Wear characterization of Al 7075 alloy hybrid composites

Aluminium alloy hybrid composites are in high demand for advanced scientific applications due to their high strength, low weight, and enhanced tribological properties. A hybrid composite of aluminium alloy (Al7075) and aluminium oxide (Al2O3) and E-glass shot fibres was produced using a sand moulding technique in an electric resistance furnace. The objective of this research was to look at the wear characteristics of Al7075-Al2O3-E-glass hybrid composites with various Al2O3 (3-12%) and E-glass weight percentages (2-6 percent). The sliding distance (500, 1000, and 1500 m), load (10, 20, and 30N), Al2O3 (3, 6, and 9 %), and E-glass (2-6 %) are the wear characteristics that are considered. Wear testing is carried out using pin-on-disc equipment (WTE 165 model, Version-EV00) in line with the Taguchi L9 orthogonal array. Taguchi analysis was done on the collected data to find SN plots. Regression analysis was done along with ANOVA to find relationships between different factors selected. In order to reduce the wear rate of hybrid composites, the optimal wear parameters are determined. As the percentage of reinforcements increased, the rate of deterioration decreased. SEM scans revealed the attachment and displacement of unintended wear debris, as well as the uniform distribution of Al2O3/E-glass particles

Development of eAgromet Prototype to Improve the Performance of Integrated Agromet Advisory Service

In several countries, the systems for forecasting weather are being operated to deal with weather and its related factors affecting agricultural production. India meteorological department (IMD) is providing several types of weather forecasts. One of the forecast service is medium range forecast (MRF). As a part of MRF, the expected values of rain fall, temperature, cloud cover, humidity, wind speed and wind direction for next five days are forecasted twice a week by considering district as a unit. Agriculture is markedly affected by weather condition during crop season. IMD in collaboration with Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and State Agriculture Universities (SAUs) has set-up about 130 Agro-meteorological Field Units (AMFUs) and each AMFU covers about five districts. Based on MRF, IMD is rendering Integrated Agromet Advisory Service to the farming community of the country in the form of agromet advisory bulletin. The agromet advisory bulletins contain possible risk mitigation measures for the major crops and livestock. Based on the weather forecast, a group of interdisciplinary scientists and agromet scientists at AMFU prepare district-level agromet advisory bulletins. These bulletins are sent to the farmers and other stakeholders of the corresponding district. To ease the process of preparing agromet bulletins, an effort has started to build IT-based agrometeorological advisory system called, eAgromet. In this paper, we explain the concepts of eAgromet and its operation

Epidemiology and patterns of care for invasive breast carcinoma at a community hospital in Southern India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breast cancer incidence in India is on rise. We report epidemiological, clinical and survival patterns of breast cancer patients from community perspective.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All breast cancer patients treated at this hospital from July 2000 to July 2005 were included. All had cytological or histological confirmation of breast cancer. TNM guidelines for staging and Immunohistochemistry to assess the receptor status were used. Either lumpectomy with axillary lymph node dissection or Modified radical mastectomy (MRM) was done for operable breast cancer, followed by 6 cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy with FAC or CMF regimens to patients with pT >1 cm or lymph node positive or estrogen receptor negative and radiotherapy to patients after breast conservation surgery, pT size > 5 cm, 4 or more positive nodes and stage IIIB disease. Patients with positive Estrogen receptor or Progesterone receptor were advised Tamoxifene 20 mg per day for 3 years. Descriptive analysis was performed. Independent T test and Chi-square test were used. Overall survival time was computed by Kaplan – Meier method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 1488 cancer patients, 122 (8.2%) had breast cancer. Of 122 patients, 96.7% had invasive breast carcinoma and 3.3% had sarcoma. 94% came from the rural and semi urban areas. Premenopausal women were 27%. The median age was 50 years. Stage I-6.8%, II-45.8%, III-22%, IV-6.8%, Bilateral breast cancer – 2.5%. The mean pT size was 3.9 cm. ER and PR were positive in 31.6% and 28.1% respectively. MRM was done in 93.8%, while 6.3% patients underwent breast conservation surgery. The mean of the lymph nodes dissected were 3. CMF and FAC regimens were used in 48.8% and 51.2% of patients respectively. FAC group were younger than the CMF group (43.6 yr vs. 54 yrs, P = 0.000). Toxicities were more in FAC than CMF group, alopecia (100% vs. 26.2%), grade2 or more emesis (31.8% vs. 9.2%), grade2 or more fatigue (40.9% vs.19%), anemia (43.1% vs. 16.6%). Median Survival for the cohort was 50.8 months. ER positive patients had better median survival (P = 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>MRM was the most frequent surgical option. CMF and FAC showed equivalent survival. FAC chemotherapy was more toxic than CMF. ER positive tumors have superior survival. Overall 3 year survival was 70 percent</p

Biliary cystadenoma and choledochal polyp: a rare association

Biliary cystadenomas are rare, potentially malignant neoplasms of biliary origin occurring predominantly in middle aged women. Here we report a case of biliary cystadenoma in a young female who presented with an epigastric mass and features of obstructive jaundice. Imaging studies showed a mass in the left lobe of liver with dilated intra hepatic biliary ducts, right hepatic duct and common bile duct. Patient was subjected to left hepatectomy and hepatico-jejunostomy. Histopathology confirmed the lesion as biliary cystadenoma with choledochal polyp

AgrIDS: An IT based System to Communicate Personalized Agricultural Information: Preliminary Experience with 1000 Farmers Prototype

India is blessed with a large pool of qualified agricultural experts who can provide appropriate advices to farmers, given a crop situation. The existing extension system often provides generalized information where farmers have to make decisions which often need some technical expertise. Also, the traditional system does not consider the cases at individual farmer’s level as each farmer needs a distinct guidance based on resources available with him and it lacks instant feed back mechanism to fulfill the needs of the farmer to his satisfaction. It is very expensive to build and operate an extension system where an agricultural expert needs to visit each farmer’s field on a daily or weekly basis to understand the crop situation. Recent advances in information technology provide an opportunity to build a cost-effective and scalable agricultural expert advice dissemination system to deliver expert advice both in a timely and personalized manner. In the proposed system the crop situation is brought to agricultural expert in the form of digital photographs where the farmer has little or no disturbance for his daily farm operations. In this prototype, a total of 948 farmers covering 2571.90 acres pertaining to 1081 land holdings have been registered and the agricultural experts have successfully delivered more than 6000 advices till now. The quality of the digital photographs produced by the coordinators is very good and often par excellence. Each coordinator is covering 80 farmers and each agricultural expert is managing 3 coordinators successfully. Preliminary evaluation of the farmers on their comparative knowledge and adoption levels before and after the commencement of project revealed that, there was a significant increase in knowledge and adoption levels in all the parameters tested after the introduction of the project

Cerebellar liponeurocytoma: a case-report

Cerebellar liponeurocytoma is a rare cerebellar neoplasm of adults with advanced neuronal / neurocytic and focal lipomatous differentiation, a low proliferative potential and a favorable clinical prognosis corresponding to World Health Organization grade I or II. Only a few cases have been described in the literature (approximately 20 cases) by different names. A 48-years old female, presented with history of headache and dizziness associated with neck pain; restricted neck movements, drop attacks and occasional regurgitation of food since one year. Magnetic resonance imaging disclosed a right cerebellar mass lesion. Gross total resec- tion of the tumour was accomplished through a suboccipital craniotomy. The excised tissue was diagnosed as cerebellar liponeurocytoma, a rare entity, based on histopathological examination and immunohistochemistry. The morphological appearance of this neoplasm can be confused with that of oligodendroglioma, neurocytoma, ependymoma, medulloblastoma, solid hemangioblastoma and metastatic carcinomas etc., with unpredictable prognosis, which require postoperative radiotherapy, hence the importance of accurately diagnosing this rare neoplasm. This tumour should be added to the differential diagnosis of mass lesions of the posterior fossa

Rare case of blastemal predominant adult Wilms′ tumor with skeletal metastasis case report and brief review of literature

Wilms′ tumor (nephroblastoma) is extremely rare in adults, skeletal metastasis being still rarer. The clinical course of adult Wilms′ tumor is very aggressive. The present case is a rare blastemal predominant adult Wilms′ tumor presenting with skeletal metastasis. We report a case of 19-year-old female presented with severe low backache and colicky left loin pain of 3 months and progressive weakness of 15 days duration. Magnetic resonance image (MRI) of lumbosacral spine was reported as spinal metastasis with right renal mass. The patient underwent right radical nephrectomy and the tumor was histopathologically confirmed as adult Wilms′ tumor. In case of adult Wilms′ tumor, distant metastasis may be the first presentation and this possibility should be considered when an adult patient presents with flank pain and a renal mass