Post-operative atrial fibrillation in off pump coronary artery bypass graft: association with medication

Background: Post-operative atrial fibrillation is a common post-operative complication and has significant morbidity and mortality. This study was done with an objective to determine the association of various medication use in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) with post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF).Methods: This was a prospective observational study done in the department of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery of GMC Kottayam from December 2019 to December 2020 after obtaining institutional review board clearance. A sample size of 334 was fixed and patients undergoing off pump (OP) CABG were consecutively recruited in the study. The association of intraoperative and postoperative medication use with occurrence of POAF were analysed using the univariate analysis with a p<0.05 using the SPSS 16 software.Results: Peri-operative inotrope use was found to be significantly associated with post operative atrial fibrillation odds ratio 1.08 (95% CI 1.02-1.13). We could not find any association with preoperative use of beta blockers/agonist, antidiabetics, levothyroxine, ACE inhibitors or antiplatelet drugs. All the patients 60 (18%) who developed POAF were given amiodarone as per protocol.Conclusions: Perioperative inotrope use was found to have significant association with the development of post operative atrial fibrillation following OPCABG. More multi-institutional studies with determination of association with individual drugs and doses with POAF need to be conducted in future

Smart Farm-Care using a Deep Learning Model on Mobile Phones

Deep learning and its models have provided exciting solutions in various image processing applications like image segmentation, classification, labeling, etc., which paved the way to apply these models in agriculture to identify diseases in agricultural plants. The most visible symptoms of the disease initially appear on the leaves. To identify diseases found in leaf images, an accurate classification system with less size and complexity is developed using smartphones. A labeled dataset consisting of 3171 apple leaf images belonging to 4 different classes of diseases, including the healthy ones, is used for classification. In this work, four variants of MobileNet models - pre-trained on the ImageNet database, are retrained to diagnose diseases. The model’s variants differ based on their depth and resolution multiplier. The results show that the proposed model with 0.5 depth and 224 resolution performs well - achieving an accuracy of 99.6%. Later, the K-means algorithm is used to extract additional features, which helps improve the accuracy to 99.7% and also measures the number of pixels forming diseased spots, which helps in severity prediction. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-02-013 Full Text: PD

The Eye: A Light Weight Mobile Application for Visually Challenged People Using Improved YOLOv5l Algorithm

The eye is an essential sensory organ that allows us to perceive our surroundings at a glance. Losing this sense can result in numerous challenges in daily life. However, society is designed for the majority, which can create even more difficulties for visually impaired individuals. Therefore, empowering them and promoting self-reliance are crucial. To address this need, we propose a new Android application called “The Eye” that utilizes Machine Learning (ML)-based object detection techniques to recognize objects in real-time using a smartphone camera or a camera attached to a stick. The article proposed an improved YOLOv5l algorithm to improve object detection in visual applications. YOLOv5l has a larger model size and captures more complex features and details, leading to enhanced object detection accuracy compared to smaller variants like YOLOv5s and YOLOv5m. The primary enhancement in the improved YOLOv5l algorithm is integrating L1 and L2 regularization techniques. These techniques prevent overfitting and improve generalization by adding a regularization term to the loss function during training. Our approach combines image processing and text-to-speech conversion modules to produce reliable results. The Android text-to-speech module is then used to convert the object recognition results into an audio output. According to the experimental results, the improved YOLOv5l has higher detection accuracy than the original YOLOv5 and can detect small, multiple, and overlapped targets with higher accuracy. This study contributes to the advancement of technology to help visually impaired individuals become more self-sufficient and confident. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-05-011 Full Text: PD

Assessment of Deformation Field during High Strain Rate Tensile Tests of RAFM Steel Using DIC Technique

AbstractNnnnTowards developing a constitutive model for describing the flow and fracture behaviour of engineering materials under higher strain rates, studying the deformation fields in uniform and localized deformation regime using the high strain rate tensile tests is of technical importance. To this end, high strain rate tensile tests have been carried out on flat tensile specimen of reduced activation ferritic-martensitic (RAFM) steel at different loading rates varying from 5 m/s to 14 m/s. The strain fields at uniform and localized deformation regime have been mapped by Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique. For carrying out the DIC, high speed images of the specimen surface have been captured in-situ by high speed camera, synchronized with the load-displacement data acquisition system. The stress-strain fields thus obtained in this study would be an appropriate input to numerical analysis to characterize the flow and fracture behaviour of RAFM steels

Uterine haemodynamics and band neutrophils as recovery markers in medical management of canine pyometra

Canine pyometra is a hormonally mediated life-threatening uterine disease of canines, associated with bacterial infection and inflammation. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of pus in the uterus and systemic illness. The study was undertaken to assess the relevance of band cells in circulation and Doppler ultrasonography in the prognostic evaluation of medically managed canine pyometra. A significantly higher band of neutrophils were recorded among bitches presented with pyometra, which reduced to the physiologically normal range as treatment progressed in the animals which responded to the treatment. The resistive index, which was lower than the threshold value of 0.72, increased as the treatment progressed in the responsive animals and proved to be a reliable tool as a recovery marker

CMFRI Marine Fisheries Policy Series No.17; Draft National Mariculture Policy 2019 (NMP2019) Report of the Committee constituted by the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Govt. of India. [Report of the Committee constituted by the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Govt. of India]

The goal of the National Mariculture Policy 2019 (NMP 2019) is to ensure sustainable farmed seafood production for the benefit of food and nutritional security of the Nation and to provide additional livelihood and entrepreneurial opportunities to the coastal communities for a better living. The overall strategy of NMP is to increase seafood production in a sustainable and responsible manner, ensure socio-economic development, enhance food, health and nutritional security and safeguard gender, social equity and environment

The role of potential vorticity anomalies in the Somali Jet on Indian summer monsoon intraseasonal variability

The climate of the Indian subcontinent is dominated by rainfall arising from the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) during the summer season (June to September). Intraseasonal variability during the monsoon is characterized by periods of heavy rainfall interspersed by drier periods, known as active and break events respectively. Understanding and predicting such events is of vital importance for forecasting human impacts such as water resources. The Somali Jet is a key regional feature of this circulation. In the present study, we find that the spatial structure of Somali Jet potential vorticity (PV) anomalies varies considerably during active and break periods. Analysis of these anomalies shows a mechanism whereby sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies propagate north/northwestwards through the Arabian Sea, caused by a positive feedback loop joining anomalies in SST, convection, modification of PV by diabatic heating and mixing in the atmospheric boundary layer, wind stress curl, and upwelling processes. The feedback mechanism is consistent with observed coupled ocean-atmosphere system variability timescales of approximately 20 days. This research suggests that better understanding and prediction of monsoon subseasonal variability in the South Asian monsoon may be gained by analysis of the day-to-day dynamical evolution of PV in the Somali Jet

Interaction of convective organisation with monsoon precipitation, atmosphere, surface and sea: the 2016 INCOMPASS field campaign in India

The INCOMPASS field campaign combines airborne and ground measurements of the 2016 Indian monsoon, towards the ultimate goal of better predicting monsoon rainfall. The monsoon supplies the majority of water in South Asia, but forecasting from days to the season ahead is limited by large, rapidly developing errors in model parametrizations. The lack of detailed observations prevents thorough understanding of the monsoon circulation and its interaction with the land surface: a process governed by boundary‐layer and convective‐cloud dynamics. INCOMPASS used the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe‐146 aircraft for the first project of this scale in India, to accrue almost 100 h of observations in June and July 2016. Flights from Lucknow in the northern plains sampled the dramatic contrast in surface and boundary‐layer structures between dry desert air in the west and the humid environment over the northern Bay of Bengal. These flights were repeated in pre‐monsoon and monsoon conditions. Flights from a second base at Bengaluru in southern India measured atmospheric contrasts from the Arabian Sea, over the Western Ghats mountains, to the rain shadow of southeast India and the south Bay of Bengal. Flight planning was aided by forecasts from bespoke 4 km convection‐permitting limited‐area models at the Met Office and India's NCMRWF. On the ground, INCOMPASS installed eddy‐covariance flux towers on a range of surface types, to provide detailed measurements of surface fluxes and their modulation by diurnal and seasonal cycles. These data will be used to better quantify the impacts of the atmosphere on the land surface, and vice versa. INCOMPASS also installed ground instrumentation supersites at Kanpur and Bhubaneswar. Here we motivate and describe the INCOMPASS field campaign. We use examples from two flights to illustrate contrasts in atmospheric structure, in particular the retreating mid‐level dry intrusion during the monsoon onset

Interaction of convective organisation with monsoon precipitation, atmosphere, surface and sea: the 2016 INCOMPASS field campaign in India

The INCOMPASS field campaign combines airborne and ground measurements of the 2016 Indian monsoon, towards the ultimate goal of better predicting monsoon rainfall. The monsoon supplies the majority of water in South Asia, but forecasting from days to the season ahead is limited by large, rapidly developing errors in model parametrizations. The lack of detailed observations prevents thorough understanding of the monsoon circulation and its interaction with the land surface: a process governed by boundary-layer and convective-cloud dynamics. INCOMPASS used the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe-146 aircraft for the first project of this scale in India, to accrue almost 100 hours of observations in June and July 2016. Flights from Lucknow in the northern plains sampled the dramatic contrast in surface and boundary layer structures between dry desert air in the west and the humid environment over the northern Bay of Bengal. These flights were repeated in pre-monsoon and monsoon conditions. Flights from a second base at Bengaluru in southern India measured atmospheric contrasts from the Arabian Sea, over the Western Ghats mountains, to the rain shadow of southeast India and the south Bay of Bengal. Flight planning was aided by forecasts from bespoke 4km convection-permitting limited-area models at the Met Office and India's NCMRWF. On the ground, INCOMPASS installed eddy-covariance flux towers on a range of surface types, to provide detailed measurements of surface fluxes and their modulation by diurnal and seasonal cycles. These data will be used to better quantify the impacts of the atmosphere on the land surface, and vice versa. INCOMPASS also installed ground instrumentation supersites at Kanpur and Bhubaneswar. Here we motivate and describe the INCOMPASS field campaign. We use examples from two flights to illustrate contrasts in atmospheric structure, in particular the retreating mid-level dry intrusion during the monsoon onset