The Importance of Traditional Outdoor Games in Children\u27s Cognitive and Social Development

Play builds imagination and creativity in children. Play is essential to promote cognitive growth and healthy brain development of a child. Unstructured play helps develop a child\u27s brain in a positive way. Through play, a child learns, solves problems, has fun and builds self confidence. Play delivers long- and short-term emotional and behavioural benefits in children.  Play can help reduce anxiety, stress and irritability in children, as well as increase happiness and self-esteem. Play improves literacy. Through play, children learn about communication.  Concentration games develop the ability to observe and maintain focus. Research shows that tired or bored children pay more attention to their work after a play break. Play encourages greater independence as well as allows experimentation with creativity and innovative ideas.  Children need intellectual as well as physical play. Play promotes physical fitness and makes children physically strong. Traditional outdoor games play an important role in children\u27s cognitive and social development. Traditional outdoor games provide a unique and enriching way for children to interact with each other, developing their cognitive and social skills. But nowadays traditional outdoor games are unknown and not even played by children. The research paper discusses the importance and effects of play, especially traditional outdoor games, in children\u27s cognitive and social development

Connectivity Investigation of Channel Quality-Based Adaptive Gossip Flooding Mechanism for AODV

To address the “broadcast storm” problem associated with flooding-based route discovery mechanism of reactive routing protocols, probabilistic approaches are suggested in the literature. In the earlier work, Gossip flooding mechanism of Haas et.al. was extended with signal quality, to propose channel quality based adaptive gossip flooding mechanism for AODV (CQAG-AODV). Following the cross-layer design principle, CQAG-AODV algorithm tried to discover robust routes, as well as address the “broadcast storm” problem by controlling the rebroadcast probability of Route request (RREQ) packets on the basis of signal strength experienced at the physical layer. This paper investigates the connectivity of CQAG-AODV through theoretical and simulation analysis. Results show that, by accounting the signal strength in the route discovery process, not only does the proposed algorithm floods  a lesser number of route requests and controls the broadcast storm, but also maintains a higher level of connectivity to offer high packet delivery ratio; independent of network density and node mobility. Moreover, due to controlled routing overhead and robust route discovery, channel quality based adaptive flooding mechanism offers fringe benefit of energy efficiency as well. CQAG-AODV thus proves its suitability in a variety of use cases of multi-hop ad hoc networks including WSNs and VANETs

PREDICTORS OF CLINICAL OUTCOMES IN INDIAN PATIENTS WITH ACUTE ENCEPHALOPATHY: A PROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONAL STUDY FROM A TERTIARY CARE CENTER IN INDIA

Objective: Objective of the study was to evaluate the predictors of poor disease outcome at discharge and at 1 month in patients with acute encephalopathy. Methods: This prospective, observational, single center study included adult patients meeting the diagnostic criteria for acute confusion state and admitted in the intensive care unit of a tertiary care hospital. A modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of <3 was considered as “good outcome,” while mRS ≥3 was considered as an indicator of “poor outcome.” Results: Among the total population of 219, 52.5% (n=115) were male, the mean age was 41.58 (±18.10) years and mean disease duration was 14.30 (±10.05) days (range: 1–30 days). Lethargy was the most common history at presentation (84.93%), while sleep abnormalities were least common (4.57%), and tuberculous meningitis was the most common etiology (21%). Diminution of vision, diplopia, dysarthria, cranial nerve symptoms, abdominal pain, difficulty in breathing, seizures, high-risk behavior, loss of appetite and the diagnosis of posterior reversible encephalopathy, retroviral disease, stroke and tuberculous meningitis were significant predictors of “poor outcome” at discharge (p<0.05). A diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis, history of headache, diminution of vision, diplopia, dysarthria, seizures, sensory deficits and loss of appetite and neuroimaging findings of atrophy, intracranial bleeding, demyelination, and space-occupying lesion were found to be significant predictors of “poor outcome” at 1 month post-discharge in this population (p<0.05). Conclusion: In patients with acute encephalopathy, tuberculous etiology, the presence of focal brainstem deficits and specific neuroimaging findings indicate poor outcomes at discharge as well as at 1 month follow-up

Historic Developments, Current Technologies and Potential of Nanotechnology to Develop Next Generation Solar Cells with Improved Efficiency

Sun is the continuous source of renewable energy, from where we can get abundant of solar energy. Concept of conversionof solar energy into heat was used back in 200 B.C. since then, the solar cells have been developed which can convert solar energy into theelectrical energy and these systems have been produced commercially. The technologies to enhance the power conversion efficiency (PCE)have been continuously improved. Different technologies used for developing solar cells can be categorized either on the basis of materialused or techniques of technology development which is further termed as ‘first generation' (e.g. crystalline silicon), ‘second generation'(thin films of Amorphous silicon, Copper indium gallium selenide, Cadmium telluride), ‘Third generation' (Concentrated, Organic and Dyesensitize solar cell). These technologies give PCE up to 25% depending on the technology and the materials used. Nanotechnology enablesthe use of nanomaterial whose size is below 100 nm with extraordinary properties which has the capability to enhance the PCE to greaterextent. Various nanomaterials like Quantum Dots, Quantum well, carbon nanotubes, Nanowire and graphene have been used to makeefficient and economical solar cells, which not only provide high conversion efficiency economically but also are easy to produce. Today,by using nanotechnology, conversion efficiency up to 44.7 % has been achieved by Fraunhofer Institute at Germany. In this review article,we have reviewed the literature including various patents and publications, summarized the history of solar cell development, developmentof different technologies and rationale of their development highlighting the advantages and challenges involved in their development forcommercial purpose. We have also included the recent developments in solar cell research where different nanomaterials have beendesigned and used successfully to prove their superiority over conventional systems

CYTOTOXIC EFFECT OF CORCHORUS DEPRESSUS AGAINST HEPG2 AND HLE HUMAN LIVER CANCER CELLS

Objective: The present study was designed to examine the cytotoxic effects of methanolic extract of aerial parts of Corchorus depressus and hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and aqueous fractions of the same extract in the human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (HepG2) and invasive hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (HLE).Methods: Anti-proliferative effects were evaluated using 3-(4,5-dimethythiazol2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) and neutral red uptake (NRU) assay. Human HCC (HepG2) and invasive hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (HLE) were treated with different concentrations of methanolic extract (10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 μg/mL) of aerial parts of C. depressus as well as hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and aqueous fractions (200 μg/mL) for 24 and 48 h. The cell viability and the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) were determined.Results: The maximum cytotoxic effect was noticed with a maximum dose of methanolic extract (500 μg/mL) and alkaloidal fraction (200 μg) in this study with an IC50 value of about 200 μg.Conclusion: The set of studies showed that methanolic extract of aerial parts of C. depressus and alkaloidal, chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions fractions was capable of inhibiting cell growth and cell proliferation by inducing cytotoxicity of HepG2 and HLE cells

Broadband 200-nm second-harmonic generation in silicon in the telecom band.

Silicon is well known for its strong third-order optical nonlinearity, exhibiting efficient supercontinuum and four-wave mixing processes. A strong second-order effect that is naturally inhibited in silicon can also be observed, for example, by electrically breaking the inversion symmetry and quasi-phase matching the pump and the signal. To generate an efficient broadband second-harmonic signal, however, the most promising technique requires matching the group velocities of the pump and the signal. In this work, we utilize dispersion engineering of a silicon waveguide to achieve group velocity matching between the pump and the signal, along with an additional degree of freedom to broaden the second harmonic through the strong third-order nonlinearity. We demonstrate that the strong self-phase modulation and cross-phase modulation in silicon help broaden the second harmonic by 200 nm in the O-band. Furthermore, we show a waveguide design that can be used to generate a second-harmonic signal in the entire near-infrared region. Our work paves the way for various applications, such as efficient and broadband complementary-metal oxide semiconductor based on-chip frequency synthesizers, entangled photon pair generators, and optical parametric oscillators

Research and development work carried out on edible oysters in Gujarat

Oyster resources survey was conducted by the transect method from Jakhau in the Gulf of Kutch to Umargaon in south Gujarat. Crassostrea gryphoides was dominant followed by Saccostrea cucullata and C. rividari

Chiral segregation driven by a dynamical response of the adsorption footprint to the local adsorption environment: Bitartrate on Cu(110)

Local or global ordering of chiral molecules at a surface is a key step in both chiral separation and heterogeneous enantioselective catalysis. Using density functional theory and scanning probe microscopy results, we find that the accepted structural model for the well known bitartrate on Cu(110) chiral system cannot account for the chiral segregation observed. Instead, we show that this strongly bound, chiral adsorbate changes its adsorption footprint in response to the local environment. The flexible adsorption geometry allows bitartrate to form stable homochiral trimer chains in which the central molecule restructures from a rectangular to an oblique footprint, breaking its internal hydrogen bonds in order to form strong intermolecular hydrogen bonds to neighbouring adsorbates. Racemic structures containing mixed enantiomers do not form strong hydrogen bonds, providing the thermodynamic driving force for the chiral separation that is observed experimentally. This result shows the importance of considering the dynamical response of molecular adsorption footprints at the surface in directing chiral assembly and segregation. The ability of strongly-chemisorbed enantiomers to change footprint depending on the local adsorption environment indicates that supramolecular assemblies at surfaces may exhibit more complex dynamical behaviour than hitherto suspected, which, ultimately, could be tailored to lead to environment and stimuli-responsive chiral surfaces

Molecular Clock on a Neutral Network

The number of fixed mutations accumulated in an evolving population often displays a variance that is significantly larger than the mean (the overdispersed molecular clock). By examining a generic evolutionary process on a neutral network of high-fitness genotypes, we establish a formalism for computing all cumulants of the full probability distribution of accumulated mutations in terms of graph properties of the neutral network, and use the formalism to prove overdispersion of the molecular clock. We further show that significant overdispersion arises naturally in evolution when the neutral network is highly sparse, exhibits large global fluctuations in neutrality, and small local fluctuations in neutrality. The results are also relevant for elucidating the topological structure of a neutral network from empirical measurements of the substitution process.Comment: 10 page

Quantum Theory of Non-Relativistic Particles Interacting with Gravity

We investigate the effects of the gravitational field on the quantum dynamics of non-relativistic particles. We consider N non-relativistic particles, interacting with the linearized gravitational field. Using the Feynman - Vernon influence functional technique, we trace out the graviton field, to obtain a master equation for the system of particles to first order in $G$. The effective interaction between the particles, as well as the self-interaction is non-local in time and in general non-markovian. We show that the gravitational self-interaction cannot be held responsible for decoherence of microscopic particles due to the fast vanishing of the diffusion function. For macroscopic particles though, it leads to diagonalization to the energy eigenstate basis, a desirable feature in gravity induced collapse models. We finally comment on possible applications.Comment: Latex,14 pages, replaced to correct the titl