A rapid volumetric method for estimation of iron and titanium and its application to ilmenite analysis

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Tuberculin skin test results in HIV-infected patients in India: implications for latent tuberculosis treatment

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the utility of the tuberculin skin test (TST) in detecting latent and active tuberculosis (TB) among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patients in South India. DESIGN: TSTs and CD4 counts were collected from 631 HIV-infected individuals without active TB and 209 antiretroviral and anti-tuberculosis treatment-naïve HIVinfected patients with TB. We calculated the proportion of TST-positive individuals, as well as the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value of TST in the diagnosis of TB. RESULTS: Among subjects without active TB, 28% with a CD4 count �100 cells/�l vs. 43% of the total cohort had a TST �5 mm (P � 0.14), while the proportions with induration �10 mm were 14% vs. 36%, respectively (P � 0.01). Among those with active TB, using a 5 mm cut-off, the sensitivity was 42% for those with CD4 counts �200 cells/�l compared to 70% for those with CD4 counts �200 cells/�l (P � 0.001). The PPV for detecting active TB was 29%. CONCLUSIONS: TST is a poor predictor of both latent and active TB in HIV-infected individuals in TB endemic countries. Programmes offering treatment for latent TB should consider including all HIV-positive patients regardless of TST status, or use other indicators, such as CD4 count

Marine fisheries of the south-west coast of India during 2008

The south-west region comprising the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa with a coastline of 994 km and 7.83 lakh fishermen population, had been the most productive and the largest contributor to the country’s total marine fish landings. Marine fish production in this region during the year 2008 has been estimated as 11.11 lakh t, contributing about 34.5% to the all India landing

Vortex behavior near a spin vacancy in 2D XY-magnets

The dynamical behavior of anisotropic two dimensional Heisenberg models is still a matter of controversy. The existence of a central peak at all temperatures and a rich structure of magnon peaks are not yet understood. It seems that the central peaks are related, in some way, to structures like vortices. In order to contribute to the discussion of the dynamical behavior of the model we use Monte Carlo and spin dynamics simulations as well analytical calculations to study the behavior of vortices in the presence of nonmagnetic impurities. Our simulations show that vortices are attracted and trapped by the impurities. Using this result we show that if we suppose that vortices are not very much disturbed by the presence of the impurities, then they work as an attractive potential to the vortices explaining the observed behavior in our simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Monte Carlo study of the critical temperature for the planar rotator model with nonmagnetic impurities

We performed Monte Carlo simulations to calculate the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) temperature $T_{BKT}$ for the two-dimensional planar rotator model in the presence of nonmagnetic impurity concentration $(\rho)$. As expected, our calculation shows that the BKT temperature decreases as the spin vacancies increase. There is a critical dilution $\rho_c \approx 0.3$ at which $T_{BKT} =0$. The effective interaction between a vortex-antivortex pair and a static nonmagnetic impurity is studied analytically. A simple phenomenological argument based on the pair-impurity interaction is proposed to justify the simulations.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Revetex fil

Nutrigenomics: future for sustenance

Nutrigenomics deals with the effect of foods and food constituents on gene expression. It is a new concept in disease prevention and cure. Nutrigenomics conveys how nutrients influence our body to express genes, whereas nutrigenetics refers to how our body responds to nutrients. The various bioactive food components can alter the gene expression mechanisms. But our actual knowledge is so insufficient that the only use of such information may help to satisfy our imagination. If science could arrive at some more precise facts, that would have vast applications in medicine

Heavy Quark Solitons

We investigate the heavy baryons which arise as solitonic excitations in a ``heavy meson" chiral Lagrangian which includes the light vector particles. It is found that the effect of the light vectors may be substantial. We also present a simple derivation which clearly shows the connection to the Callan-Klebanov approach.Comment: 13 pages; LaTex; SU-4240-532; UR 1306/ER-40685-755 (Minor typos corrected

Estimated marine fish landings (in tonnes)in India during 2002 and 2003

Estimated marine fishing landing in India during 2002 and 2003 is 2.59 and 2.58 millon tonnes respectively. Gear wise landing were also estimated during this period

Heavy Quark Solitons: Strangeness and Symmetry Breaking

We discuss the generalization of the Callan-Klebanov model to the case of heavy quark baryons. The light flavor group is considered to be $SU(3)$ and the limit of heavy spin symmetry is taken. The presence of the Wess-Zumino-Witten term permits the neat development of a picture , at the collective level, of a light diquark bound to a ``heavy" quark with decoupled spin degree of freedom. The consequences of $SU(3)$ symmetry breaking are discussed in detail. We point out that the $SU(3)$ mass splittings of the heavy baryons essentially measure the ``low energy" physics once more and that the comparison with experiment is satisfactory.Comment: 17 pages, RevTEX. Minor typos corrected and new references adde

Morphology of supported polymer electrolyte ultra-thin films: a numerical study

Morphology of polymer electrolytes membranes (PEM), e.g., Nafion, inside PEM fuel cell catalyst layers has significant impact on the electrochemical activity and transport phenomena that determine cell performance. In those regions, Nafion can be found as an ultra-thin film, coating the catalyst and the catalyst support surfaces. The impact of the hydrophilic/hydrophobic character of these surfaces on the structural formation of the films has not been sufficiently explored yet. Here, we report about Molecular Dynamics simulation investigation of the substrate effects on the ionomer ultra-thin film morphology at different hydration levels. We use a mean-field-like model we introduced in previous publications for the interaction of the hydrated Nafion ionomer with a substrate, characterized by a tunable degree of hydrophilicity. We show that the affinity of the substrate with water plays a crucial role in the molecular rearrangement of the ionomer film, resulting in completely different morphologies. Detailed structural description in different regions of the film shows evidences of strongly heterogeneous behavior. A qualitative discussion of the implications of our observations on the PEMFC catalyst layer performance is finally proposed