Application of High Conductive Nanoparticles to Enhance Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Wood Composite

In the present work three different types of nanofillers such as multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), aluminum oxide nanoparticles and nanosize activated charcoal were mixed with UF resin and used in the preparation of medium density fiberboard(MDF). The process has improved heat transfer during hot pressing and achieved proper curing due to enhanced thermo physical properties of wood fibers. To improve the dispersion of nanofillers into UF matrix, high speed mechanical stirring and ultrasonic treatments were used. The MWCNTs were oxidized with nitric acid and the functional groups formed on its surface improved the dispersion and interaction with UF matrix. The dispersion of nanofillers in UF resin matrix was confirmed with XRD, FESEM, and DMA tests undertaken. The mixing of MWCNTs and Aluminum oxide with UF resin have reduced the curing time due to enhanced thermal conductivity of MDF matrix. The heat transfer during hot pressing of MDF improved significantly with the addition of MWCNTs and Al2O3 nanoparticle and activated charcoal did not have much effect on heat transfer. The curing rate of UF resin improved with all the three nanofillers, as the activation energy of UF curing decrease as shown by the DSC results. The physical and mechanical properties of MDF have improved significantly with MWCNTs and Al2O3 nanoparticle. The activated charcoal has significantly decreased the formaldehyde emission of MDF

GRAPHGINI: Fostering Individual and Group Fairness in Graph Neural Networks

We address the growing apprehension that GNNs, in the absence of fairness constraints, might produce biased decisions that disproportionately affect underprivileged groups or individuals. Departing from previous work, we introduce for the first time a method for incorporating the Gini coefficient as a measure of fairness to be used within the GNN framework. Our proposal, GRAPHGINI, works with the two different goals of individual and group fairness in a single system, while maintaining high prediction accuracy. GRAPHGINI enforces individual fairness through learnable attention scores that help in aggregating more information through similar nodes. A heuristic-based maximum Nash social welfare constraint ensures the maximum possible group fairness. Both the individual fairness constraint and the group fairness constraint are stated in terms of a differentiable approximation of the Gini coefficient. This approximation is a contribution that is likely to be of interest even beyond the scope of the problem studied in this paper. Unlike other state-of-the-art, GRAPHGINI automatically balances all three optimization objectives (utility, individual, and group fairness) of the GNN and is free from any manual tuning of weight parameters. Extensive experimentation on real-world datasets showcases the efficacy of GRAPHGINI in making significant improvements in individual fairness compared to all currently available state-of-the-art methods while maintaining utility and group equality

External fixation versus plating in intra-articular distal end radius fractures

Background: Distal end radius fractures are one of the most common encountered fractures in Orthopaedics. Prompt intervention in terms of volar locking plate or external fixation can be performed. The purpose of this study was to derive a better outcome as to which type of fixation is a better choice for the treatment of intra-articular distal end radius fracture.Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was conducted with 30 patients and comparison was made between the plating and external fixator group using the modified clinical-scoring system of Green and O'Brien and demerit point system at each follow-up.Results: In the plating group 14 patient’s fracture united in 6th week and 1 patient’s fracture united at 8th week this result was similar to the external fixator group were 14 patient’s fracture united in 6th week and 1 patient’s fracture united at 8th week. 1 patient each developed wrist joint stiffness and delayed union in the plating group as compared to the external fixator group were 1 patient each developed wrist joint stiffness, delayed union and broken implant in situ and pin tract infection.Conclusions: During the initial follow ups the functional outcome of the plating group were better than the external fixator group but as the time passed at the final follow up plating was only marginally better than the external fixator group. It was seen that radiologically plating lead to a better correction of all the parameters as compared to external fixator group

Surgical management of penile mondor’s disease: Case report and brief review of literature

Penile Mondor’s disease (PMD) is a rare condition characterized by thrombosis of superficial dorsal vein of the penis. PMD is usuallycaused due to vigorous sex or repeated trauma to the penis leading to painful swelling of the penis. Most of the patients improvegradually on conservative treatment. Very rarely cord like lesion persists and causes painful erection and intercourse, meriting surgicalmanagement. Here, we report the case of a traumatic Thrombophlebitis of Superficial Dorsal Vein of Penis managed surgically alongwith a brief explanation of the surgical technique. Color Doppler was helpful in delineating the whole extent of thrombus in thevein. Excision of the whole length of the thrombosed vein was done. Abstinence from sex was advised for six weeks and the patientimproved symptomatically

Improved Hybrid Model of HMM/GMM for Speech Recognition

In this paper, we propose a speech recognition engine using hybrid model of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Both the models have been trained independently and the respective likelihood values have been considered jointly and input to a decision logic which provides net likelihood as the output. This hybrid model has been compared with the HMM model. Training and testing has been done by using a database of 20 Hindi words spoken by 80 different speakers. Recognition rates achieved by normal HMM are 83.5% and it gets increased to 85% by using the hybrid approach of HMM and GMM

Optical and electrochemical dual channel sensing of Cu2 + using functionalized furo[2,3-d]pyrimidines-2,4[1H,3H]-diones

Owing to their easy accessibility and high degree of structural and functional diversity, many multicomponent reactions (MCRs) have been a rich source of conjugate π-systems, functionalised chromophores (or fluorophore) and redox active molecules. Despite their high explorative potential and practical benefits, only a few MCR products have been so far investigated for their metal sensing abilities. In the present report, two furopyrimidinones (FPys) based molecular systems have been synthesized by [4 + 1] cycloaddition based MCR sequence. Designed chemosensors displayed optic (absorption spectra) as well as electroanalytical (ion selective electrode) response toward Cu2 + ion in solution and membrane phase respectively (dual channel sensing). Different aspects of both the sensing phenomena such as selectivity, association constants, detection limit, membrane composition etc. were studied in detail using UV–Vis spectroscopy, NMR titration and cell assembly. Both the compounds showed excellent performance characteristics such as high selectivity, acceptable affinity and low detection limits (10− 7 M) in both sensing assays with potential utility in the area of sample monitoring

Rare isolation of Leclercia adecarboxylata in a child with pneumonia: Case report and review of literature

Leclercia adecarboxylata is a Gram-negative flagellated bacilli named after Leclerc, who first described it in 1962. Isolation of thisorganism from body fluids is rare. Although it has been reported in immunocompromised individuals and nosocomial infections,pneumonia due to this organism is still rare. We report a case of 13 months old, previously healthy immunocompetent child, withcommunity-acquired pneumonia due to L. adecarboxylata

Study of Structural and Electronic Properties of CsMgCl3 Compound

In this report, we have investigated the CsMgCl3 compound with the help of the WIEN2K software package. The structural and electronic properties are performed using the full potential augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method with the generalised gradient approximation (GGA) approximation as exchange correlation potentials. We used the Birch-Murnaghan equation (BME) to find the structural properties of the material. These include the lattice parameter, the bulk modulus, the first derivative of the bulk modulus, the minimum energy, and the volume. The structural properties match up with the experimental data. Electronic properties in terms of the band structure (BS) and total and partial density of state (T-DOS and P-DOS) profiles of CsMgCl3 using GGA potentials exhibit an indirect wide energy band gap of 5.35 eV. All these properties show that the CsMgCl3 compound is used as a perovskite in solar cells