No abstract

No abstract

Background:Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative movement disorders and its incidence is increasing worldwide along with population aging. Previous clinical and histologic studies suggest that the neurodegenerative process, which affects the brain, may also affect the retina of PD patients.Objective:The objective of this study was to determine the thickness changes of retina nerve fibers and macular volume with optical coherence tomography (OCT) in PD patients.Materials and Methods:The spectral domain OCT was used to assess the thickness of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and macular volume from 34 PD patients and 50 healthy age-matched controls.Results:Compared with healthy age-matched controls, the RNFL thickness of PD patients was much thinner (P < 0.05) in all retinal quadrants, with temporal thinning being more than nasal thinning. Macular volumes were diminished in both perifoveal and outer macular regions in all sectors (P < 0.05) with preserved foveal volume. The degree of tissue loss corroborated with the severity of disease as objectively assessed by standardized rating scales (UPDRS).Conclusion:There is generalized retinal nerve degeneration in patients of PD and the degree of loss correlated with the severity and duration of disease.

Extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) refers to hematopoiesis occurring outside the medulla of bone. It may be physiologic or due to pathological conditions like hematopoietic disorders. EMH can involve liver, spleen, thorax, and lymph nodes. It can involve paraspinal tissues with extension and involvement of spinal canal. In our case, the diagnosis was confirmed by the history of the patient stating underlying hematological condition and by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings showing large soft tissue masses in paraspinal areas with involvement of spinal canal and leading to cord compression.

Most of the traffic information considers a single item like travel time or delay. In the present work, enhanced traffic information displaying instantaneous travel time and its variation from the previous interval to the present, is considered. An initial investigation is made on the effectiveness of such traffic information on route choice behavior of trip makers by valuation of attributes of the traffic information. Taking a case study of two urban corridors in the Kolkata metro city, India, the valuation is done separately for private car and taxi trip makers. The stated preference (choice based) data collected from trip makers are analyzed using both multinomial logit (MNL) and mixed logit (ML) modeling techniques. Assuming sparsely used constrained triangular distribution of random parameters, two different types of ML model are developed: one with independent choice sets and the other one by accounting heterogeneity around the mean of random parameter(s). Both family income and trip purpose are found to decompose heterogeneity around the mean estimate(s). The values of travel time and their variation presented in the paper encourage further investigation on such type of traffic information for management of congestion on alternative urban corridors both spatially and temporally.