Background and Objective:Cancer of the cervix is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among women worldwide. Therefore, to curb the disease, there is a need to develop a screening test that has good sensitivity and specificity. The present study is aimed to compare the effectiveness of the Pap smear, visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and visual inspection with Lugol's iodine (VILI) for mass screening of premalignant and malignant lesions of the cervix; to evaluate the usefulness of VIA and VILI as an adjunct to improve sensitivity of cervical cytology; and to evaluate the role of VILI as a parallel screening method with VIA to enhance its test performance.Design and Setting:This was a prospective, analytical study in which 210 patients of the reproductive age group attending the gynecology OPD were enrolled.Patients and Methods:Patients were first subjected to Pap smear followed by VIA, VILI, colposcopy and biopsy for confirmation of lesion, if needed. Data was obtained and statistically analyzed.Results:Of the 210 patients, 34 (16.27%) had positive Pap test, 29 (13.87%) had positive VIA and 24 (11.43%) had positive VILI and 31 (14.75%) showed features of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) on colposcopy. Of the total of 48 patients in whom either of the screening tests was positive and had undergone cervical biopsy, one had CIN-3, three had CIN-2, 12 had CIN-1, three had carcinoma in situ CIS and 29 reported normal. In our study, 40 patients were picked up as positive by combination of these tests, of which 19 (47.50%) had CIN on biopsy.Conclusion:Our study showed that VIA and VILI had sensitivity comparable to Pap smear and can thus be a suitable potential alternative/adjunctive screening test not only in a resource-poor setting but in well-equipped centers also. And, use of a combination of tests (Pap+VIA+VILI) had 100% sensitivity but at cost of low specificity and more false-positive results.

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The growing interest in lingual orthodontics is perhaps a reflection of the social and esthetic issues of orthodontics being addressed as more adults seek treatment. The issue remains confounded by the clinical manipulation of the appliance, the patient comfort, and the predictability of outcomes. For any technique or system to succeed, it must address the above three issues directly.The evidence available on lingual orthodontics traces a very clear and predictable pattern. The 80's were devoted to the limitation and progression of the concept, the 90's to the comparison between labial and lingual, and the evolution of laboratory technique and bracket system. The last decade focuses on innovations, predictability of outcomes, the impact of white spot lesion (WSL), and the patient acceptability.The purpose of this review is to investigate the current evidence and implications of lingual orthodontics. The electronic database search was done on PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, EBSCOhost, Web of Knowledge, and Google Scholar reporting on appliance design, bonding, and laboratory setup, biomechanics, survey studies, case reports, and treatment outcomes. An InsIght Into hIstoRy of LInguAL oRthodontIcsLingual orthodontics started in 1970's when Fujita in Japan and Kurtz in the USA used lingual brackets for the first time. It made a sensational debut as lingual brackets were invisible, and the number of initiated cases increased exponentially. A few years later, the number of lingual orthodontic cases decreased greatly. The reason was very clear; most doctors could not achieve satisfactory results with lingual orthodontics. Following this, initial development and expansion of lingual orthodontics in the 1990s, interest, particularly in the United States, decreased, probably due to the poor results of completed cases. [1] As time passed and problem-solving associated with lingual orthodontics was improved, lingual orthodontics expanded

Aim Microsampling has the advantage of smaller blood sampling volume and suitability in vulnerable populations compared to venous sampling in clinical pharmacokinetics studies. Current regulatory guidance requires correlative studies to enable microsampling as a technique. A post hoc population pharmacokinetic (POPPK) approach was utilized to investigate blood capillary microsampling as an alternative to venous sampling. Methods Pharmacokinetic data from microsampling and venous sampling techniques during a paediatric study evaluating tafenoquine, a single‐dose antimalarial for P. vivax, were used. Separate POPPK models were developed and validated based on goodness of fit and visual predictive checks, with pharmacokinetic data obtained via each sampling technique. Results Each POPPK model adequately described tafenoquine pharmacokinetics using a two‐compartment model with body weight based on allometric scaling of clearance and volume of distribution. Tafenoquine pharmacokinetic parameter estimates including clearance (3.4 vs 3.7 L/h) were comparable across models with slightly higher interindividual variability (38.3% vs 27%) in capillary microsampling‐based data. A bioavailability/bioequivalence comparison demonstrated that the point estimate (90% CI) of capillary microsample versus venous sample model‐based individual post hoc estimates for area under the concentration‐time curve from time zero to infinity (AUC0‐inf) (100.7%, 98.0‐103.5%) and Cmax (79.7%, 76.9‐82.5%) met the 80‐125% and 70‐143% criteria, respectively. Overall, both POPPK models led to the same dose regimen recommendations across weight bins based on achieving target AUC. Conclusions This analysis demonstrated that a POPPK approach can be employed to assess the performance of alternative pharmacokinetic sampling techniques. This approach provides a robust solution in scenarios where variability in pharmacokinetic data collected via venous sampling and microsampling may not result in a strong linear relationship. The findings also established that microsampling techniques may replace conventional venous sampling methods.

In the fields of image processing, feature detection, the edge detection is an important aspect. For detection of sharp changes in the properties of an image, edges are recognized as important factors which provides more information or data regarding the analysis of an image. In this work coding of various edge detection algorithms such as Sobel, Canny, etc. have been done on the MATLAB software, also this work is implemented on the FPGA Nexys 4 DDR board. The results are then displayed on a VGA screen. The implementation of this work using Verilog language of FPGA has been executed on Vivado 18.2 software tool.