In ovo administration of the Marek's disease vaccine in conjunction with 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 and its subsequent effects on the performance and immunity-related characteristics of Ross 708 broiler hatchlings1,2,3.

The combined effects of the in ovo injection of commercial Marek's disease vaccine (MDV) and various levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25OHD3) on the hatch variables, immunological measurements, and gene expression of Ross 708 hatchling broilers were investigated. A total of 5 in ovo injection treatments that were applied at 18 d of incubation (doi) included: 1) noninjected (control); or a 50 µL solution volume of 2) MDV alone; or MDV combined with 3) 0.6 µg of 25OHD3; 4) 1.2 µg of 25OHD3; or 5) 2.4 µg of 25OHD3. At hatch, hatchability of set and live embryonated eggs, hatchling body weight, hatch residue analysis, serum IgY and alpha-1 acid glycoprotein (AGP) concentrations, and the expression of genes related to immunity (INFα, INFß, INFγ, TLR-3, and TLR-21) and vitamin D3 activity (1 α-hydroxylase, 24 hydroxylase, and vitamin D receptor) were determined. No significant treatment differences were observed for hatchability of set and live embryonated eggs, or for serum IgY and AGP concentrations. However, hatchling body weight was higher when MDV was combined with either 1.2 or 2.4 µg of 25OHD3 than when MDV was provided alone or in combination with 0.6 µg of 25OHD3. Also, in comparison to the noninjected treatment group, the expression of the genes for 1 α-hydroxylase and 24 hydroxylase was improved when MDV was combined with either 1.2 or 2.4 µg of 25OHD3. Lastly, expression of the genes linked to viral detection (TLR-3) and antibody production (INF-ß) was increased in those treatments that contained any level of 25OHD3. These results indicate that in comparison to controls, the effects of MDV were observed to be greater on hatchling BW and splenic gene expression when it was administered in combination with the 1.2 or 2.4 µg doses of 25OHD3. Further research is needed to determine the posthatch effects of the administration of various levels of 25OHD3 in combination with MDV.

Spatio-temporal approach for classification of COVID-19 pandemic fake news.

The spread of Fake News during this global pandemic COVID-19 has dangerous consequences on economy and health of public. From origin of virus, spread, self-medication to hoaxes on vaccination, it created more panic than the fatality of the virus. For better infodemic preparedness and control, it is necessary to mitigate fear among people, manage rumours, and dispel misinformation. A survey on Fake News during COVID-19 was made by Poynter Fact Check institute. It stated that major chunk of the fake news on COVID-19 originated majorly in Brazil, India, Spain, and the United States. Fake news menace is severe in countries where the trust on online media is high such as Brazil, Kenya and South Africa. Based on these observations, this study provides preliminary insight on the co-relation of the spatial and temporal meta-information of the news like the news source country, the name of the countries specified in the news, and date of publish of news to the credibility of news. The main contribution of this study is to analyse the impact of spatial and temporal information features for classification of fake news, which to the best of our knowledge has not been explored yet. Also, these features are directly not available in any news article available online. Hence, these features are handcrafted. Meta-data of the news article such as origin of news is considered. Additional spatial information is extracted from the news article using NER tagging. Temporal information such as date of origin of news is given as an input to the LSTM model. These features are given as an input to Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model along with GloVe vectors and word length vector. A comparative analysis for accuracy is tested of the models with and without spatial and temporal information. The model with spatial and temporal information has achieved noteworthy results in fake news detection. To ensure the quality of prediction, various model parameters have been tuned and recorded for the best results possible. In addition to accuracy, the spatial and temporal information for fake news detection offers several other important implications for government and policy makers that will be instrumental in simulating future research on this subject.

Health Promoting Lifestyle during Covid-19 Pandemic among Residents of Gandaki Province, Nepal.

Background Lifestyle is an important factor to individual's health and quality of life. Although, the emergence of Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has forced billions of people to change their lifestyle overnight. Objective To identify health promoting lifestyle during COVID-19 pandemic among the residents of Gandaki Province, Nepal. Method Descriptive cross sectional web based study was conducted among 386 respondents from Gandaki Province. Adults from 18 years and above, who could fill the form online were included using purposive and snowball sampling technique. Data were collected using Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II) scale and analysed using descriptive (frequency, percentage, median) and inferential statistics (Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test). Result Only 18.7% of the respondents had an excellent health promoting lifestyle followed by good health promoting lifestyle among 60.4%. Highest median score was observed in spiritual 27(10-36), and interpersonal relationship subscale 27(9-36). Whereas, the lowest was observed in physical activity 21(8-32) followed by stress management 24(10-32). Statistically significant difference was observed in age and perception of own health status with spirituality; gender, chronic illness and perception of own health status with interpersonal subscale and age, gender, marital status, occupation and perception of own health status with physical subscale. Conclusion The study concludes the need of health education and awareness to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours with a particular emphasis on indoor physical activities and stress management skills with specific consideration to female and elderly.

Continuation of antithrombotic therapy increases minor bleeding but does not increase the risk other morbidities in open inguinal hernia repair: A propensity score-matched analysis.

PURPOSE: An aging population has led to an increased number of patients with cardiovascular comorbidities requiring antithrombotic therapy. Perioperatively, surgeons should consider the increased risk of bleeding and thrombotic events in patients continuing or discontinuing these medications. We aimed to analyze the safety of continued antithrombotic therapy during open inguinal hernia repair. METHODS: In this single-center, retrospective study, 4870 adult patients who underwent open inguinal hernia repair surgery by the same surgeon from 2008 January to 2019 March were included. Patients who underwent surgery while continuing antithrombotic therapy were included in the antithrombin group (n = 523) while those who were not under any antithrombotic therapy during the surgery were included in the control group (n = 4333). Using propensity score-matching, we then selected patients from each group with similar backgrounds. Surgery time, anesthesia time, postoperative bleeding, reoperation, and thrombotic event data were compared between the groups. Subgroup analysis based on the type of medications used was performed within the antithrombin group. RESULTS: Ten patients in the antithrombin group and seven patients in the control group experienced postoperative bleeding (p < 0.001). The rate of postoperative bleeding was the highest in patients taking multiple medications. However, most were managed conservatively. Three patients from the antithrombin group experienced thrombotic events postoperatively (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Patients receiving continued antithrombotic therapy had an increased risk of minor postoperative bleeding; however, they are a high-risk group for thrombotic events.

Primary Laryngotracheal Amyloidosis Masquerading as Malignancy.

Amyloidosis represents a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by the deposition of amyloid protein in various target organs of the body. Amyloidosis is classified as systemic or local. Larynx is the common site for localized amyloid deposition and patient usually presents with hoarseness of voice. Because of the similar clinical and imaging features to malignant laryngeal mass, diagnostic confusion occurs and histopathological confirmation is usually needed. Although laryngeal tracheo-bronchial amyloidosis is rare, it should be considered among the differentials of benign laryngeal tumors.

Microbialite response to an anthropogenic salinity gradient in Great Salt Lake, Utah.

A railroad causeway across Great Salt Lake, Utah (GSL), has restricted water flow since its construction in 1959, resulting in a more saline North Arm (NA; 24%-31% salinity) and a less saline South Arm (SA; 11%-14% salinity). Here, we characterized microbial carbonates collected from the SA and the NA to evaluate the effect of increased salinity on community composition and abundance and to determine whether the communities present in the NA are still actively precipitating carbonate or if they are remnant features from prior to causeway construction. SSU rRNA gene abundances associated with the NA microbialite were three orders of magnitude lower than those associated with the SA microbialite, indicating that the latter community is more productive. SSU rRNA gene sequencing and functional gene microarray analyses indicated that SA and NA microbialite communities are distinct. In particular, abundant sequences affiliated with photoautotrophic taxa including cyanobacteria and diatoms that may drive carbonate precipitation and thus still actively form microbialites were identified in the SA microbialite; sequences affiliated with photoautotrophic taxa were in low abundance in the NA microbialite. SA and NA microbialites comprise smooth prismatic aragonite crystals. However, the SA microbialite also contained micritic aragonite, which can be formed as a result of biological activity. Collectively, these observations suggest that NA microbialites are likely to be remnant features from prior to causeway construction and indicate a strong decrease in the ability of NA microbialite communities to actively precipitate carbonate minerals. Moreover, the results suggest a role for cyanobacteria and diatoms in carbonate precipitation and microbialite formation in the SA of GSL.

Hereditary Spherocytosis with Splenomegaly and Cholelithiasis in a Young Male of Western Region of Nepal - A Case Report.

Hereditary spherocytosis is an autosomal dominant congenital hemolytic anemia due to defect in RBC membrane protein that commonly presents with intermittent jaundice, anemia, abdominal pain, splenomegaly and sometimes cholelithiasis. Due to the membrane defect, there is increased fragility, hemolytic anemia, marked splenomegaly and hyperbilirubinemia. This is a report of an 11 years old male diagnosed case of hereditary spherocytosis who presented with jaundice, splenomegaly and cholelithiasis. He underwent elective open splenectomy and cholecystectomy after prophylactic immunization for capsulated organisms and was advised lifelong oral penicillin prophylaxis post-splenectomy.

Tamoxifen for breast cancer.

Breast cancer is one of the common cancers. Hormonal therapy along with surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapy are vital modalities for the management of breast cancer. Tamoxifen has been the most widely used hormonal therapy for more than two decades. In this article we review the benefits, dose, duration and timing of Tamoxifen therapy in patients with breast cancer.

Still-birth--a tragic journey: a critical analysis.

Despite improvement in antenatal and intrapartum care, late intrauterine fetal death at and after 28 weeks of gestation remains a persistent and challenging problem to the obstetricians. We undertook the retrospective review of the medical records of 89 women with singleton pregnancy who gave birth to still-born infants at or more than 28 weeks gestation during the period from April 1998 to April 2007 at Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital to know the prevalence rate and devise preventive measures for still-born infants which accounts more than 50.0% of perinatal death in Nepal. Major malformations were present in 5 (5.6%) of 89 infants including three infants with neural tube abnormalities. Pre-eclampsia preceded the stillbirth and might have been an indirect cause of stillbirth in 16 (19.0%) of 84 women whose infants had normal formations. The cause of still birth in 68 non-pre-eclamptic women was unclear in 31 (45.6%) home breech delivery with head stuck in 11 (16.0%), abruptio placentae in 5 (7.3%), intrauterine fetal growth restriction in 10 (14.7%), infection in 6 (8.8%) and cord accidents in 5 (7.3%). The causes of still births were many and varied, with large population having no obvious cause, although autopsy was not done in any case in this study. Proper monitoring of women with preeclampsia and early diagnosis and prompt delivery for women with abruption placenta might be helpful in reducing the number of stillbirths. Great advocacy with community education on importance of community focused antenatal care and increasing institutional delivery with availability of emergency obstetric care is necessary to decrease the number of stillbirths and perinatal mortality in developing countries like Nepal.

Live birth following treatment of post molar choriocarcinoma.

A G3P(1+1) who underwent dilatation and curettage (D and C) for persistent vaginal bleeding after a month of molar evacuation, underwent successful treatment of choriocarcinoma with methotrexate and was able to have normal baby weighing 2800 gms with good Apgar score and normal placenta. This shows that a normal menstruation and uncomplicated term delivery can be expected after complete chemotherapy for gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN).

Assessing placement of nasoduodenal tube and its usefulness in maintaining nutrition in critically ill patients.

Nutritional supplements to the critically ill patients are one of the major issues to be discussed. Enteric feeding is advantageous over parentral feeding because it maintains gut integrity and prevents bacterial translocation. Small intestinal feeding shows significant beneficial results. Nasoduodenal tube placement and its confirmation by serial pH monitoring and by radiological examination was done; and time taken to reach duodenum was assessed. This study was done in 40 critically ill patients, who were divided into two groups (Group 1 and Group2). Early enteric feeding via a nasoduodenal tube was found to be preferable with parentral therapy when there are no contraindications. Advantages of nasoduodenal tube feeding in critical ill patients were that feeding can be continued even in the absence of bowel sounds and passage of flatus. Insignificant complications were noted.

The head and body lice of humans are genetically distinct (Insecta: Phthiraptera, Pediculidae): evidence from double infestations.

Little is known about the population genetics of the louse infestations of humans. We used microsatellite DNA to study 11 double infestations, that is, hosts infested with head lice and body lice simultaneously. We tested for population structure on a host, and for population structure among seven hosts that shared sleeping quarters. We also sought evidence of migration among louse populations. Our results showed that: (i) the head and body lice on these individual hosts were two genetically distinct populations; (ii) each host had their own populations of head and body lice that were genetically distinct to those on other hosts; and (iii) lice had migrated from head to head, and from body to body, but not between heads and bodies. Our results indicate that head and body lice are separate species.

Infestation of people with lice in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal.

The prevalence of infestation with head lice and body lice, Pediculus spp. (Phthiraptera: Pediculidae) and pubic (crab) lice Pthirus pubis (L.) (Phthiraptera: Pthiridae), was recorded from 484 people in Nepal. The prevalence of head lice varied from 16% in a sample of people aged 10-39 years of age, to 59% in street children. Simultaneous infestations with head and body lice (double infestations) varied from 18% in slum children to 59% in street children.