40 research outputs found
Association of human interleukin-35 level in gingival crevicular fluid and serum in periodontal health, disease, and after nonsurgical therapy: A comparative study
No full textBackground: Innovating newer methods to diagnose a multifactorial disease such as periodontitis is always challenging for a clinician. Gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) which is closely associated with the periodontal tissue environment has been used a viable alternative to saliva for the diagnosis of periodontitis. Aim: The aim of the present study was to estimate and compare the interleukin-35 (IL-35) levels in GCF and serum among healthy, gingivitis, and chronic periodontitis (CP) individuals as well as to evaluate the effect of nonsurgical periodontal treatment (NSPT) on IL-35 level among patients with CP. Settings and Design: The study was conducted at the Department of Periodontics, Srirama Chandra Bhanja Dental College and Hospital, Cuttack, Odisha, India. It is a comparative study. Materials and Methods: A total of 60 participants were divided into healthy (Group I; n = 20), gingivitis (Group II; n = 20), and CP (Group IIIA; n = 20). GCF samples collected from each individual at baseline and 6 weeks after NSPT for Group III individuals (Group IIIB; n = 20) were quantified for IL-35 levels using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Statistical Analysis: All analyses were performed using Shapiro–Wilk test, analysis of variance, Tukey's honestly significant difference post hoc test, and multiple regression analysis. Results: The mean IL-35 concentration in GCF was significantly high (P < 0.05) for Group IIIA (70.26 ± 4.0 pg/ml), as compared to Group I (54.81 ± 22.3 pg/ml) and Group IIIB (55.72 ± 10.2 pg/ml). Conclusion: In the present study, GCF and serum IL-35 concentration among CP individuals was highest among all the groups. Individuals receiving NSPT showed a significant reduction in IL-35 levels as compared to CP individuals
Product differentiation and the relative importance of wine attributes: U.S. retail prices
Get PDFThis paper investigates the relative importance of various attributes, including varietal, brands, and geographic origin, in explaining retail wine prices for the United States market. We use a metric based on the Shapely value, from cooperative game theory, in the context of an empirical hedonic price equation estimated using a large sample of retail wine sales for home consumption over the period 2007–2019. We find that brands alone explain more than 70% of the variation in wine prices, but geographic origin and varietals retain additional explanatory power. Furthermore, information about the geographic origin appears to be a considerably more important attribute than varietals.This article is published as Chandra, R., & Moschini, G. (2022). Product differentiation and the relative importance of wine attributes: U.S. retail prices. Journal of Wine Economics, 17(3), 177-208. doi:10.1017/jwe.2022.23.© The Author(s), 2022. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Multi-Armed Bandit Learning Approach with Entropy Measures for Effective Heterogeneous Networks Handover Scheme
No full textLobular capillary hemangioma with an intraosseous feeder vessel through an accessory buccal foramen in the mandible: A unique case report
No full textThe aim of this case report is to present a unique and rare finding in a 29-year-old male with the chief complaint of swelling in the gums related to the back teeth of the lower left jaw, since 20 days. In the absence of any alarming findings on the intraoral periapical radiograph and blood profile, an excisional biopsy of the provisionally diagnosed pyogenic granuloma was planned with a high-power diode LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Following the excision, an unusual amount of bleeding was encountered from a single point on the buccal cortical plate between the teeth #35 and #36. On reevaluating the left face with advanced radiodiagnostic methods, an accessory buccal foramen was reported distal to #35 which housed a thin, tortuous, and aberrant branch of the inferior alveolar artery. The swelling was histopathologically diagnosed as lobular capillary hemangioma, and the aberrant artery was labeled as its feeder vessel. The patient had no episode of recurrence until 2 years of follow-up
Variation of soil properties under different land use systems in mid-hills of Nepal
Get PDFThis research was conducted in four VDCs of Darechok from Chitwan, Sarangkot from Kaski, Tilhar from Parbat and Bhatkhola from Syangja including two components of field research survey and soil sampling in 2014/2015 to determine soil properties in different land use systems in relation to soil erosion and landslide. This was designed as a factor randomized complete block design with six treatments and land use systems replicated four times. There were six types of predominant land use systems namely perennial orchard, forest, maize based, vegetable based, fallow and rice based lands. Among different districts, soil of Kaski was loamy and that of Chitwan, Parbat and Syangja was sandy loam. Among the treatments, maize based system has the highest bulk density as compared to soils from other cropping systems while moisture percentage was the highest in rice based land use systems. The highest pH (6.02) in maize based agricultural land and that of the lowest (4.6) in forestland systems were observed. The highest organic matter (5.95 %) and nitrogen content (0.3050%) were in forests. Phosphorus was found significantly higher (98.25 kg/ha) in vegetable land. There was a positive correlation (R2=0.5381) between nitrogen and organic matter content and organic matter content and phosphorus content (R2=0.1026). The highest value of potassium (312 kg/ha) was detected in soils from maize based systems. Among different land use systems, forestland contains relatively higher amounts of nutrients than others. From both the risk factors and soil fertility point of view forest land use systems were the best among the treatments
Writing from the shadowlands: how cross-cultural literature negotiates the legacy of Edward Said
Get PDFThis thesis examines the impact of Edward Said's influential work Orientalism and its legacy in respect of contemporary reading and writing across cultures. It also questions the legitimacy of Said's retrospective stereotyping of early examples of cross-cultural representation in literature as uncompromisingly 'orientalist'.
It is well known that the release of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978 was responsible for the rise of a range of cultural and critical theories from multiculturalism to postcolonialism. It was a study that not only polarized critics and forced scholars to re-examine orientalist archives, but persuaded creative writers to re-think their ethnographic positions when it came to the literary representations of cultures other than their own. Without detracting from the enormous impact of Said, this thesis isolates gaps and silences in Said that need correcting. Furthermore, there is an element of intransigence, an uncompromising refusal to fine-tune what is essentially a binary discourse of the West and its other in Said's work, that encourages the continued interrogation of power relations but which, because of its very boldness, paradoxically disallows the extent to which the conflict of cultures indeed produced new, hybrid social and cultural formations.
In an attempt to challenge the severity of Said's claim that 'every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric', the thesis examines a number of different discursive contexts in which such a presumption is challenged. Thus while the second chapter discusses the 'traditional' profession-based orientalism of nineteenth-century E. G. Browne, the third considers the anti-imperialism of colonial administrator Leonard Woolf. The fourth chapter provides a reflection on the difficulties of diasporic 'orientalism' through the works of Michael Ondaatje while chapter five demonstrates the effects of the dialogism used by Amitav Ghosh as a defence against 'orientalism'. The thesis concludes with an examination of contemporary writing by Andrea Levy that appositely illustrates the legacy of Said's influence.
While the restrictive parameters of Said's work make it difficult to mount a thorough-going critique of Said, this thesis shows that, indeed, it is within the restraints of these parameters and in the very discourse that Said employs that he traps himself. This study claims that even Said is susceptible to 'orientalist' criticism in that he is as much an 'orientalist' as those at whom he directs his polemic
Comparison of ultrasound-guided abdominal nerve blocks and subarachnoid block as an anaesthetic technique for appendectomy: a retrospective study
No full textBackground: Ultrasound guided abdominal nerve blocks are increasingly being used for anaesthesia and analgesia for surgeries like appendectomy, hernia repair in our centre. The aim of the study was to compare abdominal nerve blocks and subarachnoid block for appendectomy.Method: Retrospective data of patients that underwent appendectomy either under subarachnoid block (Group-S) or abdominal nerve blocks (Group-A) for three months were collected from hospital records. The groups were compared for conversion to general anaesthesia as a primary end point of study and also for the time taken for the procedure, the first requirement of opioids, total opioid consumption and length of hospital stay.Result: Out of 116 patients studied, 75 surgeries were performed under subarachnoid block and 41 under abdominal plane blocks. Two patients in Group-S and 1 patient in Group-A were converted to general anaesthesia due to inadequate blockade. The time taken to perform the block was around four minutes in Group-S and 12 minutes in Group-A. The mean pethidine consumption in 24 hours was 62.33+16.63 mg and 23.17+15.19 mg in Group-S and Group-A respectively. The time to the first dose of pethidine in Group-S groups was 224.66+43.56 minutes and 813.17+361.80 minutes in Group-A. The mean duration of hospital stay in Group-S was 5.14+0.72 days and Group-A was 2.24+0.58 days.Conclusion: Appendectomy can be safely performed under subarachnoid block as well as the abdominal nerve blocks. The abdominal nerve block technique is found to be advantageous in terms of better postoperative analgesia, less opioid consumption and early hospital discharge.</jats:p
Representations of migrant and nation in selected works of Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie
Get PDFThis thesis explores the representations of, and the relationship between. the migrant and the nation in selected works of the Bombay-born novelists Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie. I explore each writer's engagement with contemporary debates surrounding the material, political, social and imaginative consequences of the crisis in secularism in India during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and consider how this engagement is informed by their
migrant positions beyond India's borders. A primary concern is the way in which Mistry's and Rushdie's representations of the nation, and of migrant and diasporic subjects, intersects with the representation of Bombay in their work.
This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first two chapters concentrate on Mistry's fiction, the remaining three on Rushdie's work. Published between 1988 and 2002, the central novels examined are situated within debates regarding the founding principles of the Indian nation, and notions of Indianness, the rise of communalism in general and Hindu nationalism in particular, and the renaming of Bombay as Mumbai. My readings foreground the necessity of a
close understanding of the historical and political transformations taking place within Bombay and India during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but also during the 1950s and 1960s. I argue that Mistry's and Rushdie's work is informed by a deepening anxiety over these socio-political transformations, and over how reconfigurations of Indianness increasingly position minority communities, and migrant and diasporic subjects, outside of definitions of national identity.
This anxiety extends into the negotiation of their own migrant positions. My reading of the differing representations of the migrant in Mistry's and Rushdie's work engages with ideas of accountability, political responsibility, and with notions of cosmopolitanism. In doing so, I question familiar assumptions regarding the migrant condition as one of predominantly empowering political agency. I argue that, while both authors emphasise the importance of the migrant sustaining a critical engagement with India's politics, they also foreground the anxious difficulties of doing so. This difficulty informs Mistry's and Rushdie's divergent negotiation of their own position as migrant writers, and I examine how their fiction is marked by an anxiety over the adequacy of writing as a mode of political engagement with the crisis in secularism and the parochialisation of Bombay, and as a means of negotiating the politics of migrancy
