Depression among Adolescent Students in a Rural Block of Haryana: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Depression among adolescent is an area of increasing concern worldwide. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression among school going adolescents in government and private schools in a rural area of block Beri of Haryana. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a sample size of 600 students (300 males and 300 females) studying in class 8th to 12th. A pre designed, pre tested tool SCL 90 R containing 90 items was used to screen depression in these students. Depression is one of the psychiatric morbidity screened by this tool. Cut off point of estimated raw score of 1 was used to label as depression. All the statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS 20. Results: The overall prevalence of depression was found to be 39.1% with mild depression to be 33.1% and moderate to severe depression to be 6%. Depression was significantly more among female students (45%) than male students (33.3%). Overall prevalence of depression significantly increased with age. It was found to be 34.3% among 13-14 years age-group, 41% among 15-16 years age-group and 57.1% among 17-19 years age-group. The association of depression with other socio demographic profile like socio economic status, literacy level of mother and father, employment status of mother was found to be non-significant. Conclusion: It is concluded from the present study that more than one – third (39%) of school adolescents suffered from depression. Reasons for such high prevalence of depression need to be determined. At the same time teachers and parents should be made aware of this problem and appropriate counselling of students should be done through regular school-based screening programme.

Designing of epoxy composites reinforced with carbon nanotubes grown carbon fiber fabric for improved electromagnetic interference shielding

In this letter, we report preparation of strongly anchored multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) carbon fiber (CF) fabric preforms. These preforms were reinforced in epoxy resin to make multi scale composites for microwave absorption in the X-band (8.2-12.4GHz). The incorporation of MWCNTs on the carbon fabric produced a significant enhancement in the electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI-SE) from -29.4 dB for CF/epoxy-composite to -51.1 dB for CF-MWCNT/epoxy multiscale composites of 2 mm thickness. In addition to enhanced EMI-SE, interlaminar shear strength improved from 23 MPa for CF/epoxy-composites to 50 MPa for multiscale composites indicating their usefulness for making structurally strong microwave shields. Copyright 2012 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licens

Is radial head resection a menace for the clinical outcomes of the elbow for comminuted radial head fractures?

Background: Radial head fractures are about 20% of all the elbow fractures. Comminuted radial head fractures can cause great impairment on upper extremity functional status. In older times, radial head resection was the treatment of choice for comminuted radial head fractures. Recently, radial head implant arthroplasty has become popular for fractures that could not be fixed. In this study, we assess the clinical outcomes in patients who underwent Radial head resection in Indian population of the productive age group.Methods: Prospective study of 15 patients of age more than 18 and less than 50 years of age, who have underwent radial head resection for Mason type III radial head fractures. Outcomes were evaluated according to the Mayo Elbow Performance Score at 3 months, 6 months and at 1 year follow up.Results: We observed that 80% of our patients were pain free at the end of 1 year and 20% had minimal to moderate pain. About 80% of our patients regained their “functional range” of movements. 12 of our patients had a stable elbow joint and only 3 patients complained of minimal to moderate instability after the procedure. 87% of our patients had a good to excellent functional outcome at the end. The mean Mayo elbow performance score was 92.3 which is graded as excellent and did not have any significant complications to hinder the clinical outcome.Conclusions: Radial head resection yields a good to excellent clinical results in young Indian population with isolated comminuted radial head fractures

Genetic diversity studies of cumin (Cuminun cyminum L.) genotypes in western plains of Rajasthan

Genetic diversity was studied on fifty-four genotypes of cumin, Cuminum cyminum L. at “Agricultural Research Station, Mandor, Jodhpur” during rabi season 2017-18. The mean squares were found significantly different for all the characters under study, depicting the availability of variability among the study materials. The high magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variance (PCV) and genotypic coefficient of variance (GCV) for seed yield, primary branches per plant and number of umbels per plant depicted the presence of vast amount of variation for the character along with high heritability (68-97%) combined with higher genetic advances as percentage of means for seed yield. The highest intra-cluster distance was recorded in cluster VI (11.8) along with cluster VII (11.33) and cluster VIII (8.29) depicting large genetic variability among the genotypes of these three clusters. The highest inter-cluster distance was reported among cluster III and VIII (51.97) followed by cluster III and VII (40.07) and cluster IV and cluster VIII (34.77), suggesting wide range of diversity between genotypes of the clusters. Amongst the characters, seed yield contributed the highest towards genetic divergence (47.80%) followed by number of umbel per plant (25.65%), branches per plant (8.60%) and 1000 seed weight (6.64%)

Distortion Analysis of CMOS Based Analog Circuits

The amplifiers are the vital part of the analog circuit designs. The linearity of the CMOS is of most important concern in the design of many analog circuits. There are several aspects regarding nonlinear distortion analysis in analog circuits implemented in CMOS technology. Basically, the investigations visualize the nature of the total harmonic distortion (THD) dependence on the amplitude and frequency of the input signals. In this paper, the basic building blocks of analog integrated circuits such as Common source amplifier with diode connected load and Differential amplifier with current mirror load have been presented for distortion analysis. The MOSFET model used for simulation is BSIM3 SPICE model from 0.13-μm and BSIM4 SPICE model from 22-μm CMOS process technology. HSPICE circuit simulator tool is used for distortion analysis of CMOS circuits. It is evident that the above function gives remarkable insight of the nonlinear behavior of the considered circuits and it is worth considering for further investigations

Gadanki radar observations of daytime E region echoes and structures extending down to 87 km

Observations of daytime E region echoes extending to altitudes as low as 87 km made using the Gadanki MST radar are presented. The echoing regions display descending layer resembling the characteristics of tidal winds and show structures with periods 2–4 min having both positive and negative slopes. At the center of the layer where strongest SNR is observed, the velocity is maximum and spectral width is minimum. At altitudes slightly above and below, where SNR is relatively low, velocity is low but spectral width is maximum. Daytime observations of echoes extending to such a low altitude and associated structures akin to nighttime quasi-periodic echoes throughout the observational period are the most significant results, not reported earlier from Gadanki and other locations. Other notable results are large SNR (as high as 15 dB) and spectral width (as high as 70 m/s) at the bottommost altitudes, where collisional damping of the plasma waves is significan

Can pigeonpea hybrids negotiate stresses better than inbred cultivars?

Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] is an important rainfed pulse crop of tropics and sub-tropics, and during its long growth cycle of 6–9 months it encounters a number of biotic and abiotic stresses. The recently developed CMS-based pigeonpea hybrids have demonstrated large gains in yield and stability over the traditional inbred cultivars. In this review, the authors argue that the heterosis expressed in traits like seed germination, radicle growth, root biomass production and moisture retention during water stress confers advantages to hybrid plants in negotiating a few abiotic and biotic stresses in much better way than pure line cultivars