Optimization of HNO3 leaching of copper from old AMD Athlon processors using response surface methodology

The present study investigates the optimization of HNO leaching of Cu from old AMD Athlon processors under the effect of nitric acid concentration (%), temperature (°C) and ultrasonic power (W). The optimization study is carried out using response surface methodology with central composite rotatable design (CCRD). The ANOVA study concludes that the second degree polynomial model is fitted well to the fifteen experimental runs based on p-value (0.003), R (0.97) and Adj-R (0.914). The study shows that the temperature is the most significant process variable to the leaching concentration of Cu followed by nitric acid concentration. However, ultrasound power shows no significant impact on the leaching concentration. The optimum conditions were found to be 20% nitric acid concentration, 48.89 °C temperature and 5.52 W ultrasound power for attaining maximum concentration of 97.916 mg/l for Cu leaching in solution

Incidence of Port Site Infection After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: Our Experience at Hayatabad Medical Complex

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to assess the factors that affect post-laparoscopic cholecystectomies PSI and determine which characteristics can be changed to prevent PSI in a trial to maximize the benefits of laparoscopic surgery.METHODOLOGY The study included all patients who experienced port site infection following laparoscopic cholecystectomy. All patients received Inj Ceftriaxone 1gm pre-operatively & then twice a day postoperatively for 03 days. In all operations, the gallbladder is removed from the epigastric port without using a retrieval bag by skilled surgeons employing four-port methods and reusable equipment. Most patients had the sub-hepatic tube drain placed and were discharged the day after surgery.RESULTSAcute cholecystitis was the most common operative finding with port-site infection, i.e. 6(42.8%), second being empyema that was seen in 3(21.4%) patients, 2(14.3%) patients had bad adhesions, mucocele in 2(14.3%) patients and thick walled gall bladder with stones was found in 1(7.1%) patients respectively, indicating that the relationship between infection and acute cholecystitis is significant. Regarding the spills of bile, stones, or pus, 3(21.4%) patients had infections despite there being no spillage, while 11(78.6%) patients developed an infection while the spillage happened during their procedures. The p-value was 0.0001, meaning that the spillage might be considered a risk factor for the development of port site infection.CONCLUSIONThe spilling of bile, stones, or pus, the port of gallbladder removal, and acute cholecystitis are all strongly associated with port site infection. Given that Mycobacterium tuberculosis may be the source of chronic deep surgical site infections, more care should be exercised. The majority of PSIs are superficial and more prevalent in men

Parameter Estimation of Power Function Distribution with TL-moments

Accurate estimation of parameters of a probability distribution is of immense importance in statistics. Biased and imprecise estimation of parameters can lead to erroneous results. Our focus is to estimate the parameter of Power function distribution accurately because this density is now widely used for modelling various types of data.  In this study, L-moments, TL-moments, LL-moments and LH-moments of Power function distribution are derived. In addition, the coefficient of variation, skewness and kurtosis are obtained by method of moments, L-moments and TL-moments. Parameters of the density are estimated using linear moments and compared with method of moments and MLE on the basis of bias, root mean square error and coefficients through simulation study. L-moments proved to be superior for the parameter estimation and this conclusion is equally true for different parametric values and sample size.La distribución de función de potencias es ampliamente usada. Dada su importancia, es necesario estimar sus parámetros de manera precisa. En este artículo, los momentos TL de la distribución de función de potencias son derivados así como sus casos especiales tales como los momentos L, LL y LH. Los coeficientes de variación, sesgo y curtosis son obtenidos a partir de los momentos L y TL. Los parámetros desconocidos son estimados y los momentos lineales son comparados con el método de momentos y estimadores máximo verosímiles en la base del sesgo, raíz del error cuadrático medio a través de un estudio de simulación. Los momentos L permiten obtener estimaciones más precisas y esta conclusión es verdad para diferentes valores paramétricos y tamaño de muestra

Benzodiazepine use in medical out-patient clinics: a study from a developing country

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of Benzodiazepine use in the outpatient setting of general medicine clinics at a single tertiary care centre. Methods: The prospective prevalence study was conducted in the outpatient setting of Internal Medicine Clinics at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from November to December 2009. All subjects were interviewed after informed consent and variables were recorded on a specially-designed proforma. Apart from basic demographics and comorbid conditions, duration, frequency and route of benzodiazepine use, as well as the reason and who initiated it was noted. Chi-square test and t test was applied to see the association of socio demographic or clinical factors with the use of benzodiazepine. Results: Of the 355 patients, 129 (36.33%) reported using the drug. The majority (n=86; 24.2%) were taking it on a daily basis. The highest numbers of patients using the drug were suffering from cardiovascular problems, 32 (25%) followed by 22 (17%) from endocrinology. Diazepam equivalent dose was around 7.04+4, with a inter-quartile range of 3-96 weeks. Alprazolam (9%) was the most frequently prescribed Benzodiazepine. CONCLUSION: Benzodiazepine use is alarmingly high in the outpatient clinics of General Internal Medicine Department. There is no implementation of law to prevent its hazardous sale. In this regard all concerned should work collectively for awareness and irrational drug sale and use

Evaluation of Shortest Paths in Road Network

Optimization is a key factor in almost all the topics of operations research / management science and economics.The road networks can be optimized within different constraints like time, distance, cost and traffic running onthe roads.This study is based on optimization of real road network by means of distances. Two main objectives arepursued in this research: 1) road distances among different routes are composed in detail; 2) two standardalgorithms (Dijkstra and Floyd-Warshall algoritms) are applied to optimize/minimize these distances for bothsingle-source and all-pairs shortest path problems

Evaluation of shortest paths in road network of Sindh-Pakistan

Optimization is a key factor in almost all the topics of operations research / management science and economics. The road networks can be optimized within different constraints like time, distance, cost and traffic running on the roads. This study is based on optimization of real road network by means of distances. Two main objectives are pursued in this research: 1) road distances among different routes are composed in detail; 2) two standard algorithms (Dijkstra and Floyd-Warshall algoritms) are applied to optimize/minimize these distances for both single-source and all-pairs shortest path problems

Designs balanced for neighbor effects in circular binary blocks of size ten

Neighbor balanced designs are more useful to remove the neighbor effects in experiments where the performance of a treatment is affected by the treatments applied to its adjacent plots. These designs ensure that treatment comparisons will be less affected by neighbor effects as possible. In literature, these designs are available in circular blocks of size 3, 5, 6, 8, 9. In this article, neighbor balanced designs are constructed in circular binary blocks of size ten. A catalogue of these designs is also compiled

Assessment of Anxiety among Healthcare Professionals Working on Frontline against COVID-19

Background and Objective: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic starting from China has been spread internationally. This rapidly spreading and high mortality epidemic of Coronavirus caused significant anxiety and panic globally and affected more than 197 countries. This study aims to assess the anxiety level among health care professionals working on frontline against Coronavirus disease in teaching hospitals of Bahawalpur. Methods: A cross sectional analytical study was conducted in Bahawal Victoria Hospital and Civil Hospital Bahawalpur from February to April 2020 after taking ethical approval from institutional ethical review committee. A total of 343 physicians and nurses were surveyed through predesigned, pretested questionnaire after taking written informed consent from each respondent. Anxiety was assessed by using Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). The sociodemographic variables of the respondents were cross tabulated with anxiety levels and Chi-square test was applied to assess statistical analysis. P-value less than or equal to 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Mean age of the participants was 37 &plusmn; 10.54 years. Majority of the study participants (39.6%) were in the age range of 31 to 40 years. More than two thirds (69.7%) respondents were working on Contract/Adhoc basis. Job experience of 270 (78.7%) participants was between 1 &ndash; 5 years. Statistically significant association was observed between severity of anxiety and job status (P &lt; 0.001), marital status (P &lt; 0.001) and job experience (P &lt; 0.001). Conclusion: Job status, marital status and experience of health care professionals has significant association with severity of anxiety which suggest that hiring of healthcare professionals should be on permanent basis which will ensure their job security that may help to reduce their anxiety level and improvement in performance.</p

Some important classes of neighbor balanced designs in linear blocks of small sizes

Neighbor balanced designs are useful to balance out the neighbor effects in field of agriculture, serology, agro forestry, industry, etc. In most of the agriculture experiments blocks are formed in a line and therefore, neighbor balanced designs are required in linear blocks. In this article some classes of first order neighbor balanced designs are presented in linear blocks of size three and four. A method to construct the second order neighbor balanced designs through two minimal first order neighbor balanced designs in linear binary blocks of size three is also developed here. Keywords: Neighbor effects, Linear blocks, First order neighbor balanced designs, Second order neighbor balanced designs, Minimal designs, MSC (2000): 05B05, 62K1