Compromising social justice in fairtrade?

The study investigates whether Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) are able to adhere to their principles of social justice and development goals as they enter mainstream markets which are dominated by neo-liberalism, unequal terms of trade and propagation of the "free market" principle. Through a case study of Kala-a craft marketing Fair Trade Organization in West Bengal, India, the paper shows shifts in the development of the FTO, the introduction of a certification regime and the emerging contradiction between the intentions of the FTO and its actual practice in the contemporary period. The implications of shifts in orientation from solidarity based notions of social justice to market oriented social justice, in particular on the weakest link and most vulnerable section who are women craft workers at the bottom of the production chain are investigated. A production chain analysis of handicraft production gives evidence of violation of FT principles and ILO's decent work norms and also reveals characteristics of the informal economy with producers having no entitlements to minimum wages, or social security benefits. There remains gender bias in the employment of women in the fair-trade production chain. The data shows that there is no challenge to gender segmentation and in fact a reinforcement of the feminine stereotype. Declining partnership with cooperatives, rising partnership with large scale NGOs and setting up of a Business Development Unit within the organization are some of the strategic shifts in the FTO. These shifts and the lack of implementation of FT principles indicate that the FTO is succumbing to the logic of the neo liberal mainstream market resulting in a drift away from the social justice principles within the Fairtrade Network. While onstage FTO's use the principle of "fairness" particularly in relation to Northern Corporations, this notion of fairness is not extended to the lower end producers through which they are expanding in the global market

Baseline titre of Widal amongst healthy blood donors at tertiary care hospital

Background: Indian subcontinent is a hotspot of Typhoid activity with high prevalence rates. The Widal test is one of the commonly used sero-diagnostic test for typhoid fever in developing countries. Lack of proper knowledge of baseline titre of Widal test can lead to over diagnosis of typhoid fever leading to mismanagement of patients. A single cut off value on average titre among healthy individuals needs to be determined. So, the purpose of the present study was to develop recommendations for the interpretation of Widal test results in the local region. The objectives were to determine the baseline Widal titre of study population and to propose titre-values of significance in the diagnosis of enteric fever.Methods: Sera of 242 apparently healthy blood donors from January 2016 to December 2016 in blood bank and Department of Microbiology, Dr. PDMMC, Amravati, Maharashtra, India were subjected to standard quantitative tube and semi-quantitative slide Widal test to know the titre.Results: Highest titre obtained by tube Widal test for TO was 1:320, for TH- 1:160, for AH- 1:80, and for BH- 1:80. Tube Widal titres of ≤1:160 for TO were seen in 238 (98.34%) and for TH titre of ≤1:80 were seen in 238 (98.34%), TO and TH titres of ≥1:160 were seen in 24 (9.91%) and 4 (1.65%) respectively. TO titre of 1:320 was seen in 4(1.65%) and TH titre of 1:160 was seen in 4 (1.64%). Highest titre obtained by semi-quantitative slide Widal for TO was 1:640, for TH, AH and BH was 1:160.Conclusions: We recommend that TO titre of ≥1:320 and TH titre ≥1:160 as diagnostic of typhoid fever and for AH and BH, titres of ≥1:80 should be considered diagnostic respectively in our region. Because of high expected false positivity rate of slide Widal test

Performance Analysis of Mixed Line Rate Optical WDM Networks under Link Failure

Due to heterogeneous traffic in next generation Mixed Line Rate (MLR) networks are capable of delivering different bandwidth in a flexible manner. In this paper a simple routing algorithm is proposed to study the case of any link failure in MLR WDM networks. Here Poisson random traffic is used as a dynamic traffic for 24-hour duration. The proposed work can be achieved by deleting the failed link and then finding the new best possible shortest path between source and destination node. According to the traffic load light paths adjustments employ the addition of light paths under congestion and deletion of lightpaths which are not being used at a particular time. Simulation result shows the total number of lightpaths used, total number of addition and deletion of light paths under link safe and link failure case in mixed line rate (MLR) and single line rate (SLR) optical WDM networks

APPLICATION OF MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES IN DATA CENTRE ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Cloud computing is one of the leading computing paradigms that offers services like Infrastructure as a Service called IaaS, Platform as a Service called PaaS, Software as a Service called SaaS to users on a pay per use model. The massive data centers that help cloud offer all the above stated services are virtualized. Virtualization enables easy management of resources. However, the massive physical servers in the data centers tend to consume enormous energy, leading to high environmental impact. So, energy conservation with optimum usage and management is one of the prominent areas of research in cloud. The major techniques to manage energy is to identify unused physical resources and put them to low power state or sleep state. But, the usage of resources depends heavily on the user requirements in an elastic environment like cloud. Hence machine learning techniques can be used to predict the usage patterns thereby identifying the physical resources required to fulfill the user demand. This paper aims to survey the avenues wherein machine learning can be applied to help energy management in a cloud data center

Psoas abscess due to mycobacterium tuberculosis: a case report

Iliopsoas abscess (IPA), a collection of pus in the iliopsoas compartment that has traditionally been classified into primary and secondary according to its origin, is an infrequent condition worldwide. Mostly active TB is confined to the lung, but approximately 15% are extrapulmonary. The most common types of extrapulmonary TB are, in descending order of frequency, pleural, lymphatic, bone and joint, genitourinary, miliary disease, meningitis, and peritonitis. Tuberculosis (TB) remains as one of the leading opportunistic infection in patients in developing countries. Here we report a rare case of psoas abscess of tubercular origin in patient who presented with back pain and limping. Diagnosis is done based on history, physical examination, plain radiology, microbiological investigation and CT scan of abdomen which revealed a large psoas abscess caused by M. tuberculosis. Patient was diagnosed as psoas abscess due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis and treated empirically with DOTS category I and significant functional improvement was noted on follow up

Platelet rich fibrin (PRF) and β -Tricalcium phosphate with coronally advanced flap for the management of grade-II furcation defect

BACKGROUND: Multirooted teeth offer unique and challenging problems due to the furcation area, creates situations in which routine periodontal procedures are somewhat limited and special procedures are generally required.CASE DETAIL: The present case was showing the management of grade II furcation defect by platelet rich fibrin (PRF) and β-Tricalcium phosphate with coronally advanced flap.CONCLUSION: Platelet rich fibrin and β-Tricalcium phosphate with coronally advanced flap have been shown to be a promising and successful approach for the treatment of furcation defect. Its gaining clinical attachment  significantly manages both the gingival recession and furcation involvementsimultaneously.KEY WORDS: β-Tricalcium Phosphate, Coronally Advanced Flap, Furcation Involvement, Platelet Rich Fibrin

Influence of anti-epileptic drugs on hematological and biochemical parameters in patients with epilepsy

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological condition which may require long-term treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The challenge in AED management is to attain freedom from seizures, without side-effects and with good quality-of-life. However, AEDs are reported to induce potential adverse effects, which can remain unnoticed over long time. In this regard, earlier studies report inconsistent results in hematological and biochemical toxicity of AEDs. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of AED monotherapy and polytherapy on hematological and biochemical parameters.Methods: This was a cross-sectional, observational study carried out among patients with epilepsy (PWE) receiving AEDs. The data on baseline demographic characteristics, treatment, adverse drug reactions, hematological, and biochemical investigations were collected. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS version 18 and descriptive statistics such as mean and median were used to summarize the data and inferential tests like Chi-square was used to compare categorical variables between groups.Results: There were 255 PWE in mean age range of 28.68±9.29 years, with 56.54% males. A total of 78.04% had focal, 18.04% had generalized seizures and remaining 3.92% were unclassified. Majority of (55.69%) PWE received polytherapy with AEDs. Females had significantly lower levels of hemoglobin (Hb) when compared with males (p=0.000), and patients on AED polytherapy showed significant difference in low Hb (p=0.006) and high alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels (p=0.001).Conclusions: The results of this study showed significant alterations in the levels of Hb and ALP with the use of AED polytherapy in PWE. Routine hematological and biochemical investigations may be considered during AED treatment in those patients receiving AED polytherapy