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Background: Surgical Site Infections (SSI) is the third most commonly conveyed nosocomial infection which has an adverse impact on the hospital as well as on the patient. A continuous surveillance is called for, to keep a check on the incidence of SSI. Objectives: a) to study the incidence of SSI in our hospital; b) To study the risk factors of SSI in our hospital; c) To identify the areas in our hospital, which need to be strengthened and deal with proactive measures to curb the incidence of SSI. Methodology: It was a Prospective study conducted for 6 months in our hospital. 131 cases of Surgery were included in the study. All patients who are operated in general surgery department of VMKVMCH between July 2021 – December 2021. A few host factors, wound factors and surgery related factors that cause SSI were studied. Swabs were collected from the infected surgical wounds and processed by the conventional microbiological methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility was done by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: Prolonged surgery (>2hours) and insertion of drain were found to be significantly associated with occurrence of SSI and the clean surgeries showed minimum risk of infection.

Solid waste management is one of the challenging issues faced by the developing countries. The developing countries find it very critical to manage the disposal of waste generation. India ranks 3rd in the production of egg, generating about 3.8 billion kilograms annually. This growth in the production of larger rate is mainly due to the hike in domestic consumption. This could lead to larger generation of solid waste. To overcome these issues, eggshell could be effective incorporated into concrete production as cementitious blends. This paper investigates the suitability of eggshell powder as partial substitute to cement. The material characterization techniques such as SEM were used to investigate the feasibility of using eggshell powder. The study was conducted by producing cement mortars in the ratio of 1:3 parts of cement. Then the cement was partially replaced by eggshell powder at 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% by its weight. The fresh property was assessed using the flow table test, while the hardened property was determined using the compressive strength of the cement mortar at 7, and 28 days. From the test results, 10% eggshell powder when utilized in mortar gives optimum compressive strength.

In the development of the nation agriculture plays a significant role. IoT technology helps gather knowledge about environments such as wind, precipitation, temperature, and soil fertility. IoT allows farmers to get connected to their farm from anywhere at any time. Difficulty regarding agriculture has been always hampered; slow down the development of the country. These patterns benefit people in many respects, such as analysis using IoT and artificial intelligence, data sharing, and analytics in an unparalleled way. In this paper, we review IoT implementation in monitoring the environmental conditions of the crops and farms in various agriculture sectors. Additional IoT monitoring, control, and optimization functionality may be used to remotely monitor the control systems or actuators attached to the microcontrollers to ensure that the crop can react promptly as required. In this article, today’s climatic change scenario aims to establish a comprehensive vision of IoT implementation in the farming sector to improve agricultural production in the future, as well as to guarantee the constant supplier of food. We describe the advantages of applying IoT on livestock, weather surveillance, the agricultural warehouse, and the intelligent irrigation technique.

The success of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach at primary schools of Bangladesh has recently been questioned seriously. No measures have yet been taken to remedy the apprehended failure of CLT programs in the country. This inquiry focuses on the perils of pupils in the forms of shaming, failure, and fear for the tyranny of the current CLT curriculum. A mixed research method was used to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the learners’ situation through a questionnaire survey with participation of 211 CLT practitioners, an FGD with 12 participants and semi-structured interviews with 15 English learners. Along with lack of teacher empowerment mechanisms, other challenges for young learners (YLs) included problem of enduring class rules, their inability to cope with difficult texts, fear of failure in lessons, tests, and physical and psychological sufferings inflicted on them during, before and after the delivery of the lessons. The findings reveal the need of a modified CLT curriculum with provisions for innovative pedagogy, learner care and learner empowerment. Provisions for use of L1 Bangla in lesson delivery, inclusion of learner culture and local context in the teaching-learning of English are recommended to ensure expected outcomes.

This work presents a novel way to examine the characteristics of fly ash, copper slag (CPS) along with the addition of Ultrafine Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (UFGGBFS) based Geopolymer Concrete (GPC) for various molarities (10M, 12M and 14M). In GPC, fly ash was replaced with UFGGBFS (5 %, 10 % and 15 %) and copper slag was used as fine aggregate. Mechanical Characterization such as split tensile, flexural strength, workability and water absorption were conducted . GPC characterization and microstructural behaviour was studied by examining X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). From experimental results this study concludes that with a rise in molarity of GPC, along with incorporation of UFGGBFS, improved the performance, densification and strength of GPC.

Globally, the annual generation of industrial and agricultural by-products is exceeding a thousand million tons and forecasted to tremendously inflate in the future. The by-products are usually either landfilled or incinerated causing environmental impacts. Many waste products are effectively utilized in the development of eco-friendly concrete. This study targets the adoption of generated by-products as an alternative to cement in the production of self-compacting concrete (SCC) based on the existing literature. SCC is majorly composed of high cement content, aggregates, chemical admixtures, and water. On the other hand, the cement production emits high levels of carbon dioxide causing environmental hazards and could be reduced to a certain extent by implementing these by-products as cement blends. The by-products are examined for its suitability by the material characterization, physical and chemical properties to match the pozzolanic behavior. This paper reviews comprehensively on the effect of utilizing industrial and agricultural by-products on the workability, strength, permeability, and microstructural performance when blended with SCC. This study summarizes the advantages of utilizing by-products towards the production methodology of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly SCC.

The healthcare services industry has seen a huge transformation since the prominent rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT in healthcare services includes a large number of unified and interconnected sensors, and medical devices that generate and exchange sensitive information. Thus, an enormous amount of data is transmitted through the network which raises an alarming concern for the privacy of patient information. Therefore, privacy preserving data collection (PPDC) is on-demand to ensure the privacy of patient data. Several pieces of research on PPDC have been proposed recently. However, the research literatures have fallen short in privacy requirements and are prone to various privacy attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel privacy-preserving data collection scheme for IoT based healthcare services systems. A clustering-based anonymity model is utilized to develop an efficient privacy-preserving scheme to meet privacy requirements and to prevent healthcare IoT from various privacy attacks. We formulated the threat model as client-server-to-user to ensure privacy on both ends. On the client-side, a modified clustering-based k-anonymity model with α-deassociation is used to anonymize the data generated from the IoT nodes. The base-level privacy is then ensured through a bottom-up clustering method which generates clusters of records as per the privacy requirements. On the server-side, the cluster-combination method-UPGMA is utilized to reduce communication costs and to achieve a better level of privacy. The proposed scheme is efficient in tackling privacy attacks such as attribute disclosure, identity disclosure, membership disclosure, sensitivity attacks, similarity attacks, and skewness attacks. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme are proven through theoretical and experimental analyses.

Parabolic Trough Collector are useful to reflect the solar energy to the fluid at one concentrating path for the purpose of heating and generating electricity. In India many determined attempt are taken for generating electricity from solar energy. In this research, water and CNT fluid is taken as a liquid medium flows in a absorber tube which absorbs the solar radiation at the mass flow rate variation of 0.0069 kg/s, 0.0138 kg/s and 0.0207 kg/s. The current research work is carried out on Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology (13.03910N, 80.04490E), Chennai for one year from February 2019 to January 2020. The result shows that the heat energy gained by the CNT fluid has been increased by 5.2%, 7.3% and 7.2% compared to water for the mass flow rate of 0.0069 kg/s, 0.0138 kg/s and 0.0207 kg/s respectively. For the whole year, the average outlet temperature of CNT fluid is recorded high at 2PM daily and the month is June 2019.

Management of heavily calcified lesions during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is often associated with high incidence of complications and long-term adverse outcomes. There is growing evidence of the efficacy of intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) in de novo coronary lesion preparation; however, little experience has been documented within freshly deployed stent underexpansion. We report a 66-year-old male with a marked stent underexpansion despite extensive lesion preparation due to severe underlying calcification. The stent was resistant to balloon postdilatation; therefore, IVL was applied, resulting in excellent stent expansion. IVL could be considered for treating acute stent underexpansion caused by severe underlying calcification.

This paper presents the properties of blended geopolymer concrete manufactured using fly ash and ultrafine Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (UFGGBFS), along with the copper slag (CPS) as replacement of fine aggregate (crushed stone sand). Various parameters considered in this study include different sodium hydroxide concentrations (10M, 12M and 14M); 0.35 as alkaline liquid to binder ratio; 2.5 as sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratio and cured in ambient curing condition. Further, geopolymer concrete was manufactured using fly ash as the prime source material which is replaced with UFGGBFS (0%, 5%, 10% and 15%). Copper slag has been used as replacement of fine aggregate in this study. Properties of the fresh manufactured geopolymer concrete were studied by slump test. Compressive strength of the manufactured geopolymer concrete was tested and recorded after curing for 3, 7 and 28 days. Microstructure Characterization of Geopolymer concrete specimens was done by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis. Experimental results revealed that the addition of UFGGBFS resulted in an increased strength performance of geopolymer concrete. Also, this study demonstrated that the strength of geopolymer concrete increased with an increase in sodium hydroxide concentration. SEM results revealed that the addition of UFGGBFS resulted in a dense structure.

In recent privacy has emerged as one of the major concerns of deep learning, since it requires huge amount of personal data. Medical Image Analysis is one of the prominent areas where sensitive data are shared to a third party service provider. In this paper, a secure deep learning scheme called Metamorphosed Learning (MpLe) is proposed to protect the privacy of images in medical image analysis. An augmented convolutional layer and image morphing are two main components of MpLe scheme. Data providers morph the images without privacy information using image morphing component. The human unrecognizable image is then delivered to the service providers who then apply deep learning algorithms on morphed data using augmented convolution layer without any performance penalty. MpLe provides sturdy security and privacy with optimal computational overhead. The proposed scheme is experimented using VGG-16 network on CIFAR dataset. The performance of MpLe is compared with similar works such as GAZELLE and MiniONN and found that the MpLe attracts very less computational and data transmission overhead. MpLe is also analyzed for various adversarial attack and realized that the success rate is as low as . The efficiency of the proposed scheme is proved through experimental and performance analysis.

This study explores the current status of language maintenance (LM) and language shift (LS) among Keralites, popularly known as ‘Malayalees,’ living in Oman. It analyses the leading factors that affect language maintenance and language shift: a particular focus is given to identifying the various domains in which language maintenance is facilitated; the attitudes held by the Keralite parents and their children towards their first language (L1), the initiatives taken by parents, religious and cultural organizations; and the role of educational institutions in promoting language maintenance. Data for this study have been gathered from semi-structured interviews and participant observation of Keralites who have lived in Oman for more than ten years. Analysis of the data indicates that while parents value their mother tongue as their first language and take various measures to maintain it, second-generation children are not keenly attached to L1. Instead, their first language oracy is strikingly marked with code-switching and code shifting, and their writing skills in L1 are diminishing. Refuting the previous findings, the present study reveals that language shift is a temporary phenomenon, and it does not take place at the cost of L1. On the contrary, various factors contribute to the maintenance of their heritage language. Also, the migrant Keralites, as a result of their living abroad, acquire two or three more new languages: English, Hindi, and Arabic depending on their study and work domains, thereby making them a multilingual society. Language shift can gradually result in linguicide, which can have various effects such as alienation from and the loss of culture and cultural values. It is expected that this study will unveil if there is a language shift of a severe nature among the Keratitis in Oman.

A number of statistical packages were developed by software developers and companies to assist English language teaching (ELT) researchers. This chapter focuses on the role of technology in assisting ELT researchers in the form of online survey tools and data analysis software packages, and it provides an introduction to the application of widely used software packages. Analysis of the research over the past five years, and the role of technology to frame its findings, shows the vital and unavoidable significance of technology for the promotion of English language teaching research. The present analysis revealed the significant role of SPSS software for enhancing the quality of ELT research in a scientific manner. The study analyses various statistical techniques used and the various software that offers these techniques according to need. It also suggests the best software for ELT research and explains the features of these software packages.

Datasets may have large number of features which makes it hard and time consuming to classify. Additionally, they may have irrelevant and noise features too with missing values. The missing values should be treated in a proper way so that the classifier accuracy can be improved. There is also a need to reduce features and select only the features necessary to the classifier. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is commonly considered for this process of reducing the number of features in a dataset. These reduced components can be applied as input to the classifiers. In this study, standard datasets are checked for missing values, classified using Support vector Machines (SVM) and Naive Bayes with and without reducing the features using PCA. Then, the proposed algorithm for missing value imputation is used on the datasets and the same analysis were carried out. The accuracy is evaluated using Confusion Matrix. The results are discussed with analysis based on the nature of features and missing values and how different datasets behave when used with machine learning algorithms.

Air buses are the new era of public transport system with high speed, luxury and comfort but while considering safety issues it lacks behind with the development of Automobile Industries. Public started to look towards the safety factors of these luxurious vehicles but it is not taken into greater account. Due to the negligence in the safety factors of these vehicles they have become luxurious confines which destroy the precious lives of many passengers. Recently industrialists identified the necessities of safety factors of these comfort vehicle but still there is no proper solution for this problem. Government has made some safety measures at the time of journey but it does not provide much efficient solution. With a view to change this scenario, the Intelligent Transportation System for Safety and Driver Assistance is controlled through Internet of Things (IoT) which includes sensors to sense the signal and the functions of the vehicle is controlled by the embedded controller. Since the driver is fully responsible to handle the hurdles at the time of driving, he has to be subjected to certain test until which the system will not allow him to start the vehicle. Once the system gets started it starts to analyze the several factors of the transport. IoT enabled sensor transmits the whole data over a sensible grid network to take actions under emergency conditions which enhances the driver safety and prevents vehicle collision. If any of the factors is failed buzzer unit is turned on and fuel supply to the engine is blocked leading to the prevention of disaster. The simulation results of this paper is obtained by AutoCAD and the entire transportation system is controlled through embedded controller.

A new approach is proposed to improve the performance of solar still. The Solar desalination process proves that the pure good water is produced without salt content from the salty water including the earth bore water and sea water. In this technology, the solar still along with solar energy absorber material such as Nano material (Aluminium Oxide) is used and getting high performance of solar still. Result shows a considerable increase in rate of pure good water production. When comparing with the various solar energy absorbing materials such as glass ball, pebbles, gravels, and Nano material, the Nano material gives more yield than other heat absorbing materials. The optimum water depth in the basin is measured as 30 mm. The slope of glass cover inclination is 450. The maximum day yield from saline water is 2.920 L/m2/day with thermocol insulation. The maximum efficiency of solar still when using Nano material is 4.9%.

openaire: EC/H2020/788185/EU//E-DESIGN Transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs) are a large family of 2D materials that are currently attracting intense interest. TMCs with 3d transition metals provide opportunities for introducing magnetism and strong correlations into the material with manganese standing out as a particularly attractive option due to its large magnetic moment. Here we report on the successful synthesis of monolayer manganese selenide on a NbSe2 substrate. Using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy experiments and global structure prediction calculations at the density functional theory level, we identify the atomic structure and magnetic and electronic properties of the layered Mn2Se2 phase. The structure is similar to the layered bulk phase of CuI or a buckled bilayer of h-BN. Interestingly, our results suggest that the monolayer is antiferromagnetic, but with an unusual out-of-plane ordering that results in two ferromagnetic planes.

Now-a-days many English language teachers are resorting to what is called “blended teaching/learning” in an endeavor to incorporate information technology into their pedagogical practices. They often use virtual platforms like Moodle and Google Classroom to supportand supplement their physical classroom teaching, which transcends the routine constraints of traditional educational system. In their capacity, teachers and students may engage in necessary interactions “anytime anywhere”, adding extra momentum to the teaching-learning process. English language teaching (ELT) may be specially facilitated by such features as constant connectivity, anytime feed-backing, assignment creation, submission and grading, file sharing, virtual interaction and collaboration, etc. Here is an attempt to delineate some important features of Moodle and Google Classroom, two useful technological tools, in the light of the author’s experience as a teacher.