Isoniazid preventive therapy among child contacts of TB patients, India.

BACKGROUND: Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for child contacts of TB patients, a globally accepted intervention, needs to be evaluated in diverse geographical regions.OBJECTIVES: To assess the extent of IPT coverage and adherence, to ascertain its sociodemographic and programmatic correlates and to explore existing constraints from service providers and beneficiaries´ perspectives.METHODS: A mixed-method study was conducted in January-June 2021 in Paschim Bardhaman District, West Bengal, India. Quantitative assessment was done among 280 child contacts of TB cases registered between January and December 2020 in all TB units in the district. Primary caregivers were interviewed using a pre-designed questionnaire. Two focus group discussions with all senior treatment supervisors of the district and in-depth interviews with 12 purposively selected caregivers of the children were undertaken. Qualitative data were analysed thematically.RESULTS: Only 48.9% (137/280) of child contacts were screened; 58.9% (165/280) were initiated on IPT and 40% (66/165) adhered to a full course. Coverage of the full 6-month IPT among total study participants was 23.6% (66/280). Household visits by health personnel and initial screening significantly predicted increased coverage. Programmatic inadequacies, poor understanding, social stigma and COVID situation were major constraints.CONCLUSION: Coverage of IPT remains unacceptably low and requires health system strengthening for effectively implementing current recommendations of TB preventive treatment.

Chest wall lymphomas: Fine needle aspiration cytodiagnosis and review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: Compared to other chest wall malignancies, lymphoma is a common disease. However, published literature on a series of lymphoma cases involving the chest wall is scarce. The aim of the present study, was to describe experience with chest wall swellings diagnosed as lymphoid neoplasms on fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology. METHODS: Eleven chest wall swellings were diagnosed as lymphoid neoplasms on FNA over a period of 15 years (January 2000-December 2014). The age of patients ranged from 19 to 73 years (median, 46). The male-to -emale ratio was 7:4. Ten cases had an anterior or lateral chest wall mass, and one swelling was in the scapular region. Six cases had concurrent lymphadenopathy, and one had bone involvement. The FNA smears were reviewed and classified under WHO Classification of Hematopoietic Neoplasms. The histopathological diagnoses were available in eight cases. RESULTS: The preliminary cytodiagnoses in 11 cases of chest wall lymphoid neoplasms were anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) in two cases, and ALCL/malignant melanoma, ALCL/T-cell-rich-B-cell lymphoma (TCRBCL)/Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), plasmacytoma/neuroendocrine carcinoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma, small cell NHL/CLL, NHL, suggestive of NHL, post-transplant peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL), and a malignant plasma cell tumour in one case each. The reviewed cytodiagnoses of lymphoid neoplasms were as follows: ALCL ( five cases), centroblastic lymphoma (two cases), and small cell lymphoma/CLL, post-transplant peripheral T-cell lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma and plasmacytoma (one case each). Histopathological diagnoses available in eight cases confirmed the presence of lymphoid neoplasms. CONCLUSION: A variety of lymphoid neoplasms involved the chest wall, and among them, ALCL was a common form.

MRF-ANN: a machine learning approach for automated ER scoring of breast cancer immunohistochemical images.

Molecular pathology, especially immunohistochemistry, plays an important role in evaluating hormone receptor status along with diagnosis of breast cancer. Time-consumption and inter-/intraobserver variability are major hindrances for evaluating the receptor score. In view of this, the paper proposes an automated Allred Scoring methodology for estrogen receptor (ER). White balancing is used to normalize the colour image taking into consideration colour variation during staining in different labs. Markov random field model with expectation-maximization optimization is employed to segment the ER cells. The proposed segmentation methodology is found to have F-measure 0.95. Artificial neural network is subsequently used to obtain intensity-based score for ER cells, from pixel colour intensity features. Simultaneously, proportion score - percentage of ER positive cells is computed via cell counting. The final ER score is computed by adding intensity and proportion scores - a standard Allred scoring system followed by pathologists. The classification accuracy for classification of cells by classifier in terms of F-measure is 0.9626. The problem of subjective interobserver ability is addressed by quantifying ER score from two expert pathologist and proposed methodology. The intraclass correlation achieved is greater than 0.90. The study has potential advantage of assisting pathologist in decision making over manual procedure and could evolve as a part of automated decision support system with other receptor scoring/analysis procedure.

Genetic and morphological features of human iPSC-derived neurons with chromosome 15q11.2 (BP1-BP2) deletions.

BACKGROUND: Copy number variation on chromosome 15q11.2 (BP1-BP2) causes deletion of CYFIP1, NIPA1, NIPA2 and TUBGCP5; it also affects brain structure and elevates risk for several neurodevelopmental disorders that are associated with dendritic spine abnormalities. In rodents, altered cyfip1 expression changes dendritic spine morphology, motivating analyses of human neuronal cells derived from iPSCs (iPSC-neurons). METHODS: iPSCs were generated from a mother and her offspring, both carrying the 15q11.2 (BP1-BP2) deletion, and a non-deletion control. Gene expression in the deletion region was estimated using quantitative real-time PCR assays. Neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and iPSC-neurons were characterized using immunocytochemistry. RESULTS: CYFIP1, NIPA1, NIPA2 and TUBGCP5 gene expression was lower in iPSCs, NPCs and iPSC-neurons from the mother and her offspring in relation to control cells. CYFIP1 and PSD95 protein levels were lower in iPSC-neurons derived from the CNV bearing individuals using Western blot analysis. At 10 weeks post-differentiation, iPSC-neurons appeared to show dendritic spines and qualitative analysis suggested that dendritic morphology was altered in 15q11.2 deletion subjects compared with control cells. CONCLUSIONS: The 15q11.2 (BP1-BP2) deletion is associated with reduced expression of four genes in iPSC-derived neuronal cells; it may also be associated altered iPSC-neuron dendritic morphology.

Computational microscopic imaging for malaria parasite detection: a systematic review.

Malaria, being an epidemic disease, demands its rapid and accurate diagnosis for proper intervention. Microscopic image-based characterization of erythrocytes plays an integral role in screening of malaria parasites. In practice, microscopic evaluation of blood smear image is the gold standard for malaria diagnosis; where the pathologist visually examines the stained slide under the light microscope. This visual inspection is subjective, error-prone and time consuming. In order to address such issues, computational microscopic imaging methods have been given importance in recent times in the field of digital pathology. Recently, such quantitative microscopic techniques have rapidly evolved for abnormal erythrocyte detection, segmentation and semi/fully automated classification by minimizing such diagnostic errors for computerized malaria detection. The aim of this paper is to present a review on enhancement, segmentation, microscopic feature extraction and computer-aided classification for malaria parasite detection.

Automated system for characterization and classification of malaria-infected stages using light microscopic images of thin blood smears.

In this paper, we propose a comprehensive image characterization cum classification framework for malaria-infected stage detection using microscopic images of thin blood smears. The methodology mainly includes microscopic imaging of Leishman stained blood slides, noise reduction and illumination correction, erythrocyte segmentation, feature selection followed by machine classification. Amongst three-image segmentation algorithms (namely, rule-based, Chan-Vese-based and marker-controlled watershed methods), marker-controlled watershed technique provides better boundary detection of erythrocytes specially in overlapping situations. Microscopic features at intensity, texture and morphology levels are extracted to discriminate infected and noninfected erythrocytes. In order to achieve subgroup of potential features, feature selection techniques, namely, F-statistic and information gain criteria are considered here for ranking. Finally, five different classifiers, namely, Naive Bayes, multilayer perceptron neural network, logistic regression, classification and regression tree (CART), RBF neural network have been trained and tested by 888 erythrocytes (infected and noninfected) for each features' subset. Performance evaluation of the proposed methodology shows that multilayer perceptron network provides higher accuracy for malaria-infected erythrocytes recognition and infected stage classification. Results show that top 90 features ranked by F-statistic (specificity: 98.64%, sensitivity: 100%, PPV: 99.73% and overall accuracy: 96.84%) and top 60 features ranked by information gain provides better results (specificity: 97.29%, sensitivity: 100%, PPV: 99.46% and overall accuracy: 96.73%) for malaria-infected stage classification.

Comparative evaluation of actinide ion uptake by polymer inclusion membranes containing TODGA as the carrier extractant.

Polymer inclusion membranes (PIM) containing TODGA (N,N,N',N'-tetra-n-octyl diglycolamide) were evaluated for the separation of actinide ions such as Am(3+), Pu(4+), UO2(2+) and Th(4+) from acidic feeds. The PIMs were prepared using cellulose triacetate (CTA) as the polymer matrix and 2-nitrophenyloctyl ether (NPOE) as the plasticizer along with the diglycolamide carrier extractants and were characterized by conventional techniques such as XRD, thermal analysis and AFM. The PIM composition was optimized by a series of studies which involved variation in the CTA, NPOE and carrier concentration which suggested 58% TODGA, 30% NPOE and 12% CTA to be optimum. The uptake studies were carried out using feed solutions containing varying concentrations of nitric acid and showed the trend: Am(3+)>Pu(4+)>Th(4+)>UO2(2+). Transport studies were carried out in a two-compartment cell where nitric acid concentration the feed was varied (1-3M) while the receiver compartment contained alpha-hydroxy-iso-butyric acid (AHIBA). The actinide ion transport efficiencies with TODGA containing PIMs followed the same trend as seen in the uptake studies. The AFM patterns of the PIMs changed when loaded with Eu(3+) carrier (used as a surrogate for Am(3+)) while the regenerated membranes have displayed comparable morphologies. Diffusion coefficient values were experimentally obtained from the transport studies and were found to be 8.89×10(-8) cm(2)/s for Am(3+) transport.

Thermodynamics of cadmium sorption on different soils of West Bengal, India.

A sorption study was conducted on different soils collected from five agroecological zones of West Bengal, India, to understand the soil environmental behavior and fate of cadmium. For this purpose batch adsorption experiments were carried out at the native soil pH and at three different temperatures (25°C, 35°C, and 45°C). The adsorption data fitted by a linear least squares technique to the different sorption isotherms. Most data obtained give the good fit to both Freundlich and modified Langmuir isotherms, but they are not consistent with the linear Langmuir adsorption model. Thermodynamic parameters, namely, thermodynamics equilibrium constant at a particular temperature T (K T (0)), Gibbs free energy at a particular temperature T (ΔG T (0)), and change of enthalpy (ΔH (0)) and change of entropy at temperature T (ΔS T (0)), were also determined by applying sorption value and concentrations of Cd in equilibrium solution within the temperature range. The thermodynamic parameters revealed that Cd sorption increases as the values of K T (0), ΔG T (0), ΔH (0), and ΔS T (0) were increased on reaction temperatures. The spontaneous sorption reaction can be concluded due to high values of ΔG T (0). The positive values of ΔH (0) indicated that the Cd sorption is an endothermic one. Under these present conditions, the soil and its components possibly supply a number of sites having different adsorption energies for cadmium sorption.

Characterisation and in silico analysis of interleukin-4 cDNA of nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) and Indian buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).

Interleukin-4 (IL-4) produced from Th2 cells modulates both innate and adaptive immune responses. It is a common belief that wild animals possess better immunity against diseases than domestic and laboratory animals; however, the immune system of wild animals is not fully explored yet. Therefore, a comparative study was designed to explore the wildlife immunity through characterisation of IL-4 cDNA of nilgai, a wild ruminant, and Indian buffalo, a domestic ruminant. Total RNA was extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of nilgai and Indian buffalo and reverse transcribed into cDNA. Respective cDNA was further cloned and sequenced. Sequences were analysed in silico and compared with their homologues available at GenBank. The deduced 135 amino acid protein of nilgai IL-4 is 95.6% similar to that of Indian buffalo. N-linked glycosylation sequence, leader sequence, Cysteine residues in the signal peptide region, and 3' UTR of IL-4 were found to be conserved across species. Six nonsynonymous nucleotide substitutions were found in Indian buffalo compared to nilgai amino acid sequence. Tertiary structure of this protein in both species was modeled, and it was found that this protein falls under 4-helical cytokines superfamily and short chain cytokine family. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a single cluster of ruminants including both nilgai and Indian buffalo that was placed distinct from other nonruminant mammals.

Metal accumulation, biochemical response and yield of Indian mustard grown in soil amended with rural roadside pond sediment.

This present study aims to discern the effect of roadside pond sediments on Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. (cv. Rohini) by examining heavy metal uptake by different parts of the plant and its influence on biochemical properties, biomass, yield and oil content in plant. Although the treated soils were clearly contaminated with heavy metals (HMs) after application of pond sediments and chemical fertilizers, but the metal content in mustard leaves and seeds are below the permissible limit of consumable food. HMs accumulation was proportionally lesser in grains than in shoots and roots. All the biochemical characteristics were significantly (p<0.05) responded to the pond sediments application as compared to the control. Increase in photosynthetic pigment was also observed during growing period while pond sediment was used as amendment. This study revealed that Brassica juncea is well adapted to tolerate and accumulate high quantities of HMs due to increased level of antioxidants (cysteine and ascorbic acid) in roots, shoots and leaves. Multivariate techniques like principal component analysis and cluster analysis (CA) were used as classification techniques. On the basis of factor loadings and principal component scores, different parameters were grouped based on their similarity or closeness, separately in leaves, roots and seeds. A very similar grouping was also obtained using CA. However, pond sediment did not thwart the enhancement of mustard yield and oil content. Therefore, pond sediment would be a valuable resource for mustard as an alternative soil amendment for nutrients, but long-term use may require the cessation to restrict HMs contamination in soils.

Quantitative microscopy approach for shape-based erythrocytes characterization in anaemia.

Anaemia is one of the most common diseases in the world population. Primarily anaemia is identified based on haemoglobin level; and then microscopically examination of peripheral blood smear is required for characterizing and confirmation of anaemic stages. In conventional approach, experts visually characterize abnormality present in the erythrocytes under light microscope, and this evaluation process is subjective in nature and error prone. In this study, we have proposed a methodology using machine learning techniques for characterizing erythrocytes in anaemia associated with anaemia using microscopic images of peripheral blood smears. First, peripheral blood smear images are preprocessed based on grey world assumption technique and geometric mean filter for reducing unevenness of background illumination and noise reduction. Then erythrocyte cells are segmented using marker-controlled watershed segmentation technique. The erythrocytes in anaemia, such as, tear drop, echinocyte, acanthocyte, elliptocyte, sickle cells and normal erythrocytes cells have been characterized and classified based on their morphological changes. Optimal subset of features, ranked by information gain measure provides highest classification performance using logistic regression classifier in comparison with other standard classifiers.

Comparative study of the profiles of tribal and non-tribal tuberculosis patients in a tuberculosis unit of West Bengal, India.

BACKGROUND: Worldwide, the burden of tuberculosis (TB) is high in tribal populations. SETTING: Department of Community Medicine, Burdwan Medical College, Burdwan, India. OBJECTIVE: To compare the profile of TB patients among tribals and non-tribals in the Bhatar Tuberculosis Unit, Burdwan, India. DESIGN: A record-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 599 TB cases in 2009. RESULTS: Respectively 34.7% and 65.3% of the cases were tribals and non-tribals. Among tribal patients, 92.3% had pulmonary TB vs. 82.1% among non-tribals. The proportion of Category I cases (77.4%) was higher among tribals than among non-tribals (60.8%), while the proportion of Category II and III cases was higher among non-tribals. Among new sputum-positive Category I cases, the sputum conversion rate at the end of the intensive phase was respectively 92.4% and 87.7% in tribals and non-tribals. Unfavourable treatment outcome was higher in males and among failure, relapse, treatment after default and transferred out cases. CONCLUSIONS: Differences were noted in type/category of cases, sputum conversion as well as in outcome between tribal and non-tribal TB patients. Although ethnicity by itself was not significantly associated with outcome, factors related to ethnicity might have contributed to these differences between tribals and non-tribals.

Retraction Notice: Phytochemicals from plants to combat cardiovascular disease.

The article entitled "Phytochemicals from Plants to Combat Cardiovascular Disease", by Hannah R. Vasan- thi, Nitin ShriShri Mal, Dilip Kumar Das, published in Curr. Med. Chem. 2012; 19(14): 224251. https://www.eurekaselect.com/97287/article has been retracted on a complaint of plagiarism with a previously pub- lished article entitled "Resveratrol in cardiovascular health and disease" in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences as Ann N Y Acad Sci . 2011 Jan;1215:22-33. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05843.x The authors were informed of this complaint and were requested to give justification on the matter, in their de- fence. However, no reply was received from them in this regard. Bentham Science apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may have caused. The Bentham Editorial Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at https://benthamscience.com/editorial- policies-main.php.

Chirp and polarization control of femtosecond molecular fragmentation.

We explore the simultaneous effect of chirp and polarization as the two control parameters for non-resonant photo-dissociation of n-propyl benzene. Experiments performed over a wide range of laser intensities show that these two control knobs behave mutually exclusively. Specifically, for the coherently enhanced fragments (C3H3+, C5H5+) with negatively chirped pulses and C6H5+ with positively chirped pulses, polarization effect is the same as compared to that in the case of transform-limited pulses. Though a change in polarization affects the overall fragmentation efficiency, the fragmentation pattern of n-propyl benzene molecule remains unaffected in contrast to the chirp case.

Functional recovery of diabetic mouse hearts by glutaredoxin-1 gene therapy: role of Akt-FoxO-signaling network.

Recent studies suggest that glutaredoxin-1 (Glrx-1) may serve as therapeutic target for diabetic hearts. As the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is increased in the pathologic hearts including ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) and diabetes, we assumed that upregulation of Glrx-1 could reduce the cardiac risk factors associated with I/R and/or diabetes. Diabetes was induced in mice by i.p. injection of streptozotocin (150 mg kg(-1)). Eight days after when the blood glucose was elevated to 400 mg per 100 ml, the animals were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups, which received either empty vector, or LacZ or Glrx-1 adenoviral construct. Four days later, isolated working hearts were subjected to 30 min ischemia followed by 2 h reperfusion. Glrx-1 gene therapy significantly enhanced the Glrx-1 level, which prevented I/R-mediated reduction of ventricular recovery, increased myocardial infarct size and cardiomyocyte apoptosis in diabetic myocardium. In concert, Glrx-1 prevented diabetes and ischemia-reperfusion induced reduction of cardioprotective proteins including Akt, FoxO-1, and hemeoxygenase-1, and abolished the death signal triggered by Jnk, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, and c-Src. Glrx-1 gene therapy seems to prevent cardiac complications in diabetic heart due to the I/R by switching the death signal into survival signal by activating Akt-FoxO-signaling network.

Poisoning, stings and bites in children-- what is new? An experience from a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata.

Poisonings, stings and bites continue to be important cause of pediatric morbidity and hospitalization. The toxic product involved in the poisoning varies in different geographical areas and in same area over time. A retrospective study was conducted amongst the children of the age group up to 12 years admitted to a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata from January 2005 to December 2008. Total number of admissions was 17019 and that for accidental poisoning was 451 (2.65%). Kerosene constituted the largest group (54.55%). Mosquito coil and refill liquid were the new additions to the list of poisons and their ingestion was cause for admission of 15 (3.33%) children. The number of admissions due to stings and bites was 108 (0.63% of all admissions) during the above period. Of all the cases, 9 (1.83%) cases of accidental poisoning and 4 (3.7%) cases of stings and bites died.

Molecular characterization of toll-like receptor 2 of ruminants and comparative expression in nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) vs. buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).

Toll-like receptors play role in the innate immune responses and orchestrate the adaptive immunity by induction of proinflammatory cytokines and up-regulation of costimulatory molecules. The present study has characterized TLR2 cDNA in nilgai, buffalo, sheep and goat that recognizes the peptidoglycan of Gram-positive bacteria. TLR2 coding sequences were amplified from monocytes cDNA and cloned in pGEMT-easy vector for nucleotide sequencing. Sequence analysis revealed 2355-bp-long TLR2 open reading frame encoding 784 amino acids in all the species studied. Nilgai TLR2 has 97.8% to 95.1% identity at nucleotide level and 96.2% to 92.7% identity at amino acid level with other ruminant species studied. Nonsynonymous substitutions exceeding synonymous substitutions indicated evolution of this receptor through positive selection among ruminants. Furthermore, basal TLR2 messenger RNA expression in different immune cells and tissues quantified by real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed highest level in in vitro derived dendritic cells followed by peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Skin and testes also expressed significant level in both nilgai and buffalo. Comparatively, nilgai immune cells and tissues expressed more TLR2 transcript than buffalo, thus elucidating stronger armamentarium of antibacterial immunity in nilgai as compared to buffalo.

Identification by a differential proteomic approach of the induced stress and redox proteins by resveratrol in the normal and diabetic rat heart.

A recent study showed cardioprotective effects of resveratrol on the diabetic heart. The present study sought to compare the protein profiles of the normal versus diabetic hearts after resveratrol treatment using differential proteomic analysis. Rats were randomly divided into two groups: control and diabetic. Both groups of rats were fed resveratrol (2.5 mg/kg/day) for 7 days, and then the rats were sacrificed, hearts were isolated and cytoplasmic fraction from left ventricular tissue was collected to carry out proteomic profiling as well as immunoblotting. Compared to normal hearts, diabetic hearts show increased myocardial infarct size and cardiomy-ocyte apoptosis upon ex vivo global ischaemia of 30 min. followed by 2 hrs of reperfusion. Resveratrol reduced infarct size and apop-totic cell death for both the groups, but the extent of infarct size and apoptosis remained higher for the diabetic group compared to the normal group. The left ventricular cytoplasmic proteins were analysed by 2D-DIGE and differentially displayed bands were further analysed by nano Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS). The results showed differential regulation of normal versus diabetic hearts treated with resveratrol of many proteins related to energy metabolism of which several were identified as mitochondrial proteins. Of particular interest is the increased expression of several chaperone proteins and oxidative stress and redox proteins in the diabetic group including Hsc70, HSPp6, GRP75, peroxiredoxin (Prdx)-1 and Prdx-3 whose expression was reversed by resveratrol. Western blot analysis was performed to validate the up- or down-regulation of these stress proteins. The results indicate the differential regulation by resveratrol of stress proteins in diabetic versus normal hearts, which may explain in part the beneficial effects of resveratrol in diabetic induced cardiovascular complications.