The efficacy of tramadol in the prevention of post spinal anaesthesia shivering in caesarean deliveries

Shivering associated with subarachnoid block in obstetric patients is a cause of discomfort in this group of patients. Tramadol, a synthetic weak opioid that acts centrally at the mu receptors has been found to be effective in the treatment of shivering after general anaesthesia, but will it be effective in prevention of post spinal shivering also? Objective: The study is aimed at investigating the efficacy of intravenous 1mg/kg tramadol in the prevention of post spinal shivering for Caesarean delivery. Methodology: In a double blinded clinical trial, one hundred (100) healthy obstetric patients who were scheduled for elective or emergency Caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia were randomised into two groups. Immediately after the delivery of the foetus, fifty (50) patients received 1mg/kg tramadol diluted to 2ml with sterile water and fifty (50) patients received 2ml of sterile water. The incidence and intensity of shivering, level of sedation and other complications were recorded. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 was used for analysis of statistical data. The data was presented as frequencies, proportions and means. The demographic numeric data was compared using students't' test. The incidence of shivering and side effects was tested by Chi square test. P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The incidence of shivering was significantly lower in patients who received tramadol than those who received placebo, 18% versus 72% (P < 0.001). In the placebo group 17 (34%) and 19 (38%) patients had grade one and grade two shivering respectively as compared to 7 patients (14%) with grade one shivering and 2 patients (4%) with grade two shivering in the study group. The severity of shivering was significantly higher in the placebo group (P < 0.001). There were no significant differences in the sedation scores and other complications, but nausea and vomiting was significantly higher in the study group (P = 0.004 and 0.005respectively). Conclusion: Intravenous tramadol 1mg/kg is effective in the prevention of shivering following spinal anaesthesia for Caesarean section; however it is associated with nausea and vomiting

Determination of Groundwater Potentials in Crystalline Basement Areas of Bauchi Local Government Area, Bauchi

Developing groundwater is generally an excellent option for sustainable water supplies in Bauchi due to the ephemeral nature of surface water. However, the large variability in geological and hydrological conditions have a profound influence on the availability of groundwater across the study area. The rationale for this research is to contribute at least, in terms of providing empirical data towards sustainable development of groundwater resource, particularly in the Crystalline Basement hydrogeological unit of Bauchi area. Aquifer properties of wells within the Crystalline Basement were estimated from a constant-rate pumping test of 10 sampled wells by fitting mathematical models (type curves) to drawdown data through curve matching. Generally, yields of sampled boreholes within the crystalline basement aquifer range from 8.64 m3/d to 120.96 m3/d with an average of 52.36 m3/d. The total yield of the boreholes is about 661.83.m3/day. This can sustain a population of 26,473 based on water supply standard of 25 litres per day for rural communities (Babatola, 1997). Considering the total population of 12,218 people (NPC, 2014) that are currently using the water points in comparison to water supply standard of 25 litre per person per day, this shows that the aquifers from the 10 sampled boreholes have relatively enough groundwater in terms of yield to meet the water need of the population. However, any significant increase in population growth may result in water scarcity in these areas, as the Crystalline Basement aquifers generally have low yielding capacity. Also, the crystalline basement aquifer properties evaluated reveal that the transmissivity values range from 2.55 m2/day to 111.0 m2/day with an average of 38.94m2/day (Table 5). According to Offodile (2002), a transmissivity range of 5 to 50 m2/day could be regarded as high potential in crystalline rock situations. By the above standard, the crystalline basement aquifers in the area are classified as aquifers of negligible to high potentials. The specific capacities of boreholes in the study area were computed and the results show that they vary between 1.30 to 691.2 m2/d/m. Keywords: Crystalline Basement, Groundwater, Pumping Test, Aquifer, Transmissivity, Bauchi State, Nigeria DOI: 10.7176/JEES/9-7-02 Publication date:July 31st 201

Nanostructured Multilayer Composite Coatings on Ceramic Cutting Tools for Finishing Treatment of High-Hardness Quenched Steels

The functional role of nanostructured multilayer composite coatings (NMCC) deposited on the operating surfaces of replaceable faceted cutting inserts (CI) from cutting ceramics based on aluminum oxides with additives of titanium carbides is studied. It is shown that the developed NMCC not only raise substantially the endurance of the ceramic tools under high-speed dry treatment of quenched steels but also improve the quality and accuracy of processing of the parts and the ecological parameters of the cutting process

A study of the cutting properties and wear mechanism of ceramic edge tools with nanostructure multilayer composite coatings

The paper presents the results of studies of the cutting properties and wear mechanism of the edge cutting tool equipped with replaceable indexable inserts made of cutting ceramic with nanoscale multilayer composite coatings when cutting hardened steel. It has been shown that applying the latter allows one to tune the contact processes based on the changes in friction and lengths of dense and complete contacts between the chip and the rake face of the cutting tools, thereby reducing normal contact strains and the probability of macro- and microbrittle fracture in the contact areas of the tool

Realization of GHZ States and the GHZ Test via Cavity QED

In this article we discuss the realization of atomic GHZ states involving three-level atoms and we show explicitly how to use this state to perform the GHZ test in which it is possible to decide between local realism theories and quantum mechanics. The experimental realizations proposed makes use of the interaction of Rydberg atoms with a cavity prepared in a coherent state.Comment: 16 pages and 3 figures. submitted to J. Mod. Op

BRS "Symmetry", prehistory and history

Prehistory - Starting from 't Hooft's (1971) we have a short look at Taylor's and Slavnov's works (1971-72) and at the lectures given by Rouet and Stora in Lausanne-1973 which determine the transition from pre-history to history. History - We give a brief account of the main analyses and results of the BRS collaboration concerning the renormalized gauge theories, in particular the method of the regularization independent, algebraic renormalization, the algebraic proof of S-matrix unitarity and that of gauge choice independence of the renormalized physics. We conclude this report with a suggestion to the crucial question: what could remain of BRS invariance beyond perturbation theory.Comment: Talk given at: A Special day in honour of Raymond Stora, Annecy, July 8, 201

Non HLA genetic markers association with type-1 diabetes mellitus

The currently available data identified IDDM1 and IDDM2 as 2 susceptibility loci for type 1 diabetes (T1D). The major histocompatibility complex (MHC)/HLA region referred to as IDDM1 contains several 100 genes known to have a great influence on T1D risk. Within IDDM2, a minisatellite variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) locus in the insulin gene (INS) promoter region is likely to represent the etiologic polymorphism. The aim of the present work was to study the association between genotypes and susceptibility to T1D among Egyptian diabetic children and their family members. Twenty-five nuclear Egyptian families with 27 children having T1D, aged 3–14 years, their nondiabetic 44 sibs, aged 3–15 years and their parents were included in our study. All studied children were subjected to: detailed history and family pedigree. Thorough clinical examination and anthropometric measurements. Laboratory work up of diabetes including random blood sugar (RBS) and HbA1C. Molecular genetics of INS was studied in four steps; nucleic acid purification, amplification, sequencing and haplotyping using flanking single nucleotide  polymorphisms (SNPs) as surrogate markers for minisatellite alleles identification. Analysis of variant repeat distribution among Egyptian families combined with flanking haplotypes revealed that all our diabetic children had class I alleles of INS; 9 had class IC+, 9 had classID+ and 9 had class ID, while all non-diabetic family members had class III alleles of INS. Therefore the three class I alleles were considered to be equally predisposing to T1D, while class III alleles are dominantly protective. There was significant positive correlations between body massindex (BMI) and both HbA1C and AST liver enzyme among diabetic children with class IC+ but not other alleles; indicating that they need close monitoring of their diabetic control and liver functions beside following specific dietary regimens. It can be concluded that all class I alleles (IC+, ID+ and ID) are equally important susceptibility factors for T1D among Egyptian children, while class III alleles (IIIA and IIIB) are dominantlyprotective. It is concluded also that our diabetic children with class IC+ are an especially endangered subgroup of diabetics. Genotyping for INS-VNTR alleles is recommended for diabetic children as an important step of diagnostic and follow up regimens and for their non-diabetic familymembers for family counseling and early identification of potential diabetics. Further studies of INS-VNTR alleles and HLA haplotypes all over Egypt are recommended to define the Egyptian susceptibility loci for T1D and their relations to the clinical and laboratory findings as an importantnational programs

The Heat Kernel on AdS_3 and its Applications

We derive the heat kernel for arbitrary tensor fields on S^3 and (Euclidean) AdS_3 using a group theoretic approach. We use these results to also obtain the heat kernel on certain quotients of these spaces. In particular, we give a simple, explicit expression for the one loop determinant for a field of arbitrary spin s in thermal AdS_3. We apply this to the calculation of the one loop partition function of N=1 supergravity on AdS_3. We find that the answer factorizes into left- and right-moving super Virasoro characters built on the SL(2, C) invariant vacuum, as argued by Maloney and Witten on general grounds.Comment: 46 pages, LaTeX, v2: Reference adde

Effective action in a higher-spin background

We consider a free massless scalar field coupled to an infinite tower of background higher-spin gauge fields via minimal coupling to the traceless conserved currents. The set of Abelian gauge transformations is deformed to the non-Abelian group of unitary operators acting on the scalar field. The gauge invariant effective action is computed perturbatively in the external fields. The structure of the various (divergent or finite) terms is determined. In particular, the quadratic part of the logarithmically divergent (or of the finite) term is expressed in terms of curvatures and related to conformal higher-spin gravity. The generalized higher-spin Weyl anomalies are also determined. The relation with the theory of interacting higher-spin gauge fields on anti de Sitter spacetime via the holographic correspondence is discussed.Comment: 40 pages, Some errors and typos corrected, Version published in JHE