Grappling the Invisible Roots, Nostalgia, Identity, Home and Nation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: An Interpretation of Imagery and Symbolism

Mass immigration is now a part and parcel of globalization in the post-colonial era due existential as well as non -existential reasons. Some migrate for uplifting their economic conditions while some others for intellectual pursuits; in any case this has now become the way of the world and the accepted norm in the present times. On the one hand it has given a booster to man’s living and luxury on the other it has mushroomed a plenty of allied strife’s and struggles in the migrants’ lives like they cross geographical borders to create new history. In the bargain they are forced to embrace the new challenges like loss of identity, cultural dilemma, a constant yearning to search for the invisible and imaginary roots unwillingly. Many diasporic writers have discussed these problems; Jhumpa Lahiri, a second-generation immigrant has dealt with the same in greater depths

The Paradigm shift from Conventional Mythology to the Vortex of Feminist ideology in Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of the Night

Githa Hariharan (born in 1954) is primarily known for her novel, The Thousand Faces of Night. She won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Novel. But here she reveals herself as a master of the short narrative as well. The second published literary works of the renowned Indian English writer, The Art of Dying (1993) won wide applause for its relevant and bold theme. She is also a social activist who portrays social issues in her literary works. She belongs to the new generation of Indian writers who have earned greater visibility and readership for Indian English Literature. As a writer she is preoccupied with human condition which to her is the pre-requisite and the essence of creative writing in general and of literature in particular. Apparently, she chooses a small space for almost all her novels but endeavors to enlarge the limited space to such an extent that it becomes an elaborate presentation of human condition. Hariharan believes in inclusiveness, which extends and broadens an individual's social horizon. She thinks that writers have a socio‑political responsibility as well

Shashi Tharoor as a Gentleman Politician

Shashi Tharoor is an outstanding politician ranked the best among the present day leaders.  His past UN career, his authoritative clout on every matter pertaining to India and his charismatic personality make him the most sought out among the political leaders of India. Entering the Indian political arena directly landing into the middle of the medley, he has been in the eye of many controversies that have projected him as a nonconformist and impractical outsider whose views and dreams for India are unrealistic. However, Shashi Tharoor has proved the cynics wrong and has manifested himself as an able leader and darling of his constituency who have chosen him two times consecutively.  He is among the first generation of techsavvy new generation political leaders to make full use of the internet and reach his followers instantaneously and continuously, thus demonstrating an elected public servant’s style of functioning could also be accountable and transparent. His stupendous academic achievements and outstanding literary works set him apart in the firmament of successful personalities of India holding a promise to the future of the country.  Even in his short term political career, Shashi Tharoor has proved himself to be a gentleman politician who is sincere and honest in his commitment to his voters and strives his best to fulfill his promises. Such dedicated politicians who are ready to serve the nation selflessly are the need of the hour in today’s India and Shashi Tharoor is a fine example of the proper role a true political leader can play in a disgraced democratic country like ours and serve as an instrument of change for bettering the miserable lives of millions of innocent trusting citizens of the country, at least in the coming century

An Enhanced Cuckoo Search for Optimization of Bloom Filter in Spam Filtering

Bloom Filter BF is a simple but powerful data structure that can check membership to a static set The tradeoff to use Bloom filter is a certain configurable risk of false positives The odds of a false positive can be made very low if the hash bitmap is sufficiently large Spam is an irrelevant or inappropriate message sent on the internet to a large number of newsgroups or users A spam word is a list of well-known words that often appear in spam mails The proposed system of Bin Bloom Filter BBF groups the words into number of bins with different false positive rates based on the weights of the spam words An Enhanced Cuckoo Search ECS algorithm is employed to minimize the total membership invalidation cost of the BFs by finding the optimal false positive rates and number of elements stored in every bin The experimental results have demonstrated for CS and ECS for various numbers of bin

Orogastric lavage: a lifesaving procedure now forgotten.

Orogastric lavage has been performed since 200 years ago for intoxicated patients. Due to the risk that outweighs benefits it has fallen out of favour for the last decade. A teenage girl presented to Emergency Department with history of ingestion of a bottle of pesticide within the time frame before gastric emptying. The girl was resuscitated, intubated and orogastric lavage was performed. Fifty cc of the toxic substance was siphoned and antidote of the toxin was administered. She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, subsequently recovered and discharge five days later. Definitive airway management, proper technique, correct selection of patients and adequate monitoring are paramount to the success of orogastric lavage

A Clinico Pathological Study of Gliomas.

Brain Tumors Are Among The Common Neoplasms Of Humans. Primary Central Nervous Tumors Are The 6th Most Common Tumors In Adults. Patients Tend To Concentrate In Institutions Where Diagnostic And The Therapeutic Services Are Available. The Incidence Of Brain Tumors Is Around 5-6/1,00,000 Population. Supratentorial Brain Tumors Constitute About 80% Of Brain Tumors In Adults And 40% Of Tumors In Paediatric Population. Brain Neoplasms Are Found In 2% Of Autopsy Series And Account For 1% Of All The Hospital Admissions.31 Gliomas Are The Most Common Primary Tumors Of The CNS And Represent Approximately One Third Of All The Intracranial Tumors In Adults. The Therapeutic Management And Prognosis In Patients With Gliomas Depend On The Reliable Distinction Between Low And High Grade Gliomas. Diagnosis Of Brain Tumors May Be Delayed As The Initial Symptoms And Signs Are Vague And Non Specific. The Symptoms Include Headache, Focal Seizures And Focal Neurological Deficits With Clinical Examination Revealing Raised Intracranial Tension Or Focal Neurological Deficits. Therefore The Clinicians Rely Heavily On Imaging For An Early And Accurate Diagnosis. Both CT And MRI Provide Excellent Anatomical Details And Information Regarding The Presence, Location And Extent Of Brain Tumors. Computed Tomography Is The Baseline Imaging Modality To Evaluate Patient With Gliomas. Although CT Scan Has Proved To Be An Effective Method For The Diagnosing Supratentorial Tumors, Infiltrative Lesions With Attenuation Similar To Normal Structure May Not Be Imaged Unless They Are Large Enough To Cause Significant Mass Effect. Superficially Situated Tumors Are Also Often Obscured By Artifacts Caused By Calvaria. It Is Estimated 11.5% Of Hemispheric Tumors Are Not Demonstrated By CT.1 The Neurosurgical Care And Prognosis Of Patients With Cerebral Gliomas Depend On The Accurate Definition Of Tumor Grade. The Imaging Characteristics Of Gliomas Are Not Specific Enough To Obviate The Need For Biopsy.

Spectrum of mycotic keratitis and their antifungal susceptibility pattern in a tertiary care hospital, Chennai

INTRODUCTION: One of the predominant causes of blindness in the developing world is keratitis causing prolonged morbidity. Mycotic keratitis is an important ophthalmological problem, especially in outdoor workers in the tropics. In different studies conducted in various parts of India, it accounts for 6 to 50% of all cases of keratitis. Trauma with vegetable matter or organic matter or soil, indiscriminate use of topical antibiotics and topical corticosteroids are the predominating cause of keratitis. For clinical purpose, the corneal smear result is more important as it allows the determination of initial therapy. Timely diagnosis and aggressive early treatment can prevent sight threatening complications caused by keratitis. Standardized antifungal susceptibility tests have become essential tool to guide the treatment of mycotic keratitis. The purpose of this study is to identify, isolate and do antifungal susceptibility of obtained fungal isolates in patients with mycotic keratitis in a tertiary care hospital, Chennai. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the present cross sectional study, Corneal scrapings from 100 patients with clinically suspected mycotic keratitis were obtained by Bard Parker knife / surgical blade no.15 from base to edge of ulcer as much as possible under aseptic precautions after instilling 4% xylocaine under slit lamp examination by an Ophthalmologist. One part of scrapings was used for direct microscopic examination by subjecting it to10% KOH wet mount and Grams staining to identify fungal elements. Other part of scrapings is used for culture in two Sabouraud Dextrose agar (SDA) without cycloheximide but containing Gentamycin 10 μg /ml and kept in room temperature at 27ºc and at 37ºc for 2 to 8weeks, but observed daily. Initial growth was usually observed within 3 days to 1 week. Growth obtained was stained with lactophenol cotton blue and identified by it’s morphology. All isolates were subjected to antifungal susceptibility tests by micro broth dilution tests. Collected data were be analysed statistically. RESULTS: A total of 100 patients with clinically suspected mycotic keratitis were included in the study and 35 (35%) out of 100 fungal isolates were identified and isolated. Patients with the age group between 41 – 50 years (43%) were commonly affected. Male preponderence was seen in this study of mycotic keratitis (74.3%). Incidence of fungal keratitis was more in the rural than urban population (66%). Majority of the patients were agricultural labourers (54.29%). Trauma with vegetative matter was found to be the common predisposing factor (68.5%) in the development of mycotic keratitis. Majority of isolates belonged to the genus Aspergillus spp (74%) followed by Fusarium spp (17%) and Curvularia spp (9%). The frequently isolated pathogen among the genus Aspergillus was Aspergillus fumigatus (40%) followed by Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus terreus. The sensitivity of 10% KOH mount was found to be 91%. The specificity of KOH preparation was 77%. The positive predictive value of KOH preparation was 68%. The negative predictive value of KOH preparation was 79%. In antifungal susceptibility by Broth Micro dilution method, Amphotericin B showed MIC ≤2μg/ml in 33(94.2%), which was a significant finding among 35 fungal isolates. Voriconazole showed MIC ≤2μg/ml in 31(88.5%) out of 35 fungal isolates. Itraconazole showed MIC ≤ 2μg/ml in 23 (66%) out of 35 fungal isolates. Fluconazole showed MIC ≤2μg/ml in 10 (28.5%) out of 35 fungal isolates. Fluconazole showed MIC ≥ 2μg/ml in 25 (71.3%) of the fungal isolates. Compared to Fluconazole, the MIC for Amphotericin B, voriconazole, Itraconazole was low. CONCLUSION: Fungal keratitis is one of the most important cause of preventable blindness in the developing world. It was predominant in males of rural background with vegetative matter induced ocular trauma as the major predisposing factor. A simple 10% KOH mount preparation was highly beneficial as rapid screening test for diagnosis. Among the isolates, Aspergillus spp were the most common agent causing mycotic keratitis. From the study, the vital role of microbiological evaluation in the management of mycotic keratitis is clearly evident, since the clinical features alone are not adequate to confirm infection. The clinicians and microbiologists should work hand in hand to prevent blindness due to mycotic keratitis. The awareness among the public about the ocular hygiene and protection from occupational hazard needs to be emphazied along with their early visit to the hospital in case of any ocular trauma and disease

The Capability Approach: Comparing Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum

Capability approach pioneered by Amartya Sen has been a new milestone for analyzing poverty through gender perspective. Since the introduction of the approach, numerous scholars from various fields have applied this approach in their studies. One of the prominent scholars who has contributed and expanded the approach is Martha Nussbaum. Though there have been some agreements but the arguments between the two scholars have shed new insights about the poor and their situation. Therefore, this paper attempts to compare Sen‘s and Nussbaum‘s capability approach by focusing on their core concepts, main arguments and rationality of the criticism of the approach. The methodology of this paper is based on document research