Quantifying spatio-temporal variation in aquaculture production areas in Satkhira, Bangladesh using geospatial and social survey.

Despite Bangladesh being one of the leading countries in aquaculture food production worldwide, there is a considerable lack of updated scientific information about aquaculture activities in remote sites, making it difficult to manage sustainably. This study explored the use of geospatial and field data to monitor spatio-temporal changes in aquaculture production sites in the Satkhira district from 2017-2019. We used Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission digital elevation model (SRTM DEM) to locate aquaculture ponds based on the terrain elevation and slope. Radar backscatter information from the Sentinel-1 satellite, and different water indices derived from Sentinel-2 were used to assess the spatio-temporal extents of aquaculture areas. An image segmentation algorithm was applied to detect aquaculture ponds based on backscattering intensity, size and shape characteristics. Our results show that the highest number of aquaculture ponds were observed in January, with a size of more than 30,000 ha. Object-based image classification of Sentinel-1 data showed an overall accuracy above 80%. The key factors responsible for the variation in aquaculture were investigated using field surveys. We noticed that despite a significant number of aquaculture ponds in the study area, shrimp production and export are decreasing because of a lack of infrastructure, poor governance, and lack of awareness in the local communities. The result of this study can provide in-depth information about aquaculture areas, which is vital for policymakers and environmental administrators for successful aquaculture management in Satkhira, Bangladesh and other countries with similar issues.

A Randomized Study Comparing Endoscopic Third Ventriculostomy versus Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt in the Management of Hydrocephalus Due to Tuberculous Meningitis.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to compare safety and efficacy of endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) versus ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt in the treatment of hydrocephalus in tuberculous meningitis (TBM) and to assess clinical and radiological profiles of patients with TBM that would be better suited to either VP shunt or ETV. METHODS: This study was a single-center randomized prospective study on 52 patients with TBM hydrocephalus in the pediatric age group (<18 years of age). Patients included in the study were randomized into undergo either VP shunt or ETV. Both groups were followed up for a minimum of 5 months and assessed for success and failure rates as well as procedural complications and neurologic sequelae. RESULTS: Twenty-six patients underwent ETV with a success rate of 65.4% with six of nine failures occurring within the first 16 days after surgery (median time to failure - 3 days). In the VP shunt group, there was a success rate of 61.54% and a median time to failure of 50 days. Modified Vellore grading was found to be a significant factor in determining outcome in both ETV and VP shunt groups with high-grade TBM consistently associated with poor outcome (odds ratio = 4.2). CONCLUSIONS: ETV can be performed effectively in young children including infants, as well as those with communicating hydrocephalus, high cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cell counts, and protein levels with a lower rate of failure than that of VP shunt. Hence, ETV should be attempted as the first-choice CSF diversion procedure in hydrocephalus secondary to TBM where technical expertise and experience with this procedure is available as it avoids the myriad of lifelong complications associated with shunts.

Foramen Magnum Chordoid Meningioma in a 22-Year-old Female.

Chordoid meningioma is a rare variety of meningioma (0.5%-1%) with high rate of recurrence. They are grouped in WHO Grade II tumors. They are mainly distributed in the supratentorial location. There has been a single report of foramen magnum chordoid meningioma in a 3-year, 6-month-old child. Our patient, a 22-year-old female, admitted with progressive spastic quadriparesis with bowel and bladder involvement. She was operated with tumor resection done; postoperatively, patient showed dramatic improvement in the motor power as well as bowel and bladder function. Histopathology was suggestive of chordoid meningioma. She received 54 Gy of radiotherapy. She is doing well with no neurological deficits and no recurrence at 2-year follow-up.

Characteristics of the positive ion source at reduced gas feed.

The neutral beam injector of steady state superconducting tokamak (SST1-NBI) at IPR is designed for injecting upto 1.7 MW of neutral beam (Hº, 30-55 keV) power to the tokamak plasma for heating and current drive. Operations of the positive ion source (PINI or Plug-In-Neutral-Injector) of SST1-NBI were carried out on the NBI test stand. The PINI was operated at reduced gas feed rate of 2-3 Torr l/s, without using the high speed cryo pumps. Experiments were conducted to achieve a stable beam extraction by optimizing operational parameters namely, the arc current (120-300 A), acceleration voltage (16-40 kV), and a suitable control sequence. The beam divergence, power density profiles, and species fractions (H(+):H2(+):H3(+)) were measured by using the diagnostics such as thermal calorimetry, infrared thermography, and Doppler shift spectroscopy. The maximum extracted beam current was about 18 A. A further increase of beam current was found to be limited by the amount of gas feed rate to the ion source.

Profile of psychiatric disorders and life events in medically ill elderly: experiences from geriatric clinic in Northern India.

BACKGROUND: Morbidity among elderly people has an important influence on their psychological well-being. Evaluation of the morbidity profile and its determinants, which have implications for management of medical problems of elderly people, are scarce in developing countries. Even the physicians' detection rate of mental distress in elderly populations is low in medical outpatient clinics. This could be due to the large caseloads and also, importantly, underestimation of psychological concerns of the elderly. The objective of this study was to study the psychiatric co-morbidity and life events among elderly medical outpatients. METHODS: One hundred medically ill elderly (>60 years) patients attending the Geriatric Clinic at Bikaner (North India) constituted the study population. The physical diagnosis was made by a physician based on reported illness, clinical examination and medical records. Psychiatric diagnosis was made by detailed clinical psychiatric interview using ICD-10 guidelines. Life events were assessed by the Indian adaptation of Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale. RESULTS: Hypertension was the most commonly reported physical diagnosis (50%), other specific medical illnesses were osteoarthritis (15%), diabetes (13%) and constipation (8%). The study found 18% subjects had depression and 11% had other mental disorders. Patients with mental disorders had suffered more recent stressful life events. Among life events, conflicts in family (16%); unemployment of self or children (9%) was reported by elderly psychiatric patients. Other reported life events in psychiatric diagnosed elderly were conflict in family (7%), illness of self (6%) or family members (5%) and death of family members (5%) or close relatives (4%). CONCLUSION: Mental disorders are common among medically ill elderly patients, but they are poorly recognized and treated. Assessment of the psychiatric morbidity will help in strengthening psycho-geriatric services and thus, improve the quality of life of the elderly.

Acute non-organic psychosis-outcome after 10 years.

62 out of 68 acute psychosis patients who were initially recruited from the Bikaner Centre in 1982 for the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study on "phenomenology and natural history of acute psychosis" were assessed after completion of 10 years in 1992-93 on SCAAPS and PSE with the objective of studying the long term course and outcome of acute psychosis. The results show that 35 (56.45%) patients of acute brief episode of psychosis never had any psychotic illness during the course of follow-up. Remission was significantly better in the young, the unmarried, in those who belonged to the Hindu religion and in those who developed the full blown psychosis abruptly within 48 hours. Other sociodemographic, personal history variables, and symptomatology could not distinguish this remitted group from the rest of the patients.

A new hypothesis for faster healing of fractures in head injured patients.

A new hypothesis has been proposed to explain excessive callus formation seen after injury to brain or spinal cord. Nervous tissue is very active metabolically and when damaged or inflammed it extracts, utilises and inactivates most of the corticosteroids and other anti-inflammatory substances present in the blood. Therefore now very little active corticosteroids are left to exhibit the inhibitory effect on callus formation. This leads to faster fracture healing with excessive callus formation in head or spinal cord injured patients.

Coronary-prone behaviour pattern and myocardial infarction.

Seventy five patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) and forty matched control subjects were assessed for coronary-prone behaviour pattern by a self administered scale. Analysis of the results showed a higher incidence (P < 0.001) of type A behaviour pattern in acute (MI) patients, as compared to controls.

Prevalence and pattern of mental health problems.

Three hundred and forty eight children of age group 5-15 years were studied. A reporting questionnaire was administered to the parents and then affected children were examined in detail by history, physical examination and mental status examination. Fifty out of 348 children were having mental health problems. Male and first born children were affected more. Common problems observed were poor scholastic performance, enuresis, hyperkinetic syndrome, speech disorders and sleep disorders. In males, poor scholastic performance, hyperkinetic syndrome and temper tantrums were common while in females enuresis, speech disorders and hysterical symptoms were more frequent. Among the adverse perinatal factors of etiological importance low birth weight, difficult deliveries, birth injuries, delayed cry, neonatal jaundice and convulsions were common. Predominant psychosocial stress factors were quarrels between parents, separated parents, deaths of parents, siblings or relatives and chronic illness in the family.

Life events and course of a physical illness.

Sixty patients of pulmonary tuberculosis selected through a specified selection procedure were followed up after one year of treatment. The psychiatric assessment was done by Present State Examination (P.S.E.) brief version and an open ended life event questionnaire. Results indicate that the non-life event group patients improved significantly (p<0.001) more as compared to life event group patients. The findings are discussed in the light of available literature.

Psychiatric Aspects of Skin Diseases.

303 randomly selected skin out-door patients were assessed with P.G.I.Health questionnaire N-2 and an open-ended life event schedule. Functional group of skin patients were found to be remarkably different from organic group with regard to the consistency in the neuroticism score within diagnostic categories of each group, effect of duration and site of lesion, and emlotlo-disturbing situations on neuroticism score. In the organic group, these variables seem to effect the N-score as a reaction to illness, whereas functional group remains unaffected. stance of pre-disposed persona pattern in functional group of skin patients could explain these findings.

Life events, physical illness and psychiatric morbidity.

Sixty patients of pulmonary tuberculosis selected through a specified selection procedure from T. B. Hospital, Bikaner, were assessed by P. S. E. (Present State Examination). An open ended life event schedule was used to record the life events of past one year, which had some impact on the patient. Results indicate that the patients who had experienced life events had significantly more psychiatric symptom scores as compared to those who did not report a life event (p<.001). Further analysis showed that the significant difference were among the patients, who had more than one life events as compared to those who had no life event or only one life event (p<.01). Implications of the findings are discussed.