Metamorphism of the Oddanchatram anorthosite, Tamil Nadu, South India

The Oddanchatram anorthosite is located in the Madurai District of Tamil Nadu, near the town of Palni. It is emplaced into a granulite facies terrain commonly presumed to have undergone its last regional metamorphism in the late Archean about 2600 m.y. The surrounding country rock consists of basic granulites, charnockites and metasedimentary rocks including quartzites, pelites and calc-silicates. The anorthosite is clearly intrusive into the country rock and contains many large inclusions of previously deformed basic granulite and quartzite within 100 meters of its contact. Both this intrusion and the nearby Kaduvar anorthosite show evidence of having been affected by later metamorphism and deformation

Chemistry of the older supracrustals of Archaean age around Sargur

In the Archaeans of the Karnataka craton two stratigraphically distinct volcano-sedimentary sequences occur, namely the older supracrustals of the Sargur type and the younger Dharwar greenstones. The dividing line between these is the 3 by old component of the Peninsular gneiss. The trace and rare earth element chemistry of the Sargur metasediments show, in general, marked similarity to the Archaean sediments. The significant departures are in the nickel and chromium abundances. The REE data of the Sargur pelites of the Terakanambi region represented by Silli-gt-bio-feldspar schists and paragneisses show LREE enrichment and flat to depleted HREE pattern. Banded iron formations have very low REE abundance. They show slightly enriched LREE and flat to depleted HREE pattern. REE abundance in the Mn-horizons is comparable to that of the Archaean sediments. Mn-horizons show enriched LREE and flat HREE with anamolous Eu. REE patterns of these bands is well evolved and has similarities with PAAS

WhatsApp control: a new norm to succeed in LIMS adoption

Background: Adoption of the LIMS (laboratory information management system) serves varied purposes in the diagnostic laboratory and might take a very lengthy period for its implementation. But, without controls being put in place, it can create a barrier to the project’s execution and prevent it from being finished on time. Methods: A WhatsApp group with 22 members, including lab technicians, heads of lab sections, a billing manager, an operations assistant manager, an assistant nursing caretaker, and administrative staff, was created. The assistant operations manager posted the daily pending report status in the WhatsApp group to help the lab team ratify, correct, and complete the assignments. To track pending report closures in real-time, the WhatsApp group mediated weekly follow-ups. The laboratory services department head informed the team monthly on the project’s status. The nonparametric Wilcoxon rank test and paired student t-test were performed to compare pre and post-survey responses before and after the seven-month intervention period. Results: The non-parametric Wilcoxon rank test and paired t-test results of the post-test demonstrated that the participant’s answer had improved significantly since the pre-test. The questionnaire showed that participants liked the new WhatsApp control mechanism. The number of pending reports reduced from 4,000 to 240 in seven months, a statistically significant decrease at a p value of 0.01. This supports the newly implemented WhatsApp control. Conclusions: Based on this interventional study, WhatsApp-based controls can be employed in conjunction with more conventional ways to regulate process outcomes during LIMS adoption

Knowledge, attitude and practices towards consumption of caffeine containing drinks among the student population of Ras al-Khaimah medical and health sciences university, UAE

Background: Caffeine, world’s most widely consumed and legally accepted psychoactive substance which is commonly found ingredient in many drinks like coffee, tea, carbonated drinks and energy drinks. The objective was to explore how much dependent are the teenagers and young adults on caffeine containing drinks, reasons and circumstances for the consumption and to know the knowledge and attitude of the consumers about the health effects of the caffeine containing drinks.Methods: A validated questionnaire was administered randomly to about 298 students from MBBS, BDS, B Pharma and Nursing programmes of RAK Medical and Health Sciences University (RAKMHSU).Results: Out of 298 students in the study, 97% (n=290) of them drink caffeinated beverages in the form of coffee (53%), tea (43%), energy drinks (17%), carbonated drinks (18%) and all of the above (11%). The major reasons for consuming varied, where more than half of them gave the reason as to keep them awake for study purpose (53%), to get refreshed (51%), taste and flavour (49%). About 56% were of an opinion that they do experience different symptoms if they don’t consume their daily caffeine intake. 54% students admitted their caffeine consumption has been increased after joining the university. When knowledge and attitude were questioned, 63% of them think caffeine addiction is a health issue and majority of them were aware of the ingredients of these drinks but not the safest amount.Conclusions: Drinking caffeine containing drinks by the students are variable from different sources, so monitoring is necessary for the daily intake and there is need for educational programmes about the health effects related to high consumption of caffeine.

Observations of interplanetary scintillation during the 1998 Whole Sun Month: a comparison between EISCAT, ORT and Nagoya data

International audienceObservations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) allow accurate solar wind velocity measurements to be made at all heliographic latitudes and at a range of distances from the Sun. The data may be obtained with either single, double or multiple antennas, each requiring a different method of analysis. IPS data taken during the 1998 whole sun month (30th July-31st August 1998) by EISCAT, the ORT (Ooty Radio Telescope), India, and the Nagoya IPS system, Japan, allow the results of individual methods of analysis to be compared. Good agreement is found between the velocity measurements using each method, and when combined an improved understanding of the structure of the solar wind can be obtained

Combining visibilities from the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope and the Nancay Radio Heliograph: High dynamic range snapshot images of the solar corona at 327 MHz

We report first results from an ongoing program of combining visibilities from the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and the Nancay Radio Heliograph (NRH) to produce composite snapshot images of the sun at meter wavelengths. We describe the data processing, including a specific multi-scale CLEAN algorithm. We present results of a) simulations for two models of the sun at 327 MHz, with differing complexity b) observations of a complex noise storm on the sun at 327 MHz on Aug 27 2002. Our results illustrate the capacity of this method to produce high dynamic range snapshot images when the solar corona has structures with scales ranging from the image resolution of 49" to the size of the whole sun. We find that we cannot obtain reliable snapshot images for complex objects when the visibilities are sparsely sampled.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Version with high resolution figures available from ftp://ftp.iucaa.ernet.in/in.coming/gmrtnr

Magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis of white matter signal abnormalities.

Background White matter abnormalities (WMAs) pose a diagnostic challenge when trying to establish etiologic diagnoses. During childhood and adult years, genetic disorders, metabolic disorders and acquired conditions are included in differential diagnoses. To assist clinicians and radiologists, a structured algorithm using cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been recommended to aid in establishing working diagnoses that facilitate appropriate biochemical and genetic investigations. This retrospective pilot study investigated the validity and diagnostic utility of this algorithm when applied to white matter signal abnormalities (WMSAs) reported on imaging studies of patients seen in our clinics. Methods The MRI algorithm was applied to 31 patients selected from patients attending the neurometabolic/neurogenetic/metabolic/neurology clinics at a tertiary care hospital. These patients varied in age from 5 months to 79 years old, and were reported to have WMSAs on cranial MRI scans. Twenty-one patients had confirmed WMA diagnoses and 10 patients had non-specific WMA diagnoses (etiology unknown). Two radiologists, blinded to confirmed diagnoses, used clinical abstracts and the WMSAs present on patient MRI scans to classify possible WMA diagnoses utilizing the algorithm. Results The MRI algorithm displayed a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity of 30.0% and a positive predicted value of 74.1%. Cohen\u27s kappa statistic for inter-radiologist agreement was 0.733, suggesting good agreement between radiologists. Conclusions Although a high diagnostic utility was not observed, results suggest that this MRI algorithm has promise as a clinical tool for clinicians and radiologists. We discuss the benefits and limitations of this approach

Modelling the effects of boundary walls on the fire dynamics of informal settlement dwellings

AbstractCharacterising the risk of the fire spread in informal settlements relies on the ability to understand compartment fires with boundary conditions that are significantly different to normal residential compartments. Informal settlement dwellings frequently have thermally thin and leaky boundaries. Due to the unique design of these compartments, detailed experimental studies were conducted to understand their fire dynamics. This paper presents the ability of FDS to model these under-ventilated steel sheeted fire tests. Four compartment fire tests were modelled with different wall boundary conditions, namely sealed walls (no leakage), non-sealed walls (leaky), leaky walls with cardboard lining, and highly insulated walls; with wood cribs as fuel and ISO-9705 room dimensions. FDS managed to capture the main fire dynamics and trends both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, using a cell size of 6 cm, the ability of FDS to accurately model the combustion at locations with high turbulent flows (using the infinitely fast chemistry mixing controlled combustion model), and the effect of leakage, was relatively poor and both factors should be further studied with finer LES filter width. Using the validated FDS models, new flashover criteria for thermally thin compartments were defined as a combination of critical hot gas layer and wall temperatures. Additionally, a parametric study was conducted to propose an empirical correlation to estimate the onset Heat Release Rate required for flashover, as current knowledge fails to account properly for large scale compartments with thermally thin boundaries. The empirical correlation is demonstrated to have an accuracy of ≈ ± 10% compared with the FDS models