Can IMA-RNTCP stop TB by 2050?

Tuberculosis has been with mankind since time immemorial. No other disease has so much sociological, economic and health significance as tuberculosis. In the poorly functioning tuberculosis control programme, the ratio of incidence to prevalence may be as high as 1: 3.

Segmentation of 2D fetal ultrasound images by exploiting context information using conditional random fields.

This paper proposes a novel approach for segmenting fetal ultrasound images. This problem presents a variety of challenges including high noise, low contrast, and other US imaging properties such as similarity between texture and gray levels of two organs/ tissues. In this paper, we have proposed a Conditional Random Field (CRF) based framework to handle challenges in segmenting fetal ultrasound images.

TB control in India--efforts, challenges and priorities.

TB control is a long battle. Since after the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Robert Koch in 1882, endeavours have been made at different levels in the form of control measures like establishment of open-air sanatorium in Tilonia (Ajmer) in 1906, Tuberculosis Dispensary in Mumbai (1917), Tuberculosis Association of India (1939), Mass BCG campaign (1951), Establishment of Chemotherapy centre (TRC Chennai), National Sample Survey (1955-58), National Tuberculosis Institute Bangalore (1961), Developments of National Tuberculosis Programme (1962), Review of NTP by GOI, SIDA & WHO (1992), pilot testing of RNTCP (1993), implementation/expansion of RNTCP across the country (1997-2006). Shopping for health, marketing for TB diagnosis and treatment, MDR-TB, XDR-TB, TB-HIV combination and partnership related challenges are crucial and needs to be addressed .

Doppler based identification of uterine artery and umbilical artery for monitoring pregnancy.

In this paper, we present an algorithm to identify umbilical and uterine arteries from a set of four different maternal and fetal arteries using their Doppler signatures. To distinguish these arteries, we use 132 Doppler signals collected from pregnant women with gestational ages between 24 to 40 weeks. Initially we filter them to remove noise; spectrograms are generated to extract good cycles, which are then analyzed to derive independent features that could uniquely represent an artery.

Source of retreatment cases under the revised national TB control programme in Rajasthan, India, 2003.

Background: Three years after state-wide DOTS coverage and achievement of global targets for detection and cure, the proportion of sputum-positive retreatment cases remained high in the north Indian state of Rajasthan.

Aim: To determine source, accuracy of categorisation and treatment outcomes in Category II sputum-positive retreatment cases registered from January to March 2003 in five districts of Rajasthan.

Material And Methods: Two hundred consecutive Category II sputum-positive retreatment cases were identified from the tuberculosis register and interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire.

QSAR studies on 1,2-dithiole-3-thiones: modeling of lipophilicity, quinone reductase specific activity, and production of growth hormone.

Studies on modeling of lipophilicity (logP) quinone reductase specific activity (logCDQR) and production of growth hormone (logCDGH) of 1,2-dithiole-3-thiones have been carried out using distance-based topological indices. The regression analysis of the data has shown that the set of compounds exhibit 'familial' relationships in that excellent results are obtained by dividing the data set into two or more classes (families).

Comparison of cough of 2 and 3 weeks to improve detection of smear-positive tuberculosis cases among out-patients in India.

Setting: Governmental health facilities in six districts of India.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of cough and to compare the detection of smear-positive tuberculosis (TB) among out-patients with cough of > or =2 or > or =3 weeks.

Design: Trained health workers questioned each out-patient for presence of cough.