DOES GREATER AUTONOMY IMPROVE PERFORMANCE? EVIDENCE FROM WATER SERVICE PROVIDERS IN INDIAN CITIES

We assess the efficiency of urban water supply in 27 Indian cities using data envelopment analysis (DEA). We also group cities by the management structure of their water utilities. Utilities with greater degree of functional autonomy perform better, supporting the hypothesis that more autonomy in management leads to better performance among water utilites. Our results also have implications for urban domestic water pricing--most of the utilities operate under decreasing returns to scale (DRS) implying water should be priced at marginal cost of supply.

Scheduling Algorithms for Cloud: A Survey and Analysis

Cloud Computing is a fast growing computing paradigm due to the vast benefits it provides to the users. Scheduling becomes one of the key aspects due to the pay-as-you-go nature of the Cloud. The factors affecting the technique of scheduling applied change with change in scenarios. For instance for scheduling in hybrid clouds the data transfer speed has to be taken into consideration whereas for mobile environments scheduling becomes dependent on context change. Moreover scheduling can be improvised on many fronts such as energy efficiency, cost minimization, Maximization of resource utilization, etc. This paper surveys scheduling techniques in various Cloud Computing scenarios and sites the most efficient scheduling technique available for a particular set of user needs by comparing various techniques and the problems they address

Open Source Virtual Machines on Xen: Creation, Implementaion and Analysis

With the rapid emergence of Cloud Computing, lots of organizations, communities, groups and individuals are rushing towards Cloud services. The cloud services have the inherent benefits like minimum running and executing cost, hassle free service accessibility, on demand availability of services, viz. computing services, storage services and even using the platforms and applications directly on pay as per use basis. The backbone of Cloud is Virtualization Technology, which is re-invented to use the underlying physical resources like CPU usage, storage devices, network devices and I/O devices in an efficient and optimum way. Virtual Machine Monitors (VMMs) facilitates this by running multiple instances of Virtual Machines (VMs) that are configurable, updatable, reusable and manageable. To achieve this, open source VMM namely Xen is chosen, which is highly used in most of the Clouds used for commercial and academic purposes. A wide and detailed study of Xen VM creation, implementation, suggestions and critical analysis of the same is presented here, which may help understand the Xen usage in a better way and about the intricacies and challenges of adopting Xen for developing and running applications on it

Long segment dorsolumbar spinal arachnoid cyst: A case report

Congenital spinal intradural arachnoid cyst involving almost the entire spine is very rare. We report a case of 15 years old boy, who presented with progressive spastic paraparesis with gait instability for last 4 months. MRI spine revealed thoracolumbar arachnoid cyst extending from D4 to L3 segment. Complete surgical excision of arachnoid cyst and laminoplasty was done. Patient recovered completely and histopathological examination of specimen confirmed the diagnosis of arachnoid cyst

Comparative evaluation of efficacy and safety of primaquine sustained-release tablets v/s primaquine conventional tablets in Treatment and prevention of relapse of plasmodium vivax malaria

Background: Malaria is one of the most important parasitic disease of human. In India 60-65% of infections are due to P.vivax and 35-40% are due to P.falciparum Malaria is an acute, recurrent and sometimes chronic vector borne protozoan disease which has worldwide distribution in tropical and subtropical regions The role of Primaquine is well established in the prevention of relapse of P.vivax malaria. Primaquine has a narrow therapeutic range and short half-life that requires daily administration upto 2 weeks, resulting in poor complianceMethods: Randomized control trial, which involved 100 patients of P.vivax Malaria Patient in medical ward of mahatma Gandhi hospital attached to S N medical college ’Jodhpur. All patient in this study received chloroquine for 3 days (10mg of base per kg followed by 5mg /kg 6-8 hours later and 5 mg/kg on each of the two days, total 25mg/kg over 3days and divided in three groups viz.Group 1 taken Primaquine 15 mg tab for 14 days (n=34), Group 2 taken Primaquine 15 mg SR tab for 14 days (n=33),Group 3 taken Primaquine 30 mg SR tab for 7 days and placebo for next 7 days.Results: In this study, Efficacy and compliance of Primaquine 30 mg SR for 7 days was found greater than the conventional Primaquine tab. and Primaquine 15 mg SR tab for 14 day. Adverse effect of primaquine 30 mg SR tab for 7 days was found lesser than conventional Primaquine tab 15 mg as well as Primaquine 15 mg SR tab.Conclusions: As Malaria is very prevalent in India which causes significant mortality and morbidity in Indian population. Use of Primaquine 30 mg SR tab has good compliance, efficacy as well as lesser adverse effect

Music: an effective anxiolytic during caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia

Background: Parturient undergoing repeat caesarean section (CS) under spinal anaesthesia usually experience anxiety due to unpleasant operative environment. Music therapy has been found to have positive psychological impact to relieve anxiety, improve patient satisfaction and provide stable haemodyanamics.Methods: Sixty patients without any co morbidity having history of previous CS, scheduled for another caesarean under spinal anaesthesia were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups of 30 each. Group(M) patients were subjected to hearing music of their choice with the help of headphones after administration of spinal anaesthesia till the end of surgery. Group(N) patients were not made to listen to any music but headphones were applied. Haemodyanamic parameters including mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR), visual analogue score for anxiety (VASA) after administering spinal block and at the end of surgery, patient satisfaction score (PSS) and comparison of anxiety with previous CS were observed and recorded.Results: Both MAP and HR in Group M started falling after 10 minutes of spinal anaesthesia as compared to Group N and difference was significant (P <0.005), VASA 2 (2.2±1.8) in Group M was significantly lower than VASA 1 (5.4±1.7). PSS was also in favour of music group (Group M) and difference was highly significant as compared to group N (p=0.018). Patient’s anxiety as compared to anxiety with previous CS was lesser in Group M as compared to Group N(p=0.009).Conclusions: Music is a non-invasive tool to relieve anxiety during intraoperative period along with higher patient satisfaction and stable haemodyanamics

Pediatric carcinoma of rectum - Varanasi experience

Background : Primary gastrointestinal system malignancies constitute approximately 2% of pediatric neoplasm and of these; colorectal carcinoma is the second most common malignancy. This is one of the rarer diseases in children. Aim : We reviewed our records to study the clinical features, outcome and the follow-up of this condition with evaluation of the prognostic factors. Settings and Design: Tertiary care Pediatric Surgery centre. Retrospective study. Materials and Methods : The data of all patients with diagnosis of colorectal carcinoma from January 1986 to January 2006 were reviewed. The confirmation of the diagnosis was by biopsy from the lesion. The age, sex, family history, clinical features, response to the treatment and follow-up were studied. Results : There were four male patients. All had bleeding per rectum as the presenting complaint. Three patients had advanced disease at presentation. All the patients had signet cell adenocarcinoma. The two patients expired and one was lost to follow-up. One patient is alive after one year of follow up and is receiving treatment. Conclusion : Colorectal cancer in children though rare can be a reality, hence any children presenting with pain in abdomen along with doubtful history of constipation and rectal bleeding should be examined carefully with special emphasis on digital rectal examination

Synthesis, characterization and electrical properties of GO/PANI/NPs (NPs = CdSe, CdSe/CdS, CdSe/ZnS) nanocomposites

In this paper, GO/PANI/NPs (NPs = CdSe, CdSe/CdS, CdSe/ZnS) nanocomposites have been prepared using chemical method. The electrical properties of CdSe quantum dots, core shell nanoparticles (CdSe@CdS and CdSe@ZnS), graphene oxide/polyaniline nanocomposite (GO/PANI) and graphene oxide/polyaniline/nanoparticles (GO/PANI/NPs) nanocomposites have been measured using electrometer/high resistance meter (Keithley 6517A) at different wt% ratio. The above obtained nanoparticles (CdSe, CdSe@CdS and CdSe@ZnS) show the electrical current in nano ampere (nA) range while GO/PANI nanocomposites show the electrical current in miliampere (mA) range in the I-V measurement. The results of this study have been expected to reveal the effect of finite particle size on the conductivity of nanoparticles. The observed electrical conductivity of GO/PANI/NPs nanocomposites has been significantly reduced after the mixing of above obtained nanoparticles in different wt% ratio with GO/PANI nanocomposites. The knowledge of electrical conductivity and the effective mechanism for the conduction in nanocomposite is important for the fabrication of an electronic device such as solar cell

Prevalence of hypertension and its association with anthropometric parameters in adult population of Raipur city, Chhattisgarh, India

Background: Obesity is now an important emerging public health problem in India. It is one of the major risk factor for hypertension. Overweight persons have two to six fold increase in the risk of developing hypertension. This study was carried out with objective to find out prevalence of Hypertension and assess its association with four obesity-related indices- body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR).Methods: A cross-sectional community-based study was done among 640 study subjects of age group 25-59 years during July 2015 to June 2016. Multi stage random sampling method was used. Data collection was done using WHO STEPS instrument V 3.1. Privacy and confidentiality of data was maintained. Data was entered in the Microsoft excel, collected data was checked for its completeness and correctness before data analysis with the help of PSPP software.Results: Prevalence of hypertension among study subjects was found to be 22.19% (142 out of 640).With respect to body mass index, waist circumference, waist hip ratio and waist height ratio, 4.38%, 64.35%, 85.33%, 76.2% were found to be obese respectively. Hypertension was strongly associated with BMI (p<0.001), waist circumference (p<0.001), waist hip ratio (p<0.05), waist height ratio (p<0.05). Out of the four anthropometric variables waist hip ratio (WHR) was most strongly associated with hypertension (β=420.236, p=0.007).Conclusions: The study shows a rising burden of hypertension among study population. As WHR is the best indicator for measuring obesity, so measurement of WHR should be made compulsory in healthy life style clinics along with other parameters