INVESTIGATIONS OF CuInTe2 / CdS & CdTe / CdS HETEROJUNCTION SOLAR CELLS

Thin film solar cells of Copper Indium Telluride and Cadmium Sulfide junctions were fabricated on plain ITO glass slides and also on those coated with intrinsic Tin Oxide. CdS was deposited through chemical bath deposition and CIT by electrodeposition. Both compounds were subjected to annealing at temperatures between 350°C and 500°C which produced more uniform film thicknesses and larger grain sizes. The CIT/ CdS junction was characterized after performing XRD and spectral absorption of individual compounds. Studies were also made on CdS / CdTe solar cells with respect to effect of annealing temperatures on open circuit voltages. NP acid etch, the most important process to make the surface of CdTe tellurium rich, was also studied in terms of open circuit voltages. Thermally evaporated CdS of four different thicknesses was deposited on Tin Oxide coated ITO and inferences were drawn as to what thickness of CdS yields better results

Impaired overload-induced hypertrophy in Obese Zucker rat slow-twitch skeletal muscle

How insulin resistant muscle responds to mechanical overload (MOV) is not well understood. Using immunohistochemical analysis and immunoblotting, we investigated whether Lean Zucker (LZ) and insulin resistant Obese Zucker rats (OZ) respond in a similar fashion to MOV. Five young adult (2 months old) male LZ and OZ rats were subjected to a surgical ablation of the gastrocnemius muscle and overloaded for 8 weeks. MOV-induced increases in soleus muscle mass and average fiber cross-sectional area were attenuated in OZ compared to LZ animals. This reduction in OZ muscle adaptation was associated with decreased activity / phosphorylation levels of STAT3, β-catenin and calcineurin. These data suggest that insulin resistance may decrease the ability of skeletal muscle to hypertrophy and that this impairment may be due to alterations in the ability of insulin-resistant muscle to activate STAT3, β-catenin and calcineurin signaling

Drug Use in Indiana: A Regional Perspective

Indiana consists of 92 counties, which can be divided into 8 service regions. The prevalence of substance misuse can differ between the individual regions. Compared to the state’s average, rates of underage drinking, smoking, and illicit drug use were particularly high in Indiana’s Western region. The most frequently used substances among Indiana students in grades 8, 10, and 12 were alcohol, electronic vape products, marijuana, traditional (combustible) cigarettes, and prescription drugs. Understanding each region’s unique needs is a vital component to designing programs dedicated to improving overall Hoosier health

What is the best model for managing health care surge for COVID patients?

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is projected to infect a substantial proportion of Hoosiers. Experts are forecasting the number of individuals who will become infected over time and the subset of those that will require hospitalization. Given the COVID-19 experience in other countries, many of those hospitalized will require intensive care services including mechanical ventilation. Demand for all U.S. hospital services is projected, by many computer models, to outpace supply. In preparation for this surge, the current brief report explores issues associated with approaches that could facilitate the expansion of acute care and intensive care capacity within Indiana

PLC system for producing perforated music

In this application, a Mitsubishi FX3U PLC is used to collect data from a piece of music with a set sampling rate. The data is stored in the PLC data register sequentially and then used to control a punching system which perforates the notes on a plastic paper roll in the same sequence. The roll is used in musical instruments, automata, and mechanical music devices

Identification and management of pancreas divisum

Introduction: Pancreas divisum is the most common congenital malformation of the pancreas with the majority asymptomatic. The etiological role, pathogenesis, clinical significance and management of pancreas divisum in pancreatic disease has not been clearly defined and our understanding is yet to be fully elucidated.Areas covered: This review describes the role of pancreas divisum in the development of pancreatic disease and the ambiguity related to it. In our attempt to offer clarity, a comprehensive search on PubMed, Ovid, Embase and Cochrane Library from inception to May 2019 was undertaken using key words "pancreas divisum", "idiopathic recurrent acute pancreatitis" and "chronic pancreatitis".Expert opinion: Current research fails to define a clear association between pancreas divisum and pancreatic disease. Though debatable, several studies do suggest a pathological role of pancreas divisum in pancreatic disease and a benefit of minor papilla therapy in the setting of acute recurrent pancreatitis. Surgical and endoscopic therapeutic modalities have not been directly compared. With the current data available, it would be imprudent to advise a definitive line of management for pancreatic disease associated with pancreas divisum and should involve a comprehensive discussion with the individual patient to define expectations before embarking on any medical and/or interventional therapy

A clinical study on the surgical management of fracture shaft femur in children and adolescents by using Ender’s nail

Background: Femoral shaft fractures account for 1.6% of all pediatric bony injuries. Current treatment options include early spica casting, traction, external fixation, open reduction and internal fixation with plating, flexible intramedullary nails and intramedullary rods. Experience of many clinicians has shown that children with diaphyseal fractures do not always recover with conservative treatment. Ender rod fixation in the paediatric population is simple, effective and minimally invasive. It allows stable fixation, rapid healing and a prompt return of the child to normal activity. The objective of the study was to evaluate the functional outcome of the pediatric femur shaft fractures with Ender’s intramedullary nailing.Methods: 20 patients aged 5 to 16 years with fracture shaft of the femur treated with retrograde flexible intramedullary nailing at Bapuji hospital attached to JJM Medical College, Davangere in the period from September 2014 to August 2015 were included in the study.Results: All patients were followed until fracture union occurred. The follow up period ranged from 6 months to 1 year. Results were analysed both clinically and radiologically. 1 case united within 8 weeks,14 cases in 10 weeks and 5 cases in 12 weeks. Out of 20 cases there is limb length discrepancy in 6 cases, infection in 2 cases, nail back out in 2 cases, varus malalignment in 2 cases, valgus malalingment in 3 cases, anterior angulation in 6 cases and rotational malalignment in 2 cases..Conclusions: Closed intramedullary nailing is an efficient method and does not expose the patient to an undue risk of infection or non-union. There is also no risk of limb length discrepancy and the angulation and rotational malalignment are within the acceptable limits. This safe procedure can be recommended in children with multiple injuries co-existent head injury and in age groups 5 to 16 years

Towards Benchmarking User Stories Estimation with COSMIC Function Points-A Case Example of Participant Observatio

Shorter time-to-market and unstable requirements is leading to introduction of Agile and DevOps practices. Story point estimation is becoming handier in Agile/DevOps setting. However, developing user stories and defining sizing unit in terms of story point is subjective process. It lacks benchmarking/standardization in terms of sizing measure and productivity of historical data. COSMIC has been considered as FSM (Functional Size Method). It has flexibility to receive requirements as User stories (popular Agile/Devops method) and derive COSMIC functional units using parametric approach. COSMIC method reduces the subjectivity and populates the productivity parameter for benchmarking. It standardizes the estimation process and can be easily deployed in Agile or DevOps setting. This paper presents the related work on linkages between User stories, COSMIC methods and traditional function point methods. It also presents the outcome of the industry survey conducted on 49 practitioners working in 10 different domains with respective to parametric estimation process adoption and presents 9 real-time case studies developed to demonstrate the usage of COSMIC method in various domains. This paper also attempts to derive mapping process of COSMIC functional process with User Stories with the help of 2 real-time industry case studies

Extraction of aspects from Online Reviews Using a Convolution Neural Network

The quality of the product is measured based on the opinions gathered from product reviews expressed on a product. Opinion mining deals with extracting the features or aspects from the reviews expressed by the users. Specifically, this model uses a deep convolutional neural network with three channels of input: a semantic word embedding channel that encodes the semantic content of the word, a part of speech tagging channel for sequential labelling and domain embedding channel for domain specific embeddings which is pooled and processed with a Softmax function. This model uses three input channels for aspect extraction. Experiments are conducted on amazon review dataset. This model achieved better result