Perceptions of adolescent patients of the "lived experience” of type 1 diabetes

The care and management of adolescents with type 1 diabetes presents numerous challenges that are inherent to the fears, attitudes, and perceptions of their illness. This qualitative study aimed to explore the “lived experience” of individuals with type 1 diabetes. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 patients diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in their adolescent years to elicit their views, perceptions, and concerns regarding living with diabetes. All interviews were conducted and analyzed using the principles of grounded theory. Five categories defining the patients’ lived experience were elicited: Barriers, Develop Skills, Manage Emotion, Social World, and Health Care Professionals. The problems experienced by adolescent patients with type 1 diabetes are multi-factorial. Existentially, type 1 diabetes affects their daily activities and impinges on their academic achievement and personal aspirations. They have great difficulty coping with their health status and highlight a lack of empathy from health care professionals (HCPs). Their major fear is of hypoglycaemia, resulting in their subsequent focus of preventing hypoglycemic episodes. Indeed, regardless of consequence, blood glucose levels are often deliberately kept above recommended levels, which serves to decrease the effectiveness of their health care management. This study has shown that the quality of long-term provision of care for adolescent patients with type 1 diabetes is failing to meet their expectations and falls short of the essential standards commensurate with current health care policy. Improvements in long-term care management for these patients require changes in both patients’ and professionals’ understanding of the disease and of the ways it is managed

Studies on the chemical quality of cured fish products from the west coast of India

Fish curing is one of the oldest industries of the coastal areas of India. It has been estimated that about 50 to 70% of the marine fish catches of India are at present being processed into cured products {Government of India Publication, 1951 a and b). Though fish curing is of this magnitude, it is one of the least developed industries of India, although efforts are being made in some of the maritime States such as Madras, Travancore-Cochin and Bombay, to improve curing by providing better facilities to the fishermen engaged in the industry. The methods practised are generally primitive and the attention paid to cleanliness and sanitation leaves much to be desired. Only 17-3% of the total fish landing is being cured through the Government fish curing yards {Government of India Marketing Report, 1951), the rest being processed in private yards which are not under the supervision of Government agencies

IP address management : augmenting Sandia's capabilities through open source tools.

Internet Protocol (IP) address management is an increasingly growing concern at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the networking community as a whole. The current state of the available IP addresses indicates that they are nearly exhausted. Currently SNL doesn't have the justification to obtain more IP address space from Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). There must exist a local entity to manage and allocate IP assignments efficiently. Ongoing efforts at Sandia have been in the form of a multifunctional database application notably known as Network Information System (NWIS). NWIS is a database responsible for a multitude of network administrative services including IP address management. This study will explore the feasibility of augmenting NWIS's IP management capabilities utilizing open source tools. Modifications of existing capabilities to better allocate available IP address space are studied

Sustainability assessment of steel fibre reinforced concrete pavements

The current scenario of depleting resources has lead to a major thrust in developing and applying highly sustainable solutions to construction industry. Therefore, it has become essential to devise designs based on materials that cost the least for the transportation network and at the same time have a minimum environmental impact. Though there are a few modern material solutions that may meet these criteria, like the use of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) for pavement constructions, a proper evaluation of the performance and impact of utilization of such materials is lacking. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) offer the means to evaluate the sustainability, and have been used in this paper to provide frameworks analysing Asphalt, Jointed Plain concrete (JPC) and Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete pavements. In this work, asphalt, JPC and SFRC pavement sections have been designed as per the respective IRC guidelines so as to get equivalent designs for the given traffic loading, environmental and material conditions. Subsequently, LCCA is done as per the procedure provided in the Federal Highway Administration’s Interim Technical bulletin and LCA is done by using the process approach for each of the pavements. The assessment indicates where sustainable practices can be directed to so as to minimize environmental impacts in the initial stage of the pavement life cycle. The paper also discusses the limitations and difficulties of carrying out life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis for highways in India

Embedded polarizing filters to separate diffuse and specular reflection

Polarizing filters provide a powerful way to separate diffuse and specular reflection; however, traditional methods rely on several captures and require proper alignment of the filters. Recently, camera manufacturers have proposed to embed polarizing micro-filters in front of the sensor, creating a mosaic of pixels with different polarizations. In this paper, we investigate the advantages of such camera designs. In particular, we consider different design patterns for the filter arrays and propose an algorithm to demosaic an image generated by such cameras. This essentially allows us to separate the diffuse and specular components using a single image. The performance of our algorithm is compared with a color-based method using synthetic and real data. Finally, we demonstrate how we can recover the normals of a scene using the diffuse images estimated by our method.Comment: ACCV 201

Search for Short-Term Periodicities in the Sun's Surface Rotation: A Revisit

The power spectral analyses of the Sun's surface equatorial rotation rate determined from the Mt. Wilson daily Doppler velocity measurements during the period 3 December 1985 to 5 March 2007 suggests the existence of 7.6 year, 2.8 year, 1.47 year, 245 day, 182 day and 158 day periodicities in the surface equatorial rotation rate during the period before 1996. However, there is no variation of any kind in the more accurately measured data during the period after 1995. That is, the aforementioned periodicities in the data during the period before the year 1996 may be artifacts of the uncertainties of those data due to the frequent changes in the instrumentation of the Mt. Wilson spectrograph. On the other hand, the temporal behavior of most of the activity phenomena during cycles 22 (1986-1996) and 23 (after 1997) is considerably different. Therefore, the presence of the aforementioned short-term periodicities during the last cycle and absence of them in the current cycle may, in principle, be real temporal behavior of the solar rotation during these cycles.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physic

Studies on the curing and preservation of "choodai" I. Some Aspects of Dry Salting

The methods adopted in India for the curing of " Choodai " (Sardinella spp.) in places where this fish constitutes a major portion of the fishery can be broadly classified into the following, viz., sun-drying, dry-salting, wet-salting and pit-curing. A specialised method known as the ' Colombo method of curing' is practised on a commercial scale in some places on the West Coast (Nicholson, 1930). The choice of the method adopted by the fishermen seems to be based more on convenience rather than on convention. When there is heavy fishing the fishermen invariably resort to sun drying and often spread the fish on the sandy beach itself for drying. The product thus obtained will not be wholesome and may contain, besides sand, other materials from the mud. The fish is sometimes washed in sea-water before being spread for drying, but this practice also is not strictly followed anywhere. In the dry salting and wet salting processes also many such unhygienic practices are often met with. Immediately after catch, the fish is mixed with salt without washing and removal of the slimy matter (the quantity of salt being a matter of approximation in places where Government fish-curing yards are not available) and left in some containers until a good market is found for the fish. No strict time limit is followed for the salting process and as such the products can either be under-salted or oversalted. As regards pit-curing it can be considered to be the most unhygienic method practiced in the curing of "Choodai". The fish without washing is mixed with salt, generally in excess, and put in pits lined on the inside with palmyrah leaves, covered with palmyrah leaf mats with earth above and tramped upon to give pressure (Nicholson, 1930). The product obtained is often in a disintegrated form with a viciating smell and mixed with a very high percentage of sand