Manipulating polarized light with a planar slab of Black Phosphorus

Wave polarization contains valuable information for electromagnetic signal processing and the ability to manipulate it can be extremely useful in photonic devices. In this work, we propose designs comprised of one of the emerging and interesting two-dimensional media: Black Phosphorus. Due to substantial in-plane anisotropy, a single slab of Black Phosphorus can be very efficient for manipulating the polarization state of electromagnetic waves. We investigate Black Phosphorus slabs that filter the fields along one direction, or polarization axis rotation, or convert linear polarization to circular. These slabs can be employed as components in numerous mid-IR integrated devices

Consumption pattern of gabapentinoids in a tertiary health-care system: a five year study from 2012-2017

Background: Treating chronic pain has always been a great challenge for the treating physician. As the available pharmacotherapy do not always yield desired results, wider armamentarium is needed in tackling the chronic pain. Hence gabapentinoids are often considered, but it has led to widespread off label use of these groups of medications. Hence a study of consumption pattern was carried out to assess the usage of gabapentinoids.Methods: The consumption pattern of gabapentinoids (gabapentin/ pregabalin/ any combination) was recorded from the medical stores and dispensary of tertiary care teaching hospital.Results: There is an upward trend in the usage of all gabapentinoids between 2012 to 2017 and pregabalin was seen to be the commonly used gabapentinoid. In the recent years apart from individual gabapentinoids there is a trend favoring use of FDCs of gabapentinoids with nortryptyline and methylcobalamine.Conclusions: The increase in the usage pattern should alarm us to look into the off label uses of gabapentinoids. As there is a possibility of abuse and misuse of gabapentinoids clear guidelines regarding the same is the need of the hour

Adherence to treatment in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients receiving multiple drug therapy

Background: objective of the study was to evaluate adherence to therapy and factors associated with non-adherence in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients on multiple drug therapy.Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional, questionnaire based study conducted on 100 type 2 DM patients in a tertiary teaching hospital. They were interviewed using self-designed, semi-structured questionnaire to assess adherence to medication and diet/exercise schedule. Morisky medication adherence questionnaire was used to calculate overall adherence.Results: 71%patients had some co-morbidity and were on multiple medications. Average daily modifications taken by patients was 4.1±2.23 (mean+SD). Only 47% patients were found adherent. Illiteracy (11%), Language (10%), complicated dosages (8%), adverse drug events (6%), heavy outpatient load (6%), psychological illness (6%), and financial (4%) were common reasons for non-adherence. Surprisingly, total number of medicines prescribed did not interfere with adherence.58% patients were aware of the importance of medication, diet and exercise but 42% patients were not aware of the consequences of non-adherence. 65% patients adhered to diet control and 43% patients followed exercise schedule.Conclusions: 53% of type 2 DM patients on multi-drug therapy were not adhering to prescribed medication making it a major hurdle to its management. The most important cause of non adherence were not comprehending instructions due to various reasons like illiteracy, language issues, complicated schedules and less doctor-patient interaction due to heavy OPDs. Also 42% of the patients were not aware of the consequences of non adherence to therapy, diet and exercise. Hence, a multidimensional approach with adequate medication and emphasis on adherence to prescribed medication, diet and exercise schedule requires implemented. Health professionals can play a major role in improving adherence by increasing interaction with patients

Ovarian cancer plasticity and epigenomics in the acquisition of a stem-like phenotype

Aggressive epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is genetically and epigenetically distinct from normal ovarian surface epithelial cells (OSE) and early neoplasia. Co-expression of epithelial and mesenchymal markers in EOC suggests an involvement of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in cancer initiation and progression. This phenomenon is often associated with acquisition of a stem cell-like phenotype and chemoresistance that correlate with the specific gene expression patterns accompanying transformation, revealing a plasticity of the ovarian cancer cell genome during disease progression

VOICE RECOGNITION SECURITY SYSTEM USING MEL-FREQUENCY CEPSTRUM COEFFICIENTS

ABSTRACTObjective: Voice Recognition is a fascinating field spanning several areas of computer science and mathematics. Reliable speaker recognition is a hardproblem, requiring a combination of many techniques; however modern methods have been able to achieve an impressive degree of accuracy. Theobjective of this work is to examine various speech and speaker recognition techniques and to apply them to build a simple voice recognition system.Method: The project is implemented on software which uses different techniques such as Mel frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC), VectorQuantization (VQ) which are implemented using MATLAB.Results: MFCC is used to extract the characteristics from the input speech signal with respect to a particular word uttered by a particular speaker. VQcodebook is generated by clustering the training feature vectors of each speaker and then stored in the speaker database.Conclusion: Verification of the speaker is carried out using Euclidian Distance. For voice recognition we implement the MFCC approach using softwareplatform MatlabR2013b.Keywords: Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficient, Vector quantization, Voice recognition, Hidden Markov model, Euclidean distance

Quality improvement in home-based child care settings: Research resources to inform policy

This Topic of Interest provides a comprehensive list of research in the Research Connections collection that was published in 2005 or later addressing issues related to quality improvement specifically in home-based child care. The resources are grouped under the following headings: Overviews, Summaries, and Reviews of Quality Improvement Strategies & Interventions that Included Home-Based Child Care; Evaluations of Specific Quality Improvement Strategies & Interventions that Included Home-Based Child Care; Evaluations of QRIS Quality Improvement Interventions that Included Home-Based Child Care; Measuring Quality in Home-Based Child Care Settings; Factors Affecting Quality and Participation in Quality Improvement in Home-Based Child Care Settings; Characteristics, Interests, Needs, Experiences, and Perspectives of Home-Based Child Care Providers; and Policy Issues and Options for Home-Based Child Care

Correlation of Patient Symptoms With Labral and Articular Cartilage Damage in Femoroacetabular Impingement.

BackgroundFemoroacetabular impingement (FAI) can lead to labral and articular cartilage injuries as well as early osteoarthritis of the hip. Currently, the association of patient symptoms with the progression of labral and articular cartilage injuries due to FAI is poorly understood.PurposeTo evaluate the correlation between patient-reported outcome (PRO) scores and cartilage compositional changes seen on quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as well as cartilage and labral damage seen during arthroscopic surgery in patients with FAI.Study designCohort study; Level of evidence, 3.MethodsPatients were prospectively enrolled before hip arthroscopic surgery for symptomatic FAI. Patients were included if they had cam-type FAI without radiographic arthritis. All patients completed PRO scores, including the Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS) and a visual analog scale for pain. MRI with mapping sequences (T1ρ and T2) on both the acetabular and femoral regions was performed before surgery to quantitatively assess the cartilage composition. During arthroscopic surgery, cartilage and labral injury grades were recorded using the Beck classification. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were then obtained to evaluate the association between chondrolabral changes and PRO scores.ResultsA total of 46 patients (46 hips) were included for analysis (mean age, 35.5 years; mean body mass index [BMI], 23.9 kg/m2; 59% male). Increasing BMI was correlated with a more severe acetabular cartilage grade (ρ = 0.37; 95% CI, 0.08-0.65). A greater alpha angle was correlated with an increased labral tear grade (ρ = 0.59; 95% CI, 0.37-0.82) and acetabular cartilage injuries (ρ = 0.61; 95% CI, 0.42-0.80). With respect to PRO scores, increasing femoral cartilage damage in the anterosuperior femoral head region, as measured on quantitative MRI using T1ρ and T2 mapping, correlated with lower (worse) scores on the HOOS Activities of Daily Living (r = 0.35; 95% CI, 0.06-0.64), Symptoms (r = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.06-0.57), and Pain (r = 0.31; 95% CI, 0.06-0.55) subscales. There was no correlation between PRO scores and acetabular cartilage damage or labral tearing found on quantitative MRI or during arthroscopic surgery.ConclusionFemoral cartilage damage, as measured on T1ρ and T2 mapping, appears to have a greater correlation with clinical symptoms than acetabular cartilage damage or labral tears in patients with symptomatic FAI

Effect of optimal uncoupling in enhancing synchronization stability in coupled chaotic systems

In this paper, we report a novel approach for studying the effect of optimal uncoupling on the stability of synchronization in coupled chaotic systems. The clipping of phase space of the driven system having an orientation along the coordinate axes revealing the nature of coupling of the state variables of coupled systems is identified in certain coupled third-order chaotic systems. The stability of synchronization is studied through the {\emph{Master Stability Function}} (MSF). The optimal directions of implementing the clipping width to achieve stable synchronization is observed by studying the effectiveness of clipping fraction and the sufficient range of orientation to identify the optimal directions is reported. The functional work steps for identifying the optimal directions are presented and the synchronization of the response system with the drive within the clipped region of phase space for different orientations of clipping width are studied. The stability of synchronization for different orientations of clipping widths and the two-parameter bifurcation diagram indicating the negative valued MSF regions obtained for the optimal direction of clipping width are presented. The application of the method of optimal uncoupling in identifying the direction of implication of clipping width is discussed and the range of orientation over which the clipping width has to be varied is generalized.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure