Dietary components and human platelet activity

Platelet hyperactivity is one of the most important factors responsible for the incidence of cardiovascular disease. There are many nutritive and non-nutritive compounds present in the diet which may affect platelet function in various ways. Recent discovery of anti-platelet factors in plants, vegetables and fruits provides a new dietary means for a long-term strategy to favorably modify human blood platelet activity. This review summarises the effects of these dietary components on human platelet function both in vitro and in vivo.     

Occupational injury proneness in Indian women: A survey in fish processing industries

A cross sectional survey was initiated to understand the frequency of occupational injury occurrence and the associated factors in the fish processing industries of western India involving 185 randomly selected women subjects. All the subjects were interviewed with the help of an interviewer-administered questionnaire to collect information regarding their personal, occupational and work related morbidity details (including details of occupational injuries). Logistic regression method was used to analyze the data in order to obtain the contribution of individual factors on occupational injuries. This study has shown that work related morbidity like blanching of hand (OR; 2.30, 95%CI; 1.12–4.74) and nature of job like grading (OR; 3.99, 95%CI; 1.41–11.27) and packing (OR; 5.68, 95%CI; 1.65–19.57) had a significant impact on injury causation. This study eventually concludes that apart from nature of job of fish processing workers occupational hazards prevailing in the work environment contribute significantly to the occurrence of work related injuries and prevention of such occupational hazards may help in protecting workers from occupational injuries also.     

Binaural sensitivity to temporal fine structure and lateralization ability in children with suspected (central) auditory processing disorder

Objective

Previous studies have shown that a subgroup of children with suspected (central) auditory processing disorder (SusCAPD) have insufficient ability to use binaural cues to benefit from spatial processing. Thus, they experience considerable listening difficulties in challenging auditory environments, such as classrooms. Some researchers have also indicated the probable role of binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) in the perceptual segregation of target signal from noise and hence in speech perception in noise. Therefore, in the present study, in order to further investigate the underlying reason for listening problems against background noise in this group of children, their performance was measured using binaural TFS sensitivity test (TFS-LF) as well as behavioral auditory lateralization in noise test, both of which are based on binaural temporal cues processing.

Anatomic limitations of posterior exposure of the sinus tympani.

OBJECTIVE: The sinus tympani is a challenging area for the otologic surgeon to access and from which to remove the disease process. Recently, a posterior approach to the sinus tympani through the mastoid was proposed as an alternative technique in cases of deep sinus tympani. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: The posterior approach was performed by dissecting the triangular bony area formed by the facial nerve, lateral semicircular canal, and posterior semicircular canal in 8 temporal bone specimens. RESULTS: The edges of the triangle on the facial nerve and lateral semicircular canal were almost constant at 5 mm. The edge on the posterior semicircular canal was about 4 mm. CONCLUSION: It is possible to expose the sinus tympani from the posterior by careful dissection through this triangle, which has almost constant dimensions.     

Application of 3D-QSAR techniques in anti-HIV-1 drug design--an overview

Despite the availability of several classes of drugs against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1), this deadly disease showing very little sign of containment, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. More than 20 million people died since the first diagnosis of AIDS more than twenty years ago and almost 40 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Structure-based drug design effort was immensely successful in identifying several drugs that are currently available for the treatment of HIV-1. Many applications have been reported on the use of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) studies to understand the drug-receptor interactions and help in the design of more effective analogs. Extensive application was also reported on the application of 3D-QSAR techniques, such as, Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA), Comparative Molecular Similarity Analysis (CoMSIA), pharmacophore generation using Catalyst/HypoGen, free-energy binding analysis, GRID/GOLPE, HINT-based techniques, etc. in anti-HIV-1 drug discovery programs in academia and industry. We have attempted to put together a comprehensive overview on the 3D-QSAR applications in anti-HIV-1 drug design reported in the literature during the last decade.     

Intravesical wire as foreign body in urinary bladder

Foreign bodies in the urinary bladder are frequently the objects of jokes among doctors, but they may sometimes cause serious implications to the patients. Here we present our experiences in 3 such cases where long segments of wire were introduced into the urinary bladder through the urethra.