Wear maps for TiC composite based coatings deposited on 303 stainless steel

Dry sliding wear (pin-on-disc) tests were carried out under ambient conditions at room temperature for TiC coated and uncoated 303 stainless steel, using alumina as a counterface. The composite coating which was developed by Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) methods increased the surface hardness of the substrate and the sliding wear resistance of the substrate. Wear maps for both uncoated and coated materials were developed on the basis of tests results. The results indicated that the role of oxidative wear differed significantly for both coated and uncoated materials on the wear map. In addition, it was found that TiC composite coatings not only increased the wear resistance but also expanded the mild wear region towards higher loads and sliding speeds

A New Technique to Improve the Operation of Prosthetic Limbs during Muscle Fatigue

Prosthetic limbs hold a promise to renew the quality of life for the amputee. Neural commands are decoded via a classifier to generate control signals for the prosthetic devices. In the literature, many challenges and limitations have been identified that affect the prosthesis operation. One such drawback is muscle fatigue which degrades the surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals, and consequently, the performance of the deployed classification algorithm declines from 90% to 50% of average accuracy. We used a new technique using the Linear Discrimination Analysis (LDA) algorithm and the muscle synergy-based task discrimination (MSD) algorithm to improve the classification accuracy. In this technique, during muscles contraction/fatigue, we used the LDA algorithms in the beginning and the MSD algorithms later. The applied technique exhibited better movement classification performance during normal and muscle fatigue conditions. However, more work needs to be done to effectively solve the muscle fatigue problem in prosthesis design

Pharmacokinetic Studies on Metoprolol - Eudragit Matrix Tablets and Bioequivalence Consideration with Mepressor®

Purpose: To investigate the pharmacokinetics of of a developed metoprolol and a reference standard (Mepressor®).Methods: Metoprolol tartrate-loaded Eudragit® FS microparticles were formulated and compressed into tablets. The tablets were tested for their physicochemical properties according to United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) criteria. In vivo studies of the formulations were carried out in 28 young healthy fasting male volunteers based on a randomized open label 4×4 crossover study design with a washout period of 7 days.Results: In vitro tests showed that the developed and reference standard of metoprolol tablets met compendia (USP) requirements. Zero order release of drug was observed from all the tablets. In vivo data demonstrated that there were significant (p < 0.05) differences in tmax, Cmax, MRT, AUC0−t, and AUC0–∞ between the reference and test (developed) formulations. However, the 90 % class interval for the mean ratios of the ln-transformed Cmax, AUC0-t and AUC0-α for the reference, T1, T2, and T3 lied in the bioequivalence range (80 to 125 %) indicating bioequivalence between the compared formulations.                  Conclusion: It can be concluded from this single-dose study that the reference and test (developed) formulations met the predetermined criteria for bioequivalence in young healthy fasting male human subjects as the bioequivalence factor lie in the pre-determined limits for bioequivalence. Thus, the two formulations can be considered bioequivalent.Keywords: Metoprolol tartrate, Eudragit® FS, Microparticles, Bioavailability, Pharmacokinetics

Obstetric outcome of phase IV of National AIDS Control Programme at a tertiary care centre

Background: This study was conducted to observe maternal and fetal outcome of sero-positive women delivering at our centre by using the newly introduced National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) phase IV of HARRT (highly active antiretroviral therapy) recommended by National AIDS Control Organisation (GOI) started from 1st January 2014.Methods: Study included all seropositive pregnant women diagnosed during pregnancy and in emergency at labour room of Government Medical College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India in 2 years period. The women and their newborns were managed as per recommendations of phase IV of National AIDS Control Programme of Government of India.Results: There was reduction in associated maternal infections, high CD4 counts, increase in vaginal deliveries, promotion of exclusive breast feeding and limitation of vertical transmission of HIV. The adverse impact of HIV on mother and newborn still continues.Conclusions: Phase IV of NACP appears to be promising in the initial phases of its implementation

Arduino based Real Time Clock with Ringing of Bell and National Anthem

Now a days many school and college bells are operated manually. Hence there is a huge demand of accuracy is required. In market there are many digital clocks available with bells but rings only at specific time and cannot stop after that specific time. A new and inexpensive design is being presented here, in this project. The benefit of this design is that, the bell rings at the start of each period without any human intervention and hence takes over the manual task of switching on/off the college bell with respect to time. It uses Real Time Clock (DS1307) which work at the real time. The Arduino UNO is used to control all the functions; it gets the time through the keypad and stores it in its memory and display it on LCD display. When this programmed time equals the real time then the bell is switched on via a relay and rings for a predetermined time. The bell ringing time can be edited at any time, so that it can be reused at normal class timings as well as at exam times. Also the voice play module with USB player and speaker, play the national anthem according to the users given time as programmed using Arduino UNO

Side effect profile of hepatitis C treatment with peginterferon alpha-2b and ribavarin

Background: The major types of side effects include fatigue, influenza-like symptoms, gastrointestinal disturbances, neuropsychiatric symptoms and hematologic abnormalities. These side effects may be treatment limiting and require dose reduction or drug discontinuation objectives of the study was to assess the side effect profile of hepatitis C treatment (peginterferon alpha-2b and ribavarin) in Kashmiri patients attending the Department of Gastroenterology skims.Methods: In this study, all consecutive patients of hepatitis C infection on peginterfron and ribavarin treatment were enrolled after written consent. The patients underwent intervention treatment taking pegylated interferon α-2b (Viraferon, Schering Plough Corp., Kenilworth, NJ) and ribavirin in accordance with the standard protocol. Patients were monitored through weekly referrals while taking the medications. A detailed history was taken and complete physical examination done each time the patient presented to the hospital necessary blood sampling was taken.Results: During the study period of 2 years,105 Patients were enrolled 55 (52.4%) were males with a male:female ratio of 1.1:1.0. and mean age 37.6 years with a range of 13-75 years 7 patients (6.6) had a history of needle pricks, 4 patients (2.2%) of sharing same razors at barber’s shop. 4 (3.8%) patients of drug abuse; out of which 3 (2.8%) were intravenous drug abusers, Anemia occurred in 17 (16.2%) patients with requirement of dose modification w in 11 (10.4%) patients and dose stoppage in 1 (0.95%) patient in whom Hb dropped to less than 7, thrombocytopenia occurred in 27 (25.7%) patients with requirement of dose modification in 13 (12.3%) patients and dose stoppage in 1 (0.95%) patients due to platelet count decreasing to less than 30,000. Neutropenia as defined by ANC less than 1500 occurred in 22 (20.9%) patients.Conclusions: Dose modification was required in 48 (45.7%) patients, 30 (28.5%) patients required dose modifications due to labortory abnormalities and 18 (17.1%) due to other side effects. In 8 (7.6%) patients dose was discontinued due to adverse events (including psychosis in 1, severe flu like symptoms in 3, dermatitis in 1, depression in 3)

BaSIS-Net: From point estimate to predictive distribution in neural networks - a Bayesian sequential importance sampling framework

Data-driven Deep Learning (DL) models have revolutionized autonomous systems, but ensuring their safety and reliability necessitates the assessment of predictive confidence or uncertainty. Bayesian DL provides a principled approach to quantify uncertainty via probability density functions defined over model parameters. However, the exact solution is intractable for most DL models, and the approximation methods, often based on heuristics, suffer from scalability issues and stringent distribution assumptions and may lack theoretical guarantees. This work develops a Sequential Importance Sampling framework that approximates the posterior probability density function through weighted samples (or particles), which can be used to find the mean, variance, or higher-order moments of the posterior distribution. We demonstrate that propagating particles, which capture information about the higher-order moments, through the layers of the DL model results in increased robustness to natural and malicious noise (adversarial attacks). The variance computed from these particles effectively quantifies the model’s decision uncertainty, demonstrating well-calibrated and accurate predictive confidence

Precarious rock methodology for seismic hazard: Physical testing, numerical modeling and coherence studies

This report covers the following projects: Shake table tests of precarious rock methodology, field tests of precarious rocks at Yucca Mountain and comparison of the results with PSHA predictions, study of the coherence of the wave field in the ESF, and a limited survey of precarious rocks south of the proposed repository footprint. A series of shake table experiments have been carried out at the University of Nevada, Reno Large Scale Structures Laboratory. The bulk of the experiments involved scaling acceleration time histories (uniaxial forcing) from 0.1g to the point where the objects on the shake table overturned a specified number of times. The results of these experiments have been compared with numerical overturning predictions. Numerical predictions for toppling of large objects with simple contact conditions (e.g., I-beams with sharp basal edges) agree well with shake-table results. The numerical model slightly underpredicts the overturning of small rectangular blocks. It overpredicts the overturning PGA for asymmetric granite boulders with complex basal contact conditions. In general the results confirm the approximate predictions of previous studies. Field testing of several rocks at Yucca Mountain has approximately confirmed the preliminary results from previous studies, suggesting that the PSHA predictions are too high, possibly because the uncertainty in the mean of the attenuation relations. Study of the coherence of wavefields in the ESF has provided results which will be very important in design of the canisters distribution, in particular a preliminary estimate of the wavelengths at which the wavefields become incoherent. No evidence was found for extreme focusing by lens-like inhomogeneities. A limited survey for precarious rocks confirmed that they extend south of the repository, and one of these has been field tested

Acute neuroretinitis as a delayed manifestation of tubulointerstitial nephritis and uveitis syndrome

PurposeTubulointerstitial nephritis syndrome with uveitis (TINU) is a rare, acquired syndrome characterized by interstitial nephritis with bilateral uveitis. We report a case of TINU with typical bilateral anterior uveitis complicated by an atypical, delayed-onset neuroretinitis in a 12-year old patient.ObservationA 12-year-old female with a 21-month history of TINU featuring chronic bilateral anterior uveitis presented with one week of blurred vision in her left eye. On exam she was found to have new-onset disc edema in the right eye and neuroretinitis in the left eye. After a negative infectious disease workup, the patient was treated with a course of intravenous (IV) solumedrol with prednisone taper and advancement of her systemic immunosuppression. In follow up she demonstrated resolution of her disc edema and neuroretinitis with improved visual acuity and clinical exam.ConclusionThis case stresses the importance of monitoring for additional ocular manifestations including neuroretinitis years after the onset of anterior uveitis in TINU. In comparison to the two published cases of TINU with neuroretinitis, this case shares features of uveitis progression, and thus highlights the value of further description of TINU-associated neuroretinitis