Second Plateau Voltage in Nickel-cadmium Cells

Sealed nickel cadmium cells having large number of cycles on them are discharged using Hg/HgO reference electrode. The negative electrode exhibits the second plateau. A SEM of negative plates of such cells show a number of large crystals of cadmium hydroxide. The large crystals on the negative plates disappear after continuous overcharging in flooded cells

Results of Analysis on the Design Variable Cells

Sealed Nickel-Cadmium aerospace cells play a very important role in the mission of the satellite. There has been a constant effort to improve the cycle life, energy density, and reliability of these cells by many manufacturers and users. The Design Variable Cell Program is one systematic approach started by NASA in collaboration with General Electric (GE) towards that goal. Nine important designs were selected for evaluation. Fifty-two nickel-cadmium cells each of 12 Ah nominal capacity manufactured by GE were sent to the Navel weapons Support Center for evaluation of different design variables with which these cells were built

NIMBUS 7 Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) Matrix User's Guide. Volume 2: Tape Specifications

The ERB MATRIX tape is generated by an IBM 3081 computer program and is a 9 track, 1600 BPI tape. The gross format of the tape given on Page 1, shows an initial standard header file followed by data files. The standard header file contains two standard header records. A trailing documentation file (TDF) is the last file on the tape. Pages 9 through 17 describe, in detail, the standard header file and the TDF. The data files contain data for 37 different ERB parameters. Each file has data based on either a daily, 6 day cyclic, or monthly time interval. There are three types of physical records in the data files; namely, the world grid physical record, the documentation mercator/polar map projection physical record, and the monthly calibration physical record. The manner in which the data for the 37 ERB parameters are stored in the physical records comprising the data files, is given in the gross format section

Enhanced convnet based Latent Finger Print Recognition

Latent finger print recognition plays an important role in forensic, criminal cases etc. The latent images will not be recognised easily since they are impartial images, which find difficult to match with the registered database. Due to noisy images, it is very difficult for recognition. Autoencoder plays an important role in pre-processing the latent image. ConvNetbased method is an efficient approach used for latent image recognition. For each minutiae extraction, ConvNet descriptor is performed. Both minutiae and texture matcher is considered for comparison. This technique is compared with existing methods which shows, that the proposed method provides a higher accuracy than the existing methods like CNN, skeleton approach nonlinear mapping and product quantization. The proposed method provides an accuracy of 76.4%, 80.4% and 86.4% for rank1,5 and 10 respectively

Rough porous circular plates lubricated with couple stress fluid and pressure dependent viscosity

In this paper, the effect of PDV on the couple stress squeeze film lubrication between rough porous circular plates is presented. Keeping the base of Christensen’s stochastic theory, modified Reynolds equation is derived. Fluid film pressure, squeeze film time and load carrying capacity are solved using standard perturbation technique. The results are presented graphically for selected physical parameters and found that the squeeze effect is depleted in a porous bearing compared to its non-porous and increasing permeability has an adverse effect on the pressure, load carrying capacity and time of approach.Publisher's Versio

Change in the multidimensional prognostic index score based on a standard comprehensive geriatric assessment during hospitalization in elderly patients

AIMS & OBJECTIVES: 1. To find the change in MPI score based on a standard CGA between admission and discharge in hospitalised elderly patients. 2. To study the use of MPI score based on standard CGA in assessing the patient’s health status and in tracking and monitoring the progress of hospitalized elderly patients. METHODOLOGY: STUDY CENTRE: Geriatric Medicine Ward – Male & Female Wards Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai – 3. STUDY DESIGN: Cross Sectional Study. PERIOD OF STUDY: 6 months (March 2017-August 2017). SAMPLE SIZE: 200 patients. INCLUSION CRITERIA: Persons aged above 60 years. Admitted directly to geriatric ward with acute or acute on chronic problems, willing for study. EXCLUSION CRITERIA: Persons aged above 60 years 1. Admitted in geriatric ward with acute or acute on chronic problems, not willing for study. 2. Transferred in from medicine ward with acute or acute on chronic problems. 3. Admitted in moribund state. PROCEDURE: Patients will be selected as per above said inclusion & exclusion criteria. Patients will be evaluated with multidimensional prognostic tool which is based on 8 domains of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment inclusive of 63 items on the day of admission. Patients will be divided into low risk, moderate risk and severe risk of mortality on the basis of previously established cut-offs. The MPI score evaluation will be repeated at the time of discharge of the patients. Variation of MPI scores will be analysed for difference of values at the time of admission and discharge. RESULTS: Overall MPI score tended to decline between admission and discharge suggesting an improvement in health status during hospitalization (t value 17.566 p<0.001). The individual tools used in MPI has been studied and it is found that all the tools used in MPI except the cohabitation status has declined significantly (p<0.001). Both the admission MPI score and discharge MPI score did not vary significantly between male and female patients (p=0.400 & p=0.677). Patients with mild risk of mortality had decreased length of hospital stay and patients with severe risk had an increased length of hospital stay. CONCLUSION: The study determines that MPI, a validated prognostic tool, based on a standard CGA, is also very sensitive to change during hospitalization in elderly patients. It can be used to track clinical evolution of patients in the hospital and predict the length of hospital stay to an extent. These results can serve as a beginning for using CGA based tools in monitoring the hospitalised patients and guiding physicians in decision making and thereby improving the quality of life of the elderly. Further studies are needed to formally demonstrate the clinical efficacy of CGA

Comparison of Different Dosages of Fentanyl when Etomidate is used as Induction Agent

Our study was a prospective randomised study including 60 patients undergoing elective surgeries under general anaesthesia. They were randomly allocated into two groups of 30 each. Group I received 2 microgram kg-1 of fentanyl and Group II received 5 microgram kg-1 of fentanyl. After 5 minutes of administration of either one of these all patients were induced with etomidate at a dose of 0.3 mg kg-1. The parameters monitored are Pain on injection, Myoclonus, Apnoea, Heart rate, Systemic blood pressure, Post operative nausea and vomiting. We found that in Group I, no patient become apnoeic while in group II three patients become apnoeic after administration of fentanyl. Also with increasing dose of fentanyl, there was a decreasing incidence of pain on injection, myoclonus. But at the same time there was increasing incidence of post operative nausea and vomiting in group II. We also found that the increase of heart rate and blood pressure, during induction-intubation sequence with etomidate is significantly lower in group II with increasing dose of fentanyl. Therefore we conclude that at a dose of 5µg/kg of fentanyl, there is reduction of side effects of etomidate and also there is attenuation of hemodynamic response to intubation in patients undergoing elective surgeries under general anaesthesia with etomidate as induction agent

Aetiological Profile and Clinico Echocardiographic Features of Congestive Heart Failure

INTRODUCTION: Heart failure is the end stage of all diseases of the heart and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Since 1970s the treatment of CHF`has been transformed, resulting in major benefit to patients. This advance has been the consequence of better understanding of the pathophysiology, investigations, the introduction of newer drugs and cardiac transplantation. The traditional treatment of heart failure with digoxin and diuretics has been replaced by diuretics, ACE inhibitors and drugs directed against the origins of heart failure such as aspirin and lipid lowering drugs. Newer objectives are optimization of the quality of life, avoidance of hospital admissions prevention of progression of damage to the myocardium and prolongation of life. So it becomes important to conduct clinical and Para clinical studies to know about the status, precipitating factors and complications of the disease. Only with areliable study, changes in the modality of approach in controlling, diagnosing and treating the disease can be done. Here, an attempt has been made to study on selected aspects of congestive heart failure. AIM AND OBJECTIVES: 1) To study about the etiological profile of congestive heart failure. 2) To study about the clinical features of congestive heart failure. 3) To study about the Echocardiographic features of congestive heart failure. MATERIALS and METHODS: Place : Department of Medicine. Design : Observational Study. Period : August 2007 to August 2008. Sample Size : 100 Patients. Collaborating : Cardiology Departments. Inclusion Criteria: 1. All patients above 12 years of age with clinical evidence of congestive heart failure. 2. Patients of Both sexes. Exclusion Criteria : 1. Patients less than 12 years of age. 2. Hemodynamically unstable patients. 3. Pregnant women. 4. Patients with Cor Pulmonale. METHODS: 1. Thorough history. 2. Complete physical examination. 3. Chest X-ray. 4. ECG. 5. Complete Blood Count. 6. Renal Function Tests. 7. Echo cardiography. CONCLUSION: 1. In this study 67% of patients were males and 33% of patients were females. The mean age of patients was 50 years. 2. The highest number of patients with CHF was in the age group of 51 – 60 years. 3. Ischemic heart disease was the most common risk factor for the development of chronic CHF. 4. Dyspnea was the most common presenting symptom and majority of them (59%) were in class IV failure. 5. Basal pulmonary rales was the most common clinical sign of CHF followed by elevated JVP and pedal edema. 6. Chest X-ray showed evidence of cardio megaly in majority (91%) of patients. 7. Atrial fibrillation was the only arrhythmia documented apart from sinus tachycardia. 8. The most common cause of congestive Heart failure is Ischemic heart disease (52%) followed by rheumatic Heart disease (24%) and Hypertension (11%). 9. Among the patients with non-valvular heart disease, 61% had depressed ejection fraction (≤ 40%) while 24 % had Diastolic dysfunction. 10. Rheumatic heart disease accounted for a majority of cases of CHF, relatively at an earlier age (Mean 32.5 years) compared to IHD (Mean 59.2 years)

A Study on Role of Flap Tacking in Post-Mastectomy Seroma Reduction in Carcinoma Breast

BACKGROUND: Seroma, is the most frequent post operative complication after breast cancer surgery/modified radical mastectomy (MRM), developing in approximately 30% of cases. The pathophysiology and mechanism of seroma formation in breast cancer surgery remains controversial and not fully understood, as little attention has been paid in the literature to etiologic factors. AIMS & OBJECTIVES: 1. To know and assess the effect of flap tacking in modified radical mastectomy patients of carcinoma breast 2. To compare the role of flap tacking and with that of standard wound closure in reducing postmastectomy seroma METHODS: Patients with breast cancer undergoing Modified Radical Mastectomy were included in the study. The proportions were compared using unpaired t test was used to determine the statistical difference. The data was analyzed using SPSS package. RESULTS: 52 patients were enrolled in this study and in this 24 patients underwent conventional closure and 28 patients underwent flap tacking and the average day of drain removal was 8 days in patients of flap tacking and the quantity of seroma was less whereas the average day of drain removal was more in patients of conventional closure. CONCLUSION: The patients who underwent flap tacking was found to have significant seroma reduction than patients who underwent conventional closure. Thus the role of flap tacking in Modified Radical Mastectomy has reduced the seroma formation significantly and has led to reduced early removal of drains, instituition of 1st cycle of chemotherapy before discharge and thus reducing the stay in hospital. It has also led to reduced incidence of flap necrosis post operatively. However, further studies are needed to stratify whether flap tacking is solely responsible for the reduction in seroma