evolution system. In this study, we developed an electrochemical sensor using the 76-nucleotide DNA ERα- aptamer for rapid, precise, and cost-effective detection of ERα expression in human breast cancer patients. The aptasensor was constructed by covalently immobilizing the thiolated ERα- aptamer onto a screen-printed Au electrode. Construction of aptasensors was confirmed through atomic force microscopy and differential pulse voltammetry measurements. A detection limit of 0.001 ng/ml was calculated for full-length ERα (66.2 kDa) in a detection time of 10 min. Analysis of the cancerous breast tissue samples using the ELISA and aptasensor methods enabled distinctive classification of samples into the categories of ER -ve, weak ER +ve, and strong ER +ve samples. The current change of this aptasensor lies within 5% after a storage of 60 days at 4°C. Further studies on a reasonably large sample size are required to realize the clinical potential of the sensor.

Country’s economic growth and high policy target makes transition towards renewable source of generation. This transition in power system from synchronous machines to power electronic based renewable generation is challenge for system operation in maintaining demand-generation balance. This balance needs to be maintained for secure and reliable system operations. However, any imbalance due to inevitable contingency like loss of load or generation may cause events of frequency fall or rise. The inceptive stage of frequency deviation is controlled by system inertia. However, due to power electronics-based interface, renewable generation provides zero or less inertia support. Along with, large integration of renewable systems would displace large fleet of synchronous units and thus declines system inherent inertia. In this context, this paper gives a detailed trends of inertia emulation in low carbon power systems. Various sources of inertia along with its controlled strategies are discussed. This paper will provide a detailed review of inertia emulation which techniques to provide an insight for system operation for secure and reliable operations in future power system.

The heart of the present day MRI scanners is a superconducting magnet producing the required central field. A 1.5 T multicoil magnet with ±5.5 ppm field homogeneity in 45 cm field of view (FOV) is designed. These coils will operate at an average current density of 130 A/mm 2 . The magnet bobbin will be made of 5083 aluminium alloy, while the winding pack of the magnet will be a composite structure which will consist of Nb-Ti, copper, epoxy and insulations. The winding pretension, thermal strains, due to cooling, and Lorentz forces contribute to the overall stress, which during operation can cause deformation of the magnet. To design a structurally sound and stable magnet system, it is critical to evaluate the stresses that are generated in the magnet during winding, cool down and operation. This paper discusses the stresses generated on the magnet and deformations produced due to the forces acting on the coils. The effect of deformation on the field homogeneity and the influence of winding tension on the overall operational stress are also studied. The von-Mises stress during the operation is found to be 40 MPa along the median line. The deformations of the magnet due to operational stresses increased the field homogeneity to ±85 ppm in the FOV.

Eleven pigmented rice genotypes were evaluated to estimate genetic parameters, heritability and association. The results indicated that, genotypic variation was high among the lines. The distinct seasonal effect on plant performance for antioxidant capacity, anthocyanin, flavonoids, head rice recovery and test weights was also observed. Wet season favoured the crop performance in all genotypes as compared to drought conditions. The differential accumulation of different quality traits such as AOA, anthocyanin content, flavonoids content, etc showed high heritability, which would be transfer to high yeilding popular rice cultivars through conventional or geneticaly modification techniques. The line Mamihunger was chosen as donor of the high-quality rice grain and Annapurna for high yield. Further, Mamihunger are foreseen to be good in nutritional quality and industry use.

Alaknanda basin in the Garhwal Himalaya, India, is a tectonically active region owing to ongoing crustal deformation, erosion, and depositional processes active in the region. Active tectonics in this region have greatly affected the drainage system and geomorphic expression of topography and provide an ideal natural set up to investigate the influence of tectonic activity resulting from the India-Eurasia collision. We evaluated active tectonics by using high resolution digital elevation model (DEM) based on eight geomorphic indices (stream length gradient index, valley floor width-to-height ratio, hypsometric integral, drainage basin asymmetry, transverse topography symmetry factor, mountain front sinousity index, bifurcation ratio, and basin shape index) and seismicity in eight subbasins of Alaknanda basin. The integrated product, relative tectonic activity index (TAI) map, was classified into three classes such as: ‘highly active’ with values ranging up to 2.0; ‘moderately active’ with values ranging from 2.0 to 2.25; and ‘less active’ with values > 2.25. Further, the results were compared with relatively high crustal movement rate of 41.10 mm/y computed through high precession Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based continuous operating reference station (CORS) data. Thus, we concluded that this new quantitative approach can be used for better characterization and assessment of active seismotectonic regions of the Himalaya and elsewhere.

Ovarian cancer is the seventh most frequently diagnosed cancer in women (Reid et al. 2017). It is also the most common cause of malignant ascites in women. Barring chest metastasis, extra-abdominal...

The pervasive presence of antibiotics in food has severe health impacts due to the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Therefore, the fabrication of a reliable, sensitive, rapid, and selective platform for antibiotics detection is the required for healthcare services. Here, we aim to fabricate an electrochemical immunosensor based on lanthanum oxide nanoparticles (nLa2O3 NPs) for sensitive and selective determination of trace amounts of ciprofloxacin (CPX) antibiotic. Briefly, the synthesis of nLa2O3NPs was carried out via wet-chemical co-precipitation process and characterized with various techniques using X-ray diffraction, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, contact angle, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and electrochemical methods. These nLa2O3 NPs were used for enhancing the electrochemical response of the immunosensor. Further, nLa2O3 NPs were functionalized by APTES and were deposited electrophoretically on the surface of ITO glass substrate, followed by immobilizing anti-CPX antibodies covalently via EDC-NHS chemistry. Blocking of the non-specific area was done with the help of BSA. The change in electrochemical response studies of the developed immunosensor (BSA/anti-CPX/APTES/nLa2O3/ITO) was monitored to detect CPX. Under optimized conditions, studies showed that the developed biosensor had a wide linear detection range of 0.001–0.5 ng/mL and 1–1000 ng/mL, with the sensitivities of 11.44 μA ng-1 mL cm-2 (R2 = 0.968), and 7.88 μA ng-1 mL cm-2 (R2 = 0.972), respectively and having lower detection limit of 0.001 ng/mL. The developed immunosensor showed good reproducibility, repeatability, sensitivity, and stability that was effectively explored to detect CPX in milk samples.

A positional accuracy obtained by the Precise Point Positioning and static relative methods was compared and analyzed. Test data was collected using low-cost GNSS receivers of single- and dual-frequency in urban areas. The data was analyzed for quality using the TEQC program to determine the degree of affectation of the signal in the urban area. Low-cost GNSS receivers were found to be sensitive to the multipath effect, which impacts positioning. The horizontal and vertical accuracy was evaluated with respect to Mexican regulations for the GNSS establishment criteria. Probable Error Circle (CEP) and Vertical Positioning Accuracy (EPV) were performed on low cost GNSS receiver observation data. The results show that low-cost dual-frequency GNSS receivers can be used in urban areas. The precision was obtained in the order of 0.013 m in the static relative method. The results obtained are comparable to a geodetic receiver in a geodetic baseline of &lt, 20 km. The study does not recommend using single and dual frequencies low cost GNSS receivers based on results obtained by the Precise Point Positioning (PPP) method in urban areas. The inclusion of the GGM10 model reduces the vertical precision obtained by using low cost GNSS receivers in both methods, conforming to the regulations only in the horizontal component.

A marvellous effort for the learners of community medicine by young authors Dr. Parimal Patel and Dr. Khushbu Makadia of the book, “Golden notes for preventive and social medicine (PSM) 2nd edition”. This is another significant publication amongst the fraternity of community medicine from the reputed publication house of Jaypee after the official release of IAPSM textbook 1st and 2nd edition.

The role of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea was evaluated using amoA gene in a freshwater recirculating system. Broken earthen pot pieces (BEP) were used as filter bed material. Five archaeal and four bacterial operational taxonomic units were retrieved from amoA genes. Shannon-Weiner and Simpson indices were higher in archaeal amoA sequence compared with the bacteria. Subtype diversity ratio and subtype diversity variance were 0.522 and 0.008, respectively, for archaea and 0.403 and 0.015, respectively, for bacteria. In archaea, 50% amoA sequences showed 99%–100% similarity with the known sequences of ammonia monooxygenase subunit A of uncultured archaeon clones and thaumarchaeote. In bacteria, 84% sequences showed 99% similarity with amoA sequences of different uncultured bacterial clone and Nitrosomonadaceae. Absolute quantification showed that the abundance of archaea was 12-fold higher compared with bacteria. In this recirculating system, ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria played a major role; BEP supported the growth of these ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms.

Enzymes are valuable micro-machines that catalyze a variety of making and breaking reactions. It is well known that immobilization confer stability to enzymes, however, it came at a cost of calculative optimization, support selection and choice of linking method. Desirable properties like hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, resistance to microbial attacks and easy access at low cost has enabled agarose, sepharose, silica, celite, glass and certain plastics as frequently used supports for enzyme immobilization. Herein, we have compared three common plastic polymers- polystyrene, polypropylene and polyethylene for chemical immobilization and subsequent biotransformation using the cellulase enzyme. The results show that the immobilized cellulase on polystyrene, polypropylene and polyethylene beads retain almost two-fold residual activity compared to free enzyme after three-hour incubation at 65 °C. Also, the immobilized cellulase retained significant activity after multiple uses and upon ambient storage for 35 days. Overall, improved catalysis was observed for cellulase upon immobilization, especially to polystyrene surface.

The Damodar and Subarnarekha Rivers are the first and second largest running waters of Jharkhand, having variable river bed morphology with naturally hard substrates. The riverine biodiversity is outstanding, as it includes endemic taxa on species and subspecies levels. Aquatic habitats are mostly colonized by native species. Macrozoobenthic animals are important bioindicators of the habitat quality of the river and are used for rapid assessment of river quality globally. In order to have preliminary information on the biodiversity of macrobenthos, the first survey was undertaken to find the impact of domestic pollution, mining, and thermal power plants on the aquatic life of the Damodar in May 2004. On the basis of our observations and species records, systematic field sampling for macro-benthic invertebrates in the Damodar and Subarnarekha Rivers was conducted from 2007 to 2012 during different hydrological conditions to cover the seasonal variation. Synoptic sampling was done to allow comparison between the two rivers. Aquatic invertebrate fauna has been inventoried with 124 identified taxa. The highest proportion of functional feeding groups recorded were detritivores, followed by carnivores and herbivores, respectively. This present study demonstrates the seasonal disappearance of macrozoobenthic invertebrates caused by urban and industrial pollution and that the fauna of the two main rivers of Jharkhand are similar in species inventory. This reflects the ecological conditions of the shared ecoregion known as Chota Nagpur Dry Forests. The results of the present research provide an essential database to evaluate the future environmental impact of restoration and changes in water quality.

The culture technique of greater duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza (L. Schleiden) was standardized in outdoor tanks using three different manures: manure 1 - cattle manure, poultry droppings and mustard oil cake, manure 2 - urea, potash and triple superphosphate and manure 3 - cattle manure, urea, potash and triple superphosphate. Significantly (p < .05) higher production was recorded in manure 1 compared to others. Manure 1 was subsequently selected for pond culture. In ponds, the production of duckweed was 2020 ± 150 kg ha−1 month−1 dry weight basis. Protein content was significantly higher (p < .05) in duckweed cultured in manure 1. The amino acid profile study showed the presence of essential (37.4%), non-essential (58.2%) and free (4.5%) amino acids. Leucine, isoleucine and valine contributed 51.4% of total essential amino acids. Duckweed contained 7% lipid and α-linolenic acid (36–37%) was the major fatty acid. The study showed the nutritional value of duckweed as an animal feed ingredient.

User generated 3D shapes in online repositories contain rich information about surfaces, primitives, and their geometric relations, often arranged in a hierarchy. We present a framework for learning representations of 3D shapes that reflect the information present in this meta data and show that it leads to improved generalization for semantic segmentation tasks. Our approach is a point embedding network that generates a vectorial representation of the 3D points such that it reflects the grouping hierarchy and tag data. The main challenge is that the data is noisy and highly variable. To this end, we present a tree-aware metric-learning approach and demonstrate that such learned embeddings offer excellent transfer to semantic segmentation tasks, especially when training data is limited. Our approach reduces the relative error by $10.2\%$ with $8$ training examples, by $11.72\%$ with $120$ training examples on the ShapeNet semantic segmentation benchmark, in comparison to the network trained from scratch. By utilizing tag data the relative error is reduced by $12.8\%$ with $8$ training examples, in comparison to the network trained from scratch. These improvements come at no additional labeling cost as the meta data is freely available.

Nonmetastatic hepatic dysfunction known as Stauffer's syndrome is a rare entity. It is commonly associated with clear cell carcinoma of kidney. Rarely it has been reported in cases of prostatic carcinoma, bronchogenic tumor and lymphoproliferative diseases. Stauffer s syndrome presents as elevated alkaline phosphatase, aminotransferases, and prolonged prothrombin time without jaundice. However a very rare variant of Stauffer's syndrome presenting with jaundice has been reported in few case reports of clear cell carcinoma of kidney. But such a presentation in cases of renal sarcomas has not been reported so far. Here we report a unique case of primary synovial sarcoma of kidney presenting as nonmetastatic cholestatic jaundice. Keywords: Renal synovial sarcoma, Jaundice, Paraneoplastic, Stauffers syndrome

Renal sarcoma is a rare but lethal malignancy affecting the kidneys. Literature regarding this rare tumour has been limited to case reports and case series. In this paper, we report a very rare case of bilateral renal leiomyosarcoma with pericardial metastasis. Disease status and dearth of our knowledge in treating this particular type of case prompted us to review our experience of managing such case, which has never been reported previously in literature to our knowledge.

The genitourinary system for reasons unknown is more likely to have birth defects than any other system. The anomaly of collecting system draining the kidney represent mystifying subset of congenital anomalies. Pelviureteric junction obstruction (PUJO) is most common. Chronic obstruction can lead to stasis, urinary infection and stone formation in PUJO. Extrarenal calyces, which is characterised by presence of calyces and renal pelvis outside the renal parenchyma is one of the rare anomalies seen among the collecting system right gonadal vein drains into inferior vena cava. Its altered drainage into right renal vein is rarely seen and reported. Glut of these multiple anomalies in a single case is an extremely rare event. We hereby discuss a case of 40-year-old male patient with combination of all these anomalies and discuss the embryology, presentation and management.

This paper contains an analysis of Linux as a real-time kernel. Linux is used in numerous devices but not in the time critical devices. The performance of Linux as a RTOS is analyzed between the 4.18 and 2.4 Kernel. The analysis is done by using a benchmarking tool named LmBench. It in breif it can be stated that the real-time performance of Linux is increased a lot due by the introduction of PREEMPT_RT Linux real-time extensions, and now it is capable to handle the real-time task.

Summary Subsurface Imaging of Active Fault by Integrating Remote Sensing and Geophysical Techniques in Himalayan Foothills.

Lower ureteric strictures are a common cause for unilateral hydroureteronephrosis, commonly resulting from previous surgeries, weather endoscopic, laproscopic or open. Devascularisation of the ureter resulting in fibrosis forms the underlying pathophysiology of stricture formation. We report a case of ureteral stricture resulting from angioembolization done for a bleeding arteriovenous malformation (AVM) of the uterus.

During the malacological survey in the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary and different regions of Saranda forests of Deccan peninsula in Jharkhand, an unusual Florida’s native freshwater mollusc Seminole Rams-Horn, Planorbella duryi from South Karo River was encountered. Earlier, this non-indigenous species was reported from the Godavari River in the Nasik district of Maharashtra state of India although there was confusion on the presence of Planorbella scalaries and Planorbella duryi. Occurrence of P. duryi, has been confirmed along with distribution, ecology, and probable dispersal hypothesis has been discussed.

Macrotyloma uniflorum is a salubrious but underutilized legume mainly consumed in semi-arid zones of Africa, Australia and India. Various antinutritional factors- phytates, oxalates and oligosaccharides- has limited its consumption. Current work describes the influence of various thermal processing technologies – autoclaving, microwave, micronization and extrusion- on antinutritional profile, phenolic acid profile and protein digestibility of two selected varieties. Significant (p ≤ 0.05) reduction in antinutritional content was observed for horse gram grains processed using various thermal technologies. Among all processing technologies extrusion caused marked degradation in antinutritional components. The reduction in oxalic acid, trypsin inhibitor, phytates and tannins ranged from 33 to 87 %, 77–82%, 33–60% and 51–66% respectively. Further, the decline in content of various oligosaccharides viz. raffinose, stachyose and verbascose varied from 36 to 61 %, 25–49% and 30–74% respectively for both the varieties. Although extrusion caused significant (p ≤ 0.05) decrease in the essential amino acid index and protein efficiency ratio, simultaneous increased was observed in biological value. The processing had significant (p ≤ 0.05) impact on grain antinutritional content and also retained its substantial functional properties. This establishes the utility of grain and promote the introduction of these new grains and enlarge the market of novel healthy foods.

Total Electron Content (TEC) in the ionosphere changes before an earthquake and is one of the important parameters in the study of earthquake precursors. Monitoring of TEC in real-time may prove an excellent input for the effective precursory study of earthquakes. In the present study, a Monitoring system was developed to integrate TEC, geomagnetic storm, and solar flare data and to carry out a TEC anomaly study before earthquakes occurred. The system integrates data from publicly available sources, carries out statistical analysis in the background to detect an anomaly and sends an email notification for the anomaly detected. The system auto-updates at 9.00 a.m. IST daily to check for any missing data in the past 30 days. The system enables observations of the ionosphere conditions before an Earthquake and may help in understanding earthquake precursors and space weather conditions. The system has been demonstrated studying the recent cluster of earthquakes that occurred during July–August 2020 in Tibet, where a series of anomalies were observed during 15, 20, 23, 25 & 28 2020; 02 & July 05, 2020; 06, 08, 10, 15, 25 & July 27, 2020, and August 16, 2020, before the earthquakes. Therefore, the study presents TEC monitoring on a daily basis and its integration with dependent variables in a single platform for effective research on earthquake precursor detection.

Environmental contamination by secondary explosive has been posing threat to human health and the ecosystem. We investigated the potential of a novel bioformulation developed from poultry waste for the bioremediation of hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) contaminated soils. Eggshells and additives immobilized with an indigenous explosive degrading microbe Janibacter cremeus were utilized for the development of the wettable powder bioformulation. Treatments carried out under unsaturated and saturated soil conditions resulted in 62 and 73 % removal of RDX respectively in 35 days meeting the soil clean up goals. The saturated treatment sets exhibited better microbial growth during the study in terms of live cell count and total enzyme activity. The bacteria, J. cremeus was observed to exhibit significant release of nitrite under both unsaturated as well as saturated conditions. Mass spectrometric studies showed that, both the conditions lead to the formation of nitroso-derivatives of RDX. But under saturated condition, an intermediate, 5-hydroxy-4-nitro-2,4-diazapentanal was observed which is a precursor to 4-nitro-2,4-diazabuatnal ultimately leading to mineralization. An accessible bio resource from poultry waste when used as a carrier for explosive degrading microbe has proven effective for in situ remediation of explosive contaminated soils.

Aim: Perforation peritonitis is the most common surgical emergency encountered by surgeons in India. The etiology and sites of perforation shows wide geographical variation. The objective of the study was to find the spectrum of perforation peritonitis & highlight its management at Maharishi Markendeshwar Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Mullana (MMIMSR).Methods: 93 Operated patients of perforation peritonitis were studied retrospectively in terms of clinical presentation, duration, operative findings and postoperative morbidity and mortality over a period of two years between 2011 to 2013 at MMIMSR Mullana. All the patients had undergone emergency laparatomy under general anesthesia and sites of perforation were identified & managed.Results: The most common cause of perforation peritonititis noticed in our series was peptic ulcer perforation 43 cases (46%), followed by ileal perforation 30 cases (32%), appendicular perforation 6 cases (6.4%), gallbladder perforation 5 cases (5.3%) and all the jejunal perforation 6cases (6.4%) was post traumatic. Large bowel and malignant perforation were least common in our series. Highest no. of perforation noticed in upper part of Gastro intestinal tract as compared to western countries where perforations are seen in distal parts. Mortality was of 11 cases (11.8%) & morbidity was noticed in 55 cases (59%).Conclusion: Peptic ulcer perforation peritonitis is the leading etiology. Mortality is comparable to that of best centre. Aggressive resuscitation and early minimum surgery are required to avoid the high morbidity and mortality. Major complication noticed was wound infection and dehiscence.Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.15(1) 2016 p.70-73

We report results of the studies relating to fabrication of a non-invasive, label-free and an efficient biosensing platform for detection of the oral cancer biomarker (CYFRA-21-1). One step hydrothermal process was used for uniform decoration of nanostructured zirconia (average particle size 13 nm) on reduced graphene oxide (ZrO2-RGO) to avoid coagulation of the zirconia nanoparticles and to obtain enhanced electrochemical performance of ZrO2-RGO nanocomposite based biosensor. Further, ZrO2-RGO has been functionalized using 3-aminopropyl triethoxy saline (APTES) and electrophoretically deposited on the indium tin oxide coated glass substrate at a low DC potential.The APTES/ZrO2-RGO/ITO electrode exhibits improved heterogeneous electron transfer (more than two times) with respect to that of the APTES/ZrO2/ITO electrode indicating faster electron transfer kinetics. The -NH2 containing APTES/ZrO2-RGO/ITO platform is further biofunctionalized with anti-CYFRA-21-1. The structural and morphological investigations of the ZrO2-RGO based biosensing platform have been accomplished using X-ray diffraction (XRD), electrochemical, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) studies. This immunosensor exhibits a wider linear detection range (2-22 ng mL(-1)), excellent sensitivity (0.756 µA mL ng(-1)) and a remarkable lower detection limit of 0.122 ng mL(-1). The observed results have been validated via enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

We report results of studies relating to the fabrication of nontoxic, biocompatible serine functionalized nanostructured zirconia (serine/nZrO2) for oral cancer detection. The hydrothermally synthesized ZrO2 nanoparticles (∼4.5 nm) have been characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The cytotoxicity studies of serine/nZrO2 carried out using MTT assay on the HEK 293 human cell line reveal biocompatibility of the serine/nZrO2. The serine functionalized nZrO2 are electrophoretically deposited onto a hydrolysed indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass electrode (serine/nZrO2/ITO). Furthermore, monoclonal antibodies (anti-CYFRA-21-1) were covalently immobilized onto the serine/nZrO2/ITO electrode and BSA was been used for blocking of the non-specific binding sites. The fabricated BSA/anti-CYFRA-21-1/serine/nZrO2/ITO immunoelectrode was used for label free, non-invasive and efficient detection of an oral cancer biomarker (CYFRA-21-1). The electrochemical response studies of this immunoelectrode exihibited a wider linear detection range (0.01–29 ng mL−1) with a remarkable detection limit (0.01 ng mL−1) and a quick response time (6 min) for detection of the CYFRA-21-1 antigen. The results of validation studies conducted on the fabricated immunoelectrode (BSA/anti-CYFRA-21-1/serine/nZrO2/ITO) using saliva samples of oral cancer patients indicate a good agreement with the results obtained via enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Background: Secondary Recurrent Miscarriage (SRM) is defined as occurrence of three or more spontaneous consecutive abortions following the birth of one child. Mothers of boys often get immunized against male-specific minor histocompatibility (H-Y) antigens due to transfer of fetal cells into the maternal circulation. The birth of a boy is significantly more common than a girl prior to secondary recurrent miscarriage (SRM) and is known to be associated with a poorer chance of a subsequent live birth. Children born after Secondary Recurrent Miscarriage are more likely to be girls. Aberrant H-Y immunity may be a causal factor for SRM. Methods: The study was conducted over a period of one year from January 2012 to December 2012. All the women presenting with full term pregnancy and previous history of unexplained, three or more spontaneous consecutive abortions at 8 to 20 weeks gestation were taken as cases. Sex of the previous child was sought. The patients were followed till delivery and sex of the child born subsequently was also noted. Association of history of SRM to sex of the previous and present child was calculated by appropriates statistical methods. Results: A total of 34 patients with history of SRM were studied. 23 out of them had a previous male child and 11 had given birth to a female (p=0.004). The male: female sex ratio of children born prior and subsequent to SRM was 2.09 and 0.79 respectively. Conclusions: Study supports the hypothesis that aberrant maternal H-Y immune response may have a pathogenic role in SRM.

Background: Vertical Transmission is still not an uncommon mode of HIV transmission. HIV and its treatment can also affect maternal and fetal outcomes. We aimed to study incidence and factors of MTCT and maternal and fetal outcomes with the current standard of care. Methods: It was an observational study, at BRD medical college Gorakhpur. Pregnant, HIV positive females consenting for the study were enrolled. Follow up was up to 6 months post-delivery. Infant testing for transmission was done at 6 months. Results: A total 35 HIV positive pregnant female were studied. Follow up could be completed in only 29 patients. Four (13.79%) infants had HIV DNA detectable in whole blood at 6 months. Transmission was 16.6% in group taking ART for 3 months, 25% in mixed feeding group vs. 12% in exclusive breast feeding and 16.6% in NVD group vs. 9% in LSCS. Incidence of Preterm delivery was higher in group who took ART for longer duration. IUGR was present in 10/29 (27%) and growth failure in 12/29 (41%) infants. Conclusions: Longer ART duration and cesarean section delivery were more effective in preventing MTCT. Even exclusive breast feeding could result in MTCT. HIV exposure in utero may lead to IUGR. ART has no deleterious or positive effect on fetal growth but may be associated with preterm delivery. Better patient education will probably lead to earlier diagnosis and initiation of therapy to prevent transmission, and also to better fetal and infant outcomes.

Background: Congenital anomalies have emerged as a main cause of perinatal mortality as well as infant morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to determine the incidence of congenital anomalies and to study associated factors. Methods: It is an observational study conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of SMGS Hospital during a period of one year from October, 2012 to September, 2013. All women with anomalies proven on Ultrasonography and those having no antenatal record but after delivery/abortion, examination of newborns revealed anomalies; were included in the study. Results: The pattern of congenital anomalies included Central nervous system (49.60%), Urinary system (13.79%), musculoskeletal system (12.99%), GIT (7.16%), CVS (5.83%) etc. The overall incidence of congenital anomalies was 1.85%. Higher incidence of anomalies was found in babies of mother between 26-30 years of age (2.13%) and parity of 4 and above (3.65%). Frequency was more common in Muslims as compared to Hindus (2.8% vs 1.68%), in non-cephalic presentation as compared to cephalic presentation (10.28% versus 1.51%). Conclusion: This study stresses upon incidence of congenital anomalies as they are an important cause of perinatal mortality. To decrease the incidence of various congenital anomalies and their prevalence in the particular region, it is important that the distribution and prevalence are identified in that region and country as a whole.