GROWTH PROSPECTS OF E-RETAILING IN ELECTRONIC GOODS MARKETS

E-retailing has emerged as a significant player in the retail industry in India. The major cutthroat competition happens between Flipkart, Amazon, and Snap deal. These merchants have a significant competitive edge on electronic goods over other merchants in Indian online shopping portals. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to understand and analyses the universal perception and satisfaction quotient of customers in India concerning to the purchase of electronic goods via these e-commerce merchants.  We have used hypothesis testing and analysis of variance to understand customer satisfaction and customer perception. The results show that overall customer satisfaction is the highest for Flipkart. Also, the physical appeal and the quality of the product are the main reasons which impact the customer's perception toward not shopping online. This study is original in itself because it is limited to the purchase of electronic goods only from the emerging e-retail merchants-  Flipkart, Snap deal, and Amazon in India

A Study of Comparison of Post-Operative Analgesia after Single-Shot Caudal Epidural Block Using Bupivacaine with or without Clonidine in Children

Introduction: Lower abdominal surgeries are one of the most frequently performed surgeries in the pediatric age group. A large number of these operations are done as day-care procedures.Caudal block is one of the most common regional anesthetic techniques in children being used to supplement general anesthesia for a wide variety of sacral-segment surgery. The local anesthetics currently in use are safe and their pharmacological effects have been well evaluated. There is no fear of neurological sequelaeas in the past.Several studies have demonstrated that Clonidine added to the local anesthetic in caudal block both enhances and prolongs the analgesia produced by the block without the unpleasant or hazardous sideeffects associated with the use of other adjuvant drugs like opioids, epinephrine and some newer adjuvants like neostigmine and dexmedetomidine. Our study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of single-dose caudal epidural Clonidine in prolonging the post-operative analgesia when mixed with Bupivacaine in children.Materials and MethodsSixty children of ASA I and ASA II physical status, between 1 and 12 years of age, who underwent elective lower abdominal surgeries, were randomly divided into two groups B (N=30) and C (N=30). All the children were administered general anesthesia. After induction, a single-shot caudal block was administered using 0.25% Bupivacaine (group B) and 1.5 mg/kg of Clonidine hydrochloride (group C). Vital monitoring was done intraoperatively as per institutional protocol. Post-operative monitoring was done in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) for 2–3 hours and in the ward for next 24 hours. Data with respect to duration of surgery, duration of pain-free period, time to void and any other complications was compiled. The final results of the study were tabulated and analyzed for significance using standard statistical techniques (unpaired t-test).ResultsThis study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of Clonidine in prolonging post-operative analgesia of Bupivacaine when given caudally in 60 children undergoing lower abdominal surgeries. The duration of pain-free period with caudal Bupivacaine with Clonidine (group C) is significantly longer than caudalBupivacaine (group B). The duration of pain relief was 20.4 hours in group C as compared to 14.2 hours in group B. This is statistically significant (p<0.05).ConclusionWe conclude that adding Clonidine 1.5 mg/kg to Bupivacaine 0.25% for caudal anesthesia in children undergoing lower abdominal surgeries enhances and prolongs postoperative analgesia compared to caudal Bupivacaine 0.25% alone. Clonidine may be the drug of choice to prolong the duration of caudal anesthesiaprovided by a single injection in children

Porous Silicon Surface Stability Studies by Thermal Treatment of Forming Gas

Abstract: Porous silicon sample was electrochemically etched and then treated with forming gas. While investigating with scanning electron microscope (SEM), micro-Raman, Photoluminescence (PL) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, it is found that the sample was stable for six months. The Raman and PL results show almost overlapping peak and intensity after six months which depicts six months surface stability of sample. Electrical capacitive sensing technique was also used to check the ageing effect of the sensor device. Ethanol vapor sensing was periodically checked in the range of 25-100 ppm for six months, and no degradation is observed in its sensing performance

ZSON: Zero-Shot Object-Goal Navigation using Multimodal Goal Embeddings

We present a scalable approach for learning open-world object-goal navigation (ObjectNav) -- the task of asking a virtual robot (agent) to find any instance of an object in an unexplored environment (e.g., "find a sink"). Our approach is entirely zero-shot -- i.e., it does not require ObjectNav rewards or demonstrations of any kind. Instead, we train on the image-goal navigation (ImageNav) task, in which agents find the location where a picture (i.e., goal image) was captured. Specifically, we encode goal images into a multimodal, semantic embedding space to enable training semantic-goal navigation (SemanticNav) agents at scale in unannotated 3D environments (e.g., HM3D). After training, SemanticNav agents can be instructed to find objects described in free-form natural language (e.g., "sink", "bathroom sink", etc.) by projecting language goals into the same multimodal, semantic embedding space. As a result, our approach enables open-world ObjectNav. We extensively evaluate our agents on three ObjectNav datasets (Gibson, HM3D, and MP3D) and observe absolute improvements in success of 4.2% - 20.0% over existing zero-shot methods. For reference, these gains are similar or better than the 5% improvement in success between the Habitat 2020 and 2021 ObjectNav challenge winners. In an open-world setting, we discover that our agents can generalize to compound instructions with a room explicitly mentioned (e.g., "Find a kitchen sink") and when the target room can be inferred (e.g., "Find a sink and a stove").Comment: code: https://github.com/gunagg/zso

Real-Time 3D Transesophageal Echocardiography for the Evaluation of Rheumatic Mitral Stenosis

ObjectivesThe aims of this study were: 1) to assess the feasibility and reliability of performing mitral valve area (MVA) measurements in patients with rheumatic mitral valve stenosis (RhMS) using real-time 3-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography (3DTEE) planimetry (MVA3D); 2) to compare MVA3D with conventional techniques: 2-dimensional (2D) planimetry (MVA2D), pressure half-time (MVAPHT), and continuity equation (MVACON); and 3) to evaluate the degree of mitral commissural fusion.Background3DTEE is a novel technique that provides excellent image quality of the mitral valve. Real-time 3DTEE is a relatively recent enhancement of this technique. To date, there have been no feasibility studies investigating the utility of real-time 3DTEE in the assessment of RhMS.MethodsForty-three consecutive patients referred for echocardiographic evaluation of RhMS and suitability for percutaneous mitral valvuloplasty were assessed using 2D transthoracic echocardiography and real-time 3DTEE. MVA3D, MVA2D, MVAPHT, MVACON, and the degree of commissural fusion were evaluated.ResultsMVA3D assessment was possible in 41 patients (95%). MVA3D measurements were significantly lower compared with MVA2D (mean difference: −0.16 ± 0.22; n = 25, p < 0.005) and MVAPHT (mean difference: −0.23 ± 0.28 cm2; n = 39, p < 0.0001) but marginally greater than MVACON (mean difference: 0.05 ± 0.22 cm2; n = 24, p = 0.82). MVA3D demonstrated best agreement with MVACON (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] 0.83), followed by MVA2D (ICC 0.79) and MVAPHT (ICC 0.58). Interobserver and intraobserver agreement was excellent for MVA3D, with ICCs of 0.93 and 0.96, respectively. Excellent commissural evaluation was possible in all patients using 3DTEE. Compared with 3DTEE, underestimation of the degree of commissural fusion using 2D transthoracic echocardiography was observed in 19%, with weak agreement between methods (κ < 0.4).ConclusionsMVA planimetry is feasible in the majority of patients with RhMS using 3DTEE, with excellent reproducibility, and compares favorably with established methods. Three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography allows excellent assessment of commissural fusion

Angiogenesis in Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma: An Intercategory Comparison of Microvessel Density

Background. This study was aimed at comparing angiogenesis, seen as microvessel density (MVD) in subtypes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Methods. In this study, 64 cases of NHL diagnosed over a three-year period were included along with 15 lymph node biopsies of reactive hyperplasia. NHLs were classified using REAL classification, and immunohistochemistry was performed for CD34 in all cases. CD34-stained sections were evaluated for “hot spots,” where MVD was assessed and expressed as per mm2. Appropriate statistical methods were applied. Results. There were 6 cases of well-differentiated lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), 21 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), 15 follicular lymphoma, 10 lymphoblastic lymphoma, 7 MALToma, and 5 peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). Mean MVD was highest in reactive hyperplasia (191.92 ± 12.16 per mm2) compared to all NHLs. Among NHLs, PTCL demonstrated the highest MVD (183.42 ± 8.24) followed by DLBCL (149.91 ± 13.68). A significant difference was found in MVD between reactive and individual lymphoma groups. SLL had significantly lower MVD than other lymphoma subtypes. Conclusion. Angiogenesis, assessed by MVD, showed significant differences among subtypes of NHL, especially the indolent types like SLL. The higher MVD in aggressive lymphomas like PTCL and DLBCL can potentially be utilized in targeted therapy with antiangiogenic drugs