Sterile keratitis after corneal collagen crosslinking in a child

Corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) is a non invasive technique used in halting the progression of keratoconus. Complications with this modality are rare. We report a case of an 8-year-old child who developed sterile infiltrates in the immediate postoperative period after uneventful corneal collagen crosslinking for keratoconus. The infiltrates resolved with topical steroid therapy. There was also present coexisting vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) which was controlled with topical 2% cyclosporine A eye drops prior to crosslinking treatment. This case highlights importance of controlling VKC prior to CXL in keratoconus as it adds to the risk of developing post operative sterile keratitis.     

Self‐Assembly of π‐Conjugated Amphiphiles: Free Standing,Ordered Sheets with Enhanced Mobility

Oligo(p‐phenylenevinylenes) (OPVs) with amphiphilic character are synthesized and their self‐assembly characteristics studied. Careful studies point at two morphologically different states of assemblies, with one being two dimensional sheets and the other as rolled tubes. This is also the first time that self‐assembled sheets are achieved for OPVs. Morphological and photo‐physical studies reveal a unique aggregate to aggregate transition between rolled tubes and two dimensional sheets, which is outlined as a more thermodynamic aggregate. The thermodynamic aggregate (2D sheet) is better ordered and consists of chromophores that are better excitonically coupled. The mobilities of these aggregates are also studied for a field effect transistor device and as expected sheets supersede rolled tubes by a couple of orders. More interestingly, the mobility values obtained for the well ordered chromophores in sheets is three orders higher than any other self‐assembled OPV previously reported. It is hypothesized that the better π interactions enforced by the amphiphilic design and the resultant supramolecular organization is a prime factor for such a remarkable rise in mobilities.     

Rapid mixing chemical oxidative polymerization: an easy route to prepare PANI coated small-diameter CNTs/PANI nanofibres composite thin film

Composite thin film containing polyaniline (PANI) coated small diameter carbon nanotubes (SDCNTs)/PANI nanofibres (NFs) has been prepared using an easy in situ rapid mixing chemical oxidative polymerization method. SDCNTs thin film was obtained using thermal chemical vapour deposition method in a separate experiment, whilst PANI NFs are formed in situ during the synthesis of composite. In the composite, PANI coated SDCNTs are uniformly distributed among PANI NFs. The presence of SDCNTs during the composite synthesis does not influence the nucleation and growth of PANI NFs. Raman analysis shows a good interaction between PANI and SDCNTs. Room temperature d.c. electrical sheet resistance of SDCNTs/PANI NFs composite thin film surface is three orders lesser than that of PANI NFs thin film (PANI NFs have the same morphology as in the composite) synthesized using the same method but without the presence of SDCNTs.     

Catalytic effect of bis (cyclopentadienyl) nickel II on the improvement of the hydrogenation-dehydrogenation of Mg-MgH2 system

Bis(cyclopentadienyl) nickel II is one of the best precursors of nickel catalyst which remarkably improved the hydrogen absorption-desorption of Mg–MgH₂ system. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Furrier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses revealed that bis (cyclopentadienyl) nickel II decomposed into metallic nickel during ball milling with MgH₂. The nickel thus formed has homogeneously doped over the Mg - MgH₂ surface. The Ni-doped Mg-MgH₂ have shown the excellent catalytic effect on hydrogen absorption-desorption. The catalyzed MgH₂ could desorb hydrogen below 225 °C (T_onset) under Ar flow, and absorb hydrogen at 50 °C under 1.5 MPa H₂ pressure. The hydrogen absorption-desorption temperatures are remarkably decreased as compared to the uncatalyzed Mg-MgH₂ system under the identical experimental conditions.     

Development of Multi Micro Manipulation System Using IPMC Micro Grippers

This paper presents a new design of multi micro manipulation system using ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) micro grippers for robotic micro assembly where IPMC is used as a light weight actuator for developing the micro grippers. It has the potential of large displacement, low mass force generation and misalignment compensation ability during micro manipulation. These capabilities are utilized for handling of miniature parts like pegs. The analysis of IPMC micro gripper and manipulator are carried out for developing a multi micro manipulation system that can handle pegs in micro assembly operation for shifting one to another hole position in a large work space (100 mm × 100 mm). By developing a prototype, it is demonstrated that IPMC based micro grippers are capable of handling the peg-in-hole assembly tasks in a multi micro manipulation system.     

A grey approach for forecasting in a supply chain during intermittentdisruptions

The supply chains today have become vulnerable to frequent disruptions, and with continuing emphasis on efficiency, lacks robustness to deal with them. A part of the solution lies in forecasting the disruption beforehand and the other part in knowing which policies will suit such disrupted conditions best. Accurate and immediate forecasts are a must in a supply chain and hence play a huge role in stabilizing. This study compares the performance of three established forecasting methods (moving average, weighted moving average and exponential smoothing) as well as grey prediction method, during disruptions and stable situations. The experiments are performed in the form of discrete event simulation, on a four stage beer game settings. The results show that moving average and weighted moving average methods become incompetent during disruptions, and are useful only during stable times, when the demand hovers around a predefined mean value. Exponential smoothing and grey method seems to give better results during disruptions and also during stable times in upstream tiers. Grey prediction method in particular is the best method when the disruption frequency is high and also when the disruption impact is gradual rather than sudden.     

A multi-label ensemble predicting model to service recommendation from social media contents

The Journal of Supercomputing - Consumer sentiment is one of the essential measures of predictive recommendations in travel and tourism. Nowadays, a massive amount of data is available on the...     

Neural network based non-invasive method to detect anemia from images of eye conjunctiva

Detection of anemia can be done by examining the hemoglobin concentration level in the blood using complete blood count, which is an invasive, time-consuming, and costly technique. Preliminary methods for detecting anemia include examining the color of the palpebral conjunctiva, which is a non-invasive method, but color perception may vary from person to person. This study aims to develop a computerized non-invasive technique for anemia detection. We propose a novel machine learning model using the artificial neural network to detect anemic patients from the images of eye conjunctiva. Since limited and small dataset has been used in the earlier approaches, this may cause over fitting of the model. We have improved the number of available training images using image augmentation techniques. To standardize a non-invasive method, we have used computer vision algorithms for preprocessing and feature extraction. This article derives the backpropagation rules mathematically for adjusting the weights for the proposed neural network model. After hyper parameter tuning and using the mathematically derived backpropagation rules, the model was able to achieve the best accuracy of 97.00% with sensitivity 99.21% and specificity 95.42% on the created dataset.