Radiation and mass transfer effects on an unsteady MHD free convection flow past a heated vertical plate in a porous medium with viscous dissipation

An unsteady, two-dimensional, hydromagnetic, laminar free convective boundary-layer flow of an incompressible, Newtonian, electrically-conducting and radiating fluid past an infinite heated vertical porous plate with heat and mass transfer is analyzed, by taking into account the effect of viscous dissipation. The dimensionless governing equations for this investigation are solved analytically using two-term harmonic and non-harmonic functions. Numerical evaluation of the analytical results is performed and graphical results for velocity, temperature and concentration profiles within the boundary layer and tabulated results for the skin-friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are presented and discussed. It is observed that, when the radiation parameter increases, the velocity and temperature decrease in the boundary layer, whereas when thermal and solutal Grashof increases the velocity increases

Evaluation of agricultural land resources for irrigation in the cotton growing Yavatmal district, Maharashtra, India

The main objective of this study is to evaluate suitability of shrink-swell soils for surface irrigation system based upon a parametric evaluation system in low irrigation potential (7%) of cotton growing Yavatmal district, Maharashtra, India. The thirty three shrink-swell soil series on basaltic landforms were identified from reconnaissance soil survey on 1:50,000 scale and evaluated for surface irrigation methods using Geographic Information System (GIS). The standard weekwise rainfall data showed that the rainfall is less than 20% of total precipitation during September and December, the top A horizon reaches to wilting point and needs supplementary protective irrigation to cotton based cropping systems . It was estimated that ten soil mapping units (1.8 Mha and 13.89%) of shrink-swell soils on moderate slopes (5 to 8%) were evaluated as suitable for surface methods and calculated the irrigation intervals that vary from 8.61±1.35 days for cotton to 8.9±1.4 days for wheat and 10±1.64 days for sugar cane. The study emphasized the utility of soil resource maps helps to delineate the soils with large PAWC(>200mm) with slight yield advantage and will serve as benchmark sites to monitor the interrelationships of soil water dynamics with respect to climate and cotton yields

Development of Metallurgical Refractories with Indian Raw Materials - Pilot Plant Studies

Refractories play a vital role in the development of metallurgical industries. With rapid industrialisation in the country, demand for refractories is ever increasing and has been estimated at about one million tons per annum by the end of the 2nd Five Year Plan. The present produc-tion is of the order of 4,60,000 tons of refractories per annum. The gap between the present capacity and demand is largely being met by imports from other countries, thereby draining lot of valuable foreign exchange. Though there is no dearth of raw materials for refractory manufacture in our country, success of our refractory production prog-ramme depends on detailed and systematic investigation of various raw materials and their processing methods, effecting improvements in the quality of the products manufactured at present and development of compositions and processes for new products hereto not manufactured in the country. With this end in view, indigenous refractory raw materials have been scientifically and systematically investigated in this Laboratory. In all cases, before translating such laboratory efforts into commercial scale production, it is necessary that pilot plant studies should be carried out in order to obtain operating; data which can be extrapolated with confidence in industrial practice. To meet this and a refractories pilot plant is being set up in this Laboratory. The projects which have reached a pilot plant stage of investigation are enume-rated below: (i) Dense mullite and hot face insulation refractories from bladed kyanite. (ii) Zircon and sillimanite refractories from Travancore beach sands. (iii) Magnesite refractories from Almorah magnesite. (iv) Forsterite refractories from magnesium silicate rocks. (v) Chemically bonded and metal clad mixed basic refractories

Relation between body mass index, forced expiratory volume in one second and 6 minute walk test in stable COPD patients

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common respiratory disorder characterized by irreversible, progressive airflow obstruction. It is diagnosed by spirometry which measures FEV1 and bronchoreversibility. Recent focus has been on COPD systemic effects like malnutrition, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders, anxiety and depression. A composite index named BODE index (BMI, FEV1, dyspnea, 6MWT) has a better prediction of mortality than FEV1 alone in these patients. Relation between components of BODE like BMI, FEV1 and 6MWT has been an area of interest since it measures nutritional status (BMI), airway obstruction (FEV1) and exercise capacity (6MWT). We tried to evaluate the relation between lower BMI (˂21) and higher BMI groups (>21) with respect to FEV1 and 6MWT.Methods: A cross sectional observation study was conducted in a tertiary care centre. Stable patients of COPD were recruited from to outpatient department of respiratory medicine. BMI, FEV1 and 6MWT were calculated. Patients are made into 2 groups with BMI less than 21 and more than 21. Both FEV1 and 6MWT means were calculated and analyzed to find out any difference between these two groups.Results: There was no statistical difference of FEV1 and 6MWT between lower and higher BMI groups.Conclusions: In COPD patients, FEV1 and 6MWT values were not statistically different between lower and higher BMI groups. Further studies are needed to prove that other anthropometric measurement like fat free mass index can be a better substitute for more accurate assessment of exercise capacity

New Grounded and Floating Simulated Inductance Circuits using Current Differencing Transconductance Amplifiers

Current differencing transconductance amplifier (CDTA) is receiving considerable attention as a building block for current-mode (CM) analog signal processing / signal generation. In this paper, new CDTA based lossless grounded and floating inductance simulation circuits have been proposed. The proposed grounded simulated inductance circuit employs two CDTAs and a single grounded capacitor whereas the floating simulated inductance circuit employs three CDTAs and a grounded capacitor. The circuit for grounded inductance does not require any realization conditions whereas in case of floating inductance only equality of two transconductances is needed (which can be easily maintained in practice by ensuring equal dc bias currents in the two transconductance amplifiers). Some sample results demonstrating the applications of the new simulated inductors using CMOS CDTAs have been given to confirm the workability of the new circuits

A Systematic Review of Natural Language Processing for Knowledge Management in Healthcare

Driven by the visions of Data Science, recent years have seen a paradigm shift in Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP has set the milestone in text processing and proved to be the preferred choice for researchers in the healthcare domain. The objective of this paper is to identify the potential of NLP, especially, how NLP is used to support the knowledge management process in the healthcare domain, making data a critical and trusted component in improving the health outcomes. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art NLP research with a particular focus on how knowledge is created, captured, shared, and applied in the healthcare domain. Our findings suggest, first, the techniques of NLP those supporting knowledge management extraction and knowledge capture processes in healthcare. Second, we propose a conceptual model for the knowledge extraction process through NLP. Finally, we discuss a set of issues, challenges, and proposed future research areas

Detection rates of recurrent prostate cancer : 68Gallium (Ga)-labelled prostate-specific membrane antigen versus choline PET/CT scans. A systematic review

Background: The aim of this work was to assess the use of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-labelled radiotracers in detecting the recurrence of prostate cancer. PSMA is thought to have higher detection rates when utilized in positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) scans, particularly at lower prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, compared with choline-based scans. Methods: A systematic review was conducted comparing choline and PSMA PET/CT scans in patients with recurrent prostate cancer following an initial curative attempt. The primary outcomes were overall detection rates, detection rates at low PSA thresholds, difference in detection rates and exclusive detection rates on a per-person analysis. Secondary outcome measures were total number of lesions, exclusive detection by each scan on a per-lesion basis and adverse side effects. Results: Overall detection rates were 79.8% for PSMA and 66.7% for choline. There was a statistically significant difference in detection rates favouring PSMA [OR (M–H, random, 95% confidence interval (CI)) 2.27 (1.06, 4.85), p = 0.04]. Direct comparison was limited to PSA < 2 ng/ml in two studies, with no statistically significant difference in detection rates between the scans [OR (M–H, random, 95% CI) 2.37 (0.61, 9.17) p = 0.21]. The difference in detection on the per-patient analysis was significantly higher in the PSMA scans (p < 0.00001). All three studies reported higher lymph node, bone metastasis and locoregional recurrence rates in PSMA. Conclusions: PSMA PET/CT has a better performance compared with choline PET/CT in detecting recurrent disease both on per-patient and per-lesion analysis and should be the imaging modality of choice while deciding on salvage and nonsystematic metastasis-directed therapy strategies.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A Systematic Review of Natural Language Processing for Knowledge Management in Healthcare

Driven by the visions of Data Science, recent years have seen a paradigm shift in Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP has set the milestone in text processing and proved to be the preferred choice for researchers in the healthcare domain. The objective of this paper is to identify the potential of NLP, especially, how NLP is used to support the knowledge management process in the healthcare domain, making data a critical and trusted component in improving health outcomes. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art NLP research with a particular focus on how knowledge is created, captured, shared, and applied in the healthcare domain. Our findings suggest, first, the techniques of NLP those supporting knowledge management extraction and knowledge capture processes in healthcare. Second, we propose a conceptual model for the knowledge extraction process through NLP. Finally, we discuss a set of issues, challenges, and proposed future research areas