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Biomedical subjects

R Ganesh

Publications and source records attributed to R Ganesh.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Crohn's disease presenting as palatal ulcer.

Crohn's disease (CD) in children younger than 5 years of age is termed as early onset inflammatory bowel disease (EO-IBD). We report a 4 yr 6 mo-old child with EO-IBD, who presented with palatal ulcer, an extra intestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease as the dominant feature.

Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal↗

Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding for severe obesity.

INTRODUCTION: Severe obesity is an increasing problem in Singapore. Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) was introduced at our hospital in 2001 as part of a comprehensive weight management programme. To assess the effectiveness of this procedure, our results to date have been reviewed. METHODS: A prospective database was kept of all patients undergoing LAGB and this was used to retrieve the information. RESULTS: 256 consecutive patients underwent LAGB from January 2001 up to December 2005. There were 163 females and 93 males, with a median age of 36 years (range 18-63 years). Median preoperative weight was 112.7 kg (range 71.5-204 kg) and median body mass index (BMI) was 41.9 (range 32-73). Three patients were converted from laparoscopic to open laparotomy (1.2 percent). 91 percent of patients were discharged home on the first postoperative day. There were seven hospital morbidities (2.7 percent) with one mortality (0.4 percent). During follow-up, 20 patients (7.8 percent) developed late complications requiring revision surgery. Ten were band complications, requiring revision or removal of the band. The other ten were minor access port or tubing complications. Median weight loss at one year was 27.6 kg (range 5.6-71.2 kg) and median excess weight loss, using a BMI of 23 as a baseline, was 51.7 percent (range 9-117.5 percent). Easily measurable comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension improved or resolved in 85.4 percent of patients. CONCLUSION: There is a clear demand for LAGB in Singapore. This has increased since the BMI thresholds for severe obesity were reduced in Asian patients. The surgery provides effective, lasting weight loss with improvement or resolution of comorbidity for most patients. LAGB has the advantages of allowing controlled weight loss and life-long treatment while being easily reversible. When compared to other bariatric surgical procedures, low hospital morbidity has to be offset against the closer follow-up required and the need for secondary surgical procedures in some patients.

Adolescent↗

Biodegradation of tannery wastewater using sequencing batch reactor--respirometric assessment.

This investigation proved that respirometry combined with sequencing batch reactor (SBR) could be an effective way for the removal of COD in tannery wastewater. Measurement of oxygen uptake rates (OUR) and corresponding COD uptake rates showed that a 12-h operating cycle was optimum for tannery wastewater. The removal of COD by degradation was stoichiometric with oxygen usage. A plot of OUR values provided a good indication of the biological activity in the reactor. A high OUR value corresponded to the feed period; at the end of the cycle, when the substrate was depleted, the OUR value was low. At a 12-h SBR cycle with a loading rate of 1.9-2.1 kgm(-3) d(-1), removal of 80-82% COD, 78-80% TKN and 83-99% NH(3)-N were achieved. These removal efficiencies were much higher than the conventional aerobic systems. A simple method of COD fractionation was performed from the OUR and COD uptake rate data of the SBR cycle. About 66-70% of the influent COD was found to be readily biodegradable, 10-14% was slowly degradable and 17-21% was non-biodegradable. The oxygen mass transfer coefficient, K(L)a (19 +/- 1.7 h(-1)) was derived from respirometry. It was observed that with the exception of high organic load at the initial feed the oxygen transfer capacity was in excess of the OUR, and aerobic condition was generally maintained. Simultaneous nitrification-denitrification was observed in the SBR during the feed period as proved by mass balance.

Biodegradation, Environmental↗

Global gyrokinetic stability of pressure-gradient-driven electromagnetic modes in tokamaks with regions of low shear.

Tokamaks with large pressure gradients (alpha(max)) formed in regions of weak magnetic shear are shown to be susceptible to novel, low-n, global, kinetic, electromagnetic modes with a toroidal mode number n in the range 2</=n</=12. For a weakly varying monotonic safety factor profile q with its minimum q(min)>1 on the magnetic axis and alpha(max) near q(min), new, global kinetic infernal modes with a strong mode rotation omega(r) and a finite growth rate gamma<|omega(r)| are found. For equilibria with reverse shear where q(min) is off axis and alpha(max) near q(min), the existence of an unstable low-n global branch of Alfve n ion temperature gradient modes is revealed with an oscillatory gamma as a function of n. The addition of trapped electron dynamics is shown to be further destabilizing.

Journal Article↗

Myelofibrosis and vitamin D deficient rickets--a rare association.

Myelofibrosis is a rare hematological condition in infancy. We report a case of a 6-month-old infant who was diagnosed to have myelofibrosis due to Vitamin D deficient rickets. This rare association of myelofibrosis and rickets is discussed here with a review of relevant literature.

Fatal Outcome↗

Parotid abscess in Singapore.

INTRODUCTION: In most parts of the world, acute parotid abscess is a rare pathology. It occurs mainly in elderly debilitated patients and patients with oral sepsis. In Singapore, this lesion appears to be more common. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed all patients admitted to our hospital over a three-year period with parotid abscess. RESULTS: Ten patients were treated for parotid abscess. Only two of these patients were elderly and debilitated. The remaining patients were atypical in that they were relatively young and fit with no history of oral sepsis. All the abscesses responded to simple drainage and antibiotic therapy without the need to resort to the radical drainage techniques reported historically. CONCLUSION: Parotid abscess is seen in an unusually young cohort of patients in Singapore. The cause for this is unclear but it may be a result of chronic oral dehydration as a consequence of our climate.

Abscess↗

MOPAC: motif finding by preprocessing and agglomerative clustering from microarrays.

We propose a novel strategy for discovering motifs from gene expression data. The gene expression data in our experiments comes from DNA Microarray analysis of the bacterium E. coli in response to recovery from nutrient starvation. We have annotated the data and identified the upregulated genes. Our interest is to find common regulatory motifs that are responsible for the upregulation of these specific genes. We assume that a common motif that a regulatory protein can bind to will be present in the upstream region of the upregulated genes and will not be present in the upstream regions of genes that showed a constant level of expression over time. Our objective is to find the common motifs that are present in at least some of the upstream sequences of upregulated genes and not present in the control set, which is the set of genes whose expression remained the same. Because it is possible that there could be several subsets of co-regulated genes under different control mechanisms among the co-expressed genes, we do not want to require motifs to be present in all upregulated sequences. Therefore, we propose a new algorithm for finding such motifs through stages of pre-processing, denoising, agglomerative clustering and consensus checking. Through this process, we have found some motifs that are good candidates for further validation.

Algorithms↗

Statistical mechanics of axisymmetric vortex rings.

We construct maximum entropy states of a collection of interacting uniform (omega/R=const) axisymmetric vortex rings in a semiperiodic bounded volume. Following Miller [Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 2137 (1990)] and Robert and Sommeria [J. Fluid Mech. 229, 291 (1991)], we obtain an equilibrium measure that preserves all the ideal invariants such as the total energy, total impulse, circulation, and an infinity of Casimirs. The numerical solution for a wide range of total flow energy and for given values of total circulation and total impulse is presented.

Journal Article↗

Phase transitions in Euler fluids.

Phase transitions in two-dimensional (2D) Euler fluids are studied using mean field theory (MFT) solutions and Monte Carlo simulations. The MFT solutions show the possibility of first and second order phase transitions and the critical pointlike behavior. The simulations of the dynamics of 2D vortex patches agree with the MFT solutions over a wide range of parameters except at high energies where there are deviations between the two.

Journal Article↗

High-level periplasmic expression in Escherichia coli using a eukaryotic signal peptide: importance of codon usage at the 5' end of the coding sequence.

We investigated the ability of signal peptides of eukaryotic origin (human, mouse, and yeast) to efficiently direct model proteins to the Escherichia coli periplasm. These were compared against a well-characterized prokaryotic signal peptide-OmpA. Surprisingly, eukaryotic signal peptides can work very efficiently in E. coli, but require optimization of codon usage by codon-based mutagenesis of the signal peptide coding region. Analysis of the 5' of periplasmic and cytoplasmic E. coli genes shows some codon usage differences.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Ectopic pregnancy: uncommon presentations and difficulty in diagnosis.

Diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy prior to rupture is an arduous task even with the availability of many new investigative methods and imaging modalities. Above all, a high index of suspicion is necessary when dealing with women who present in early pregnancy with abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. With the increased use of ovulation induction agents, the probability of heterotropic pregnancy should be kept in mind. The use of transvaginal ultrasonography (TVS) will help in earlier diagnosis because of its advantages over transabdominal ultrasonography (TAS).

Adult↗

The in vivo and in vitro characterisation of an engineered human antibody to E-selectin.

BACKGROUND: E-selectin is an endothelial cell specific adhesion molecule that is believed to play an important role in the early stages of leukocyte extravasation. OBJECTIVES: Here we describe the construction and evaluation of an engineered human monoclonal antibody that blocks E-selectin function. RESULTS: SPLAT-1 is an engineered human monoclonal antibody that has a very similar affinity for E-selectin as its murine parent antibody. In vitro SPLAT-1 blocks the binding of human leukocytes to E-selectin and does not mediate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) or complement-mediated lysis of endothelial cells. In vivo, SPLAT-1 inhibits the recruitment of leukocytes to cytokine-inflamed human skin grafted on to SCID mice and has a long circulating half-life in primates. It does not appear to provoke an immune response in primates even on repeat administration. CONCLUSIONS: SPLAT-1 has the characteristics of a antibody suitable for human therapy studies.

Animals↗

Reduction of hexavalent uranium from organic complexes by sulfate- and iron-reducing bacteria.

The influence of organic-hexavalent-uranium [U(VI)] complexation on U(VI) reduction by a sulfate-reducing bacterium (Desulfovibrio desulfuricans) and an iron-reducing bacterium (Shewanella alga) was evaluated. Four aliphatic ligands (acetate, malonate, oxalate, and citrate) and an aromatic ligand (tiron [4,5-dihydroxy-1,3-benzene disulfonic acid]) were used to study complexed-uranium bioavailability. The trends in uranium reduction varied with the nature and the amount of U(VI)-organic complex formed and the type of bacteria present. D. desulfuricans rapidly reduced uranium from a monodentate aliphatic (acetate) complex. However, reduction from multidentate aliphatic complexes (malonate, oxalate, and citrate) was slower. A decrease in the amount of organic-U(VI) complex in solution significantly increased the rate of reduction. S. alga reduced uranium more rapidly from multidentate aliphatic complexes than from monodentate aliphatic complexes. The rate of reduction decreased with a decrease in the amount of multidentate complexes present. Uranium from an aromatic (tiron) complex was readily available for reduction by D. desulfuricans, while an insignificant level of U(VI) from the tiron complex was reduced by S. alga. These results indicate that selection of bacteria for rapid uranium reduction will depend on the organic composition of waste streams.

Journal Article↗

Seasonal abundance, biting cycle and parity of the mosquito Haemagogus leucocelaenus in Trinidad, West Indies.

Adult female populations of Haemagogus leucocelaenus (Dyar and Shannon), the sylvan vector of yellow fever, were monitored weekly during 1981-82 by human collectors on the ground at Point Gourde in Chaguaramas Forest, 16 km west of Port of Spain, Trinidad. Hg.leucocelaenus showed only diurnal landing activity, from 06.00 to 18.00 hours (sunrise to sunset, universal time), with a single peak of activity between 10.00 and 14.00 hours. Densities of Hg.leucocelaenus during the wet season (May-November) were about double the level recorded during the dry season (December-April). Monthly parous rates averaged 53.9% (range 25-90%) and some females were up to five-pars. Retained eggs (range 2-6, mean 4/female) were found in the ovaries of 0.34% of landing females, all of which had stage 1 ovarian follicles for the next gonotrophic cycle. Therefore blood-feeding is not inhibited by egg retention. Hg.leucocelaenus vector potential is reappraised in the light of these findings.

Age Factors↗

A study of hyperinsulinaemia in Indian hypertensive subjects.

Fasting and 2 hours post-prandial serum insulin levels were estimated in 100 hypertensive subjects and 25 matched, healthy controls, by radio-immuno assay (RIA). Seventy four of the 100 hypertensives exhibited fasting hyperinsulinaemia. Post-prandial hyperinsulinaemia was present in 85 hypertensives. None of the healthy individuals demonstrated hyperinsulinaemia. Although, most hyperinsulinaemic patients exhibited an abnormal lipo-protein profile, there was no statistical correlation between absolute values of lipo-protein and insulin.

Chronic Disease↗

Seasonality, biting cycle and parity of the yellow fever vector mosquito Haemagogus janthinomys in Trinidad.

1. Age composition, seasonal abundance and diel patterns of landing activity of the sylvan vector of yellow fever Haemagogus janthinomys Dyar were monitored weekly during 1981-82 by human collectors on the ground at Point Gourde in Chaguaramas Forest, 16 km west of Port of Spain, Trinidad. 2. Landing collections of Hg. janthinomys showed only diurnal activity, from 06.00 to 18.00 (sunrise to sunset, universal time), with a single peak of activity between 10.00 and 16.00 hours. 3. Densities of Hg. janthinomys were about 6 times greater during the wet season (May-November) than during the dry season (December-April); the annual Williams' mean landing rate on two collectors was 9.3 per day. 4. Monthly parous rates averaged 59% (range 0-86%) and some females were up to seven-pars. Retained eggs (range 1-21, mean 7.7/female) were found in the ovaries of 1.3% of landing females, all of which had stage I ovarian follicles for the next gonotrophic cycle. Hence blood-feeding is not inhibited by egg retention, which might promote transovarial transmission of virus. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to yellow fever epidemiology.

Animals↗