Job Methods – An Approach to Increase Human Resource Productivity in Pandemic COVID-19 (A Case Study of Parason Group, India)

Apart from multidimensional challenges and fierce competition, COVID-19 has created immense stress on manufacturing industries to work with limited human resources due to social distancing and other safety measures. During this tough time (COVID-19) companies are in great pressure to manage their costs, one of the significant cost is labour cost. Labour productivity is a division of worth of goods or services produced and labour hours used to produce that, thus productivity improvement can be done by producing more with same labour hours or producing same with less labour hours. There is a process of producing goods or services, each process may have one or more activity and each activity will have some methods to accomplish. Each process is also having its completion time which ultimately depends on number of activities and methods. If somehow the number of activities can be reduced or methods to accomplish the activity can be simplified in terms of easiness and less time without impacting quality of products or services, the completion time of that process will be reduced and eventually a gain in productivity will be achieved to help companies to be more productive and profitable without addition of manpower. The facilities and technology enhancement what the manufacturing world is enjoying today, is the result of improvement in production methods, e.g. automobile, mobile phones, laptops, home appliances etc. The TWI - Job Methods program is a structured program to identify and eliminate non value adding activities and to improve the existing methods of doing a job with available resources. Job Methods programme is focused on making the methods of work smarter and better. TWI – Job Methods is the best tool for involving all supervisor and workers in an organization for improvement activities. It also helps to involve the supervisors with the workforce and bring out collaborative solutions for different obstacles that occurs while working. Job Methods programme also provides a systematic improvement proposal to management to communicate so that decision making about new methods or process can be effective and quick. The case study had completed during Jan and Feb 2020 and focused on the practical application of Job Methods (JM) to improve productivity by using same number of human resources in producing refiner plates in a leading paper and pulp machine manufacturing company in India. TWI-JM technique is very relevant during tough time (COVID-19) when manpower availability is a concern and raise in productivity is required. Keywords- Training within industry (TWI), Job Methods (JM), Job Breakdown Sheet (JBS), Inner Diameter (ID), Outer Diameter (OD) DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-16-01 Publication date:June 30th 202

Incidence of bone tumors and tumor like lesions at a tertiary centre - a study of 64 cases

Background: Primary bone tumors are uncommon lesions constituting less than 1% of all cancers. Although open biopsy has high accuracy, it increases risk of tumor dissemination in patients with highly malignant tumors. FNAC eliminates the complications that may occur in surgical procedures and also gives quick results. This study was conducted to determine the spectrum and demographic characteristics of bone tumors and tumor like lesions at a tertiary care centre in western Uttar Pradesh and also to assess the role of FNAC in their diagnosis.Methods: This is a three-year, retrospective as well as a prospective study done on a total of 64 cases. All the cases were subjected to detailed history, physical examination and radiological investigations. FNAC smears were stained with Giemsa and Papanicolaou stain. H and E staining was done for histopathology.Results: Mean age affected was 26 years. Male-female ratio was 2.8:1. Out of total 64 cases of bone tumors and tumor like lesions, maximum was chondrogenic tumors (17; 26.56%), followed by osteogenic tumors (15; 23.44%). Osteochondroma (08; 47.06%), Osteosarcoma (07; 46.66%) and Aneurysmal bone cyst (04; 50.0%) were the most common chondrogenic tumor, osteogenic tumor and tumor like lesion respectively. The most common bone affected was tibia (16; 25.0%), followed by femur (15; 23.4%). Sensitivity and specificity of FNAC as a diagnostic modality were 90.0% and 91.67% respectively.Conclusions: A good correlation is observed between cytological and histological diagnoses which implies that FNAC can be used as a preliminary diagnostic approach to bone tumors, although histopathology remains the gold standard

Anterior cervico-vaginal tear along with posterior bladder wall rupture: a rare case report

A 25 year old female presented to our emergency as a case of G3P2+0 (2A and H), full term pregnancy with intrauterine foetal demise with obstructed labour with severe anaemia. In view of obstructed labour with severe anaemia suspicion of rupture uterus was raised. Abnormal contour of abdomen also raised suspicion of bladder tumour. Here emergency caesarean section was done, peroperatively she was diagnosed as a case of anterior cervico-vaginal rupture along with posterior bladder wall rupture which is a rare entity. Uterine closure was done along with anterior cervico-vaginal wall with posterior bladder wall repair. This repair was done through trans- bladder route. Unique finding of this case was tear of anterior cervico-vaginal region with associated posterior bladder wall tear without rupture of uterus despite of obstructed labour in multiparous women. Most probable cause behind this type of injury is impacted head in neglected or obstructed labour responsible for ischemia and necrosis

Method Development and Validation of Polmacoxib in Capsule Dosage Form by RP-HPLC

A simple and sensitive RP-HPLC method developed for estimation of Polmacoxib in bulk by using a high performance liquid chromatography with PDA detector using Phenomenex luna C18 column (250mmx4.6mm), 5 µm; mobile phase comprises of Water : ACN as (1:1) at the flow rate 1.0 ml/min and the wavelength of detection  238 nm and eluted at 8.12 minutes. The proposed method is validated for specificity, Linearity, Precision, accuracy, ruggedness, and Robustness. All the parameters were found within the acceptable limits. RP-HPLC method was a simple, reliable economic and acceptable and it confirmed that method is suitable for the intended use for routine quality control and assay of drugs. This method is successfully applied for the determination of commercial dosage form capsule preparation. This method is validated as per ICH (International conference on harmonization) Guidelines. Keywords: Polmacoxib, RP-HPLC, ICH, PDA Detector, Precisio

Anterior cervico-vaginal tear along with posterior bladder wall rupture: a rare case report

A 25 year old female presented to our emergency as a case of G3P2+0 (2A and H), full term pregnancy with intrauterine foetal demise with obstructed labour with severe anaemia. In view of obstructed labour with severe anaemia suspicion of rupture uterus was raised. Abnormal contour of abdomen also raised suspicion of bladder tumour. Here emergency caesarean section was done, peroperatively she was diagnosed as a case of anterior cervico-vaginal rupture along with posterior bladder wall rupture which is a rare entity. Uterine closure was done along with anterior cervico-vaginal wall with posterior bladder wall repair. This repair was done through trans- bladder route. Unique finding of this case was tear of anterior cervico-vaginal region with associated posterior bladder wall tear without rupture of uterus despite of obstructed labour in multiparous women. Most probable cause behind this type of injury is impacted head in neglected or obstructed labour responsible for ischemia and necrosis

Clinicoepidemiological Observational Study of Acquired Alopecias in Females Correlating with Anemia and Thyroid Function

Alopecia can either be inherited or acquired; the latter, more common, can be diffuse, patterned, and focal, each having cicatricial and noncicatricial forms. This observational study of 135 cases in a semiurban Indian population aimed to detect the prevalence of various forms of acquired alopecia in females and correlate the same with levels of hemoglobin, serum ferritin, triiodothyronine, thyroxin, and thyroid stimulating hormone. The majority (84, 62.2%) of our cases of alopecia had telogen effluvium followed by female pattern alopecia (32, 23.7%). Stress (86, 63.7%), topical application of chemicals (72, 53.3%), systemic medications for concurrent illnesses (62, 5%), and pregnancy (14, 10.3%) were the common exacerbating factors. Neither low hemoglobin (<12 gm%, 73.4%) nor low serum ferritin (<12 μg/L, 6.7%) was found to be statistically significant. A majority (90, 90.9%) of 99 cases with anemia (hemoglobin levels of <12 gm%) had serum ferritin levels >12 μg/L. Though lack of vitamin B12 testing was a limitation of our study, its deficiency could be the probable cause of iron deficiency as the majority (58, 64.4%) of these cases, as indeed majority (89, 65.4%) of our study population, were vegetarians. Thyroid disorders (23, 17%, including 9 newly diagnosed) were not of significance statistically

Seroprevalence of Transfusion Transmitted Infections Amongst Blood Donors in Muzaffarnagar–A Study in a Tertiary Care Centre from Western Uttar Pradesh

Introduction - A transfusion transmitted infection (TTI) is caused by virus, parasite or other pathogen and can be transmitted to a recipient via transfusion of the infected donated blood. TTI includes mainly Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Hepatitis B Virus, Hepatitis C Virus, Syphilis and Malaria. Blood transfusion is crucial component in the treatment of various diseases. Major concern is the asymptomatic stage in which infection can be transmitted to the recipient. To minimize this, Donor deferral criteria has been established and implemented.Objective - Objective of this study was to estimate the seroprevalence of TTI in the tertiary care hospital of western Uttar Pradesh.Materials and Methods – The present hospital based cross- sectional study was conducted in the Blood Bank, Department of Pathology, Muzaffarnagar Medical College, Muzaffarnagar from May 2019 to April 2020. During this period, 2887 blood units were screened.Results – Seroprevalence of HIV, HBV, HCV and Syphilis was observed to be 0.13%, 1.73%, 2.14% and 0.69% respectively. Seroprevalence for Malaria was nil as no donor was tested positive for Malaria. Majority of the donors were males forming male female ratio of 61.7 : 1 and belonged to the 2nd and 3rd decade. Seroprevalence of TTI was higher in replacement donors than the voluntary donors but this is not statistically significant.Conclusion- Screening of the blood products is essential to decrease the risk of TTI. Promotion of voluntary blood donation and discouragement of professional blood donation are also helpful

Graphene oxide-enhanced aerosol forming composites: A study for fire extinguishing applications

44-56Condensed aerosol-based fire extinguishing system (CAFES) has emerged as the most proficient fire extinguishing system since the implementation of Montreal protocol 1987. Aerosol forming composite (AFC) is the key constituent of CAFES. For the first time, graphene oxide-based AFCs have been prepared and characterized for use in extinguishing fires. Catalytic activity of bulk graphite, graphite oxide & graphene oxide (1, 3 & 5 %, w/w) on combustion characteristics of AFC is examined by incorporating them in the base AFC. Graphene additives are synthesized and characterized using instrumental techniques such as XRD, FTIR, Raman, SEM and TEM. AFCs with catalysts are also assessed for performance using parameters such as combustion efficiency, minimum fire extinguishing concentration (MEC), burn rate, combustion temperatures and activation energies. Maximum reduction in combustion temperature from 455 to 409 ℃ is observed with 5% graphene oxide containing AFC. Addition of 1% graphene oxide to base AFC remarkably has augmented the performance of AFC by enhancing the burn rate by 12.89%. Prepared high burn rate AFC is under further investigations for potential use in cutting-edge aerosol-based firefighting systems

Primary yolk sac tumor of the cerebellar vermis: A case report

Extragonadal germ cell tumors are rare and comprise 2-5% of all germ cell tumors. Seminoma/dysgerminoma, teratoma, yolk sac tumor (YST) and mixed germ cell tumors are few of the extragonadal germ cell tumors arising within the brain. Of these, primary pure YSTs arising in the brain are extremely rare and arise in the pineal (62%) and suprasellar (31%) regions. Primary YST occurring in the cerebellum is exceedingly rare, associated with a very poor prognosis and has been reported in less than 10 cases in literature. We herein report a case of primary pure yolk sac tumor in the cerebellar vermis in a 2-year-old child