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Vitamin D deficiency has emerged as a significant public health problem throughout the world. Even in the Indian context, it has been reported to be present in majority of children in spite of wide availability of sunlight. Our objective was to evaluateSerum Vitamin D Level in Vitamin D Supplemented 9 to 12 Months Old Children in a Tertiary Care Hospital. A cross sectional study was conducted in the patients aged 9 months to 12 months attending Out Patient Department and Ward of Tertiary care mother and child hospital, Department. of Paediatrics between April, 2019 to March, 2020.Blood sample was collected and analysed by the Electrochemiluminescence Immunoassay (ECLIA) with the help of HITACHI Elecsys Cobas E411 to estimate 25-OH-D level after getting proper consent. The study done among 100 Vitamin D Supplemented 9 to 12 Months Old Children in a Tertiary Care Hospital resulted standard error 0.0952 and standard deviation 0. 9522. The children who had regularly taken vitamin D3 at 400IU/day since birth showed minimum vitamin D3 level at 22.34ng/ml and maximum vitamin D3 level found is 98.18ng/ml with a mean value of 40.67ng/ml that is sufficient. In our study we have found that if children are given vitamin D3 regularly since birth at 400IU/day the attain desired serum vitamin D3 level irrespective of the brand/preparation.

Eight (8) distinct lithofacies within the fluviatile reach of the Tista River have been recognized by the detailed study of the sediments as exposed along the river bank and river bars. Genetically, the matrix-supported conglomerate (Gms), massive sand (Sm), Trough cross stratified sand (St), planar cross stratified sand (Sp), ripple laminated sand (Sr) comprise the channel deposits whereas, the ripple laminated sand (Sr), parallel laminated sand (Sh), clay with silt (Fl) and massive Clay (Fm) represent overbank fine deposits. The channel deposits were laid down under relatively high energy conditions compared to the sediments of overbank fines. The stratigraphic succession is indicative of fining upward sequence. The dominance of coarser-grained sediments at the base of the lithostratigraphic unit, especially the matrix supported conglomerate (Gms) suggests that the deposition took place in the proximal part of the Tista Fan, which might be of glacial origin. Massive clay (Fm) is the final stage of vertical aggradations in the overbanks, possibly in the floodplains, flood basins, and back swamps when the velocity of the transporting medium was virtually lean that promotes the deposition of clay materials from suspension. The growth of cracks in the sedimentary succession is resulting from the compaction of the sediments and/or instant change in the paleoslope direction. The unimodal distribution of paleocurrent data with high mode value indicates mainly unidirectional sediment transport. The study of the lithofacies manifests that the deposits are produced by the braided river and debris flows. The modification of the depositional pattern from debris flow to overbank fines discloses the change of climatic condition in the Quaternary period.

With an increased understanding of the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in cancer evolution, there is a growing interest in the use of these non-coding nucleic acids in cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment monitoring. miRNAs embedded in extracellular vesicles (EVs) are of particular interest given that circulating EVs carry cargo that are strongly correlated to their cells of origin such as tumor cells while protecting them from degradation. As such, there is a tremendous interest in new simple-to-operate vesicular microRNA analysis tools for widespread use in performing liquid biopsies. Herein, we present a two-step competitive hybridization assay that is rationally designed to translate low microRNA concentrations to large electrochemical signals as the measured signal is inversely proportional to the microRNA concentration. Using this assay, with a limit-of-detection of 122 aM, we successfully analyzed vesicular miRNA 200b from prostate cancer cell lines and human urine samples, demonstrating the expected lower expression levels of miRNA 200b in the EVs from prostate cancer cells and in the prostate cancer patient's urine samples compared to healthy patients and non-tumorigenic cell lines, validating the suitability of our approach for clinical analysis.

The geochemical analysis of the shallow aquifer sediments of the area of investigation reveals that they are acidic in nature. The mean electrical conductivity of the deposits is 1.16 dS/m that indicates very low or negligible effects of salinity of the sediments of the Rangpur division. The median values of the concentrations of total organic carbon, total nitrogen and sulphur are 0.20%, 0.02% and 58.68 mg/kg, respectively. The trend of the average heavy metal concentrations of the investigated area can be shown as Fe > As > Cu > Zn. The average concentrations of arsenic of the sediments of the study area are 3.52 mg/kg. Sulphur is significantly, positively correlated with copper and zinc (p

INTRODUCTION: Prevalence estimates for developmental delay are scarce for eastern India. The main objective of the study was to estimate the prevalence of developmental delay amongst apparently neurologically normal children admitted to the general paediatrics ward. We also aimed to ascertain associations between developmental delay and known or suspected precedents and risk factors for developmental delay. METHODS: A prospective, cross-sectional and observational study was conducted on in-patients in the general paediatrics ward. A pretested and predesigned questionnaire was administered to the attendant on the day of the discharge. Information was gathered regarding patients’ demographics, parent’s socio-economic and educational status, relevant history that is known or suspected to cause developmental delay. Achievement of developmental milestones was assessed as per the Trivandrum Development Screening Chart (TDSC) for 0-3 years. Chi-square tests were done and p RESULT: The prevalence of developmental delay was 23.13% amongst 134 children. Developmental delay had a significant association with child’s age (p-value:0.0007), preterm delivery (p-value:0.0012), histories of birth asphyxia (p-value:0.0066) and neonatal seizure (p-value:0.0093). CONCLUSION: A significant proportion of apparently normal children have developmental delay. Measures to detect these cases can help to institute early intervention and prevent long-term sequelae.

The harmonic series diverges. But, Kempner [A curious convergent series, Amer. Math Monthly 21 (1914) 48–50] proved that by removing those terms from the harmonic series whose denominators contain a digit [Formula: see text] anywhere, the resulting sub-series converges. Thus, Kempner allowed no 9’s at all, but in this short note, we allow 9’s with some restrictions and without tampering the convergence of the resultant series. Some results of our note generalize a recent note of Mukherjee and Sarkar [A short note on a curious convergent series, Asian-Eur. J. Math. 14(09) (2021) 2150158, doi:10.1142/S1793557121501588 ].

In this paper, we prove some value distribution results which lead to some normality criteria for a family of analytic functions. These results improve some recent results., 7 pages

The present research work deals with the hydrochemical nature of the groundwater samples of the Dharla and the Tista River floodplains of Kurigram district, Bangladesh. The mechanism of groundwater chemistry was studied from the Gibbs plot and it can be summarized that precipitation and rock-water interaction are the major factors that influence the groundwater chemistry. The first four factors comprise 83.243% of the total variability of the groundwater samples of the Dharla floodplain aquifer whereas in case of the groundwater of the aquifers of the Tista floodplain first five factors constitute the 81.298% of the total variability of the original data. The study shows the dominance of HCO3-1 in the anionic part of the groundwater. More than 73.68% of the groundwater samples of the aquifers of the Tista floodplain exceed the maximum permissible limit of WHO for arsenic. The groundwater samples from the Tista floodplain especially from some parts of Rajarhat have high concentrations of iron. The first factor of the Dharla floodplain is dominated by iron and HCO3-1 ions which suggests the derivation of iron in the groundwater of the study area from the chemical weathering of siderite (FeCO3).

Introduction: The free iron and haemosiderosis-induced damage of the endocrine glands cause endocrinopathies such as abnormal glucose tolerance and hypothyroidism in transfusion - dependent beta-thalassemia major patients. Our objective was to study the association of serum ferritin level with thyroid dysfunctions; abnormal blood glucose tolerance and to see if they appear in the earlier period of life. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done among thalassemia major children of two to 12 years in a tertiary care hospital, Kolkata, India. A pre-designed proforma was filled. Serum ferritin, fT4, TSH level, and oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) were measured at presentation and noted in proforma. Results: A total of 80 thalassemic children were studied. Fiftieth percentile cut off value (1414 ng/ml) of serum ferritin was found to be significant with associated variables like normal fT4, TSH, and OGTT. Out of all study subjects, 39 (51.3%) of normal fT4, 39 (54.9%) of normal TSH and 39 (52.0%) of normal OGTT had ferritin < 50th percentile (P < 0.05). Nine (11.3%) children had abnormal thyroid profiles and five (6.3%) children had abnormal OGTT having ferritin > 2000 ng/ml. At a cut off value of ferritin level > 1414 ng/ml, fT4, TSH and OGTT showed significant abnormality (p < 0.05 with df 1). Conclusions: Ferritin is a good indirect marker to assess the risk of endocrine abnormality in thalassemic children. Frequent monitoring should be done once ferritin level crosses 1000 ng/ml. This will help in early detection and timely management of thalassemia related endocrinopathies.

Background: Neonatal sepsis remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among neonates and clinical manifestations are non-specific. Delayed identification and inappropriate treatment remain as key factors causing high neonatal mortality. Increasing emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms reduces antibiotic options. Hence there is a need for institutional guidelines based on local microbial prevalence and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns.Methods: Blood cultures were collected from all suspected cases prior to the initiation of antimicrobial therapy. Neonatal sepsis with positive blood culture cases is included in the study.Results: Among 170 neonate blood culture was positive in 41 neonates (preterm - 71% and term neonate - 29%). Early onset neonatal sepsis (EONS) constituted 61% and Late onset neonatal sepsis (LONS) constituted 39%. Respiratory distress, hypoglycaemia, seizures, lethargy were more common presentations in EONS while cellulitis, sclerema, septic arthritis, loose stool, vomiting, blood in stool, hyperthermia and recurrent apnoea were more common presentations in LONS. Gram positive organisms constituted 51.2%, gram negative organisms were 46.3%, fungi were 9.8% of total pathogens. Among gram positive cons (43.9%) was most common while amongst gram negative Klebsiella (22%) was most common. Candida peliculosa was the most commonly isolated fungus. Cons, staphylococcus and enterococcus were seen to be 100% sensitive to linezolid. Enterococcus also showed 100% sensitivity to vancomycin, teicoplanin and tigecycline. Gram-positive bacteria showed the highest sensitivity to linezolid and vancomycin. Acinetobacter baumanii showed 80% sensitivity to gentamicin, 60% sensitivity to tigecycline and colistin. E. coli showed 66% sensitivity to tigecycline.Conclusions: We were able to analyze common causative pathogens, associated risk factors, and the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of neonatal sepsis.

Biosensors combine biorecognition with signal transduction for analyzing biologically-relevant analytes. Nucleic acids are powerful building blocks for biosensors and are used both for biorecognition and facilitating signal transduction. In this talk, we will show that functional nucleic acids can be specifically engineered for electrochemical signal transduction. We develop both aptamers and DNAzymes that are designed for electrochemical signal transduction. Electrochemical biosensors relying on functional nucleic acids are used herein to detect bacterial and viral infectious diseases in native clinical samples such as saliva and urine. In addition to electrochemical signal transduction, we show that nucleic acids serve as powerful tools in photoelectrochemical signal transduction. We use double stranded DNA for biorecognition and for serving as a nano-ruler for tuning the separation between a photoelectrochemical label and the electrode surface. This allows us to switch the signal transduction capability of the system between signal-on and signal-off. Additionally, engineering functional nucleic acids for photoelectrochemical signal transduction, enabled us to develop a new class of pathogen biosensors. These biosensors are used in direct analysis of bacteria in water.

This paper studies the uniqueness of two non-integral finite ordered meromorphic functions with finitely many poles when they share two finite sets. Also, studies an answer to a question posed by Gross for a particular class of meromorphic functions. Moreover, some observations are made on some results due to Sahoo and Karmakar ( Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Mathematica, DOI: 10.2478/ausm-2018-0025) and Sahoo and Sarkar (Bol. Soc. Mat. Mex., DOI: 10.1007/s40590-019-00260-4)., 11 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2005.00374

Wearable biosensors are critical for enabling real-time and continuous health monitoring and disease management. Conductors that retain their conductivity under strain are an essential building block of these systems. Strategies based on stretchable materials or structures have enabled the development of electrodes that can withstand impressive strains before loss of conductivity. In spite of this, it remains challenging to develop three-dimensional and high surface area electrodes that combine stretchability with high analytical sensitivity. Here, we develop stretchable electrochemical biosensors using solution-processed wrinkled gold electrodes. Wrinkling enhances the surface area of the electrodes and allows glucose to be detected with a sensitivity of 750-810 μA M-1 cm-2. Furthermore, wrinkling enables electrodes to be strained by up to 230% without significant loss in conductivity.

Photoelectrochemistry combines light excitation with electrochemical readout for lowering the bias voltage needed for performing electrochemical reactions. As a result, when used in biosensing, photoelectrochemical signal readout reduces the background signals, lowering the limit-of-detection of such biosensors. To enable photoelectrochemical (PEC) signal readout to be applied to point-of-need biosensing, we have taken a three tiered approach focused on improving the understanding of signal transduction in PEC Biosensing, developing label-free assays, and creating handheld readout platforms. In this work, we developed a system using DNA as a nano-ruler to control the distance between plasmonic nanoparticles and PEC electrodes. This system was used to rationally-design PEC material systems for signal-on biosensing. Using this materials architecture, we developed a signal-on biosensor without target labeling for detecting DNA hybridization. This assay uses sequential DNA hybridization to generate a PEC signal. First, the DNA target is captured on probe-modified photoelectrodes. This is followed by hybridization of the unbound probes with DNA strands modified with plasmonic labels. The plasmonic label modulates the PEC signal, increasing the measured PEC current at low target concentrations. To enable biosensing at the point-of-need, we also developed a handheld PEC reader. The integration of plasmonic nanoparticles with PEC electrodes, label-free DNA assays, and handheld PEC readout paves the way toward bringing point-of-need PEC Biosensing.

Photoelectrochemical biosensors hold great promise for sensitive bioanalysis; however, similar to their electrochemical analogues, they are highly affected by the variable backgrounds caused by biological matrices. We developed a new PEC biosensing strategy that uses differential signal generation, combining signals from two separate but correlated binding events on the biosensor, for improving the limit-of-detection, sensitivity, and specificity of PEC DNA biosensors in biological samples. In this assay, the binding of unlabeled target DNA is followed by the capture of a signal amplification barcode featuring a plasmonic nanoparticle. The interaction of the plasmonic barcode with the semiconductive building blocks of the biosensor results in significant signal amplification, and together with differential signal processing enhances the limit of detection and sensitivity of the assay by up to 15- and three-fold, respectively, compared to the previously-used PEC assays with a single binding event, demonstrating a limit of detection of 3 fM.

Photoactive electrodes with high photon-to-electron conversion efficiency are key to achieving sensitive photoelectrochemical sensors. Among all the photoactive materials, titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles have attracted much attention due to their unique electronic and optical properties. However, the large bandgap of TiO2 results in limited photocurrent signal generation under visible irradiation, which is important for its use in many applications including sensing. Herein, we modified TiO2 nanoparticles with both pyrocatechol violet and graphene quantum dots to obtain high photocurrents at visible light excitation while also improving TiO2 nanoparticle dispersion and film-forming properties. This material system enhances photocurrent by 5 times compared to TiO2 nanoparticles that are modified with only pyrocatechol violet and 60 times compared to TiO2 nanoparticles modified with graphene quantum dots. Additionally, the optimized photoelectrodes were used to detect hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), which has been reported as a toxic carcinogen. Under visible light irradiation, the fabricated sensor offered a low limit-of-detection of 0.04 μM for Cr(VI), with selectivity against Na, Mg, Cu, and Cr (III) ions, paving the route toward photoelectrochemical Cr(VI) sensing.

As dynamic biorecognition agents such as functional nucleic acids become widely used in biosensing, there is a need for ultrasensitive signal transduction strategies, beyond fluorescence, that are robust and stable for operation in heterogeneous biological samples. Photoelectrochemical readout offers a pathway toward this goal as it offers the simplicity and scalability of electrochemical readout, in addition to compatibility with a broad range of nanomaterials used as labels for signal transduction. Here, a differential photoelectrochemical biosensing approach is reported, in which DNA nanospacers are used to program the response of two sensing channels. The differences in the motional dynamics of DNA probes immobilized on different channels are used to control the interaction between Au and TiO

Recent studies have shown the importance of Ub/proteasome pathway in regulating transcription for proper synchronization of gene expression. Using yeast two-hybrid screening, we have identified an Arabidopsis RING-H2 type of E3 ubiquitin ligase, AtATL79 that interacts with ARID-HMG protein AtHMGB15 mainly through the ARID domain. Sequence analysis of the RING domain of AtATL79 indicates the presence of conserved six Cys and two His residue that coordinate two Zn⁺² ions. AtATL79 is a membrane-bound protein that colocalizes with AtHMGB15 in the nucleus. AtATL79 is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that self-ubiquitinates at Lys 76 residue in vitro. Moreover, AtHMGB15 was found to be polyubiquitinated by AtATL79 both in vitro and in vivo at lysine residue 420. Interestingly, polyubiquitination of AtHMGB15 was observed in various tissues of Arabidopsis, and its stability significantly increases in the presence of 26S proteasome inhibitor MG132. Our results suggest that the Ub/26S proteasome system regulates cellular AtHMGB15 protein level in different tissues of Arabidopsis to regulate the spatiotemporal activity of the protein.

Let $f$ be a transcendental meromorphic function defined in the complex plane $\mathbb{C}$. We consider the value distribution of the differential polynomial $f^{q_{0}}(f^{(k)})^{q_{k}}$, where $q_{0}(\geq 2), q_{k}(\geq 1)$ are $k(\geq1)$ non-negative integers. We obtain a quantitative estimation of the characteristic function $T(r, f)$ in terms of $\overline{N}\left(r,\frac{1}{f^{q_{_{0}}}(f^{(k)})^{q_{k}}-1}\right)$.\par Our result generalizes the results obtained by Xu et al. (Math. Inequal. Appl., 14, 93-100, 2011) and Karmakar and Sahoo (Results Math., 73, 2018) for a particular class of transcendental meromorphic functions., 10 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1903.10940

We report a case of sirenomelia baby (Mermaid syndrome) born to a twenty three years old female at 37 weeks of gestation. Sirenomelia is characterized by fusion of the lower limbs with absent kidneys, absent external genitalia and other gastrointestinal defects. It results from the failure of normal vascular supply from the lower aorta in vitro, maternal Diabetes mellitus has been associated with caudal regression syndrome and sirenomelia.

Background: A comparison study of two natural surfactants in preterm babies admitted in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and sick newborn care unit (SNCU) of a tertiary care hospital to find out efficacy and consequences.Methods: A Quasi-experimental study. InSurE technique applied for administering Poractant alfa (CUROSURF) and bovine surfactant (NEOSURF) in two comparison group of preterm neonates with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) during May 2018 to April 2019. The need of mechanical ventilation, oxygen requirement (FiO2), duration of oxygen requirement and the consequences were assessed.Results: The CUROSURF is 6.67% more efficacious than NEOSURF in respect to less requirement of mechanical ventilation. The differences were found between two groups in terms of FiO2adjusted (33.49% vs 37.17%) and common side effects respectively but the difference of mean duration of oxygenation (69.8 hrs vs 111.9 hrs) was less and statistically significant in CUROSURF group. Mean duration of hospitalization (9.55 day’s vs 14.9 days) also were found to be less and statistically significant.Conclusions: Treatment with CUROSURF was associated with faster improving oxygenation, less additional doses, and decreased need of mechanical ventilation.