Utilization of ASHA services by the pregnant women of rural Tripura, India

Background: India’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) introduced Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) at the community level. Their vital role is to promote antenatal care and increase the utilization of the existing health services. The objectives were to find out utilization of ASHA services by the pregnant women and to study its determinants in rural area of Tripura, India.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted during February – April 2015 using a validated interview schedule among 306 recently delivered women residing in Mohanpur block of Tripura, chosen by multistage sampling.Results: Utilization rate of ASHA services by pregnant women was found to be 89.7%. Pregnancy registration rate was 95% and 90% of these registrations were facilitated by ASHA. Adequate antenatal check-up rate facilitated by ASHA was 76.69%. Regarding Iron and Folic Acid prophylaxis, 67.88% of the adequate recipients were facilitated by ASHA. For laboratory tests, 80.23% of the women were motivated by ASHA. About 90% of the study women have heard about Janani Suraksha Yojona (JSY) scheme from ASHA and 70% of them got the benefit through ASHA. Literacy, parity, community, economic class, home visit by ASHA and family decision maker were identified as the significant determinants of utilization of ASHA services by the pregnant women.Conclusions: Utilization rate of the ASHA services by the pregnant women needs improvement. Apart from IEC activities, active home visits by ASHA, empowering couples to make their own fertility decisions, improvement in female literacy etc. may enhance utilization of ASHA services by this community which will intern enhance maternal health care utilization.

Electrical conductivity of cellular Si/SiC ceramic composites prepared from plant precursors

Electrical conductivity (sigma_dc) of the cellular Si/SiC ceramic composites has been measured over a temperature range 25-1073 K while the thermoelectric power (S) has been measured over 25-300 K. Remarkably, these cellular compounds developed through biomimetic route - where the ceramic system grows within a plant bio-template retaining the structural intricacies of the native templates - are found to exhibit excellent mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties quite comparable to or even better than those of the systems prepared through conventional ceramic route. The electrical conductivity measured parallel (sigma||) and perpendicular (sigma+) to the growth axes of the native plants, depicts nearly temperature-independent anisotropy (sigma+/sigma||) of the order \~2 while the thermoelectric power is nearly isotropic. The charge conduction across the entire temperature range is found to follow closely the variable range hopping (VRH) mechanism. The conductivity anisotropy appears to be driven primarily by the unique microcellular morphology of the bio-templates which can be exploited in many electrical applications.Comment: 22 pages including 6 figures; pdf only; submitted to J. Appl. Phy

Role of Sb doping in governing the thermal conductivity of Bi-Pb-Sr-Ca-Cu-O superconductors between 10-K and 150-K

In this paper, we report on the role of Sb doping in causing differences in the nature of the thermal conductivity (k) versus temperature (T) plot between 10 and 150 K for Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox superconductors. The peak in the thermal conductivity plot shifts towards lower temperature and also becomes sharper with Sb doping. The increase in the static imperfections as a result of Sb doping is quantitatively estimated following the Tewordt and Wolkhausen [TW] model. The role of static imperfections in governing the nature of the k-T plot is discussed. We conclude that the sharp rise in k below the transition temperature (T(c)) for Sb-doped samples can be better accounted for by invoking the concept of suppression of quasiparticle scattering, rather than by the commonly believed concept of increased phonon mean free path due to condensation of carriers

Reentrant metallic transition at a temperature above T-c at the breakdown of cooperative Jahn-Teller orbital order in perovskite manganites

We report an interesting reentrant metallic resistivity pattern beyond a characteristic temperature T* which is higher than other such characteristic transition temperatures like T-c (Curie point), T-N (Neel point), T-CO (charge order onset point) or T-OO (orbital order onset point) in a range of rare-earth perovskite manganites (RE(1-x)A(x)MnO(3); RE=La, Nd, Y; A=Sr, Ca; x=0.0-0.5). Such a behavior is normally observed in doped manganites with doping level (x) higher than the critical doping level x(c) (=0.17-0.22) required for the metallic ground state to emerge and hence in a system where cooperative Jahn-Teller orbital order has already undergone a breakdown. However, the observation made in the La1-xCaxMnO3 (x=0.0-0.3) series turns out to be an exception to this general trend

A comparative study of severe thunderstorm among statistical and ANN methodologies

Abstract Severe Thunderstorms are the extreme weather convective features. It causes local calamities in various ways. Proper prediction with lead time is an important factor to prevent such calamities from saving people. Here, both probabilistic and machine learning techniques are applied to weather data to obtain proper predictions. Traditional methodologies are already available for such prediction purposes. However, Naïve Bayes and RBFN (Radial Basis Function Network) methodology have been introduced here with some specific weather parameters that has not done before remarkably. A comparative study was performed on weather data including Naïve Bayes, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN). All these data have been procured from Kolkata located in north-east India. The result obtained by applying the Radial Basis Function Network is better among the three methods, yielding a correct prediction of 95% for severe “squall-storms” and 94% for “no storm”. The predictions have a sufficient lead time of 10- 12 h

Evidence of relaxation of Jahn-Teller polarons above T-C in La1-xSrxMnO3 (0.1 < x <= 0.5)

We report the resistivity (rho)-temperature (T) patterns in La1-xSrxMnO3 (0.1 < x less than or equal to 0.5) systems over a temperature regime of 20-1273 K. Apart from a general trend of metallic rho-T pattern below Te (Curie point) and insulating above it, are have observed a re-entrant metallic rho-T pattern beyond a characteristic temperature T* above T-C for the compositions 0.25 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 0.50. Such behaviour possibly reflects the relaxation of Jahn-Teller (JT) polarons (which form as a result of splitting of Mn3+ outer levels and associated distortion in MnO6 octahedra) at a higher temperature. The polaron formation energy E-JT has been calculated from fitting a simple two-channel conduction model with the resistivity data. It appears to vary significantly with the Sr2+ ion concentration (x) or the concentration of JT-active Mn3+ ions which reflects the variation of the extent of Jahn-Teller coupling. The relaxation of polarons and the change in the behaviour of rho-T pattern above T* are not associated with any commensurate magnetic transition which seems to be supporting the notion that Jahn-Teller polarons influence the properties like T-C, conductivity, magnetoresistivity etc significantly

Zero-field resistivity anomaly and low-field response of the canted antiferromagnetism in unsubstituted and Ba-substituted LaMnO3+delta within the insulating regime

Electrical and low-field magnetic properties of unsubstituted LaMnO3+delta and Ba-substituted La1-yBayMnO3+delta systems have been measured over the temperature range 20-300 K. The samples within the insulating regime exhibit rho=rho(o) exp(U/k(B)T) type resistivity (rho) vs temperature (T) pattern (U=activation barrier). However, for the unsubstituted samples with delta=0.031-0.064 and Ba-substituted ones up to a doping level of y=0.05, an anomalous deviation in the rho vs T pattern has been observed below the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature (T-A) which yields a significantly smaller activation barrier in this low-temperature regime. Such an anomaly in rho vs T arises in this temperature regime (when A-type antiferromagnetic spin structure is dominant) possibly due to confinement of charge carriers within the two-dimensional Mn-O planes in a grain. In the case of Ba-substituted samples, the insulator-to-metal transition takes place at a relatively higher doping level (y greater than or equal to 0.2) than what is normally observed in the case of Sr or Ca doping. The insulating samples also exhibit a significant drop in T-A under a low magnetic field (100-5000 Oe). This observation reveals a canted A-type antiferromagnetic structure (rather than a spiral structure) for these samples, as pointed out recently by Kawano ct al

Role of superconductor normal metal superconductor proximity junctions in governing the intergranular flux pinning in electrophoretically deposited Y-Ba-Cu-O films

Within a low-field limit, the magnetic critical current density (J(c)) is found to have dropped drastically in case of thinner Y-Ba-Cu-O films (less than or equal to 20 mu m); deposited electrophoretically on silver substrates. In this low-field limit, the current loops scale the entire sample volume consisting of grain-grain-boundary networks. Due to the presence of uniformly distributed silver at the grain boundaries within the entire network (in case of these thinner films), the pinning potential (U-0) of the grain boundary Josephson vortices is small as it depends on random variation in Josephson coupling energy (E(J)) of the grain boundaries. In case of thicker films, of course, U-0 can be high as no silver penetration is possible up to the top layers and hence, U-0 varies as similar to d(0.4) (d=film thickness) and ranges from 45 to 135 meV over a thickness regime of 3-65 mu m. Consequently, the magnetic J(c) too, follows an anomalous trend of variation with film thickness