Outcome of shaft fractures among children treated with elastic stable intramedullary nailing

Background: Long bone fractures are frequent occurrence among children and considered a frequent pediatric orthopedic injury requiring hospitalization. Authors aimed to retrospectively analyze the outcome of fixation of long bone fractures with elastic stable intramedullary nailing (ESIN) among children and adolescents.Methods: From 2010 to 2018, ESIN was performed on 128 children aged 2 to 17 years having single shaft fractures of long bones. The data related to associated injuries, postoperative complications, postoperative treatment, till bony union or removal of rods, mal-union, functional deficit, need for secondary surgical intervention and subjective complaints at follow-up originated from postoperative clinical and radiological consultations carried out regularly. The primary end points were time of complete radiological union or removal of rods.Results: The mean age at the time of accident was 9.5 years. There were 37 (28.9%) femoral fractures, 16 (12.5%) of the lower leg, 51 (39.8%) fractures of radius/ulna and 24 (18.8%) of the humerus. In 2 (2.3%) children, reoperation was necessary due to prominent ends of elastic rods and 6 (4.7%) had early removal of rods due to same reasons. End point of the study, removal of rods noted in 126 (82.8%), radiological evidence of union in 7 (5.5%) and 15 (11.7%) cases were lost at follow-up.Conclusions: ESIN fixation of diaphyseal fractures in children and adolescents is safe. ESIN was found to be minimally invasive method, noted to produce excellent functional as well as cosmetic outcomes

Secure Key Pre-distribution in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Combinatorial Design and Traversal Design Based Key Distribution

Security is an indispensable concern in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) due to the presence of potential adversaries. For secure communication in infrastructureless sensor nodes various key predistribution have been proposed. In this paper we have evaluated various existing deterministic, probabilistic and hybrid type of key pre-distribution and dynamic key generation algorithms for distributing pair-wise, group-wise and network-wise keys and we have propose a key predistribution scheme using deterministic approach based on combinatorial design and traversal design which will improve the resiliency and achieve sufficient level of security in the network.This design can be used where large number of nodes are to be deployed in the WSN

Phytochemical analysis, antimicrobial, antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory activities of ethanolic extract of Centaurea solstitialis L. and its different fractions

396-403Resistance to conventional antimicrobial regimes is one of the issues of concern in healthcare and it drives the need for development of new antimicrobial agents. Medicinal plants, as rich source of biochemical and bioactive compounds, serve as potential source for new drugs. Here, we evaluated the ethanolic extract of Centaurea solstitialis L. and its different fractions (n-hexane, choloroform and n-butanol soluble fraction) for antimicrobial, antioxidant and enzymes inhibitory activities. Antibacterial activity against two Gram-positive and three Gram-negative bacteria species were determined by using agar well diffusion and 96-wells microplate methods. Similarly, antifungal activity against two fungal strains was also evaluated by agar well diffusion method. Antioxidant activity analyzed by measuring the scavenging activity of DPPH radicals and acetylcholinesterase, butrylcholinesterase and chymotrypsin inhibitory activity was determined at 10 µg/mL and 1.0 mg/mL concentrations. Results revealed that the ethanolic extract of C. solstitialis and its different fractions possesses significant (P<0.05) antibacterial activity and effective against fungi Aspergillus niger and Macrophomina phaseolina. Significant (P<0.05) DPPH scavenging activity (88.52±0.23%) among all fractions was noted. n-Butanol fraction showed significant acetyl-cholinesterase (78.55±0.76%) and butrylcholinesterase inhibitory activity (78.1±0.41%) with IC50 values of 54.6±0.39 µg/mL and 211.9±0.15 µg/mL, respectively. Maximum chymotrypsin inhibition activity was shown by crude ethanolic extract (87.76±1.17) with IC50 value of 38.23±0.75 µg/mL. It is concluded that C. solstitialis extract and its fractions possess significant antimicrobial, antioxidant and enzyme inhibitory activity

On the analysis of big data indexing execution strategies

Efficient response to search queries is very crucial for data analysts to obtain timely results from big data spanned over heterogeneous machines. Currently, a number of big-data processing frameworks are available in which search operations are performed in distributed and parallel manner. However, implementation of indexing mechanism results in noticeable reduction of overall query processing time. There is an urge to assess the feasibility and impact of indexing towards query execution performance. This paper investigates the performance of state-of-the-art clustered indexing approaches over Hadoop framework which is de facto standard for big data processing. Moreover, this study leverages a comparative analysis of non-clustered indexing overhead in terms of time and space taken by indexing process for varying volume data sets with increasing Index Hit Ratio. Furthermore, the experiments evaluate performance of search operations in terms of data access and retrieval time for queries that use indexes. We then validated the obtained results using Petri net mathematical modeling. We used multiple data sets in our experiments to manifest the impact of growing volume of data on indexing and data search and retrieval performance. The results and highlighted challenges favorably lead researchers towards improved implication of indexing mechanism in perspective of data retrieval from big data. Additionally, this study advocates selection of a non-clustered indexing solution so that optimized search performance over big data is obtained

Low-cost ventilation strategies to improve the indoor environmental quality by enhancing the natural ventilation in multistory residential buildings

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) influences a building’s livability. Because most people spend ~65% of their time at home, methods and design strategies to achieve high-quality indoor environments are worth investigating. This study investigates the performance of the indoor environmental quality through implementing various low-cost natural ventilation strategies on a typical apartment in the multistory residential buildings in Amman, Jordan. A simulation software was used to conduct a detailed data analysis based on the ventilation rate, indoor operative temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 concentration in the base case apartment unit and propose design strategies. The simulation results were compared with the results obtained in the base case, analyzed, and discussed to determine the most efficient ventilation strategy. The proposed strategies improved the indoor air quality most of the time when compared to the base case, and maintain it within relevant international standards. The results provide a foundation to improve the IEQ in newly developed residential apartments by providing architectural design guidelines for achieving an effective natural ventilation system

Comparative Translational Semiotic Analysis of ‘The River of Fire’ through Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach

This study aimed to: find out semiotic devices in literary texts in the light of Halliday’s transitivity process; and classify De Saussure’s two-part model of sign and thereby know that what logical connections lie between transitivity processes and semiotic devices. Data comprised of the text of a novel ‘The River of Fire’ by Qurratulain Hyder and analyzed through qualitative and quantitative methods. UAM software was used for the analysis of SFL transitivity processes and De Saussure’s model of sign was employed to analyze the language as a system of the sign. This process was applied to both versions (i.e. English and Urdu) of the same novel to compare the results. In this way, comparative technique was also utilized. As a result, all process types were observed in English and Urdu texts. Material and relational were the most characteristic processes in English and Urdu texts respectively. Through the analyses of English and Urdu texts of the novel, the processes of transitivity were observed involving the semiotic model of the sign. In addition, the signifier and signified were observed through the processes of systemic functional linguistics which meant that there existed a logical connection between semiotic devices and transitivity process