Narrative, Sensemaking, and Improvisation in Participatory Hypermedia Construction

In this paper we describe research into a form of practitioner sensemaking in the context of participatory hypermedia construction sessions, in which groups of people build knowledge maps. We discuss how constructs from narrative theory and improvisation have helped us understand what happens at the moments when practitioners encounter dilemmas and obstacles. We provide brief examples from case studies and discuss possible contributions to broader themes in sensemaking research

Adoption Behaviour of Cashew Growers in Cuddalore District

India has a creditable record of attaining good amount of foreign exchange by way of export of cashew kernels. Among the Agri-Horticultural commodities getting exported fromIndia cashew ranks the 2nd position. The main objective of the study was to analyse the relationship of socio-personal and socio-psychological characteristics with their level ofadoption.The study was conducted in four village of Virudhachalam block of Cuddalore district. The sample size consisted of 120 cashew growers under NHM. Proportionaterandom sampling procedure was employed in selecting the respondents. The extent of adoption of different cultural practices taught in NHM training programmes was studiedthrough a teacher made test and that majority (65 %) of the respondents exhibited high level of adoption of technologies taught in NHM training programme

Breastfeeding patterns and risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) was investigated in relation to breastfeeding patterns in the Northern California Childhood Leukaemia Study. Data collected by self-administered and in-person questionnaires from biological mothers of leukaemia cases (age 0-14 years) in the period 1995-2002 were matched to birth certificate controls on date of birth, sex, Hispanic ethnic status, and maternal race. Ever compared to never breastfeeding was not associated with risk of ALL at ages 1-14 years (odds ratio=0.99; 95% CI=0.64-1.55) and ages 2-5 years (OR=1.49; 95% CI=0.83-2.65). Various measures of breastfeeding duration compared to absence of breastfeeding also had no significant effect on risk. Complimentary feeding characteristics such as type of milk/formula used and age started eating solid foods among breastfed children were not associated with ALL risk. This study provides no evidence that breastfeeding affects the occurrence of childhood ALL

Engaging Citizens with Televised Election Debates through Online Interactive Replays

In this paper we tackle the crisis of political trust and public engagement with politics by investigating new methods and tools to watch and take part in televised political debates. The paper presents relevant research at the intersection of citizenship, technologies and government/democracy, and describes the motivation, requirements and design of Democratic Replay, an online interactive video replay platform that offers a persistent, customisable digital space for: (a) members of the public to express their views as they watch online videos of political events; and (b) enabling for a richer collective understanding of what goes on in these complex media events

Two issues concerning the analysis of grouped data

Simple statistical models are used to illustrate two important issues arising in the analysis of grouped data. The consequences are explored of grouping continuous data and analyzing the resulting contingency table. Specifically, an expression for the loss of power is derived when an odds ratio is used to assess risk measured by a continuous variable. Also explored are the consequences of employing correlation and regression coefficients to analyze summary variables derived from grouped data (ecologic data). An expression is given that demonstrates the magnitude of a bias (ecologic fallacy) resulting from analyzing a specific type of grouped data. 5 refs., 2 figs

Bottle-nose dolphin stranded at Kovalam in Kerala

On 5th September 1998, an Indian bottle-nose dolphin {Tursiops truncatus aduncus Ehrenberg. 1833) was washed ashore at Ashoka beach in Kovalam

A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION ON THE EFFECT OF ZINC-PROBIOTIC AND PROBIOTIC THERAPY IN PAEDIATRIC ACUTE DIARRHOEA AND THE IMPACT OF COUNSELLING OF MOTHERS

Objective: To compare the efficacy of zinc-probiotic combination therapy and probiotic therapy alone in the treatment of acute paediatric diarrhoea and to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of the mothers of affected children and the impact of counselling on diarrhoea management.Methods: A prospective observational comparative study was conducted from October 2014 to March 2015 in the paediatric department of Cosmopolitan Hospitals Pvt. Ltd., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, South India. The study was carried out on 150 patients between the ages of 3 mo to 12 y. The selected patients were divided into 2 groups of 75 members each. Initially, demographic data, details of socioeconomic status, severity, duration and frequency of diarrhoea and the presence of other associated symptoms and KAP of mothers before and after counselling was collected by using specially designed proforma. Group 1 patients received zinc and probiotic and Group 2 received probiotic only by oral administration. All children in both groups received sufficient quantity of oral rehydration solution (ORS). The requirement of other medications and adverse effects were also monitored.Results: The study revealed that, in group 1, 54.6% of patients were males and in group 2, 58.6% were females. The mean age of affected children was 5.14±3.53. In both groups, the majority of patients were from outpatient (OP) departments. In group 1, majority of patients, 49.3% were resting in upper lower economic class followed by 30.7% were lower middle class. In the case of group 2, 34.6% patients were from lower middle and 28% were from upper middle class. Other medications such as antiemetic and antipyretic were administered to 127and 110 patients respectively. Antisecretory and antibiotic were administered to 31 and 26 patients respectively. Totally 8 patients were affected with adverse drug reactions such as rashes and swelling of lips. In both groups severity of diarrhoea was high before treatment and it was changed after effective treatment with drugs. Comparing with group 2, the duration and severity of diarrhoea and other associated symptoms in group 1 patients were significantly reduced after treatment. Before counseling, the majority of mothers had very poor knowledge about the diarrhoeal disease and its management. Evaluation after counselling showed a significant improvement.Conclusion: Low socioeconomic life is a risk factor for diarrhoea. A combination of zinc and probiotic therapy is more effective than probiotic therapy alone in the treatment of acute diarrhoea and vomiting in children. The emergence and severity of the diarrhoeal disease can be reduced by effective clinical pharmacist interventions, and a great emphasis is needed in the counselling and education of mothers about this disease and its management.Keywords: Paediatric diarrhoea, Zinc, Probiotic, KAP, Counselling and educatio

Nearest neighbor analysis in one dimension

Since its initial presentation by Clark and Evans, nearest neighbor analysis for spatial randomness has gained considerable popularity in fields as diverse as geography, ecology, archaeology, cell biology, forestry, meteorology, and epidemiology. Epidemiologists are often interested in determining whether disease cases are clustered, dispersed, or randomly distributed, since different patterns of disease incidence over time or space can provide dues to the etiology of the disease. An environmental hazard or a transmissable agent can produce a cluster of disease events, i.e. a set of events occurring unusually dose to each other in time, space, or both time and space. In spite of its wide applicability, few attempts have been made to adapt the nearest neighbor method to the analysis of points distributed along a line. This report outlines the theoretical derivation of the moments of the mean nearest neighbor distance in the one dimension case and the correction of its expected value in order to overcome the boundary problem. It presents the derivation of the moments of order statistics, for specific sample sizes and for the general case. These results are then used for the derivation of the moments of nearest neighbor distances, and for the derivation of the moments of the mean nearest neighbor distance. Then the boundary problem and an examination of five alternative ways to compensate for it in the calculation of the expected value of the mean nearest neighbor distance are discussed. Finally, the results from a large scale computer simulation which compares the various correction methods are presented

Dear learner: Participatory visualisation of learning data for sensemaking

© 2017 ACM. We discuss the application of a hand-drawn self-visualization approach to learner-data, to draw attention to the space of representational possibilities, the power of representation interactions, and the performativity of information representation

Antagonistic Potentials of Marine Sponge Associated Fungi Aspergillus clavatus MFD15

Abstract: The development of resistance to multiple drugs is a major problem in the treatment of these infectious diseases. Multidrug Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Candida sp, the major infectious agents have been recently reported in quite a large number of studies. With more intensive studies for natural therapies, marine-derived products have been a promising source for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds. A total of 45 marine fungi were isolated from the two sponges F. cavernosa and D. nigra were screened for antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. The novel basal media formulated in the present study resulted in increased frequency of fungal isolates when compared to all other media used in the present study. The cell free supernatant of fungi exhibiting the broad spectrum of activity was subjected to chemical analysis using different chromatographic systems including TLC, Column and GC-MS. Of the 15 fungal strains, 20% (3 strains) showed potential antagonistic activity against a panel of clinical pathogens used in the present study. Based on the antimicrobial activity of the isolates, Aspergillus clavatus MFD15 was recorded as potent producer displaying 100% activity against the tested pathogenic organisms. The TLC of the crude ethyl acetate extract produced 3 spots with Rf values of 0.20, 0.79 and 0.95, respectively. The active TLC fraction was purified in column chromatography which yielded 50 fractions. The active column fractions were combined and analyzed with FT-IR, UV-Vis and GC-MS. The chemical analysis of the active compound envisaged the active compound to be a triazole, 1H-1,2,4 Triazole 3-carboxaldehyde 5-methyl. The triazolic compound was bacteriostic for S. aureus and bactericidal for E. coli. The triazole treated fabric showed 50% reduction in the growth of E. coli, S. aureus, and S. epidermidis. Thus the purified compound can find a place in the database for the development of fabrics with antimicrobial properties. This is the first report that envisaged the production of triazole antimicrobial compound from sponge associated marine fungi from the Indian coast