The Future of Stellar Populations Studies in the Milky Way and the Local Group

The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart imaging surveys of other Local Group systems. Apart from providing snaphots of galaxy structure, these "cartographic" surveys lend insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies when supplemented with additional data (e.g., spectroscopy, astrometry) and when referenced to theoretical models and simulations of galaxy evolution. These increasingly sophisticated simulations are making ever more specific predictions about the detailed chemistry and dynamics of stellar populations in galaxies. To fully exploit, test and constrain these theoretical ventures demands similar commitments of observational effort as has been plied into the previous imaging surveys to fill out other dimensions of parameter space with statistically significant intensity. Fortunately the future of large-scale stellar population studies is bright with a number of grand projects on the horizon that collectively will contribute a breathtaking volume of information on individual stars in Local Group galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 0 figures, IAU Symposium No. 262, Stellar Populations - Planning for the Next Decad

Florid Cemento-Osseous Dysplasia - A dilemma to intervene or not?!

Florid cemento - osseous dysplasia (FCOD) is a benign, non-neoplastic lesion characterized by multiple sclerosing masses within the jaw bones. We present an uncommon case of FCOD in a 37-year-old Indian woman incidentally discovered on a radiograph. She presented with bilaterally symmetrical lesions of variable radiodensities in the posterior mandible. In this asymptomatic case, the diagnosis of FCOD was made radiologically as biopsy is contraindicated. No treatment was imparted as the lesions were asymptomatic and the patient continues to be reviewed annually. The rationale of the present work is to describe this uncommon entity with only eleven reported cases noted in the literature amongst Indians. The case is unusual in its combination of the disease itself (FCOD) and the race (Indian). The confirmative role of radiography without histopathological evaluation and the need for no intervention is emphasized.   &nbsp

Sensor Based Wearable System to Assist Paralytic Patient with Continuous Health Monitoring

In Today�s world many people are suffering from paralysis and most of the paralytic patients are dependent on care takers. Paralysis is a condition in which there is impairment of one or more muscles in the body. In order to assist these patients, fingers of the hand play a major role in this proposed system. The patient is made to wear the sensor glove and recognition of finger bending is the mathematical interpretation of finger movement by the computing device. The system ensures the patient to express his requirements by converting the finger bending into auditory speech. If the same action is repeated thrice, indicating that the requirement is not yet fulfilled, the system will send a text message to the concerned care taker with the help of GSM module. Home appliances are also controlled by the patient�s finger wearing the sensor glove. In addition to this, the system continuously monitors the patient�s heart beat and body temperature. If the body temperature and heart beat exceeds the normal value, the buzzer will be activated to show the abnormalities with respect to patient so that the care taker can attend the patient

Scale-Invariant Correlation Functions of Cosmological Density Fluctuations in the Strong Clustering Regime

We have investigated the scale-invariant solutions of the BBGKY equations for spatial correlation functions of cosmological density fluctuations and the mean relative peculiar velocity in the strongly nonlinear regime. It is found that the solutions for the mean relative physical velocity depend on the three-point spatial correlation function and the skewness of the velocity fields. We find that the stable condition in which the mean relative physical velocity vanishes on the virialized regions is satisfied only under the assumptions which Davis \& Peebles took in his paper. It is found, however, that their assumptions may not be general in real. The power index of the two-point correlation function in the strongly nonlinear regime depends on the mean relative peculiar velocity, the three-point correlation function and the skewness. If the self-similar solutions exist, the power index in the strongly nonlinear regime is related to the power index of the initial power spectrum and its relation depends on the three-point correlation function and the skewness through the mean relative peculiar velocity. Furthermore it is found that the mean relative physical velocity should have the values between 0 and the Hubble expanding velocity. When the mean relative physical velocity equals to the Hubble expanding velocity, there might exist self-similar solutions in which the power index of the two-point correlation function in the strongly nonlinear regime is independent of the initial power index $n$.Comment: 24 pages, no figures, uses aaspp4.sty, Submitted to Ap

Women's knowledge of maternal danger signs during pregnancy: Findings from a cross-sectional survey in Papua New Guinea

© 2019 Objective: To explore knowledge of pregnancy related danger signs among women attending antenatal clinics in Papua New Guinea. Design: Cross-sectional survey undertaken as part of a wider integrated health and demographic survey. Setting: Three sites in Papua New Guinea: Hiri District (Central Province), Karkar (Madang Province) and Asaro (Eastern Highlands Province). Participants: 482 women aged 15–44 years. Findings: Almost all (95.2%; 459/482) women attended for antenatal care at least once; 68.2% attended four or more times. Among women who attended the antenatal clinic, 53.6% (246/459) reported receiving information about danger signs in pregnancy from a health worker. Of these 60.2% (148/246) could recall at least one danger sign. In addition, 16.4% (35/213) of women who did not receive information from the antenatal clinic reported pregnancy related danger signs. Among the 183 women who reported danger signs, 47.5% (87/183) reported fever; 39.3% (72/183) reported vaginal bleeding and 36.6% (67/183) reported swelling of the face, legs and arms. Women who reported receiving information at the antenatal clinic were significantly more likely know any danger signs, compared with women who did not receive information at the antenatal clinic (OR 7.68 (95%CI: 4.93, 11.96); p = <0.001). Knowledge of danger signs was significantly associated with secondary school education, compared with none or only primary education (OR 3.08 (95% CI: 2.06, 4.61); p = <0.001). Conclusions and implications for practice: Every antenatal clinic visit should be used opportunistically to provide women with information about key danger signs during pregnancy and childbirth. Recognising maternal danger signs, together with the importance of seeking early transfer to the health facility and the importance of attending for a health facility birth are critical to improving outcomes for mothers and babies especially in low income settings such as Papua New Guinea

Serological evidence of association between Helicobacter pylori infection and coronary artery disease

Background: Studies have reported relationship between chronic  Helicobacter pylori infection and coronary artery disease (CAD). The  cytotoxin-associated gene A product (CagA) is an immunodominant protein which indicates infection with virulent H. pylori strains. Significant  associations of CagA-positive H. pylori strains with coronary artery disorders have been widely reported. H. pylori is also known to produce different heat shock proteins (HSPs) which can stimulate the production of specific  antibody against microbial proteins and capable of eliciting autoimmune reaction against human tissue expressing HSPs such as vascular  endothelial cells. The objectives of this study are to investigate the  association between H. pylori and CagA with coronary atherosclerosis and CAD, and to determine the possible role of H. pylori HSP60 protein in increasing the risk of CAD development. Methods: This study included 70 patients with stable angina and 70 age and gender-matched controls. Each group was evaluated by clinical history, physical examination, cardiac echocardiography (ECHO) and electrocardiography (ECG) with and without exercise. Fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein (LDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides (TG) were estimated by automated enzymatic methods. H. pylori IgG, CagA IgG and HSP60 IgG were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for both groups. Results: The seroprevalence of H. pylori infection was high in both groups; 75.7% in case and 68.6% in control (p=0.346). Serum IgG levels were significantly higher for CagA (p=0.028) and HSP60 (p&lt;0.001) in cases than in controls. There was significant association between H. pylori and CagA IgGs in cases (p=0.007) but no association in controls (p=0.700). Higher HSP60 IgG level was significantly associated with both positive H. pylori IgG (p&lt;0.001) and CagA IgG (p&lt;0.001) in cases but no significant association was found with H. pylori (p=0.815) or CagA (p=0.332) IgG levels in the control group. Serum values were significantly higher for TC (p&lt;0.001), TG (p&lt;0.001) and LDL (p=0.004) while value for HDL was significantly lower (p&lt;0.001) in H. pylori IgG-positive subjects (case and control). Conclusion: There is serological evidence that H. pylori infection may pose a significant risk factor for CAD. Since H. pylori can be eliminated by specific treatment, this may be a good preventive approach for CAD.Key words: H. pylori, coronary artery disease, CagA, HSP60, serology

Laparoscopic Hernia Repair in Infancy and Childhood; Evaluation of Two Different Techniques

Background/Purpose: There are many techniques available for laparoscopic hernia repair in infancy and childhood. The objective of this study is to compare two different laparoscopic techniques as regards operative time, recurrence rate, hydrocele formation and post operative cosmetic results. Materials & Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was carried out in the Pediatric Surgery Unit of Al- Azhar University Hospitals, over three years period. ne-hundred and fifty patients with congenital inguinal hernia were randomized into two equals groups; (n = 75). Group A was subjected to purse-string suture around the internal inguinal ring (IIR) using two needle holders (TNH). Group B was subjected to laparoscopic hernia repair of inguinal hernia by Reverdin Needle (RN). Inclusion criteria included; bilateral inguinal hernia, recurrent hernia, hernia in obese child, incarcerated hernia and hernia on ipsilateral with questionable contralateral side. Exclusion criteria included; unilateral inguinal hernia, and hernia with undescended testicles. The main outcome measurements were; operative time, hospital stay, postoperative hydrocele formation, recurrence rate, and cosmetic results. Results: There were no significant differences as regard age, sex and mode of presentation between both groups. All cases were completed successfully without conversion. There were significant statistical differences in the operative time between the studied groups, while there were no significant statistical differences in the hospital stay, post operative hydrocele formation and recurrence rate. The cosmetic result is excellent in group B. Conclusion: Laparoscopic hernia repair by RN is an effective line of hernia repair in infancy and childhood. It resulted in marked reduction of operative time and excellent cosmetic results with low recurrence. Index Word: Laparoscopic, Reverdin Needle, Purse-string, Intracorporeal sutures

Modeling of Degradation in Gas Turbine Engine by Modified Off Design Simulation

Legacy turbojet engines suffer degradation in performance with usage. Degradations in engine components show different observable symptoms based on the control mode of the engine. Hence, to accurately model the engine and its degradations, a novel off-design modeling method that considers the control settings of the engine is presented. The improvement in degradation modeling due to the modified scheme is presented in detail. The mathematical model used in the degradation simulation is validated by comparing the model outputs to the engine mounted sensor measurements at various ratings in the engine test bed. The estimation component parameters used in the model through nonlinear gas path analysis and optimisation-based routines is also presented

Natural Language Processing Semantical and Syntactical Analysis for English

Natural language is to facilitate the user to exchange the ideas among people. These ideas converge to form the "meaning" of an utterance or text in the form of a series of sentences. The meaning of sentences describes as semantics. The input/output of a NLP can be a written text or a speech. There are two major components of natural language processing, namely: natural language understanding which describes mapping of given input in the natural language into a useful representation and the other is natural language generation which produce natural language as output on basis of input data as text. This paper deals with natural language understanding mainly on semantic

Universality in the distribution of caustics in the expanding Universe

We numerically investigate the long--time evolution of density perturbations after the first appearance of caustics in an expanding cosmological model with one--dimensional `single--wave' initial conditions. Focussing on the time--intervals of caustic appearances and the spatial distribution of caustics at subsequent times, we find that the time--intervals of caustic appearances approach a constant, i.e., their time--subsequent ratio converges to 1; it is also found that the spatial distribution of caustics at a given time features some universality rules, e.g., the ratio between the position of the nearest caustic from the center and that of the second nearest caustic from the center approaches a constant. Furthermore we find some rules for the mass distribution for each caustic. Using these universality constants we are in the position to predict the spatial distribution of caustics at an arbitrary time in order to give an estimate for the power spectral index in the fully--developed non--dissipative turbulent (`virialized') regime.Comment: 23 pages, 19 figure