Rational unicuspidal plane curves of low degree

We completely classify all plane curves of degree at most 30 with a unique cuspidal (locally unibranch) singular point and rational normalization in terms of the Newton pairs parameterizing the cusp. We distinguish between prime and composite degree in the classification and study the relationship between prime or composite degree and the number of distinct topological types of cuspidal singularities. Motivated by wall-crossing in moduli of curves, we also survey several geometric properties of rational unicuspidal plane curves.Comment: 27 pages, comments welcome

A prospective study to evaluate safety, efficacy and expulsion rate of post-partum insertion of intrauterine contraceptive device in a tertiary care centre

Background: The concept of contraception is not new, but its widespread application definitely is. Contraceptive availability is paramount for the health of women of reproductive age group. Among the variety of options available, female sterilization and IUCD are the most popular in developing countries. This study was conducted to assess the safety, incidence of complications, expulsion rates and willingness to continue at a 6 weeks’ follow-up period; after insertion of Cu T 380 A within ten minutes of placental expulsion both in vaginal and C-section deliveries.Methods: Prospective study in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Cheluvamba Hospital from a period of 1st January 2016 to 31st June 2016. All consenting antenatal cases including referrals, who fulfil all the inclusion criteria were included in the study. Expulsion rates at 6 weeks’ follow-up were measured.Results: Total women counselled were 462, accepted 50, declined 412, lost to follow up 3, followed up 47, expulsion 3, bleeding 11, string problems 5, removal 8, continuation 36.Conclusions: PPIUCD is demonstrably a safe and effective contraceptive with high retention rate in the hands of a skilled caregiver. Strategies to increase public awareness through media sources are the need of the hour. Training of healthcare providers, cash incentives to acceptor, motivator and provider would further promote its use in developing countries like India

A WAY TO PREVENT THE PANDEMIC OUTBREAK OF nCOVID-19 IN INDIA

Not applicable because it is letter to edito

Prevalence of Halitosis and Validation of an Instrument to Compare Self-Perceived Halitosis and Measured Halitosis in Senior Secondary School Children of North India

Introduction: Halitosis is a very common problem and is experienced by majority of the population, but few persons perceive this problem whereas they actually do not suffer from it. Halitosis not only becomes a disease but also poses a social and psychological problem.Objective: To ascertain the prevalence of halitosis, document various measures to control halitosis and to validate an instrument used to measure the levels of halitosis against self-perceived levels of halitosis among school children.Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in a senior secondary school of Panchkula (Haryana). Data was collected using self-structured questionnaires that consisted of items on knowledge and perceptions on halitosis. An instrument was used to measure and compare levels of halitosis.Results: Majority of the subjects experienced self-perceived halitosis, among which 61% rated their problem of halitosis as weak, and 9% as intense. 34.3% associated their problem of halitosis with dental caries. 38.7% thought that halitosis was due to their problem of bleeding gums, whereas 18.9% associated their problem with food lodgment. Majority of subjects, i.e., 33% practiced flossing to eliminate bad breath, followed by 24% subjects who went in for scaling and curettage, followed by 20% who used tongue scrapers, followed by 15% who went in for restorative treatment for dental caries, followed by 8% who used interdental brushes.Conclusion: The present study shows that majority of people have haitophobia, i.e., pseudo halitosis. Also, improvement is needed in schools regarding dental awareness

A system dynamics perspective of the non-profit organisation's quest for sustainability: a case study.

Doctor of Philosophy in Business & Leadership. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.The process of investigating this organisation’s quest for sustainability began by recognition of the struggle to remain sustainable as a common one among NPOs the world over. The sustainability of non-profit organizations is of vital importance as the non-profit sector contributes large amounts of time, energy and resources to the upliftment of society, while faced with constant financial, environmental and organizational uncertainty and ambiguities. It was recognised that the sustainability of NPOs is a complex issue requiring a methodology that could capture such complexity adequately. A Qualitative System Dynamics methodology was chosen based on its merits in enhancing understanding regarding complex problem issues. In addition, the study was guided by a case study approach with the empirical work been conducted on the Oxfam Great Britain (GB) affiliate operating in SA. Empirical investigations, together with careful scrutiny of organisational documentation formed the basis of the findings that emerged which pointed to seven themes as integral to the sustainability of Oxfam affiliates, namely: (1) Human Resource capacity (2) Credibility of the organisation (3) Partnerships (4) Competition in the non-profit sector (5) Co-financing and funding arrangements (6) Navigating the North-South Dilemma and (7) the dynamics involved in attempts to remain apolitical. Sustainability was recognised as being emergent from the feedbacks within and between such themes. Furthermore, it was recognised that due to the constantly changing nature of such feedbacks and of the environment in which the organisation is embedded, non-profits tend to traverse a sustainability landscape in terms of being more sustainable at certain times and less sustainable at other times, depending on how they respond to such change. A number of external influences emanating outside of the organisation were also identified as impacting the NPOs sustainability, including the influence of the political and economic systems in which the organisation was embedded, the impact of donors’ perceptions of South Africa as a middle-income or prosperous nation, the external pressures encouraging the establishment of a South African Oxfam affiliate in SA, and the impact of the global economic recession on international aid and development efforts. Overall implications for the NPO sector were also identified including the effect of continuous giving to well-known or “successful” NPOs such as Oxfam, as well as the consequences of an ever-growing NPO sectors’ reliance on ever-shrinking funding pools

POTENTIAL ANTI-CANCER SUPERFOODS: A MINIREVIEW

Cancer, a leading cause of mortality worldwide, has gained much attention and concern for its debilitating effects. Among the various oncological treatments and therapies like surgery, radiation, hormonal therapy, immune therapy, targeted therapy, Chemoprevention or Chemotherapy has recently being recognized as a promising strategy for prevention of afflicting disease like cancer. Chemoprevention is the use of natural or synthetic agents (alone or in combination) to suppress or prevent the process of oncogenesis. The role of diet and nutrition in cancer development has been overlooked for decades, despite of its strong scientific evidence. Only in recent years, plants, vegetables, herbs and spices of traditional diet and medicines have been accepted as one of the main sources of chemo preventive substances

FEATURE SELECTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM USING ROUGH SET

With the expansion of computer network there is a challenge to compete with the intruders who can easily break into the system. So it becomes a necessity to device systems or algorithms that can not only detect intrusion but can also improve the detection rate. In this paper we propose an intrusion detection system that uses rough set theory for feature selection, which is extraction of relevant attributes from the entire set of attributes describing a data packet and used the same theory to classify the packet if it is normal or an attack. After the simplification of the discernibility matrix we were to select or reduce the features. We have used Rosetta tool to obtain the reducts and classification rules. NSL KDD dataset is used as training set and is provided to Rosetta to obtain the classification rules