Early-stage technology ventures in India : opportunities and issues

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2008.Unpaged.Includes bibliographical references.High-technology Entrepreneurship has been a key driver of innovation and economic growth in the US. Aided by factors such as the success in IT and IT-enabled services industries and a booming economy, India has seen a sharp increase in activity in technology entrepreneurship. This thesis explored the opportunities and issues in building and growing technology startups in India. Money, market, manpower, and mentors were identified as the broad areas in which startups face challenges. The specific issues within these areas were analyzed from entrepreneurs' and investors' perspectives and potential solutions were recommended. While many of the issues faced by startups in India turned out to be similar to those faced by startups in the US, a few issues were found to be unique to India. The sources for data included in-depth interviews with participants in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem as well as existing research on entrepreneurship in US and India.by Aparna Chennapragada.S.M

Peripartum cardiomyopathy management-multidisciplinary approach 2011-2013 at Care Institute of Medical Sciences

Background: Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is one of the rare causes of heart failure in pregnant women. It occurs in late pregnancy or up to 5 months post-partum. It is associated with high mortality and morbidity but with chances of full recovery. This paper discusses the treatment of peripartum cardiomyopathy, Peripartum cardiomyopathy management -multidisciplinary approach. 2011-2013 at CIMS.Methods: This is an observational study conducted at CARE institute of medical sciences, CIMS, during 2011-2013 years. Women fulfilling the criteria for the diagnosis of PPCM were included in the study. In this study we have analysed the obstetric intervention, the duration of ICU stay, hospital stay, maternal and perinatal outcomes. The cardiac drugs to manage each individual case suited to her condition have been mentioned.Results: Six cases were diagnosed to have PPCM in pregnancy when there was sudden onset of shortness of breath, cough, and palpitations. Four cases had history of PPCM in previous pregnancies and were managed in the current pregnancy. One rare case had features of cardiomyopathy seen in early gestational period, during the first trimester at eight weeks, when she was treated for ectopic gestation. Patients were managed by pregnancy cardiac team. There was no case of maternal mortality.Conclusions: PPCM is a rare condition. It requires a high index of suspicion and awareness among primary care givers for early diagnosis and prompt management. A pregnancy cardiac team approach benefits this subset of patients. Delayed time of presentation, LVEF and dilated ventricle are factors determining recovery

Assessing the predictive ability of the Suicide Crisis Inventory for near-term suicidal behavior using machine learning approaches

OBJECTIVE: This study explores the prediction of near-term suicidal behavior using machine learning (ML) analyses of the Suicide Crisis Inventory (SCI), which measures the Suicide Crisis Syndrome, a presuicidal mental state. METHODS: SCI data were collected from high-risk psychiatric inpatients (N = 591) grouped based on their short-term suicidal behavior, that is, those who attempted suicide between intake and 1-month follow-up dates (N = 20) and those who did not (N = 571). Data were analyzed using three predictive algorithms (logistic regression, random forest, and gradient boosting) and three sampling approaches (split sample, Synthetic minority oversampling technique, and enhanced bootstrap). RESULTS: The enhanced bootstrap approach considerably outperformed the other sampling approaches, with random forest (98.0% precision; 33.9% recall; 71.0% Area under the precision-recall curve [AUPRC]; and 87.8% Area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUROC]) and gradient boosting (94.0% precision; 48.9% recall; 70.5% AUPRC; and 89.4% AUROC) algorithms performing best in predicting positive cases of near-term suicidal behavior using this dataset. CONCLUSIONS: ML can be useful in analyzing data from psychometric scales, such as the SCI, and for predicting near-term suicidal behavior. However, in cases such as the current analysis where the data are highly imbalanced, the optimal method of measuring performance must be carefully considered and selected

Durability of Sodium Selective Super Ionic Conductors in Sodium and Chloride Containing Aqueous Environments at pH 2-11

NASICON (Na3Zr2Si2PO12) ceramic specimens were synthesized by dry pressing and sintering Na2CO3, ZrP2O7, SiO2, and ZrO2 powders. The resulting NASICON membranes were exposed to 1M NaCl solutions titrated to pH values between 2 and 11. Accelerated electrochemical exposure testing was performed, which involved exposing thin discs of NASICON to both static and flowing 1M NaCl solutions with either HCl or NaOH solutions to pH 2, 7, or 11, under an applied effective current of 65 mA/cm2 to drive ion transport until failure was observed. Three and four electrode testing was performed to observe if any catastrophic failure would occur due to electrochemical exposure under the applied conditions. The three electrode set-up was a static solution set-up with 1M NaCl titrated to different pH for exposure conditions. The specimens were characterized by XRD, SEM, and XPS. At pH 7 and 11, no degradation of NASICON was observed, although current profiles suggest higher pH solutions tend to fail faster than the low pH. At pH 2, it was found that a buildup of Na on the surface and apparent depletion of Si/P from the surface lead to a degradation of the NASICON ceramic specimen

Fabrication of Palladium Nanoparticles and Nanoporous Alumina Templates

Nanostructured materials have potential technological applications due to their characteristic dimensions. The material performance will depend on the atomic structure, and composition of these materials. This thesis focuses on proposing a reliable method for fabricating nanoporous alumina and palladium nanoparticles inside the templates. Palladium nanoparticles were synthesized in commercial porous alumina templates using electrodeposition. Pores within these nanoporous membranes act as templates for the synthesis of nanostructures of the desired material. Electrodeposition is achieved using a three-terminal set-up and a potentiostat. Different types of deposition techniques were investigated to improve the distribution of the deposit. The nanoparticles were characterized by SEM/EDX for composition. The commercial templates have high aspect ratio, but are not hexagonally ordered. Hence porous alumina was fabricated in the laboratory by anodization of aluminum. A two-step anodization process was employed to fabricate the nanoporous alumina. The pore formation, influence of the experimental conditions on the pore formation, the structural characteristics of the pore and the oxide chemical reactions involved in the pore growth were discussed

GIS Across the Curriculum

This video, from the 2021 Esri Education Summit, provides two presentations on how GIS can serve K-12 educators. In the first presentation, Soumya Chennapragada describes a GIS club at Morning Creek Elementary School. The GIS club's implementation, the Esri kids fair, GIS activities for students, adjustments for Covid-19, lessons learned, and more are highlighted. In the second presentation, Federico Sarmiento Diaz describes the design and creation of a GIS educational tools laboratory for social sciences in secondary education. The video recording runs 36:52 minutes in length. Additional videos from the summit are available to view separately

Characterization of Ceramic Membranes Using Electrochemical Techniques

Electrochemical reactions involve an exchange of electric charge which may accompany a coupled chemical reaction. Corrosion, electroplating, and power from batteries or fuel cells are examples of processes driven by electrochemical reactions. Electrochemical tests can be used to monitor and/or control the current and potential of an electrode typically immersed in a liquid or other ionic conducting environment. The work presented here is focused on the characterization of ceramic membranes synthesized at BSU. Synthesis of the ceramic membranes included powder mixing, pressing, and sintering. Ceramics are inorganic, nonmetallic materials and most frequently consist of nitrides, oxides or carbides. Typically, ceramics are very hard, stiff and strong but also extremely brittle and susceptible to fracture. Although usually insulators, some ceramics have excellent ionic conduction properties that make them ideal for use as ion-selective or ion-exchange membranes in chemical filtering or solid electrolytes in fuel cells. In the current research a Na+ ceramic filter (synthesized at BSU) was sectioned, mounted, polished and characterized prior to electrochemical testing. During testing two different electrochemical cell configurations were used, depending on the type of experiment being conducted: •A standard three-electrode cell to measure surface properties of the ceramic. •A four electrode membrane cell to monitor sodium ion filtering rate and efficiency. The rate of ion-exchange, stability in water, and conductivity of these membranes was evaluated by electrochemical (impedance and potentiometric) analysis on a PAR 263A Potentiostat/Galvanostat, assisted by a PE 5210 amplifier circuit. A Gamry Reference 600 Potentiostat was also used for certain ranges of voltage. The focus of the work performed to date has been characterization of ceramic membranes to generate data for optimization of the membrane properties. This poster is an overview of the process and equipment capabilities for materials characterization using standard and novel electrochemical techniques

Use of a novel pacing mode to achieve biventricular pacing in a patient with recurrent atrial lead dislodgement after CRT-D implantation

AbstractCardiac resynchronization therapy device (CRT-P and CRT-D) implantation has increased tremendously with increasing operator experience, eligible patients and expansion of indications. Refinements in devices and algorithms now aid physicians to improve biventricular pacing and optimize CRT. We report a case in which an interesting device program was used to achieve biventricular pacing after repeated dislodgement of the atrial lead in a patient implanted with CRT-D

Diastolic mitral regurgitation after dual chamber pacemaker

First-degree Atrioventricular (AV) block can lead to symptoms of heart failure, due to AV dyssynchrony. We report a case of 40-year-old male with symptomatic 2:1 AV block with intermittent first-degree AV block who was implanted with dual chamber pacemaker with conduction system pacing (CSP). With conventional programming of managed ventricular pacing (MVP) and long AV delays, patient developed dyspnea due to diastolic mitral regurgitation because of AV dyssynchrony. Hence, AV delay optimization was done, and the patient became asymptomatic with atrial sensing and 100 % ventricular pacing. This report emphasizes the importance of AV delay optimization in CSP for symptomatic benefit