Biochemical Profile of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Patients in Eastern India with Histopathological Correlation

Aminotransferase assay is often used as a screening test as well as an endpoint for resolution of disease in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Aim of the study was to evaluate the relationship of transaminase level with metabolic variables and histology in NAFLD. Single center observational study was conducted in a gastroenterology clinic at Cuttack in coastal Odisha. Subjects were consecutive patients presenting with functional bowel disease and undergoing abdominal sonography. All participants were evaluated for the presence of metabolic syndrome (MS), insulin resistance, liver function test and lipid profile. Various parameters were compared between NAFLD subjects and controls. 53.5 % of NAFLD had normal serum transaminases, whereas 20.8 % of healthy controls had transaminitis. NAFLD patients had significantly higher BMI, fasting plasma glucose, serum transaminases, serum triglycerides, serum insulin and homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) IR than controls. NAFLD patients who had transaminitis had significantly higher incidence of MS and higher mean HOMA IR than those without. There was no significant difference in histopathological features between NAFLD with and without transaminitis. To conclude, over half of NAFLD subjects do not have transaminitis while transaminitis is present in a fifth of healthy people without fatty liver. Hence serum transaminase should not be used as screening test for NAFLD. NAFLD patients with transaminitis had a higher incidence of MS and insulin resistance than those without. However, there was no significant difference in histopathological features between these two groups.     

Detection of inherited metabolic diseases in children with mental handicap

Mental Retardation is a condition where complex interactions of intrinsic and extrinsic factors hamper mental and sometimes physical growth of the child during developmental period. This study was carried out to detect cause of Mental Retardation in 2000 cases of developmental delay by a multidisciplinary team comprising of a Pediatrician, Cytogeneticist, Biochemist, Psychologist and Speech and Occupational therapists. The causes for developmental delay are broadly divided into Genetic, Environmental and Idiopathic (no specific cause found) factors. The complete diagnosis was possible in 1192(60%) cases. Genetic factors were found in 477(23.8%) cases and environmental factors covered 692(34.6%) cases as a cause of retardation. The most common genetic cause is chromosomal abnormalities which were found in 355 (17.75%) cases. Another major group comprising of 122 (6.1%) cases was that of the disorders which follow Mendelian inheritance. Autosomal recessive conditions, which covers majority of metabolic disorders, are detected in 48(2.4%) cases. During this screening the most common inherited metabolic condition detected is Mucopolysaccharidosis, a Lysosomal Storage Disorder followed by Amino acid abnormalities like Phenylketonuria, Alkaptonuria and Tyrosinuria.     

Does competition improve public school efficiency? A spatial analysis

Advocates for educational reform frequently call for policies to increase competition between schools because it is argued that market forces naturally lead to greater efficiencies, including improved student learning, when schools face competition. Researchers examining this issue are confronted with difficulties in defining reasonable measures of competition within local educational markets. We approach the problem through the application of Geographical Information System (GIS) tools to the development of a school competition index (SCI) for the state of Mississippi. The SCI captures the degree of competition each public school in the state faces from peer private schools spatially located within their local market area. We find that higher degrees of competition from private schools significantly increase public primary and high school efficiency, as measured by the proficiency rates on high-stakes examinations. It is anticipated that the current results will inform policymakers regarding the viability of competition-based reforms.     

Xanthine oxidase as a marker of myocardial infarction

In the present communication, we report remarkably elevated levels of xanthine oxidase activity in the blood of the patients with myocardial infarction when compared to age and sex matched healthy persons. Highly significant increase of malondialdehyde, serving as an index of lipid peroxidation and thus free radical mediated damage, has also been found in the patients. We propose the measurement of the blood levels of xanthine oxidase, a very simple, reliable and less time consuming method as an indicator of myocardial infarction.     

An Evaluation of Factors Regarding Students’ Assessment of Faculty in a Business School*

Student faculty ratings are used at most institutions of higher learning for three important reasons. First, the ratings provide direct feedback to the faculty, and this enables faculty to adjust their teaching styles. Second, the ratings provide the administration with information intended to assist in guiding and mentoring faculty toward more effective pedagogical performance in the classroom. Third, the ratings also provide the administration with information to be used in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes, as well as for assignment of salary range adjustments and teaching awards. To be of real value, however, all of this is predicated on the use of a valid and reliable faculty‐rating instrument along with a system designed to provide both the faculty and the administration with norming reports that allow for appropriate comparisons of ratings. This article reports such a study conducted within a large department of a business school and recommends that the process used be adapted by other business school departments and other academic units across the university and at other universities to ensure a more universally appropriate usage of students’ ratings.     

Correlation of Microalbuminuria with Estimated GFR (eGFR) by Cockcroft–Gault and MDRD Formula in Type 2 Diabetics and Hypertensives

Increase in urine albumin excretion rate (AER) precede a fall in glomerular filtration rate in patients developing diabetic chronic kidney disease (CKD). Our results have shown that 7 (50 %) of diabetic and hypertensive individuals with decreased GFR do not have increased AER. In this cross-sectional study, we measured AER of 75 patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension by immunoturbidimetric method. We correlated the results with eGFR values obtained by Cockcroft–Gault and MDRD method. The method used was not a compensated method. We measured serum creatinine by modified Jaffe’s kinetic method in autoanalyzer XL-600. Analysis of data showed positive correlation between eGFR and microalbuminuria by both the methods with eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m². Pearson’s correlation co-efficient (r) was 0.9 (p = 0.0001) by Cockcroft–Gault formula and 0.69 (p = 0.0063) by MDRD formula. Our results concluded that there was positive correlation between AER and eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m². We have recognized that these two parameters provide a complimentary benefit in management of cases with CKD.     

Reversible suppression of nitric oxide system in essential hypertension

Despite enormous research in the field of hypertension, its pathophysiology still remains largely unresolved and appears to be multifactorial. In the present communication, we have analyzed the status of nitric oxide (NO) in the patients with essential hypertension and age matched controls. We have found that the levels of NO are lowered in essential hypertension. The normalization of blood pressure by administration of antihypertensive therapy causes rise in the NO level indicating that perturbed NO status in essential hypertension is reversible. Addition of antioxidant to the antihypertensive drugs causes a further, though non significant, rise in the levels of NO, suggesting that antioxidants may be combined with antihypertensive drugs as adjunct in the management of essential hypertension.     

Text segmentation: A topic modeling perspective

In this paper, the task of text segmentation is approached from a topic modeling perspective. We investigate the use of two unsupervised topic models, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and multinomial mixture (MM), to segment a text into semantically coherent parts. The proposed topic model based approaches consistently outperform a standard baseline method on several datasets. A major benefit of the proposed LDA based approach is that along with the segment boundaries, it outputs the topic distribution associated with each segment. This information is of potential use in applications such as segment retrieval and discourse analysis. However, the proposed approaches, especially the LDA based method, have high computational requirements. Based on an analysis of the dynamic programming (DP) algorithm typically used for segmentation, we suggest a modification to DP that dramatically speeds up the process with no loss in performance. The proposed modification to the DP algorithm is not specific to the topic models only; it is applicable to all the algorithms that use DP for the task of text segmentation.     

Telecommunications

MISUNDERSTANDING MEDIA by Brian Winston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986---$22.50)

SERVICES IN TRANSITION: THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON THE SERVICE SECTOR edited by Gerald Faulhaber, et al. (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1986---$29.95)

BUSINESS TELEMATICS: CORPORATE NETWORKS FOR THE INFORMATION AGE by Byron Belitsos and Jay Misra (Homewood, IL: Dow, Jones-Irwin, 1986---$25.00)

COMPUTER & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACRONYMS edited by Julie Towell and Helen Sheppard (Detroit: Gale Research, 1986---$60.00)

Three recent publications from the Program on Information Resources Policy (200 Aiken, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138---inquire of publisher for prices, paper)

COMPUTER III: A NEW ERA—A GUIDE TO THE FCC'S LANDMARK DEREGULATORY RULING edited by Dick Stirba (Telecom Publishing Group, Capitol Publications, 1101 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314---$140, paper)

MARKET AND STRATEGIC IMPACTS OF BYPASS by the Bethesda Research Institute (Phillips Publishing, 7811 Montrose Rd., Potomac, Md. 20854---price not given, paper)

SATELLITE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING by Wilbur Pritchard and Joseph Sciulli (Englwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986---$42.95)

GUIDE TO SATELLITE TELEVISION INSTALLATION by John E. Traister (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986---$24.95)