Seven Level Modified Cascaded Inverter for Induction Motor Drive Applications

In this paper, an H-bridge inverter topology with reduced switch count technique is introduced. This technique reduces the number of controlled switches used in conventional multilevel inverter. To establish a single phase system, the proposed multilevel inverter requires one H-bridge and a multi conversion cell. A multi conversion cell consists of three equal voltage sources with three controlled switches and three diodes. In conventional method, twelve controlled switches are used to obtain seven levels. Due to involvement of twelve switches the harmonics, switching losses, cost and total harmonic distortion are increased. This proposed topology also increases the level to seven with only seven controlled switches. It dramatically reduces the complexity of control circuit, cost, lower order harmonics and thus effectively reduces total harmonic distortion. Keywords: Cascaded Multilevel Inverter, H-bridge Inverter, Total Harmonic Distortion, Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transisto

Dietary supplementation of Cinnamomumverum J. Presl and Curcuma longa L. extract on growth performance, antioxidant and metabolic enzymes activities in experimental rats

242-248Cinnamomumverum J. Presl and Curcuma longa L. have many biologically active metabolites, such as sterpenoids, phenolics with proven health benefits. The present study was undertaken to analyze the effect of cinnamon and turmeric extract on growth, blood parameters, and metabolic enzyme activities of albino Wistar rats. Methanol extract of cinnamon and turmeric mixture was supplemented in rat feed at 2.5 and 5% concentration, respectively and administered for 30 days. During the course of study, body weight, feed given, feed consumed data were collected at regular intervals. After the experimental period, animals were sacrificed, tissues separated, homogenized and assayed for the activity of catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione-s-transferase (GST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), malate dehydrogenase (MDH), alanine aminotransferase (AAT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). The results showed significant increase in liver catalase activity of treated animals and no significant changes in LDH, MDH, ALT and AST. No abnormalities were observed in the histopathology staining of tissue section. Overall, output of the present study could be useful for production of spices based antioxidant rich products for human health

Dietary supplementation of CinnamomumverumJ.Presl and Curcuma longa L. extract on growth performance, antioxidant and metabolic enzymes activities in experimental rats

Cinnamomumverum J. Presl and Curcuma longa L. have many biologically active metabolites, such as sterpenoids, phenolics with proven health benefits. The present study was undertaken to analyze the effect of cinnamon and turmeric extract on growth, blood parameters, and metabolic enzyme activities of albino wistar rats. Methanol extract of cinnamon and turmeric mixture was supplemented in rat feed at 2.5 and 5% concentration, respectively and administered for 30 days. During the course of study, body weight, feed given, feed consumed data were collected at regular intervals. After the experimental period, animals were sacrificed, tissues separated, homogenized and assayed for the activity of catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione-s-transferase (GST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), malate dehydrogenase (MDH), alanine aminotransferase (AAT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). The results showed significant increase in liver catalase activity of treated animals and no significant changes in LDH, MDH, ALT and AST. No abnormalities were observed in the histopathology staining of tissue section. Overall, output of the present study could be useful for production of spices based antioxidant rich products for human health

Mechanism of action of hydrogen peroxide in wheat thermotolerance - interaction between antioxidant isoenzymes, proline and cell membrane

Terminal heat stress causes an array of physiological, biochemical and morphological changes in plants, which affect plant growth and development. It has very severe effect on the pollen viability and seed setting in wheat. In the present investigation, an altered expression of H2O2 (0.9 μg/g in C-306 and 0.75 μg/g in HD2329) was observed with the highest accumulation at seed hardening stage and against heat shock (HS) of 42°C for 2 h. With the increase in H2O2 accumulation, an increase in the number of isoenzymes of superoxide dismutase and catalase were observed with high activities under differential heat shock. A decrease in the proline accumulation was observed under differential heat shock. Exogenous application of H2O2 (10 mmole/L) leads to increase in the accumulation of intracellular H2O2 and further an increase in the number of isoenzymes of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) was observed. The tolerant cultivar was more responsive to exogenous application of H2O2 compared to susceptible cultivar. The percentage decrease in cell membrane stability under differential heat shock was low in H2O2 treated plants compared to non-treated. The results from this study suggest a potential role for H2O2 in regulating the activity of antioxidant enzymes and accumulation of proline inside cells and in turn influence the cell membrane stability under heat stress. All the defense associated genes were observed to be very responsive to intracellular H2O2, which gives inference that H2O2 has regulatory role to play in controlling the expression and activities of these proteins under abiotic stresses.Key words: Antioxidant enzymes, wheat, heat stress, H2O2, proline, catalase, superoxide dismutase, cell membrane stability, reactive oxygen species

Enhancement of CD4+ T Cell Function as a Strategy for Improving Antibiotic Therapy Efficacy in Tuberculosis: Does It Work?

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) remains a major public health problem worldwide due in part to the lack of an effective vaccine and to the lengthy course of antibiotic treatment required for successful cure. Combined immuno/chemotherapeutic intervention represents a major strategy for developing more effective therapies against this important pathogen. Because of the major role of CD4+ T cells in containing Mtb infection, augmentation of bacterial specific CD4+ T cell responses has been considered as an approach in achieving this aim. Here we present new data from our own research aimed at determining whether boosting CD4+ T cell responses can promote antibiotic clearance. In these studies, we first characterized the impact of antibiotic treatment of infected mice on Th1 responses to major Mtb antigens and then performed experiments aimed at sustaining CD4+ T cell responsiveness during antibiotic treatment. These included IL-12 infusion, immunization with ESAT-6 and Ag85B immunodominant peptides and adoptive transfer of Th1-polarized CD4+ T cells specific for ESAT-6 or Ag85B during the initial month of chemotherapy. These approaches failed to enhance antibiotic clearance of Mtb, indicating that boosting Th1 responses to immunogenic Mtb antigens highly expressed by actively dividing bacteria is not an effective strategy to be used in the initial phase of antibiotic treatment, perhaps because replicating organisms are the first to be eliminated by the drugs. These results are discussed in the context of previously published findings addressing this concept along with possible alternate approaches for harnessing Th1 immunity as an adjunct to chemotherapy

Improvement of two traditional Basmati rice varieties for bacterial blight resistance and plant stature through morphological and marker-assisted selection

Bacterial blight (BB) is a major production threat to Basmati, the aromatic rice prized for its unique quality. In order to improve the BB resistance of two elite, traditional BB-susceptible Basmati varieties (Taraori Basmati and Basmati 386), we utilized the strategy of limited marker-assisted backcrossing for introgression of two major BB resistance genes, Xa21 and xa13, coupled with phenotype-based selection for improvement of their plant type and yield. Improved Samba Mahsuri, an elite high-yielding, fine-grain-type BB-resistant rice variety served as donor for BB resistance. Backcross-derived improved Basmati lines at BC1F5 possessing a single resistance gene (i.e. either Xa21 or xa13) displayed moderate resistance to BB, while lines possessing both Xa21 and xa13 showed significantly higher levels of resistance. Two-gene pyramid lines (Xa21 + xa13) possessing good grain and cooking quality similar to their respective traditional Basmati parents, short plant stature (<110 cm plant height) and higher grain yield than the recurrent parent(s) were identified and advanced. This work demonstrates the successful application of marker-assisted selection in conjunction with phenotype-based selection for targeted introgression of multiple resistance genes into traditional Basmati varieties along with improvement of their plant stature and yield

A Study to assess the effectiveness of planned health teaching on knowledge regarding prevention of burns in toddler children among mothers in medical wards at Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Egmore, Chennai - 08

Children are naturally curious. As soon as they are mobile, begin to explore their surroundings and play with new objects. Toddlers suffer more scald injuries than any other age group as the results in the performance of everyday tasks as bathing, cooking, overturned coffee pots, overheated foods, liquids cooked in micro wave ovens and hot tap water that has been identified as specific causes. Burns are a global public health problem, estimated as 1,80,000 deaths annually. Nurse researcher has selected this study because even today, the mothers are less aware of the importance of child safety and consequently leads to burn injuries and its complications. Nurses play a supreme role in educating the parents regarding prevention of burns and to empower their knowledge regarding importance of childsafety and prevention of burn injuries. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: A study to assess the effectiveness of planned health teaching on knowledge regarding prevention of burns in toddler children among mothers in medical wards at Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, Egmore, Chennai-08. OBJECTIVES: To assess the pre-test knowledge of mothers of toddler children regarding prevention of burns, to assess the post-test knowledge of mothers of toddler children regarding prevention of burns, to compare the pre and post test knowledge of mothers of toddler children regarding prevention of burns and to associate the post-test knowledge of mothers of toddler children regarding prevention of burns with their selected socio-demographic variables. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted with 60 mothers in quantitative approach, the study design is pre experimental one group pretest and post-test design. Non- probability - Purposive sampling technique was applied. The study was conducted in Medical wards at ICH &HC, Egmore. The data collected from on the first day the pretest was given to the subjects using semi –structured questionnaire data were collected from the available mothers. After the pretest the mothers were gathered and seated in medical ward 30-45 minutes planned health teaching regarding prevention of burns among mothers of toddlers by using flashcard and booklet was given. The booklet was issued to all participants after conducting PHT. On the 7thday the post test was conducted from the same subjects with using same semi –structured knowledge questionnaire on prevention of burns. RESULTS: In pretest, mother were having 12.43score whereas post-test they were having 23.57score. Difference is 11.14 % by using students paired ‗t‘ test. This difference is large and it is statistically (p=0.001)*** significant. CONCLUSION: The study was inferred that planned health teaching was the best teaching strategy in imparting on prevention of burns. The findings of the present study are alarming and needs prompt attention health sector and health care provider. Nurses have to play a cardinal role to motivate the parents to improve their knowledge regarding prevention of burns

An optimized non-local means filter using automated clustering based preclassification through gap statistics for speckle reduction in breast ultrasound images

Speckle noise is a characteristic artifact in breast ultrasound images, which hinders substantive information essential for clinical diagnosis. In this article, we have investigated the use of Non-local means (NLM) filter, which is robust against severe noise, to remove speckle noise in breast ultrasound images. Medical diagnosis systems cannot employ traditional NLM filters, which exhibit the slowest performance due to their computational burden during the weighted averaging process. We have integrated a novel automated clustering based preclassification scheme using spatial regularized fuzzy c means (FCM) to alleviate the process. The appropriate number of clusters for each image is calculated automatically through Gap statistics. Moreover, the rotationally invariant moment distance measure increases the chance of getting more similar regions for NLM process. The algorithm is evaluated on a breast ultrasound database, which consists of 54 images including 28 benign and 26 malignant. Two statistical measures, Pratt’s figure of merit (PFM) and equivalent number of looks (ENL), are used to evaluate the noise suppression performance as well as the capability of preserving the fine details. The results of the proposed method are compared with the other three state of the art methods quantitatively. The proposed method demonstrated excellent despeckling performance with PFM of 0.91 and ENL of 7.415. The robustness against speckle noise and the acceptable processing time make the method more appropriate for computer aided diagnosis systems

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Not AvailableThe spices, cinnamon and turmeric have both culinary and pharmaceutical applications. Earlier studies proved their effect on reducing the symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes, a major lifestyle disease affecting millions world over. In our work, we prepared a bi-herbal extract of cinnamon and turmeric and studied its effect to alleviate the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in rat modelNot Availabl