Performances Based Study On High Strengh Concrete Using Fiber As The Replacement

Processed sand is increasingly used as an alternative. With the prohibition of sand mining in several states and the increasing demand for river sand for construction work, many civil engineers have expressed the need to promote the use of manufactured sand in the construction industry. Manufactured sand is reportedly used extensively around the world and technicians at major projects around the world insist on the mandatory use of manufactured sand due to its constant gradation and no impurities. Ordinary concrete lacks the required strength and durability often required for large concrete structures such as tall buildings, bridges, and structures under severe exposure conditions. Due to the prosperous construction activities, natural sand has become scarce due to excessive unscientific methods of extraction from the river bed. For these reasons, it is necessary to produce improved concrete with high strength, using suitable materials. This article demonstrates the effective use of the product fibers and M-sand in high-strength concrete

Deep Learning Framework for Covid-19 Detection and Severity Classification towards Clinical Decision Support System

Chest CT scans are widely used for COVID-19 diagnosis. Existing methods focused more on the detection of the disease. However, there is need for detection of severity towards making decisions for suitable course of action. Towards this end, we proposed a deep learning framework for automatic COVID-19 diagnosis and severity detection. Our framework is based on enhanced Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model which is found efficient for medical image analysis. We proposed two algorithms to realize the framework. The first algorithm is known as Deep Learning based Automatic COVID-19 Diagnosis (DL-ACD). This algorithm is meant for diagnosis of COVID-19 with learning based phenomena. The second algorithm is known as Automatic COVID-19 Severity Detection (ACSD). It is designed to know severity of the disease which helps in making treatment appropriate. Our framework is evaluated against existing deep learning models and found to have superior performance over the existing models

Institutional experience of tuberculosis of craniovertebral junction

Background: Craniovertebral junction tuberculosis (CVJ-TB) is a rare entity occurring in only 0.3 to 1% of tuberculous spondylitis. It causes severe instability and neurological deficits. Present study includes 16 cases of CVJ tuberculosis with neck pain and progressive quadriparesis. Radiological evaluation showed wide spread disease around clivus, C1, C2, C3 with extensive bony destruction, cord compression, basilar invagination and atlantoaxial dislocation.Methods: The study included all the cases admitted with cv junction tuberculosis in neurosurgery ward in King George hospital, Visakhapatnam during a period of three years from 2014 to 2016. Four cases were managed conservatively and four cases were treated by only posterior occipitocervical fusion. We performed two stage operation in single sitting i.e. transoral decompression and posterior occipitocervical fusion in 12 cases. The pathological findings confirmed tuberculosis.Results: Postoperatively all the patients had decreased neck pain and two third of the patients (10 of 16 patients) had improvement in motor power.Conclusions: In the available literature, the treatment options offered for cvj-tb have ranged from a purely conservative approach to radical surgery without well-defined guidelines. In this study, we followed a radical approach as the patients included in our study presented with extensive TB cv junction. So, we recommend radical surgery for extensive TB of cv junction

Controlled self-assembly of stomatosomes by use of single-component fluorinated dendritic amphiphiles

A series of novel non-ionic amphiphiles with dendritic oligoglycerol head groups of different generations ([G1]–[G3]) and lipophilic/fluorophilic tail segments, comprising single or double tail alkyl chains, C8F17-perfluoro rod segments as well as flexible spacer groups of different lengths were designed and synthesized. We expected that the differences in the size of the dendritic head groups in combination with perfluorinated segments would have an impact on the supramolecular structures formed in aqueous solution if compared with the hydrogenated analogues. Investigating the self-assembly behavior mainly by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) we found as a new result the formation of perforated bilayer vesicles (stomatosomes) and bicontinuous network structures. Surprisingly, we have observed stomatosome formation by self-assembly of single component fluorinated dendritic amphiphiles. These assembly structures turned out to be extremely robust against harsh conditions, although there are strong indications that they represent non-equilibrium structures, which eventually transform into a bicontinuous cubic network structure of double diamond symmetry. In general, the molecular asymmetry of amphiphiles tuned by chemical design induced the expected trend from spherical micelles through worm-like micelles to perforated bilayers and three-dimensional network structures

Institutional experience of surgical management of intramedullary spinal cord tumours

Background: Intramedullary spinal cord tumors are rare entity accounting for only 5-6% of all central nervous system tumors. Much literature is not available regarding these tumors owing to their rarity. Present study includes 24 cases of intramedullary spinal cord tumors with pain and progressive weakness. Radiological evaluation showed various intramedullary lesions like ependymoma, astrocytoma, epidermoid etc. spreading over various levels of spinal cord like cervicomedullary, cervicodorsal and dorsal cords.Methods: The study included all the cases admitted with intramedullary spinal cord tumors in neurosurgery ward in King George hospital, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India during a period of three years from 2014 to 2016. Clinical profile of the patients was analyzed for the clinical presentation, age and sex distribution, histopathological study, pre-and postoperative neurological status, complications and functional outcome. All the patients are followed for a period of 6months to 3years.Results: Of the 24 cases, most common age group was second (7 patients) and third (7 patients) decades which is upto 29.16% each.  Males (16 patients) are more affected than females in 66.66%. Ependymoma is the most common tumor seen in 41.66% (10 patients) followed by astrocytoma in 33.33% (8 patients). The surgical technique, extent of resection, pre and postoperative neurological status and functional outcome are discussed.Conclusions: Intramedullary tumours occur commonly among males in the 2nd to 4th decades. Among the intramedullary tumours ependymoma from the commonest lesion subtypes. Most common location is cervical cord segment. Ependymomas have a good plane of cleavage and are thus amenable to radical excision. Patients with good Mc Cormicks grade in pre-operative stage are more amenable for total or near total excision. Prognostic factors affecting outcome are the preoperative neurological status, the plane of cleavage, the extent of resection, the nature and subtype of the lesion. With the improvement in microsurgical techniques and novel adjunctive like MRI, CUSA and intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, surgery for intramedullary lesions can be carried out with acceptable morbidity and mortality.

Interaction of torsion and lateral bending in aircraft nose landing gear shimmy

In this paper we consider the onset of shimmy oscillations of an aircraft nose landing gear. To this end we develop and study a mathematical model with torsional and lateral bending modes that are coupled through a wheel-mounted elastic tyre. The geometric effects of a positive rake angle are fully incorporated into the resulting five-dimensional ordinary differential equation model. A bifurcation analysis in terms of the forward velocity and the vertical force on the gear reveals routes to different types of shimmy oscillations. In particular, we find regions of stable torsional and stable lateral shimmy oscillations, as well as transient quasiperiodic shimmy where both modes are excited

Online monitoring the isomerization of an azobenzene-based dendritic bolaamphiphile using ion mobility-mass spectrometry

Ion mobility-mass spectrometry was used to obtain detailed information about the kinetics of the light-induced cis/trans isomerization process of a new supramolecular azobenzene-based bolaamphiphile. Further experiments revealed that the investigated light-induced structural transition dramatically influences the aggregation behaviour of the molecule