Vedic-Based Squarers with High Performance

Squaring operation represents a vital operation in various applications involving image processing, rectangular to polar coordinate conversion, and many other applications. For its importance, a novel design for a 6-bit squarer basing on the Vedic multiplier (VM) is offered in this work. The squarer design utilizes dedicated 3-bit squarer modules, a (3*3) VM, and an improved Brent-Kung Carry-Select Adder (IBK-CSLA) with the amended design of XOR gate to perform fast partial-products addition. The 6-bit squarer circuit can readily be expanded for larger sizes such as 12-bit and 24-bit numbers which are useful for squaring the mantissa part of  32-bit floating-point numbers. The paper also offers three architectures for 24- bit squarer using pipelining concept used in various stages. All these squaring circuits are designed in VHDL and implemented by Xilinx ISE13.2 and FPGA. The synthesis results reveal that the offered 6-bit, 12- bit, and 24- bit squarer circuits introduce eminent outcomes in terms of delay and area when utilizing IBK-CSLA with amended XOR gate. Also, it is found that the three architectures of 24- bit squarer present dissimilar delay and area, and the architecture design based on 3-bit squarer modules with  (3*3) VM introduces the lowest area and delay

Pattern of drug use in psoriasis inpatients in the department of dermatology at a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: The pattern of drug use in people hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of psoriasis has never been studied previously in India. The aim of the study was to characterize the prescription pattern of people admitted to hospital with psoriasis so that rational prescribing could be promoted among dermatologists.Methods: Case files belonging to 32 patients, admitted in the Department of Dermatology with psoriasis, of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Kerala, over a period of 1-year were retrieved with the assistance of the medical records department. The data thus obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics.Results: The average age of patients who were admitted with psoriasis was 49.9 years, and their average duration of hospital stay was 7.96 days. A total of 296 formulations were prescribed to 32 patients. Out of 296 formulations, only 10 (3.37%) were generic and rest 286 (96.62%) branded. Fixed dose combinations consisted of 32.43% (96/296) of the prescribed formulations. Psoriasis vulgaris (56.25%) was the most common cause for admission. Of all the prescribed medications, 4 (1.35%) did not contain clear instructions for the route of administration. Strength was clearly mentioned in only 89 (30%) of the preparations. In 98% of the prescriptions, the exact dose was missing.Conclusions: The study reveals various deficiencies which exist in the prescribing pattern of drugs for management of psoriasis. Educational interventions among the doctors as well as students should be carried out to promote rational drug use.

Desalination Performance of Nano porous Mos2_2 Membrane on Different Salts of Saline Water: A Molecular Dynamics Study

The freshwater crisis is a growing concern and a pressing problem for the world because of the increasing population, civilization, and rapid industrial growth. The water treatment facilities are able to supply less than 1% of the total water demand. Water desalination can be a potential solution to deal with this alarming issue. Researchers have been exploring for quite some time to find novel nano-enhanced membranes and manufacturing techniques to increase the efficiency of the desalination process. Graphene and graphene modified membranes showed huge potential as desalination membranes for comparatively easier synthesis process and higher ion rejection rate than conventional filter materials. Currently, single-layer Mos$_2$ has been discovered to have the same potential of water permeability and ion rejection rate as graphene membrane in a more energy-efficient way. For almost analogous nano porous structure of the graphene membrane, almost 70% of the higher water flux is obtained from the Mos$_2$ membrane. In this work, it has been shown that nano porous Mos$_2$ membranes provide a promising result for desalinating other salts of seawater alongside NaCl. We have also observed the effect of variations in ions, pore size, and pressure on water permeation and ion rejection rates in the water desalination process. In this study, water permeation increased significantly by increasing the pore area from 20{\AA} to 80{\AA}. The rate of water filtration increases in proportion to both applied pressure and pore size, sacrificing the ion rejection rate for the type of ions studied. A combination of salt ions in the saline water for desalination has also been studied, where the rejection rates for the different ions are separately represented for various applied pressures. For seawater, the Mos$_2$ membrane has showed quite promising performance in the study of ion variation

Active drag reduction in hydrocarbon media using rotating disk apparatus

A high precision rotating disk apparatus (RDA) is designed and employed to investigate the turbulent drag reduction characterization induced by polymeric additives. For the past few decades, polymers have been used widely as drag reducer agents in a pipeline and RDA successfully due to its viscoelastic properties that can suppress the turbulent at high ranges of Reynolds number. In this study, drag reduction efficacy of diesel fuel in a rotating disk apparatus is investigated using high molecular weight polyisobutylene polymer as drag reducing agent. Dependence of drag reduction on different parameters such as: polymer concentration and rotational disk speed (RPM) are also investigated. In addition, the mechanical stability of this polymer with time was studied by measuring torque values for 300 sec at a fixed rotational speed (2000 rpm). It was observed that the drag reduction of diesel fuel increases withthe rotational disk speed and polymer concentration till a critical concentration at which the maximum drag reduction achieved. The maximum DR obtained was about 19.197% at Re = 902062 and PIB concentration of 150 ppm

Rotating Disk Apparatus: Types, Developments and Future Applications

Power consumption reduction investigations attracted the attention of enormous numbers of researchers in the past few decades due to its high academic and economic impacts. The pumping power losses during the transportation of crude oils are considered as one of the main power consuming applications due to the turbulent mode of transportation. Investigating the possible solutions for this problem is expensive and time consuming due to the large apparatuses needed to simulate the flow in real pipelines. Rotating disk apparatus (RDA) is an instrument mainly comprising a rotating disk and an electrical motor to rotate the disk, which was implemented as an efficient and economical path to simulate what can be done in pipelines through generating a controlled degree of turbulence. This technique was also used in many other scientific applications due to its dynamic mode of operation. For example, a rotating disk electrode was used in electrodeposition processes and to characterize deposition film thickness and uniformity. The rotating disk reactor was employed to investigate the reaction rate between fluids and solid surfaces. The present work evaluates the RDA from different prospective and applications in order to introduce it as an efficient research tools for future dynamic investigations

Maximizing the optical performance of planar CH3NH3PbI3 hybrid perovskite heterojunction stacks

A vapour-phase reaction process has been used to deposit smooth and uniform CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite material to enable the measurement of its optical dispersion relations, n and k, by ellipsometry. Fitting was achieved with a combination of Tauc-Lorenz, critical point parabolic band (CPPB) and harmonic oscillators. We have used the dispersion relations in an all-optical model of new planar device architectures in order to establish design rules for future materials choices to maximize the short-circuit current (Jsc) performance. For 500nm of MAPI with no window layer, the maximum performance expected from the model is Jsc=21.63mAcm-2. The ability of thin layers (in the range 20-60nm) of a range of window layer materials (TiO2, WO3, ZnO, Nb2O5, CdS, and Cd0.4 Zn0.6S) to enhance the short-circuit current of the devices was investigated. The performance of the oxides showed interference behaviour, with the first maxima in their J sc curves exceeding the value achievable without a window layer. However, after the first maximum, the performance generally fell off with increasing thickness. The only material to stay greater than the no-window condition for the entire investigated range is WO3. The highest performance (J sc of 22.47mAcm-2) was obtained with 59nm of WO3, with that of TiO2, ZnO, and Nb2O5 being marginally lower. Parasitic absorption in CdS window layers caused the J sc to decrease for all non-zero thicknesses - it gives no interference enhancement and its use cannot be recommended on optical grounds. Use of the wider gap alloy Cd0.4Zn0.6S gave higher currents than did CdS but its performance was not so high as for the oxides. Observations are made on the practicalities of fabricating the target structures in the fabrication of practical PV devices

Mother’s Characteristics, Knowledge and Practices about Children Burn Injury in Sulaimani City

Burn is described as one of the leading causes of injury throughout the world, and is one of the most frequent causes of hospitalization. The aim of this study was to determine mother’s characteristics, Knowledge and practices for burn injuries and burn infection prevention. A cross sectional descriptive study was undertaken in Sulaimani city, Iraq, from October 2015 to July 2016. Participants were evaluated using a structured questionnaire by face-to-face interview. Data were computerized and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22.0 software. A total of 126 mothers who had burn injury in their children and admitted to burning hospital during the study period, the mean score knowledge of mothers was (3.63), the mean score practice of mothers accounted (4.63), the respondent practice score ranged from (1-8). They had poor, intermediate, and good score knowledge about burns injury and burn infection 79.37%, 18.25%, and 2.38% respectively. In regard to mother’s related practice, there were 66.67% within poor practice level, 30.95% of an intermediate level, and 2.38% had a good practice level. The study shows that mother knowledge and practice in Sulaimani city in relation to burn injury and infection among their children was at a low level and the local health authority should incorporate health education for parents, especially mothers in the prevention of pediatric burn at home involving hot liquid and flames also other domestic hazardous as well as the important activities after burn or pre-hospital admission

Occurrence of Grapevine Leafroll-Associated Virus Complex in Napa Valley

Grapevine leafroll disease (GLD) is caused by a complex of several virus species (grapevine leafroll-associated viruses, GLRaV) in the family Closteroviridae. Because of its increasing importance, it is critical to determine which species of GLRaV is predominant in each region where this disease is occurring. A structured sampling design, utilizing a combination of RT-PCR based testing and sequencing methods, was used to survey GLRaVs in Napa Valley (California, USA) vineyards (n = 36). Of the 216 samples tested for GLRaV-1, -2, -3, -4, -5, and -9, 62% (n = 134) were GLRaV positive. Of the positives, 81% (n = 109) were single infections with GLRaV-3, followed by GLRaV-2 (4%, n = 5), while the remaining samples (15%, n = 20) were mixed infections of GLRaV-3 with GLRaV-1, 2, 4, or 9. Additionally, 468 samples were tested for genetic variants of GLRaV-3, and of the 65% (n = 306) of samples positive for GLRaV-3, 22% were infected with multiple GLRaV-3 variants. Phylogenetic analysis utilizing sequence data from the single infection GLRaV-3 samples produced seven well-supported GLRaV-3 variants, of which three represented 71% of all GLRaV-3 positive samples in Napa Valley. Furthermore, two novel variants, which grouped with a divergent isolate from New Zealand (NZ-1), were identified, and these variants comprised 6% of all positive GLRaV-3 samples. Spatial analyses showed that GLRaV-3a, 3b, and 3c were not homogeneously distributed across Napa Valley. Overall, 86% of all blocks (n = 31) were positive for GLRaVs and 90% of positive blocks (n = 28) had two or more GLRaV-3 variants, suggesting complex disease dynamics that might include multiple insect-mediated introduction events