Integrating Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy for Paediatric Bipolar Disorder: Translating Science to Service

Objective: For comprehensive management of paediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), it is imperative to combine psychopharmacotherapy with specific psychotherapy. This article proposes a model that incorporates (1) an overview of psychopathology, (2) a review of outcomes in psychopharmacotherapy trials, and (3) a summary of evidence-based forms of psychotherapy to complement pharmacotherapy. Results: The psychopathology of PBD is unique compared to that of adult bipolar disorder with prominent irritability, rapid cycling, high rates of co-morbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, mixed episodes and chronicity. Combination therapy with a second generation antipsychotic and a mood stabilizer is proving to be more effective than monotherapy with a mood stabilizer. Empirical findings for the support of family-focused, cognitive behavioral therapies with individual family or multifamily psychoeducation groups suggest that these psychosocial treatments are valuable complementary tools for clinicians who treat youths diagnosed with PBD. Conclusion: As pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are most beneficial when applied together, the clinician’s understanding of the science behind these forms of treatment is likely to be of great value in effectively providing services to youths diagnosed with PBD

Processing Big Data Using Secure HDFS

The main objective of this project was to collect the data and provide a solution to the problems faced by a huge organization, which holds the data of many diverse fields. The challenge here was to understand Hadoop and its key features for successful implementation of a Hadoop platform. Users and clients evaluate or analyze the functioning and progress of it. By applying DAIMC methodology, which supports a rapid, iterative development style and better result driven. The team focused on the decision driven as well as data driven. The team also concentrated on the necessities of the decisions to be made, rather than enclosing all existing data. While following this, organization totally relied on agile development and business opportunity management for a successful implementation

High efficiency planar microwave antennas assembled using millimetre thick micromachine polymer structures

Communication systems at microwave and millimetre wave regimes require compact broadband high gain antenna devices for a variety of applications, ranging from simple telemetry antennas to sophisticated radar systems. High performance can usually be achieved by fabricating the antenna device onto a substrate with low dielectric constant or recently through micromachining techniques. This thesis presents the design, fabrication, assembly and characterisation of microstrip and CPW fed micromachined aperture coupled single and stacked patch antenna devices. It was found that the micromachining approach can be employed to achieve a low dielectric constant region under the patch which results in suppression of surface waves and hence increasing radiation efficiency and bandwidth. A micromachining method that employs photolithography and metal deposition techniques was developed to produce high efficiency antenna devices. The method is compatible with integration of CMOS chips and filters onto a common substrate. Micromachined polymer rims (SU8 photoresist) was used to create millimetre thick air gaps between the patch and the substrate. The effect of the substrate materials and the dimensions of the SU8 polymer rims on the performance of the antenna devices were studied by numerical simulation using Ansoft HFSS electromagnetic field simulation package. The antenna structures were fabricated in layers and assembled by bonding the micromachined polymer spacers together. Low cost materials like SU8, polyimide and liquid crystal polymer films were used for fabrication and assembly of the antenna devices. A perfect patch antenna device is introduced by replacing the substrate of a conventional patch antenna device with air in order to compare with the micromachined antenna devices. The best antenna parameters for a perfect patch antenna device with air as a substrate medium are ~20% for bandwidth and 9.75 dBi for antenna gain with a radiation efficiency of 99.8%. In comparison, the best antenna gain for the simple micromachined patch antenna device was determined to be ~8.6 dBi. The bandwidth was ~20 % for a microstrip fed device with a single patch; it was ~40 % for stacked patch devices. The best bandwidth and gain of 6.58 GHz (50.5%) and 11.2 dBi were obtained for a micromachined sub-array antenna device. The simulation results show that the efficiency of the antenna devices is above 95 %. Finally, a novel high gain planar antenna using a frequency selective surface (FSS) was studied for operation at ~60 GHz frequency. The simulation results show that the novel antenna device has a substantial directivity of around 25 dBi that is required for the emerging WLAN communications at the 60 GHz frequency band

Forecasting meteorological analysis using machine learning algorithms.

Weather prediction is gaining up ubiquity quickly in the current period of Machine learning and Technologies. It is fundamental to foresee the temperature of the climate for quite a while. Decision trees, K-NN, Random Forest algorithms are an integral asset which has been utilized in several prediction works for instance, flood prediction, storm detection etc. In this paper, a simple approach for weather prediction of future years by utilizing the past data analysis is proposed by the decision tree, K-NN and random forest algorithm calculations and showing the best accuracy result of these three algorithms. Weather prediction plays a significant job in everyday applications and in this paper the prediction is done based on the temperature changes of the certain area. All these algorithms calculate the mean values, median, confidence values, probability and show the difference between plots of all the three algorithms etc. Finally, using these algorithms in this work we can predict whether the temperature increases or decreases, is it a rainy day or not. The dataset is completely based on the weather of certain area including few objects like year, month, and temperature, predicted values and so on.

Review of risperidone for the treatment of pediatric and adolescent bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

Risperidone is a commonly used medication for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in children and adolescents. It has been studied as a monotherapy treatment in early onset schizophrenia and as both monotherapy and combination therapy for pediatric bipolar disorder. Studies to date indicate that risperidone is an effective treatment for positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia and mania symptoms of bipolar disorder. In young patient populations, side effects such as weight gain, extrapyramidal side effects, and prolactin elevation require consideration when evaluating the risk benefit ratio for individual patients. Here we review published studies of risperidone for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in children and adolescents to provide practitioners with an overview of published data on the efficacy and safety of risperidone in these patient populations

Fabrication and testing of microfluidic devices for blood cell separation

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.Blood separation is a strategic preliminary step in preparation to on-chip biological analysis. Two microfluidic devices for on-chip blood separation are presented. Both devices will be integrated to form the separation module of a Lab on Chip for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis. In the first device, a blood plasma separator, the separation of blood cells from plasma is made possible in microchannels by bio-physical effects such as an axial migration effect and Zweifach-Fung bifurcation law. Behaviour of mussel and human blood suspensions were studied alongside the effect of different geometries. The second device aims to separate fetal nucleated red blood cells based on their magnetic susceptibility. Biocompatible materials are used in the manufacturing of both devices.The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) through the funding of the Grand Challenge Project ‘3DMintegration’, reference EP/C534212/1. This work has also been supported by the EPSRC through a Doctoral Training Account (DTA) and has been performed at the Microsystems Engineering Centre (MISEC), Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. We thank Tim Ryan and Phil Summersgill, Epigem Ltd. for the fabrication of the blood plasma chips. The fabrication work was carried out in the Fluence Microfluidics Application Centre supported by the DTI and the OneNE Regional Development Agency as part of the UK's MNT Network

Experimental investigation of open-ended microwave oven assisted encapsulation process

An open ended microwave oven is presented with improved uniform heating, heating rates and power conversion efficiency. This next generation oven produces more uniform EM fields in the evanescent region forming part of the heating area of the oven. These fields are vital for the rapid and uniform heating of various electromagnetically lossy materials. A fibre optic temperature sensor and an IR pyrometer are used to measure in situ and in real-time the temperature of the curing materials. An automatic computer controlled closed feedback loop measures the temperature in the curing material and drives the microwave components to obtain predetermined curing temperature cycles for efficient curing. Uniform curing of the lossy encapsulants is achieved with this oven with typical cure cycle of 270 seconds with a ramp rate of 1oC/s and a hold period of 2 minutes. Differential scanning calorimeter based measurement for the pulsed microwave based curing of the polymer dielectric indicates a ~ 100% degree of cure