A study to analyze and improve mechanical and electro-mechanical designs using design for quality manufacturability (DFQM) technique

The competitive nature of modern manufacturing demands that an innovative approach be used to build advanced and robust designs. Shortening the product development time, which is the period from initial design to full production, is a priority to most manufacturers today. Design for Quality Manufacturability (DFQM) is a methodology to address manufacturing / assembly quality issues during product design. As a consequence DFQM helps shorten the product development time. The DFQM methodology addresses the issue of quality manufacturability (QM) - the likely hood that defects will occur during the manufacture of a product in a standard plant. The DFQM architecture identifies a variety of design factors and variables that influence specific defects. The error catalysts are described in the form of catalysis graphs. Each catalysis graph leads to a value between 0 and 1 , based on the factor variables for the given design, implying the likelihood of occurrence of the specific defect. The overall QM index of design is derived from these values. In this thesis we introduce new error catalysts for the DFQM method. Further, we conducted case studies of a variety of designs and we present a couple of them in this thesis

Adoption intensity of soil and water conservation practices by smallholders: Evidence from Northern Ghana

Soil and water conservation practices are being promoted in Ghana as a way of sustainably managing the environment to support agricultural production. Despite the important role the adoption of the practices plays in conserving the environment, very few studies have been conducted to analyse the factors influencing their intensive adoption. This study analyses the determinants of intensity of adoption of soil and water conservation practices using data from a cross-section of smallholder producers in Northern Ghana. Count data models are used for the analysis. The empirical results show that access to information, social capital, per capita landholding and wealth play an important role in smallholder producers’ decision to intensively adopt soil and water conservation practices

Comparison of Fracture Delineation Methods in Anteroposterior Pelvic Radiographs

Pelvic fractures are very difficult to detect due to the visual complexity of the pelvic bone. Pelvic fracture occurs less frequently, only when there is a high energy event such as fall from a height or vehicle collision. In elder people and in osteoporosis patients even a low energy incident may cause fracture. The paper includes the comparison of three different fracture detection methods – GLCM and ANN based, Statistical curve fitting and classifier based and finally statistical curve fitting and ANN based method

Egocentric Activity Recognition Using HOG, HOF and MBH Features

recognizing egocentric actions is a challenging task that has to be addressed in recent years. The recognition of first person activities helps in assisting elderly people, disabled patients and so on. Here, life logging activity videos are taken as input. There are 2 categories, first one is the top level and second one is second level. In this research work, the recognition is done using the features like Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), Histogram of optical Flow (HOF) and Motion Boundary Histogram (MBH). The extracted features are given as input to the classifiers like Support Vector Machine (SVM) and k Nearest Neighbor (kNN). The performance results showed that SVM gave better results than kNN classifier for both categories

MICROANGIOGRAM VIDEO COMPRESSION USING ADAPTIVE PREDICTION

Coronary angiography is an X-ray examination of the heart\u27s arteries. This is an essential technique for diagnosis of heart damages. Image sequences from digital angiography contain areas of high diagnostic interest. Loss of information due to compression for regions of interest (ROI) in angiograms is not tolerable. Since Commercially available technology such as JPEG and MPEG do not satisfy medical requirements due to their severe blockartifacts. In this paper, a new compression algorithm that achieves high compression ratio and excellent reconstruction quality for video rate or sub-video rate angiograms is developed. The proposed algorithm exploits temporal spatial and spectral redundancies in backward adaptive fashion with Extremely low side information. An experimental result shows that the proposed scheme provides significant improvements in compression efficiencies

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF VALSARTAN FAST DISINTEGRATING TABLETS BY VACUUM DRYING TECHNIQUE

ABSTRACTObjective: The main objective present research work an attempt has been made to prepare fast dissolving tablets of Valsartan by using vacuumdrying technique. Camphor, Urea and Menthol are used as a sublimating agent. Valsartan is an oral antihypertensive agent, with problems of variablebioavailability and bioequivalence related to its poor water solubility. Valsartan is an angiotensin II type 1 receptor antagonist indicated in thetreatment of hypertension. Methods: The prepared tablets Valsartan fast dissolving tablets were evaluated for various parameters like weight variation, hardness, friability,disintegration time, drug content, water absorption ratio, wetting time, in- vitro drug release, FTIR, DSC studies and short term stability studies. Theblend was examined for the pre-compressional and post-compressional parameter. Results and Discussions: The values of pre-compression parameters evaluated were within prescribed limits and indicated good free flowingproperty. All the post-compressional parameter are evaluated were prescribed limits and results were within IP acceptable limits. Based on the invitrodisintegrationtime and dissolution studies formulationsSC2 andSC3werefoundtobe promisingandshowedadisintegrationtime of 24secand16 secrespectively.FormulationSC3 containingcamphor showedhighestdrug release99.4% within10 min.IR spectralanalysisandDSC studyshowedthattherewasno drug interactionwith formulationadditivesofthetablet asthereis novariationand shift inthe position ofcharacteristicabsorptionbands it canbejustifiedthereis no interactionbetweendrug and polymer.Short termstability studieson the formulationsindicatedthatthereareno significant change in hardness,friability,drug contentand in-vitrodrug release(p<0.05). Conclusion: The results concluded that fast dissolving tablets of Valsartan showing enhanced dissolution may lead to improved bioavailabilityand effective therapy by using sublimation method.Keywords: Fast dissolving tablet, Valsartan, Crospovidone, Camphor, Urea, Disintegration time

Fine needle aspiration: a simple and handy tool to diagnose malignant lymphadenopathy

Background: Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of the lymph node is a simple useful screening test to diagnose suspected and unsuspected secondary and primary lymph node malignancy. The aim of the present study is to know the role of FNAC in the diagnosis of clinically suspected and unsuspected lymph node malignancies. Study design: prospective cohort study.Methods: Study material comprise of ‘76’ lymph nodes aspirates reported as malignant on cytology, out of total 445 cases of lymph node aspiration in two years period i.e. from October 2014 to September 2016.These 76 smears were studied and tabulated according to their cytomorphology and the lymph node group affected was noted. The clinical and radiological data were also noted.Results: Males were found more affected than females. cervical lymph node is the commonest group involved. Metastasis from squamous cell carcinoma was the most common diagnosis made on cytology.Conclusions: FNAC is found simple and very useful tool for diagnosing malignant lesions of lymph nodes especially in case of metastasis

Unscarred uterine rupture: a retrospective analysis

Uterine rupture is an obstetrical emergency associated with significant maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity. Spontaneous rupture of an unscarred uterus, though rare, can occur in developing countries. Many risk factors for uterine rupture, as well as a wide range of clinical presentations, have been identified. The aim of the study was to analyze the incidence, predisposing factors and to determine the maternal and perinatal outcomes of unscarred uterine rupture. A retrospective analysis of cases of unscarred uterine rupture was conducted at the department of obstetrics and gynecology, Andhra Medical College/King George Hospital, Visakhapatnam from 01 October 2020 to 31 October 2021. Out of the 8657 deliveries in our hospital during the study period, there were 11 cases of ruptured unscarred uteri giving an incidence of 0.127%. All of these (100%) were unbooked cases. Most of them (90.9%) were multigravida. Uterine rupture occurred at term in 9 cases and 2 were pre term. Maternal mortality was 18.18% (2 cases) and perinatal mortality was 72.72% (8 cases). Sub-total hysterectomy was done in 4 and laparotomy with repair of the rent was performed in the remaining 7 cases. Unscarred uterine rupture though a rare complication of pregnancy, can occur commonly in developing countries. Obstructed labour, mismanaged labour, injudicious use of oxytocin and grand multiparity are the common risk factors associated with unscarred uterine rupture