Qualities of best medical teacher: a student perceptive study

Background: Medical education is changing day by day and there is a continuing need to assess the role of the teacher in medical education. A good Medical teacher is the one who pave the way in the making of our future clinicians. In the Present study we tried to evaluate qualities of best medical teacher in preclinicals, paraclinicals and clinical teachers including all medical, surgical and their allied subjects from first year to final year MBBS Students by student perceptive study at one medical College of Andhra Pradesh, India.Methods: The study population includes first to final M.B.B.S Students from one medical institute -A Questionnaire comprising of 12 statements relating to the qualities of teacher was prepared. The study population include first to final M.B.B.S Students from one medical institute.Results: Giving a total of 321 students who are pursuing MBBS from first year to final year 63% participants were females and 37% were male. All the participants are aged in between 17-23 years. In these studies top five qualities of best medical teacher perceived by students is good Quality of subject (72.4%), student friendly nature (71.7%), creating interest in subject (58%), more explanatory / more informative teaching (42.8%), best personality including knowledge, personal and professional skills (41.2%).Conclusions: A good teacher is someone who is approachable, engaging and inspiring, and who has a sound knowledge of subject of what they are trying to teach. They also have the ability to communicate well with students

Low frequency radio monitoring of Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-3

We present results of monitoring observations of the micro-quasars CygnusX-1 and Cygnus X-3 at 0.61 and 1.28 GHz. The observations were performed with Giant Meter-wave Radio Telescope, GMRT, between 2003 June and 2005 January. Variable, unresolved sources were found in both cases. Cyg X-1 was detected in about half of the observations, with a median flux density about 7 mJy at each frequency. The results show clearly that there is a break in the spectrum above 1.28 GHz. The variations in Cyg X-1 may be due to refractive interstellar scintillation. Cyg X-3 was detected in each observation, and varied by a factor of 4. For this source, models of the scintillation suggest a very long timescale (of the order of 40 yr at 1.28 GHz), and therefore we believe that the variations are intrinsic to the source.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accpeted in A&

Determining mean first-passage time on a class of treelike regular fractals

Relatively general techniques for computing mean first-passage time (MFPT) of random walks on networks with a specific property are very useful, since a universal method for calculating MFPT on general graphs is not available because of their complexity and diversity. In this paper, we present techniques for explicitly determining the partial mean first-passage time (PMFPT), i.e., the average of MFPTs to a given target averaged over all possible starting positions, and the entire mean first-passage time (EMFPT), which is the average of MFPTs over all pairs of nodes on regular treelike fractals. We describe the processes with a family of regular fractals with treelike structure. The proposed fractals include the $T$ fractal and the Peano basin fractal as their special cases. We provide a formula for MFPT between two directly connected nodes in general trees on the basis of which we derive an exact expression for PMFPT to the central node in the fractals. Moreover, we give a technique for calculating EMFPT, which is based on the relationship between characteristic polynomials of the fractals at different generations and avoids the computation of eigenvalues of the characteristic polynomials. Making use of the proposed methods, we obtain analytically the closed-form solutions to PMFPT and EMFPT on the fractals and show how they scale with the number of nodes. In addition, to exhibit the generality of our methods, we also apply them to the Vicsek fractals and the iterative scale-free fractal tree and recover the results previously obtained.Comment: Definitive version published in Physical Review

ALKAPTONURIA SYNDROME-A REVIEW

Alkaptonuria, also called endogenous ochronosis, and also called as Black Urine Disease, is a rare metabolic autosomal recessive disorder. It occurs by complete inhibition of homogentisic acid oxidase enzyme having its deposition in various tissues. Alkaptonuria is caused due to deficiency of homogentisic acid oxidase involved in the metabolism of tyrosine. Dark discolouration of urine, ochronosis at cartilage and connective tissues, arthritis at the third of fourth decade of life, renal stone disease, spontaneous tendon rupture etc. May be seen in alkaptonuria. Disease severity varies among individual patients, even between siblings, and increase with age because of homogentisic acid accumulation. Usually, life span is not shortened in AKU, but the quality of life is severely effected. Several studies have suggested that Nitisinone may be effective in the treatment of alkaptonuria. Characteristically, the excess HGA means sufferers pass dark urine, which upon standing turns black. This is a feature present from birth. Over time patients develop other manifestations of AKU, due to the deposition of HGA in collagenous tissues, namely ochronosis and ochronotic osteoarthropathy. Although this condition does not reduce life expectancy, it significantly affects the quality of life. The natural history of this condition is becoming better understood, despite gaps in knowledge. Clinical assessment of the condition has also improved along with the development of potentially disease-modifying therapy. Furthermore, recent developments in AKU research have to lead to new understanding of the disease, and further study of the AKU arthropathy has the potential to influence therapy in the management of osteoarthritis

Timing Offset Calibration of CZTI instrument aboard ASTROSAT

The radio as well as the high energy emission mechanism in pulsars is yet not understood properly. A multi-wavelength study is likely to help in better understanding of such processes. The first Indian space-based observatory, ASTROSAT, has five instruments aboard, which cover the electromagnetic spectrum from infra-red (1300 $\AA$) to hard X-ray (380 KeV). Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI), one of the five instruments is a hard X-ray telescope functional over an energy range of 20-380 KeV. We aim to estimate the timing offset introduced in the data acquisition pipeline of the instrument, which will help in time alignment of high energy time series with those from two other ground-based observatories, viz. the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT). PSR B0531+21 is a well-studied pulsar with nearly aligned radio and hard X-ray pulse profiles. We use simultaneous observations of this pulsar with the ASTROSAT, the ORT and the GMRT. The pulsar was especially observed using the ORT with almost daily cadence to obtain good timing solutions. We also supplement the ORT data with archival FERMI data for estimation of timing noise. The timing offset of ASTROSAT instruments was estimated from fits to arrival time data at the ASTROSAT and the radio observatories. We estimate the offset between the GMRT and the ASTROSAT-CZTI to be -4716 $\pm$ 50 $\mu s$. The corresponding offset with the ORT was -29639 $\pm$ 50 $\mu s$. The offsets between the GMRT and Fermi-LAT -5368 $\pm$ 56 $\mu s$. (Abridged)Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, Revised and Updated, accepted for publication in A&

Bosonic Mean Field Theory of the Spiral Phases of Heisenberg Antiferromagnets on a Chain

We develop a novel bosonic mean field theory to describe the spiral phases of a Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a one-dimensional chain, in terms of three bosons at each site. The ground state is disordered and for large values of the spin $S$, two different and exponentially small energy gaps are found. The spin-spin correlation function is computed and is shown to decay exponentially at large distances. Our mean field theory is also shown to be exact in a large-$N$ generalization.Comment: plain.tex, TIFR/TH/92-66, IISc/CTS/92-1

Studies on haloquinolines: Part I - Synthesis and characterisation of substituted haloquinolines

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Determining global mean-first-passage time of random walks on Vicsek fractals using eigenvalues of Laplacian matrices

The family of Vicsek fractals is one of the most important and frequently-studied regular fractal classes, and it is of considerable interest to understand the dynamical processes on this treelike fractal family. In this paper, we investigate discrete random walks on the Vicsek fractals, with the aim to obtain the exact solutions to the global mean first-passage time (GMFPT), defined as the average of first-passage time (FPT) between two nodes over the whole family of fractals. Based on the known connections between FPTs, effective resistance, and the eigenvalues of graph Laplacian, we determine implicitly the GMFPT of the Vicsek fractals, which is corroborated by numerical results. The obtained closed-form solution shows that the GMFPT approximately grows as a power-law function with system size (number of all nodes), with the exponent lies between 1 and 2. We then provide both the upper bound and lower bound for GMFPT of general trees, and show that leading behavior of the upper bound is the square of system size and the dominating scaling of the lower bound varies linearly with system size. We also show that the upper bound can be achieved in linear chains and the lower bound can be reached in star graphs. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of random walks on the Vicsek fractals and general treelike networks.Comment: Definitive version accepted for publication in Physical Review