Outcome of Demonstration Program on Hand Washing Technique among Nursing Staff in Dhiraj General Hospital

Background of the study: Thousands of people die every day around the world from infections acquired while receiving health care. Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission during health care. Hand hygiene is therefore the most important measure to avoid the transmission of harmful germs and prevent health care-associated infection. However studies have shown that hand washing practices are poor among nursing personnel. Objective : To assess the knowledge and practice regarding hand washing techniques among nursing staff. Method : A descriptive evaluative approach on 150 nursing staff with Probability Simple random sampling technique was used for this study. Results: The mean post test knowledge score (12.48) was higher than the mean pre test knowledge score (6.72). The mean post test practice score (14.86) was higher than the mean pre test practice score (8.70). Conclusion: The present study assessed the knowledge and practice among nursing staff regarding hand washing technique and found that nursing staff had inadequate knowledge and practice regarding hand washing technique. After the demonstration program was given on hand washing technique, there was significant improvement in knowledge and practice of nursing staff regarding hand washing technique. The study concluded that demonstration program was effective in improving the knowledge and practice of nursing staff regarding hand washing technique

Equation of Craft in India

Description ‘Equation of Craft in India’ is a design research project of Craft Future Lab, NID Ahmedabad, India under the collaborative effort of the International Centre for Indian Craft (ICIC), Dept. of Lifestyle Accessory Design (LAD), and Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab (NID DESIS Lab). The project was initiated and led by Prof. Amresh Panigrahi with his fellow 16 Master level Design students of the Department of LAD batch 2018 with the prime objective of attempting to understand the current dynamics in the Indian craft sector. The origin of crafts goes a long way back, to the Indus Valley civilization. It had its fair share of evolution through the centuries that followed from the Vedic, Mauryan, Mughal periods to the British colonization and the onset of industrialization. The crafts of India have gone through several impactful events with our relatively newfound Independent democratic country and its political and economic development. The current context of craft in the 20th century takes into account the social, economic and geopolitical setting of India with the presence of various global developments in technology, import-export scenario, travel and popular mass ideas. Here the System mapping is an attempt to represent the identified components and variables and interrelationship within the current system understanding of the craft sector in India. Craft in its essence Craft is a vital source of identity for the craftsman as it derived its meaning by its local acceptance in its socio-cultural fabric. It has developed through a long line of rich cultural heritage. The function of crafts varies from being utilitarian, ornamental to finding purposes in religious, ritualistic, and festival purposes. Crafts now are much more susceptible to cross-cultural influences of the increasing spread of media, the internet, and education. The Development Commissioner of Handicrafts (DCH), India defined crafts as ‘items made by hand, often with the use of simple tools and generally artistic and traditional. They include objects of utility and objects of decoration’. The three main confluence for the creation of a craft comes with (a) an artisan along with his ability working on (b) the raw materials with a little help from the (c) simple tools that aids where human abilities limit him. The craftsmen and the craft dynamics The four significant divisions of craftsmen based on their ability are – Master-craftsmen, Craftsmen, Apprentice, and newly joined. Master-craftsmen display the highest skill and bring novelty in the craft. Apart from the newly joined category of artisans, all other craftsmen majorly learn the craft from the master craftsperson or from within the family itself, passed down through the generations. It is a labour-intensive sector where artisans get less return in terms of money, recognition, value for craft for the much more investment they put into it. The investment may be in terms of effort, time, and the number of workforces. The real success of a craft is no more confined to the ability of the craftsperson’s skills, raw material and tools. It is the time that demands the market knowledge to make the craft a success. However, the craftsman abilities are currently limited with less market knowledge and mostly restricted to the boundaries of his craft understanding. Lack of knowledge, their struggle with the craft practices and its continuity became much more complicated, which forced them to switch to other jobs or to want a different life for their children. Initiatives at organising the sector The craft & cottage industry is the most significant non-agricultural decentralized sector of the Indian economy. In the wake of the government’s attempt to organize the sector and tap into its full potential, it works on multiple value chains of the craft sector. The government provides market platforms through multiple exhibitions, Haats, fairs and emporiums, wherein efforts are put into making the customer realize the cultural context of the craft. One of the major competitors in the market remains to be the mass-produced industrialized products flooding in domestically and also via imports from other neighbouring countries. Domestically, authentic craft loses its market to mass-produced fake craft due to its comfortable, cheaper availability. Protection of crafts ingenuity The fake market affected the craftsmen and the identity of the craft which led to government initiatives aimed at creating protection and preservation of craft’s ingenuity owing to the craftsmen and its community through the creation of geographical indication (GI) tag, Craftmark logo and also through handicraft census. With over 200 crafts GI tagged, it is beneficial to the owners as they can safeguard their products from unauthorized commercial use. Presence of the GI tag has still left some room for improvements for craftsman’s awareness and fight for their rights. The Craftmark logo is an initiative to provide a mark for genuine handicraft for the consumers to authenticate their purchase. Private exhibitions and museums purposefully created for documentation and preservation of the handicrafts. Role of design in craft innovation With above systematic study, the working groups further discovered various gaps as an opportunity for design-driven strategic intervention. Practice-based Design research facilitates the application of design strategies at various levels to imagine a craft social innovation and its sustainable future

Fractal Video Coding Using Fast Normalized Covariance Based Similarity Measure

Fast normalized covariance based similarity measure for fractal video compression with quadtree partitioning is proposed in this paper. To increase the speed of fractal encoding, a simplified expression of covariance between range and overlapped domain blocks within a search window is implemented in frequency domain. All the covariance coefficients are normalized by using standard deviation of overlapped domain blocks and these are efficiently calculated in one computation by using two different approaches, namely, FFT based and sum table based. Results of these two approaches are compared and they are almost equal to each other in all aspects, except the memory requirement. Based on proposed simplified similarity measure, gray level transformation parameters are computationally modified and isometry transformations are performed using rotation/reflection properties of IFFT. Quadtree decompositions are used for the partitions of larger size of range block, that is, 16 × 16, which is based on target level of motion compensated prediction error. Experimental result shows that proposed method can increase the encoding speed and compression ratio by 66.49% and 9.58%, respectively, as compared to NHEXS method with increase in PSNR by 0.41 dB. Compared to H.264, proposed method can save 20% of compression time with marginal variation in PSNR and compression ratio

Electrospray technique for cocrystallization of phytomolecules

Poor aqueous solubility of most of the phytomolecules has restricted their vital biological use. Cocrystal approach can be one of the remedies for the problem. The present work was carried out with an objective to screen the potential of electrospray technique towards cocrystallization of quercetin (QUE). QUE was cocrystallized with caffeine (CAF) and nicotinamide (NIC) as coformers. Saturated methanolic solutions of QUE with either of the coformers (CAF and NIC) in 1:1 ratio were electrosprayed at 40 °C. The technique was successfully used for cocrystallization of QUE with CAF and NIC separately as revealed by Powder X-ray Diffraction, Differential scanning calorimetry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies. Additionally, the results of saturation solubility study suggested 14 and 11 folds increase in solubility of QUE upon its cocrystallization with CAF and NIC respectively. Herein we propose a new technique for cocrystallization and in turn resolving solubility issues of phytomolecules which can be an alternative to the existing cocrystallisation techniques

Potential of Mimosa pudica leaf in the treatment of ulcerative colitis in rat

The aim of present investigation was to validate its folk use in the treatment of ulcerative colitis in the rat model. Sprague Dawley rats were divided into nine groups with six animals in each group. The rats received seven days of pretreatment with chloroform, ethyl acetate or ethanolic extract of Mimosa pudica. For induction of ulcerative colitis, rats were administered with 2 mL of 4% acetic acid solution intrarectally. Ulcer index, macroscopical study of the colon, myeloperoxidase and malondialdehyde levels in colon tissue and blood, and histopathology of the colon tissue were studied. Intrarectal instillation of acetic acid caused increased ulcer index, colonic myeloperoxidase and malondialdehyde. Pretreatment with M. pudica ethanolic extract (400 mg/kg) significantly lowered the ulcer index, colonic myeloperoxidase and malondialdehyde as compared with the standard drug prednisolone. The present investigation demonstrates that the ethanol extract of M. pudica leaf is effective in the treatment of ulcerative colitis. Video Clip of Methodology: Embedding or block making: 24 sec   Full Screen   Alternate Tissue processing: 19 sec   Full Screen   Alternate Section cutting: 33 sec   Full Screen   Alternat

Evaporation losses control in water surface by chemicals

The extremely high rate of Evaporation from water surfaces day by day is reducing the optimal utilization of water reservoirs. The work presented in this study aims to investing the use of Chemical films as Evapo retardars for reduction of evaporation from the open water surface so as to increase the storage efficiency. Particular emphasis will be on practical procedures and techniques that professionals can use to estimate and/or to suppress evaporation from shallow water bodies. The natural evaporation loss taking place from pan evaporimeters of two or more chemicals were observed and compared. The important meteorological factors affecting the natural evaporation such as Temperature, Relative Humidity, Wind Velocity, Sunshine Hours, etc. were also observed. Cetyl and Stearyl Alcohols were selected to reduce the evaporation during the study period in Newasa Phata Ahmednagar region with Class-A evaporation pan

Application of Digital (Motic) and Scanning electron microscope in histological study of leaf of Tecoma gaudichaudi DC (Bignoniaceae)

Tecoma gaudichaudi DC (Bignoniaceae) is a shrub or a small tree found in various regions of Maharashtra. The objective of the study was to develop various standardization parameters for the evaluation of leaves of this plant. Microscopy, powder characteristics and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of leaves were observed and results were recorded. Histological study of leaves shows underlined palisade cells on the upper epidermal surface, anomocytic stomata on the lower epidermis with covering (2–3 cells) and glandular trichomes etc. The specific observed characteristics such as types of stomata and trichomes were predominantly observed on the lower epidermal surface of the leaf. Physicochemical analysis such as extractive value includes petroleum ether, ethanol, ethyl acetate and aqueous soluble extractive values of 3.08, 10.50, 8.5, and 13.4% w/w respectively; extracts were analysed by chemical test and showed presence of flavonoids, tannins, steroids and triterpenoids etc. Fluorescence analysis is one of the parameters that help in the analysis of chemical constituents. So these parameters are useful in the authentication of T. gaudichaudi DC and can play a vital role in authentication and standardization of botanicals

Dataset on leaf surface and elemental study of four species of Bignoniaceae family by SEM-EDAX

The data presented in this article are related to the scanning electron microscope and elemental studies in the four species of Bignoniaceae namely Tecoma gaudichaudi DC (Sample 1), Tecoma capensis (Thunb.) Lindl. (Sample 2), Tecoma stans (L.) Juss.Ex Kunth (Sample 3), Tabebuia rosea (Bertol.) (Sample 4). The SEM images were obtained for permanent record. The abaxial and adaxial surfaces of each species were carefully studied. In addition to this, the consistent occurrence of anomocytic stomata in all four species of this family shows that morphological and taxonomically all the species are very close and intimate.The elemental data on leaf samples of all four species were performed and total eight important components were present such as C, O, Mg, Al, Si, Cl, K, Ca. These elements are useful, so identification of inorganic components of these species defiantly helps to promote as dietary elements. Keywords: Bignoniaceae, Tecoma, Tabebuia, Tecoma gaudichaudi DC, Tecoma capensis (Thunb.) Lindl, Tecoma stans (L.) Juss.ex Kunth, Tabebuia rosea (Bertol), Scanning electron microscopy, Elemental analysi