Hypomagnesemia in critically ill patients and its association with morbidity and mortality

BACK GROUND: Despite the well recognised importance of magnesium, its most common under diagnosed electrolyte abnormality in current medical practice even though hypomagnesemia is found in 7-11% of general hospital admission, its incidence is too high in critically ill patients ranging from 20-65% in different studies. This study was carried out in critically ill patients admitted under institute of internal medicine, in IMCU of RGGGH, Madras Medical College, Chennai apex tertiary care centre in Tamil Nadu. AIMS AND OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence of magnesium deficiency in critically ill patients and its correlation with need and duration of mechanical ventilation, ICU stay, APACHEII and mortality. STUDY DESIGN: It was a prospective observational study. SUBJECT: A total of 50 critically ill patient admitted to ICU of RGGGH, Chennai under institute of internal medicine fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criteria. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Serum magnesium level along with other relevant investigation were sent with in first 24 hours of hospital admission. The hospital detail and progress of patients followed till end points. Statistical analysis done using SPSS version 16.0 microsoft window. RESULT: On admission 32 out of 50 ie 64% had hypomagnesemia when compared with other arm of patients with normo and hypermagnesemia increased ventilatory support 60% vs 40% p value .047, increased APACHE II SCORE 19.22 vs 18.56 with p value 0.0303..In these study duration of stay, ionotropic support as end point has no significant correlation. CONCLUSION: This study shows a higher prevalence of hypomagnesemia in critically ill patients. Hypomagnesemia was associated with higher APACHE II score on admission, need of ventilatory support

Study on Information Needs and Seeking Behavior of the Health Science Researchers in an Indian Tertiary Health Care Institution

The interest of health science researchers depend upon their moral and professional requirements to seek the information as the libraries are services oriented departments. The exponential growth of knowledge cause abundant of documents in various forms such as print and non-print materials and others that is, electronic information resources. The demand for specialized information by the users has necessitated the library to repackage the information from various sources to suit the user’s needs. The health science information seekers accept evidence based context and problem based learning is a part of information needs and they prefer their friends and colleagues as the most relevant sources to seek information, but print texts are more preferred than different database by the law students. The health science researchers fulfill their primary information needs through internet sources to enhance research activity. The e-resources are easy to save and copy and consume less time to access the required information. Understanding the relation between information needs and technology based information service can provide meaningful result to address the information seeker’s unmet health information. Further studies can expand the findings of this current study to better understand their barriers to health information

Application of Mobile Technology in the Libraries: A Way Forward in Library Services During Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper discusses the present scenario of mobile communication technology and its future aspects in libraries. Discussed the use of the application of mobile technology by the Libraries in the Covid period and its use in accessing library resources and services through Mobile applications. Mobile SMS Reference Services, Library Marketing are also discussed along with the special services on mobile for disabilities and the advantages of mobile technology in libraries

Study on indoor thermal comfort in the residential buildings of Liege, Belgium

A detailed study on the building stock of Liege urban area (Belgium) has been conducted during 2011-2012. The study is focused on historic buildings, which were constructed before 1945 and represents a very significant share (68.33%) of Liege building stock. In the Walloon region, the average heating energy consumption per year of the building stock is 408 kWh/m2 and the average heating energy consumption per year stands at 340 kWh/m2 for Liege. Hence, it is important to study existing buildings to improve the energy efficiency as well as thermal comfort standards. It is also important to understand the behaviour of these buildings and the preferred indoor thermal environment of the occupants. Keeping this in mind, the indoor thermal environment has been monitored for ten residential buildings followed by detailed interaction with the occupants to record their preference and expectations about indoor thermal comfort. It was found from the analysis that the fluctuations in the temperature of living room and bedroom with respect to outdoor conditions are a function of occupant’s age, type of heating system and fuel used. It is also found that the average energy expenditure was very high in these buildings. The study further identifies specific areas that need to be taken into consideration in order to improve the thermal comfort and energy efficiency. It put forth the argument that to improve the energy efficiency of occupied houses, occupant’s preference and expectations on thermal comfort needs to be considered for designing sustainable solutions towards improving energy efficiency

An analysis on energy efficiency initiatives in the building stock of Liege, Belgium

Built environment is responsible for 60% of total energy consumption in European countries and 128 million BOE of primary energy in Belgium. The average energy consumption in the residential buildings of Belgium is 70% higher than the EU average and stands at 348 kWh/m2/year. Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) provides guidelines for energy performance analysis of buildings in Belgium. In this study, a holistic approach has been adopted to analyse the building stock of Liege, Belgium. This analysis is based on ‘General Socio-economic survey 2001’ and ‘Housing quality survey 2006 in Walloon region’databases. It considers parameters such as buildings age, built-up area, type of heating system, type of fuel used, adjacency, insulation of roofs and walls and energy consumption etc. for an in depth analysis. This study concludes that about 69% of buildings which are constructed before 1945 needs serious renovation towards the improvement of roof and external wall insulation level. It then successfully identifies specific areas which need detailed study to evaluate the comfort status in the existing building stock, improvement of insulation level and its effect on heating energy consumption as well as the economic analysis on energy efficiency measurements

Design guidelines for construction of energy efficient buildings in North-East India

Energy and Built Environment are closely related, the more is the energy consumption the worse is the environment degradation. The use of natural lighting and the use of solar energy for heating and cooling as well as enhanced natural ventilation not only reduce the commercial energy demand but minimize the impact on environment too. Traditional buildings constructed long back in the different climatic zones of the region have a number of passive features which help in controlling the indoor environment mostly by promoting ventilation, as humidity level is alarmingly high in this region. There are exhibits of indigenous use of locally available materials and techniques to construct buildings that are adapted to local climatic conditions or even to the ethnicity of the community. Guidelines are prepared taking into consideration the different features like site, orientation & planform, building envelope and daylight for low-rise residential buildings; since these are very common in this region

Assessment of thermal comfort in existing pre-1945 residential building stock

The building sector is the third-largest consumer of primary energy in Belgium. This is partly because of the high percentage of old buildings (buildings constructed before 1945) in its building stock. Existing international standards on thermal comfort focus primarily on new construction and commercial buildings but tend to overlook old buildings. This study involves a thermal comfort assessment of fully functional (in use) residential buildings constructed before 1945 in Liège (Belgium). The research methodology is based on continuous long term monitoring of the indoor environment (November 2011 to May 2012) and followed by comfort surveys for selected houses in the city. The analysis of the collected data shows that family composition, envelope performance and the occupants' interaction with the indoor environment greatly affected occupant preferences and functioning of the indoor thermal environment. This study reveals that the occupants' interaction with the indoor thermal environment to restore comfortable thermal conditions varies throughout the day, by adjusting the temperature in different rooms of the house at different times of the day. This study argues that modern comfort standards have failed to estimate the comfort level in these old buildings and, if applied, they would lead to under estimation of their thermal comfort

The Energy Perspective of Bioclimatic Buildings in North-East India

The level of thermal comfort greatly affects human’s physical as well as psychological health. Climate control is of prime importance as it involves maintaining comfortable conditions inside the building. In parallel, the energy cost of maintaining comfort conditions will rise. Therefore it is desirable to design climate-responsive buildings by incorporating appropriate solar passive features

Thermal performance study and evaluation of comfort temperatures in vernacular buildings of North-East India

Solar passive techniques are being used in vernacular buildings throughout the world. Researchers have done extensive study on thermal performance of vernacular buildings in the different parts of the world. Vernacular architecture of North-Eastern India represents the principle of climate-responsive architecture, which still lacks experimental validation and quantitative analysis. Thermal comfort not only makes the occupants comfortable but also governs energy consumption in the building. Detailed field studies on thermal performances of typical traditional vernacular dwellings in different bioclimatic zones have been undertaken. This field study includes detailed survey of 150 vernacular dwellings, field tests and thermal sensation vote of 300 occupants on ASHRAE thermal sensation scale. Field test includes measurement of temperature, humidity, illumination level and building design parameters. Thermal performances of these vernacular dwellings were evaluated for winter, pre-summer, summer/monsoon and pre-winter months of the year 2008. This evaluation is based on ‘adaptive approach’, which is the outcome of the field studies and is now part of ASHRAE standard 55/2004 for predicting comfortable temperature of naturally ventilated buildings. This study also tried to find out the range of comfort temperature in these vernacular buildings for different season of the year. It has been found that these vernacular dwellings perform quite satisfactorily except in the winter months and the occupants feel comfortable in a wider range of temperature

Solar passive features in vernacular architecture of North-East India

Energy consumption in the buildings sector is very high and is expected to increase further due to improvements in living standard and increase in the world’s population. Incorporating appropriate solar passive features in climate responsive buildings are good options for energy conservation. This kind of building design integrates the micro-climate and architecture with human thermal comfort conditions and improves the building energy efficiency. From ancient times, people have used solar passive techniques in vernacular architectures throughout the world. However, still there is a lack of understanding, both in qualitative and quantitative aspects of solar passive techniques in vernacular architectures of North-Eastern India. A field study has been carried out to find out the various solar passive features in these naturally ventilated vernacular buildings in different bioclimatic zones of the region. The methodology of this work consists of survey of 150 households (50 houses in each bioclimatic zone) and, interacting with 300 occupants in each zone. The photographic evidences of solar passive features in these buildings are also collected. In this paper, the solar passive features related to building form and orientation, envelope design, shading, use of natural ventilation, internal space arrangements and activities of the habitants are explained for all the climatic zone of the regio