Evaluating the clinical management of severely malnourished children--a study of two rural district hospitals.

BACKGROUND: Severe malnutrition is an important cause of preventable mortality in most South African hospitals. Work recently done in two rural Eastern Cape hospitals supports the literature which shows that many deaths occur as a result of outdated clinical practices and that improving these practices reduces case fatality rates. Rapid assessment of clinical management in paediatric wards is necessary to highlight areas for improvement. OBJECTIVE: To assess the management of severely malnourished children in two rural district hospitals and to recommend improvements for their care. METHODS: Based on draft World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for inpatient care of children with severe malnutrition, data collection instruments were developed in conjunction with the district nutrition team to assess the quality of care given to malnourished children in two Mount Frere hospitals, Eastern Cape. Data were collected through retrospective review of case records, with detailed studies of selected cases, structured observations of the paediatric wards, and interviews with ward sisters and doctors. RESULTS: The combined case fatality rate for severe malnutrition was 32%. Inadequate feeding, poor management of rehydration and infection, lack of resources, and a lack of knowledge and motivation among staff were identified as areas that need attention. CONCLUSION: The clinical management of severely malnourished children can be rapidly assessed to highlight areas for improvement. Involving staff in the assessment process has led to their active involvement in improving the management of malnourished children in their hospitals

Chromium Oxide Formation on Nanosecond and Femtosecond Laser Irradiated Thin Chromium Films

Thin coatings of Chromium oxide have been used for applications as absorbing material in solar cells, as protections for magnetic data recording devices and as shields in flexible solar cells. Thin coatings of pure chromium were vacuum deposited on a glass substrate using hot electrons from tungsten filament. These coatings were then treated with a nanosecond and femtosecond laser in ambient conditions. The microstructure, morphology and the color of the coatings treated with laser sources were modified and there was a formation of an oxide layer due to the heat dissipation on the chromium coating from the energetic photons. High-resolution scanning electron microscope studies showed the morphological evolution that are directly correlated with the laser fluence of both the nanosecond and femtosecond lasers. This morphological evolution was accompanied by the microstructural change as observed from the x-ray diffraction patterns, the chromaticity response of the coating was studied by UV-Vis spectrometer and the response of the coating in the visible region evolved with the laser fluences. The Rutherford backscattering depth profiling of the laser treated coatings revealed the diffusion of oxygen atoms in the coating as a result of laser treatment fluence

An electrochemically active green synthesized polycrystalline NiO/MgO catalyst: Use in photo-catalytic applications

For many years, research scientists have aided communities in their tremendous efforts towards environmental remediation. Due to their high physical and chemical stability, metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been used as metal catalysts to remedy this issue. This article reviews green approaches for the synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles, in aqueous bio-reductive polyphenols from punica granatum peel extract and the degradation of organic pollutants. The bimetallic nanocomposite of face-centred cubic NiO/MgO pseudocapacitors were successfully prepared via the polyphenols of punica granatum peel extracts. X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) successfully provide evidence of polycrystalline face-centre cubic nanocomposite (high crystallinity index (Icry) > 1) while revealing their interplanar distance. The spherical and irregular particle distribution of the binary NiO/MgO nanocomposite (at different calcination temperatures) was assessed by high resolution-TEM. FTIR, GC–MS and EDS provided evidence of the proposed mechanism during coordination between polyphenols and metal precursors. The popular “egg box model” is referred to in the case of polyphenols-metal interaction. The unique feature of two consecutive chelation site per repeat that provides a favourable entropic contribution to the inter-chain association is produced by this model governed by electrostatic interactions. Based on the obtained results, new structural models of Ni2+/Mg2+-polyphenols (punicalagin) complexes were proposed. UV–vis and Cyclic voltammetry confirmed the growth and band gap energies of the nanocomposite. NiO/MgO nanocomposite was found to be excellent photocatalysts for the degradation of methylene orange and methylene blue under the illumination of artificial light irradiation. The experiments demonstrated that MB in aqueous solution was more efficiently photo-degraded (87%) than MO (73%) using NiO/MgO nanocomposite as photocatalysts within 10 min of exposure. Conclusively, the nanocomposite was found to be more efficient compared to other reported oxides.ISI & Scopu

Evaluation on La2O3 garlanded ceria heterostructured binary metal oxide nanoplates for UV/ visible light induced removal of organic dye from urban wastewater

A low energy bandgap between Ce3+ and Ce4+ states in cerium oxides, high oxygen mobility and high oxygen storage capacity are the properties that qualify them to be the most widely used heterogeneous catalysts. This present work is an account of studies that were carried out on the synthesis and catalytic properties of pure CeO2, CeO2/La2O3 based binary metal oxide nanostructures prepared by the hydrothermal method. Our results revealed that the synthesis temperature and pressure during hydrothermal reactions played a critical role in controlling the shape, size, oxygen vacancy, and low temperature reducibility in CeO2 based nanostructures. In addition, OH− ion concentration was found to play an important role in engineering the lattice constants and oxygen vacancy defects. The present report demonstrated that the hydrothermal synthesis is a facile one step approach for the preparation of compositionally homogeneous cerium based binary metal oxide nanostructures, in which CeO2/La2O3 mixed oxides have a superior low-temperature oxygen release capability compared to pure CeO2. We have also demonstrated that the nanomaterials are proved to have higher catalytic performance at low temperatures as compared to pure ceria nanoparticles. Keywords: CeO2:La2O3, Heterogeneous catalysts, Electron microscopy, Photocatalytic activity, RhB dy

Chromium oxide formation on nanosecond and femtosecond laser irradiated thin chromium films

Thin coatings of Cr2O3 have been used for numerous applications. Selective oxidation of chromium will be beneficial for integrated device fabrications. Thin coatings of pure chromium were vacuum deposited on a glass substrate using hot electrons from tungsten filament. These coatings were then treated with nanosecond and femtosecond laser in ambient conditions. The microstructure, morphology and the color of the coatings treated with laser sources were modified and there was a formation of an oxide layer due to the heat dissipation on the chromium coating from the energetic photons. High-resolution scanning electron microscope studies showed the morphological evolution, which is directly correlated with the laser fluence of both the nanosecond and femtosecond lasers. This morphological evolution was accompanied by the microstructural change as observed from the X-ray diffraction patterns. The chromaticity response of the coating was studied by UV–Vis spectroscopy and the response of the coating in the visible region evolved with the laser fluences. The divergence in chromaticity of these two laser treatments, is due to the difference in morphology as the result of the varied pulse duration. It could be concluded that the morphology had effect on the chromaticity of the films. Futhermore, Rutherford backscattering depth profiling of the laser treated coatings revealed the diffusion of oxygen atoms in the coating as a result of laser treatment fluence. We have analyzed both the optical and material properties of the laser induced oxidation and demonstrated laser writing as a promising tool to selectively oxidize Chromium for integrated device applications