Improvements on the Inhaler

Background: Inhalers are a commonplace in American health care and deliver crucial drugs to patients with COPD and asthma. Inhaler use has been shown to be unsatisfactory among patients resulting in ineffective medication delivery. The goal of this project was to improve the inhaler design for increased effectiveness and ease of use. Methods: Our team first interviewed a Pulmonologist regarding patient inhaler use. Dr. Harry Kane demonstrated the proper use of an inhaler as well and described errors in inhaler use are due to patient technique. A variety of inhalers currently available were examined and were compared for ease of use. Results: Interview with attending physician revealed numerous patient errors that impede effectiveness of inhaled medication. Two common mistakes were identified: patients inhaling too rapidly and patients dispensing the medication too late. Inhaling too rapidly decreases the fraction of drug that reaches the lungs, decreasing effectiveness. Dispensing the medication after a patient reaches total lung capacity (TLC) prevents the drug from reaching their lungs, decreasing effectiveness. Conclusions: We conclude that inhalers could be used more effectively by addressing patient education and feedback mechanisms. Possible solutions discuss audible feedback to help coordinate patient breath with optimal dispersal timing. Future work includes prototyping a design and eliciting patient feedback

Active and Passive Quantum Erasers for Neutral Kaons

Quantum marking and quantum erasure are discussed for the neutral kaon system. Contrary to other two-level systems, strangeness and lifetime of a neutral kaon state can be alternatively measured via an "active" or a "passive" procedure. This offers new quantum erasure possibilities. In particular, the operation of a quantum eraser in the "delayed choice" mode is clearly illustrated.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure, references added, accepted by Phys. Rev.

Structure, bonding and magnetism in cobalt clusters

The structural, electronic and magnetic properties of Co$_n$ clusters ($n=2-$20) have been investigated using density functional theory within the pseudopotential plane wave method. An unusual hexagonal growth pattern has been observed in the intermediate size range, $n=15-$20. The cobalt atoms are ferromagnetically ordered and the calculated magnetic moments are found to be higher than that of corresponding hcp bulk value, which are in good agreement with the recent Stern-Gerlach experiments. The average coordination number is found to dominate over the average bond length to determine the effective hybridization and consequently the cluster magnetic moment.Comment: 12 pages and 9 figure

Morbidity patterns in Kerala : levels and determinants

This paper examines the levels, patterns, and determinants of morbidity in Kerala. This study is based on a community survey conducted in 2004, in three districts of the state namely Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram and Kannur. The survey covers 3320 households having 17071 individuals in all age groups. Reported morbidity was captured for a period of fifteen days prior to the data of survey. Life course analysis was performed to understand the risk of morbidity at various stages, like infancy, early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, reproductive ages and old age, in relation to the impact of socio-economic, demographic and regional factors. The level of morbidity is high in Kerala. Generally, higher levels of morbidity have been observed among females, schedule castes, and schedule tribes as compared to their counter parts. Socio-economic and demographic determinants of morbidity varies both region and across various stages of life course. Females are at greater risk of morbidity than males. The risk of morbidity is significantly higher for illiterates and non-formal literate than persons with higher education. Among the important socio-economic determinants, education and SES showed a negative relationship with morbidity. The risk of morbidity for females is lower than males till the age of 34 years and thereafter it reverse. Poor are at greater risk of morbidity than the rich. Disease specific prevalence rate are computed according to the classification manual of World Health Organization. Communicable diseases are coming down in the state. However, non-communicable diseases are mounting irrespective of socio-economic conditions. Major ten diseases with their co-existing ailments were analysed in detail. Most of the diseases prevalent in Kerala warrant constant medical attention and treatment and sustained medical treatment is beyond the wherewithal of the average households. The private health care system cannot be an answer because of the high average cost of treatment. This warrants greater and sustained efforts by the State in widening the scope of public action. Key words: Health Status, Morbidity, Levels and Determinants, life Course Perspective, Kerala JEL Classification: I10, I12

Quantum marking and quantum erasure for neutral kaons

Entangled K0 anti-K0 pairs are shown to be suitable to discuss extensions and tests of Bohr's complementarity principle through the quantum marking and quantum erasure techniques suggested by M. O. Scully and K. Druehl [Phys. Rev. A 25, 2208 (1982)]. Strangeness oscillations play the role of the traditional interference pattern linked to wave-like behaviour, whereas the distinct propagation in free space of the K_S and K_L components mimics the two possible interferometric paths taken by particle-like objects.Comment: 4 RevTeX page

Development of PCR-Based Detection System for Soft Rot Pectobacteriaceae Pathogens Using Molecular Signatures

Pectobacterium and Dickeya species, usually referred to as soft rot Enterobacteriaceae, are phytopathogenic genera of bacteria that cause soft rot and blackleg diseases and are responsible for significant yield losses in many crops across the globe. Diagnosis of soft rot disease is difficult through visual disease symptoms. Pathogen detection and identification methods based on cultural and morphological identification are time-consuming and not always reliable. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection method with the species-specific primers is fast and reliable for detecting soft rot pathogens. We have developed a specific and sensitive detection system for some species of soft rot Pectobacteriaceae pathogens in the Pectobacterium and Dickeya genera based on the use of species-specific primers to amplify unique genomic segments. The specificities of primers were verified by PCR analysis of genomic DNA from 14 strains of Pectobacterium, 8 strains of Dickeya, and 6 strains of non-soft rot bacteria. This PCR assay provides a quick, simple, powerful, and reliable method for detection of soft rot bacteria

Contact stress analysis of lightly compressed thin films : modeling and experimentation

Although a number of models have been developed to describe the contact between nominally smooth surfaces, very few of these models have been validated with experiment. Therefore, in this study, an asperity-scale experimental contact measurement was conducted and compared to the predictions of two contact models. The experimental component of this study involved a flat diamond punch tip on a nanoindenter, which was used to compress a thin film that was lithographically patterned into isolated raised squares. This experimental method was developed in order to measure the predominantly elastic load response of the surface asperities on one of the isolated raised topography islands. The experimental measurements were compared to the predicted load responses of an existing analytical contact model as well as a finite element contact model that incorporated the topography of the raised island into its formulation. The predictions of both the models were shown to have reasonable agreement with the experimental data. The modeling results were also used to provide greater depth of insight into the physics of the flat punch compression

A bidirectional subsethood based similarity measure for fuzzy sets

Similarity measures are useful for reasoning about fuzzy sets. Hence, many classical set-theoretic similarity measures have been extended for comparing fuzzy sets. In previous work, a set-theoretic similarity measure considering the bidirectional subsethood for intervals was introduced. The measure addressed specific concerns of many common similarity measures, and it was shown to be bounded above and below by Jaccard and Dice measures respectively. Herein, we extend our prior measure from similarity on intervals to fuzzy sets. Specifically, we propose a vertical-slice extension where two fuzzy sets are compared based on their membership values.We show that the proposed extension maintains all common properties (i.e., reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity, and overlapping) of the original fuzzy similarity measure. We demonstrate and contrast its behaviour along with common fuzzy set-theoretic measures using different types of fuzzy sets (i.e., normal, non-normal, convex, and non-convex) in respect to different discretization levels

A Similarity Measure Based on Bidirectional Subsethood for Intervals

With a growing number of areas leveraging interval-valued data—including in the context of modelling human uncertainty (e.g., in Cyber Security), the capacity to accurately and systematically compare intervals for reasoning and computation is increasingly important. In practice, well established set-theoretic similarity measures such as the Jaccard and Sørensen-Dice measures are commonly used, while axiomatically a wide breadth of possible measures have been theoretically explored. This paper identifies, articulates, and addresses an inherent and so far not discussed limitation of popular measures—their tendency to be subject to aliasing—where they return the same similarity value for very different sets of intervals. The latter risks counter-intuitive results and poor automated reasoning in real-world applications dependent on systematically comparing interval-valued system variables or states. Given this, we introduce new axioms establishing desirable properties for robust similarity measures, followed by putting forward a novel set-theoretic similarity measure based on the concept of bidirectional subsethood which satisfies both the traditional and new axioms. The proposed measure is designed to be sensitive to the variation in the size of intervals, thus avoiding aliasing. The paper provides a detailed theoretical exploration of the new proposed measure, and systematically demonstrates its behaviour using an extensive set of synthetic and real-world data. Specifically, the measure is shown to return robust outputs that follow intuition—essential for real world applications. For example, we show that it is bounded above and below by the Jaccard and Sørensen-Dice similarity measures (when the minimum t-norm is used). Finally, we show that a dissimilarity or distance measure, which satisfies the properties of a metric, can easily be derived from the proposed similarity measure