TASK MANAGEMENT APPLICATION

The Task Management Application is a web-based platform designed to facilitate efficient task and project management, similar to other Project Management Tools like Jira, Trello, ClickUp, Wrike, Zoho Projects, and Asana. The application features three distinct roles: Administrator, Project Manager, and Employee, each with specific functionalities and permissions to streamline workflow. Administrator: This role encompasses comprehensive project oversight, including adding, viewing, and managing project managers, supervising ongoing projects, and viewing employee details. Project Manager: Project Managers can manage employees, assign tasks, and oversee project progress effortlessly. Employee: Employees have dedicated functionalities to view and manage tasks assigned to them. The application prioritizes user convenience with an intuitive interface, ensuring a seamless experience in project and task management. Additionally, all user roles are equipped with the capability to change their passwords upon login, enhancing security. By providing these tailored features and a user-friendly design, the Task Management Application aims to improve productivity and ensure efficient project execution

Models and algorithms for trauma network design.

Trauma continues to be the leading cause of death and disability in the US for people aged 44 and under, making it a major public health problem. The geographical maldistribution of Trauma Centers (TCs), and the resulting higher access time to the nearest TC, has been shown to impact trauma patient safety and increase disability or mortality. State governments often design a trauma network to provide prompt and definitive care to their citizens. However, this process is mainly manual and experience-based and often leads to a suboptimal network in terms of patient safety and resource utilization. This dissertation fills important voids in this domain and adds much-needed realism to develop insights that trauma decision-makers can use to design their trauma network. In this dissertation, we develop multiple optimization-based trauma network design approaches focusing minimizing mistriages and, in some cases, ensuring equity in care among regions. To mimic trauma care in practice, several realistic features are considered in our approach, which include the consideration of: (i) both severely and non-severely injured trauma patients and associated mistriages, (ii) intermediate trauma centers (ITCs) along with major trauma centers (MTCs), (iii) three dominant criteria for destination determination, and (iv) mistriages in on-scene clinical assessment of injuries. Our first contribution (Chapter 2) proposes the Trauma Center Location Problem (TCLP) that determines the optimal number and location of major trauma centers (MTCs) to improve patient safety. The bi-objective optimization model for TCLP explicitly considers both types of patients (severe and non-severe) and associated mistriages (specifically, system-related under- and over-triages) as a surrogate for patient safety. These mistriages are estimated using our proposed notional tasking algorithm that attempts to mimic the EMS on-scene decision of destination hospital and transportation mode. We develop a heuristic based on Particle Swarm Optimization framework to efficiently solve realistic problem sizes. We illustrate our approach using 2012 data from the state of OH and show that an optimized network for the state could achieve 31.5% improvement in patient safety compared to the 2012 network with the addition of just one MTC; redistribution of the 21 MTCs in the 2012 network led to a 30.4% improvement. Our second contribution (Chapter 3) introduces a Nested Trauma Network Design Problem (NTNDP), which is a nested multi-level, multi-customer, multi-transportation, multi-criteria, capacitated model. The NTNDP model has a bi-objective of maximizing the weighted sum of equity and effectiveness in patient safety. The proposed model includes intermediate trauma centers (TCs) that have been established in many US states to serve as feeder centers to major TCs. The model also incorporates three criteria used by EMS for destination determination; i.e., patient/family choice, closest facility, and protocol. Our proposed ‘3-phase’ approach efficiently solves the resulting MIP model by first solving a relaxed version of the model, then a Constraint Satisfaction Problem, and a modified version of the original optimization problem (if needed). A comprehensive experimental study is conducted to determine the sensitivity of the solutions to various system parameters. A case study is presented using 2019 data from the state of OH that shows more than 30% improvement in the patient safety objective. In our third contribution (Chapter 4), we introduce Trauma Network Design Problem considering Assessment-related Mistriages (TNDP-AM), where we explicitly consider mistriages in on-scene assessment of patient injuries by the EMS. The TNDP-AM model determines the number and location of major trauma centers to maximize patient safety. We model assessment-related mistriages using the Bernoulli random variable and propose a Simheuristic approach that integrates Monte Carlo Simulation with a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the problem efficiently. Our findings indicate that the trauma network is susceptible to assessment-related mistriages; specifically, higher mistriages in assessing severe patients may lead to a 799% decrease in patient safety and potential clustering of MTCs near high trauma incidence rates. There are several implications of our findings to practice. State trauma decision-makers can use our approaches to not only better manage limited financial resources, but also understand the impact of changes in operational parameters on network performance. The design of training programs for EMS providers to build standardization in decision-making is another advantage

Cost variation analysis of hypolipidemic drugs currently available in Indian pharmaceutical market

Background: Indian pharmaceutical industry is one of the growing pharmaceutical markets in the world having number of formulations available with large difference in prices. Price variations of such drugs which are used by large number of population have major economical implication. Hyperlipidemia is major risk factor for ischaemic heart diseases. So we planned this study to find out variation in cost of oral hypolipidemic drugs available in India either as a single drug or as fixed dose combination (FDCs) and to compare cost of their generic version with brands.Methods: The prices of single and FDCs of hypolipidemic drugs were taken from “Indian Drug Review 2018” and “Current Index of Medical Specialities during October 2018 to December 2018”. Maximum and minimum prices of various hypolipidemic drugs of same strength and dosage forms manufactured by different companies were taken.Results: Minimum cost variations are 3.62% (pravastatin 10 mg) and 3.37% (rosuvastatin 5 mg and fenofibrate 67 mg). Maximum cost variations are 500% (simvastatin 5 mg) and 500.32% (atorvastatin 10 mg and fenofibrate 160 mg). Wide variations are found in cost of brand drug with generic version of same strength components. None of the pharmaceutical companies are selling drugs cheaper than or equal to the cost of generic drugs of same strength.Conclusions: Most of hypolipidemic drugs should come under control of Drug Price Control Order so that financial burden of healthcare services on Indian population can be reduced and by adherence to treatment will improve health status of the community

Speciation Theory of Carcinogenesis Explains Karyotypic Individuality and Long Latencies of Cancers

It has been known for over 100 years that cancers have individual karyotypes and arise only years to decades after initiating carcinogens. However, there is still no coherent theory to explain these definitive characteristics of cancer. The prevailing mutation theory holds that cancers are late because the primary cell must accumulate 3–8 causative mutations to become carcinogenic and that mutations, which induce chromosomal instability (CIN), generate the individual karyotypes of cancers. However, since there is still no proven set of mutations that transforms a normal to a cancer cell, we have recently advanced the theory that carcinogenesis is a form of speciation. This theory predicts carcinogens initiate cancer by inducing aneuploidy, which automatically unbalances thousands of genes and thus catalyzes chain-reactions of progressive aneuploidizations. Over time, these aneuploidizations have two endpoints, either non-viable karyotypes or very rarely karyotypes of new autonomous and immortal cancers. Cancer karyotypes are immortalized despite destabilizing congenital aneuploidy by clonal selections for autonomy—similar to those of conventional species. This theory predicts that the very low probability of converting the karyotype of a normal cell to that of a new autonomous cancer species by random aneuploidizations is the reason for the karyotypic individuality of new cancers and for the long latencies from carcinogens to cancers. In testing this theory, we observed: (1) Addition of mutagenic and non-mutagenic carcinogens to normal human and rat cells generated progressive aneuploidizations months before neoplastic transformation. (2) Sub-cloning of a neoplastic rat clone revealed heritable individual karyotypes, rather than the non-heritable karyotypes predicted by the CIN theory. (3) Analyses of neoplastic and preneoplastic karyotypes unexpectedly identified karyotypes with sets of 3–12 new marker chromosomes without detectable intermediates, consistent with single-step origins. We conclude that the speciation theory explains logically the long latencies from carcinogen exposure and the individuality of cancers. In addition, the theory supports the single-step origins of cancers, because karyotypic autonomy is all-or-nothing. Accordingly, we propose that preneoplastic aneuploidy and clonal neoplastic karyotypes provide more reliable therapeutic indications than current analyses of thousands of mutations

Development of Thabdi milk sweets of Gujarat State, India utilizing Ghee residue as an ingredient

Thabdi an ethnic khoa based milk sweet of Gujarat State, which is famous for its characteristic colour texture and flavour, was prepared using ghee residue as an ingredient in order to provide a way to effectively utilize the by-product. Ghee residue was added in milk at different rates viz. T1 (control), T2 (2%), T3 (4%), T4 (6%), T5 (8%) and T6 (10 %). Addition of ghee residue in milk for making Thabdi was found to significantly (P?0.05) increase the fat, protein and ash content, Free fatty acids (FFA), Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value and acidity significantly (P?0.05) decreased the hardness of the products. Addition of ghee residue resulted in elimination of the 40 min holding period generally used for making Thabdi. Sample T4 (containing 6 % ghee residue) yielded the most acceptable product in terms of sensory attributes of product. It had a glossy brown colour, soft body, uniform grainy texture and pleasing rich nutty caramel flavour. During storage of sample T4 at cabinet temperature (20±1oC) and room temperature (37 C), the acidity, FFA, HMF (Hydroxymethyl Furfural), TBA and hardness increased significantly (P? 0.05) and sensory scores, moisture, water activity and pH decreased significantly(P? 0.05). It can be concluded that the most acceptable quality Thabdi could be prepared by addition of ghee residue at the rate of 6 % w/w of milk with improved shelf-life of 28 days at 20±1oC and 14 days at 37±1oC as compared to 21 and 12 days for control respectively. Thus, Thabdi sweet prepared with the use of ghee residue as an ingredient will provide a way to effectively utilize the by-product

Successful Treatment of Chronic Osteomyelitis of the Radius

Chronic osteomyelitis is uncommon in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Current migration trends with an influx of people from less affluent nations may result in more cases of chronic osteomyelitis being seen in community and hospital practice. We report on a case of chronic osteomyelitis of the radius and document current treatment recommendations

Nonoperative Modalities to Treat Symptomatic Cervical Spondylosis

Cervical spondylosis is a common and disabling condition. It is generally felt that the initial management should be nonoperative, and these modalities include physiotherapy, analgesia and selective nerve root injections. Surgery should be reserved for moderate to severe myelopathy patients who have failed a period of conservative treatment and patients whose symptoms are not adequately controlled by nonoperative means. A review of the literature supporting various modalities of conservative management is presented, and it is concluded that although effective, nonoperative treatment is labour intensive, requiring regular review and careful selection of medications and physical therapy on a case by case basis

Performance Evaluation of Portfolio using the Sharpe, Jensen, and Treynor Methods

Abstract: This paper attempts to get an insight and to construct an optimal portfolio empirically using Sharpe"s single index model, Further, we evaluate portfolio and market returns using Sharpe, Jensen and Treynor Ratio. The study is based on secondary data collected from www.nseindia.com and www.riskcontrol.com. Taking Nifty-50 as the Market Performance Index (MPI) and considering weekly closing share prices of all the stocks for the period between 1 st January 2015 to 31st December 2015, the cut-off rate has been computed and those securities are selects to construct an optimal portfolio whose excess return to beta ratio is greater than the cut-off rate. Our study shows that the composition of the optimal portfolio would be 0.80 % of fund invested in Infosys 0.20 % of fund invested in Bank of Baroda. Evaluation of Portfolio and market return by Sharpe, Jensen and Treynor Ratio show market returns is lower than that of the securities. And Treynor measure has a positive return on portfolio, however other ratios consistently giving negative return in 2015

EFFECT OF SALINISATION OF SOIL ON GROWTH AND MACRO- AND MICRO-NUTRIENT ACCUMULATION IN SEEDLINGS OF BUTEA MONOSPERMA (FABACEAE)

Effects of salinisation of soil on emergence, seedling growth and mineral accumulation of Butea monosperma Taub. (Fabaceae) were studied. Sodium chloride (NaCl) was added to the soil and salinity was maintained at 0.3, 1.9, 3.9, 6.2, 8.2, 10.2, 12.2 and 13.8 dSm-1 Salinity caused reduction in water content of all tissues (leaves, stems, tap roots and lateral roots) that resulted in internal water deficit to plants. Increasing salt stress impaired succulent feature of tap roots. Succulence is an adaptation of this tree species to salt stress because it temporarily puts off the setting of severe water deficit induced by salt stress. Sodium content significantly increased in leaves and stems and there was no effective mechanism to block Na transfer to shoot tissues. Potassium content also significantly increased in tissues, however, Na was transferred to the tissues in greater proportion than K. Nitrogen and phosphorus contents significantly decreased in all tissues in response to salinisation of soil. Changes in tissues and whole plant accumulation patterns of the other elements tested, as well as possible mechanisms for avoidance of Na toxicity in this tree species during salinisation, are discussed