Neuromotor Transmissibility of Horizontal Seatpan Vibration

Exposure to occupational whole body vibration (WBV) is associated with low back pain disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and degeneration of spine. Transmission of vibration to the neuromotor system may play a role in the etiology of these injuries. Such WBV has components in the vertical, lateral and fore-aft directions. However, few studies have examined biodynamic vibration transmission in the fore-aft direction and no study has examined transmission of fore-aft vibration to the neuromotor system. The primary objective of this study was to assess the response characteristics of the fore-aft seatpan vibration. A secondary objective was to examine the effect of a backrest on these characteristics. Nineteen subjects participated in the study (10 male, 9 female, mean age 24 3(SD) years, height 1.6 . 05 m (SD), weight 69 7 kg (SD)). The transmission of vibration to vibration-induced lumbar rotation (TF2) and paraspinal muscle activity (TF3), with and without the backrest, were quantified for a frequency range of 3-14 Hz at 1 RMS (ms-2) and 2 RMS (ms-2) vibration magnitudes. The mechanical transmission to lumbar rotations did not exhibit resonance within the measured frequency range without the backrest. The mechanical transmission with a backrest exhibited a ratio greater than one between 3-6 Hz indicating a resonance phenomena. Mechano-neuromotor transmission, the relationship between lumbar rotation and paraspinal muscle activity (TF4), without the backrest, exhibited a double peaked trend with a primary peak at 5-6 Hz and a secondary peak at 11 Hz. The primary peak at 5-6 Hz may be a result of coupled vertical motion and the 11 Hz might correspond to the internal resonance of the neuromuscular system. The small peaks at 6, 10 and 12 Hz for 1 RMS (ms-2) and a larger peak at 8 Hz for 2 RMS (ms-2) were exhibited in TF4 with the backrest. The peaks at 6 and 8 Hz may be a result of coupled vertical motion or a result of external stimulating agent. The secondary peaks might be a result of internal resonance of the neuromuscular system. These results can be used in experiments examining the effects of fore-aft WBV on neuromotor habitation and muscular fatigue

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas: Two conflicting realities

Arun Joshi presents socio-cultural conflicts between two different societies. One society is material driven and backed by the modern state apparatus like police, courts, etc. while the other is subsistence driven and is at the bottom in the hierarchy of the modern state. Indian tribal societies have been exploited right from the colonial period into the post-independence times. These two societies differ as follows: the tribal society lives on subsistence looks at Nature as a space for socio-economic, political, cultural and community, while the urban materialistic world perceives Nature as a resource to be exploited. This primordial difference has manifested as a socio-cultural conflict between these two societies. This may be due to the mutually exclusive and incorrigible nature of their social constructs which trigger perceptual obfuscation of symbiotic living.  What appears to be an objective reality for one appears as subjective to the other and vice versa. This paper studies the strangeness of Billy Biswas, the protagonist of the novel in the socio-cultural milieu of conflicting realities

Early detection of breast cancer - Finding an ‘Indian solution to an Indian problem'

More than one million women worldwide are newly diagnosed with breast cancer annually. Worldwide, a woman dies of breast cancer every minute. In India well over 100, 000 women are newly diagnosed with breast cancer every year; a staggering number that has overtaken cervical cancer to become the leading cause for cancer related death among women in metropolitan cities. The number of newly diagnosed breast cancers in India is expected to increase to 130, 000 per annum by 2020. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as many breast cancers are not reported to the Cancer Registry & many states do not have a robust Cancer Registry

Polygalacturonase production by Aspergillus nomius MR103 in solid state fermentation using Agro-industrial wastes

The present study was aimed at polygalacturonase production from Aspergillus nomius MR103 under solid state fermentation. A total of 57 fungal strains were obtained from mangrove soils collected from Gilakaladindi and Malakayalanka of Krishna District Andhra Pradesh. For the isolation of fungi these Soil samples were serially diluted and plated on pectin agar media plates.  Among them, the isolate which showed maximum polygalacturonase activity was selected for this study. This strain was identified as A. nomius MR 103 by 18S rRNA sequences analysis. Pectin rich agro-industrial wastes like apple peel, citrus peel, orange peel, wheat bran, rice bran and sugarcane bagasse were used as substrates for polygalacturonase production by A. nomius MR 103. This strain was inoculated into the nutrient broth containing agro industrial wastes under solid state fermentation and amount of Polygalacturonase production was estimated. Maximum enzyme production of 4.83 IU/mg was recorded at pH 7.0 and temperature 35?C after 7 days of incubation, when orange peels were used as substrate.  Addition of carbon and nitrogen sources to orange peel media improved the Polygalcturonase production. Sucrose as carbon and peptone as nitrogen sources were proved  to be the best for  maximum production of Polygalcturonase by A. nomius MR 103 on orange peel substrate. Utilization of agro-industrial by-products provided the establishment of a cost-efficient and sustainable process for enzyme production.&nbsp

High speed script execution for GUI automation using computer vision

Software testing by using open source tool like Selenium windows applications cannot be automated, citrix based applications, flash websites and games. Computer vision based automation tools can be used to automate these kinds of applications.  These automation tools works based on screenshots of GUI objects like button, radio button, text box, images, dropdowns etc. In this paper a prototype of automation tool has been developed which can execute the automation scripts much faster than existing tools like Sikuli, which takes much time to run the Automation scripts. The execution time can be reduced by using this proposed tool

A Retrospective Clinical Audit of Outcomes of Cochlear Implantation in Children with Multiple Disabilities in Comparison with Normal Implantees : A South Indian Experience

Open Access via Springer Compact Agreement We would like to thank the team and the Auditory Verbal Habilitationists at Madras ENT Research Foundation (MERF), Chennai for all their support during the course of this project. Special thanks to the Medical Statistics Team at the University of Aberdeen for additional advice on the data analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD