Safe abortion – Still a neglected scenario: A study of septic abortions in a tertiary hospital of Rural India

Background and Aims: In spite abortion has been legalized in India over three decades, unsafe abortion continues to be a significant contributor of maternal mortality and morbidity. The aim of the present study is to assess the magnitude of septic abortion in a tertiary care hospital over a period of three years with a special emphasis on maternal mortality and morbidity and various surgical complications. Settings and Design: Retrospective study of patients who were admitted with unsafe abortions over a three year period from 2005 to 2008 in a tertiary teaching Hospital of Rural India. Materials and Methods: Hospital records of the patients who were admitted with unsafe abortion in three years (2005-2008) were reviewed to evaluate the demographic and clinical profile in relation to age, parity, marital status, indication of abortion , the methods of abortion ,qualification of abortion provider complications and maternal mortality. Results: Unsafe abortion constitutes 11.6% ( n=132) of total abortion cases admitted over 3 years. Majority of women (70.45%) were in their thirties, married (89%).Sixty percent wanted abortion for birth spacing. Abortion methods included various primitive methods (30%) but majority by dilatation and evacuation. About 60% of abortionists were unqualified. Majority of women admitted with serious complications like peritonitis (70%), visceral injuries (60%), hemorrhagic and septic shock, renal failure (17.4%), and life threatening conditions like DIC, hepatic failure and encephalopathy. A total of 231 women died of unsafe abortion making it 12.55% of total maternal mortality in our institution. Out of 73 women requiring laparotomy, 22% were done within 24 hours of admission and majority (49%) were performed beyond 24-48 hours. Interestingly no women died when early aggressive surgery was done. Conclusion: The present study confirms that unsafe abortion is a great neglected health care problem leading to a considerable loss of maternal lives. Education and accessibility of contra caption, readily available, quality abortion services by trained abortion providers remain the key to limit mortality and morbidity arising from unsafe abortion

Weighted Scale-free Networks in Euclidean Space Using Local Selection Rule

A spatial scale-free network is introduced and studied whose motivation has been originated in the growing Internet as well as the Airport networks. We argue that in these real-world networks a new node necessarily selects one of its neighbouring local nodes for connection and is not controlled by the preferential attachment as in the Barab\'asi-Albert (BA) model. This observation has been mimicked in our model where the nodes pop-up at randomly located positions in the Euclidean space and are connected to one end of the nearest link. In spite of this crucial difference it is observed that the leading behaviour of our network is like the BA model. Defining link weight as an algebraic power of its Euclidean length, the weight distribution and the non-linear dependence of the nodal strength on the degree are analytically calculated. It is claimed that a power law decay of the link weights with time ensures such a non-linear behavior. Switching off the Euclidean space from the same model yields a much simpler definition of the Barab\'asi-Albert model where numerical effort grows linearly with $N$.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Staudinger’s Concept on Polymer Science and the Impact of Ziegler-Natta Catalyst on Polymer Technology

In good olden days, like all of us, scientists had to handle simple problems of life style but with change in life style, the demand of present human society has increased manifold over the years. Those were the days when demands of life style were not that complex; solutions could generally be realized with simple available items; and scientists generally gave attention to simple molecules and phenomena to seek solutions for earthy problems. But today’s situation is quite different when human society is trying to harness Nature to its comfort zone and looking for habitation in the space. Nature may look to be simple but actually it has to process host of functions meticulously through numerous complex material processes 24x7. Thus, in order to meet the demands of modern life style, materials science cannot remain satisfied with mere handling of only simple molecules. Necessity is the mother of invention; and that is how the concept of macromolecules crept into the cradle of Chemical Science for this Physical World. In fact, one of the most important classes of material science emerged in modern times is the macromolecular science or polymer science. The field of Polymer science has networked virtually with all branches of natural science including bioscience and technology to help carry forward the cause of human endeavor for betterment of life.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 3, May 2014, pp. 191-192, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.7183

Service to Science and Service to Defence : Moseley in the Light of the Centenary Year of his Landmark Publications in Defence of Science

Three words ‘Moseley, Soldier & Science’ in which the last two are so deeply associated with the name of the English scientist Moseley that these have become virtually synonyms of Moseley in the context of remembrance of the professional contribution and character of the unique soldier-scientist Moseley because these two words are very special for him in the sense that they often are essential to understand the personality of iconic Moseley. His keen interest in the service of Science as researcher and on the other hand, his involvement in the Defence services as soldier is really unique example of personification of total commitment to the cause of defence of his country and his deep dedication for the cause of unfolding the scientific truth towards building up a way forward to enrich human history. Moseley’s dual personalities as a scientist and as a soldier rest on the framework of Science & Defence in which the ideas and appeal of Science is universal whereas the ideals of a soldier in Defence is purely national and personal; and that was manifested in his attitude and approach - so intimate and so intense that it would not be inappropriate to say that ‘Service to Science’ and ‘Service to Defence’ for this real world, as Moseley exemplified were in a way virtually two sides of the same coin. Thus, Moseley is truly a composite personality which can be understood from his passion for Science as essentially meant for global cause but his zeal as soldier for Defence was pristine and core to his heart. In fact, often such deeply motivated men contribute for creation of history of this real composite world.Defence Science Journal, 2013, 63(4), pp.343-345, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.63.487

Variations in the Cyclotron Resonant Scattering Features during 2011 outburst of 4U 0115+63

We study the variations in the Cyclotron Resonant Scattering Feature (CRSF) during 2011 outburst of the high mass X-ray binary 4U 0115+63 using observations performed with Suzaku, RXTE, Swift and INTEGRAL satellites. The wide-band spectral data with low energy coverage allowed us to characterize the broadband continuum and detect the CRSFs. We find that the broadband continuum is adequately described by a combination of a low temperature (kT ~ 0.8 keV) blackbody and a power-law with high energy cutoff (Ecut ~ 5.4 keV) without the need for a broad Gaussian at ~ 10 keV as used in some earlier studies. Though winds from the companion can affect the emission from the neutron star at low energies (< 3 keV), the blackbody component shows a significant presence in our continuum model. We report evidence for the possible presence of two independent sets of CRSFs with fundamentals at ~ 11 keV and ~ 15 keV. These two sets of CRSFs could arise from spatially distinct emitting regions. We also find evidence for variations in the line equivalent widths, with the 11 keV CRSF weakening and the 15 keV line strengthening with decreasing luminosity. Finally, we propose that the reason for the earlier observed anti-correlation of line energy with luminosity could be due to modelling of these two independent line sets (~ 11 keV and ~ 15 keV) as a single CRSF.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures (4 in colour), 6 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Typos corrected, Figure 8 changed and some changes to draf

Determination of Freeze-out Conditions from Lattice QCD Calculations

Freeze-out conditions in Heavy Ion Collisions are generally determined by comparing experimental results for ratios of particle yields with theoretical predictions based on applications of the Hadron Resonance Gas model. We discuss here how this model dependent determination of freeze-out parameters may eventually be replaced by theoretical predictions based on equilibrium QCD thermodynamics.Comment: presented at the International Conference "Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement - CPOD 2011", Wuhan, November 7-11, 201

Phase transition in a directed traffic flow network

The generic feature of traffic in a network of flowing electronic data packets is a phase transition from a stationary free-flow phase to a continuously growing congested non-stationary phase. In the most simple network of directed oriented square lattice we have been able to observe all crucial features of such flow systems having non-trivial critical behavior near the critical point of transition. The network here is in the shape of a square lattice and data packets are randomly posted with a rate $\rho$ at one side of the lattice. Each packet executes a directed diffusive motion towards the opposite boundary where it is delivered. Packets accumulated at a particular node form a queue and a maximum of $m$ such packets randomly jump out of this node at every time step to its neighbors on a first-in-first-out (FIFO) basis. The phase transition occurs at $\rho_c=m$. The distribution of travel times through the system is found to have a log-normal behavior and the power-spectrum of the load time-series shows $1/f$ like noise similar to the scenario of Internet traffic.Comment: Six pages, seven figure