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Women authors from Africa have been and continue to be able to assert themselves as writers on a national and international scale. African-American women's voices are among the most potent literary voices of the latter half of the 20th century. However, regarding the literary tradition, particularly in the middle of the 19th century, there has always been a connection between white supremacy and male superiority throughout the history of the United States. The masculinization of the literary field at the time meant that the male perspective, whether black or white, seemed to speak for both genders and yet could not fully manifest female oppression in a patriarchal society. Women were not only racial outcasts; they were also oppressed due to their gender. Even though race issues have always played a significant role in everyday life, there has always been a divide between white people and black people; However, within this last group was a smaller group of women who had been subjected to not only racial prejudice but also sexist customs, slavery, and other forms of marginalization, including within their own culture.

Amenorrhea is defined as the nonappearance of menstruation in women. Amenorrhea may be divided in to primary and secondary amenorrhea. Primary amenorrhea is caused due to anatomical, genetic, nutritional and other endocrine defects. Anatomical causes includes distal obstruction, MRKH and AIS. Primary Ovarian Insufficiency is the foremost causes of primary amenorrhea. The frequent causes of secondary amenorrhea are pregnancy. Other causes of secondary amenorrhea include PCOD, functional hypothalamic amenorrhea, POI. Depending upon the causes, the amenorrhea affected women should experiences the symptoms like hair loss, acne, excess facial hair, milky nipple discharge, etc along with the absence of menstruation. Amenorrhea is diagnosed using the patient laboratory data, pelvic ultrasonography, hysteroscopy. Management of amenorrhea is based upon its causes. PCOS patients is usually treated with regular exercise and healthy food diet. Amenorrhea is initially treated with hormonal therapy followed by hysterectomy. Regular intake of vitamin D and calcium is also recommended.

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Diabetes mellitus is the most common endocrine disorder. The plant Syzygium cumini has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of diabetes. The present study investigated the effect of ethanol extract of S. cumini seeds on uptake of glucose by L-6 rat skeletal muscle cells. S. cumini seeds were extracted with varying solvents and quantitative phytochemical analysis was carried out, ethanol extract of seeds exhibited higher content of tested phytochemicals. The effect of different concentrations (300µg/ml – 1000µg/ml) of ethanol extract of seeds were studied on glucose uptake activity of L-6 rat skeletal muscle cells. It was observed that with the increase in concentration, the glucose uptake activity was also increased. The results of the study supports and demonstrates the antidiabetic potential of ethanol seed extracts of Syzygium cumini utilizing in vitro model. KEY WORDS: Diabetes mellitus, Syzygium cumini, phytochemicals, glucose uptake, L-6 cells

Waste management is one of the vital environmental issues since last few decades. It has been noted that the generation of waste increases with increasing population, industrialization and urbanization etc. The waste management strategy includes both non-hazardous and hazardous waste management. Non-hazardous waste does not cause potential threat to environment but instead hazardous waste is the waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health and the environment. Rapidly growing industrial sector has contributed to the generation of large quantity of hazardous waste material. Therefore, to reduce environmental hazard, proper attention is required during storage, segregation, transportation and disposal of hazardous waste, because it cannot be disposed as off in the environment. This study explains about hazardous wastes, types and management.

Use of the best quality Cereals and pulses are very important for the satisfactory production of a good crop, food processing and also essential for the exporting markets. Based on the purity and quality of cereals and pulses, they are graded. In this project, we use LabVIEW for digital image processing techniques for testing the shape and size of various cereals and pulses. Also, the presence of dust and stone particles is identified. According to the level of quality, the Cereals and pulses are classified into three categories which are shown in three indicators (Green-1st grade, yellow-2nd grade, red-3rd grade). This will be helpful to increase the speed, accuracy and decrease the time of testing. The wetness of cereals and pulses is determined for long time storage. For this moisture level is given to LabVIEW with the help of Arduino as a DAQ. The moisture alert buzzer is triggered by LabVIEW.

This study investigated the spatial and vertical distribution of microplastics (MPs) in the water and sediment samples collected from different locations in Kodaikanal Lake, a very popular tourist location. The lake provides water to placesdownstream. MPs are found in the surface water, surface sediment and core sediment, with their respective values of abundance being 24.42 ± 3.22 items/ l, 28.31 ± 5.29 items/ kg, and 25.91 ± 7.11 items/ kg. Spatially, abundance, colour, type and size of MPs vary in the samples of surface water and sediment. The highest levels of MPs are found in the lakes' outlet region. MPs detected are primarily fibres and fragments 3-5 mm in size with PE and PP being the predominant polymers. Seven sampling points were selected to investigate the vertical distribution of MPs. In the core sediment, the abundance and size of MPs decrease with depth. This probably indicates the presence of more MPs in the recent sediment. The core sediment is dominated by sand silt clay fractions, which facilitates potential downward infiltration of fine MPs. SEM images of MPs reveal that the degree of weathering increases with depth, and EDAX shows that smooth MP surface displays a lesser adhesion ability than the rough surface. Plastic wastes generated by tourism are the important source of MPs in the lake. The lake has high PHI values (1000) due to MPs with high hazard score polymers (PS and PEU), whereas the PLI values (1.33) indicate low level of MP pollution representing a minor ecological risk. The MP level in Kodaikanal Lake is influenced by the lake's hydrology and the sources of pollution. Although the impacts of MP pollution on the health and functioning of the environment is uncertain, observing, understanding and halting of further MP contamination in the Kodaikanal Lakes is important.

Cement concrete is the most extensively used construction material. Maintenance and repair of concrete structures is a growing problem involving significant expenditure. As a result carried out worldwide, it has been made possible to process the material to satisfy more stringent performance requirements, especially long–term durability. HPC is the latest development in concrete. It has become very popular and is being used in many prestigious projects such as Nuclear power projects, flyovers multi-storeyed buildings. When using HPC, the addition of supplementary materials in cement has dramatically increased along with the development of concrete industry, due to the consideration of cost saving, energy saving, environmental concerns both in terms of damage caused by the extraction of raw materials and carbon dioxide emission during cement manufacture have brought pressures to reduce cement consumption. Metakaolin looks to be a promising supplementary cementitious material for high-performance concrete. Properties of concrete with metakaolin are mostly preferred additives in high-performance concrete. A possible lower cost, due to large availability in our country itself may be advantages to metakaolin usage in HPC. The substitution proportion of metakaolin is to be used was 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% by the weight of cement. To make this cubes and cylinders to determine the strength and durability of concrete of it. The results indicate that the replacing mix up to till the last percent has to note and effect on strength in comparing with mixer without metakaolin.

The symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is freezing of gait (FOG), in which patients experience sudden difficulties in starting or continuing movement. Recently minimum research works are under progress in the mechanism to detect freezing of Gait effectively before it occurs. This paper investigates the univariate and multivariate EEG (Electroencephalography) features determined by both frequency domain (Fourier analysis) and time-frequency domain wavelet analysis in the prediction of FOG, information coded in the frequency domain is better than information coded in the time domain. For the performance comparison (sensitivity, specificity and accuracy) MLP-NN (Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network) with both time & frequency domains are used.

This study investigated the microplastic (MP) contamination of seawater and fishes from different habitats so as to understand the level of human exposure to microplastics. Samples of Harpodon nehereus, Chirocentrus dorab, Sardinella albella, Rastrelliger kanagurta, Katsuwonus pelamis and Istiophorus platypterus were collected from Tuticorin, southeast coast of India. The MPs in seawater and the gastrointestinal tracts of fish were identified using Stereomicroscope and characterized by FTIR and SEM-EDAX analysis. The abundance of MPs varied from 3.1 ± 2.3 to 23.7 ± 4.2 items L−1 in water, from 0.11 ± 0.06 to 3.64 ± 1.7 items/individual, and from 0.0002 ± 0.0001 to 0.2 ± 0.03 items/g gut weight. The epipelagic fishes had higher levels of MP contamination than the mesopelagic ones. Most of the MPs identified were of blue color, of fiber type and with their size

The inhibitive action of an examined expired Ambroxol (AB) drug on the corrosion of mild steel in 1 M hydrochloric acid medium has been studied by both weight loss and electrochemical techniques. The weight loss techniques result was discussed. The inhibition efficiency increases with increasing the concentration of the AB inhibitor. Electrochemical studies data support that examined expired AB drug is an efficient inhibitor for mild steel in 1 M hydrochloric acid medium. The adsorption of the examined drug obeys Langmuir’s and Temkin adsorption isotherm. Polarization studies indicate that this inhibitor acts as a mixed mode of inhibition. The various thermodynamic parameters were calculated and discussed. The protective film formed on the surface was confirmed by FTIR, SEM and EDS. The quantum-chemical calculation also supports the inhibitive effect of the inhibitors. The data collected from the studied techniques are in good agreement to confirm the ability of using expired Ambroxol (AB) drug as corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in 1 M hydrochloric acid medium.

Aim: The aim of this randomized, controlled, double-blinded, clinical study is to evaluate and compare the clinical effectiveness of low-level diode GaAlAs laser and glutaraldehyde-based topical desensitizing agent on cervical dentin hypersensitivity with the help of visual analog scale (VAS). Materials and Methods: Fifty teeth of patients aged between 20 and 50 years were included, and VAS was used to assess the dentin hypersensitivity. The teeth were randomly allocated to either Group 1 or 2 using flip coin technique. Group 1 received glutaraldehyde desensitizer and Group 2 received 905 nm low-level laser. The sensitivity scores were recorded, immediately, after1 week and 3 months after therapy. Data was analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test for intergroup comparison and Friedman's test for intragroup comparison. Results: There was a significant reduction in pain in both the groups at 3 months evaluation (P = 0.001).However, Group 2 showed a significant decrease in mean VAS scores when compared with Group 1 at both the one week and three month follow ups (P = 0.04, P = 0.03, respectively). Conclusion: Although topical desensitizer and Low Level Laser are both effective in reducing dentinal hypersensitivity, Low Level Lasers are comparatively more effective at the studied time intervals.

Hetero atoms containing conductive nanocarbon materials are being studied extensively for their electrochemical energy storage and conversion applications. Herein, we report a facile process for the preparation of N-containing carbon/graphene nanocomposites by simultaneous thermal decomposition of polypyrrole into N-containing carbon and reduction of graphene oxide into graphene in H2/Ar atmosphere. The XRD pattern of N-containing carbon/graphene nanocomposites prepared at different temperatures indicated the formation of reduced graphene oxide from the reduction of GO. The FT-IR and Raman spectroscopic analysis revealed the presence of N atoms in the nanocomposites and the elemental analysis was used to estimate the amount of N in the nanocomposite. The XPS analysis distinguished the pyridine, pyrrolic and quaternary forms of N present in the nanocomposite. The slow decomposition of polypyrrole resulted in the mesoporous structure to the resulting nanocomposite, which was confirmed by the BET adsorption–desorption isotherm. The electron microscopic analysis confirmed the presence of highly transparent carbon nanosheets. The amount of N in the nanocomposite that depends on the decomposition temperature was found to influence the electrochemical performance. The nanocomposite prepared at 700 °C showed a large specific capacitance of 296 F/g with an excellent cycling stability of 93% after 1000 cycles.

Background Poisoning ranks as the 13th leading cause of death worldwide & it is the fourth most common cause of accidents in children. The World Health Organization(WHO) reports an uptrend in suicidal poisoning worldwide and consumption of pesticides is the most common method of suicide. Thorough knowledge about the nature and magnitude of the problem is hence essential for developing strategies to tackle such casualties. OBJECTIVE To study the socio-demographic pattern of poisoning cases admitted in Aarupadai Veedu Medical College & Hospital, Puducherry. METHODology Retrospective analysis of all 548 poisoning cases reported to the casualty of Aarupadai Veedu Medical College & Hospital over a period of 5 yrs i.e. from 1st July 2009 to 30th June 2014 was done. Data regarding age, sex, educational status, marital status, socioeconomic class, place of residence, type of poison, time of exposure and intention of poisoning was entered into excel & analysed in SPSS for calculating percentages and Chi square test. RESULTS Peak incidence was observed in the age group of 21-30 yrs (31.57%) & majority (58.03%) were female victims, 75.36% were from rural area & in 52.92% of cases poisoning happened during the day time. In 75.90% cases, intention of poisoning was suicidal while 23.70% cases were accidental. The most common class of poison involved was pesticides (38.87%) with Organophosphorus compound in majority patients (25.73%). CONCLUSION There is an urgent need to reinforce the regulations regarding sales of drugs & agrochemicals which will definitely reduce the misuse of these substances by the general public. Equally important is to focus on vulnerable, ignored groups and pool together researchers, clinicians, politicians, policy makers to develop a national plan for providing sustainable mental health support for our community for suicide prevention. Language: en

Purpose: High spatial resolution of Radiochromic gel dosimeter with optical readout system, its tissue equivalence property and ability to map dose distribution in 3D makes it suitable for dosimetric measurements of small fields used in Radiosurgery.Method & Materials: In this work we have used the FX gel and the optical readout system for measuring the beam profiles and the output factors of Radiosurgery circular collimators and micro MLC (mMLC) collimator for 6MV photon beams. The measurements were repeated with GafChromic film and pin‐point ion chamber. FX gels were also irradiated for two Radiosurgery plans, one with arcs using circular collimators and the other with mMLC and static beams. These were compared with the TPS dose distribution. Results: The field size and the FWHM measured with Gel dosimeter were within 1mm for small fields and maximum of 2 mm for 40 cm diameter filed. The beam profile and the penumbra measured with FX gel matched with those measured with GafChromic films. The output factor measured from the optical attenuation coefficient of FX gel and the factors measured with GafChromic film were within 2%. Conclusion: The dose distribution obtained with FX gel was identical to those obtained from the Treatment Planning System