Electrospun collagen nanofibers for tissue engineering

Design and fabrication of the scaffold is an important part of the tissue engineering process. Nanofibrous scaffolds based on proteins are gaining increasing acceptance due to its structural similarity to the extracellular matrix. Making use of the electrospinning technique, rat tail collagen type I nanofibers were produced using a collagen in hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) solution. In addition to optimizing the electrospinning process parameters, the effect of humidity on fiber morphology and diameter was investigated for fiber size control for particular tissue engineering applications. A generalized humidity effect on polymer fiber diameter of the polymer solution electrospinning process was developed. The as spun collagen type I fibers were unstable in aqueous solutions. To impart stability these fibers, the technique of ion implantation was used. Both helium (He+) and nitrogen (N+) ions were used. Polychromatic ion beam of energies of 0 – 100 MeV (He+) and 0 – 300 MeV (N+) with doses varied from 4*1015 ions /cm2 - 1.2*1016 ions/cm2 were used. The effect of the ion implantation process on collagen fiber stability was investigated as a function of ion dosages. While all implantation conditions gave stable fibers, their swelling characteristics vary. The structural and chemical compositional changes in the stabilized collagen type I fibers were investigated using the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicated that the lowest dose of both the ion species implanted had the highest degree of crosslinking and retained the largest amount of nitrogen which is essential for cell adhesion and important for tissue engineering

Living with cystic fibrosis: Patients' experiences of diagnosis in adulthood

There is a paucity of research investigating what it is like to be diagnosed and to live with cystic fibrosis (CF) in adulthood. Understanding the experiences of these adults and the impact of the condition can provide information to help healthcare professionals deliver appropriate support for their patients. This research aimed to address this gap in the literature. In-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with sixteen participants (ten females and six males) diagnosed with CF in adulthood. Using thematic analysis, four themes were identified “No, you can’t possibly have CF”, Emotions around diagnosis, “It did kind of take over my life” and “I no longer wish to argue with it”. These themes described participants’ frustrations with their contact with healthcare providers before diagnosis, their ambivalence around their diagnosis, the various impact and challenges faced with day-to-day living, work-life, finances, relationships, fertility, life plans, the future, treatment burden and their acceptance and adjustment to their CF. A key finding was the mismatch between patient need and healthcare provision. The main recommendations made included: 1) raising a greater awareness amongst non-CF specialist healthcare professionals and the general public of the possibility of receiving a CF diagnosis in adulthood, 2) ensuring CF healthcare professionals delivering the news of an adult CF diagnosis have the appropriate training and support and 3) ensuring CF healthcare professionals adequately assess individual’s information needs and provide appropriate and relevant information. The implications for health psychology practice include support for patients to help make sense of the diagnosis, develop adaptive coping strategies and adjust to living with a chronic condition. The role of the psychologist would involve working with specialist CF healthcare professionals through providing educative training, reflective practice and supervision

Convergence analysis of picard-s hybrid iteration scheme for multi-valued map having a fixed point

In this paper, we define Picard-S hybrid iteration for a multi-valued mapping of T with an invariant point η along with explanation that under certain conditions, this iteration gets converged to an invariant point ζ belonging to T. However, it is essential, to note that this invariant point ζ may be different from η. In this process, several results are generalized.Publisher's Versio

Policy into practice: an experience of Higher Education Link in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Aim: The main aim of the Child and Adolescent Overseas Working Party has been to support the development of services in low-income countries through enhancing their training capacity. This is congruent with the British Council’s policy of Higher Education. Link: The paper shares an experience of translating such a policy into practice. Method: The experience of implementing a British Council Higher Education Link in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry between the two Universities in Varanasi and Leicester is shared. Implication: In spite of various difficulties, all parties concerned learnt some valuable lessons and found it to be a worthwhile ventur

A Review on Clustering Technique

Hidden Knowledge is very important in data mining field. Large data set have many hidden pattern which have very crucial information, Clustering is such technique which find the hidden pattern from the large data. Artificial Neural Network is very powerful tool in machine learning or in the field of computer visions. Competitive learning is used for Clustering in Neural network. Example of Competitive learning, SOM and ART are famous for clustering. SOM have the limitation of dimension, ART is good but computation cost is very high. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150313

Performance Study of Some Reverse Osmosis Systems for Removal of Uranium and Total Dissolved Solids in Underground Waters of Punjab State, India

Radionuclides (uranium, thorium, radium, radon gas etc.) are found naturally in air, water, soil and rock. Everyday, we ingest and inhale these radionuclides through the air we breathe and through food and water we take. Out of the internal exposure via ingestion of radionuclides, water contributes the major portion. The natural radioactivity of water is due to the activity transfer from bed rock and soils. In our surveys carried out in the past few years, we have observed high concentrations of uranium and total dissolved solids (TDS) in drinking waters of some southern parts of Punjab State exceeding the safe limits recommended by national and international agencies. The main drinking water source is the underground water procured from different depths. Due to the highly saline taste, disorders in their digestive systems and other ailments, people are installing reverse osmosis (RO) systems in their houses. Some RO systems have been installed on commercial basis. The state government is also in the process of installing community RO systems at the village level. As high values of uranium are also undesired and may pose health hazards due to radioactivity and toxicity of uranium, we have conducted a survey in the field to study the performance of various RO systems for removal of uranium and TDS. Water samples from about forty RO systems from Faridkot, Mansa, Bathinda and Amritsar districts of Punjab State were collected and analyzed. Our results show that some RO systems are able to remove more than 99% of uranium in the underground waters used for drinking purposes. TDS values are also reduced considerably to the desired levels. So RO systems can be used to avoid the risk of unduly health problems posed by high concentrations of uranium and TDS in drinking water

India and the World after Covid-19: Climate Aspect

This research ponders over the climate aspect during the Covid 19. The purpose of this is too aware and disseminate the outbreak of covid 19 cases hiking in a sky rocketing way. This study will focus on the contents of covid 19 where people are battling to overcome the hazard happening around vicinity brought by climate aspect. Its consist of information and analysis of different countries, metamorphosis of the nature with its pulchritude, tactic that need to be followed to overcome predicament, major affected tribe, initiative by various countries, climate aspect, impact at utmost level, drastic change within a smidge, crucial steps to curb COVID-19. This is also fruitful to know the behavior of nature during the COVID-19 climate change. The data were obtained through various authorized news channel and worldometers

Role of aspiration cytology in splenic lesions

Background: Splenic fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) as a diagnostic procedure has been used since beginning of last century and was first reported in 1916. The objective of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic role of aspiration cytology in splenic lesions.Methods: In our retrospective study Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of spleen was done in a total 34 cases, out of which 28 cases were aspirated under ultrasonological guidance and 6 cases were aspirated blindly. There were 23 male and 11 female patients and the age range of the patients was from 2 to 69 years with 8 patients from paediatric group. Before commencing the procedure all the necessary precautions and investigations including coagulation profile were done.Results: Out of 34 FNAC cases, 5 were bloody aspirate while 2 cases showed normal splenic aspirate. In 27 cases definite diagnostic opinion was possible. Amongst non-neoplastic group maximum patients (8 cases) were showing features of extra medullary hematopoeisis followed by 4 cases of tuberculosis, then 3 cases each of kala azar and storage disorder and 2 cases showed granulomas. In the neoplastic group, we had 2 cases of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, one case of Hodgkin lympoma with 2 cases of hairy cell leukemia and one case of histiocytosis. No major difference in the cellularity noticed when the aspiration done blindly or under ultrasound guidance No procedural complications were seen in our study.Conclusion: Hence when done with full precautions FNAC spleen is a safe, cheap, rapid and highly diagnostic procedure as a primary investigation.