Prevalence of Fibrocalculous Pancreatic Diabetes in Chennai in South India

Fibrocalculous pancreatic diabetes is a form of diabetes secondary to chronic pancreatitis found in tropical, developing countries. There is no population based data on prevalence of fibrocalculous pancreatic diabetes. This paper reports on prevalence of fibrocalculous pancreatic diabetes in Chennai in South India based on the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study

AN INVESTIGATION ON ADVANCED WELDING TECHNIQUES

This paper deals with advanced welding techniques with use of friction stir welding. This type of welding carried out by aluminium 6063 alloy practically. When compared to conventional welding techniques it is not possible to weld, such type of aluminium alloy, because of some limitations. Friction stir welding is one such non-melting joining technology that has produced structural joints superior to conventional arc welds in aluminium. Friction stir welding can be conducted on a milling machine. While doing the experiment with change in variation of rotational speed and feed rate, with that experiment we chose five trials. In between five trials, the trials from one to four gives as different types of welds obtained. At the end of fifth trial, successful weld was obtained with very good surface finish on both ends and better tensile strength at types of welds obtained. At the end of fifth trial , successful weld was obtained with very good surface finish on both ends and better tensile strength at 1400rpm and 22.4 mm/rev. Tests were also performed to determine the susceptibility of FSW aluminium 6063 alloy to corrosion. The various test performed on the welded specimen are as follows tensile test and microstructure study. During tensile test, the maximum tensile strength obtained from two specimens was approximately 75% of the parent metal. Whereas the microstructure analysis is carried out to decrease the flow of material and change in the microstructure and grain size of measurement. By using this factor we present the paper that FRICTION STIR WELDING as a advanced welding techniques

AN INVESTIGATION ON DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ARECANUT TREE CLIMBER

The people in rural areas of Karnataka and Kerala mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The main crops grown are Arecanut and coconut. For harvesting the nuts, and for spraying and applying insecticides on the crown, skilled labourers have to climb manually up the tree. Such a process looks easy, in reality it is a laborious and dangerous task. It requires skill to climb a arecanut tree. Skilled arecanut tree climbers have become scarce and farmers are finding it difficult to harvest the nuts. There are many equipments/ machines in the market to help the farmers in this regard. But they are not successful as the input for them is muscular power of the labour and it requires a person to physically climb the tree. There is no 100% safe arecanut harvesting device currently in the market. There is a need to invent a machine to address both efficiency and safety. The design of the device has to be simple enough for villagers to operate, yet work efficiently to appeal to the majority. Here we are designing and fabricating motorized arecanut tree climber. The tree climber has a base on which the drive system is mounted. The power from the motor to the rollers is transmitted by using sprocket and chain drive. To obtain the required speed of the rollers a reduction gear box is used in between the motor and the rollers. The machine is placed around the tree and clamped to it using a swivel opening on one side of the base. Due to the weight of the motor, gear box and some extra mass concentrated on one end of the base the machine locks itself to the tree. Now the motor is switched ON to drive the rollers. When the rollers rotate gripping the tree, the whole setup is lifted along the length of the tree. After reaching the required height the motor is switched OFF. By having suitable auxiliary equipments for spraying pesticides, plucking the nuts on the setup and suitable controlling methods for those equipments the required job can be performed. Once the job is done the motor is made to rotate in the reverse direction to descend down the tree

Corneoscleral laceration and ocular burns caused by electronic cigarette explosions

PURPOSE: To report cases of acute globe rupture and bilateral corneal burns from electronic cigarette (EC) explosions. METHODS: Case series. RESULTS: We describe a series of patients with corneal injury caused by EC explosions. Both patients suffered bilateral corneal burns and decreased visual acuity, and one patient sustained a unilateral corneoscleral laceration with prolapsed iris tissue and hyphema. A review of the scientific literature revealed no prior reported cases of ocular injury secondary to EC explosions; however, multiple media and government agency articles describe fires and explosions involving ECs, including at least 4 with ocular injuries. CONCLUSIONS: Given these cases and the number of recent media reports, ECs pose a significant public health risk. Users should be warned regarding the possibility of severe injury, including sight-threatening ocular injuries ranging from corneal burns to full-thickness corneoscleral laceration

THE AWARENESS NETWORK OF MONITORING AND DISPLAYING ACTIONS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

The concept of awareness plays a pivotal role in research in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Recently, Software Engineering researchers interested in the collaborative nature of software development have explored the implications of this concept in the design of software development tools. A critical aspect of awareness is the associated coordinative work practices of displaying and monitoring actions. This aspect concerns how colleagues monitor one another’s actions to understand how these actions impact their own work and how they display their actions in such a way that others can easily monitor them while doing their own work. we focus on an additional aspect of awareness: the identification of the social actors who should be monitored and the actors to whom their actions should be displayed. We address this aspect by presenting software developers’ work practices based on ethnographic data from three different software development teams. In addition, we illustrate how these work practices are influenced by different factors, including the organizational setting, the age of the project, and the software architecture. We discuss how our results are relevant for both CSCW and Software Engineering researchers

Prevalence, Awareness and Control of Hypertension in Chennai - The Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study (CURES – 52)

Objective : To study the prevalence, awareness and control of hypertension in Chennai representing Urban South India. Methods : The Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study (CURES) is one of the largest epidemiological studies on diabetes carried out in India, where 26,001 individuals aged ≥ 20 years were screened using systematic random sampling method. Every tenth subject recruited in Phase 1 of CURES was requested to participate in Phase 3 of CURES and the response rate was 2,350/26,001 or 90.4%. An oral glucose tolerance test was performed in all individuals except self-reported diabetic subjects. Anthropometric measurements and lipid estimations were done in all subjects. Hypertension was diagnosed in all subjects who were on drug treatment for hypertension or if the blood pressure ≥ 140/90 mmHg. Results : Hypertension was present in 20% [men:23.2% vs. women:17.1%, p<0.001] of the study population. Isolated systolic hypertension (Systolic BP ≥ 140 and Diastolic BP<90 mmHg) was present in 6.6% while isolated diastolic hypertension (DBP ≥ 90 and SBP<140 mmHg) was present in 4.2% of the population. Among the elderly population (aged ≥ 60 years), 25.2% had isolated systolic hypertension. Age, body mass index, smoking, serum cholesterol and triglycerides were found to be strongly associated with hypertension. Among the total hypertensive subjects, only 32.8% were aware of their blood pressure, of these, 70.8% were under treatment and 45.9% had their blood pressure under control. Conclusion : Hypertension was present in one-fifth of this urban south Indian population and isolated systolic hypertension was more common among elderly population. Majority of hypertensive subjects still remain undetected and the control of hypertension is also inadequate. This calls for urgent prevention and control measures for hypertensio

Understanding the Synergy between Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with Taxus and Cardiac Surgery (SYNTAX) Trial Implications for current and future clinical practice

__Abstract__ The landmark Synergy between Percutaneous Coronary Intervention with Taxus and Cardiac Surgery (SYNTAX) Trial1-4 has aided in reducing the area of uncertainty in decision making between percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in patients with complex coronary artery disease.5-8 As part of the SYNTAX Trial, quantification of the coronary artery disease burden was undertaken with the anatomical SYNTAX Score (www.syntaxscore.com),9-11 and has since been implemented in international revascularisation guidelines.5-8 In addition, recognising the importance of quantifying coronary artery disease burden in decision-making between CABG and PCI, the US Food and Drugs Association mandates the SYNTAX Score as entry criteria in ongoing contemporary stent and structural heart disease trials. Namely, the EXCEL (Evaluation of XIENCE PRIME™ or XIENCE V® Everolimus Eluting Stent System Versus Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery for Effectiveness of Left Main Revascularization) Trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01205776), and SURTAVI (Safety and Efficacy Study of the Medtronic CoreValve® System in the Treatment of Severe, Symptomatic Aortic Stenosis in Intermediate Risk Subjects Who Need Aortic Valve Replacement) Trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01586910). The SYNTAX Trial was conceived in an era when the potential benefits of drug eluting stents were first being realised between 2002-2006.12-19 After multiple prior attempts comparing CABG against PCI using older technologies – namely plain ‘old’ balloon angioplasty (POBA) and bare metal stents (BMS) – in over 20 randomised trials,20, 21 including the Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation (BARI)22 and Coronary Angioplasty versus Bypass Revascularisation Investigation (CABRI)23 trials, the time had once again come to rechallenge the cardiac surgeons in the management of complex coronary artery disease. Historically one of the major criticisms of randomised trial design comparing CABG against PCI was that the trials enrolled highly selected, “cherry-picked,” patients, with approximately 2-12% of screened subjects actually randomised in most trials, and thus being largely unrepresentative of conventional clinical practice.20, 24 At the time of the SYNTAX Trial design, one of the key requirements put forth by seven cardiac surgeons, dubbed the “magnificent seven,” and fully endorsed by the clinical and interventional cardiologists at the time, was the need for an ‘all-comers’ trial design, free from selection bias

Surveillance for Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Disease among an Industrial Population in Southern India

We assessed (i) the risk of cardiovascular disease in an industrial population in Chennai, southern India and (ii) whether the status of treatment and control of diabetes and hypertension would be different in an industrial population, which is provided free healthcare, compared with the general population of Chennai. Subjects residing in the residential areas of 2 industries (Indian Airlines and Integral Coach Factory) in Chennai in southern India were recruited. The subjects were employees (n=440) selected by an age- and sex-stratified random sampling method, and their family members (n=727) in the age group of 20–69 years; a total of 1167 subjects. Fasting plasma glucose, lipid estimations and anthropometric measurements were done in all the subjects. Information on demographic and lifestyle determinants was obtained using a questionnaire. Diabetes was diagnosed using the American Diabetes Association criteria and metabolic syndrome was defined by the Adult Treatment Panel III criteria with modified waist definition for Asian Indians. Results. Age-adjusted prevalence of major risk factors for cardiovascular disease using the 2001 Census of India were as follows: diabetes 11.9%; hypertension 25.4%; dyslipidaemia 40.2%; hypertriglyceridaemia 28.3%; overweight (body mass index ³23 kg/m2) 60.2%; and metabolic syndrome 34.1%. Use of tobacco in any form was present in 22.9% of men and 0.5% of women; 79% of the subjects followed a sedentary lifestyle. Among subjects receiving medication, 42.1% of subjects with diabetes and 55.3% of subjects with hypertension had their disease under adequate control. A comparison of these results with the general population of Chennai showed that the industrial population had a higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in spite of having better access to healthcare facilities. Conclusions. The prevalence of cardiovascular disease was high in this industrial population of Chennai. Although the overall treatment and control of diabetes and hypertension was better than that in the general population, it was still inadequate and this emphasizes the need for greater awareness about non-communicable diseases

Validation of body fat measurement by skinfolds and two bioelectric impedance methods with DEXA - the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study [CURES-3]

Background and Objective: Although Asian Indians have been shown to have increased body fat compared to Europeans, there have been very few studies in Asian Indians validating the various methods available for body fat measurement. The aim of this study was to test the validity of body fat measured by two commercial impedance analyzers (leg-to-leg and hand-held) as well as by skinfolds with Dual Energy Xray Absorptiometry (DEXA) as the reference method in a population based study in southern India. Methods: Body fat percentage (BF%) was measured in 162 South Indian urban men (n=76) and women (n=86) randomly selected from the "Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiology Study" (CURES), an ongoing population based study of a representative population of Chennai. The mean age of the subjects was 45.1 &#177; 9.0 years and the body mass index ranged from 16.4 - 34.4 kg/m2. Percentage body fat was measured using DEXA, segmental impedance (leg-to-leg: BF%IMP-LEG; and hand-held BF%IMP-HAND) using the manufacturer's software and skinfolds using the prediction equation from the literature (BF%SKFD). Results: Body fat (%) determined by the leg-to-leg method (BF%IMP-LEG 35.10 &#177; 7.26) and the skinfolds (BF%SKFD 35.77 &#177; 6.06) did not differ significantly from the reference method DEXA (BF%DEXA 35.82 &#177; 8.33), but the hand-held impedance method (BF%IMP-HAND 31.38 &#177;6.24) showed significant difference (p &lt; 0.001). The bias for estimation of body fat (%) for the bioimpedance leg-to-leg, hand-held and skinfolds were 0.73 &#177; 5.70, 4.45 &#177; 4.83 and 0.06 &#177; 5.86 respectively. All the three methods showed a fairly good correlation with DEXA (BF%IMP-LEG : r = 0.741, p&lt;0.001; BF%IMP-HAND : r = 0.817, p&lt; 0.001; BF%SKFD : r = 0.710, p&lt; 0.001). Conclusion: The study shows that in urban south Indians, measurement of body fat by the leg-to-leg impedance and the skinfold method have better agreement (lower bias) with DEXA than the hand-held impedance. However, all three methods (skinfolds, the leg-to-leg bioelectric impedance and hand-held impedance) show a fairly good correlation with DEXA