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The beauty of the laryngeal mask is that it forms an air tight seal enclosing the larynx rather than plugging the pharynx, and avoid airway obstruction in the oropharynx. The goal of its development was to create an intermediate form of airway management face mask and endotracheal tube. Indication for its use includes any procedure that would normally involve the use of a face mask. The laryngeal mask airway was designed as a new concept in airway management and has been gaining a firm position in anesthetic practice. Despite wide spread use the definitive role of the laryngeal mask airway is yet to be established. In some situations, such as after failed tracheal intubation or in oral surgery its use is controversial. There are several unresolved issues, for example the effect of the laryngeal mask on regurgitation and whether or not cricoids pressure prevents placement of mask. We review the techniques of insertion, details of misplacement, and complications associated with use of the laryngeal mask. We then attempt to clarify the role of laryngeal mask in air way management during anesthesia, discussing the advantages and disadvantages as well as indications and contraindications of its use in oral and maxillofacial surgery. more...

The effect of air processed polymer solar cells fabricated from conjugated polymers and fullerene derivatives poly (3-hexylthiophene) and [6, 6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester functioning as donor and acceptor materials. The device architecture was (Cs2CO3/P3HT: PCBM/V2O5/Al). The spin rate of the Cs2CO3 and P3HT: PCBM layer was subjected to be varied and its device performance were evaluated. The basic characterizations such as UV–Vis spectrum, PL spectra, FTIR, XRD, FESEM, EDAX, AFM and I–V studies were performed for all the materials used for fabricating the devices. The performance of the device demonstrated under air-processed conditions delivers a photo-conversion efficiency of 0.1% initially. The scaling up of the self-organized active layer can be achieved by varying and controlling the spin casting and the evaporation rate at room temperature. After varying the spin conditions the fabricated devices were tested under the same conditions and photo-conversion efficiency enhances from 0.1 to 1.43% with the Jsc of 5.6 mA cm−2; Voc of 0.55 V and FF of 0.454. The device performance can be further enhanced by controlling the exposure of the electrode materials by masking. more...

Summary Background & aim Malnutrition (MN) in patients with cirrhosis awaiting liver transplant (LTx) has been shown to be an important determinant of outcomes. Hence there is an impetus on early diagnosis and stratification to guide goal directed nutritional intervention. The aim of this study was twofold; first, to assess the effect of MN on mortality in patients awaiting LTx and, second, to evaluate HGS as a reliable, non-invasive, and inexpensive tool that can be used in routine clinical practice for early diagnosis and stratification of severity of malnutrition in patients awaiting LTx. Methods Adults evaluated for LTx and accepted as suitable candidates were enrolled on a waiting list at a single centre between May 2014 and February 2016 and were prospectively included. Nutritional status was assessed by Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), anthropometry, and dominant hand grip strength (HGS). Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson correlation, t-test, and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC curve) in SPSS version 16.0. Results One hundred eighty patients (81% male) aged 51.6 ± 10 years, (Child's C 70.6%, B 26.1%, A 3.3%) were included and followed up till LTx or end of study. Eighty seven patients (48%) who underwent LTx were excluded from the final analysis. Of the 93 patients on the waiting list, 46 (49%) were alive and revealed a high (88%) incidence of MN as assessed by SGA. There was a significant increase in MN with increasing Model End stage Liver Disease (MELD) and Child score, and decreasing HGS (p Conclusions HGS is a reliable, non invasive and cost-effective tool to identify MN in cirrhotic patients. Low HGS (≤19.5 kg) was a strong predictor of mortality in wait-listed patients and indicated a 7.8 times higher mortality than HGS >19.5 kg. The cut-off of HGS to stratify severity of MN and guide goal directed nutrition intervention was lower in our patient population than recommended by normative standards and likely represents the standard for the Indian population with ESLD. more...

In this project, a control strategy for power flow management of a grid-connected hybrid PV-wind-battery based system with an efficient multi-input transformer coupled bidirectional dc-dc converter is presented. The proposed system aims to satisfy the load demand, manage the power flow from different sources, inject surplus power into the grid and charge the battery from grid as and when required. A transformer coupled boost half-bridge converter is used to harness power from wind, while bidirectional buck-boost converter is used to harness power from PV along with battery charging/discharging control. A single-phase full-bridge bidirectional converter is used for feeding ac loads and interaction with grid. The proposed converter architecture has reduced number of power conversion stages with less component count, and reduced losses compared to existing grid-connected hybrid systems. This improves the efficiency and reliability of the system. more...

Heavy metal pollution in water is a serious environmental concern. Lead is one of the highly toxic heavy metals, and its toxicity is due to its non-degradation characteristic in living organisms. The monitoring of Pb(II) ions concentrations in drinking water is essential for human health and a safe environment. In this work, bio-modified carbon paste electrodes were constructed with live cells and thermally dried biomass (extracted protein) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells and employed for the detection of Pb(II) ions from wastewater. The biomass and biosensor preparation and optimization, and the performance of modified biosensors in the detection of Pb(II) ions are discussed here. The effect of various parameters, like pH, biomass composition, scan rate, and metal ion concentration, were studied to obtain the best electrochemical response. Further, the active surface of the electrode and solution characteristics were studies using chronocoulometry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis was done to find the functional groups present in the thermally dried biomass. From the present study, it is clear that the thermally dried protein biomass electrode has more sensitivity than the bare carbon paste electrode. more...

The development of passively driven microfluidic labs on chips has been increasing over the years. In the passive approach, the microfluids are usually driven and operated without any external actuators, fields, or power sources. Passive microfluidic techniques adopt osmosis, capillary action, surface tension, pressure, gravity-driven flow, hydrostatic flow, and vacuums to achieve fluid flow. There is a great need to explore labs on chips that are rapid, compact, portable, and easy to use. The evolution of these techniques is essential to meet current needs. Researchers have highlighted the vast potential in the field that needs to be explored to develop rapid passive labs on chips to suit market/researcher demands. A comprehensive review, along with patent analysis, is presented here, listing the latest advances in passive microfluidic techniques, along with the related mechanisms and applications. more...

Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting the soil mass laterally. The soil properties of the retained material exert lateral pressure on the wall. Thus, the important consideration in the design of retaining wall is to counter the lateral pressure generated by the backfill. The present study focuses on theoretical study on the retaining wall parameters such as the heel width, stem height, inclined backfill, with cohesive and expansive soil backfill. The lateral earth pressure is evaluated in each of these cases using the Rankine’s lateral earth pressure theory. The numerical modelling of the cantilever retaining wall in cohesive backfill (expansive in nature) is carried out using the finite element software (PLAXIS 2D). Two soil models, Mohr–Coulomb model and the Hardening Soil model, are used for modelling the backfill. The expansive nature of the backfill is incorporated in terms of the positive volumetric strain of the backfill. To cater to the large lateral pressure induced by the expansive backfill, geofoam layer is introduced in between the backfill layer and the retaining wall and modelled using Mohr–Coulomb model. A comparative evaluation is made for the behaviour of the retaining wall in terms of the lateral deformation. The expansive soil with 12% volumetric strain caused nearly 900 mm lateral deformation, compared to 600 mm on inclusion of the 2 m thick geofoam layers. The hardening soil model used for modelling of the expansive soil depicts an reduction in deformation compared to the elasto-plastic, Mohr–Coulomb model. more...

Online social networks turn out to be a potential data source to discover worthwhile information from microblogs. Conversely, time-critical exploration of microblog data during catastrophic events such as flood, cyclone, forest fire, and violence carries critical challenges to machine learning techniques. For instance, the microblog from Twitter is utilized to identify event along with its location-specific orientation. In this paper, convolution neural network (CNN) technique is used to identify the retrospective event from the microblog. The existing state of-the-art classification methodologies require substantial volume of labeled data detailed to an unambiguous event during training phase. In addition, it requires feature to attain better outcomes. During the experiments, the n-gram CNN model is trained from the tweets intended for multi-class tweet classification which was related to the specified events in the past without feature engineering. The proposed CNN shows the event detection high accuracy which in turn yields improved performance when compared with other state-of-the-art methods. more...

This article presents a novel approach for agricultural decision making using graph coloring algorithm. Farmers’ welfare depends on the Agricultural production and balancing the demand so that they get more profit in crop cultivation. If production increases, demand decreases. If demand decreases, profit in crop cultivation decreases (loss in crop cultivation many times). If more crops of same kind are cultivated by the farmers in the nearby area, demand of the particular crop decreased. Farmers will receive less profit if demand is decreased which will decrease the cost of yields. To evade this problem, a novel approach is devised to give better yield production, balancing the demand as well as to make the farmer to earn more amount of money. Graph Coloring algorithm is used to assist the farmer that what crop to be cultivated without loss of investing the amount in crop cultivation as well as balancing the demand of the crop. Experimental results show that proposed approach outperforms well in terms of running time efficiency. more...

The corrosion deterrence as well as antifouling efficiency of Ailanthus excelsa leaf extract (AELE) was explored against mild steel in an acidic environment. The AELE was tested for standard corrosion measurement techniques such as weight loss method, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization (PP) and SEM. Further, UV–vis and FTIR screening were carried out for the determination of corrosion inhibition mechanism. Adsorption isotherm models, electrochemical techniques, spectroscopic (UV–vis and FTIR) and surface morphological studies (SEM) well confirms the adherence and corrosion inhibiting nature of AELE inhibitor. AELE exhibits potential inhibition of ∼96 % on mild steel up to 1.5 mL at 308 K in weight loss method, which is in good agreement with EIS and PP measurements. The AELE was also tested against fouling bacteria, which showed a significant inhibition zone between 12 mm and 21 mm against Staphylococcus sp. The antifouling mechanism of AELE against fouling bacteria was found potentially effective, which also provides new insights to investigate AELE’s antifouling property in existing research. more...

According to environmental protection agencies (EPA), the emission threshold of NH 3 in air is 1000 kg/yr which is now about 20 Tg/yr. Hence, there is a rapid increase in need of NH 3 sensors to timely detect and control NH 3 emissions. Metal oxide nanostructures such as CuO with special features are potential candidates for NH 3 sensing. In the present study, morphology controlled 3-dimensional CuO superstructures were synthesized by surfactant-free hydrothermal method for NH 3 detection. In addition to conventional hydrothermal method where water as solvent, a modified approach using a mixture of water and ethylene glycol (EG) was used as solvent to control the growth process. Hierarchical superstructures namely, snowflake-like, flower-like, hollow-sphere-like and urchin-like feature with particle dimensions ranging from 0.3 to 1 μm were obtained by varying water/EG ratio and reaction temperature. The synthesized nanostructures exhibited morphology dependent luminescence and gas sensing properties. The surface area and pore distribution determined by BET surface analysis also largely influenced by the presence of EG in the reaction system. The average pore diameter enhanced from 6 nm to 14 nm by the addition of 10 ml EG as solvent. The room temperature ammonia sensing behavior of all samples was studied using an indigenous gas sensing set-up. It was found that hollow-sphere like CuO nanostructures showed a maximum sensitivity of 150% towards 600 ppm ammonia with a response and recovery time of 6 min. The hydrothermal synthesis strategy reported here has the advantage of producing shape controlled hierarchical materials are highly suitable for various technological applications. more...

Secure group communication is a challenging task with respect to MANET’s. Since its introduction as a communication medium, wireless technology found broad application on the battlefield. Robust and reliable group communication plays a major role in developing distributed mobile application in which unannounced disconnections will occur frequently due to the mobility of the nodes which take part in mobile applications. Accompanying dramatic advances in wireless technology and the capabilities associated with small computing devices, the demand for advanced mechanisms to employ wireless technology in the battlefield continues to grow. The main objective here is to achieve robust and reliable group communication in mobile ad hoc network .Performance of the group communication is compared with the given protocols through simulation in NS-2. The analysis is made with respect to the throughput, packet transmission between source and destination. We propose four Ad hoc Routing Protocols AODV, DSR, and have given the comparative study. more...

Methotrexate continues to be one of the most widely used systemic immunosuppressive agents in dermatology. We describe a case of low-dose methotrexate (MTX) toxicity in a patient with chronic plaque psoriasis occurring during long-standing methotrexate therapy. This case report emphasizes the fact that co-medications like NSAIDS may exacerbate MTX toxicity. This patient had a rare methotrexate-induced toxic epidermal necrolysis including cutaneous ulceration. Hence, careful consideration of concomitant medication is required to avoid drug interactions for safe long-term methotrexate treatment. more...

India, the second largest agro-based economy with year-round crop cultivation, generates a large amount of agricultural waste, including crop residues. In the absence of adequate sustainable management practices, approximately 92 seems a very small number of metric tons of crop waste is burned every year in India, causing excessive particulate matter emissions and air pollution. Crop residue burning has become a major environmental problem causing health issues as well as contributing to global warming. Composting, biochar production and mechanization are a few effective sustainable techniques that can help to curtail the issue while retaining the nutrients present in the crop residue in the soil. The government of India has attempted to curtail this problem, through numerous measures and campaigns designed to promote sustainable management methods such as converting crop residue into energy. However, the alarming rise of air pollution levels caused by crop residue burning in the city of Delhi and other northern areas in India observed in recent years, especially in and after the year of 2015, suggest that the issues is not yet under control. The solution to crop residue burning lies in the effective implementation of sustainable management practices with Government interventions and policies. This manuscript addresses the underlying technical as well as policy issues that has prevented India from achieving a long-lasting solution and also potential solutions that have been overlooked. However, effective implementation of these techniques also requires us to look at other socioeconomic aspects that had not been considered. This manuscript also discusses some of the policy considerations and functionality based on the analyses and current practices. The agricultural waste sector can benefit immensely from some of the examples from other waste sectors such as the municipal solid waste (MSW) and wastewater management where collection, segregation, recycling and disposal are institutionalized to secure an operational system. Active stakeholder involvement including education and empowerment of farmers along with technical solutions and product manufacturing can also assist tremendously. Even though the issue of crop residue burning touches many sectors, such as environment, agriculture, economy, social aspects, education, and energy, the past governmental efforts mainly revolved around agriculture and energy. This sectorial thinking is another barrier that needs to be broken. The government of India as well as governments of other developing countries can benefit from the emerging concept of nexus thinking in managing environmental resources. Nexus thinking promotes a higher-level integration and higher level of stakeholder involvement that goes beyond the disciplinary boundaries, providing a supporting platform to solve issues such as crop residue burning. more...

Introduction: Hyponatremia, serum sodium

Background: In clinical practice, nonspecific antidiarrheals are most commonly used by clinicians along with routine treatment to hasten the recovery and to give psychological reassurance. This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of nonspecific antidiarrheal agents in reducing the need for intravenous rehydration in children with acute diarrhea. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective, observational study done in clinical settings for a period of 3 years at two pediatric clinics and at a tertiary care hospital. Children were divided into 5 treatment groups (viz, control, racecadotril, Mebarid, Diarex and loperamide) at the discretion of the pediatrician. One questionnaire was provided to parents to record the details about the course of diarrhea. Parents were sensitized to report any episode of complication or need for intravenous fluids. Results: The unscheduled need for intravenous fluids due to dehydration was significantly higher in control group compared to other groups {Control: 7.37%, Racecadotril : 1.71% Mebarid: 2.4%, Diarex: 0%, Loperamide : 0%)}. Conclusion: Present study suggests that use of nonspecific antidiarrheals may decrease the need for admission for intravenous fluids in children with acute diarrhea. more...

A simple and cost effective hydrothermal method has been employed to synthesis morphology controlled pure and Cr doped (4 and 8 at. %) CuO nanostructures. Crystalline purity and structure of the nanostructures were validated by X-ray diffraction and Retvield analyses. Field emission scanning electron microscopy revealed the evolution of rod-like, sheet-like and boat-like morphologies for pure, 4 and 8 at. % Cr doped CuO nanostructures respectively. The optical band gap estimated using the K-M function plot from diffused reflectance spectroscopy showed a shift in band gap from 1.68 to 1.90 eV with respect to Cr concentration. The synthesized CuO nanostructures were investigated for the efficient room temperature gas sensing of ammonia, ethanol and methanol vapours under different concentrations (100-600 ppm). The 8 at. % Cr doped CuO nano-boats showed enhanced gas sensitivity than other CuO nanostructures owing to their typical morphology, larger surface area and related properties. more...

Here, we report a room temperature NH3 sensing prototype with an enhanced sensitivity utilizing undoped CuO nanorods (NRs) and Cr doped (2 at.% and 6 at.%) CuO nanoboats (NBs) synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. Deep level emissions were observed in the range of 350–610 nm by photoluminescence analysis. The observed green emission in Cr doped samples indicates the presence of oxygen vacancies which are induced by doping. Electrical measurements confirmed the ohmic contact of the samples with Ag electrode. The temperature and gas concentration dependence on the sensing properties demonstrated that the addition of Cr significantly enhanced the sensing performance towards NH3 in the 100–600 ppm concentration range at room temperature. In the case of 6 at.% Cr doped CuO NBs, a 2.5 fold increase in sensor response was observed at room temperature and a maximum sensitivity of 180% at 75 °C for 600 ppm of NH3. The enhanced sensing response is attributed to the increase in surface area, surface charge and oxygen vacancies in CuO nanostructures by Cr doping. more...

Polysiloxane resin copolymer was synthesized through acid catalyzed hydrolysis of methyl triethoxysilane (MTEOS) and diethoxytetramethyldisiloxane (DEOTMDS). The effect of reaction time on the properties of the polymer was studied and this copolymer was characterized by GPC, 29Si NMR, IR, TGA, viscosity, refractive index, specific gravity and solid content. 29Si NMR and IR showed characteristic signals of Si-O-Si linkage which confirmed the formation of the polymer. GPC and solid content analysis showed an increasing trend in molecular weight with reaction time. Thermo gravimetric analysis showed that the polymer was thermally stable upto ≈ 260°C and all the polymers gave a ceramic residue in the range of 77-80% at 900°C. Siloxane prepared inhouse and methyl phenyl silsequioxane (control) were used as coating materials and atomic oxygen (AO) resistance was evaluated on Al-Kapton, carbon polyimide composite and glass polyimide composite. The mass loss and surface morphology of the coated samples were measured at different time intervals. It is observed that mass loss of polysiloxane coated samples was very less, compared to coated control samples. The morphology of all the samples were studied using FESEM. Erosion kinetics and surface morphology investigation indicate that the polysiloxane coating possesses excellent AO resistance, and displays better cracking resistance on AO exposure. more...

Protein sequence alignment to find correlation between different species, or genetic mutations etc. is the most computational intensive task when performing protein comparison. To speed-up the alignment, Systolic Arrays (SAs) have been used. In order to avoid the internal-loop problem which reduces the performance, pipeline interleaving strategy has been presented. This strategy is applied to an SA for Smith Waterman (SW) algorithm which is an alignment algorithm to locally align two proteins. In the proposed system, the above methodology has been extended to implement a memory efficient FPGA-hardware based Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) to speed up network processing. The pattern matching in Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) is done using SNORT to find the pattern of intrusions. A Finite State Machine (FSM) based Processing Elements (PE) unit to achieve minimum number of states for pattern matching and bit wise early intrusion detection to increase the throughput by pipelining is presented. more...

Summary Background and aim Nutritional therapy is an integral part of care in all phases of liver transplantation (LTx). However, there are several factors that make it a challenge to manage malnutrition in these patients including, but not limited to, loss of appetite, dietary restrictions and dietary habits. Dietary habits are guided by personal choice, social, cultural and regional background with diversity ranging from veganism to vegetarianism with the latter predominant in Indian population. Therefore, it is difficult to improve nutritional intake of patients with standard dietary recommendations. We evaluated the effects of implementing personalized dietary counseling and a customized nutrition plan on its ability to enhance oral intake and, thereby improve nutritional status of patients with end stage liver disease (ESLD) being evaluated for LTx. We compared the outcomes with a matched group of patients who were prescribed standard dietary recommendations from a historic database. Primary outcome was measured by number of patients achieving ≥75% of recommended energy and protein requirements during hospitalization for LTx. Secondary outcomes included mean energy and protein intake, hours of ventilation, length of stay in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and hospital, mortality and readmission rate in the acute phase (3months) after LTx. Methods This was a prospective observational study, performed at a single LTx centre. All patients >18years who enrolled for LTx and consented for the study were included. The study was conducted after obtaining institutional ethics committee approval. A protocol based nutrition planning was implemented from April’14. According to this protocol, all patients being evaluated for LTx underwent a detailed nutritional assessment by a qualified Clinical Dietitian (CD) and regularly followed up with until LTx. Nutritional intervention, including a customized nutrition care plan and personalized dietary counseling, was provided based on the severity of malnutrition. To evaluate the efficacy of this protocol, we compared the nutritional adequacy (calorie and protein intake) of 65 consecutive patients who underwent LTx between August’14–October’15 (group 1) with a historic database of 65 patients who underwent LTx between January’13 and April’14 (group 2). Patients' demographics, disease severity score, baseline markers of nutritional status (subjective global assessment (SGA), and body mass index (BMI)), were recorded. First, assessment of individual patient's oral energy and protein intake was determined by the daily calorie count during hospitalization. Then the nutritional intervention (oral nutrition supplement (ONS)/enteral nutrition (EN)/parenteral nutrition (PN)) plan was customized according to their spontaneous oral intake. As part of the protocol, health related quality of life was also assessed using short form 8 (SF-8) in group 1. Statistical analyses using Pearson's correlation, Chi–Square test were applied with SPSS version 20.0. Results The mean age of group 1 and 2 were 52.6 ± 9.8, 51.9 ± 10.5 (range 25–70years) with BMI of 26.8 ± 6.0, 26.5 ± 5.4 respectively. According to SGA, there was significant improvement in the nutritional status of group 1 patients compared to group 2 on admission for LTx. It was indicated that 88% of group 1 individuals in comparison to 98% in group 2 were malnourished. The calorie intake of group 1 (1740.2 ± 254.8) was significantly higher than group 2 (1568.5 ± 321.6) (p = 0.005). The marked improvement in protein intake in group 1 (63.1 ± 12.1) when compared with group 2 (53.1 ± 13.4) was statistically significant (p = 0.008). A subset analysis showed that non-vegetarians (consuming meat and dairy products) between the groups showed that group 1 had a significantly higher calorie (p = 0.004) and protein (p = 0.0001) intake compared to individuals in group 2. Following implementation of study's protocol, the goal of achieving ≥75% of the prescribed calories (p = 0.013) and protein (p = 0.0001) was significantly higher in group 1. Conclusion When compared to the standard prescription, an individualized protocol to diagnose, stratify the severity of malnutrition early, and follow up by customized nutrition planning for patients helped to achieve nutritional targets more effectively. Inspite of patients' diversity in nutritional habits and reluctance to accept change, it is clear that a qualified and dedicated transplant nutrition team can successfully implement perioperative nutrition protocol to achieve better nutritional targets. more...

In a world that is more digitally connected than ever before, keeping your personal data safe is essential. Currently, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) becomes one of the most dominant and attracting technologies in the world of telecommunications. The two major issues in VoIP is to be consider are that, the confidential data falling in the hands of network attackers and remembering of long cryptographic keys. Here we propose to generate a biometric key using iris, which is the combination of the iris code and the pseudo random numbers as a key for VoIP Communication. This iris key act as a symmetric key for both encryption and decryption. Unfortunately if the iris biometric is stolen, this makes the attacker to access the data if the data encrypted with biometric key alone. To overcome this problem we propose to use pseudo random numbers, which is fused with iris biometric. Therefore billions of unique keys can be generated, making VoIP technology hard for an attacker to guess the key. This proposed system is composed of two modules 1)Feature extraction of Iris 2)Cryptographic key generation. more...

Canthium parviflorum leaf extract (CPLE) was utilized for corrosion prevention against mild steel (MS) in 0.5[Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text]L[Formula: see text] H2SO4 test medium. Standard corrosion measurement techniques (gravimetric and electrochemical) were employed for this purpose. Gravimetric tests clearly confirmed that the prepared CPLE efficiently performs as corrosion inhibitor. Potentiodynamic polarization measurements (PPM) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were performed in order to analyze the charge transfer process of CPLE. Polarization curves indicate that CPLE acts through mixed mode inhibition. Impedance study reveals that the CPLE additives enhances the charge transfer resistance values and conversely decreases values of double layer capacitance. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy analysis and Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were done to confirm the Fe-CPLE complex formation on MS. The effect of temperature reveals that the inhibition efficiency increases with decrease in temperature and increase in concentration of CPLE (maximum of 4[Formula: see text]mg[Formula: see text]L[Formula: see text]). The adsorption of CPLE shows that it obeys Langmuir’s isotherm model with free energy of adsorption, [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]kJ mol[Formula: see text]. A suitable adsorption model is also proposed. more...

In this era of the internet with the latest technology and rapid communication, the various fields of processes and business are led to the road of automation in recent days. The major part of this automation is that they help in the cost reduction with increased safety measures and also results in absolute portability of the equipment. To indulge in continuous processing, and also to identify the best technology, the analytical methods must be directly involved in decision making. This revolution in analytical methods is named as Analytics 4.0, which has a significant role in healthcare and diagnostics. The self-assessment and decentralization of the data acquiring can be motivated with the help of the microfluidic biosensors and biochip. It also helps in the immediate access of the information without resulting in delay. Diagnostic 4.0 helps in storing the patient details as cloud files providing high security and also analyze them through the deep learning algorithms. It also helps in constant monitoring on a broad scale and reliable assessment through monitoring apps that can shift the health care efficiency to the next notch. Hence the evolution of the healthcare sector has multiple generations listed with numerous advances which stand as the boon in this era. more...

Mini tablets constitute a solid dosage form and are more than one-unit dosage, they are advantageous than pellets or another oral dosage forms and greater when given to children and elderly human beings as they may be at ease to swallow. Amongst all MUDFs, mini tablets provide several benefits like they do not require any solvent for their manufacturing, can be coated reproducibly, and also requires much less coating material. Additionally, there's a brilliant flexibility during their formulation development. Dose dumping and local infection may be prevented with the aid of the use of mini tablets. Child differs from grown-up in pharmacotherapy, together with abilities for drug administration, medication-related toxicity, and taste preference. It is vital that pediatric medicines are formulated to foremost acceptable with child's age, size, physiologic conditions remedy requirements development are important and the research of latest methods to deliver drugs tends to enhance compliance, convenience and pharmacokinetic. Further, recommended that small sized solid dosage forms or orally disintegrating stable dosage forms have to be preferred. Their small size permits them to be nicely distributed alongside the gastrointestinal tract enhancing the bioavailability even as decreasing region drug attention, risk of toxicity and side effects. more...

Background and Aims: Adequate nutritional support is crucial in prevention and treatment of malnutrition in critically ill-patients. Despite the intention to provide appropriate enteral nutrition (EN), meeting the full nutritional requirements can be a challenge due to interruptions. This study was undertaken to determine the cause and duration of interruptions in EN. Materials and Methods: Patients admitted to a multidisciplinary critical care unit (CCU) of a tertiary care hospital from September 2010 to January 2011 and who received EN for a period >24 h were included in this observational, prospective study. A total of 327 patients were included, for a total of 857 patient-days. Reasons and duration of EN interruptions were recorded and categorized under four groups-procedures inside CCU, procedures outside CCU, gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and others. Results: Procedure inside CCU accounted for 55.9% of the interruptions while GI symptoms for 24.2%. Although it is commonly perceived that procedures outside CCU are the most common reason for interruption, this contributed only to 18.4% individually; ventilation-related procedures were the most frequent cause (40.25%), followed by nasogastric tube aspirations (15.28%). Although GI bleed is often considered a reason to hold enteral feed, it was one of the least common reasons (1%) in our study. Interruption of 2-6 h was more frequent (43%) and most of this (67.1%) was related to procedures inside CCU. Conclusion: Awareness of reasons for EN interruptions will aid to modify protocol and minimize interruptions during procedures in CCU to reach nutrition goals. more...

CuO nanostructures and CuO-MnO2 nanocomposite were successfully synthesized using hydrothermal method without any aid of growth controlling agents. The synthesized CuO nanostructures have monoclinic structure. The XRD pattern of CuO-MnO2 observed with mixed phases of monoclinic CuO and birnessite-type MnO2 which confirms the formation of nanocomposite. SEM images revealed the turmeric-like morphology for CuO and intercalated sheets with flowers on the surface for CuO-MnO2. The length and breadth of turmeric-like structure is about 642.2 nm and 141.8 nm, respectively. The band gap of 1.72 eV for CuO nanostructure and 1.9 eV for CuO-MnO2 nanocomposite were observed from the absorption spectra. The free standing devices of CuO-MnO2 showed nearly a 3 fold increase sensing response to ammonia at room temperature when compared to the constituent CuO. The composite sensor showed response time of 120 s and recovered within 600 s. This enhanced response can be asserted to the peculiar morphology of the composite that provides more adsorption site for gas diffusion to take place. more...

Introduction: Personal identification and gender determination of unknown person has a vital importance in forensic investigation. Human skull radiography is a useful tool in human identification in natural disaster, in any accidents such as fire accident and road traffic accident where body remains become degraded or severely destroyed. Aim: Present study was performed to evaluate the measurement of frontal sinus, uniqueness of various pattern of nasal septum when combined with frontal sinus observed on posterio anterior cephalogram for sex determination as well as personal identification. Materials and Methods: A total of 80 individuals, 40 males and 40 females, between the age ranges of 18-30 years were selected. The selected individuals had their Posterio Anterior (PA) cephalogram performed after taking their informed consent. Right and left areas and the maximum height and width of the frontal sinus were determined and septum patterns were evaluated and both patterns were also combined and compared. The radiographs were taken on Xtropan 2000 OPG X-ray machine with cephalography attachment and KODAK CR 7400 digital radiography system. Mean and SD values of the greatest height and width of frontal sinus in male and female patients were thus evaluated. The mean values of the frontal sinus were greater in males and the left area was larger than the right area, based on student’s t-test at the 5% level of significance. Results: The combination of Frontal Sinus Patterns and Nasal Septum Patterns (FP+NSP) were assessed and found that there were nine classifiable patterns in 26 (32.5%) individuals (12 males and 14 females), each of which had common representations in more than one individual. Besides these patterns, there were unique unclassifiable patterns in 54 (67.5%) individuals. Conclusion: The present study supports the use of radiographic evaluation of frontal sinus dimensions, frontal sinus patterns, nasal septum deviations and the combination FP+NSP patterns for personal identification and gender determination in forensic investigations. more...

Objective: The primary objective of this work is to review the vehicle tracking system, discuss the challenges in Internet of Things (IoT) based vehicle tracking system. IoT is used to get intellectual connecting the objects with each other via information sensing in the physical world and broadcasting devices linked with the internet. Analysis: This paper provides a comprehensive investigation on vehicle tracking system in association with the IoT and Big Data Analytics. This paper anlalyze the challenges pertaining to the IoT based Vehicle tracking system. Findings: This paper provides the novel methodology for assessing the quality of vehicle tracking system and identifies opportunity for future research in this area. Applications: The importance of QoE can be realized in vehicle tracking system for the improving the performance of the surveillance system. more...