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Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) of the scalp is rare. These lesions are associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), but patients had been reported without NF1 also. We tried to analyze the difference between the clinical course and outcome of the patient with MPNST having stigmata of NF1 and without it. We included five patients treated over 3 years between July 2018 and July 2021 with diffuse scalp MPNST. Two of these five patients with MPNST of the scalp had neurocutaneous stigmata of NF1. Three were female and two males with an average age of 38.40 ± 18.48 years—the youngest with NF1 being a 19-year-old female. We found dull aching pain as the most typical complaint in all patients and a repeated episode of generalized seizure in one patient. In these cases, two patients with NF1 have highly vascular tumors and attained large sizes greater than 30 cm. These two cases required preoperative digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and embolization with n-butyl acrylate. Total excision of the tumor was done in all patients with radiotherapy. Metastases within 1 year were noted in two patients with NF1, and one of these two succumbed to her illness. The rest of the three patients without NF1 are under follow-up with no evidence of disease with a maximum follow-up of 2 years. Large MPNST (size > 20 cm) are rare and reported to have been associated with and without NF1. Patients with scalp MPNST with NF1 can achieve larger size with fast progression of tumor size and higher chances of recurrence and metastases.

Presentation of cervico-thoracic extradural hematoma in pediatric age is rare with stroke-like features. Its association with COVID-19 in the active stage of the disease had not been reported and its management presents a management dilemma as COVID-19 with stroke-like features.A 14-year-old boy was referred to our institute with complaints of sudden-onset upper and middle back pain, associated with loss of sensation below the middle of the back, sudden progressive weakness of both lower limbs (power 0/5) and upper limbs (power grade-2/5), and incontinence of urine, following bouts of vomiting 12 days back. There was no history of trauma, bleeding diathesis, etc. Blood investigation was suggestive of leukocytosis, and RT-PCR test for COVID-19 was positive with raised D-dimer, serum ferritin, and C-reactive protein. MRI spine was suggestive of cervicothoracic extradural hematoma extending from C5-D3 level and compressing the spinal cord. The patient refused surgical decompression and was managed conservatively, following which he improved with power grade in limbs to 4/5.Surgical decompression is the treatment of choice but the patient can sometimes improve on medical management. Association of COVID-19 with spontaneous cervicothoracic extradural hematoma had not been reported earlier in the active stage, but its role in inducing vasculopathy and increased chances of bleeding at the uncommon site had been reported in the literature, and it may precipitate such cervical epidural hematoma.

Introduction: A few earlier studies have reported the role of embolization with curative intent in treating the early phase of a spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage of the brain AVM in pediatric patients. its efficacy needs to be compared with microsurgery. The risk factors for hemorrhage following early embolization in such patients should be evaluated. Material & Methods: We analyzed patients treated for arteriovenous malformation in pediatrics (< 18 years) following its rupture in the acute phase by embolization alone and surgery between July 2018 and July 2022. From a pool of 80 patients who had undergone treatment for ruptured AVM with hemorrhage at our center, we identified 36 patients with spontaneous bleeding due to AVMs. Out of which, 20 were treated by embolization alone (Group1) and another group 2 by surgery (with and without adjuvant embolisation). Result: Spetzler martin's grading of the lesion suggested seven lesionsConclusions: Incomplete embolization is the significant risk factor associated with hemorrhage in AVMs treated following a hemorrhagic stroke in the pediatric age group. Embolization with curative intent in treating such lesions is equally efficacious to the surgery group treated earlier by adjuvant embolization with careful patient selection. Although essential, our results need a further prospective study on a large patient population with longer follow-ups.

In any manufacturing firm, welding is amongst the most important and effective industrial operations. In today's production environment, welding process optimization is critical in order for a production unit to react successfully to fierce competition & rising excellence demands that must be met at a low cost. Welding input parameters determine the a weld's fineness. The objective of this research was to investigate the best welding conditions for joining SAPH 440 steel and aluminium alloy 6063. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of the fusion & its welding speed and other variables, welding current, rate of wire feed, & torch distance and its angles were among the welding variables evaluated in this case study. An productive strategy is founded on Taguchi's method approach, and the S/N ratio was used to optimise responsiveness on shear strength. Welding variables had a considerable impact on shear strength behaviour, according to the findings. Experiments were carried out by altering welding speed, welding current, wire feed rate, and torch distance and its angles using the Taguchi method's L27 orthogonal array

MIG welding (metal inert gas welding) is an arc welding technology that generates metal coalescences by heating them with an arc between a filler metallic electrode that is constantly fed, and the work. MIG welding process lends itself to semiautomatic, robotic automation and difficult automation welding packages. The alloy fabric variety for GMAW consists of carbon steel, chrome steel, aluminium (Al), magnesium (Mg), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and silicon bronze. This experimental study aims at optimization of the wire feed rate during MIG weld of aluminium sheets by developing the mathematically model for the tensile strength a hardness of the aluminium specimen. In this experiment Factorial design approach has been implemented for locating connection among diverse procedure parameters and weld deposit reason. MIG Welding of aluminium alloy 6063 with Al 4043 Wire and Argon gas shielding yields excellent results.

The goal of this project is to see how different drilling parameters like spindle speed (600, 900, 1400 revolution per minute), feed rate (0.10, 0.16, 0.22 mm per revolution) and drill tool diameter (6, 8 mm) affect surface roughness, material removal rate and tool wear while drilling Al 6063 alloy with an HSS spiral drill using Taguchi method. The impact of different drilling settings on the accuracy of the drilled hole is analyzed using S/N (signal-to-noise) ratio, orthogonal arrays of Taguchi, regression analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). CNC Lathe Machineis used to perform a number of experiments with the help of L18 orthogonal arrays of Taguchi. MINITAB 19, a commercial software tool, is used to collect and evaluate the results of the experiments. For establishing a correlation between the selected input parameters and the quality aspects of the holes made, linear regression equations are used. The experimental data are compared to the expected values, which are quite similar.

Background We needs to study Primary Large cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma of the cranial vault, which is rare, and its association with COVID19 has not been reported, which may have an immunosuppressive effect to aggravate its progression. Patient details Our patient, a 53-year-old male, noticed fast growth of posterior cranial vault lesion from 2 to 10 cm size in last 6 months after COVID 19 affliction. MRI brain with contrast revealed lesions suggesting meningioma. The whole-body PET scan was normal. Following Subtotal excision of the mass, histopathology revealed large B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (DLBCL). Immunohistochemistry showed positive results for CD10, CD20, CD45 (LCA), ALK, and BCL-VE with a Ki-67 index of 90–95%. Following radiotherapy and chemotherapy patient is disease-free on imaging and doing well at 5 months of follow-up. Conclusions Early intervention with excisional biopsy and timely chemo and radiotherapy in favorable immunostaining may add survival benefits even in malignant features induced by immunosuppressing diseases such as COVID19 in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) of the scalp.

Past research into the treatment of distal anterior cerebral artery (DACA) aneurysms with endovascular therapy (EVT) has found the procedure to result in inferior outcomes to clipping. However, better results have recently been reported. We compared the outcomes of DACA aneurysm treatment using these two procedures and assessed the risk factors.We retrospectively sampled and analyzed 31 patients treated for ruptured DACA aneurysms from a larger sample of 250 patients treated for ruptured aneurysms between July 2018 and July 2021. The outcomes of patients who underwent clipping and EVT were compared using chi-square tests. T-tests were used for univariate analysis and a logistic regression analysis was used to determine the risk factors affecting outcomes.Of the 31 patients, 20 were treated with clipping and 11 with EVT. Patients treated with EVT had a mean age of 35.45±6.66. The mean age of the clipping group was 44.4±6.94 years (p=0.002). Intraoperative rupture was significantly more common in the clipping group (p=0.025). There were no significant differences in the postoperative incidence of vasospasm or hydrocephalus (p=0.12). Modified Rankin Scale scores (p=0.017) and Glasgow Outcome Scale scores (p=0.02) both at discharge and 6-month follow-ups were significantly better in the EVT group than in the clipping group. Length of stay in the ICU was 9.27 ± 2.6 days following EVT and 23.60±6.29 following clipping (p=0.001). Age (p=0.0136), Hunt and Hess grade (p=0.02), and the occurrence of intraprocedural rupture (p=0.009) were found to significantly affect outcomes.The outcomes of EVT were better than those for clipping and required a shorter stay in the ICU and the hospital. This may be partially attributable to the dual-trained neurovascular surgeon who performed the procedures. Older age, poorer Hunt and Hess grades, and intraoperative aneurysm rupture adversely affected outcomes.

Analysis of bead geometry is very important in product design and manufacturing. Defect-free products with reliability are the demanding parameter in the manufacturing Industry. In this study, we have analyzed and optimized bead geometry parameters such as height of reinforcement (HOR), depth of Heat Affected Zone (DOH), and width of Heat Affected Zone (WOH) by using Central Composite Design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM). In this study, peak current and pulse frequency are the most important process parameters for HOR and the optimum combination obtained are (160 A, 80 A, 100 Hz, and 45%) further HOR at this optimum was found to be 1.41 mm, which is close to 1.45 mm. Similarly, peak current and pulse frequency are the most important process parameter for WOH and the optimum combination obtained are (160 A, 80 A, 150 Hz, and 45%) further WOH at this optimum was found to be 1.32 mm, which is close to 1.37 mm. Again, similarly peak current and pulse frequency are the most important process parameter for DOH and the optimum combination obtained are (160 A, 80 A, 100 Hz, and 45%) further DOH at this optimum was found to be 1.26 mm which is close to 1.58 mm.

Giant calcified cavernous hemangioma is uncommon, and calvarial invasion with intracranial extension and dural breach is rare. Radiological resemblance to lesions like meningioma is unreported. Surgical excision of such lesions is technically challenging. A 35-year-old female presented with recurrent generalized tonic-clonic seizures for 2 years. Imaging suggested a highly vascular lesion arising from the skull, mimicking intraosseous meningioma, sarcoma, metastases, and so on. Double concentric craniotomy was done with lifting of bones separately around sinuses with radial cuts of dura to visualize tumor-cortical interface to safeguard neurovascular structures, and complete excision was achieved. Histopathology was suggestive of calcified cavernous hemangioma. The patient was asymptomatic at 1 year of follow-up.Differentiating angiomatous and intraosseous meningioma from calcifying giant hemangioma and other mimicking lesions may be difficult on imaging. Modified double concentric craniotomy, although used uncommonly, can be a useful technique safeguarding the neurovascular structures in its proximity.

In this twenty first century, Copper has been widely utilized in aerospace, biomedical and automobile application rapidly due to its significant implementable benefits. Copper based composites have demonstrated significant beneficial characteristics, which actually includes mechanical, corrosion and wear resistance and higher strength. The present paper addresses a detailed overview of the investigations report which were carried out from the last decade. Also, discussed the various types of reinforcements used till the date, a detailed address on reinforcements including mechanical & physiochemical behaviour of the copper based composite materials. It was noticed that the wear resistance of the copper composite have been enhanced with addition of reinforcement including Gr, MoS2 etc. The Copper composites can be replaced with pure Copper to improve the usage of copper in various applications.

Introduction: The management of empyema thoracis has evolved over the years. After all lung surgeries chest drain is required, however they suffer from inter observer variability and impair mobility of the patient. However, the newer digital thoracic drain system are portable and have alarms for various situations, furthermore they eliminate inter-observer variability. One such device is Thopaz™ (Medela inc, Switzerland). We wanted to compare efficacy of Thopaz™ with our conventional intercostal chest tube drain in patients undergoing decortications for empyema thoracis. Materials and Methods: One hundred patients were enrolled in study and were randomized into conventional and thopaz group with 50 patients in each group with help of opaque envelopes. Results: Both the groups were comparable in demographic parameters. Majority of the patients in our study were children and young adults. Majority of empyema thoracis involved right side with nontubercular empyema thoracis being the most common cause of decorticartion. Patients managed with Thopaz had a significantly shorter air leak duration, shorter duration of postdecortication chest tube placement and shorter postoperative hospital stay. All postoperative complications were less in Thopaz group. Conclusions: Patients with empyema thoracis undergoing open decortications when managed with digital chest drainage system (Thopaz) experienced faster reduction in air leak, a shorter duration of chest tube placement and in hospital stay. Thopaz usage is also associated with reduction in rate of postoperative complications. We recommend that this digital chest tube drainage system is a very useful tool in armamentarium of thoracic surgeon after lung surgeries.

Primary Large cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma of the cranial vault is rare and association with COVID19 needs to be studied as in our patient.Our patient, a 53-year-old male noticed fast growth of posterior cranial vault tumour from 2cm to 10 cm size in last 6months after COVID 19 affliction. MRI brain with contrast revealed lesions mimicking multicentric meningioma. The whole-body PET scan was normal. Following Subtotal excision of the mass, histopathology revealed large B-cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (DLBCL). Immunohistochemistry showed positive for CD10, CD20, CD45 (LCA), ALK, and BCL-VE with Ki-67 index 90–95%. Following radiotherapy and chemotherapy patient is disease-free on imaging and doing well at 5 months of follow-up.Early intervention with excisional biopsy and timely chemo and radiotherapy in presence of favourable immunostaining may add survival benefit even in the presence of malignant features induced by immunosuppressing disease as COVID19.Although this association was noticed in this single case study but role of Covid 19 infection in inducing the fast progression of tumours which can be expedited in immunosuppressive condition cannot be ignored.

Hypobaric hypoxia (HH) is an environmental stress encountered at high altitude. It has been shown that HH resulted in spine atrophy and working memory deficits. Kalirin-7, a postsynaptic density protein, plays an important and key role in regulating spine dynamics and its plasticity. Spine atrophy is implicated in HH induced memory deficits but role of Kalirin-7 in this phenomenon is not studied. Present study is therefore designed to investigate the effect of chronic HH exposure on Kalirin-7 expression in hippocampus and its role in spatial working memory deficits. Adult rats (n = 12, 3 months old) were exposed to a simulated altitude of 25,000 feet for 7 days. Following HH exposure, spatial working memory was assessed with Radial arm maze and T maze. Hippocampal expression of Kalrin-7 was estimated at mRNA and protein levels. Results of behavioural experiments showed that HH causes significant decrease in the spatial working memory. There was a significant reduction in the protein expression of Kalirin-7 in the hippocampus of hypoxia exposed rats (43.89 ± 7.43) as compared to the control (69.54 ± 10.99). The mRNA expression of Kalrin-7 also exhibits significant reduction (0.59 ± 0.05) in the exposed group as compared to the control (0.98 ± 0.07). Immunohistochemistry showed that Kalirin-7 is decreased significantly in CA1, CA3 and DG regions of the hippocampus. Moreover, memory deficits are significantly correlated with decreased immunoreactivity of the hippocampal Kalirin-7. In conclusion, it can be said therefore, that change in Kalirin-7 expression in the hippocampus is associated with HH induced working memory deficit.

Image captioning is one of the most recent challenges that caught the interest of the computer vision community as well as the Natural Language Processing community. Recently, the tedious task of image captioning has attained quite notable progress by using numerous techniques. The primary goal of this paper is to study existing Deep Learning techniques for Image Captioning. We have discussed a convolutional neural network-based Image Caption generation model and the salient steps involved in it. We have also discussed dataset and evaluation metrics widely used in fundamental systems.

The Kankai river is a rainfed perennial river of eastern Nepal and carries a large quantum of silt, and enters in Kishanganj of West Bengal, India. Recently, a bridge collapsed in a village in the Kishanganj district due to a rise in the water levels of the Kankai river. This paper presents a study of the dynamics of changes in channel planform and measurement of the erosion and accretion of the Kankai river in Bihar, India from 2000 to 2018. Spatial data were processed in GIS to determine the changes in sinuosity, centreline migration rates, and extent of erosion, and deposition of sediment. The maximum river shift was obtained as 800 to 1600 m and the minimum river shift varied from 6 to 70 m. With a sinuosity ratio for the whole reach of the river of 1.45, the Kankai river is considered a sinuous river and needs river training works at the erosion sites.

BackgroundLow oxygen environments like hypobaric hypoxia (HH) are common nodes to various diseases: characterized by neuroinflammation, which is detrimental to the structural and functional aspects of hippocampal circuitry. Various hypoxic conditions also lead to elevation of NLRP3 mediated neuroinflammation that may contribute to cognitive deficits. Components of neurogenic niches like microglia and astrocyte are largely affected by neuroinflammation; however, a systematic investigation of the impact of NLRP3 mediated neuroinflammation on components of neurogenic niche during hypoxia (HH) remains elusive. MethodsIn this study, we simulated cerebral hypoxia via decreasing partial pressure of oxygen(HH). The effect of hypobaric hypoxic (1, 3 and 7 day at 25000 ft) on social memory, anxiety, adult neurogenesis change in the inflammatory milieu in DG was explored in detail. We explored the efficacy of COX-1 inhibitor (Valery salicylate, 5mg/kg/day,i.p), and EP1R antagonist (SC19220, 1mg/kg/day,i.p) on NLRP3 mediated neuroinflammation and associated maladies during HH. ResultsWe observed that HH exposure induced alteration in social and anxiety-like behavior post 7 day exposure along with perturbation in levels of BDNF, Serotonin and adult neurogenesis in the DG right from day 1. Moreover, significant elevated NLRP3, caspase-1, and IL-1β levels are observed during HH from day 1. Concomitantly, a notable increase in the COX-1/EP1 pathway in both activated microglia and astrocyte in DG was evident after 3HH exposure. Pharmacological COX-1 inhibitor and EP1 antagonist counteract the detrimental effects of HH exposure on social memory, adult neurogenesis, and NLRP3 inflammasome induction. ConclusionsThus, our data showed induction of the COX-1/EP1 pathway in glial cells is detrimental to adult neurogenesis and social memory, raising possibility that the COX-1/EP1 pathway as a plausible target for inflammasome related neurogenesis impairment.

Sleep loss at high altitude (HA) play major role in worsening of neuropsychological functions, such as attention, memory and decision making. This study investigates the role of phosphorylated delta sleep inducing peptide (p-DSIP) in improving sleep architecture during chronic hypobaric hypoxia (HH) exposure and restoration of spatial navigational memory.Morris water maze (MWM) trained rats were exposed to HH at 7620 m. p-DSIP was injected intra-peritoneally (10 μg/Kg bw) during HH exposure as an intervention against sleep alteration. Sleep architecture was recorded telemetrically before and during HH exposure. Monoamines were estimated by high performance liquid chromatography from brain stem (BS) and hypothalamus. CREB and p-CREB level in hippocampus was studied by western blotting and expression of different monoamine regulatory enzymes in BS was measured by flow cytometry. Naloxone (1 mg/kg bw), a μ opioid receptor antagonist of sleep inducing effect of DSIP was also studied.p-DSIP injection daily in circadian active period (18.30 h) during chronic HH enhanced non rapid eye movement sleep, rapid eye movement sleep as well as improved MWM performance of rats. p-DSIP treatment showed lower monoamine level and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression and increased monoamine oxidase A (MAO A), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and Choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) expression. Further, naloxone altered navigational memory by decreasing the CREB and p-CREB level in hippocampus suggesting suppression of sleep inducing effect of p-DSIP.Our study demonstrates that improvement of sleep quality by p-DSIP restores spatial memory by up regulating CREB phosphorylation during simulated high altitude hypoxia.

Limited glans penis gangrene is a rare subset of penile gangrene and is associated with favorable prognosis as compared to more aggressive course of the similar entity in moribund diabetic end-stage renal disease patients. A 64-year-old diabetic, hypertensive male with a history of tobacco consumption, bilateral great toe amputations, and normal renal function, presented with gangrene of glans penis and lower urinary tract symptoms. Early surgical debridement, glycemic control, and alpha-blocker treatment were successful in controlling the disease. There was no further progress of the gangrene requiring further amputation and no voiding difficulties after 6 months of follow-up.

Background Killer immunoglobulin receptors (KIR) are highly polymorphic in nature. KIR3DL1/3DS1 genes are known to affect HLA-B antigen binding affinity causing natural killer (NK) cell inhibition, which results into successful renal transplantation. In this study we have examined whether alleles of KIR3DL1/3DS1 play any role in changing the binding affinity with HLA-Bw4 antigen and if so then how are they associated with long term renal allograft survival. We have also evaluated plausible association of KIR3DL1 with HLA-A23/A24/A32 with renal pathophysiology. Materials and methods KIR3DL1/3DS1 allelic diversity was examined in 501 renal transplant cases and 507 controls. PCR-SSP was used to determine the incidence of KIR3DL1/3DS1 genes and HLA class-I antigens. KIR3DL1/3DS1 alleles were determined by sequencing. Expression at transcription level for KIR3DL1/3DS1 genes was evaluated in the presence of HLA-Bw4. Different statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v 22.0. p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Sequence based variant effect was predicted using Variant Effect Predictor. To evaluate whether variation in KIR3DL1 and HLA interaction changes the binding affinity structure based effect prediction was carried out using MutaBind and BindProf software. Results For KIR3DL1*0010101, no-risk and low mRNA expression was seen among antibody mediated acute rejection (ABMR) and chronic rejection (CR) cases. Whereas, 3DS1*01301, 3DL1*00401, and 3DL1*00402 showed susceptibility and elevated mRNA expression with ABMR and CR. Two mutations c.320C > T (rs143159382) and c.911G > T (rs35974949), present in alleles 3DL1*00402 and 3DL1*00401 were predicted to be deleterious. Reduced renal allograft survival was observed for individuals possessing KIR3DL1*00401-HLA-Bw4+. In relation to HLA-A locus no significance was observed with ESRD, ABMR, and CR. Discussion The experimental and computational data corroborated with each other suggesting susceptibility for renal allograft in presence of 3DL1*00402 and 3DL1*00401 alleles.

Regulated fear and extinction memory is essential for balanced behavioral response. Limbic brain regions are susceptible to hypobaric hypoxia (HH) and are putative target for fear extinction deficit and dysregulation. The present study aimed to examine the effect of HH and Ginkgo biloba extract (GBE) on fear and extinction memory with the underlying mechanism. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were evaluated for fear extinction and anxious behavior following GBE administration during HH exposure. Blood and tissue (PFC, hippocampus and amygdala) samples were collected for biochemical, morphological and molecular studies. Results revealed deficit in contextual and cued fear extinction following 3 days of HH exposure. Increased corticosterone, glutamate with decreased GABA level was found with marked pyknosis, decrease in apical dendritic length and number of functional spines. Decline in mRNA expression level of synaptic plasticity genes and immunoreactivity of BDNF, synaptophysin, PSD95, spinophilin was observed following HH exposure. GBE administration during HH exposure improved fear and extinction memory along with decline in anxious behavior. It restored corticosterone, glutamate and GABA levels with an increase in apical dendritic length and number of functional spines with a reduction in pyknosis. It also improved mRNA expression level and immunoreactivity of neurotrophic and synaptic proteins. The present study is the first which demonstrates fear extinction deficit and anxious behavior following HH exposure. GBE administration ameliorated fear and extinction memory dysregulation by restoration of neurotransmitter levels, neuronal pyknosis and synaptic connections along with improved neurotrophic and synaptic protein expressions.

This paper describes an innovative web based Project Management System that adds to the set of established tools of project management. The system is designed to handle a number of very large projects. It is based on robust open source systems and frameworks. In addition to the basic features such as Network Diagram, Critical Path Method (CPM), Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Gantt Chart etc., the system integrates with Geographical Information System (GIS.) This integration enables the system to record activities of the project in graphic detail on GIS map with geo-coded images and to create a digital representation of the entire project roll-out. This digital representation becomes a valuable resource for operation and maintenance on completion of the project. As the project rolls out, the progress can be seen on an intuitive GIS based dashboard. The system provides multiple methods of data entry: web interface, spreadsheet and mobile application. The system has been found to successfully operate with a number of projects and several hundred thousand tasks.

The low-lying states of 117,118Sn have been studied from the decay of 117 g , 118 m Sb, and 117 m Sn. These long-lived species were populated through the reaction 4He + n a t In at E l a b = 32 MeV. Singles, as well as γ-γ coincidence data, were acquired. The uncertainties in the placement of some of the γ-rays in the excitation spectra of 118Sn observed by previous workers have been removed. A γ-ray (984 keV) previously assigned to 118Sn has been eliminated from the level scheme, based on the present analysis. The decay half-lives of 117 g , 118 m Sb have been remeasured. The slope method and deconvolution technique have been used to determine the half-lives of a few isomeric states in 117,118Sn. The results are interpreted in the framework of large scale shell model calculations performed in the 50 - 82 valence shell using truncations. Although the excitation energies were not reproduced well, the theoretical calculations could reasonably reproduce the isomers' transition probabilities due to their nearly pure configuration.

The major seismicity source in the northern Arabian Sea is the Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ) that defines the tectonic boundary between the Arabian plate and the Eurasian plate, located offshore Iran and Pakistan over which an instrumentally registered earthquake (Mw 8.1) generated a tsunami on 27 November, 1945. It has caused severe cataclysm to a vulnerable population along the surrounding coastlines, including India. It has been on a long seismic quiescence since this last event. The population and industrialization have exponentially increased along the coastal areas in last half decade. The highly exposed coastal locations to the tsunamis are the areas where the nuclear power plants are located. In the present work, a numerical simulation of a great tsunamigenic earthquake (M 9) is presented that predicts the generation, propagation, run-up and travel time using TUNAMI N2 for estimating tsunami impacts along the nuclear power plants of the western coast of India. TUNAMI N2 code was designed for shallow water wave equations, which uses the finite-difference method based on staggered-leap frog scheme. Thus, it has potential to simulate a far-field tsunami with much more accuracy than other methods. It is observed that the tsunami will strike along the coast of Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant (Maharashtra), Tarapur Nuclear Power Plant (Maharashtra), Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant (Karnataka) and Mithi-Virdi Nuclear Power Plant (Gujarat) after 210, 215, 225 and 230 minutes, respectively. Results show that the tsunami run-up is highest for Jaitapur coast (2.32 m). The Mithi-Virdi coast is the least effected (0.93 m) while Kaiga (2.15 m) and Tarapur coast (2.12 m) might have faced quite intense tsunami consequences. The arrival times and run-ups of the tsunami along the coast of different power plants have been calculated since these parameters are of vital importance in mitigation of the coastal hazard, evacuation planning and installation of early warning system in order to save the inhabited communities from the disaster.

Aims Evidence suggests that hypobaric hypoxia (HH) exposure causes biochemical and molecular level perturbations in brain resulting in associated cognitive dysfunction. However, the possible effect of HH on amygdala and the associated limbic regions based functions remains elusive. Regulated fear expression is essential for quick adaptations and optimal behavioral response. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the effect of HH on biochemical and molecular mechanisms in amygdala involved in fear memory regulation along with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex based fear memory. Materials and methods Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were subjected to cued and contextual fear memory assessment following simulated HH exposure (25,000 ft) for 3 and 7 days. Plasma and limbic tissue (Prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala) samples were collected for biochemical and molecular studies. Key findings Results revealed a decrease in contextual and cued fear memory retrieval, indicating fear memory dysregulation under HH exposure. Increased level of norepinephrine, dopamine, corticosterone and glutamate along with a decline in serotonin and GABA level was observed in plasma and limbic tissue after 3 and 7 days of HH exposure. Dysregulation of neuromodulation, neuronal survival and synaptic homeostasis was also evident from observed decline in tryptophan hydroxylase, BDNF, synaptophysin, synapsin1, PSD95 and an increase in tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity in limbic region under HH exposure. Significance Dysregulation of limbic region signaling molecules associated with survival and maintenance of synaptic plasticity (Synaptophysin, synapsin1 and PSD95), neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and shift in monoamines, corticosterone, glutamate and GABA levels may contribute to the HH induced fear memory impairment.

Sleep arousal directly affects the quality of sleep. PhysioNet Challenge 2018 aims to correctly identify designated target arousal (non-apnea arousal) and non-arousal regions from simultaneously recorded multiple biomedical signals. Our contribution lies in a feature extraction algorithm that extracts generic and domain-specific features from different biomedical signals available in the challenge provided dataset to form a composite feature vector. 50 most significant features are selected based on Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance scores for final classification using multiple unbiased Random Forests. The approach is designed to produce a single label for a 20-second segment containing all channels, followed by smoothing the label time-series per subject. Our algorithm yields the median Area Under Precision-Recall Curve (AUPRC) as 0.29 on 5-fold cross-validation on the training dataset. The same value of AUPRC is maintained for the test dataset as well, thereby emphasizing the stability of the proposed algorithm. This method secured the global rank of 8 during the official phase of the challenge.