Voltage to Frequency Converter: Modeling and Design

In this thesis a study on conventional voltage to frequency converter is given. A linear voltage to frequency converter is assumed i.e. the output frequency level changes with the varying input voltage level. Then as per the findings of our study a voltage to frequency converter is designed and a physical model of the designed circuit is prepared. A transformer and full wave rectifier are used to reach the optimal dc voltage level while the regulator is used for controlled power supply. An op-Amp based voltage to frequency converter is designed whose output is obtained through a 555 timer. The main operation of the op-Amp is to serve as a voltage integrator which is necessary for triangular wave generation and also as a comparator for converting the triangular wave into square wave. The timer circuit is operated in monostable mode. A simple and low cost voltage to frequency converter design and its performance analysis is the main objective of this thesis

Physiological and behavioral risk factors of type 2 diabetes mellitus in rural India

BACKGROUND: The dynamics of physiological and behavioral risk factors of diabetes in rural India is poorly understood. Using data from a health and demographic surveillance site of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, this study aims to assess the risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 7674 individuals aged ≥18 years participated in a cross-sectional study. Venous plasma glucose method was used for measuring and reporting glucose concentrations in blood, categorized as individuals with diabetes, pre-diabetes or impaired, and normoglycemic. Aside from a set of physiological and behavioral risk factors, a range of socioeconomic confounders of diabetes was computed. Bivariate analysis with χ(2) test, and multivariate ordered logit regression methods were deployed to attain the study's objective. RESULTS: Overall 2.95% and 3.34% of study participants were diagnosed as individuals with diabetes and pre-diabetes or impaired, respectively. Compared to the poorest, the richest have higher probability (β: 0.730; 95% CI 0.378 to 1.083) of being diagnosed with diabetes. As compared to people with normal body mass index, overweight/obese people are more prone to being diagnosed with diabetes (β: 0.388; 95% CI 0.147 to 0.628). With a decreasing level of physical activity, people are more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: To curb the level of diabetes, this study recommends a culturally sensitive, focused intervention for the adoption of physical activity with more traditional dietary practices, to control the level of overweight/obesity. Attention should be paid to relatively older patients with diabetes or adults with pre-diabetes

Population-level effective coverage of adolescent weekly iron and folic acid supplementation is low in rural West Bengal, India

Objective: To assess the coverage of the adolescent weekly iron and folic acid supplementation (WIFS) programme in rural West Bengal, India. Design: We conducted a population-based cross-sectional survey of intended WIFS programme beneficiaries (in-school adolescent girls and boys and out-of-school adolescent girls). Setting: Birbhum Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Participants: A total of 4448 adolescents 10–19 years of age participated in the study. Results: The percentage of adolescents who reported taking four WIFS tablets during the last month as intended by the national programme was 9·4 % among in-school girls, 7·1 % for in-school boys and 2·3 % for out-of-school girls. The low effective coverage was due to the combination of large deficits in WIFS provision and poor adherence. A large proportion of adolescents reported they were not provided any WIFS tablets in the last month: 61·7 % of in-school girls, 73·3 % of in-school boys and 97·1 % of out-of-school girls. In terms of adherence, only 41·6 % of in-school girls, 38·1 % of in-school boys and 47·4 % of out-of-school girls reported that they consumed all WIFS tablets they received. Counselling from teachers, administrators and school staff was the primary reason adolescents reported taking WIFS tablets, whereas the major reasons for non-adherence were lack of perceived benefit, peer suggestion not to take WIFS and a reported history of side effects. Conclusions: The effective coverage of the WIFS programme for in-school adolescents and out-of-school adolescent girls is low in rural Birbhum. Integrated supply- and demand-side strategies appear to be necessary to increase the effective coverage and potential benefits of the WIFS programme

HealthFog: An ensemble deep learning based Smart Healthcare System for Automatic Diagnosis of Heart Diseases in integrated IoT and fog computing environments

Cloud computing provides resources over the Internet and allows a plethora of applications to be deployed to provide services for different industries. The major bottleneck being faced currently in these cloud frameworks is their limited scalability and hence inability to cater to the requirements of centralized Internet of Things (IoT) based compute environments. The main reason for this is that latency-sensitive applications like health monitoring and surveillance systems now require computation over large amounts of data (Big Data) transferred to centralized database and from database to cloud data centers which leads to drop in performance of such systems. The new paradigms of fog and edge computing provide innovative solutions by bringing resources closer to the user and provide low latency and energy-efficient solutions for data processing compared to cloud domains. Still, the current fog models have many limitations and focus from a limited perspective on either accuracy of results or reduced response time but not both. We proposed a novel framework called HealthFog for integrating ensemble deep learning in Edge computing devices and deployed it for a real-life application of automatic Heart Disease analysis. HealthFog delivers healthcare as a fog service using IoT devices and efficiently manages the data of heart patients, which comes as user requests. Fog-enabled cloud framework, FogBus is used to deploy and test the performance of the proposed model in terms of power consumption, network bandwidth, latency, jitter, accuracy and execution time. HealthFog is configurable to various operation modes that provide the best Quality of Service or prediction accuracy, as required, in diverse fog computation scenarios and for different user requirements

Has expansion of mobile phone and internet use spurred financial inclusion in the SAARC countries?

Abstract Exclusion from the mainstream financial world is a burden on the poor of many countries. The proliferation of new mobile and online financial services, such as e-banking, money transfers, and payment processing has the potential to provide access to basic financial products and services to financially excluded people. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the growth of mobile phone and Internet use on financial inclusion in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries from 2004 to 2014. We applied principal component analysis to construct a financial inclusion index that served as a proxy variable for the accessibility of financial services in the SAARC countries. Using three different models-the fixed effect, random effect, and panel correction standard errors models-this study discovered a positive and significant relationship between the growth of financial inclusion and expansion of both mobile phone and Internet services. Moreover, an empirical study of the control variables showed that the levels of income and education were positively associated with financial inclusion, whereas the size of the rural population and unemployment were negatively related to financial inclusion. In addition, the empirical estimates posit a unidirectional causal flow from the growth of mobile and Internet services to expanded financial inclusion in the SAARC countries

Preference in place of delivery among rural Indian women

<div><p>India accounts for the highest number of maternal and child deaths globally. A large body of empirical research suggests that improvement in the coverage of institutional delivery is essential to reduce the burden of maternal and child death. However the dynamics of choice of place of delivery is poorly understood. Using qualitative survey data consisting of twelve focus group discussions, conducted in a rural setting of West Bengal, India, this study aims to understand the reasons behind preferring home or institution for delivery. Findings reveal that some women who underwent an institutional delivery preferred to deliver their baby at home. On the other hand, of women who delivered their baby at home, 60% wanted to deliver their babies in institutions but could not do so, primarily due to the unwillingness of family members and misreporting of the onset of true labour pain. With the help of Accredited Social Health Activists, the village level health workers, there is need for an intervention that focuses on educating household members (essentially targeting husbands and mother-in-laws) about birth preparedness, and identification of true labour pain.</p></div

FBXW2 suppresses breast tumorigenesis by targeting AKT-Moesin-SKP2 axis

Abstract Oncogene Moesin plays critical role in initiation, progression, and metastasis of multiple cancers. It exerts oncogenic activity due to its high-level expression as well as posttranslational modification in cancer. However, factors responsible for its high-level expression remain elusive. In this study, we identified positive as well as negative regulators of Moesin. Our study reveals that Moesin is a cellular target of F-box protein FBXW2. We showed that FBXW2 suppresses breast cancer progression through directing proteasomal degradation of Moesin. In contrast, AKT kinase plays an important role in oncogenic function of Moesin by protecting it from FBXW2-mediated proteasomal degradation. Mechanistically, AKT phosphorylates Moesin at Thr-558 and thereby prevents its degradation by FBXW2 via weakening the association between FBXW2 and Moesin. Further, accumulated Moesin prevents FBXW2-mediated degradation of oncogene SKP2, showing that Moesin functions as an upstream regulator of oncogene SKP2. In turn, SKP2 stabilizes Moesin by directing its non-degradable form of polyubiquitination and therefore AKT-Moesin-SKP2 oncogenic axis plays crucial role in breast cancer progression. Collectively, our study reveals that FBXW2 functions as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer by restricting AKT-Moesin-SKP2 axis. Thus, AKT-Moesin-SKP2 axis may be explored for the development of therapeutics for cancer treatment

Socio-demographic characteristics of women selected for focus group discussion, stratified by the place of delivery.

<p>Socio-demographic characteristics of women selected for focus group discussion, stratified by the place of delivery.</p