Financing the U.S. Health System: Issues and Options for Change

Explores key issues of health reform and options for financing health care -- redirecting funds to more effective uses, rolling back tax cuts, modifying tax exclusions for health benefits, an employer play-or-pay model, and a value-added tax

EFFECT OF GROWTH REGULATORS ON CLUSTERBEAN [CYAMOPSIS TETRAGONOLOBA (L.)] GROWTH UNDER ARAVALI HILLS ENVIRONMENT IN RAJASTHAN

A field experiment was conducted during the season kharif 2008 and 2009 to find out response of clusterbean to growth regulators. Twenty eight treatment combinations i.e. four varieties (RGC-936, RGC-1002, RGC-1003 and RGC-1017) as main plot treatment and seven growth substances (control, seed treatment with thiourea 500 ppm, foliar application of thiourea 500 ppm, seed + foliar application of thiourea 500 ppm, seed treatment with TGA 100 ppm, foliar application of TGA 100 ppm and seed + foliar application of TGA 100 ppm) as sub-plot treatment was laid out in split-plot design with three replications. The results of the experiment showed that variety RGC-936 gave significantly higher plant height at harvest, dry matter accumulation at 30 DAS, 45 DAS and 60 DAS and at harvest. The application of seed + foliar application of thiourea 500 ppm show significant improvement on growth parameters viz., plant height at harvest, days to maturity, dry matter accumulation at 30 DAS, 45 DAS, 60 DAS and at harvest than the other treatments

Impact assessment of frontline demonstrations on green gram: Experience from rainfed condition of Rajasthan

Pulses being rich in quality protein, minerals and vitamins are inseparable ingredients of diet of majority of Indian population. Despite high nutritive value of pulses and their role in sustainable agriculture desired growth rate in production could not be witnessed. The domestic production of pulses is consistently below the targets and actualdomestic requirements are also higher, due to these pulses are being imported. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra Pali has carried out frontline demonstrations on green gram covering an area of 26.5 ha of farmers’ field to exhibit latest production technologies and compared it with farmer’s practice. The study in total 40 frontline demonstrations were conducted on farmers’ fields in villages viz., Kishanagar, Bedkallan, Boyal, Kushalpura and Balara of Pali district of Rajasthan state during 2014, 2015 and 2016, to demonstrate production potential and economic benefit of improved technologies comprising sowing method, nutrient management and chemical weed control and adoption of whole package of practices for the crop. After sowing of seed application of weedicide Pendimethalin (within two days after sowing) at 1.0 kg/ha in 500 liters of water used for effective control of the weeds during kharif season in rainfed condition. The findings of the study revealed that the demonstrated technology recorded a mean yield of 982 kg/ha which was 35.5% higher than obtained with farmers’ practice (755 kg/ha). Higher mean net income of Rs. 46030/ha with a Benefit: Cost ratio of 4.3 was obtained with improved technologies in comparison to farmers’ practices (Rs. 38775/ha). The frontline demonstrations conducted on green gram at the farmers’ field revealed that the adoption of improved technologies significantly increased the yield as well as yield attributing traits of crop and also the net returns higher than the farmers’ practices. So, there is a need to disseminate the improved technologies among the farmers with effective extension methods like training and demonstrations. The farmers’ should be encouraged to adopt the recommended package of practices realizing for higher returns

A comparative study of maternal and perinatal outcome in patients with and without HELLP syndrome

Background: A prospective study of feto maternal outcome in severe preeclampsia and eclampsia with and without HELLP syndrome. The aim of the study was to compare the feto maternal outcome in pregnant woman with severe preeclampsia and eclampsia with HELLP syndrome and without HELLP syndrome.Methods: 100 cases of severe preeclampsia/eclampsia with and without HELLP syndrome were analyzed in Government Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital. Maternal morbidity and mortality were compared between the two groups.Results: 83.7% of cases among HELLP group had normal maternal outcome. 11.6% maternal mortality among the HELLP syndrome group. 54.5% babies among HELLP group had abnormal perinatal outcome and 24.6% among non HELLP group.Conclusions: HELLP syndrome has a significant influence on maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity

Accidental Death due to Carbon Monoxide: Case Report

Background: Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas produced as a by-product of incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. CO binds rapidly to Haemoglobin (Hb), leading to the formation of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb), so the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood will be decreased and causing tissue hypoxia.Case Report: A 35-years-old male mechanic was found unconscious at automobile garage and he was dead after hospitalization on same day after one hour. On external examination, Rigor mortis had occurred all over the body. Cherry red postmortem lividity was present over back. Hypostasis, sub-scalpel tissue, muscles of chest and abdominal wall were cherry red in color suggestive of carbon monoxide toxicity. The chemical analysis report of blood and viscera confirmed toxicity due to carbon monoxide poisoning.Conclusion: Accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in vehicles can occur due to leaking exhausts and inadequate ventilation, but some cases in fatal concentration of CO was found even with garage door had opened or in the absence of defective exhaust systems. Each of the CO poisoning hazard scenarios reflects either product malfunction resulting in high CO emissions and/or some failure to adequately remove CO from the living or recreational environment. Use of catalytic converters in vehicles has reduced carbon monoxide emission considerably. The sudden death of a mechanic due to excessive inhalation of the carbon monoxide gas due to defective exhaust systems and poorly ventilated in automobile garage.

Multi-scale fusion for underwater image enhancement using multi-layer perceptron

Underwater image enhancement (UIE) is an imperative computer vision activity with many applications and different strategies proposed in recent years. Underwater images are firmly low in quality by a mixture of noise, wavelength dependency, and light attenuation. This paper depicts an effective strategy to improve the quality of degraded underwater images. Existing methods for dehazing in the literature considering dark channel prior utilize two separate phases for evaluating the transmission map (i.e., transmission estimation and transmission refinement). Accurate restoration is not possible with these methods and takes more computational time. A proposed three-step method is an imaging approach that does not need particular hardware or underwater conditions. First, we utilize the multi-layer perceptron (MLP) to comprehensively evaluate transmission maps by base channel, followed by contrast enhancement.  Furthermore, a gamma-adjusted version of the MLP recovered image is derived. Finally, the multi-scale fusion method was applied to two attained images. The standardized weight is computed for the two images with three different weights in the fusion process. The quantitative results show that significantly our approach gives the better result with the difference of 0.536, 2.185, and 1.272 for PCQI, UCIQE, and UIQM metrics, respectively, on a single underwater image benchmark dataset. The qualitative results also give better results compared with the state-of-the-art techniques

Comparison of incidences and indications of multi primary caesarean with primi caesarean mothers in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: The incidences and indications of caesarean sections between the primary caesarean multies and caesarean primies were comparable in respect of their demographical and clinical variables of mothers and their foetal outcomes. Aim and objective of the study was to analyze the incidences and indications of primary caesarean multies and caesarean primies. To compare the incidences and indications of mothers between the primary caesarean multies and caesarean primies. To compare the demographic and clinical profiles of the mothers and babies.Methods: During January to June 2016 total of 3583 deliveries were conducted in Tiruneleli Medical College Hospital, Tamil Nadu, India. Among them 89 and 1168 were primary caesarean multies and caesarean primies respectively. They had been compared according to the objectives.Results: The caesarean incidences were 62.5% among the primies and 4.8% among the multies as Primary. The primary caesarean incidences among the multies were statistically significantly lesser in the 15-24 ages than the primi (P0.05). After 30 years of age, the incidences were statistically significantly increased among the multies (P0.05). The indications of Foetal distress, Severe Oligo hydration and others did not show any statistically significantly difference between the groups (P>0.05). Mal presentation and Ante Partum hemorrhage were significantly more among the multies than primies (p<0.05) and Failed indication and CPD were the significantly lesser indication than the primies (P<0.05).Conclusions: Without reducing the caesarean section rate in primi we cannot bring down the overall caesarean rate of delivery

Changing and Unchanging strong efficient edge domination number of some standard graphs when a vertex is removed or an edge is added

Let G=(V,\ E) be a simple graph. A subset S of E(G) is a strong (weak) efficient edge dominating set of G if │Ns[e] S│ = 1 for all e E(G)(│Nw[e] S│ = 1 for all e E(G)) where Ns(e) ={f / f E(G), f is adjacent to e & deg f ≥ deg e}(Nw(e) ={f / f E(G), f is adjacent to e & deg f ≤ deg e}) and Ns[e]=Ns(e){e}(Nw[e] = Nw(e){e}). The minimum cardinality of a strong efficient edge dominating set of G (weak efficient edge dominating set of G) is called a strong efficient edge domination number of G and is denoted by {\gamma\prime}_{se}(G) ({\gamma^\prime}_{we}(G)).When a vertex is removed or an edge is added to the graph, the strong efficient edge domination number may or may not be changed. In this paper the change or unchanged of the strong efficient edge domination number of some standard graphs are determined, when a vertex is removed or an edge is added

Mitigation of vampire attacks in wireless adhoc and sensor networks during packet forwarding phase

Ad-hoc wireless networks are an exciting research direction in sensing and pervasive computing. Advance security work in this area has beenprimarily focused on denial of communication at the routing or medium access control levels. There is a common attack at routing protocol layer, i.e. resource depletion attack, which permanently disables networks by drastically draining nodes' battery power. These “Vampire” attacks are not similar to any specific protocol, but rather depend upon the properties of many popular classes of routing protocols like link state and DSR protocols. These vampire attacks are very difficult to detect, devastating and easy to carry out using as few as one Malicious insider sending only protocol compliant messages. For mitigation of these kinds of attacks, some methods are explained, including a new proof-of-concept protocol that provably bounds the damage caused by Vampires during the packet forwarding phase