An Assessment of Knowledge and Practices Regarding Tuberculosis in the Context of RNTCP Among Non Allopathic Practitioners in Gwalior District

Introduction: India has the highest TB burden accounting for one-fifth of the global incidence with an estimated 1.98 million cases. Non- allopathic practitioners are the major service providers especially in rural and peri-urban areas, treating not just patients of diarrhea, respiratory infections and abdominal Pain but also of tuberculosis. Objectives: To assess the knowledge of sign and symptoms of TB and its management as per the RNTCP guidelines and to assess the practicing pattern regarding tuberculosis. Material & Methods: The present was carried out among the registered non allopathic practitioners providing their services in Gwalior District during the study period. A total of 150 non allopathic practitioners of various methods from both government and private sectors were interviewed using a pre-designed, pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. The information was collected on the General profile of the participant, knowledge about signs and symptoms of TB and its management, practices commonly adopted in the management and their views on involvement of non allopathic practitioners in RNTCP programme. Result: The average score of government practitioners was 7.3 compared to 4.6 by private practitioners. There was a statistically significant difference between the two group on issue related to the management of TB patients as per the RNTCP guidelines. Government practitioners relied mostly on sputum examination for diagnosis and follow up compared to private practitioners who chose other modalities like X-ray, blood examination for this work. Conclusion: There is a gap in knowledge and practices of practitioners of both the sectors. Some serious efforts were required to upgrade the knowledge of non allopathic practitioners if the government is serious about controlling tuberculosis in India

Voltage modulated electro-luminescence spectroscopy and negative capacitance - the role of sub-bandgap states in light emitting devices

Voltage modulated electroluminescence spectra and low frequency ({\leq} 100 kHz) impedance characteristics of electroluminescent diodes are studied. Voltage modulated light emission tracks the onset of observed negative capacitance at a forward bias level for each modulation frequency. Active participation of sub-bandgap defect states in minority carrier recombination dynamics is sought to explain the results. Negative capacitance is understood as a necessary dielectric response to compensate any irreversible transient changes in the minority carrier reservoir due to radiative recombinations mediated by slowly responding sub-bandgap defects. Experimentally measured variations of the in-phase component of modulated electroluminescence spectra with forward bias levels and modulation frequencies support the dynamic influence of these states in the radiative recombination process. Predominant negative sign of the in-phase component of voltage modulated electroluminescence signal further confirms the bi-molecular nature of light emission. We also discuss how these states can actually affect the net density of minority carriers available for radiative recombination. Results indicate that these sub-bandgap states can suppress external quantum efficiency of such devices under high frequency operation commonly used in optical communication.Comment: 21 pages, 4 sets of figure

Extended excitons and compact heliumlike biexcitons in type-II quantum dots.

We have used magneto-photoluminescence measurements to establish that InP/GaAs quantum dots have a type-II band (staggered) alignment. The average excitonic Bohr radius and the binding energy are estimated to be 15 nm and 1.5 meV respectively. When compared to bulk InP, the excitonic binding is weaker due to the repulsive (type-II) potential at the hetero-interface. The measurements are extended to over almost six orders of magnitude of laser excitation powers and to magnetic fields of up to 50 tesla. It is shown that the excitation power can be used to tune the average hole occupancy of the quantum dots, and hence the strength of the electron-hole binding. The diamagnetic shift coe±cient is observed to drastically reduce as the quantum dot ensemble makes a gradual transition from a regime where the emission is from (hydrogen-like) two-particle excitonic states to a regime where the emission from (helium-like) four-particle biexcitonic states also become significant

New Approximability Results for the Robust k-Median Problem

We consider a robust variant of the classical $k$-median problem, introduced by Anthony et al. \cite{AnthonyGGN10}. In the \emph{Robust $k$-Median problem}, we are given an $n$-vertex metric space $(V,d)$ and $m$ client sets $\set{S_i \subseteq V}_{i=1}^m$. The objective is to open a set $F \subseteq V$ of $k$ facilities such that the worst case connection cost over all client sets is minimized; in other words, minimize $\max_{i} \sum_{v \in S_i} d(F,v)$. Anthony et al.\ showed an $O(\log m)$ approximation algorithm for any metric and APX-hardness even in the case of uniform metric. In this paper, we show that their algorithm is nearly tight by providing $\Omega(\log m/ \log \log m)$ approximation hardness, unless ${\sf NP} \subseteq \bigcap_{\delta >0} {\sf DTIME}(2^{n^{\delta}})$. This hardness result holds even for uniform and line metrics. To our knowledge, this is one of the rare cases in which a problem on a line metric is hard to approximate to within logarithmic factor. We complement the hardness result by an experimental evaluation of different heuristics that shows that very simple heuristics achieve good approximations for realistic classes of instances.Comment: 19 page

RAPD-PCR based genomic characterization of two populations of Culex quinquefasciatus (Diptera : Culicidae)

The present paper deals with the RAPD-PCR based genomic characterization of Culex quinquefasciatus Say which is a major vector of filariasis in several parts of the Indian subcontinent. One population of the test organism used in the study was procured from Goa (pop.A) while the other (pop.B) was collected from a village Nadasahib (20 kms from Chandigarh). The RAPD-PCR amplification of whole body homogenate of freshly hatched individual specimens was carried out by using three random primers: primer I- 5’- GTCCCGACGA – 3’; primer II- 5’– TGATCCCTGG – 3’ and primer III- 5’- GTGACGTAGG – 3’. Primer I produced 5 distinct bands from the DNA of pop. A, whose base composition ranged from 200-1000 bp. Likewise, 7 bands ranging from 130-750 bp and 4 bands ranging from 270-950 bp were generated with primers II and III respectively. In case of pop.B, a total of 8 bands ranging from 200-1000 bp were generated with primer I. Similarly, a total of 6 bands ranging from 250-900 bp with primer II and 4 bands ranging from 180-950 bp with primer III were produced. Based on the bandsharing coefficient and the application of Nearest Neighbour Joining (NJ) analysis it was found that primer Iwas more suitable for detecting genomic differences at the species and generic levels while primer II was ideal for detecting variations in the number of bp in RAPD generated bands among different populations of Cx. quinquefasciatus