Search

Parthasarathi Bhattacharyya,1 Rupak Ghosh,1 Dipanjan Saha,1 Bodhisattwa Chakraborty,1 Pallav Bhattacharyya,1 Madan Sarma,1 Saibal Mazumdar,2 Kajal Chatterjee,2 Avijit Chowdhury3 1Department of Pulmonology, Institute of Pulmocare and Research, Kolkata, India; 2Department of General Medicine, Liver Foundation, Kolkata, India; 3Gastroenterology Department, Liver Foundation, Kolkata, India Background: Rehabilitation has been an integral part of management of COPD. Since the implementation of the standard rehabilitation protocol is hardly possible in the rural developing world, aiming to make a feasible alternate effort may be worthwhile.Methods: COPD patients diagnosed through spirometry were first stabilized with 6 weeks of uniform pharmacotherapy. Subsequently, they were subjected to a curriculum-based intensive single-session intervention with education, bronchial hygiene, and exercise training. The latter involved whole body exercise, pursed lip breathing, and diaphragmatic exercise. The participants continued to practice the exercises under real-world encouragement and supervision from trained volunteers. The impact was appraised in terms of change in health status through COPD assessment test (CAT) score measurements at stabilization, and after 6 weeks and 1 year of the intensive training and education.Results: At stabilization, 70 out of 96 selected COPD subjects (73%) turned up (with mean age 62±9 years and mean FEV1 as 1.16±0.39 L) showing improvement as per CAT score (p=0.0001) from pharmacotherapy. After practicing the imparted education and training for 6 weeks, all these 70 participants had further significant improvement in the health status (n=70, p=0.00001). This improvement, been reinforced and supervised, continued to last even at 1 year (n=54, p=0.0001).Conclusion: The self-managed practice of a single-session education and training under real-world supervision can bring forth significant long-term improvement in the health status of COPD sufferers. Such simple and feasible intervention may substitute formal COPD rehabilitation programs in resource constraint situations. Keywords: rural COPD, extensive training, single point intensive education and training, quality of life, respiratory function tests

Archana Sunil Nikose, Dhrubojyoti Saha, Pradnya Mukesh Laddha, Mayuri Patil Department of Ophthalmology, N.K.P. Salve Institute and LMH, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India Introduction: Cataract surgery has undergone various advances since it was evolved from ancient couching to the modern phacoemulsification cataract surgery. Surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) remains one of the most common complications. The introduction of sutureless clear corneal incision has gained increasing popularity worldwide because it offers several advantages over the traditional sutured limbal incision and scleral tunnel. A clear corneal incision has the benefit of being bloodless and having an easy approach, but SIA is still a concern.Purpose: In this study, we evaluated the SIA in clear corneal incisions with temporal approach and superior approach phacoemulsification. Comparisons between the two incisions were done using keratometric readings of preoperative and postoperative refractive status.Methodology: It was a hospital-based prospective interventional comparative randomized control trial of 261 patients conducted in a rural-based tertiary care center from September 2012 to August 2014. The visual acuity and detailed anterior segment and posterior segment examinations were done and the cataract was graded according to Lens Opacification Classification System II. Patients were divided for phacoemulsification into two groups, group A and group B, who underwent temporal and superior clear corneal approach, respectively. The patients were followed up on day 1, 7, 30, and 90 postoperatively. The parameters recorded were uncorrected visual acuity, best-corrected visual acuity, slit lamp examination, and keratometry. The mean difference of SIA between 30th and 90th day was statistically evaluated using paired t-test, and all the analyses were performed using SPSS 18.0 (SPSS Inc.) software.Results: The mean postoperative SIA in group A was 0.998 D on the 30th day, which reduced to 0.768 D after 90 days, and in group B the SIA after 30 days was 1.651 D, whereas it reduced to 1.293 D after 90 days.Conclusion: Temporal clear corneal incision is evidently better than superior clear corneal incision as far as SIA is concerned. Keywords: phacoemulsification, temporal, clear corneal, SIA

The herbal age-old traditional method is practiced even today to treat Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) by the ethnic inhabitants of tea gardens of Darjeeling Himalaya, India. The aim of this study was to explore and document the traditional ways of healing UTIs. The information was collected from selected tea gardens and data was quantitatively analyzed with the help of ethnobotanical indices viz., use value, plant part value, family use value, fidelity level (%), and informant consensus factor. Antibiogram of four UTI-causing bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris and Staphylococcus aureus) was also established by Kirbye Bauer's disc diffusion method. Antibacterial activity of twelve mostly used plants like Cheliocostus speciosus, Equisetum diffusum, Saccharum officinarum, Elettaria cardamomum, Coriandrum sativum, Plantago asiatica ssp. erosa, Centella asiatica, Achyranthes bidentata, Carex cruciata, Drymaria cordata ssp. diandra, Nephrolepis cordifolia, Malvaviscus arboreus were assessed against the aforementioned bacterial strains. Drymaria cordata and Centella asiatica on comparative MIC and MBC study showed the lowest MIC and MBC value of 0.29 mg/mL each against Staphylococcus, representing their effectivity. Nephrolepis cordifolia with 100% FL showed the lowest MIC and MBC value 0.67 mg/mL each against E. coli K12. The uses of these plants known from the ethnomedicinal knowledge of the healers could be promoted as complementary medicine to treat UTI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electro-optic effect becomes prominent when an electric field is applied across the optic axis of a dielectric material inducing the changes in refractive indices of the medium. Kerr and Pockels cells are massively used as optical switches because of their nonlinear electro-optic character. Potassium di-hydrogen Phosphate (KDP) crystal is a very good electro-optic Pockels material as well as has a good switching behavior in optical and opto-electronic domain. The principle of this electro optic effect can be successfully used to develop optical switch based information processing devices. Transmission co-efficient of the polarized light beam have been modulated in a new way by introducing a multi passing scheme across a electro-optic material. Here transmission co-efficient plays a vital role to examine how much output intensity changes for developing feedback one by one in ascending order. In this paper a novel study for the sizable increase of transmission co-efficient of a KDP crystal for a fixed biasing voltage is reported adopting proper feedback mechanism of light. This paper we also observe an theoretical basis for achieving unit transmission coefficient which minimum amount of voltage require for adopting comparatively many large number of feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the outstanding mechanical properties of graphene nanoplates (GNP), it has been considered an ideal reinforcing agent for the production of a metal-matrix composite (MMC). In this study, 1.0 wt.% graphene-reinforced Aluminum 6061 MMC particles have been synthesized using the high-energy mechanical alloying (HE-MA) method to be deployed as feedstock in cold spray additive manufacturing. The synthesized MMC particles were spray coated on AZ80 magnesium substrate. The coating microstructure, coating-substrate interface evolution, and particle-particle bonding mechanism were studied. The novel HE-MA composite particles deposited coating exhibits greater deformability, thanks to crystal-level grain refinement, thereby improving interface mechanical interlocking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]