Will women’s choice of position in first stage of labor affect labor process?

Background: Controlling the process of childbirth has disabled the parturient to embrace the most spontaneous position of delivery but constricting her to assume a recumbent position. Objective of this study was to study if alternating comfortable maternal positioning i.e., recumbent and alternative position have any influence in the process of labor, type of delivery, neonatal well-being.Methods: Study conducted an observation study on term pregnant women. Study inclusion criteria included all term pregnant women. Exclusion criteria included multiple pregnancies, preterm patient, severe pre-eclampsia, and eclampsia, preterm premature rupture of membranes, sever intrauterine growth restricted fetus. The measured date were maternal general characteristics, duration of labor process, type of delivery and neonatal outcome. Patients were divided into two groups. Group A - if they spent more than 50% in a recumbent position and Group B - any other alternating position.Results: A total 250 women were equally included in this study. The demographic characteristics were matched in both groups and found no significant difference. In the process of labor, Group B had a difference of 1 hours as compared to Group A and the rate of cervical dilation was also faster in Group B. Both of these variables were found to be statistically significant. However, there were no significant difference in the terms of type of delivery and neonatal outcome.Conclusions: The ancient practice of recumbent position during labor is to be discarded as alternating maternal position during the process of labor may a positive influence on the total duration labor. However even though it may or may not have an influence on the other outcome such as route of delivery and neonatal outcome, it is best to encourage women to move and deliver in the most comfortable position

Challenges in materials research for sustainable nuclear energy

Global energy demand is expected to increase steeply, creating an urgent need to evolve a judicious global energy policy, exploiting the potential of all available energy resources, including nuclear energy. With increasing awareness of environmental issues, nuclear energy is expected to play an important role on the energy scenario in the coming decades. The immediate thrust in the science and technology of nuclear materials is to realize a robust reactor technology with associated fuel cycle and ensure the cost competitiveness of nuclear power and to extend the service life of reactors to 100 years. Accordingly, the present-generation materials need to be modified to meet the demands of prolonged exposure to irradiation and extended service life for the reactor. Emerging nuclear systems incorporate features to ensure environmental friendliness, effective waste management, enhanced safety, and proliferation resistance and require development of high-temperature materials and the associated technologies. Fusion, on a longer horizon of about fve decades, also requires the development of a new spectrum of materials. The development of next-generation materials technology is expected to occur in short times and is likely to be further accelerated by strong international collaborations

Development of fuels and structural materials for fast breeder reactors

Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) are destined to play a crucial role in the Indian nuclear power programme in the foreseeable future. FBR technology involves a multi-disciplinary approach to solve the various challenges in the areas of fuel and materials development. Fuels for FBRs have significantly higher concentration of fissile material than in thermal reactors, with a matching increase in burn-up. The design of the fuel is an important aspect which has to be optimised for efficient, economic and safe production of power. FBR components operate under hostile and demanding environment of high neutron flux, liquid sodium coolant and elevated temperatures. Resistance to void swelling, irradiation creep, and irradiation embrittlement are therefore major considerations in the choice of materials for the core components. Structural and steam generator materials should have good resistance to creep, low cycle fatigue, creep-fatigue interaction and sodium corrosion. The development of carbide fuel and structural materials for the Fast Breeder Test Reactor at Kalpakkam was a great technological challenge. At the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), advanced research facilities have been established, and extensive studies have been carried out in the areas of fuel and materials development. This has laid the foundation for the design and development of a 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor. Highlights of some of these studies are discussed in this paper in the context of our mission to develop and deploy FBR technology for the energy security of India in the 21st century

Maternal sepsis- an audit in a tertiary care center in South India

Background: Objective of this study was to audit the cases of maternal sepsis and analyze their maternal and fetal outcomes.Methods: A retrospective analysis of cases of maternal sepsis was undertaken for one year. Cases were taken as infection with fever, tachycardia, tachypnea, low oxygen saturation, high or low white blood counts and clinical or laboratory evidence of organ dysfunction and were analyzed. Demographic profile, gestational age at the time of diagnosis, organisms & their sources of infection was noted. Maternal outcomes of abortion, preterm delivery, need for intensive care unit (ICU) / high dependency unit (HDU) stay, blood and blood products, surgical interventions for the control of infection, culture-positive rate, source of organism, antibiotic usage and maternal mortality were analyzed. Fetal outcomes of early fetal demise, preterm birth, intrauterine death, stillbirth and term birth were studied.  Results: There were a total of 2327 deliveries, with 2333 live births during the study period. Twenty-two cases were diagnosed with sepsis, of which 17 survived, and five died. The incidence of maternal sepsis was 9.4/1000 live births & maternal deaths were 22.7%. Ninety percent were in the age group of 21-39 years, 68% were referred, 59% were post-delivery. Fifty nine percent of women who survived, and none of the women who died had medical co-morbidities. Respiratory tract followed by genitourinary tract were the most common source of infection, though culture was negative in 54.5% of the cases. The organisms grown were varied, with Escherichia coli (3/10) contributing to 30% of the culture positive cases. Spontaneous abortion and preterm delivery were 18% each, 36% required surgical intervention, 81% required ICU and 64.7% HDU stay. Seventy-seven had live birth.Conclusions: Maternal sepsis is an evolving preventable health burden. Early recognition requires a high index of clinical suspicion, even in the absence of risk factors. Mortality to morbidity ratio is very high in maternal sepsis. The timing of sepsis determines the fetal outcomes

An efficient ID- based directed signature scheme from bilinear pairings

A directed signature scheme allows a designated verifier to directly verify a signature issued to him, and a third party to check the signature validity with the help of the signer or the designated verifier as well. Directed signatures are applicable where the signed message is sensitive to the signature receiver. Due to its merits, directed signature schemes are suitable for applications such as bill of tax and bill of health. In this paper, we proposed an efficient identity based directed signature scheme from bilinear pairings. Our scheme is efficient than the existing directed signature schemes. In the random oracle model, our scheme is unforgeable under the Computational Diffie-Hellman (CDH) assumption, and invisible under the Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH)

A New Pairing-Free Certificateless Signcryption Scheme

Signcryption is a cryptographic primitive which provides unforgeability and confidentiality for digital communications. Many signcryption schemes have been constructed in the literature for secure communication between smart objects. But, many of these existing schemes are not secure and inefficient for resource constrained applications like WSNs, Mobile computing, VANETs and IoT applications. To enrich the security and efficiency issues, in this paper, we propose a new signcryption scheme in certificateless based framework and prove its security under the CDHP and ECDLP assumptions. The efficiency analysis indicates that our scheme is more efficient than other existing signcryption schemes and is well suitable for resource-constrained applications

Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from Garcinia morella using next generation sequencing technology and cross-species amplification

The fruit-bearing medicinal tree, Garcinia morella, grows in the tropical rain forests of India’s Western Ghats, Indo-Chinese Himalayan regions and Sri Lanka. Its fruit rinds are used as a garnish and in seasoning during food preparation. In order to genetically exploit it and assess diversity, development of microsatellite markers was attempted. We partially sequenced genomic DNA using the Illumina Hiseq 2000 platform and examined sequence data for microsatellite loci. We obtained high-quality 10653 Mbp data and was assembled into 1613263 contigs. A total of 121199 SSRs were discovered, Di nucleotide repeats were predominant (42.5%), followed by mono and tri nucleotide repeats (30.4 and 7.9%, respectively). We were able to design primers for 52901 microsatellites. Genetic analysis of 48 SSR loci, showed PIC values ranging from 0.067 to 0.939 with a mean value of 0.7547. The allele per locus ranged from 2 to 24 with a mean of 13. These microsatellite markers can be employed for genetic diversity analysis, molecular characterization and mapping different traits

Retinal vascular tortuosity in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

\u3cp\u3eThe micro-vasculature of retina and brain share common morphological, physiological, and pathological properties. Retina being easily accessible, retinal vascular examination provides an indirect assessment of cerebral vasculature. Considering the high prevalence of vascular morbidity in SCZ and BD a few studies have examined retinal vascular caliber and have reported increased retinal venular caliber in schizophrenia (SCZ). Retinal vascular tortuosity could serve as a better structural measure than caliber as it is static and less susceptible to pulse period variations. However, to date, no study has examined retinal vascular tortuosity in SCZ and bipolar disorder (BD). Hence, we examined retinal vascular tortuosity in comparison with healthy volunteers (HV). We included 255 subjects (78 HV, 79 SCZ, and 86 BD) in the age range of 18 to 50 years. Trained personnel acquired images using a non-mydriatic fundus camera. To measure the average retinal arteriolar tortuosity index (RATI) and retinal venular tortuosity index (RVTI), we used a previously validated, semi-automatic algorithm. The results showed significant differences across the three groups in RATI but not in RVTI; both BD and SCZ had significantly increased RATI compared to HV. There was also a significant difference between SCZ and BD, with BD having higher RATI. If shown to be of predictive utility in future longitudinal studies, it has the potential to identify patients at risk of development of adverse vascular events. As retinal vascular imaging is non-invasive and inexpensive, it could serve as a proxy marker and window to cerebral vasculature.\u3c/p\u3

Designing learning-skills towards industry 4.0

The world is shrinking now more than ever due to new scientific and technological breakthroughs that expand the boundaries of human knowledge, resulting in improvements in transportation, communication, space exploration and educational technologies. Today’s students will compete in a technological, diverse, multi-cultural world and must be prepared to thrive in this futuristic environment. Therefore, it is vital that today’s pedagogy produce lifelong learners, who can succeed in a global pulpit. To ensure our educational technology progresses at the rate demanded by today’s ubiquitous digital learners, we review emerging technologies and traditional teaching methods and propose desirable changes. Future companies will need employees with specific Internet of Things connected additive manufacturing skills across the value stream, including computer-aided design, machine operation, raw material development, robotics and supply chain management; but these are only island of excellence in industry 4.0 and not the consummate requirement of the manufacturing process