COMPARISON OF ANGIOTENSIN RECEPTOR BLOCKER ALONE AND IN COMBINATION WITH VITAMIN D ANALOGUE IN REDUCING PROTEINURIA IN DIABETIC NEPHROPATHY PATIENTS

Objective: This study was designed to determine the synergistic effect of vitamin D analog added to angiotensin receptor blocker in reducing proteinuria in diabetic nephropathy patients. Methods: A randomized, open label, prospective, parallel assignment, comparative study included 50 patients with diabetic nephropathy who had a spot protein to creatinine ratio (PCR) of 100 - 1000 mg/g creatinine. Patients were randomized to receive treatment with either telmisartan 40 mg or calcitriol 0.25 mcg for a period of 12 weeks. The primary end point was the difference in the spot urinary PCR between the groups at 12 weeks. The secondary endpoints are change in Blood Pressure (BP), serum creatinine and glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Results: The primary end point of the study was reduced by 43.2% with telmisartan and 77.049% with telmisartan and calcitriol treatment (P= 0.0001) during 12 week periods. In the secondary end points, there were no significant differences. Conclusion: Hence, this study concludes that treatment with both calcitriol and telmisartan offers synergistic renoprotection

THE RELATION BETWEEN INTERNET, DEPRESSION, SELF-ESTEEM AND SOCIAL ATTACHMENT ON COGNITIVE FUNCTION OF HEALTH CARE INDIVIDUALS

Objective: To assess the internet use in health care individuals and its impact on depression, self-esteem and social attachment on cognitive function of health care individuals.Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey which included one hundred and ten healthcare individuals (Physician, Pharmacist, Psychologist, Social worker and Nurses) in this study conducted in Radianz healthcare and research private limited. Young's internet addiction test and depression score, self-esteem (Rosenberg's) score and MoCA were used to measure internet addiction and psychological variables. EPI 2012 was used for statistical analysis.Results: Out of 110 individuals, the majority of individuals, depressed individual were more addicted to the internet and found to be significant by using depression score. Relationship between baseline values and follow up values in internet addiction was significant (P=0.07636). After follow up the internet addiction found to be reduced as it was greatly affected in initial survey.Conclusion: This study concluded that there is relationship between the internet addiction and depression, cognitive function and self-steam. The depressed individuals were more addicted to the internet followed by abnormal cognitive function and low self-esteem individuals. Internet addiction may be a relevant clinical construct and early diagnostic tools that needs extensive research even in developing nations to explore the relationship. Depression is greatly associated with the internet addiction so if can we reduce the depression then can be reduced internet addiction

Exploring the stability of super heavy elements: First measurement of the fission barrier of 254No

The gamma-ray multiplicity and total energy emitted by the heavy nucleus 254No have been measured at 2 different beam energies. From these measurements, the initial distributions of spin I and excitation energy E * of 254No were constructed. The distributions display a saturation in excitation energy, which allows a direct determination of the fission barrier. 254No is the heaviest shell-stabilized nucleus with a measured fission barrier. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2014

Squared PMUT with Enhanced Pressure Sensitivities

This study presents a squared AlN piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (PMUT). Using this PMUT greater level of output pressure and higher reception sensitivity has been achieved, compared with the state-of-the-art. Another outstanding characteristic for this PMUT is that it can be monolithically integrated on CMOS substrate, being remarkably advantageous in relation to the bonding method implemented until now

Design and simulation of 20MHz oscillator using CMOS-MEMS beam resonators

We present the design and analysis result of a low power, low noise, 20 MHz CMOS-MEMS oscillators. To perform oscillator circuit simulations, the CMOS-MEMS resonator (Clamped-Clamped beam) was modeled using its RLC equivalent circuits. For a MEMS resonator to be able to function as an oscillator it needs to be coupled with supporting amplifier circuits. The MEMS beam resonator has 73dB insertion loss which translates to motional resistance of Rx=3MΩ, capacitance, Cx=4.58aF and inductance, Lx=14.5H respectively. The amplifier design is based on the requirement for oscillation, which is, the loop gain of one and the zero phase shifts. For this work, the pierce circuit topology was chosen due to its simplicity and high frequency stability. Both the amplifier and beam resonators were designed using Silterra's CMOS technology. The design of the amplifier comprises of 6 transistors, which are integrated with the MEMS beam resonator to form an oscillator. The proposed CMOS-MEMS oscillators is capable of generating 20 MHz clocks. The beam resonators require approximately 40VDC and 400mV, VAC to vibrate. The actuation was simulated and measured using Finite modeling software, FEM and Cadence to obtain the desired design parameters. The design of 20MHz oscillator produces output power -1.45dBm by using 1.8V power supply

Bioaccumulation of heavy metals in ascidians from Palk Bay region, southeast coast of India

Ascidians can serve as marine pollution indicators for monitoring the release of industrial and anthropogenic wastes into the marine environment. The aim of this study was to analyze the heavy metals accumulation in ascidians, water and sediments. Selected ascidian specimens, water  and sediments were collected by employing SCUBA diving in the Palk Bay region, Southeast coast of India. All these samples were analyzed by Inductive coupled plasma system (ICP) (Optical Emission Spectrophotometer by using the instrument Optima 2100DV and  quantified against a known standards) for the determination of heavy metals (Fe, Zn, Cd and Pb). The heavy metals concentrations (Cd, Fe,  Pb and Zn) in water, sediment and ascidians tissue, showed a distinct seasonal variation with higher values during monsoon season and low during summer season. The heavy metals concentrations in the different species of ascidians (Polyclinum madrasensis, Polyclinum indicum, Herdmania pallida,  Microcosmus squamiger  and  Microcosmus exasperatus) were found to be the order: Iron > zinc > lead > cadmium. This might be due to the difference in the bioavailability of the individual metal and their role in metabolism of different species and accumulation efficiency by the species. Our results suggest that ascidians could be effectively used as biological indicator to monitor the environmental pollution. This will help a great deal while preparing plans to conserve or protect the marine ecosystem.Key words: Ascidians, bio indicator, heavy metals, pollution, ecosyste

Altmetrics : factor analysis for assessing the popularity of research articles on Twitter

Altmetrics measure the frequency of references about an article on social media platforms, like Twitter. This paper studies a variety of factors that affect the popularity of articles (i.e., the number of article mentions) in the field of psychology on Twitter. Firstly, in this study, we classify Twitter users mentioning research articles as academic versus non-academic users and experts versus nonexperts, using a machine learning approach. Then we build a negative binomial regression model with the number of Twitter mentions of an article as a dependant variable, and nine Twitter related factors (the number of followers, number of friends, number of status, number of lists, number of favourites, number of retweets, number of likes, ratio of academic users, and ratio of expert users) and seven article related factors (the number of authors, title length, abstract length, abstract readability, number of institutions, citation count, and availability of research funding) as independent variables. From our findings, if a research article is mentioned by Twitter users with a greater number of friends, status, favourites, and lists, by tweets with a large number of retweets and likes, and largely by Twitter users with academic and expertise knowledge on the field of psychology, the article gains more Twitter mentions. In addition, articles with a greater number of authors, title length, abstract length, and citation count, and articles with research funding get more attention from Twitter users.Published versio

Novel Ultrafast Lu2O3:Yb Ceramics for Future HEP Applications

Inorganic scintillators activated by charge transfer luminescence Yb3+ are considered promising ultrafast material to break the ps timing barrier for future high energy physics applications. Inorganic scintillators in ceramic form are potentially more cost-effective than crystals because of their lower fabrication temperature and no need for aftergrowth mechanical processing. This paper reports an investigation on Lu2O3:Yb and Lu2xY2(1−x)O3:Yb scintillating ceramic samples fabricated by Radiation Monitoring Devices Inc. All samples show X-ray excited luminescence peaked at 370 nm. Ultrafast decay time of 1.1 ns was observed by using a microchannel plate-photomultiplier tube-based test bench at Caltech. Considering its intrinsic high density (9.4 g/cm3), Lu2O3:Yb ceramics are promising for future time of fight application for high energy physics experiments

Squared PMUT with Enhanced Pressure Sensitivities

This study presents a squared AlN piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (PMUT). Using this PMUT greater level of output pressure and higher reception sensitivity has been achieved, compared with the state-of-the-art. Another outstanding characteristic for this PMUT is that it can be monolithically integrated on CMOS substrate, being remarkably advantageous in relation to the bonding method implemented until now