Advances in Research

The “Type of Article” of this paper is “Letter to the Editor”. This paper discuses about: “Relationship between the Characteristics of Staplers and Malformation of Staples”. No formal abstract is available. Readers are requested to read the full article.

Species richness and species abundance unevenness are two major synthetic descriptors of the internal organization within ecological communities. Yet, while the former is a simple concept in essence, the unevenness of species abundance distribution is less so, being partly linked (negatively) to species richness as a general trend while, yet, more or less deviating from this average trend according to idiosyncratic specificities of each community (a bit similar to the size among individuals of a same species, which depend on age but more or less deviates due to inter-individual differences in growth rate which singularizes each individual). I argue that for abundance unevenness it is therefore relevant to consider and quantify separately these two aspects – the overall trend on the one hand and the idiosyncratic deviation from this trend on the other hand. In particular, comparing abundance unevenness levels between communities differing in species richness requires considering separately what has to be directly assigned to the difference in species richness and what can be relevantly attributed to some genuine, idiosyncratic difference in the hierarchical structuring of abundances between the compared communities. The appropriate formalism arising from this approach is detailed for practical implementation, thereby allowing for a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of the functional organization within ecological communities.

Anacardium occidentale gum exudate was analyzed for physicochemical, spectroscopic and rheological characteristics. Physicochemical analysis revealed that the gum is mildly acidic, ionic, extremely rich in carbohydrate and calcium. GCMS spectrum revealed the presence of some carboxylic acids, ketone and alkanes. The FTIR spectrum of the gum closely resembled those of other polysaccharides. Scanning electron micrograph revealed the presence of pores containing particles with irregular shapes. The average value of intrinsic viscosity of the gum was 3.28 dL/g, which compared favourably with those obtained for some plant gums. From the Huggins, Kraemer and Power law models, it was deduced that there is absence of molecular association and that the conformation of the gum is more rod like. Viscosity of the studied gum was found to be greatly influenced by the presence of urea, K+, Ca2+ and Al2+. Anarcadium occidentale gum exhibited a non-Newtonian property with characteristics dilatant and shears thickening properties.

Aims: Malnutrition causes a huge burden on health and social services; wastage of hospital food is high and intake poor, particularly in older patients.  This study looks at the lunch choices of older patients and considers how hospital meals could be altered to improve consumption.

Study Design: Over a four week period, the food choices of patients on elderly care wards were studied. The amount of food consumed and choice was evaluated in the context of food availability.

Place and Duration of Study: The project was undertaken in Elderly Care Medicine wards in a District General Hospital in the South East of England. Participants were older patients with a variety of medical conditions who had the capacity to consent to a discussion about their food choices, consumption of food and preference for different food items.

Methods: Of the 402 patients studied, 23% were given food they did not like and that they would not usually chose. 

Results: Popular menu choices included “unusual soups” and “baked or roasted meat”.  Unpopular menu choices included sandwiches and desserts with no fruit.  The items that were most consumed were desserts containing fruit and vegetarian main courses.  Vegetarian pastry dishes and sandwiches were poorly consumed. 

Conclusion: Many older patients who are able to choose from a hospital menu failed to see foods that they would normally consume.  Certain foods are preferentially chosen and when delivered were consumed well.  Older patients in this geographical area chose traditional foods and foods that are more difficult or more costly to prepare at home e.g. roast joints of meat and fruit containing desserts.

In this study, we consider Murray’s and Glioma’s tumor growth models based on reaction- diffusion equation. Mathematical modeling of tumor development are involved with the associated experimental work, reasoning the final relationship between experimental and theoretical approaches and these lead a path to model the prediction of tumor growth. Initially, we study the primary model of tumor growth which is connected with the ordinary differential equations and finally extended the problem to reaction-diffusion models. We predict the  tumor growth model using numerical study and the observation in different zone of time. The goal of tumor growth prediction is to model the tumor growth process, which can be achieved by theoretical mathematical  modeling collaboration with the model personalization from clinical assessment. After certain time period, it is shown that the mathematical model shows the tumor cell population reaching a maximum cell number that the tissue can carry.