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BACKGROUND Urinary tract Infection (UTI) are the most common clinical conditions in general practice and gynaecological department. Men and women of all age groups are affected by UTI, but its overall prevalence is higher in women. The major causative agents are Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae. In majority of the cases, empirically treatment is started with antimicrobials before the urine culture and sensitivity reports become available. This has led to an increase in antibiotic resistance in urinary pathogens. Hence, the present study was undertaken to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of uropathogens to commonly used antimicrobials in treating UTIs. METHODS A total of 200 urine samples were obtained from patients with signs and symptoms suggestive of UTIs attending Bapuji and Chigateri General Hospital which are attached to Jagadguru Jayadeva Murugarajendra Medical College (JJMMC), Davangere for a period of 3 months that is from May 2016 to July 2016. Urine samples were processed within 2 hours of reaching the laboratory. Semi quantitative urine culture was done. Isolation and identification were done by performing standard biochemical tests and the antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done using the standard disc diffusion method by Kirby-Bauer technique. RESULTS There were 170 urinary isolates from 200 samples. Children less than 10 years were more affected 54 (27 %). Female patients were more, 119 (59.5 %) compared to males 81 (40.5 %). Escherichia coli was the most predominant isolate, 71 (41.8 %) followed by Enterococcus species 22 (1.9 %). Organisms were resistant to commonly used antibiotics i.e., cotrimoxazole, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and amoxicillin. Both gram negative and gram-positive isolates were sensitive to amikacin and nitrofurantoin. CONCLUSIONS In present study Escherichia coli is the predominant pathogen. Uncomplicated UTIs can be empirically treated by nitrofurantoin. Occurrence of treatment failure with commonly used antimicrobials is more often in Indian setting. Hence, antimicrobial susceptibility testing must be employed routinely. KEY WORDS UTIs, Uropathogens, E. coli, Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern

The increased interest has grown towards polymer nanocomposite materials exhibiting unique properties. Currently, the importance of antifungal materials is growing in various fields. Since many years the silver compounds are known as disinfectants with broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. Over 2,000 years ago silver compounds were recognized for their antibacterial activity. In comparison with other antibacterial agents, silver nanoparticles are obtained in simple process with high efficiency and sustainability.

Spelling errors are introduced in text either during typing, or when the user does not know the correct phoneme or grapheme. If a language contains complex words like sandhi where two or more morphemes join based on some rules, spell checking becomes very tedious. In such situations, having a spell checker with sandhi splitter which alerts the user by flagging the errors and providing suggestions is very useful. A novel algorithm of sandhi splitting is proposed in this paper. The sandhi splitter can split about 7000 most common sandhi words in Kannada language used as test samples. The sandhi splitter was integrated with a Kannada spell checker and a mechanism for generating suggestions was added. A comprehensive, platform independent, standalone spell checker with sandhi splitter application software was thus developed and tested extensively for its efficiency and correctness. A comparative analysis of this spell checker with sandhi splitter was made and results concluded that the Kannada spell checker with sandhi splitter has an improved performance. It is twice as fast, 200 times more space efficient, and it is 90% accurate in case of complex nouns and 80% accurate for complex verbs. Such a spell checker with sandhi splitter will be of foremost significance in machine translation systems, voice processing, etc. This is the first sandhi splitter in Kannada and the advantage of the novel algorithm is that, it can be extended to all Indian languages.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common nosocomial infections, accounting for 40% of all nosocomial infections. As much as 80% of these infections are associated with the use of urinary catheters. The risk of developing catheter-associated UTI increases with each day of catheterization. The pathogenesis of catheter-associated UTI is related to susceptibility of inert catheter material to microbial colonization. Once firmly attached on the catheter surface or the uroepithelium, bacteria begin to change phenotypically, moving into the sessile, biofilm mode of growth. Bacterial interference or using nonpathogenic bacteria to prevent symptomatic infection may offer a solution to the problem of recurrent UTI in chronically catheterized individuals.

The piezoelectric based quartz crystal microbalance is employed for sensing contaminants in potable water. A spin coated thin layer of TiO2 nanoparticles was formed at the sensing area of a 5 MHz AT-cut quartz wafer. The thin film of TiO2 nanoparticles forms a mesoporous functional layer for the trapping of water borne contaminants. The morphology of the thin film of TiO2 nanoparticles was studied using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The surface morphology of the TiO2 nanoparticles reveals the mesoporous structures indicating large number of defects and porous sites. Such film was employed for the detection of water borne contaminants by detecting the piezoelectric response from a quartz crystal microbalance. We found the film to be very sensitive to the contaminants. The minimum detection limit was found to be 330 ppb. The effect of surface recharging was also studied by altering the physical conditions so that the film can be used for repetitive usage.