Search

The COVID-19 outbreak has shut down universities and prompted the teaching faculty to move to online resources. In view of upcoming of new Medical Council of India (MCI) curriculum and outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, keeping pace with medical education became a challenge. To keep on par with learning activities of undergraduate students during this period, the teaching faculty adopted the use of online resources. E-learning tools were utilized to engage first-year undergraduate students and satisfy majority of aspects of Competency-Based Undergraduate Medical Curriculum/Education (CBMC/E) in Biochemistry.

Environmental and climate concerns have made corporate environmental management a raging topic for discussion among academicians and industrialists. The current study explores the association between corporate environmental management and firm performance; and examines the influence of different performance measurement methods and sample characteristics on this association. The meta‐analysis, homogeneity test, and publication bias test have been performed on 318 effect sizes from 117 studies. The results indicate a significant positive association between the overall corporate environmental management and firm performance association. The findings suggest a significant influence of the nature of the data, corporate environmental management measures, corporate performance measures, region, economic development, time phase, nature of data, and period of study in the given context. The findings will help managers to better understand and choose the appropriate corporate environmental management measures to attain internal and external efficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several lines of evidence have suggested that steeply sloping audiometric losses are caused by hair cell degeneration, while flat audiometric losses are caused by strial atrophy, but this concept has never been rigorously tested in human specimens. Here, we systematically compare audiograms and cochlear histopathology in 160 human cases from the archival collection of celloidin-embedded temporal bones at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear. The dataset included 106 cases from a prior study of normal-aging ears, and an additional 54 cases selected by combing the database for flat audiograms. Audiogram shapes were classified algorithmically into five groups according to the relation between flatness (i.e., SD of hearing levels across all frequencies) and low-frequency pure-tone average (i.e., mean at 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 kHz). Outer and inner hair cell losses, neural degeneration, and strial atrophy were all quantified as a function of cochlear location in each case. Results showed that strial atrophy was worse in the apical than the basal half of the cochlea and was worse in females than in males. The degree of strial atrophy was uncorrelated with audiogram flatness. Apical atrophy was correlated with low-frequency thresholds and basal atrophy with high-frequency thresholds, and the former correlation was higher. However, a multivariable regression with all histopathological measures as predictors and audiometric thresholds as the outcome showed that strial atrophy was a significant predictor of threshold shift only in the low-frequency region, and, even there, the contribution of outer hair cell damage was larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study has been done to see the influence of RA and OA on skinfold thickness. The cross-sectional study comprised female population (45-65) years from urban and rural areas of Punjab. The number of samples were 50 rheumatoid arthritis, 50 osteoarthritis patients and 50 control females. Five skinfold thickness (i.e. biceps skinfold, triceps skinfold, forearm skinfold, thigh skinfold and calf skinfold) measurements of the patients and control group females were taken with the help of skinfold calliper in upper and lower limbs. Comparative picture of skinfold thicknesses in all three groups show that Osteoarthritis group have maximum value of all the skinfold thicknesses thus indicating that they have the greatest subcutaneous fat and lowest skinfold thickness was observed in Rheumatoid arthritis group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the leading causes of mortality among adults. The increase in oxidative stress and defects in antioxidant defence plays a major role in endothelium performance and are an effective factor in the progress of atherosclerosis. Aim and Objectives: The aim of our study is to observe the correlation between serum vitamin C and coronary artery disease. Materials and methods: In this case-control study, a total of 100 patients were included out of which 50 patients with angiographically proven CAD as the case group and 50 apparently healthy age and sex-matched adults as the control group. Serum vitamin C levels were measured in both groups using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based kits. Results: There was a significant negative correlation between serum vitamin C levels and the CAD. On comparison, it shows that there is a significant decrease in serum vitamin C levels in the case group (23.27 ± 5.74 μg/ml) than in control group (228.36 ± 38.99 μg/ml) and their difference was statistically significant (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Serum vitamin C levels decreased in patients with CAD (case group) compared with the normal coronary arteries group (control group). This decrease is more prominent with increasing levels of CAD severity, which may be helpful in risk prediction and stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Ajay. Prakash, Sukhmeet. Kaur, Charanjeet. Kaur, Praisy. Prabha, Anusuya. Bhatacharya, Phulen. Sarma, Bikash. Medhi OBJECTIVE: Present systematic review aimed to analyze the effect of inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) in [...]

The impact of irrigation regimes on growth and phenology of wheat was studied under in situ rice residue management (RRM) using split plot design. Treatments were consisted of methods of rice residue management (3): conventional method, in situ RRM using Happy Seeder without Press Wheel (HSw/oPW) and Happy Seeder with press wheel assembly (HSwPW) in main plot and nine irrigation regimes[irrigations at growth stages (3): three irrigations at crown root initiation (CRI), booting and milking (I3CBM); four irrigations at CRI, tillering, flowering and milking (I4CTFM); five irrigations at CRI, tillering, booting, flowering and dough stages (I5CTBFD), and irrigation depths (3): 55 (I55), 65 (I65) and 75 (I75) mm] in subplot. Under in situ RRM, the physiological maturity was delayed resulting in higher accumulation of growing degree days (GDD), helio-thermal units (HTU) and photo-thermal units (PTU) than conventional method. The initial growth under HSw/oPW was slow, however, till harvest it was statistically at par with conventional method. I5CTBFD resulted in the highest days taken to physiological maturity and GDD, HTU and PTU accumulation. Grain yield (pooled) was significantly higher under I5CTBFD than I4CTFM and I3CBM. I75 recorded at par growth parameters and yield with I65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]