An Assessment of Knowledge and Practices Regarding Tuberculosis in the Context of RNTCP Among Non Allopathic Practitioners in Gwalior District

Introduction: India has the highest TB burden accounting for one-fifth of the global incidence with an estimated 1.98 million cases. Non- allopathic practitioners are the major service providers especially in rural and peri-urban areas, treating not just patients of diarrhea, respiratory infections and abdominal Pain but also of tuberculosis. Objectives: To assess the knowledge of sign and symptoms of TB and its management as per the RNTCP guidelines and to assess the practicing pattern regarding tuberculosis. Material & Methods: The present was carried out among the registered non allopathic practitioners providing their services in Gwalior District during the study period. A total of 150 non allopathic practitioners of various methods from both government and private sectors were interviewed using a pre-designed, pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. The information was collected on the General profile of the participant, knowledge about signs and symptoms of TB and its management, practices commonly adopted in the management and their views on involvement of non allopathic practitioners in RNTCP programme. Result: The average score of government practitioners was 7.3 compared to 4.6 by private practitioners. There was a statistically significant difference between the two group on issue related to the management of TB patients as per the RNTCP guidelines. Government practitioners relied mostly on sputum examination for diagnosis and follow up compared to private practitioners who chose other modalities like X-ray, blood examination for this work. Conclusion: There is a gap in knowledge and practices of practitioners of both the sectors. Some serious efforts were required to upgrade the knowledge of non allopathic practitioners if the government is serious about controlling tuberculosis in India

Nodular Fasciitis of Neck in Childhood.

Nodular fasciitis, is a benign, pseudo sarcomatous proliferative lesion of the soft tissue, which is frequently misinterpreted as sarcoma, both clinically and microscopically. It is a reactive lesion composed of fibroblasts/myofibroblasts and most commonly found in extremities and trunk. NF has been described in the head and neck region in 10-20% of cases. Many pathologists do not consider NF in the differential diagnosis of soft tissue masses arising in the Head neck region. NF that occurs in otherwise healthy individuals usually presents with a history of rapid growth, and is commonly found in the upper extremities and on the chest and trunk. The importance of otolaryngologists being aware of the existence of this entity in this area of the body is stressed. It has a confirmed perfectly benign clinical course, and simple excision, as tissue-sparing as possible, is the treatment of choice. A case of NF over the neck in a 05-year-old female not associated with trauma who presented with a localized mass over her left neck is presented

Prospects of digital information system and services in National Metallurgical Laboratory (CSIR), Jamshedpur

NML library plays a pivotal role in the development of R&D in particular and society in general by providing information in the field of Metallurgy and Materials Science.It was established in 26th November 1950 at Jamshedpur, Jharkhand (Earst While Bihar). The Library has helped to carry out basic and applied research in the field of Metallurgy, Materials Science and allied discipline. One can find here a Bound Volume journals of 1891 to latest on-line database pertaining to on going research. The Information Technology has changed the complexion of library in a big way with the current thrust on availability of the latest information for Research and Development .In order to make automation, the manual information storage and retrieval system is currently being converted into digitised form by using AURUM-version-4.The secondary source is supposed to be Bible for R&D Library is being currently provided on optical media..To access the database on Internet,the useful World Wide Web has been identified and free information provided by information society has been downloaded on Intranet. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, this year it started to procure Electronic Journal from Elsevier publication and we are getting the same on electronic mode. The present paper discusses various factors involved in transformation of traditional libraries into electronic one and discuss the information available on Internet fall in the NML domain

Aggressive Fibromatosis in Neck.

Aggressive fibromatosis (AF) is a locally aggressive infiltrative low-grade benign tumor that accounts for approximately less than 3% of all soft tissue tumors. In the head and neck region this tumor tends to be more aggressive and associated with significant morbidity. Aggressive surgery is a viable management option and may be successfully used as a single modality treatment, or in combination with radiotherapy. We report a rare case of AF in a 38 year old female, who presented with a painless mass over the left supraclavicular fossa, extending inferiorly into the thoracic inlet, which was excised successfully in toto with the help of cardiothoracic vascular surgeon (CTVS)

Secure state estimation against sensor attacks in the presence of noise

We consider the problem of estimating the state of a noisy linear dynamical system when an unknown subset of sensors is arbitrarily corrupted by an adversary. We propose a secure state estimation algorithm, and derive (optimal) bounds on the achievable state estimation error given an upper bound on the number of attacked sensors. The proposed state estimator involves Kalman filters operating over subsets of sensors to search for a sensor subset which is reliable for state estimation. To further improve the subset search time, we propose Satisfiability Modulo Theory-based techniques to exploit the combinatorial nature of searching over sensor subsets. Finally, as a result of independent interest, we give a coding theoretic view of attack detection and state estimation against sensor attacks in a noiseless dynamical system