Retrospective subjective evaluation of aesthetic outcome in secondary cleft lip deformities operated with Abbe’s flap

Background:The Abbe’s flap is most commonly used to repair the full thickness defects of the lip that do not involve the commissure. The Abbe flap was first introduced to correct the secondary deformity of bilateral cleft lip. By this pedicled flap, we are able to equalize the disparity which existed between the tight upper lip and excessive lower lip. Aims to study retrospective subjective evaluation of aesthetic outcome in secondary cleft lip deformities operated with Abbe’s flap.Methods:29 patients operated during the period of January 2007 - December 2011 for correction of secondary cleft lip and nasal deformity with Abbe’s flap with or without rhinoplasty were included in our retrospective study. The secondary corrective surgeries were performed by a single surgeon. The photographs of the patients were retrospectively assessed by two plastic surgeons and one oral and maxillofacial surgeon, other than the one who performed the surgery. 29 patients operated during the period of January 2007 - December 2011 for correction of secondary cleft lip and nasal deformity with Abbe’s flap with or without rhinoplasty were included in our retrospective study. The secondary corrective surgeries were performed by a single surgeon. The photographs of the patients were retrospectively assessed by two plastic surgeons and one oral and maxillofacial surgeon, other than the one who performed the surgery.Results:Out of 29 patients with secondary cleft deformities 12 were male and 17 were female. Average follow up period was 3 years. Multiple variables of the nose and the lips were used to assess the aesthetic outcome of Abbe’s flap.Conclusion:As per the subjective retrospective analysis of our study we have come to the conclusion that Abbe’s flap is a work horse for correction of shortage of tissue for the secondary cleft lip deformities. Uniform satisfactory outcome was obtained with a more natural contour and more satisfactory proportion of both lips.

Baryons and baryonic matter in the large Nc and heavy quark limits

This paper explores properties of baryons and finite density baryonic matter in an artificial world in which Nc, the number of colors, is large and the quarks of all species are degenerate and much larger than {\Lambda}_QCD. It has long been known that in large Nc QCD, baryons composed entirely of heavy quarks are accurately described in the mean-field approximation. However, the detailed properties of baryons in the combined large Nc and heavy quark limits have not been fully explored. Here some basic properties of baryons are computed using a variational approach. At leading order in both the large Nc and heavy quark expansions the baryon mass is computed explicitly as is the baryon form factor. Baryonic matter, the analog of nuclear matter in this artificial world, should also be well described in the mean-field approximation. In the special case where all baryons have an identical spin flavor structure, it is shown that in the formal heavy quark and large Nc limit interactions between baryons are strictly repulsive at low densities. The energy per baryon is computed in this limit and found to be exponentially small. It is shown that when the restriction to baryons with an identical spin-flavor structure is dropped, a phase of baryonic matter exists with a density of 2Nf times that for the restricted case but with the same energy (where Nf is the number of degenerate flavors). It is shown that this phase is at least metastable.Comment: 19 page

Detection of Nitro-aromatic Compound in Soil and Sand using Time Gated Raman Spectroscopy

Laser based time-gated Raman Spectroscopy experiments for detection and identification of nitro-aromatic sample which premixed with soil and sand in different concentrations are conducted. A back-scattered stand-off Raman spectroscopy set-up using a frequency double Nd:YAG pulsed laser (532 nm, 8 ns, 10 Hz) was employed to evaluate samples made up of standard nitro- aromatic compounds, p-nitro Benzoic acid (PNBA) premixed with soil and sand at different concentrations. A sensitive ICCD detector was used to capture the weak Raman signals buried in high background noise at optimised experiments parameters like laser pulse energy, ICCD gate width, background subtraction, number of laser pulses averaging etc. p- nitro benzoic acid up to 5 per cent (v/v) concentration in sand with appreciable signal to noise ratio has been detected. This feasibility study also becomes relevant to evaluate the remnants for post-blast detection of explosives in terrorist attack as most of the explosives used in such attacks contain nitro-aromatic based high energetic explosives

Volume Integral Theorem for Exotic Matter

We answer an important question in general relativity about the volume integral theorem for exotic matter by suggesting an exact integral quantifier for matter violating Averaged Null Energy Condition (ANEC). It is checked against some well known static, spherically symmetric traversable wormhole solutions of general relativity with a sign reversed kinetic term minimally coupled scalar field. The improved quantifier is consistent with the principle that traversable wormholes can be supported by arbitrarily small quantities of exotic matter.Comment: 7 page

D-brane Bound States from Charged Macroscopic Strings

We construct new D-brane bound states using charged macroscopic type IIB string solutions.A generic bound state solution, when dimensionally reduced, carries multiple gauge charges. Starting with D=9 charged macroscopic strings, we obtain solutions in D=10, which are interpreted as carrying (F, D0, D2) charges as well as nonzero momenta. The masses and charges are also explicitly shown to satisfy the non-threshold bound of 1/2 BPS objects. Our solutions reduce to the known D-brane bound state solutions with appropriate restrictions in the parameter space. We further generalize the results to (Dp- D(p+2)) bound state in IIA/B theories, giving an explicit example with p=1.Comment: 21 pages, latex, few references added: minor modification

Fast Segmentation of Industrial Quality Pavement Images using Laws Texture Energy Measures and k-Means Clustering

Thousands of pavement images are collected by road authorities daily for condition monitoring surveys. These images typically have intensity variations and texture non-uniformities making their segmentation challenging. The automated segmentation of such pavement images is crucial for accurate, thorough and expedited health monitoring of roads. In the pavement monitoring area, well known texture descriptors such as gray-level co-occurrence matrices and local binary patterns are often used for surface segmentation and identification. These, despite being the established methods for texture discrimination, are inherently slow. This work evaluates Laws texture energy measures as a viable alternative for pavement images for the first time. k-means clustering is used to partition the feature space, limiting the human subjectivity in the process. Data classification, hence image segmentation, is performed by the k-nearest neighbor method. Laws texture energy masks are shown to perform well with resulting accuracy and precision values of more than 80%. The implementations of the algorithm, in both MATLAB and OpenCV/C++, are extensively compared against the state of the art for execution speed, clearly showing the advantages of the proposed method. Furthermore, the OpenCV based segmentation shows a 100% increase in processing speed when compared to the fastest algorithm available in literature

Roman and inverse roman domination in network of triangles

In graph G (V, E), a function f : V → {0, 1 2} is said to be a Roman Dominating Function (RDF). If ∀u ∈ V, f(u) = 0 is adjacent to at least one vertex v ∈ V such that f(v) = 2. The weight of f is given by w(f) = P v∈V f(v). The Roman Domination Number (RDN) denoted by γR(G) is the minimum weight among all RDF in G. If V −D contains a RDF f 1 : V → {0, 1, 2}, where D is the set of vertices v, f(v) > 0, then f 1 is called Inverse Roman Dominating Function (IRDF) on a graph G with respect to the RDF f. The Inverse Roman Domination Number (IRDN) denoted by γ 1 R(G) is the minimum weight among all IRDF in G. In this paper we find RDN and IRDN of few triangulations graphs.Publisher's Versio

Systematic study of incomplete fusion reactions: Role of various entrance channel parameters

263-266The evaporation residues, populated through complete and incomplete fusion processes in the reaction of 18O+ 165Ho, have been analyzed via excitation function measurements at projectile energies ≈ 4-7 MeV/nucleon. The cross-sections measured experimentally have been compared with the predictions of the compound nucleus model code PACE-4 calculations which only considers complete fusion (CF) reaction cross-sections. The experimental cross-section of the reaction residues populated through xn and pxn channels matches well with the theoretical model code PACE-4 predictions. On the other hand, α-emitting channels show an enhancement in the measured cross-section over PACE-4 calculations which reveals the occurrence of incomplete fusion (ICF) at the studied energy range. The relative percentage of incomplete fusion has been calculated from the experimental data and its dependence on various entrance channel parameters like projectile energy, mass-asymmetry, α-Q value and Coulomb factor (ZPZT) has been studied. The strength of incomplete fusion function obtained in the 18O+ 165Ho interaction has been compared with the previously studied systems. Results of the present study indicate that 18O (two neutron excess) projectile shows more incomplete fusion contribution as compared to 12C,13C and 16O projectiles due to its relatively small negative α-Q value