The role of socio-economic factors responsible for non-compliance of directly observed treatment short-course among tuberculosis patients

Introduction: Tuberculosis has gone out of control in many parts of world. The therapeutic regimens given under direct observation as recommended by world Health Organization have been shown to be highly effective for both preventing and treating tuberculosis but poor compliance to anti-tuberculosis medication (ATT) is a major barrier to its global controls. Objectives: The role of socio-economic factors responsible for non-compliance of directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) among Tuberculosis Patients. Materials and Methods: Cross sectional study, interviewed using a set of questionnaire. Participants were enrolled at DOTS centre of Lala Ram Sarup Institute of tuberculosis and Respiratory disease New Delhi, India. Patients who interrupted treatment for more than 2 months consecutively were classified as non-compliance cases. T-test was used for comparing the means of the control and case groups. Results: Majority of study population (45%) was in age group of 31 -45 years, which is the productive age. 85 % noncompliant patients believed anti TB drugs to be bad and 15 % accepted as good for them. Similarly 87 % believed to stop ATT very prematurely as soon as symptoms disappear while 13 % believed to continue as per DOTS volunteer advice. The study revealed that the non-compliance of DOTS was significantly high among those who were less educated, unskilled worker, low family income and upper lower class family. Conclusion: In Delhi region, the treatment of Tuberculosis was good and did not have much involvement of socio-economical role in the non-compliance of treatment. But still major hurdle is the inadequate education, occupation, and income

Large out-of-plane spin-orbit torque in topological Weyl semimetal candidate TaIrTe4

Topological quantum materials, with novel spin textures and broken crystal symmetries are suitable candidates for spintronic memory technologies. Their unique electronic properties, such as protected surface states and exotic quasiparticles, can provide an out-of-plane spin polarized current needed for external field free magnetization switching of magnets with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Conventional spin-orbit torque materials, such as heavy metals and topological insulators, provide only an in-plane spin polarized current, and recently explored materials with lower crystal symmetries provide very low out-of-plane spin polarized current components, which is not suitable for energy-efficient spin-orbit torque (SOT) applications. Here, we demonstrate a large out-of-plane damping-like SOT at room temperature using a topological Weyl semimetal candidate TaIrTe4 with a lower crystal symmetry. We performed spin-orbit torque ferromagnetic resonance (STFMR) experiments in a TaIrTe4/Ni80Fe20 heterostructure and observed a large out-of-plane damping-like SOT efficiency. The out-of-plane spin Hall conductivity is estimated to be an order of magnitude higher than the reported values in other materials. These findings of high spin Hall conductivity and large out-of-plane SOT efficiency are suitable for the development of energy efficient and external field-free spintronic devices

SCCN : a time-effective hierarchical interconnection network for network-on-chip

The needed time to send and receive a message among two nodes in an interconnection network has a fundamental role in determining the performance of this network. Therefore, taking a short period of time to send a packet between a source and destination nodes indicates a good performance network with less congestion and latency. Besides, processing data in short-term help in providing fast solutions for many complex problems. Thus, various designs of hierarchical interconnection networks (HINs) for the massively parallel computer (MPC) systems have been presented recently; the main goal of these networks is to replace the conventional ones which showed poor performance in scaling the network size. A Shifted Completely Connected Network (SCCN) proposed as a new HIN topology. Several basic modules (BMs) interconnected hierarchically to create advanced levels networks based on this topology. The structural design and a proposed routing protocol of SCCN discussed in this paper. However, the foremost focus of this work is to evaluate the time cost-effectiveness factor (TCEF) of SCCN in different levels in order to examine the effect of expanding the size of the network on the TCEF. Therefore, the TCEF for the higher levels of SCCN from level (1) to level (3) will be assessed to examine whether SCCN is an effective network in term of time. In addition, the obtained results from each level will be compared to other networks to prove the preeminence of the proposed topology

Synthesis, characterization and biological activity of 2-methyl-3-aminoquinazolin-4(3H)-ones Schiff bases

The 3-amino-2-methylquinazoline/6-bromo-2-methylquinazoline-4(3H)-ones, 2a,b, on treatment with 2,3-indolinedione in the presence of traces of glacial acetic acid yielded 3-{(2'-oxo-1',2'-dihydroindole-3'-ylidene)amino} -2-methylquinazolin/6-bromo-2-methylquinazolin-4-(3H)-ones, 3a,b, which on condensation with various secondary amines and formaldehyde in ethanol afforded title compounds 3-{(1'-alkyl/arylaminomethyl-2'-oxo-1',2'-dihydroindole-3'-ylidene)amino} -2-methyl-6-quinazolin-4-(3H)-ones, 4a1-6 and 4b1-6. C, H, N analysis, infrared spectroscopy, ¹H NMR, and mass spectroscopy allowed the identification of the synthesized compounds, which were investigated for their antimicrobial, analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antihelmintic activities. The results of the biological activities revealed that the compounds 4a3, 4a4 and 4b6 exhibited significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities. Compounds 4b5 and 4b6 showed antihelmintic activity when tested against Pheretima posthuma

Amino Acid Compositions of 27 Food Fishes and Their Importance in Clinical Nutrition

Proteins and amino acids are important biomolecules which regulate key metabolic pathways and serve as precursors for synthesis of biologically important substances; moreover, amino acids are building blocks of proteins. Fish is an important dietary source of quality animal proteins and amino acids and play important role in human nutrition. In the present investigation, crude protein content and amino acid compositions of important food fishes from different habitats have been studied. Crude protein content was determined by Kjeldahl method and amino acid composition was analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography and information on 27 food fishes was generated. The analysis showed that the cold water species are rich in lysine and aspartic acid, marine fishes in leucine, small indigenous fishes in histidine, and the carps and catfishes in glutamic acid and glycine. The enriched nutrition knowledge base would enhance the utility of fish as a source of quality animal proteins and amino acids and aid in their inclusion in dietary counseling and patient guidance for specific nutritional needs

Physics Potential of the ICAL detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

The upcoming 50 kt magnetized iron calorimeter (ICAL) detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is designed to study the atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos separately over a wide range of energies and path lengths. The primary focus of this experiment is to explore the Earth matter effects by observing the energy and zenith angle dependence of the atmospheric neutrinos in the multi-GeV range. This study will be crucial to address some of the outstanding issues in neutrino oscillation physics, including the fundamental issue of neutrino mass hierarchy. In this document, we present the physics potential of the detector as obtained from realistic detector simulations. We describe the simulation framework, the neutrino interactions in the detector, and the expected response of the detector to particles traversing it. The ICAL detector can determine the energy and direction of the muons to a high precision, and in addition, its sensitivity to multi-GeV hadrons increases its physics reach substantially. Its charge identification capability, and hence its ability to distinguish neutrinos from antineutrinos, makes it an efficient detector for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy. In this report, we outline the analyses carried out for the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy and precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters at ICAL, and give the expected physics reach of the detector with 10 years of runtime. We also explore the potential of ICAL for probing new physics scenarios like CPT violation and the presence of magnetic monopoles.Comment: 139 pages, Physics White Paper of the ICAL (INO) Collaboration, Contents identical with the version published in Pramana - J. Physic

Inclusive J/ψ production at mid-rapidity in pp collisions at √s = 5.02 TeV

Inclusive J/ψ production is studied in minimum-bias proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s = 5.02 TeV by ALICE at the CERN LHC. The measurement is performed at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.9) in the dielectron decay channel down to zero transverse momentum pT, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of Lint = 19.4 ± 0.4 nb−1. The measured pT-integrated inclusive J/ψ production cross sec- tion is dσ/dy = 5.64 ± 0.22(stat.) ± 0.33(syst.) ± 0.12(lumi.) μb. The pT-differential cross section d2σ/dpTdy is measured in the pT range 0–10 GeV/c and compared with state-of- the-art QCD calculations. The J/ψ 〈pT〉 and 〈pT2〉 are extracted and compared with results obtained at other collision energies. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]