Motion tracking tMRI datasets to quantify abnormal left ventricle motion using finite element modelling

According to `The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke'[MMMG04] published by the World Health Organization, heart disease accounts for nearly half the deaths in both the developed and developing countries and is the world's single biggest killer. However, early detection of a diseased heart condition can prevent many of these fatalities. Regional wall motion abnormalities of the heart precede both ECG abnormalities and chest pain as an indicator of myocardial ischaemia and are an excellent indicator of coronary stenosis [GZM97]. These motion abnormalities of the heart muscle are difficult to observe and track, because the heart is a relatively smooth organ with few landmarks and non-rigid motion with a twisting motion or tangential component. The MRI tissue-tagging technique gives researchers the first glimpse into how the heart actually beats. This research uses the tagged MRI images of the heart to create a three dimensional model of a beating heart indicating the stress of a region. Tagged MRI techniques are still developing and vary vastly, meaning that there needs to be a methodology that can adapt to these changes rapidly and effectively, to meet the needs of the evolving technology. The focus of this research is to develop and test such a methodology by the means of a Strain Estimation Pipeline along with an effective way of validating any changes made to the individual processes that it comprises of

Data mining OIPEA database for waste and productivity enhancements in manufacturing units

Small and medium-sized manufacturing plants (those with fewer than 500 employees) represent more than 98 percent of the more than 374,000 establishments in the U.S. manufacturing industry, 64 percent of employees in the total manufacturing labor force, and more than 42 percent of total manufacturing energy consumption.;In 1976 the federal government started funding industrial energy audits for small and medium sized manufacturing firms under the auspices of the Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) that are spread throughout the U.S. The data collected from the hundreds of energy audits that are conducted each year is collected in a database maintained by the Office of Industrial Productivity and Energy Assessment (OIPEA) at Rutgers University.;This database contains a wealth of information about small and medium scale industries that are spread throughout the U.S. The objective of this research it to develop a database querying tool to analyze the database to elicit useful information about waste and productivity issues to help research any trends that may exist in the data

PENGARUH KOMPENSASI DAN KOMPETENSI TERHADAP KINERJA KARYAWAN PADA CV. NEURES PUTRA DI KABUPATEN SUBANG JAWA BARAT

ABSTRAK Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menguji Pengaruh Kompensasi dan Kompetensi terhadap Kinerja Karyawan Pada CV. Neureus Putra Kabupaten Subang Jawa Barat. Populasi dalam penelitian ini berjumlah 84 orang karyawan. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif , data untuk penelitian ini diperoleh melalui angket penelitian yang telah diisi oleh responden. Metode analisis data yang digunakan adalah metode analisis regresi linier berganda. Hasil dri penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa kompensasi berpengaruh posifit dan signifikan terhadap kinerja karyawan. Kompetensi berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja karyawan. Sementara itu variabel kompensasi dan kompetensi secara bersama-sama berpengaruh positif dan signifikan bersama-sama tehadap kinerja karyawan di CV. Neureus Putra Kabupaten Subang Jawa Barat. Kata Kunci: Kompensasi, Kompetensi, dan Kinerja Karyawa

Profile of patients with ocular infections attending the out-patient department of a tertiary care centre in south India

Background: Bacterial and viral etiologies are most commonly blamed for ocular infections. Studies have shown that gram positive cocci are responsible for maximum number of infections, followed by anaerobic bacteria and gram negative bacilli. Infections of the ocular adnexa, ocular surface and orbit usually present as conjunctivitis, keratitis, scleritis, orbital cellulitis and periorbital necrotising fascitis. The intra-ocular infections usually occur subsequently to a corneal ulcer, penetrating eye injury or a severe blood stream infection, and presents as iritis, uveitis, chorioretinitis or endophthalmitis. The aim of the study was to find out the clinico-demographic profile of patients who were diagnosed to have ocular infections at a large tertiary care teaching hospital in south India.Methods: A retrospective study was designed to include all patients who came with suspected ocular infections to the out-patient department (OPD) of Pushpagiri Medical College Hospital, Thiruvalla, Kerala, India, from July 2015 to December 2015.Results: More than 50% of the participants reported ocular pain and around 60% has redness of the affected eye. Twenty five percent of the participants had discharge from the eyes and 56.7% reported persistent watering. Around 60% of the patients had irritation of the eye, while only 16.7% said that they feel blurring of vision. The final diagnosis was formed after careful examination by the senior most consultants available at the OPD and relevant investigations. Among the participants, 36.6% had conjunctivitis and 16.6% had corneal ulceration due to an infective cause. Around 13% has corneal abrasion, 11.6% had foreign body, 3% had dry eye and 3% had dacrocystitis.Conclusions: Only around 55% of the patients with suspected eye infections turned out to be actual infections and a vast majority of that was due to conjunctivitis. Though majority of the patients presented with pain, redness, watering and discharge, these symptoms/signs cannot be used to differentiate infective etiology from a non-infective one.

PASSPORT-seq: A Novel High-Throughput Bioassay to Functionally Test Polymorphisms in Micro-RNA Target Sites

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies have identified large numbers of genetic variants that are predicted to alter miRNA-mRNA interactions. We developed a novel high-throughput bioassay, PASSPORT-seq, that can functionally test in parallel 100s of these variants in miRNA binding sites (mirSNPs). The results are highly reproducible across both technical and biological replicates. The utility of the bioassay was demonstrated by testing 100 mirSNPs in HEK293, HepG2, and HeLa cells. The results of several of the variants were validated in all three cell lines using traditional individual luciferase assays. Fifty-five mirSNPs were functional in at least one of three cell lines (FDR ≤ 0.05); 11, 36, and 27 of them were functional in HEK293, HepG2, and HeLa cells, respectively. Only four of the variants were functional in all three cell lines, which demonstrates the cell-type specific effects of mirSNPs and the importance of testing the mirSNPs in multiple cell lines. Using PASSPORT-seq, we functionally tested 111 variants in the 3' UTR of 17 pharmacogenes that are predicted to alter miRNA regulation. Thirty-three of the variants tested were functional in at least one cell line

Interfacial properties of hybrid nanomaterials

A brief summary of our ongoing efforts to understand the surface properties of nanoparticles using fluorophores, namely pyrene alkanethiols, is presented. Excited state interactions were investigated by varying the length of the spacer group and the concentration of fluorophore. The flexible long alkyl chain tethering pyrene in Au-P2/Au-P3 allows free interaction between fluorophores resulting in excimer formation whereas the intermolecular interactions are limited in the Au-P1 system due to the restriction imposed by the curvature of spherical gold nanoparticle. A gradual increase in the peak intensity ratio of III/I band of the normal fluorescence of pyrene was observed indicating that the surface of nanoparticle is more polar than the bulk solvent (toluene)

Navigating school development and children’s rights governance in resource-poor contexts in Karnataka, India

How do participants in school governance govern rights-based policies to education? In north Karnataka, India, School Development and Management Committees (SDMCs) are legal governance bodies where marginalised, resource-poor citizens can govern school affairs and enact school development goals. India’s 2009 Right to Education not only focuses on development goals, but also emphasises a rights-based approach that implicates notions of childhood and discourses of children’s rights. Therefore, school governance is also bound up with governing the rights attached to the right to education. The dual nature of governance-its potential for emphasising structural inequality as well as its capacity for social empowerment- signify a middle ground, where perils coexist with promise. In this dissertation, I investigate the practice of school development and child rights governance in two government schools, one rural, one urban in Kalaburagi, north Karnataka. Taking a theoretical approach that fuses key developments in the studies of governance and childhood, I concentrate on eliciting narratives of the bottom-up practice of governance from resource poor parents, children, teachers, and activists. Designing a qualitative methodology to elicit these narratives, I relied on a variety of research methods: group and individual interviews, observations, fieldnotes, and arts-based interviews during two phases of research in the field spanning three months and two weeks in total. Through thematic analysis of prevalent patterns in participants’ accounts, I found that while governance demanded much effort and commitment from participants, they rationalised their efforts (and governance failures) through a discourse of care. Care for children was instrumental in helping participants navigate the middle ground of governance, preserve their motivation, and orient their practice

Strengthening rural primary care clinics using the 3i's

Most urban designed and tested health care solutions fail to consider rural primary care challenges. Rural practices face multiple hurdles and a lack of resources compound their barriers. This effort supports rural primary care clinics located in shortage areas by transforming operations to strengthen financial viability and enhance patient experience.Oklahoma State University's Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI) supports rural primary care clinics located in Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA) defined health professional shortage areas by transforming practice operations to strengthen financial viability, operational efficiency and enhance patient experience. Rural clinics serve mostly Medicaid and Medicare patients in areas with high poverty rates and low educational and health literacy levels. Limited access to billing vendors and a well-trained workforce create additional barriers.CHSI has spent 2 years laying the foundation for a solution that aims to improve quality of life in rural Oklahoma by strengthening clinic workflow efficiency to increase access to and quality of primary care. The OSU Rural Clinic Efficiency Program (RCEP) was developed. This program incorporates utilizing the 3i's to develop solutions for clinics inevitably optimizing throughout and delivering quality patient centered care

Free rides: Patient and clinic benefits in a rural pediatric clinic

In rural Oklahoma, lack of transportation is a significant barrier to health care. Rural patients, who are sicker (CDC), face an even higher burden of illness and disease with decreased access to care. Rural clinics, which are frequently financially fragile, in turn bear the brunt of lost productivity and interrupted workflow due to patients without transportation creating no shows, cancellations, rescheduled appointments, and late arrivals.The Oklahoma State University Center for Health Systems Innovation (CHSI) partnered with a Rural Oklahoma Network (ROK-Net) pediatric member clinic to innovate and implement a rurally viable model for rural clinics to provide transportation to patients who need a ride to scheduled appointments.Robust data about volume of transportation need, patient benefits and satisfaction, clinic workflow and financial implications were gathered. Both patients and the clinic benefited from the program. Transportation need was intermittent and by far greatest for sick patients. While all patients in need of transport had SoonerCare, SoonerRide restrictions such as a three day notice required for ride scheduling left patients, mostly sick patients, and patients with inability to predict their need for ride on the day of appointment without a ride to the clinic. Revenue collected for participant care far exceeded the cost of transporting them, creating a model for rural clinic transportation solutions where the clinic itself provides their patients a free ride

La tierra a través de tus sentidos

Folleto de 10 páginas, ilustraciones a colorPeer reviewe