A study to evaluate the effectiveness of drumstick leaves extract with amla powder on anemic status among adolecent girls at C.S.I. Ruth Illam for Girls Irungalur, Trichy District

This is to certify that the dissertation entitled “Evaluate the effectiveness of drumstick leaves extract with amla powder on anemic status among adolescent girls at C.S.I. Ruth Illam for girls Irungalur, Trichy district” is a bonafide work done by Rani Joseph, Indira college of Nursing Konalai, Trichy submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Science in Nursing from the Tamil Nadu Dr.M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai. The objectives of the study: 1. To assess the level of anemic status among adolescent girls before and after intervension. 2. To evaluate the effectiveness of drumstick leaves extract and amla powder on levels of anemic status among adolescent girls. 3. To find out association between the pre testpost test levels of anemic status among adolescent girls with selected demographic variables. Research hypotheses were formulated to find the effectiveness of the drumstick leaves soup with amla powder. The review of literature was done and organized under the following headings. Review related to anemia, studies related to anemia, studies related to drumstick leaves in improving haemoglobin level. The conceptual framework was based on Widenbach’s helping art theory (1964). Quasi experimental one group pre testpost test design was adopted for this study. The sample size was 30. The tool was validated by experts and found to be valid for this study. The reliability was established through the test-retest method. The tool was administered to the adolescent girls, after a gap of 15 days the retest was given. The main study conducted among the adolescent girls at CSI Ruth Illam for girls, Irungalur, Trichy. The samples were selected by using non probability purposive sampling method. The pre estimation level of haemoglobin was done and the drumstick leaves Soup with Amla Powder was administered for 15 days and the post estimation level of haemoglobin was done. Along with this, a well structured questionnaire was applied. The collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted by using descriptive and inferential statistics and the finding shows that, in the prevalence of anemia all the adolescent girls were having from 1 to 20 signs and symptoms in that the major complaints is hair loss, fatigue and problems in concentration and thinking, in the level of haemoglobin, had mild level of anemia and had moderate level of anemia in the pre-test and had mild level of anemia and had no anemia in the post test. It shows that there is a difference between the pre and post level of hemoglobin. The main study conducted among the adolescent girls at CSI Ruth Illam for girls, Irungalur, Trichy. The samples were selected by using non probability purposive sampling method. The pre estimation level of haemoglobin was done and the drumstick leaves extract with Amla Powder was administered for 15 days and the post estimation level of haemoglobin was done. The collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted by using descriptive and inferential statistics and the finding shows that, in the prevalence of anemia all the adolescent girls were having from 1 to 20 signs and symptoms in that the major complaints is hair loss, fatigue and problems in concentration and thinking, in the level of haemoglobin, had mild level of anemia and had moderate level of anemia in the pre-test and had mild level of anemia and had no anemia in the post test. It shows that there is a difference between the pre and post level of haemoglobin

A Zone Based Approach for Classification and Recognition Of Telugu Handwritten Characters

Realization of high accuracies and efficiencies in South Indian character recognition systems is one of the principle goals to be attempted time after time so as to promote the usage of optical character recognition (OCR) for South Indian languages like Telugu. The process of character recognition comprises pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction, classification and recognition. The feature extraction stage is meant for uniquely recognizing each character image for the purpose of classifying it. The selection of a feature extraction algorithm is very critical and important for any image processing application and mostly of the times it is directly proportional to the type of the image objects that we have to identify. For optical technologies like South Indian OCR, the feature extraction technique plays a very vital role in accuracy of recognition due to the huge character sets. In this work we mainly focus on evaluating the performance of various feature extraction techniques with respect to Telugu character recognition systems and analyze its efficiencies and accuracies in recognition of Telugu character set

A review of the epidemiology and control of brucellosis in Malaysia

The presence of brucellosis in large ruminants and pigs in Malaysia was confirmed by the isolation of Brucella abortus in 1950 and Brucella suis in 1963, respectively. Subsequently, brucellosis was detected in humans (1980), dogs (1982) and sheep(1991). The National Programme for 'The Area-wise Eradiction of Bovine Brucellosis 'which came into effect in 1979 had reduced the prevalence of bovine brucellosis in Malaysia from 3.3% in 1979 to 0.23% in 1988. It was then envisaged that by 1995 bovine brucellosis in Malaysia had been eradicted. However, the prevalance of brucellosis in cattle was reported to be high (<2%) again (Anon,2005). In the state of Pahang, there was a surge in prevalence from 0.2% in 1996 to 13% in 1998 but was brought down to 1.8% in 2005 by stringent testing, culling and vaccination. The success of the eradiction programme in the later phase proved to be difficult due to the remote geographical distribution of the animals, the extensive farming system being practised and the education and social status of the farmers. In the later phase of the programme, it was difficult to detect infected animals in the herds as the prevalence of infection was very low. It therefore, became necessary to test every animal so as not to miss the few inapparent carrier animals. For this, the enzymelinked immunosorbent assay was a useful test and was included, in addition to the Rose Bengal plate test (RPBT), to complement fixation test (CFT) and the Milk Ring Test (MRT)in the screening and diagnosis of brucellosis. Bacterial culture and isolation of suspected cases of bovine brucellosis (abortion, retained placenta) were additional measures undertaken to detect animals

Pif1-family helicases cooperatively suppress widespread replication-fork arrest at tRNA genes

Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes two distinct Pif1-family helicases – Pif1 and Rrm3 – which have been reported to play distinct roles in numerous nuclear processes. Here, we systematically characterize the roles of Pif1 helicases in replisome progression and lagging-strand synthesis in S. cerevisiae. We demonstrate that either Pif1 or Rrm3 redundantly stimulate strand-displacement by DNA polymerase δ during lagging-strand synthesis. By analyzing replisome mobility in pif1 and rrm3 mutants, we show that Rrm3, with a partially redundant contribution from Pif1, suppresses widespread terminal arrest of the replisome at tRNA genes. Although both head-on and codirectional collisions induce replication fork arrest at tRNA genes, head-on collisions arrest a higher proportion of replisomes. Consistent with this observation, we find that head-on collisions between tRNA transcription and replication are under-represented in the S. cerevisiae genome. We demonstrate that tRNA-mediated arrest is R-loop independent, and propose that replisome arrest and DNA damage are mechanistically separable

A Comparative Study of Gameplay of Different Sets of Players in an Engineering Mapping Game

Educators in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field are constantly employing different tools to make the process of education streamlined and fun. The digital gaming platform also called e-gaming platform has evolved as one of the key tools to make STEM education more accessible to students. UNTANGLED III is such an e-gaming platform that is based on STEM concepts and aims to bring in players from all educational backgrounds under a common platform. The data obtained from the game gave us insights on how males and females play the game. It has answered whether there are any significant differences in the gameplay strategies between males and females. The data pertaining to the types of puzzles that players, from both genders, chose and played, was also obtained. Males and females had no stark differences in the strategies that they used in solving the puzzles. They used similar kinds of moves and in fact solved similar kinds of puzzles of similar difficulty levels. During their gameplay sessions, both the males and the females visualized similar patterns in the puzzles as evident in their final solution. The performance of players from both the genders, based on the gameplay data was at par. Suggestions obtained from the current players and outreach events hold the key to increasing the overall participation in the game

An investigation on antibiotic resistance of E. coli in the Red Jungle fowl from a farm in Sepang

This study was carried out to isolate and identify the normal bacterial flora in the cloaca of the Red Jungle fowl and to determine the level of antibiotic resistance in the E. coli obtained from the cloacal swabs of these birds. This study was done in a farm in Sepang, which produces Red Jungle fowl high crosses. Fifteen cloacal swabs were taken from individual birds of a one-year old female flock. The most prevalent normal flora bacteria in the cloaca of these birds were Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus spp., both were present in 73% of the samples. Other bacteria isolated include Klebsiella spp., Chromobacterium spp., Achromobacter spp., Staphylococcus pseudintermidius, Staphylococcus intermidius, Staphylococcus hyicus, Corynebacterium urealyticum, Corynebacterium phocae, and Enterococcus faecalis, which were present in 7to 33% of the samples. The E. coli isolates from the Red Jungle fowl exhibit complete (100%) multiple resistance to antibiotics used in the farm, which were erythromycin, norfloxacin, and tetracycline; and penicillin G, which was never used in the farm. Although 15% of the isolates were sensitive to cephalixine, 23% were resistant. The occurrence of antibiotics resistance towards drugs that was never used in the Red Jungle fowl suggests that the antibiotic resistance may be acquired through other means other than exposure to the drug

Role of gametes and asexual products of algae in the food chain of aquatic medium

Experiments conducted by keeping mussel larvae in filtered sea water along with fragments of Viva sp., Chaetomorpha sp. and Cladophora sp. capable of readily releasing gametes in the medium showed that the larvae could metamorphose to settling stage with in 15 to 18 days by actively feeding on the gametes released by these algae. It is also noticed that the breeding cycle of the above algae along with the other algae in the locality coincides with the peak breeding period of mussel in Vizhinjam and in other mussel bed areas. The asexual reproductive products of these algae have also been observed to play in similar role as diet of the larvae and adult mussels. The study shows that gametes and other reprouuctive cells released by algae form a microleval food chain in the aquatic medium enriching the ecosystem. The paper emphasises a new line of investigation to find out the impact of this micro level food chain to improve the fish and shellfish production in coastal brackish water and fresh water ecosystems by comparing the role of other algal groups on a global basis. Eventhough considerahle work has be~n done on a global on the reproduction and propagation of algae, the biologists throughout the world have been concentrating mostly on the biology of reproduction in these groups. However. the role of the gametes and other asexually released products in the aquatic medium other than their natural proc~s of propagation has not been studied. Among a few important works on algae the reviews on the reproduction of algae made by Bold and Wynne(1978) Fritsch (1977) and Bhatia (1975) are worth mentioning and they give a broad picture on the alternation of generations and the reproductive behaviour of the marine

IPAVS: Integrated Pathway Resources, Analysis and Visualization System

Integrated Pathway Resources, Analysis and Visualization System (iPAVS) is an integrated biological pathway database designed to support pathway discovery in the fields of proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and systems biology. The key goal of IPAVS is to provide biologists access to expert-curated pathways from experimental data belonging to specific biological contexts related to cell types, tissues, organs and diseases. IPAVS currently integrates over 500 human pathways (consisting of 24 574 interactions) that include metabolic-, signaling- and disease-related pathways, drug–action pathways and several large process maps collated from other pathway resources. IPAVS web interface allows biologists to browse and search pathway resources and provides tools for data import, management, visualization and analysis to support the interpretation of biological data in light of cellular processes. Systems Biology Graphical Notations (SBGN) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway notations are used for the visual display of pathway information. The integrated datasets in IPAVS are made available in several standard data formats that can be downloaded. IPAVS is available at: http://ipavs.cidms.org

Evaluation of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton) germplasm

Seventy two cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) accessions were evaluated for 5 years at Pampadumpara (Kerala, India) for vegetative and economic characters and susceptibility to insect pests. Nine accessions recorded a dry capsule yield of above 150 g per clump. Among these nine promising accessions, S-1 appeared to be the best for further breeding programmes in view of its higher yield, moderate incidence of insect pests and higher quality parameters compared to other entries. Accessions MBP (Multiple Branching Panicle) and CP (Compound Panicle) can also be used in breeding programmes in view of their higher yield potential. The entries PS-12 and PS-5 offer great scope in breeding for quality. &nbsp

Changes in climatic elements and their impact on production of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton) in the Cardamom Hills of Kerala, India

The change in climatic elements namely, temperature and precipitation in Cardamom Hills (Kerala, India) was studied by analysing the weather data for 20 (temperature) and 40 years (precipitation). Minimum temperature exhibited drastic variation over the years. The difference betWeen the warmest and coolest month had narrowed considerably and the days have become warmer markedly. Except during 1967-76 (Decade-II) the total annual average precipitation received was more or less equal. Even though the total number of rainy days has increased, the distribution pattern was erratic during the last decade. The rainfall parameters had positive correlation with production of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) with significant relationship for number of rainy days. &nbsp