A case control study of possible additional risk factors for chronic alcoholic pancreatitis

Background: Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is characterised by irreversible damage to pancreas leading to endocrine and exocrine insufficiency with considerable morbidity. Etiopathogenesis is multifactorial with interplay between genetics & environmental toxins. Alcoholism is more commonly associated with chronic pancreatitis. But it is not very clear why only certain proportion of the alcoholics develop pancreatitis. So this study was conducted to find the possible additional risk factors involved in alcoholic pancreatitis.Methods: A total of 30 patients with alcoholic pancreatitis from a tertiary care hospital in Pondicherry, India were enrolled and compared with age matched alcoholics without pancreatitis. The diagnostic criteria for alcoholism were based on diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) criteria IV of alcohol consumption >80gms/day for a period of 5 years or more and chronic pancreatitis was based on significant clinical findings and positive ultrasound findings of pancreatitis. Questions regarding additional risk factors of pancreatitis like smoking, blood group and Diabetes mellitus were asked and recorded using the standard questionnaire.Results: Smoking history was noted in 73% of cases and 63.4% of controls. Non O blood group was noted in 56.6% of cases and 46.6% of controls. 10% of cases and 6.6% of controls gave history of diabetes before the development of pancreatitis. The additional risk factors were almost similar in both the groups and there was no statistical difference.Conclusions: It was concluded that there is no statistically significant additional risk factors for chronic alcoholic pancreatitis noted in present study and a study with a large sample size for an extended period is recommended

Mobile Sensing Systems

[EN] Rich-sensor smart phones have made possible the recent birth of the mobile sensing research area as part of ubiquitous sensing which integrates other areas such as wireless sensor networks and web sensing. There are several types of mobile sensing: individual, participatory, opportunistic, crowd, social, etc. The object of sensing can be people-centered or environment-centered. The sensing domain can be home, urban, vehicular Currently there are barriers that limit the social acceptance of mobile sensing systems. Examples of social barriers are privacy concerns, restrictive laws in some countries and the absence of economic incentives that might encourage people to participate in a sensing campaign. Several technical barriers are phone energy savings and the variety of sensors and software for their management. Some existing surveys partially tackle the topic of mobile sensing systems. Published papers theoretically or partially solve the above barriers. We complete the above surveys with new works, review the barriers of mobile sensing systems and propose some ideas for efficiently implementing sensing, fusion, learning, security, privacy and energy saving for any type of mobile sensing system, and propose several realistic research challenges. The main objective is to reduce the learning curve in mobile sensing systems where the complexity is very high.This work has been partially supported by the "Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion", through the "Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008-2011" in the "Subprograma de Proyectos de Investigacion Fundamental", project TEC2011-27516, and by the Polytechnic University of Valencia, through the PAID-05-12 multidisciplinary projects.Macias Lopez, EM.; Suarez Sarmiento, A.; Lloret, J. (2013). Mobile Sensing Systems. Sensors. 13(12):17292-17321. https://doi.org/10.3390/s131217292S1729217321131

Regulation of Coronary Blood Flow

The heart is uniquely responsible for providing its own blood supply through the coronary circulation. Regulation of coronary blood flow is quite complex and, after over 100 years of dedicated research, is understood to be dictated through multiple mechanisms that include extravascular compressive forces (tissue pressure), coronary perfusion pressure, myogenic, local metabolic, endothelial as well as neural and hormonal influences. While each of these determinants can have profound influence over myocardial perfusion, largely through effects on end-effector ion channels, these mechanisms collectively modulate coronary vascular resistance and act to ensure that the myocardial requirements for oxygen and substrates are adequately provided by the coronary circulation. The purpose of this series of Comprehensive Physiology is to highlight current knowledge regarding the physiologic regulation of coronary blood flow, with emphasis on functional anatomy and the interplay between the physical and biological determinants of myocardial oxygen delivery. © 2017 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 7:321-382, 2017

CHINTZ AND MODERNITY IN BANGKOKIAN URBAN CULTURE

Master'sMASTER OF ARTS (RSH-FASS

Manufacturing of precision thermostats by automation

This project mainly involves automation of the whole thermostat line in the authors company. The objective is to get higher output with minimum manpower.Master of Science (Precision Engineering

Strawberry algorithm and its newly evolved variant for pattern nulling in an antenna array

In this article attempt has been made for the first time to apply the reported strawberry optimization technique to antenna array synthesis problem. The algorithm is further modified by reinforcing it with adaptive values for the two key parameters known as runner length and root length embedded in the mathematical expression governing the movement of the mother plant from one position to another in the search space to locate the optimum solution. The case studies cited here refer to linear and circular array configurations. The design constraints are limited to minimizing the side lobe level and restricting the first null beam width, which play significant roles in antenna array performances. The important features which greatly influence in achieving the said objectives are either placement of antenna elements or amplitudes of excitations of these elements or both. And the recently reported nature inspired metaheuristic optimization algorithms have addressed to these antenna problems quite effectively and the application of the strawberry algorithm for the first time and the unraveling of a new algorithm known as reduced step size strawberry algorithm (rss-SBA) a variant of the existing SBA have shown quite exciting results thus opening avenues for these techniques to be the potential contenders in the race of authenticating their positions in the domain of nonlinear function optimization

Tie-Simplex Parameterization of Operator Based Linearization for Isothermal Multiphase Compositional Flow In Porous Media

Compositional flow simulation is the best practise to model the complex enhanced oil recovery process. This involves solving highly coupled and non linear flow, transport equations.Interaction of components within different phases and the fluid interaction with rock properties makes it difficult to accurately predict the natural flow process in the reservoir. Thisdemands for resolution models and accurate representation of flow process with realistic assumptions., which is quite challenging with conventional simulation.The newly proposed Operator based linearization (OBL) approach handles the problem in adifferent way. Governing equations are regrouped using state and space operators. The stateoperators are computed at the nodes of uniform mesh in parameter space and multi- linearinterpolation is performed during simulation. Uniformly distributed supporting points ignorethe underlying physics leading to higher interpolation error around the phase boundary anddemanding higher resolution to achieve the desired accuracy.The objective of “Tie simplex parameterization of Operator-Based Linearization for IsothermalMultiphase Compositional flow in porous media” is to parameterize the compositional spaceby accounting the underlying physics. A set of tie lines captures the phase boundary inparameter space at given pressure and temperature. Tessellation is performed by extendingthe tie lines to the entire compositional space. The supporting points are assigned along theextended tie-lines according to manually designed heuristics. After that, the parameterizedspace is tessellated further using Delaunay triangulation, and barycentric interpolation isperformed within each simplex.The efficiency of the developed approach is demonstrated in comparison with the uniformparameterization using 1D displacement of compositional two-phase fluid. The convergenceof non linear newton iterative solver is studied by applying the OBL framework with newlyproposed interpolation and existing Multi-Linear interpolation framework.Operator-Based LinearizationPetroleum Engineering and Geo-science