A Study of Peripheral Neuropathy in Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 5 and It’s outcome after kidney transplantation

Amongst the many manifestations of Uremia, the most common is uremic peripheral neuropathy & its prevalence is about 60- 100% in those on dialysis. Even though many patients may not have overt symptoms or signs, electrophysiological abnormalities in Nerve conduction studies (NCS) may be detected in many patients indicating the presence of subclinical neuropathy. Maintenance Hemodialysis (MHD) slows the progression of neuropathy, but the abnormalities rarely improve. However renal transplantation is associated with rapid improvement in these neuro-physiological abnormalities within days and clinical improvement over months. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of peripheral neuropathy (both overt and subclinical) in CKD stage -5 patients on HD through NCS and to assess the outcome of neuropathy after renal transplantation by follow-up NCS. The study included 30 CKD patients on MHD, all of whom underwent clinical examination & NCS (Sensory & motor conduction studies of both upper limb & lower limbs). Twenty patients had evidence of peripheral neuropathy, majority of them had subclinical neuropathy .Post renal transplantation these 20 patients underwent follow-up NCS at at the end of first and third months. The analysis of results showed the predominant pattern of involvement was an axonopathy, sensory is involved more than motor, lower limb involvement is more than upperlimb. Comparison of results(Pre-transplant vs Post-transplant), showed the improvement of neuro-physiological abnormalities particularly nerve conduction velocities & amplitude of Sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) & Compound motor action potential(CMAP) in both lower limbs & upperlimb

Tracked Vehicle Performance Evaluation using Multi Body Dynamics

The objective of the study was to shorten the design cycle and evaluate the performance of infantry fighting vehicle using advanced multi body dynamics (MBD) environment before physical prototypes built. The MBD model is built with tracked vehicle module consisting of tracks (Links), sprocket, Support rollers, and hydro pneumatic suspension with suitable connections. Hull, turret are characterised by mass and inertial properties. The dynamic analysis was carried out for different field conditions i.e. trench crossing, step and ramp climbing, etc., to extract the hull forces at joints, power required to manuever, track tension forces to determine overall vehicle stability and look for possible design modifications. Recommendations were then suggested for power train, number of track segments, tensioner force, etc to ensure proper behavior during different manuevers. The MBD results are used in FEA to determine structural response in terms of stress, deformation, fatigue etc., and reflects in design modification before physical prototype made and are validated with base level analytical results

Deep Features Based Multiview Gait Recognition

Pattern recognition is one of the computing intensive application. As information technology has evolved to such an extend, it is easier to identify various patterns in images or videos. As an example consider fingerprint identification, which is image pattern identification application widely used in smartphones to authenticate a person. Similarly Gait recognition, which is a video pattern identification application, is used for surveillance purpose. A lot of research is going on gait recognition. In our purposed deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture, Gait Energy image is used as the input and simple several layers are used in matrix analytics. The softmax classifier is used to measure the similarity between Gallery gaits and Probe gaits. This paper uses CASIA Dataset B for performance evaluation of Gait recognition using different angle view variation, normal walking, wearing clothing and carrying bags conditions. The experimental results show that the proposed deep CNN architecture’s accuracy is better than Bag-of-Words (BoW), Histogram of Image Gradient (HOG) and 3D-Histogram of Merged Orientations (3D-HOMO

Active Vibration Control of Piezolaminated Smart Beams

This paper deals with the active vibration control of beam like structures with distributed piezoelectric sensor and actuator layers bonded on top and bottom surfaces of the beam. A finite element model based on Euler-Bernoulli beam theory has been developed. The contribution of the piezoelectric sensor and actuator layers on the mass and stiffness of the beam is considered. Three types of classical control strategies, namely direct proportional feedback, constant-gain negative velocity feedback and Lyapunov feedback and an optimal control strategy, linear quadratic regulator (LQR) scheme are applied to study their control effectiveness. Also, the control performance with different types of loading, such as impulse loading, step loading, harmonic and random loading is studie

An Improved Differential Evolution Based Dynamic Economic Dispatch with Nonsmooth Fuel Cost Function

Dynamic economic dispatch (DED) is one of the major operational decisions in electric power systems. DED problem is an optimization problem with an objective to determine the optimal combination of power outputs for all generating units over a certain period of time in order to minimize the total fuel cost while satisfying dynamic operational constraints and load demand in each interval. This paper presents an improved differential evolution (IDE) method to solve the DED problem of generating units considering valve-point effects. Heuristic crossover technique and gene swap operator are introduced in the proposed approach to improve the convergence characteristic of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, two test systems consisting of five and ten generating units have been considered. The results obtained through the proposed method are compared with those reported in the literature

A Community Based Study on Menstrual Hygiene among Reproductive Age Group Women in a Rural Area, Tamil Nadu

Background: Women suffer due to their ignorance on hygienic requirement during menstruation. Hygiene‑related practices of women during menstruation are of considerable importance, as it has a health impact in terms of increased vulnerability to reproductive tract infections (RTI). Aims: This study aims to assess the hygienic practices during menstruation and influence of socio-demographic factors on menstrual hygienic practices among women of reproductive age-group. Subjects and Methods: It is a cross‑sectional community‑based study conducted among 200 women of reproductive age group (15-45 years) in a rural field practice area, VMKV Medical college, Salem in Oct–Dec 2013 by using simple random sampling technique. Using structured pretested questionnaire, women were interviewed regarding their sociodemographic history and menstrual hygiene practices. Result: Majority of study population, 36% (72/200) belonged to the 21-30 year age group. About 75% (150/200) were married. Majority of women were unskilled workers 35% (70/200), had primary education 43.3% (86/200), and 54.3% (108/200) belonged to lower middle class. The mean age of menarche among the reproductive age‑group women was 13.15 years. Majority of women 51.8% (104/200) used cloth during menstruation; about 45.7% (91/200) used the same cloth by washing and reusing every month. There was a significant influence of sociodemographic factors and hygienic practices during menstruation (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Most women were found to follow unhygienic practices. Hence, efforts such as improving female literacy and health education regarding the various risk factors should be made by the policy makers to increase menstrual hygiene among rural population. Keywords: Menstrual hygiene, reproductive age‑group women, rural are

In vitro antifungal screening of some medicinal plants against Macrophomina phaseolina

The medicinal plants present enormous reservoir of potential microbial compounds that could be useful alternative to synthetic microbicides and are being used to develop drugs. In the present study of five selected medicinal plants the leaf powder extracts were tested against Macrophomina phaseolina by disc diffusion method. It was found that ethanol extract strongly effective against Macrophomina phaseolina, is a causal agent for charcoal rot of sunflower fungal pathogen. &nbsp

Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Management Among the Employees in Automobile Retail Showrooms

Purpose:  The purpose of the study is to know about the vehicle industry in India has lately begun to expand. According to these patterns, the business will modify its cycle in order to improve brand recognition and consumer loyalty. The majority of workers at auto dealership showrooms are currently confronted with motions of deteriorating commitment and responsibility, constrained creativity, startling vulnerability, distance between chiefs and representatives, and crumbling trust.  The study's main objective was to find out how relationship managers at the four-wheeled vehicle retail showrooms in the Erode District used emotional intelligence.   Theoretical Framework:  Being able to recognize and understand what others are going through while working with others demands emotional awareness. Emotional awareness can successfully develop additional social/emotional abilities that will enhance the relationships' viability, efficacy, and satisfaction. The development of emotional intelligence can be a key element in increasing market position, staff collaboration and teamwork, and customer relationships.   Design/methodology/approach:  The study used multistage sampling with a sample size of 100 relationship managers.   Findings: Relationship managers at auto dealerships can improve their emotional intelligence by being more self-aware and knowing more about their clientele. If they work on becoming more aware of their own feelings and how they respond to other people, they will grow more compassionate. Education and socioeconomic opportunities are advantageous for emotional intelligence training. Therefore, rather than continuing to gain experience, which takes up the most of the day, relationship managers should go on drives to further build their emotional intelligence (EI) to understand people on a profound level as soon as they enter the showroom   Future Implications:  The study can further be indulged in to EI and Relationship management among service sectors as the study would get diverse results which will be useful   Originality Value: This study is unique as it is studied about the EI among the automobile retails showrooms, many studies have contributed in EI, but EI among automobile retail showrooms and analysing about the relationship management is key aspec