67 research outputs found
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No full textAuthor details for the article titled 'A prospective study on health-seeking behavior and post exposure prophylaxis received by animal bite victims at an anti-rabies clinic in a tertiary care center in urban Bangalore'</p
Development of Fabrication Platform for Microfluidic Devices and Experimental Study of Magnetic Mixing and Separation
No full textMicrofluidics is a new and emerging field that has applications in a myriad of microfluidic industrial applications such as biochemical engineering, analytical processing, biomedical engineering and separation of cells. Microfluidics operations are carried out in microfluidic chips, and the traditional method of fabrication is carried out in a cleanroom. However, this fabrication method is very costly and also requires professional trained personnel. In this thesis, a low-cost fabrication platform was developed based on soft-lithography technique developed to fabricate the microfluidic devices with resolution at microscale. This fabrication method is advantageous and novel because it is able to achieve the microscale fabrication capability with simple steps and lower-level laboratory configuration. In the developed fabrication platform, an array of ultraviolet light was illuminated onto a photoresist film that has a negative photomask with a microfluidic design on it. The photoresist film is then developed, and a silicon polymer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is chosen to be the material for the device. In this work, the performance and resolution of the fabrication system was evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), polymer resolution test and light intensity analysis.Based on the success of the development of microfluidics fabrication platform, various experiment of mixing and separation was conducted and studied because the utilization of the microfluidic device for mixing and separation is very valuable in biomedical and chemical engineering. Although there are a lot of applications reported, the precise separation and mixing at microscale still meet some difficulties. Mixing in micromixers is extremely time-consuming and requires very long microchannels due to laminar flow and low Reynolds number. Particle separation is also hard to be achieved because the size of micron bioparticles is very small and thus the force is not strong enough to manipulate their motion. The integration of magnetic field is an active method to strengthen both mixing and separation that has been widely applied in the biomedical industry overcome these difficulties because of its compatibility with organic particles. However, most magnetic mixing and separation use bulky permanent magnets that leave a large footprint or electromagnets that generate harmful Joule heat to organic and bio-particles. In this work, microscale magnet made of a mixture of neodymium powder and polydimethylsiloxane was developed and integrated into microfluidic system to achieve both rapid mixing of ferrofluids and separation of microparticles. Systematic experiments were conducted to discuss the effect of various parameters on the performance of magnetic mixing and separation of microparticles. It was found that channel geometry, flow filed, and magnetic properties will affect the transport phenomena of ferrofluid and microparticles, and thus mixing and separation efficiency. These findings are of great significance for the high throughput sorting of cancer cells and its mixing between drug for therapy treatment
Natural fiber reinforced composites for sustainable additive manufacturing.
No full textCarbon fiber is widely known for its exceptional strength, making it a sought-after material in composite manufacturing, especially with thermosets and thermoplastics. Its major applications span aerospace, wind turbines, sports equipment, automotive interior and exterior parts, robotics and medical equipment. Recently, carbon fiber filament manufacturing has gained attention due to the availability of desktop 3D printers and the versatility and customizability that comes with the realm of 3D printing. Commercial carbon fiber production, primarily from polyacrylonitrile (PAN), is energy-intensive and derived from crude oil, contributing to significant environmental impacts and poor recyclability. Alternatively, lignocellulosic natural fibers present a possible sustainable option due to their abundance, carbon neutrality, and cost-effectiveness. These fibers, derived from plants such as rice, corn and soy, are agricultural residues from the highest crop production in the Unites States and they offer more sustainable processing techniques compared to carbon fibers and potential in composite fabrication through additive manufacturing.
This dissertation investigates the use of rice husks, soy hulls, and corn fiber, in 3D printing composites. One of the biggest challenges in natural fiber reinforced composites is the fiber-polymer interfacial properties, which can be improved by different pretreatment methods. Chemical and thermal pretreatment methods are explored in this study to improve their compatibility with thermoplastic polymer matrix. Rice husk is first investigated for its reaction to different acid and alkali pretreatment that could defibrillate and delignify the fibers. This fiber is first explored as it contains a higher amount of silica which posed its own set of challenges overcome two stages of hydrolysis treatment. The insights gained from chemically pretreating rice husks are then applied to thermally pretreating the fibers to improve the stiffness that is lost through delignification. Low temperatures are subjected onto the rice husks to surface char the biomass without altering the bulk to preserve stiffness and achieve carbon fiber properties. Carbonization at low temperatures not only consumes less energy but also prepares the surface of the fibers to promote better fiber-polymer bonding. The results from studying rice husks in 3D printing composite filaments provides better understanding of natural fibers and how they behave when subjected to different pretreatment methods. Hence, this study is extended to soy hulls and corn fiber, which contain lower amount of lignin. The effects of acid hydrolysis, low temperature carbonization and a combination of both are examined to better understand the changes that occur to natural fibers and how they can improve the properties of thermoplastic composites. The findings suggest that natural fibers, through appropriate pretreatment and processing, can potentially supplement synthetic carbon fibers, offering a more sustainable alternative for composite manufacturing
Active High-Throughput Micromixer Using Injected Magnetic Mixture Underneath Microfluidic Channel
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Microfluidic Devices for Magnetic Separation of Biological Particles: A Review
No full textSeparation of microparticles and cells serves a critical step in many applications such as in biological analyses, food production, chemical processing, and medical diagnostics. Sorting on the microscale exhibits certain advantages in comparison with that on the macroscale as it requires minuscule sample or reagents volume and thus reduced analysis cycle time, smaller size of devices, and lower fabrication costs. Progresses have been made over time to improve the efficiency of these microscale particle manipulation techniques. Many different techniques have been used to attain accurate particle sorting and separation in a continuous manner on the microscale level, which can be categorized as either passive or active methods. Passive techniques achieve accurate manipulation of particles through their interaction with surrounding flow by carefully designed channel structures, without using external fields. As an alternative, active techniques utilize external fields (e.g., acoustic, electronic, optical, and magnetic field, etc.) to realize desired pattern of motion for particles with specific properties. Among numerous active methods for microfluidic particle sorting, the magnetic field has been widely used in biomedical and chemical applications to achieve mixing, focusing, and separating of reagents and bioparticles. This paper aims to provide a thorough review on the classic and most up-to-date magnetic sorting and separation techniques to manipulate microparticles including the discussions on the basic concept, working principle, experimental details, and device performance
ETIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF PANCYTOPENIA
No full textObjective: The objective of the study was to describe the etiological profile of pancytopenia.
Methods: This was an observational study done in 85 patients who presented with pancytopenia to the Department of General Medicine, Government Medical College, Kottayam. The study was carried out over a period of 1 year. The data were collected in a structured pro forma and analyzed using SPSS version 24.
Results: The most common age group was 21–30 years, 29 (34.1%) of the 85 patients. 48 (56.5%) were males and 37 (43.5%) were females. Megaloblastic anemia was the most common etiology constituting 60 (70.6%). The most common presenting complaint was generalized weakness in 74 (87.1%). The most common clinical finding was pallor 77 (90.6%). The mean hemoglobin level was 6.81±1.51 g/dl, the mean total WBC count was 2768.39±791.2, and the mean platelet count was 0.87±0.43. Macrocytic anemia was the predominant blood picture in cytopenic patients. Hypercellular marrow was the most common marrow finding in 78.1%.
Conclusion: Megaloblastic anemia was the most common cause of pancytopenia followed by aplastic anemia in the present study. Clinical alertness and suspicion can assure early diagnosis and treatment
Efficacy of Oral Supplementation of Arachis Hypogaea in Combination with Sesamum Indicum, Eleusine Coracana, Saccharum Officinarum in Improving Hemoglobin Among Teenage Girls
Get PDFA pre experimental one group pretest posttest study was conducted to investigate the Efficacy of Oral Supplementation of Arachis Hypogaea in Combination with Sesamum Indicum, Eleusine Coracana, Saccharum Officinarum in Improving Haemoglobin Among Teenage Girls in GEMS High School. Teenage girls between the age group of 13-15 years, who having Hemoglobin level according to World Health Organization (WHO) classification of anemia with mild anemia (11.0-11.9gm/dl) and Moderate anemia (8.0 to 10.9gm/dl) were recruited as study participants. After obtaining a written consent the hemoglobin level was monitored using Sahli’s hemoglobinometer and girls’ hemoglobin level less than 12gm/dl consumed one nutritional ball after breakfast along with one amala once in a day for the duration 60 days. The results of the study concluded that nutritional intervention on iron deficiency anemia was effective with paired‘t’ test, t values were calculated as 9.261 which were statistically significant at 0.05 level. The average score regarding level of hemoglobin before and after nutritional intervention in the subjects were 11.03 and 11.35 respectively. Mean difference in level of hemoglobin was .32. The paired t test statistics (paired‘t’ value=9.261, table value=2.05) shows that there was an increase in level of hemoglobin as a result of nutritional intervention was statistically significant at 0.05 level. It was found that there was significant association between the socio demographic variables such as family income, type of family and education of mother. The result of the study indicates that the oral supplementation nutritional ball helps to improve hemoglobin level
Embodied Optimisation Tool for low-rise office buildings in steel
No full textThis thesis investigates the development and application of a computational tool that optimises the conceptual stage design of a building to have minimum embodied energy and some aspects of the operating energy, depending on the adaptability required. For this purpose, a parametric computational framework for sustainable building design was developed and implemented by the tool. The working prototype of the tool focuses on low-rise rectangular grid office buildings in steel. The various competing objectives are optimised by applying multi-objective optimisation techniques. The Embodied Optimisation Tool has been developed as a plugin within Grasshopper, for 3D modeling tool Rhinoceros, in collaboration with Arup, Bouwen Met Staal and Tata Steel.Structural DesignStructural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
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