The use of seismic techniques to identify hazardous ground conditions associated with cavities

The identification of civil engineering hazards such as cavities, mine shafts, etc., is an integral part of site investigations carried out prior to the construction of roads, tunnels and other civil engineering structures. The use of geophysical methods to identify these hazards is becoming increasingly important. An investigation into the effectiveness of three seismic methods to delineate the possible anomalous ground conditions associated with the presence of cavities has been evaluated. The three methods are: surface, interborehole and a single hole method. The surface seismic method (refraction) was used successfully over a disused railway tunnel to identify the presence of a cavity, and a technique was developed to generate images of a theoretical model, which can be compared to a field survey. The interborehole seismic method was used across a disused railway tunnel to study the effect of a cavity on changes in seismic parameters, such as compressional wave velocity and attenuation. Both of these parameters were sensitive to the presence of a large cavity, and the successful application of the technique is demonstrated in the Maidstone survey, where the presence of loosely packed sand (due to sinkholes in the vicinity) was located under a house. The use of the single hole method for detecting cavities is a new technique (ACDER) in seismics, and it is analogous to methods of radar detection. A sparker source, directional receiver and associated instrumentation were developed in the laboratory before field trials at East Fleet. Of the three methods, the interborehole technique was the most successful, followed by the surface method. The single hole method looks promising but requires further work in the design of directional receiving transducers, followed by more field trials

Within the Realm of Possibility: Magic and Mediation in Native American and Chicano/A Literature.

Bloodlines create an overlap in Native American and Chicano/a history, but this dissertation studies these ethnic groups together for reasons beyond this. Native Americans and Chicanos/as share more than blood; overlaps occur in language, religion, and United States geography. Psychic geography for each group also presents a kinship, for in the search for a redemptive personal identity (to stand against the forcible near-extinction of Native Americans and the cultural dismissal of Chicanos/as by their native land) each cultural group recognizes its difference. Having very little in dominant culture upon which to build an identity, Native Americans and Chicanos/as have turned inward to create their own texts of rediscovery. To achieve this personal rediscovery, Chicano/a and Native American writers often turn to magical realism. Through an examination of contemporary novels written by and about Native Americans and Chicanos/as, this dissertation explores the impact of magical realism on cultural mediation. Whether because of mixed ancestry or a liminal, borderlands setting, characters of the novels discussed in Chapters Two and Three face conflicting cultures (their own culture versus the dominant culture), and, because of magical intervention, are able to emerge from their respective conflicts with a blended sense of identity, taking the best each culture has to offer to form a new perspective. The works presented in Chapter Four study what I believe to be a uniquely Chicano/a trait: nearly magical writing. Chapter Two presents four characters and five novels as examples of the coming of age story, or bildungsroman, and the role of magical realism in this rite of passage. They are Rudolfo Anaya\u27s Bless Me, Ultima, Louise Erdrich\u27s The Bingo Palace and Love Medicine, Linda Hogan\u27s Solar Storms, and Ana Castillo\u27s So Far From God. Chapter Three explores adult reactions to magical realism, noting the differences in Chicano/a and Native American perspectives. Under discussion are Ana Castillo\u27s So Far From God, Leslie Marmon Silko\u27s Ceremony, and Paula Gunn Allen\u27s The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. The final chapter addresses what I have termed nearly magical literature, using Sandra Cisneros\u27 Woman Hollering Creek to illustrate this idea

Contribution of a point defect to the electrical resistivity of simple and non-simple metals

Recently proposed potential has been used to calculate the contribution of a point defect to the electrical resistivity of simple and non-simple metals including d and f-shell metals. The parameter of the potential has been determined using zero pressure condition while the exchange and correlation effect due to Taylor is incorporated. Our present findings for Al, Pb, Cu, Ag and Au are excellent in agreement with the experimental findings while alkali metals have comparable results with the other such theoretical findings. We could not find sufficient theoretical as well as experimental data for Ni, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir, La, Yb, Ce and Th for the contribution of a point defect to the electrical resistivity (residual resistivity) in order to workout a quantitative comparison. It, therefore, seems difficult to give concrete remark about the present results; we conclude that the calculations of monovacancy resistivity based on pseudopotential theory can be regarded as a sensitive test for the proper assessment of the pseudopotential form factor.Recently proposed potential has been used to calculate the contribution of a point defect to the electrical resistivity of simple and non-simple metals including d and f-shell metals. The parameter of the potential has been determined using zero pressure condition while the exchange and correlation effect due to Taylor is incorporated. Our present findings for Al, Pb, Cu, Ag and Au are excellent in agreement with the experimental findings while alkali metals have comparable results with the other such theoretical findings. We could not find sufficient theoretical as well as experimental data for Ni, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir, La, Yb, Ce and Th for the contribution of a point defect to the electrical resistivity (residual resistivity) in order to workout a quantitative comparison. It, therefore, seems difficult to give concrete remark about the present results; we conclude that the calculations of monovacancy resistivity based on pseudopotential theory can be regarded as a sensitive test for the proper assessment of the pseudopotential form factor

MANAGEMENT OF PERINEAL AND PERIANAL WARTS THROUGH AYURVEDA: A CASE REPORT

Warts are the commonest benign, viral condition found in day to day practice and it is more common in young females. In Ayurveda warts may be compared with Charmakeel. As per Acharya Sushruta Agnikarma has been described as superior para-surgical procedures among all the measures used in Ayurveda, as the disease treated by it usually did not relapse. In present case report 33 years old female patient visited in Outpatient department (OPD) of Shalya Tantra having complaints of numerous growths in perineal and peri-anal region with itching and occasional pain since 6 months. The swelling was gradually increasing in size with local itching and discomfort. So the case was diagnosed as external genital warts and Chedana (excision) of the warts with cautery was planned. Orally two tablets (500mg each) Triphala Guggulu thrice in a day with luke warm water was advised for one month. Daily cleaning with Panchavalakal Kwath and dressing with Thumari Taila was performed till complete healing of the post-operative wound. Within 3 weeks wound was healed completely. Follow-up was done up to 10 months and patient had no any complaints or recurrence of warts. This case demonstrates that warts can be managed through Ayurveda without any complications, no recurrence and cost-effectively

A New Speech Enhancment algorithm in Hearing Aid based on Wavelet Transform

Voice Enhancement systems are used to remove background inference in a speech signal and are become an main component of modern hearing aid. In everyday life the speech communication is vivid uses for the hearing impaired and the numerous other applications. Speech is the fundamental means of human communication. After over thirty years of research enhancement algorithm. Which offer superior noise reduction over current methods? All speech enhancements suffer from distortion for the residual noise due to imperfect noise removal. It is always require to perform denoising in voice processing system operating in highly noise because of wavelet transform is one of the popular techniques used in signal enhancement, In the present paper wavelet thresholding and wavelet packet thresholding method have been used to decrease the noise from the voice signal. A simple threshold method is presented to compute the optimum threshold value. Mean square error(MSE) at different values of SNR is computed to method like traditional speech subtraction, wiener filtering method, spectral subtraction with MMSE etc.The result obtained is compared with the other voice enhancement algorithm given in various reference papers. In comparison to other traditional methods we get improved result in terms of SNR and MSE.Simulation done in MATLAB platform

Analyzing Performance of ZRP by Varying Node Density and Transmission Range

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that are arbitrarily located so that the interconnections between nodes are dynamically changing. In MANET mobile nodes forms a temporary network without the use of any existing network infrastructure or centralized administration. Each node participating in the network acts both as host and a router and must therefore is willing to forward packets for other nodes. For this purpose, a routing protocol is needed. A routing protocol is used to find routes between mobile nodes to facilitate communication within the network. The Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) is a hybrid routing protocol for MANET which combines the advantages of the proactive and reactive approaches by maintaining an up-to-date topological map of a zone centered on each node. I am going to do simulation based study in order to analyze performance of ZRP protocol and I use Network Simulator (NS-2) tool to analysis performance of ZRP and analysis by varying node density and transmission range on different parameter like throughput, average end to end delay, and Normalized Routing load. Keywords:Routing Protocols, ZRP, Proactive Routing, Reactive Routing, Hybrid Routing

A study of the complications among the patients undergoing retroperitoneal and transperitoneal laparoscopic nephrectomy for pyonephrosis

Background: Nowadays laparoscopy have gained wider acceptance in urology that leads to more reports on the potential complications. This study was conducted to evaluate the complications among the patients undergoing retroperitoneal and transperitoneal laparoscopic nephrectomy.Methods: Analysis was done retrospectively through review of a maintained database of 219 consecutive laparoscopic simple nephrectomies done for pyonephrosis from July 2001 to February 2013 at the department of urology Civil Hospital and B J Medical College Ahmedabad.Results: Total 219 simple nephrectomies performed between July 2001 to February 2013 for pyonephrosis. In 165 (75.3%) of patient’s procedure was through trans peritoneal route while retroperitoneal access was used in 54(24.6%) patients. In our study there were major complications in 12 patients with laparoscopic transperitoneal group and in 4 patients in laparoscopic retro peritoneal group. The minor complication rate in present study was 13.3% (22/165) in laparoscopic transperitoneal group and 11.1% (6/54) in laparoscopic retroperitoneal group.Conclusions: There were major complications in patients with laparoscopic transperitoneal group and in few patients in laparoscopic retro peritoneal group. In most other series it was seen that retroperitoneoscopic surgery may be associated with more complications, the findings are unfounded. Minor complications can be managed easily if there is low threshold for conversion to open surgery

Formulation and evaluation of transdermal patch of Aceclofenac

The purpose of this research was to develop a matrix-type transdermal therapeutic system containing drug Aceclofenac with different ratios of hydrophilic (hydroxyl propyl cellulose) and hydrophobic (ethyl cellulose) polymeric systems by the solvent evaporation technique by using 15 % w/w of dibutyl phthalate to the polymer weight, incorporated as plasticizer. Different concentrations of oleic acid and isopropyl myristate were used to enhance the transdermal permeation of Aceclofenac. The physicochemical compatibility of the drug and the polymers studied by differential scanning calorimetry and infrared spectroscopy suggested absence of any incompatibility. Formulated transdermal films were physically evaluated with regard to thickness, weight variation, drug content, flatness, tensile strength, folding endurance, percentage of moisture content and water vapour transmission rate. All prepared formulations indicated good physical stability. In-vitro permeation studies of formulations were performed by using Franz diffusion cells. Formulation prepared with hydrophilic polymer containing permeation enhancer showed best in-vitro skin permeation through rat skin (Wistar albino rat) as compared to all other formulations. The results followed the release profile of Aceclofenac followed mixed zero-order and first-order kinetics in different formulation. However, the release profile of the optimized formulation F9 (r2 = 0.9935 for Higuchi) indicated that the permeation of the drug from the patches was governed by a diffusion mechanism. Formulation F9 showed highest flux among all the formulations and 1.369 fold enhancements in drug permeation. These results indicate that the formulation containing 15 % of oleic acid with 10 % Isopropyl myristate give better penetration of Aceclofenac through rat skin.Keywords: Aceclofenac, Transdermal Film, Permeation enhancer, In-vitro permeation study