Conversion of Colleges into Centre of Excellence: Undergraduate English Honours Course in Kerala

Various measures have been recommended by different committees to improve the access, equity and quality status of higher education in Kerala. One of the major recommendations was initiated in the form of a pilot study with the commencement of honours course in English, Economics, Maths and Commerce subject at undergraduate level. This comparative study is an attempt to study the effectiveness of undergraduate English honours course, which commenced at Women’s College, Thiruvananthapuram in 2012. Comparison has been made between the learning outcomes of final year students from BA English (general) and BA English (honours) courses. The sample was tested on similar topics/sub-subjects taught in their course through an achievement test, oral test, extempore, tutorial observation and script play. An open discussion was also conducted with students and teachers to know their insight about the course. Findings of the study show positive impact of the honours course on the achievement of the learner. But, both the groups were found to be at the same platform in communication skill. Lastly, recommendations are made to bring improvement in the newly introduced English honours course to improve its quality in terms of learning outcomes

Ischemic brachial artery entrapment syndrome by supracondylar humeral bony spur

Medial supracondylar spur from the humerus is a rare cause of neurovascular pain of the upper extremity. The spur typically entraps the brachial artery and median nerve, resulting in compression-related symptoms. In advance stages, compression could lead to endothelial damage and thrombotic occlusion of brachial artery. Spur is also associated with an anomalous higher insertion of the pronator teres muscle, which could result in multilevel entrapment of the brachial artery. We report a patient with acute upper limb ischemia secondary to brachial artery compression and distal embolization from a medial supracondylar spur and anomalous attachment of the pronator teres. The entrapped brachial artery and median nerve were released by resection of the spur and of the anomalous belly of the pronator teres with thrombectomy of brachial artery

Stentowanie techniką TAP jako metoda ratunkowa w jatrogennym rozwarstwieniu lewej tętnicy wieńcowej w miejscu jej rozwidlenia

Iatrogenic coronary dissection is a rare but potentially catastrophic complication of percutaneous coronary intervention. The proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD) dissection may extend into distal left main bifurcation which may further engulf left circumflex artery (LCx). Here, we report a case of a 69-year-old male where dissection at proximal edge of well deployed stent led to total closure of left circumflex artery causing hemodynamic compromise. It was bailed out using T-and-protrusion (TAP) stenting where LAD and LCx were stented using 3.5x12mm and 3x24 mm sirolimus-eluting stent (Yukon Choice, Translumina) respectively. TAP technique is a feasible and reasonable management strategy for immediate bail-out stenting for this lethal complicationJatrogenne rozwarstwienie tętnicy wieńcowej to rzadkie, ale potencjalnie katastrofalne w skutkach powikłanie przezskórnejinterwencji wieńcowej. Rozwarstwienie w proksymalnym odcinku gałęzi przedniej zstępującej lewej tętnicywieńcowej (LAD) może się rozszerzyć na rozwidlenie lewej tętnicy wieńcowej, a następnie objąć również gałąź okalającą(LCx). W niniejszej pracy opisano przypadek 69-letniego mężczyzny, u którego rozwarstwienie tętnicy przy bliższymkońcu skutecznie zaimplantowanego stentu doprowadziło do całkowitej niedrożności gałęzi okalającej powodującej zaburzenia hemodynamiczne. W ramach działań interwencyjnych wykonano zabieg z zastosowaniem techniki stentowaniaTAP (T-and-protrusion), w którym do LAD i LCx wprowadzono stenty uwalniające sirolimus (Yukon Choice, Translumina)o wymiarach odpowiednio 3.5 × 12 mm i 3 × 24 mm. Technika TAP jest dostępną i skuteczną metodą stentowaniaratunkowego w ramach leczenia tego zagrażającego życiu powikłania

A Method: Fornix Depth Measurement in Ophthalmic Socket

Several methods have been publicized to measure the fornix depth but the error in the measurement makes them inconvenient for the correct diagnosis of fornix depth in the eye. In view of the cruelty of disease the precise method is needed to correctly evaluate the fornix depth measurement. In this report, a novel approach is being addressed, to solve the depth measuring issue with the logical experimental design. The explanation with the proposed hypothesis is described here with the relevant scientific approach, the emphasis of certain advantages of the present invention over the conventional measurement approaches. In this case the diagnosis and the process of diagnosis should be accurate, but in the field of ophthalmology an accurate measurement of fornix depth without committing any error was a challenging task. So far in the development of the measurement of fornix depth is concern. Currently, we discussed a novel method for the measurements of fornix depth in ophthalmic eye, which will be beneficial to get the accurate value, however it was not possible in the previously reported methods. It will have many advantages over the existing methods

An earth-friendly herbal pesticide from Pongamia pinnata L.

Today use of hazardous chemical pesticides is a major environmental problem in global agriculture. The large scale use of these pesticides is degrading soil quality, underground and surface water quality, food quality of products. Herbal pesticides are a potential option for their chemical counterparts. It was observed that the crop fields where Pongamia pinnata trees are planted, there is less or no infestation of various insect-pests round the year.The trees of Pongamia pinnata are found allover India and the use of Pongamia as pesticide is cost effective, environment friendly and is in the reach of common villagers and farmers of India

Forecasting human resource needs for shaping Veterinary and Animal Husbandry sector in Amritkaal

The present study provides an in-depth exploration of the demand and supply landscape for human resources within India’s Veterinary and Animal Husbandry (VAH) sector, aiming to identify the current and future challenges in meeting the workforce needs. It assesses the demand for veterinary professionals, taking into account various influencing factors such as the sector’s historical growth trends, the emerging roles, challenges posed by technological advancements and the expected integration of various sectors. Simultaneously, the supply side is scrutinized through an analysis of educational output, considering both the potential increase in the number of training institutions and the anticipated fluctuations in graduation rates due to policy changes or other external factors. The core objective of this paper is to shed light on the significant discrepancy between the available supply of veterinary graduates and the burgeoning demand within the sector. This gap is underscored by the study’s projection of a gradual narrowing over the coming decades, attributed to strategic increases in educational capacity. However, the analysis suggests that substantial efforts in expanding the number of veterinary colleges will be essential to align the supply with the projected demand effectively. This assessment underlines the critical need for a concerted and strategic approach to bolster the sector’s human resource base, ensuring its capacity to meet future challenges

Adapting Community Detection Algorithms for Disease Module Identification in Heterogeneous Biological Networks

Biological networks catalog the complex web of interactions happening between different molecules, typically proteins, within a cell. These networks are known to be highly modular, with groups of proteins associated with specific biological functions. Human diseases often arise from the dysfunction of one or more such proteins of the biological functional group. The ability, to identify and automatically extract these modules has implications for understanding the etiology of different diseases as well as the functional roles of different protein modules in disease. The recent DREAM challenge posed the problem of identifying disease modules from six heterogeneous networks of proteins/genes. There exist many community detection algorithms, but all of them are not adaptable to the biological context, as these networks are densely connected and the size of biologically relevant modules is quite small. The contribution of this study is 3-fold: first, we present a comprehensive assessment of many classic community detection algorithms for biological networks to identify non-overlapping communities, and propose heuristics to identify small and structurally well-defined communities—core modules. We evaluated our performance over 180 GWAS datasets. In comparison to traditional approaches, with our proposed approach we could identify 50% more number of disease-relevant modules. Thus, we show that it is important to identify more compact modules for better performance. Next, we sought to understand the peculiar characteristics of disease-enriched modules and what causes standard community detection algorithms to detect so few of them. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the interaction patterns of known disease genes to understand the structure of disease modules and show that merely considering the known disease genes set as a module does not give good quality clusters, as measured by typical metrics such as modularity and conductance. We go on to present a methodology leveraging these known disease genes, to also include the neighboring nodes of these genes into a module, to form good quality clusters and subsequently extract a “gold-standard set” of disease modules. Lastly, we demonstrate, with justification, that “overlapping” community detection algorithms should be the preferred choice for disease module identification since several genes participate in multiple biological functions

Wygięcie cewnika typu „pętli kobry” w obrębie odejścia tętnicy bezimiennej od łuku aorty w trakcie cewnikowania z dostępu przez tętnicę promieniową — fluoroskopowe wskaźniki tętnicy błądzącej

The retroesophageal right subclavian artery (ROSRA; arteria lusoria) is one of the anatomical abnormalities encountered at innominate-arch junction during transradial catheterization by right route. Here, we report a case of a 49-year old female who presented with chronic stable angina (Canadian Cardiovascular Society class-III) despite guideline directed medical treatment. Coronary arteries were cannulated with difficulty showing critical lesion of proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD). During angiography, diagnostic catheter has a peculiar cobra loop in the ascending aorta. As the left subclavian artery also has critical lesion at the proximal part, percutaneous coronary intervention of proximal LAD artery was successfully performed with 3.5×23 mm Xience Prime Everolimus eluting stent (Abott, USA) through right femoral route. Multi detector computed tomography (MDCT) contrast aortography showed the origin of the right subclavian artery in the right posterior side of the horizontal aorta with a tortuous course, proximal stenosis of left subclavian artery (LSC), and a bicarotid truncus. This abnormality can be easily detected by angiographic visualization, in the anteroposterior projection, of the angle of the catheter when it engages the ascending aorta, and by manual angiography at the ostium of the right subclavian artery. In such a case, selective catheterization of both coronary arteries may be very difficult, time consuming, and require more catheters. In such cases, one should not be hesitant to switch to transfemoral route if left radial route cannot be utilised.Zaprzełykowa prawa tętnica podobojczykowa (ROSRA, inaczej: tętnica błądząca [arteria lusoria]) to jedna z nieprawid- łowości anatomicznych napotykanych w obrębie odejścia tętnicy bezimiennej od łuku aorty w trakcie zabiegu cewniko- wania z dostępu przez prawą tętnicę promieniową. W niniejszej pracy opisano przypadek 49-letniej kobiety z objawami przewlekłej stabilnej dławicy piersiowej (III klasa wg Canadian Cardiovascular Society) utrzymującymi się mimo zgodnego z wytycznymi leczenia farmakologicznego. Kaniulacja tętnic wieńcowych była utrudniona; stwierdzono krytyczne zwężenie w proksymalnym odcinku tętnicy przedniej zstępującej (LAD). W trakcie angiografii cewnik diagnostyczny w aorcie wstępującej wygiął się w dziwny sposób, przybierając kształt pętli „typu kobra”. Ponieważ w proksymalnym odcinku lewej tętnicy podobojczykowej również znajdowało się krytyczne zwężenie, skuteczną przezskórną interwencję wieńcową w proksymalnym odcinku LAD z umieszczeniem stentu uwalniającego ewerolimus 3,5 × 23 mm Xience Prime (Abbott, USA) przeprowadzono z dostępu przez prawą tętnicę udową. W wielorzędowej tomografii komputerowej ze środkiem cieniującym stwierdzono, że prawa tętnica podobojczykowa odchodzi w prawej tylnej części poziomego odcinka aorty i ma kręty przebieg. Uwidoczniono również zwężenie w proksymalnym odcinku lewej tętniczy podobojczykowej oraz dwunaczyniowy pień tętniczy. Tę nieprawidłowość można łatwo wykryć w angiografii, w projekcji przednio-tylnej na pod- stawie kąta wygięcia cewnika, kiedy wchodzi do aorty wstępującej, a także w angiografii manualnej w punkcie odejścia prawej tętnicy podobojczykowej. W takim przypadku wybiórcze cewnikowanie obu tętnic może być bardzo trudne oraz czasochłonne i wymagać użycia dodatkowych cewników. Jeśli w takich przypadkach nie można wykorzystać dostępu przez tętnicę promieniową, to należy bez wahania zmienić dostęp na przezudowy.

Design, development and evaluation of furrow opener for differential depth fertilizer application

A differential depth furrow opener for tractor-drawn seed-cum-fertilizer drill under raised beds sowing was designed, developed and evaluated at ICAR-Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal, MP, India. The basic aim of this development was to apply fertilizer at different depth in crop root zone to enhance the fertilizer use efficiency. The furrow opener was evaluated based on draught and power requirements under soil bin at four depths (5, 10, 15, and 20 cm), four forward speeds (1.8, 3.2, 4.3 and 5.4 km/h) and three compaction level (200, 400 and 600 kPa). The field performance evaluation of furrow opener was done in two wheat crop varieties; HI-1544 (Triticum aestivum L.) and HI-8663 (T. durum) under raised beds. The experiment consisted of different fertilizer placement depths, i.e. application of NPK mixed fertilizer on surface (T1) and 5 cm (T2), 10 cm (T3), 15 cm (T4) and 20 cm (T5) below the surface in split-plot design. The root weight/plant shows significant results under all treatments, maximum and minimum root weight/plant were observed 16.01 and 9.63 g in T3 and T5, respectively. Highest grain yield was observed in treatment T4 (6 048 kg/ha) followed by T3 (5 611), T2 (5 223), T1 (4 739) and T5 (4 493 kg/ha). Higher NDVI values were observed in T3 (0.95) and T4 (0.96) at heading stage of wheat crop. From crop attributes point of view, parallel results were observed for T3 (10 cm) and T4 (15cm). But considering the draught and power requirement, 15 cm deep fertilization required 47% and 42% higher draught and power, respectively as compared to 10 cm deep fertilization