Should Magnesium Sulphate Prophylaxis be Used in all Cases of Severe Preeclampsia?

A case control study, undertaken in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in a tertiary referral centre, was designed to administer standard dose of magnesium sulphate to 50 randomly selected severely preeclamptic women in labor (Group 1). 48 women who formed the control group did not receive the drug (Group 2). The admission – delivery interval, rate of Cesarean section showed no statistically significant difference. Four patients developed convulsions in Group 1 in contrast to twelve patients in Group 2. Efficacy of magnesium sulphate at preventing eclampsia was calculated as 68%. Mild respiratory depression occurred in two cases and oliguria in eight cases in Group 1. Both the conditions improved on suspending further doses of magnesium sulphate. No patient had post partum haemorrhage in Group 1 although 4% patients had it in Group 2. Neonatal outcome was comparable in both the groups. Hence magnesium sulphate may be regarded as a fairly safe and effective prophylactic agent for eclampsia when used in severe preeclampsia in labo

Studies on Rain Structure Based on Ground Based Dropsize Distribution and Rain Attenuation Measurements over an Earth Space Path

Abstract The drop size distribution (DSD) of rain in tropical region shows the characteristic features of different types of rain, namely, stratiform, transitional and convective. This is also indicated in behaviors of the rain decay parameter, obtained from the measurements of rain rate and attenuation over an earth-space path. The DSD parameters and rain decay parameter give similar clustering indicating the feature of convective and stratiform rain. To predict rain attenuation from rain rate, the decay parameter is modeled for different rain rate regions that provides a good matching between the predicted and measured values

Emission and detection of surface acoustic waves by AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98689/1/ApplPhysLett_99_243507.pd

InGaN/GaN disk-in-nanowire white light emitting diodes on (001) silicon

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98666/1/ApplPhysLett_98_193102.pd

Optical Quadruple Feynman Gate using SLM and Savart Plate

In recent years, Reversible logic is emerged as a promising computing paradigm with applications in low-power CMOS, quantum computing, optical computing and nanotechnology. The classical set of gates such as AND, OR, andEXOR are not reversible. However, optical computing technology the trinary and quadruple valued logic systems are the most important ones in the many valued logic system.In this paper, spatial light modulator (SLM) and Savart Plate based circuit has been proposed and described for realization of quadruple Fenyman Gate. It is optical in nature. SLM and Savart Plate can play a significant role in this field of ultra-fast all optical signalprocessing

Physics Potential of the ICAL detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

The upcoming 50 kt magnetized iron calorimeter (ICAL) detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is designed to study the atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos separately over a wide range of energies and path lengths. The primary focus of this experiment is to explore the Earth matter effects by observing the energy and zenith angle dependence of the atmospheric neutrinos in the multi-GeV range. This study will be crucial to address some of the outstanding issues in neutrino oscillation physics, including the fundamental issue of neutrino mass hierarchy. In this document, we present the physics potential of the detector as obtained from realistic detector simulations. We describe the simulation framework, the neutrino interactions in the detector, and the expected response of the detector to particles traversing it. The ICAL detector can determine the energy and direction of the muons to a high precision, and in addition, its sensitivity to multi-GeV hadrons increases its physics reach substantially. Its charge identification capability, and hence its ability to distinguish neutrinos from antineutrinos, makes it an efficient detector for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy. In this report, we outline the analyses carried out for the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy and precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters at ICAL, and give the expected physics reach of the detector with 10 years of runtime. We also explore the potential of ICAL for probing new physics scenarios like CPT violation and the presence of magnetic monopoles.Comment: 139 pages, Physics White Paper of the ICAL (INO) Collaboration, Contents identical with the version published in Pramana - J. Physic

The Effectiveness of Sanitary Inspections as a Risk Assessment Tool for Thermotolerant Coliform Bacteria Contamination of Rural Drinking Water: A Review of Data from West Bengal, India

The use of sanitary inspections combined with periodic water quality testing has been recommended in some cases as screening tools for fecal contamination. We conducted sanitary inspections and tested for thermotolerant coliforms (TTCs), a fecal indicator bacteria, among 7,317 unique water sources in West Bengal, India. Our results indicate that the sanitary inspection score has poor ability to identify TTC-contaminated sources. Among deep and shallow hand pumps, the area under curve (AUC) for prediction of TTC \u3e 0 was 0.58 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.53–0.61) and 0.58 (95% CI = 0.54–0.62), respectively, indicating that the sanitary inspection score was only marginally better than chance in discriminating between contaminated and uncontaminated sources of this type. A slightly higher AUC value of 0.64 (95% CI=0.57–0.71) was observed when the sanitary inspection score was used for prediction of TTC \u3e 0 among the gravity-fed piped sources. Among unprotected springs (AUC = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.38–0.55) and unprotected dug wells (AUC = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.20–0.66), the sanitary inspection score performed more poorly than chance in discriminating between sites with TTC \u3c 1 and TTC \u3e 0. Aggregating over all source types, the sensitivity (true positive rate) of a high/very high sanitary inspection score for TTC contamination (TTC \u3e 1 CFU/100 mL) was 29.4% and the specificity (true negative rate) was 77.9%, resulting in substantial misclassification of the sites when using the established risk categories. These findings suggest that sanitary surveys are inappropriate screening tools for identifying TTC contamination at water points