Prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension in severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients attending tertiary care centre Ernakulam

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an irreversible bronchial inflammation of lung airways and parenchyma. Various factors play an important role in occurrence and severity of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a common in severe COPD. The objective of the study is to know the proportion of PAH in patients with severe COPD and to find the association between various factors.Methods: 180 cases of severe COPD patients admitted in Government Medical College Ernakulum from January 2019-December 2019, were enrolled into this cross-sectional descriptive study. Subject’s history, clinical examination, anthropometric measurements, vitals, Arterial Blood Gas (ABG) analysis were done.Results: Among 180 subjects, 148 (82.22%) had mild PAH, 22 (12.22%) subjects had moderate PAH and 10 (5.56%) had severe PAH. Use of accessory muscle was the most elicited sign in the study with 174 (96.67%). 170 (94.44%) had cough and 169 (93.89%) had breathlessness which were the most reported symptoms. Demographic variables and clinical features had no significant mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) association. Grade 3 PAH groups were elder than others, which was statistically significant (p<0.047). FEV1, Oxygen Saturation and ejection fraction were lowest in grade 3 PAH subjects. Respiratory rate, hemoglobin, PCV, tricuspid velocity, PaCO2 were highest in grade 3 PAH subjects being statistically significant (p<0.0001).Conclusions: In our study, majority of severe COPD patients had mild PAH.  There was an independent correlation between respiratory rate, hemoglobin, PCV, tricuspid regurgitant velocity and PaCO2 with severity of PAH

Bringing About a Behavioural Change in Providers to Meet the Reproductive Health Needs of Clients

The international conference on population and development held in Cairo in 1994 has became a historical turning point in the way population policies and programmes are perceived and sexual and reproductive health services are conceptualised and delivered. Inherent in the ICPD plan of action is the concept of care that recommends providing a range of reproductive health services to both men and women, that are safe and effective, and that satisfy clients, needs and wants. Clients are far more likely to use services that are of high quality. Achieving quality care requires complying with high technical and ethical standards (such as freedom of choice, informed consent, and freedom from coercion and abuse) and providing services at costs that are affordable to both clients and health care system. The most common barriers to quality are negative provider attitudes or behaviours, poor interactions between clients and providers, a lack of essential drugs and supplies in facilities, and delays in referrals to other necessary services

Implementation of Carbon Dioxide Gas Injection Method for Gas Recovery at Rashidpur Gas Field, Bangladesh

Natural gas plays an important role for the economic development of Bangladesh. It is the primary options to satisfy the environmentally clean energy, whereas coal is a dirty energy source and oil creates an unhealthy environment. Bangladesh is the seventh-largest producer of natural gas in Asia. Gas supplies meet 56% of domestic energy demand. The proven natural gas reserve in Bangladesh is only 19.73 Tcf. The Rashidpur Gas Field (RGF) is located in the Sylhet Basin, Northeast Bangladesh. It is 35 km long and 7 km anticlinal structure and asymmetric in nature with steeper eastern flank (22˚ to 25˚) and gentler western flank (8˚ to 12˚). There are two gas zones in depth between 1380m to 2787m below surface. Sandstone reservoirs of Miocene-Pliocene age and are considered to have been originated shallow marine depositional environment. The reservoir porosity-permeability values are very good, with estimated gas initially in place (GIIP) of the RGF was 2.242 Tcf with 58% recovery, thus recording an initial gas reserve is 1.309 Tcf. Five gas producing wells (RP-1, 3, 4, 6 and 7) in the RGF are producing 50 MMscf gas per day. Due to the demand of natural gas with decreasing production rate, this enhanced natural gas plays a vital role in the national economy of the country. This research depicts the development of the daily production of the RGF from 50 MMscfd to 99 MMscfd using software from the existing production wells. Thus the natural gas in the RGF would be enhanced/recovered using carbon dioxide (CO2) gas injection by Enhanced Gas Recovery (EGR) method from the RGF reservoir. Applying this method would play a vital role to increase the daily production rate of the RGF

Critical temperature for first-order phase transitions in confined systems

We consider the Euclidean $D$-dimensional $-\lambda |\phi |^4+\eta |\phi |^6$ ($\lambda ,\eta >0$) model with $d$ ($d\leq D$) compactified dimensions. Introducing temperature by means of the Ginzburg--Landau prescription in the mass term of the Hamiltonian, this model can be interpreted as describing a first-order phase transition for a system in a region of the $D$-dimensional space, limited by $d$ pairs of parallel planes, orthogonal to the coordinates axis $x_1, x_2, ..., x_d$. The planes in each pair are separated by distances $L_1, L_2, ..., L_d$. We obtain an expression for the transition temperature as a function of the size of the system, $$, $i=1, 2, ..., d$. For D=3 we particularize this formula, taking $L_1=L_2=... =L_d=L$ for the physically interesting cases $d=1$ (a film), $d=2$ (an infinitely long wire having a square cross-section), and for $d=3$ (a cube). For completeness, the corresponding formulas for second-order transitions are also presented. Comparison with experimental data for superconducting films and wires shows qualitative agreement with our theoretical expressionsComment: REVTEX, 11 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Eur. Phys. Journal

Large-N transition temperature for superconducting films in a magnetic field

We consider the $N$-component Ginzburg-Landau model in the large $N$ limit, the system being embedded in an external constant magnetic field and confined between two parallel planes a distance $L$ apart from one another. On physical grounds, this corresponds to a material in the form of a film in the presence of an external magnetic field. Using techniques from dimensional and $zeta$-function regularization, modified by the external field and the confinement conditions, we investigate the behavior of the system as a function of the film thickness $L$. This behavior suggests the existence of a minimal critical thickness below which superconductivity is suppressed.Comment: Revtex, two column, 4 pages, 2 figure

Application of Electroporation Technique in Biofuel Processing

Biofuels production is mostly oriented with fermentation process, which requires fermentable sugar as nutrient for microbial growth. Lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) represents the most attractive, low-cost feedstock for biofuel production, it is now arousing great interest. The cellulose that is embedded in the lignin matrix has an insoluble, highly-crystalline structure, so it is difficult to hydrolyze into fermentable sugar or cell protein. On the other hand, microbial lipid has been studying as substitute of plant oils or animal fat to produce biodiesel. It is still a great challenge to extract maximum lipid from microbial cells (yeast, fungi, algae) investing minimum energy. Electroporation (EP) of LCB results a significant increase in cell conductivity and permeability caused due to the application of an external electric field. EP is required to alter the size and structure of the biomass, to reduce the cellulose crystallinity, and increase their porosity as well as chemical composition, so that the hydrolysis of the carbohydrate fraction to monomeric sugars can be achieved rapidly and with greater yields. Furthermore, EP has a great potential to disrupt the microbial cell walls within few seconds to bring out the intracellular materials (lipid) to the solution. Therefore, this study aims to describe the challenges and prospect of application of EP technique in biofuels processing

Switching specific biomolecular interactions on surfaces under complex biological conditions

Herein, electrically switchable mixed self-assembled monolayers based on oligopeptides have been developed and investigated for their suitability in achieving control over biomolecular interactions in the presence of complex biological conditions. Our model system, a biotinylated oligopeptide tethered to gold within a background of tri(ethylene glycol) undecanethiol, is ubiquitous in both switching specific protein interactions in highly fouling media while still offering the non-specific protein-resistance to the surface. Furthermore, the work demonstrated that the performance of the switching on the electro-switchable oligopeptide is sensitive to the characteristics of the media, and in particular, its protein concentration and buffer composition, and thus such aspects should be considered and addressed to assure maximum switching performance. This study lays the foundation for developing more realistic dynamic extracellular matrix models and is certainly applicable in a wide variety of biological and medical applications

Electrically-driven modulation of surface-grafted RGD peptides for manipulation of cell adhesion

Reported herein is a switchable surface that relies on electrically-induced conformational changes within surface-grafted arginine–glycine–aspartate (RGD) oligopeptides as the means of modulating cell adhesion

Adolescents and Youth in Pakistan 2001-2002: A Nationally Representative Survey

Published by the Population Council\u27s Islamabad office, this is the first comprehensive survey of Pakistani youth. The report provides an unprecedented view of young people\u27s experiences with and attitudes about education, employment, families, and marriage. The report findings confirm the large differences in the current situation of adolescents and youth, males versus females, from different strata of residence and economic status. Addressing these requires government intervention, changes in attitude, and input from the media, women and youth groups, and members of civil society

What Point-of-Use Water Treatment Products Do Consumers Use? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial among the Urban Poor in Bangladesh

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that household point-of-use (POU) water treatment products can reduce the enormous burden of water-borne illness. Nevertheless, adoption among the global poor is very low, and little evidence exists on why. METHODS: We gave 600 households in poor communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh randomly-ordered two-month free trials of four water treatment products: dilute liquid chlorine (sodium hypochlorite solution, marketed locally as Water Guard), sodium dichloroisocyanurate tablets (branded as Aquatabs), a combined flocculant-disinfectant powdered mixture (the PUR Purifier of Water), and a silver-coated ceramic siphon filter. Consumers also received education on the dangers of untreated drinking water. We measured which products consumers used with self-reports, observation (for the filter), and chlorine tests (for the other products). We also measured drinking water's contamination with E. coli (compared to 200 control households). FINDINGS: Households reported highest usage of the filter, although no product had even 30% usage. E. coli concentrations in stored drinking water were generally lowest when households had Water Guard. Households that self-reported product usage had large reductions in E. coli concentrations with any product as compared to controls. CONCLUSION: Traditional arguments for the low adoption of POU products focus on affordability, consumers' lack of information about germs and the dangers of unsafe water, and specific products not meshing with a household's preferences. In this study we provided free trials, repeated informational messages explaining the dangers of untreated water, and a variety of product designs. The low usage of all products despite such efforts makes clear that important barriers exist beyond cost, information, and variation among these four product designs. Without a better understanding of the choices and aspirations of the target end-users, household-based water treatment is unlikely to reduce morbidity and mortality substantially in urban Bangladesh and similar populations