Investigation of the Effect of Pore Size on Mechanical Properties of Open Cell Aluminium Foam Structure

Al foams with different pore size were developed through infiltration process by foundry technology and characterization of the developed Al foams for their density, porosity and compression strength. Al foams were produced through infiltration process by open metal die casting using soil granules of different diameter as space holder particles (SHP). The SHP balls were removed from the Al foam by water jet along with vibration. The density and porosity were measured by theoretically and experimentally. The compression tests were conducted on developed Al foams of different densities using universal testing machine. Developed Al foam density varies from 0.9g/cc to 1.2g/cc, the porosity varies from 54% to 65% and compressive behaviour showed the plateaus stress was directly proportional to SHP ball size in Al foams

An unusual case of anti-neutrophilic cytoplasmic autoantibodies associated vasculitis with pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis in young? Wegener’s? Churg Strauss

Anti-neutrophilic cytoplasmic autoantibodies-associated vasculitis (AAV) is very rare in India. It normally affects older population around 6th and 7th decade of life. The management of cases is also complicated. We present a case of 18 year old male patient who came with complaints of epistaxis and had hematuria and pain in the joints. He had sub conjunctival haemorrhage on presentation. On and off he had respiratory symptoms and epistaxis in the past for which he was treated as allergy and bronchial asthma. At admission he had high absolute eosinophil count and had blood 3+ positive in urine. Initially he was treated as post viral vasculitis. But patient had involvement of kidney, lung, skin, joints, eyes and on further evaluation he was found to have AAV. The case was unique due to the age of presentation and patient also had overlapping symptoms of both Wegner’s granulomatosis and Churg-Strauss syndrome

New approaches to measuring anthelminthic drug efficacy: parasitological responses of childhood schistosome infections to treatment with praziquantel

By 2020, the global health community aims to control and eliminate human helminthiases, including schistosomiasis in selected African countries, principally by preventive chemotherapy (PCT) through mass drug administration (MDA) of anthelminthics. Quantitative monitoring of anthelminthic responses is crucial for promptly detecting changes in efficacy, potentially indicative of emerging drug resistance. Statistical models offer a powerful means to delineate and compare efficacy among individuals, among groups of individuals and among populations.; We illustrate a variety of statistical frameworks that offer different levels of inference by analysing data from nine previous studies on egg counts collected from African children before and after administration of praziquantel.; We quantify responses to praziquantel as egg reduction rates (ERRs), using different frameworks to estimate ERRs among population strata, as average responses, and within strata, as individual responses. We compare our model-based average ERRs to corresponding model-free estimates, using as reference the World Health Organization (WHO) 90 % threshold of optimal efficacy. We estimate distributions of individual responses and summarize the variation among these responses as the fraction of ERRs falling below the WHO threshold.; Generic models for evaluating responses to anthelminthics deepen our understanding of variation among populations, sub-populations and individuals. We discuss the future application of statistical modelling approaches for monitoring and evaluation of PCT programmes targeting human helminthiases in the context of the WHO 2020 control and elimination goals

<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family: Mangal;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language: HI" lang="EN-GB">Elevated levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids highlight the nutritional value of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ulva covalengensis, </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">a<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>marine dietary alga found in south India.</span></span>

120-124<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:="" mangal;mso-ansi-language:en-gb;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:="" hi"="" lang="EN-GB">Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is applied to examine the relative levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in two species of coastally-derived edible algae Ulva covalengensis and Enteromorpha flexuosa and compared their profiles with those of non-edible algae Chaetomorpha antennina and Grateloupia lithophyla. Present study reveals elevated levels of fatty acids in Ulva covalengensis that included higher levels of arachadonic acid, the precursor of prostaglandin, source of energy and component of cell membranes. </span

Ore petrology of the V-Ti magnetite (lodestone) layers of the Kurihundi area of Sargur schist belt, Dharwar craton

The V-Ti magnetite layers (lodestone) occur within the layered gabbro-anorthosites-ultramafic rocks emplaced into the migmatitic gneisses close to the high grade Archeaen Sargur supracrustal rocks in the Kurihundi area. The ore petrographic studies of the lodestone reveal the presence of primary Ti-magnetite, ilmenite, ulvospinel, pleonaste, hematite and pyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite and secondary Ti-maghemite, martite and goethite as well as secondary covellite. These layers contain Ti-magnetite (60%) and ilmenite (30%) with silicates (< 5%) exhibiting granular mosaic texture with well-defined triple junctions and are classified as adcumulus rocks. The grain-boundary relationships in the ores indicate considerable postcumulus growth and readjustment due to combined effects of sintering and adcumulus growth. Intergrowth textures (ulvospinel, ilmenite and pleonaste in Ti-magnetite and hematite in ilmenite) reflects exsolution features crystallized from solid-solutions compositions under different conditions of oxygen fugacities. Larger bodies of pleonaste and ilmenite in Ti-magnetite become lensoid or rounded in outline and these morphological modifications took place during the regional upper amphibolite to lower granulite facies metamorphism at 2.6 Ga ago. The lodestone contains high TiO(2) (20 to 22.59 wt%), with V(2)O(5) (0.85 to 1.15%) and Fe(2)O(3) (t) (72.03 to 74.25%). Ti-magnetite shows alteration to Ti-maghemite, martite and goethite due to low temperature oxidation and hydration during weathering

Acute nontraumatic upper limb ischaemia: A protocol for management

Aim: To determine the role of different modalities available and draw guidelines for the treatment of acute ischaemia of the upper limb. Materials and Method: This is a retrospective study carried out over a period of 7 years between 1994-2000 comparing embolectomy with thrombolytic therapy for upper limb ischaemia. Twenty-two patients presenting with acute upper limb ischaemia admitted in this hospital were studied. Their age, sex distribution, symptoms and associated medical illnesses were documented. Pain was the predominant symptom in most of them. The underlying causes were treated accordingly in the form of excision of cervical rib or high first rib, angioplasty and stenting. Results: The overall success rate was 91% (n = 20) with an amputation rate of 9%. In the surgical group (ten patients), seven patients responded well. Two patients recovered with further thrombolytic therapy. One patient underwent amputation. In the thrombolytic therapy group (ten patients), six patients responded to thrombolytic therapy alone. The rest of them recovered with further embolectomy. Conclusion: Thrombolytic therapy can thus be the first modality of treatment for acute nontraumatic upper limb ischaemia if the limb is viable

Acute nontraumatic upper limb ischaemia: A protocol for management

Aim: To determine the role of different modalities available and draw guidelines for the treatment of acute ischaemia of the upper limb. Materials and Method: This is a retrospective study carried out over a period of 7 years between 1994-2000 comparing embolectomy with thrombolytic therapy for upper limb ischaemia. Twenty-two patients presenting with acute upper limb ischaemia admitted in this hospital were studied. Their age, sex distribution, symptoms and associated medical illnesses were documented. Pain was the predominant symptom in most of them. The underlying causes were treated accordingly in the form of excision of cervical rib or high first rib, angioplasty and stenting. Results: The overall success rate was 91% (n = 20) with an amputation rate of 9%. In the surgical group (ten patients), seven patients responded well. Two patients recovered with further thrombolytic therapy. One patient underwent amputation. In the thrombolytic therapy group (ten patients), six patients responded to thrombolytic therapy alone. The rest of them recovered with further embolectomy. Conclusion: Thrombolytic therapy can thus be the first modality of treatment for acute nontraumatic upper limb ischaemia if the limb is viable

Modelling of the interfacial damping due to nanotube agglomerations in nanocomposites

Nanocomposites reinforced with carbon nanotube fibers exhibit greater stiffness, strength and damping properties in comparison to conventional composites reinforced with carbon/glass fibers. Consequently, most of the nanocomposite research is focused in understanding the dynamic characteristics, which are highly useful in applications such as vibration control and energy harvesting. It has been observed that those nanocomposites show better stiffness when the geometry of nanotubes is straight as compared to curvilinear although nanotube agglomeration may exist. In this work the damping behavior of the nanocomposite is characterized in terms of loss factor under the presence of nanotube agglomerations. A micro stick-slip damping model is used to compute the damping properties of the nanocomposites with multiwall carbon nanotubes. The present formulation considers the slippage between the interface of the matrix and the nanotubes as well as the slippage between the interlayers in the nanotubes. The nanotube agglomerations model is also presented. Results are computed based on the loss factor expressed in terms of strain amplitude and nanotube agglomerations. The results show that although - among the various factors such as the material properties (moduli of nanotubes and polymer matrix) and the geometric properties (number of nanotubes, volume fraction of nanotubes, and critical interfacial shear stresses), the agglomeration of nanotubes significantly influences the damping properties of the nanocomposites. Therefore the full potential of nanocomposites to be used for damping applications needs to be analyzed under the influence of nanotube agglomerations

Statistical approach to measure the efficacy of anthelmintic treatment on horse farms. Parasitology 134

Resistance to anthelmintics in gastrointestinal nematodes of livestock is a serious problem and appropriate methods are required to identify and quantify resistance. However, quantification and assessment of resistance depend on an accurate measure of treatment efficacy, and current methodologies fail to properly address the issue. The fecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) is the practical gold standard for measuring anthelmintic efficacy on farms, but these types of data are fraught with high variability that greatly impacts the accuracy of inference on efficacy. This paper develops a statistical model to measure, assess, and evaluate the efficacy of the anthelmintic treatment on horse farms as determined by FECRT. Novel robust bootstrap methods are developed to analyse the data and are compared to other suggested methods in the literature in terms of Type I error and power. The results demonstrate that the bootstrap methods have an optimal Type I error rate and high power to detect differences between the presumed and true efficacy without the need to know the true distribution of pre-treatment egg counts. Finally, data from multiple farms are studied and statistical models developed that take into account between-farm variability. Our analysis establishes that if inter-farm variability is not taken into account, misleading conclusions about resistance can be made