Teaching of Critical Analysis of Drug Advertisements to Medical Students

Background: Medical practitioners utilize drug promotional materials from pharmaceutical companies as a major source of information especially in developing countries. These promotional materials can be highly informative as long as they are critically appraised but when they are accepted without question, they lead to irrational prescribing. Aim: To sensitize the students regarding WHO criteria for medicinal drug promotion and to determine the impact of teaching critical appraisal of medicinal drug promotion to medical students. Design: The medical students of second year were given a pre test questionnaire to identify the violations in generic labeling, pharmacological information, claims, relevance and references cited in the drug advertisements. Later they were sensitized about the WHO criteria for medicinal drug promotion and how to critically appraise a drug advertisement. This was followed by a post test questionnaire with the same drug advertisement. Result: The number of students answering the post test correctly was significantly (p<0.05) more than that of pre test. Conclusion: Education of medical students regarding critical analysis of drug advertisements should be a part of the medical curriculum

General relativistic treatment of LISA optical links

LISA is a joint space mission of the NASA and the ESA for detecting low frequency gravitational waves in the band $10^{-5} - 1$ Hz. In order to attain the requisite sensitivity for LISA, the laser frequency noise must be suppressed below the other secondary noises such as the optical path noise, acceleration noise etc. This is achieved by combining time-delayed data for which precise knowledge of time-delays is required. The gravitational field, mainly that of the Sun and the motion of LISA affect the time-delays and the optical links. Further, the effect of the gravitational field of the Earth on the orbits of spacecraft is included. This leads to additional flexing over and above that of the Sun. We have written a numerical code which computes the optical links, that is, the time-delays with great accuracy $\sim 10^{-2}$ metres - more than what is required for time delay interferometry (TDI) - for most of the orbit and with sufficient accuracy within $\sim 10$ metres for an integrated time window of about six days, when one of the arms tends to be tangent to the orbit. Our analysis of the optical links is fully general relativistic and the numerical code takes into account effects such as the Sagnac, Shapiro delay, etc.. We show that with the deemed parameters in the design of LISA, there are symmetries inherent in the configuration of LISA and in the physics, which may be used effectively to suppress the residual laser noise in the modified first generation TDI. We demonstrate our results for some important TDI variables

Metamorphosis of the Hermit crab Diogenes diogenes(Herbst)(Decapoda, Anomura) in the Laboratory

Berried female was obtained from trawlers operating in the ' Karwar bay, west coast of India. The depths sampled by the otter trawl dunng tIlls tow varied from 10 to 15 fm. The specimen was maintained alive in aquaria with filtered sea water until the larvae were release

Larval Development of the Xanthid Crab, Ozius rugulosus rugulosus Stimpson (Decapoda, Brachyura) under Laboratory Conditions

The present paper deals with the complete life history, comprising 4 zoeal and a megalopa stages as observed in the laboratory, of O. rugulosus rugulosus Stimpson one of the two species recorded from the Indian region

Time Delay Interferometry for LISA with one arm dysfunctional

In order to attain the requisite sensitivity for LISA - a joint space mission of the ESA and NASA- the laser frequency noise must be suppressed below the secondary noises such as the optical path noise, acceleration noise etc. By combining six appropriately time-delayed data streams containing fractional Doppler shifts - a technique called time delay interferometry (TDI) - the laser frequency noise may be adequately suppressed. We consider the general model of LISA where the armlengths vary with time, so that second generation TDI are relevant. However, we must envisage the possibility, that not all the optical links of LISA will be operating at all times, and therefore, we here consider the case of LISA operating with two arms only. As shown earlier in the literature, obtaining even approximate solutions of TDI to the general problem is very difficult. Since here only four optical links are relevant, the algebraic problem simplifies considerably. We are then able to exhibit a large number of solutions (from mathematical point of view an infinite number) and further present an algorithm to generate these solutions

Optimising the directional sensitivity of LISA

It was shown in a previous work that the data combinations canceling laser frequency noise constitute a module - the module of syzygies. The cancellation of laser frequency noise is crucial for obtaining the requisite sensitivity for LISA. In this work we show how the sensitivity of LISA can be optimised for a monochromatic source - a compact binary - whose direction is known, by using appropriate data combinations in the module. A stationary source in the barycentric frame appears to move in the LISA frame and our strategy consists of "coherently tracking" the source by appropriately "switching" the data combinations so that they remain optimal at all times. Assuming that the polarisation of the source is not known, we average the signal over the polarisations. We find that the best statistic is the `network' statistic, in which case LISA can be construed of as two independent detectors. We compare our results with the Michelson combination, which has been used for obtaining the standard sensitivity curve for LISA, and with the observable obtained by optimally switching the three Michelson combinations. We find that for sources lying in the ecliptic plane the improvement in SNR increases from 34% at low frequencies to nearly 90% at around 20 mHz. Finally we present the signal-to-noise ratios for some known binaries in our galaxy. We also show that, if at low frequencies SNRs of both polarisations can be measured, the inclination angle of the plane of the orbit of the binary can be estimated.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys Rev