603 research outputs found
Comparative clinical profile of patients of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) with and without Metabolic Syndrome: a prospective observational study
Background: Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) is one of common disorder in men of old age group. The pathogenesis of BPH is multi-factorial and still not been fully elucidated. There are numerous reports which suggest possible link between several metabolic alterations known as Metabolic Syndrome. In the present study, the aim was to establish relation between Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Metabolic Syndrome and to find out effects of therapeutic intervention of Metabolic Syndrome on prostatic parameters.Methods: 93 patients of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia enrolled who met qualifying criteria for inclusion in study and divided into three groups on the basis of Metabolic Syndrome and its treatment administered. Administration of alpha adrenergic blocker was common to all patients of all groups. Metabolic parameters including Fasting blood glucose, High-density lipoprotein (HDL), Triglycerides (TGs), waist circumference and prostatic parameters that is prostate volume, prostate specific antigen (PSA), uroflometry, International prostate symptom score (IPSS) were assessed at baseline, after 3 and 6 months follow-up. Further appropriate statistical tests were applied for comparison of parameters among groups.Results: Patients receiving no treatment for Metabolic Syndrome were having most deranged prostatic parameters as compared to patients without Metabolic Syndrome or patients with Metabolic Syndrome receiving treatment for same. Further patients receiving treatment for Metabolic Syndrome and alpha adrenergic blocker were having better clinical profile than patients of alpha adrenergic blocker alone.Conclusions: These findings show probable link between Metabolic Syndrome and worse prostatic profile. Metabolic Syndrome must be looked for and treated in patients of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. Metabolic derangements must not be overlooked and must be treated accordingly
Gravitational Waves around a Naked Singularity -- Odd-Parity Perturbation of Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi Space-Time --
The motion of a spherical dust cloud is described by the
Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi solution and is completely specified by initial values of
distributions of the rest mass density and specific energy of the dust fluid.
From generic initial conditions of this spherically symmetric collapse, there
appears a naked singularity at the symmetric center in the course of the
gravitational collapse of the dust cloud. So this might be a counter example to
the cosmic censorship hypothesis. To investigate the genericity of this
example, we examine the stability of the `nakedness' of this singularity
against odd-parity modes of non-spherical linear perturbations for the metric,
i.e., linear gravitational waves. We find that the perturbations do not diverge
but are well-behaved even in the neighborhood of the central naked singularity.
This means that the naked singularity formation process is marginally stable
against the odd-parity modes of linear gravitational waves.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, to be published in Physical Review
Evaluation of Blanching Quality in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L ..)
Thirty five Spanish and 46 Virginia groundnut genotypes, grown in the 1992 rainy season and the 1992/1993 post-rainy season at the ICRISAT Asia Center, were evaluated for their blanching quality. Blanching, which primarily involves removal of the testa, is a major step in processing groundnuts for many edible end products. Preheating the seed samples at 200°C for 8 min, followed by blanching for 2 min at 15 psi air pressure, gave satisfactory results. There was a large variation in total blanchability within Spanish (10.8-90.6%) and Virginia (8.6-86.7%) genotypes. Some samples with high blanchability had high proportions of blanched split seeds. The effects of growing season on various blanching quality parameters were more pronounced in the Virginia genotypes than in the Spanish genotypes
Graphene Overcoats for Ultra-High Storage Density Magnetic Media
Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used as secondary storage in a number of digital
electronic devices owing to low cost (0.1\\sim^2<<\sim>^2$
Influence of Silver Incorporation on the Structural and Electrical Properties of Diamond-Like Carbon Thin Films
A simple approach is proposed for obtaining low threshold field electron emission from large area diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films by sandwiching either Ag dots or a thin Ag layer between DLC and nitrogen-containing DLC films. The introduction of silver and nitrogen is found to reduce the threshold field for emission to under 6 V/μm representing a near 46% reduction when compared with unmodified films. The reduction in the threshold field is correlated with the morphology, microstructure, interface, and bonding environment of the films. We find modifications to the structure of the DLC films through promotion of metal-induced sp bonding and the introduction of surface asperities, which significantly reduce the value of the threshold field. This can lead to the next-generation, large-area simple and inexpensive field emission devices. © 2013 American Chemical Society
Naked Singularity Formation In f(R) Gravity
We study the gravitational collapse of a star with barotropic equation of
state in the context of theories of gravity.
Utilizing the metric formalism, we rewrite the field equations as those of
Brans-Dicke theory with vanishing coupling parameter. By choosing the
functionality of Ricci scalar as , we
show that for an appropriate initial value of the energy density, if
and satisfy certain conditions, the resulting singularity would be naked,
violating the cosmic censorship conjecture. These conditions are the ratio of
the mass function to the area radius of the collapsing ball, negativity of the
effective pressure, and the time behavior of the Kretschmann scalar. Also, as
long as parameter obeys certain conditions, the satisfaction of the
weak energy condition is guaranteed by the collapsing configuration.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, to appear in GR
Higher dimensional dust collapse with a cosmological constant
The general solution of the Einstein equation for higher dimensional (HD)
spherically symmetric collapse of inhomogeneous dust in presence of a
cosmological term, i.e., exact interior solutions of the Einstein field
equations is presented for the HD Tolman-Bondi metrics imbedded in a de Sitter
background. The solution is then matched to exterior HD Scwarschild-de Sitter.
A brief discussion on the causal structure singularities and horizons is
provided. It turns out that the collapse proceed in the same way as in the
Minkowski background, i.e., the strong curvature naked singularities form and
that the higher dimensions seem to favor black holes rather than naked
singularities.Comment: 7 Pages, no figure
Graphene overcoats for ultra-high storage density magnetic media
Hard disk drives (HDDs) are used as secondary storage in digital electronic devices owing to low cost and large data storage capacity. Due to the exponentially increasing amount of data, there is a need to increase areal storage densities beyond~1Tb/in^2. This requires the thickness of carbon overcoats (COCs) to be<2 nm. However, friction, wear, corrosion, and thermal stability are critical concerns below 2 nm, limiting current technology, and restricting COC integration with heat assisted magnetic recording technology (HAMR). Here we show that graphene-based overcoats can overcome all these limitations, and achieve two-fold reduction in friction and provide better corrosion and wear resistance than state-of-the-art COCs, while withstanding HAMR conditions. Thus, we expect that graphene overcoats may enable the development of 4-10 Tb/in^2 areal density HDDs when employing suitable recording technologies, such as HAMR and HAMR+bit patterned media
Pathogenic and genetic characterization of six Indian populations of Colletotrichum sublineolum, the causal agent of sorghum anthracnose
The pathogenic and genetic characterization of populations of C. sublineolum, the causal agent of anthracnose of sorghum, was investigated in isolates from 6 locations in India. Multi-location field evaluation and greenhouse tests were done on 16 sorghum lines that comprised the International Sorghum Anthracnose Virulence Nursery (ISAVN). The lines were tested in a field trial for 4-5 years (1992-96) at 6 locations: Indore, Surat, Patancheru, Dharwad, Udaipur and Pantnagar. Plants were scored for disease reaction (R/MR/S) and for disease severity (on a 1-9 scale where 1 is no lesions and 9 is >75% leaf area covered with lesions) at the soft-dough stage in the field and at the seedling stage in the greenhouse. Significant (P<0.001) differences were observed for virulence (disease reaction) and aggressiveness (disease severity) across locations (isolates) and sorghum lines both in field and greenhouse tests. In both tests, isolate x sorghum line interactions were highly significant (P<0.001) suggesting that populations of C. sublineolum at these 6 locations were different. A random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis exhibited genetic dissimilarities among the isolates and these were classified into 6 groups
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