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Acute encephalopathies or acute confusional states are among the commonest causes of hospital admissions especially among the elderly population. A treating physician needs to have a thorough knowledge of the various etiologies, clinical presentations and associations of acute encephalopathy in order to manage these patients in a timely and efficient manner. The present study was a prospective cross sectional study conducted over a period of one year aimed to know the dynamics of encephalopathy patients attending the medical emergency. Patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included after taking consent from the attendants. The mean age of the patients was 60 years for males and 61.8 years for females. About 19.7% patients admitted in emergency department had acute confusional state. The most common etiologies in the study were strokes (25.6%), metabolic (24.9%) and septic (18.5%) encephalopathies followed by seizures (13%) and intracranial infections (5%). About 35.5% cases had multiples factors responsible for encephalopathy. The most frequent symptoms besides encephalopathy included weakness on one side of the body (15.8 %), headache (14.1%), cough (12.6%), incontinence (10.7), breathlessness (10.1%) and fever (10.2%). The overall mortality in the study was 16.5%. Mortality was significantly higher in patients with weak or non-palpable pulses, hypotensive patients, patients with aberrant pupillary responses, patients admitted in winter period and obese patients. Also low mean arterial PH, oxygen saturation and mean diastolic BP and high total leukocyte count and potassium were significantly associated with mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micropiling is an extensively used method for improving the stability of building foundations and load-carrying capacity of the soil. Unlike regular piling, it can be employed without pile driving equipment and, hence, it is a versatile option of soil reinforcement under space-restricted situations. Since, it is an economical and easy to implement option for soil improvement, this paper intends to study the improvement in bearing capacity and settlement behaviour of a fly-ash bed using fine micropiles under isolated footings, for low-cast and lightweight structures. Fly-ash, a by-product of coal-fired power plants, is used in the experiment because it is extensively used as a filling material for housing projects in low-lying areas and pavements. Micropiles were installed underneath the footing as well as beyond the periphery of footing with varied spacing and extent ratio. The results are depicted through two dimensionless constants, namely bearing capacity ratio (BCR) and settlement reduction factor (SRF). Significant improvements have been observed in load-carrying capacity and settlement potential due to decrease in spacing and increase in lateral extent of micropiles. The optimum configuration of spacing and lateral extend achieved 135% bearing capacity improvement with 71% decrease in settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the reaction function of monetary authority in India from 1997Q1 to 2019Q4 using nonlinear Taylor rule. It has been found that monetary policy reaction function (MPRF) in India is asymmetric and is influenced by the state of the economy, determined by the lagged interest rate. To capture such asymmetry, we have used a set of nonlinear models including smooth transition regression (STR) model, threshold regression (TR) model and Markov-switching regression (MSR) model along with the instrumental variable estimation technique. The analysis discloses that the behaviour of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is asymmetric, reacts aggressively to output gap in general and particularly during periods of high interest rate. Furthermore, the RBI reacts more to inflation and output gap during low volatile regimes in MSR models compared to high volatile regimes. We also found that there is a high degree of inertia in the policy rates of the RBI. The study concludes that nonlinear models may not only help in understanding the behaviour of the RBI but also prevent from making incorrect and misleading conclusions in Indian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes Inflation Openness (IO) relationship in an asymmetric framework using lag inflation, lag external debt and lag output growth as transition variables. Considering a Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) model with annual data of 41 developing countries for a period of 45 years from 1972 to 2016, we found a clear negative relationship between inflation and openness. This relationship becomes strong during periods of high inflation, high output growth and low external debt. We argue that though openness reduces inflation, its impact varies depending upon the state of the economy. We conclude that analysing the IO relationship using a linear framework may result in inaccurate and misleading outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study of a 20-year-old, unmarried male presented to the emergency department with complaints of severe throbbing headache, neck stiffness, and vomiting for six days. He underwent a series of examinations and was diagnosed to have meningitis retention syndrome (MRS) that is associated with with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) meningitis following the development of urinary retention that was administered by catheterization.

Drought stress is the major limiting factor for wheat productivity all over the world. Because of severe limitations imposed by drought, development of cultivars with improved productivity under water stress is important for water deficit regions. For this purpose, a set of 24 advanced wheat lines along with four check cultivars was evaluated under irrigated (non-stress) and rainfed (stress) conditions during 2009-10 at the University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Analysis across two environments revealed significant diversity (P⩽0.01) between the two production environments for grain yield and weeds density. The available wheat germplasm was significantly different from each other and drought stress also significantly affected the grain yield of wheat genotypes. Interestingly, wheat genotypes BRF3, Pirsabak-2005 and BVI(N)12 gave better yield under water stress condition by 859, 463, and 115 kg ha-1, respectively than by optimum conditions. Densities of weeds were also significantly reduced under drought stress condition. Thus, drought stress can effectively be tackled with genotypes that perform better under water stress conditions. It can be inferred that maximum wheat germplasm should be collected from different parts of the world to cope with the alarming food situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]