Knowledge and Adoption Level of Improved Technology among Rural Women owing to Extension Programmes

The study has assessed the impact of extension programmes on the adoption level of improved technologies in agriculture and animal husbandry in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh for the agricultural year 2002-03. A significant difference has been observed in the knowledge and adoption levels among SHG-beneficiary and non-beneficiary groups. The study has revealed that the importance or ranking attached to various agricultural practices has been almost the same by both the groups, though with a significant gap in the extent of their adoption. In cereals, timely harvesting, followed by seed selection and seed treatment are the most adopted practices by beneficiary group while seed selection, followed by timely harvesting and timely sowing are the preferred practices by non-beneficiaries. Chemical weed control, pre-sowing soil treatment, sowing in lines at proper spacing have been the most ignored practices, although the level of their adoption has been found higher among beneficiaries than non-beneficiaries. In the case of vegetables, use of HYVs and sowing in lines are commonly practised by both the groups. Seed treatment, soil treatment and proper spacing are the practices where maximum chasm has been observed among the two groups. Similarly, in the case of animal husbandry, a significant gap in the adoption level of various practices has been observed among both the groups. The study has inferred that the extension programmes organized by various extension agencies for SHGs constitute appropriate educational tools for the transfer of technology and raising the socio-economic status of rural people.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Telenursing - A Potential Resource in the eHealth Agenda of India

In spite of wide-ranging successes that have improved population health, the call of ‘health for all’ across the globe remains significant. In India, making provision for basic healthcare to all people is a difficult task because of its large and diverse geographical terrain, and huge ethnically and culturally diverse population. Telenursing could provide better access to healthcare in communities and ensure a more effective, comprehensive and acceptable relationship of trust within communities. The focus of this paper is on availability and utilization of healthcare service types and health human resources, and factors influencing healthcare seeking behaviour in marginalized communities, and to use these findings to discuss the potential of integrating telenursing into  planning as a stimulus for inter-professional and system-wide change. Methods: The availability and utilization of healthcare services through available health systems were explored in urban, rural, slum, and rehabilitated communities through a cross-sectional survey in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, India. Primary data were collected through structured interviews, observation, checklists, and periodic visits, including reasons for preference of a particular care system by consumers and factors affecting their health seeking behaviour. Results and Conclusions: All health systems studied had a limited scope of services. This lack of a suitable range of health services led consumers to seek traditional (unscientific) care for meeting their health needs. Telenursing could stem this trend by improving clinical outcomes for chronic diseases, and thereby safeguard the interests of consumers, reduce costs associated with long-term care or delayed institutionalization, and help prevent the global threat of non-treatable hospital acquired infections

A cutaneous malignant granular cell tumour: an uncommon entity with diagnostic challenge

Granular cell tumour (GCT) is rare and accounts for approximately 0.5% of all soft tissue tumours. The malignant GCT (MGCT) especially cutaneous malignant granular cell tumour is extremely rare constituting 1-2% of all granular cell tumours and mostly found in the subcutaneous soft tissues of lower exrtremities, especially thighs. The uncommon occurrence of cutaneous MGCT and their histopathological similarities with other entities make diagnosis difficult in some cases. Here we report a case of 36 years old male patient who presented with a mass in the skin of right lower abdominal wall which has been increased gradually over the last one year without pain. The size of the mass is approximately 6.5 cm in greatest dimension, firm in consistency with surface irregularity and ulceration diagnosed as malignant GCT at the histopathological examination showing focal ulceration and lined by keratinized stratified squamous epithelium revealing acanthosis and pseudoepitheliomatous hyperplasia. The dermis show neoplastic epithelioid cells arranged in sheets and nests with vesicular chromatin, conspicuous to prominent nucleoli, and abundant amount of fine granular eosinophillic cytoplasm. Mitosis is more than 2/10HP. Immunohistochemical stains for S-100, CD 68 and vimentin were positive in the lesional cells

Effectiveness of a module to promote competency in adverse drug reaction reporting in undergraduate medical students

Background: Adverse drug reaction (ADR) under-reporting is a hindrance to the implementation of Pharmacovigilance Program of India. This is essentially due to lack of ADR reporting culture among healthcare professionals. Thus, study was conducted to assess and enhance awareness about ADRs and strengthen reporting among medical undergraduates.Methods: This is an interventional crossover study. A total of 140 students of 2nd professional, MBBS were included and divided into two groups of 70 each. In phase 1, group A was given a didactic lecture (DL) on ADR and pharmacovigilance. Group B was also given DL with an addition of a case narrative exercise and they were asked to fill an ADR form. Both groups were assessed based on an MCQ questionnaire for knowledge and skill. After 15 days of washout period, groups were crossed and reassessed. Feedback from students was taken on a 5 point Likert’s scale.Results: The mean scores of batch A without case was 17.5±3 out of a total score of 25 marks, which showed improvement with case narrative and mean increased to 19.6± 2.4 (p 0.05). Similarly, Batch B showed improvement as well and the mean 17.7±3.1 score without case narrative increased to 19.2±2.7 (p <0.05). Student’s perception of the effectiveness of module-based teaching was positive.Conclusions: Case narrative in addition to didactic lecture enhanced awareness and may strengthen ADR reporting culture among the medical students

Inflationary Trends in India: A Pre and Post Reform Study

The present paper attempts to explore the nature, trends and patterns of inflation in India during 1980-2016. The selected time period has been trifurcated purposively into three-time spans namely, pre-reform period (1980-90), after reform period (1991-2000) and subsequent period (2001-16). The endeavour of the paper is to examine the dynamics of inflation over the three-time spans from 1980-2016 in the Indian economy. It has been found that the inflation, based on WPI and CPI, is continuously rising since 1980. Up to 1995, the trend in CPI and WPI were same and there was no significant difference between them. However, after 1995, CPI has recorded larger growth as compared to WPI. Such trend has also continued in the subsequent period. The study reveals that this trend may be attributed to change in the composition of WPI and CPI since weights of primary articles have declined in WPI whereas such weights have registered a considerable increase in the categories of manufacturing, fuel and power. The shift in weights overtime provides us with an indicator of the changing production and use pattern of the commodities in the Indian set up. Further, the weights of food items have reduced overtime in case of CPI and such weights have been increased in respect of clothing, housing and fuel. The changes witnessed in weights of CPI are indicators of a growing economy. This study further contributes in the available literature by comparing the patterns of Inflation in Pre and Post-reform Period

Spontaneous heterotopic pregnancy: a case report

Heterotopic pregnancy is defined as multiple gestation in which intrauterine and extrauterine gestational sacs co-exist. The extra uterine gestational sac is most commonly tubal ectopic pregnancy. We presented case of a 26 years old multigravida who presented to emergency with complaints of pain abdomen and giddiness for 2-3 days. She was at period of gestation (POG) 7 weeks and on clinical examination patient was anxious with mild pallor, mildly tachycardiac and blood pressure (BP) was 90/60 mm of Hg. After thorough clinical examination and sonography diagnosis of heterotopic pregnancy with ruptured tubal ectopic was made. She was taken up for Emergency laparotomy after investigations and consent. Left salpingectomy was done and she was discharged with a single intrauterine live pregnancy on 6th post op day. For early detection of cases of heterotopic pregnancy careful evaluation of adnexa is mandatory in early gestation scan

Governance Framework for Cloud Computing

In the current era of competitive business worldand stringent market share and revenue sustenance challenges,organizations tend to focus more on their core competencies ratherthan the functional areas that support the business. However,traditionally this has not been possible in the IT management areabecause the technologies and their underlying infrastructures aresignificantly complex thus requiring dedicated and sustained inhouse efforts to maintain IT systems that enable core businessactivities. Senior executives of organisations are forced in manycases to conclude that it is too cumbersome, expensive and timeconsuming for them to manage internal IT infrastructures. Thistakes the focus away from their core revenue making activities.This scenario facilitates the need for external infrastructurehosting, external service provision and outsourcing capability.This trend resulted in evolution of IT outsourcing models. Theauthors attempted to analyse the option of leveraging the cloudcomputing model to facilitate this common scenario. This paperinitially discusses the characteristics of cloud computing focusingon scalability and delivery as a service. The model is evaluatedusing two case scenarios, one is an enterprise client with30,000 worldwide customers followed by a small scale subjectmatter expertise through small to medium enterprise (SME)organisations. The paper evaluates the findings and developsa governance framework to articulate the value propositionof cloud computing.. The model takes into consideration thefinancial aspects, and the behaviors and IT control structures ofan IT organisation

TABU Search Based Cluster Head Selection in Stable Election Protocol

The clustering in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is one of the most important investigation areas. There are many cluster head selection algorithms which were developed before today. Tabu search based algorithms is developed to reduce the energy consumption and enhance the WSN life-time. The comparison is done among the SEP ,D-SEP,M-SEP and TABU based SEP in the wireless sensor network. The planned technique has the flexibility to beat the constraints of the SEP routing protocol by pattern clump and TABU search. The comparison square measure drawn among the current and planned techniques. The comparisons has clearly shown that the planned technique outperforms over the on the market technique

Cloud Computing Tipping Point Model

Recently a continuing trend toward ITindustrialization has grown in popularity. IT services deliveredvia hardware, software and people are becoming repeatableand usable by a wide range of customers and service providers.This is due, in part, to the commoditization and standardizationof technologies, virtualization and the rise of service-orientedsoftware architectures, and (most importantly) the dramaticgrowth in popularity/use of the Internet and the Web. Takentogether, they constitute the basis of a discontinuity that amountsto a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those whouse IT services and those who sell them. The discontinuity impliesthat the ability to deliver specialised services in IT can be pairedwith the ability to deliver those services in an industrialised andpervasive way. The reality of this implication is that users of ITrelatedservices can focus on what the services provide them, ratherthan how the services are implemented or hosted. Analogous tohow utility companies sell power to subscribers, and telephonecompanies sell voice and data services, some IT services suchas network security management, data centre hosting or evendepartmental billing can now be easily delivered as a contractualservice. This notion of cloud computing capability is gatheringmomentum rapidly. However, the governance and enterprisearchitecture to obtain repeatable, scalable and secure businessoutcomes from cloud computing is still greatly undefined.This paper attempts to evaluate the enterprise architecturefeatures of cloud computing and investigates a model that an ITorganisation can leverage to predict / evaluate the ‘tipping point’where an organisation can make an objective decision to investin cloud computing. Current research results are attempting tobuild a quantitative and qualitative service centric frameworkby mapping cloud computing features with ValIT and COBITindustry best practices