Massive tubercular pseudo-tumor of the thigh: a case report

Psoas abscess in cases of tuberculosis originates from the primary lesion in the lower dorsal or the lumbar spine. From the spinal origin of the Psoas muscle, this abscess tracks down its sheath and may be palpable in the iliac fossa, in the lumbar triangle, in the upper part of thigh below the inguinal ligament. We present a rare case, where patient presented with thigh swelling, which on first look gave an impression of a malignant origin. But subsequent investigation revealed it to be one of tuberculous origin, and that to, tracking down of a Psoas abscess. According to best of our knowledge, there has been no reported case of a Psoas abscess tracking down to the thigh and knee and mimicking a tumour.Pan African Medical Journal 2012; 12:2

Analysis of TPM barriers using ISM-MICMAC approach

Total Productive Maintenance in the organizations is a challenging issue for Indian manufacturing industries. There is a rapid need to analyze the behavior of the barriers faced by Indian manufacturing industries for efficacious implementation of TPM. The purpose of this study is to recognize the mutual interaction among the barriers of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and to develop a hierarchy of barriers to TPM implementation. An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) - MICMAC methodology is employed to identify the inter-relationships among the barriers of TPM implementation. A hierarchy model of these barriers is developed; by driving and dependence power of the barriers. MICMAC methodology determines driving and driven barriers based on their driving and dependence power. © IEOM Society International

Aggregate formation in a system of coagulating and fragmenting particles with mass-dependent diffusion rates

The effect of introducing a mass-dependent diffusion rate tilde ~m-α in a model of coagulation with single-particle breakup is studied both analytically and numerically. The model with α=0 is known to undergo a nonequilibrium phase transition as the mass density in the system is varied from a phase with an exponential distribution of mass to a phase with a power-law distribution of masses in addition to a single infinite aggregate. This transition is shown to be curbed, at finite densities, for all α>0 in any dimension. However, a signature of this transition is seen in finite systems in the form of a large aggregate and the finite-size scaling implications of this are characterized. The exponents characterizing the steady-state probability that a randomly chosen site has mass m are calculated using scaling arguments. The full probability distribution is obtained within a mean-field approximation and found to compare well with the results from numerical simulations in one dimension

Energy Efficient Network-on-Chip Architectures for Many-Core Near-Threshold Computing System

Near threshold computing has unraveled a promising design space for energy efficient computing. However, it is still plagued by sub-optimal system performance. Application characteristics and hardware non-idealities of conventional architectures (those optimized for nominal voltage) prevent us from fully leveraging the potential of NTC systems. Increasing the computational core count still forms the bedrock of a multitude of contemporary works that address the problem of performance degradation in NTC systems. However, these works do not categorically address the shortcomings of the conventional on-chip interconnect fabric in a many core environment. In this work, we quantitatively demonstrate the performance bottleneck created by a conventional NTC architecture in many-core NTC systems. To reclaim the performance lost due to a sub-optimal NoC in many-core NTC systems, we propose BoostNoC—a power efficient, multi-layered network-on-chip architecture. BoostNoC improves the system performance by nearly 2× over a conventional NTC system, while largely sustaining its energy benefits. Further, capitalizing on the application characteristics, we propose two BoostNoC derivative designs: (i) PG BoostNoC; and (ii) Drowsy BoostNoC; to improve the energy efficiency by 1.4× and 1.37×, respectively over conventional NTC system

Inflaton phenomenology via reheating in the light of PGWs and latest BICEP/KeckKeck data

We are in the era of precision cosmology which offers us a unique opportunity to investigate beyond standard model physics. Towards this endeavor, inflaton is assumed to be a perfect new physics candidate. In this submission, we explore the phenomenological impact of the latest observation of PLANCK and BICEP/$Keck$ data on the physics of inflation. We particularly study three different models of inflation, namely $\alpha$-attractor E, T, and the minimal plateau model. We further consider two different post-inflationary reheating dynamics driven by inflaton decaying into Bosons and Fermions. Given the latest data in the inflationary $(n_s-r)$ plane, we derive detailed phenomenological constraints on different inflaton parameters and the associated physical quantities, such as inflationary e-folding number, $N_{ k}$, reheating temperatures $T_{\rm re}$. Apart from considering direct observational data, we further incorporate the bounds from primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) and different theoretical constraints. Rather than in the laboratory, our results illustrate the potential of present and future cosmological observations to look for new physics in the sky.Comment: 17 pages, 8 tables and 10 figure

Threats faced by brown rot of potato in Bangladesh

Potato is the most important root crop in Bangladesh. The field production is very much lower compared to other developed countries. Pests and diseases hampered the production due to the prevailing climatic condition, which favors the development in Bangladesh of specific diseases. Among them Brown rot (Ralstonia solanacearum) is the most alarming disease at present and previous time. The major areas of Bangladesh have faced many hampers on this disease. The potato growers and businessmen of Bangladesh are facing much problems on this disease especially in case of export to other countries as Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Maldives, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia and Nigeria. But during last year Russian Government banned import potatoes from Bangladesh. So, from these perspectives, this concept paper was studied to evaluate the most appropriate status of this disease caused by organisms and its best control strategies to impart better production thinking for Bangladeshi potato growers, exporters and other related personnels

Deep Ear Biometrics for Gender Classification

Human gender classification based on biometric features is a major concern for computer vision due to its vast variety of applications. The human ear is popular among researchers as a soft biometric trait, because it is less affected by age or changing circumstances, and is non-intrusive. In this study, we have developed a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) model for automatic gender classification using the samples of ear images. The performance is evaluated using four cutting-edge pre-trained CNN models. In terms of trainable parameters, the proposed technique requires significantly less computational complexity. The proposed model has achieved 93% accuracy on the EarVN1.0 ear dataset.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Site-specific stable deterministic single photon emitters with low Huang-Rhys value in layered hexagonal boron nitride at room temperature

Development of stable room-temperature bright single-photon emitters using atomic defects in hexagonal-boron nitride flakes (h-BN) provides significant promises for quantum technologies. However, an outstanding challenge in h-BN is creating site-specific, stable, high emission rate single photon emitters with very low Huang-Rhys (HR) factor. Here, we discuss the photonic properties of site-specific, isolated, stable quantum emitter that emit single photons with a high emission rate and unprecedented low HR value of 0.6 at room temperature. Scanning confocal image confirms site-specific single photon emitter with a prominent zero-phonon line at ~578 nm with saturation photon counts of 105 counts/second. The second-order intensity-intensity correlation measurement shows an anti-bunching dip of ~0.25 with an emission lifetime of 2.46 ns. Low-energy electron beam irradiation and subsequent annealing are important to achieve stable single photon emitters

Effect of heterogeneous substrate adhesivity of follower cells on speed and tension profile of leader cells in primary keratocyte collective cell migration

In single keratocyte motility, membrane tension is reported to be high at cell-fronts and believed to establish front coherence. To understand role of membrane mechanics in collective cell migration, we study membrane height fluctuations in cell sheets from fish scales using interference reflection microscopy (IRM). We report the monolayer to have cells lacking substrate adhesion and show that such ‘non-sticky’ cells can form bridges between leader cells and far-away follower cells. Do such interactions alter motility and membrane mechanics in such leaders? We find non-significant, but reduced speed for leaders with ‘non-sticky’ followers in comparison to other leaders. Cells show high phenotypic variability in their membrane fluctuation tension profiles. On average, this tension is found to be lower at cell fronts than the mid-section. However, leaders with non-sticky followers are more prone to display higher tension at their front and have a negative correlation between cell speed and front-mid tension difference. Thus, we conclude that intracellular tension gradients are heterogeneous in cell sheets and substrate adhesivity of followers can control the coupling of the gradient to cell speed