A Study on Prediction of Outcome in Patients with Primary Intra Cranial Hemorrhage using FUNC Score

BACKGROUND: Intra cerebral hemorrhage (ICH) the most disturbing and least treatable form of stroke, also in addition, it causes severe disability among survivors. Because ICH is considered to be fatal in majority of circumstances, withdrawal of care of such patients commonly occurs early, that cause a situation that can take away a “fighting chance” to those patients whose prognosis may not be as grave as initially judged. Accurate prediction regarding the outcome of the patients presenting with ICH is very important. AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of this study is to determine the Prediction of Outcome in Patients with Primary Intra cranial hemorrhage using FUNC score in Stanley Government Medical College Hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: During the study period, patients admitted with Intra cranial haemorrhage were performed imaging study. CT scan of brain was taken immediately. Along with that additional imaging studies like Doppler study of carotid arteries, angiogram- CT angiogram, MRI brain with MRA and MRV – plain and contrast were taken. After obtaining all these parameters FUNC score is calculated for all the patients. RESULTS: In the analysis of FUNC scoring, among the expired patients 31 patients(56.4%) belonged to score =8 were alive at the end of 90 days which shows high significance of FUNC scoring (p<0.001) in predicting the outcome. CONCLUSION: This study concludes that FUNC score can be used as a reliable tool in predicting the outcome of patients presenting with primary intracerebral hemorrhage. By using this scale withdrawal of care for patients with predicted good outcome can be prevented and can lead to a reduction in mortality and help them in early mobilisation

An Assessment of Oral Health status and treatment needs of 12 and 15 Years Old School going Children of Fishermen Community residing at East Coast Road, Chennai, Tamilnadu.

BACKGROUND : The present study was conducted to assess the oral health status and treatment needs of 12 and 15 years old school going children of fishermen community residing at East coast road, Chennai. OBJECTIVES: To assess the oral health status and treatment needs of 12 and 15 years old school going children of fishermen community residing at East coast road, Chennai using WHO oral health assessment proforma 1997. METHODOLOGY : A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted to assess the oral health status and treatment needs of 12 and 15 years old 650 School children of fishermen community residing at East coast road, Chennai. Data was collected using a survey proforma which comprised of a questionnaire and WHO Oral Health Surveys – Basic Methods Proforma (1997). The collected data was subjected to statistical analysis. RESULTS : Results showed that 350 children were 12 years old and 300 children were 15 years old. About 419 (64.5%) were satisfied on appearance of their teeth. Majority of the children, 617 (94.9%) used tooth paste and tooth brush to clean their teeth A large percentage of the children, 424 (65.2%) had not visited dentist before. Of those visited, 133 (58.8%) children had visited dentist for Tooth ache. Mean DMFT Value of 12 year old private and Government school children were 2.01 and 2.27 respectively. While Mean DMFT value of 15 year old private and Government school children were 2.28 and 3.15 respectively. Majority of the children, 351 (54%) were in Watch-out zone during sweet score calculation with significant relation to DMFT. Majority of the children, 464 (71.3%) were taking fish more than 3 days in a week with significant relation to DMFT. 172 (26.5%) children had definite malocclusion and needed elective treatment. 30 (4.6%) children had severe malocclusion and treatment is highly desirable. CONCLUSION : The oral health status of fishermen children was poor with high prevalence of periodontal disease and dental caries. Regular oral examinations by dental professionals, dental health education to motivate subjects to receive regular dental check-up and to maintain oral hygiene, adoption by nearby Dental colleges if any and involvement of NGO’S like Rotary Club, Lions Club, IDA will be needed to improve the oral health status of these workers

Multi-objective Optimisation of Multi-robot Task Allocation with Precedence Constraints

Efficacy of the multi-robot systems depends on proper sequencing and optimal allocation of robots to the tasks. Focuses on deciding the optimal allocation of set-of-robots to a set-of-tasks with precedence constraints considering multiple objectives. Taguchi’s design of experiments based parameter tuned genetic algorithm (GA) is developed for generalised task allocation of single-task robots to multi-robot tasks. The developed methodology is tested for 16 scenarios by varying the number of robots and number of tasks. The scenarios were tested in a simulated environment with a maximum of 20 robots and 40 multi-robot foraging tasks. The tradeoff between performance measures for the allocations obtained through GA for different task levels was used to decide the optimal number of robots. It is evident that the tradeoffs occur at 20 per cent of performance measures and the optimal number of robot varies between 10 and 15 for almost all the task levels. This method shows good convergence and found that the precedence constraints affect the optimal number of robots required for a particular task level

An Approach to Improve Multi objective Path Planning for Mobile Robot Navigation using the Novel Quadrant Selection Method

Currently, automated and semi-automated industries need multiple objective path planning algorithms for mobile robot applications. The multi-objective optimisation algorithm takes more computational effort to provide optimal solutions. The proposed grid-based multi-objective global path planning algorithm [Quadrant selection algorithm (QSA)] plans the path by considering the direction of movements from starting position to the target position with minimum computational effort. Primarily, in this algorithm, the direction of movements is classified into quadrants. Based on the selection of the quadrant, the optimal paths are identified. In obstacle avoidance, the generated feasible paths are evaluated by the cumulative path distance travelled, and the cumulative angle turned to attain an optimal path. Finally, to ease the robot’s navigation, the obtained optimal path is further smoothed to avoid sharp turns and reduce the distance. The proposed QSA in total reduces the unnecessary search for paths in other quadrants. The developed algorithm is tested in different environments and compared with the existing algorithms based on the number of cells examined to obtain the optimal path. Unlike other algorithms, the proposed QSA provides an optimal path by dramatically reducing the number of cells examined. The experimental verification of the proposed QSA shows that the solution is practically implementable

Urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A & B in workers exposed to cadmium at cadmium plating

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>The present study was carried out to determine the effect of cadmium exposure on Urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A and B in workers exposed at cadmium plating.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>50 subjects using cadmium during cadmium plating formed the study group. An equal number of age-sex matched subjects working in administrative section formed the control group. Urinary cadmium levels were determined by using a flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A and B were determined by using spectrophotmetric method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A significant increase of urinary total N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A and B profiles were noted in study as compared to controls. The levels of urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A and B profiles were positively and significantly correlated with cadmium levels in urine. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the effect of urinary cadmium or life style confounding factors (age, BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption) on urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase and its isoenzymes A and B. The analysis showed that the study subjects who had urine cadmium levels greater than 5 μg/g of creatinine, work duration >15 years, smoking and body mass index variables were significantly associated with urinary total N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase but not on isoenzymes A&B.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results presented in this study shows that the increased levels of urinary N-acetyl-beta -D-glucosaminidase observed in cadmium-exposed workers could be used as biomarkers for suggesting preventive measure.</p

Retracting Graphs to Cycles

We initiate the algorithmic study of retracting a graph into a cycle in the graph, which seeks a mapping of the graph vertices to the cycle vertices so as to minimize the maximum stretch of any edge, subject to the constraint that the restriction of the mapping to the cycle is the identity map. This problem has its roots in the rich theory of retraction of topological spaces, and has strong ties to well-studied metric embedding problems such as minimum bandwidth and 0-extension. Our first result is an O(min{k, sqrt{n}})-approximation for retracting any graph on n nodes to a cycle with k nodes. We also show a surprising connection to Sperner\u27s Lemma that rules out the possibility of improving this result using certain natural convex relaxations of the problem. Nevertheless, if the problem is restricted to planar graphs, we show that we can overcome these integrality gaps by giving an optimal combinatorial algorithm, which is the technical centerpiece of the paper. Building on our planar graph algorithm, we also obtain a constant-factor approximation algorithm for retraction of points in the Euclidean plane to a uniform cycle

Hemangiomatous Ameloblastoma: A Rare Variant

Ameloblastoma is a true neoplasm of enamel organ type&nbsp;tissue. It is the most common odontogenic neoplasm with more&nbsp;frequency in the mandible. A 20 years old male patient presented&nbsp;with a swelling in the right side of the mandible of 10 months&nbsp;duration. Orthopantomograph revealed multilocular radiolucency&nbsp;extending from the region of 46 to the condyle. Incision biopsy&nbsp;revealed features of plexiform ameloblastoma. Numerous vascular&nbsp;spaces of varying size were seen throughout the stroma.&nbsp;Excision biopsy also revealed similar findings. Based on these&nbsp;findings, a diagnosis of hemangiomatous plexiform ameloblastoma&nbsp;was made. Hemangiomatous ameloblastoma (HA) is still&nbsp;a controversial entity, with some pathologists ruling it out as a&nbsp;&nbsp;separate lesion. This paper discusses the possibility that HA&nbsp;might be an aggressive variant of ameloblastoma and reviews&nbsp;relevant literature.&nbsp

Ice Shapes on a Tail Rotor

Testing of a thermally-protected helicopter rotor in the Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) was completed. Data included inter-cycle and cold blade ice shapes. Accreted ice shapes were thoroughly documented, including tracing, scanning and photographing. This was the first time this scanning capability was used outside of NASA. This type of data has never been obtained for a rotorcraft before. This data will now be used to validate the latest generation of icing analysis tools

Whole Animal Automated Platform for Drug Discovery against Multi-Drug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus, the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections in the United States, is also pathogenic to the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The C. elegans-S. aureus infection model was previously carried out on solid agar plates where the bacteriovorous C. elegans feeds on a lawn of S. aureus. However, agar-based assays are not amenable to large scale screens for antibacterial compounds. We have developed a high throughput liquid screening assay that uses robotic instrumentation to dispense a precise amount of methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and worms in 384-well assay plates, followed by automated microscopy and image analysis. In validation of the liquid assay, an MRSA cell wall defective mutant, MW2ΔtarO, which is attenuated for killing in the agar-based assay, was found to be less virulent in the liquid assay. This robust assay with a Z’-factor consistently greater than 0.5 was utilized to screen the Biomol 4 compound library consisting of 640 small molecules with well characterized bioactivities. As proof of principle, 27 of the 30 clinically used antibiotics present in the library conferred increased C. elegans survival and were identified as hits in the screen. Surprisingly, the antihelminthic drug closantel was also identified as a hit in the screen. In further studies, we confirmed the anti-staphylococcal activity of closantel against vancomycin-resistant S. aureus isolates and other Gram-positive bacteria. The liquid C. elegans – S. aureus assay described here allows screening for anti-staphylococcal compounds that are not toxic to the host

Evaluation of groundwater quality and its suitability for drinking and agricultural use in Thanjavur city, Tamil Nadu, India

As groundwater is a vital source of water for domestic and agricultural activities in Thanjavur city due to lack of surface water resources, groundwater quality and its suitability for drinking and agricultural usage were evaluated. In this study, 102 groundwater samples were collected from dug wells and bore wells during March 2008 and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, major ions, and nitrate. Results suggest that, in 90% of groundwater samples, sodium and chloride are predominant cation and anion, respectively, and NaCl and CaMgCl are major water types in the study area. The groundwater quality in the study site is impaired by surface contamination sources, mineral dissolution, ion exchange, and evaporation. Nitrate, chloride, and sulfate concentrations strongly express the impact of surface contamination sources such as agricultural and domestic activities, on groundwater quality, and 13% of samples have elevated nitrate content (>45 mg/l as NO3). PHREEQC code and Gibbs plots were employed to evaluate the contribution of mineral dissolution and suggest that mineral dissolution, especially carbonate minerals, regulates water chemistry.Groundwater suitability for drinking usage was evaluated by the World Health Organization and Indian standards and suggests that 34% of samples are not suitable for drinking. Integrated groundwater suitability map for drinking purposes was created using drinking water standards based on a concept that if the groundwater sample exceeds any one of the standards, it is not suitable for drinking. This map illustrates that wells in zones 1, 2, 3, and 4 are not fit for drinking purpose. Likewise, irrigational suitability of groundwater in the study region was evaluated, and results suggest that 20% samples are not fit for irrigation. Groundwater suitability map for irrigation was also produced based on salinity and sodium hazards and denotes that wells mostly situated in zones 2 and 3 are not suitable for irrigation. Both integrated suitability maps for drinking and irrigation usage provide overall scenario about the groundwater quality in the study area. Finally, the study concluded that groundwater quality is impaired by man-made activities, and proper management plan is necessary to protect valuable groundwater resources inThanjavur city