Meconium Aspiration Syndrome (MAS) is an important cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the role of steroids in the management of MAS. This was a double blinded randomized controlled trial and a prospective Interventional Study over one-year period in the neonatal unit of the Lady Hardinge medical College and associated Kalawati Saran Children’s hospital. Fifty-one babies of MAS which were randomly distributed into three groups, Control, systemic and nebulized steroids. Methyl prednisolone was given i.v. in dose of 0.5 mg/kg/day in two divided doses. Budecort was given by nebulization in dose of 50 microgram 12 hourly. Infants were assessed in terms of duration of stay, oxygen dependence, X-ray clearances and also assessed for short term adverse effects. There was a statistically significant difference in the duration of stay, duration of oxygen dependence and radiological clearance. The use of steroids was not associated with an increased incidence of sepsis. The conclusion is that steroids alter the course of Meconium Aspiration Syndrome and favorably affect the outcome.

New GPL Hits at Microsoft-Novell Deal
On Wednesday, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the third discussion draft for version 3 of the most widely used free software license, the GNU General Public License. The latest version addresses the recent patent deal between Microsoft and Novell. Microsoft and Novell sent tremors through the open-source world late last year when they announced a deal to make Windows and SuSE Linux work better together to ease the minds of CIOs who support both platforms in the enterprise. Neither company will prosecute the other’s customers for patent infringements. The deal gives SuSE Linux Enterprise a leg up over rival Red Hat Linux. Laura DiDio, an analyst at the Yankee Group, said the Microsoft-Novell deal is good for enterprise customers. “If open source is going to thrive in a corporate environment, it is going to have to adjust to the realities of the business world,” she said. Adding Microsoft to the mix, she explained, restores some level of confidence in open-source options. Stallman Disagrees However, many in the open-source camp are up in arms over the Microsoft-Novell patent deal. Richard Stallman, president of the FSF and principal author of the GNU GPL, is one of them. Stallman maintains that the GPL was designed to ensure that all users of a program receive the four essential freedoms that define free software. These freedoms, he said, allow you to run the program as you see fit, study and adapt it for your own purposes, redistribute copies to help your neighbor, and release your improvements to the public. “The recent patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell aims to undermine these freedoms. In this draft, we have worked hard to prevent such deals from making a mockery of free software,” Stallman said in a statement. Revise, Revise Changes in the third version of the GPL draft include new patent requirements…

Changes in the Prevalence of Asthma and Allergic Diseases among Brazilian Schoolchildren (13-14 years old): Comparison between ISAAC Phases One and Three
The present study is aimed to describe the changes in the prevalence of symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and eczema among Brazilian adolescents (AD, 13–14 years old) between Phases 1 and 3 of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC). The prevalence of self-reported symptoms of asthma, rhinitis and eczema in AD from five Brazilian cities (Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador and S o Paulo), obtained during ISAAC Phase 1 (n = 15 419) and Phase 3 (n = 15 684), was compared to determine the trend of prevalence in a 7-year interval. There was a trend to reduction in the current prevalence of wheezing and increasing of nocturnal cough when averaging figures from the five cities. The prevalence of wheezing in the last 12 months was 27.7 vs. 19.9% (p < 0.01); asthma ever 14.9 vs. 14.7% (p > 0.05); severe episode of wheezing 5.2 vs. 5.2%; nocturnal cough 32.6 vs. 34.9% (p < 0.01); exercise wheezing 23.6 vs. 23.0% (p > 0.05) and awake with wheezing 11.8 vs. 11.2% (p > 0.05). Similar things were observed with the prevalence of current symptoms of rhinitis and eczema. In Brazil, there was a small but significant mean decrease in the prevalence of two asthma-related symptoms, wheezing and nocturnal cough, though this trend was not consistent in the surveyed cities. The prevalence of asthma symptoms in Brazil, despite its mean trend to a decrease, is still one of the highest in Latin America.

Microsoft’s Deepfish Mobile Browser Enters Trial
In some future history of the Internet, 2007 will be seen as the year that the mobile Web went “Zoom.” Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s launch of ZenZui, an innovative interface for mobile surfing, the R&D gurus at Microsoft Live Labs have announced the release of “Deepfish.” The goal of Deepfish, the Live Labs team said, is “preserving the rich layout and full form of documents on mobile devices while providing novel ways of effectively navigating that content on small screens.” Microsoft debuted the new tool on Wednesday at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, California, and said that a limited test of the program would be available to people who sign up on the MS Deepfish Web page at labs.live.com/deepfish/. The software giant is currently describing Deepfish as a “technology preview,” something that the Live Labs site admits is “a few releases from beta quality.” In an interview Wednesday with Microsoft’s own PressPass office, Dr. Gary William Flake, a Microsoft Technical Fellow and director of Live Labs, said that the Deepfish technology solves the problem of accessing desktop-sized content through much smaller mobile devices. “With the Deepfish technology,” Flake said, “we capture the full layout of the page and deliver it to the mobile device, resulting in an experience similar to that on the desktop.” Zoom Box Unlike ZenZui, which requires Web content providers to create specialized “tiles” of information, the Deepfish technology would allow mobile users to access existing Web pages. After entering a page’s URL, users see a thumbnail image of the full page. By moving a “zoom box” around the screen, users can select content that they want to see in more detail, and the software then zooms in. Deepfish also will enable users to pan around a Web page to view content, or zoom back out…

The correlation between myocardial function and cerebral hemodynamics in term infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy
This study investigated the effect of myocardial dysfunction on the cerebral hemodynamics in term infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). We evaluated myocardial systolic and diastolic functional parameters and cerebral hemodynamic parameters in 40 term newborn infants with HIE and 30 healthy controls during the first 14 days of life using two-dimensional/pulsed Doppler ultrasound. The results showed that there were significant cerebral hemodynamic disturbances and cardiac dysfunction in neonates with HIE, and the more cardiac dysfunction the patients have, the more severe encephalopathy they would suffer. Therefore, it is important to preserve cardiac function and treat myocardial dysfunction in infants with HIE.

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