Planar lens integrated capillary action microfluidic immunoassay device for the optical detection of troponin I

Optical based analysis in microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip systems are currently considered the gold standard methodology for the determination of end point reactions for various chemical and biological reaction processes. Typically, assays are performed using bulky ancillary apparatus such as microscopes and complex optical excitation and detection systems. Such instrumentation negates many of the advantages offered by device miniaturisation, particularly with respect to overall portability. In this article, we present a CO₂ laser ablation technique for rapidly prototyping on-chip planar lenses, in conjunction with capillary action based autonomous microfluidics, to create a miniaturised and fully integrated optical biosensing platform. The presented self-aligned on-chip optical components offer an efficient means to direct excitation light within microfluidics and to directly couple light from a LED source. The device has been used in conjunction with a miniaturised and bespoke fluorescence detection platform to create a complete, palm sized system (≈60 × 80 × 60 mm) capable of performing fluoro-immunoassays. The system has been applied to the detection of cardiac Troponin I, one of the gold standard biomarkers for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction, achieving a lower detection limit of 0.08 ng/ml, which is at the threshold of clinically applicable concentrations. The portable nature of the complete system and the biomarker detection capabilities demonstrate the potential of the devised instrumentation for use as a medical diagnostics device at the point of care.     

What Did It Take to Scale Up and Sustain Udaan,a School-Based Adolescent Education Program in Jharkhand,India?

Since 2006, Udaan—a school-based adolescent education program in Jharkhand, India—was the only at-scale state-run program in the country. To determine factors that contributed to Udaan's scale-up and longevity, this study drew information from programmatic reports and interviews with the Centre for Catalyzing Change staff. Key factors for Udaan's success included an enabling policy environment, a willing government that supported and operationalized the program, a knowledgeable and committed NGO partner, sustained funding, and a commitment to constant improvement through evaluation. Udaan provides an example of a well-designed, implemented, and evaluated school-based adolescent health program that has been operating at scale over a sustained period. Other programs in India and elsewhere can benefit from learning from Udaan's experience.     

How to repair the Hill cipher

INTRODUCTION Owing to the advance in network technology, information security is an increasingly important problem. Popular application of multimedia tech- nology and increasingly transmission ability of net- work gradually leads us to acquire information di- rectly and clearly through images. Hence, data secu- rity has become a critical and imperative issue. Hill cipher is a block cipher that has several advantages such as disguising letter frequencies of the plaintext, its simplicity be…     

Reduction of the non-uniform illumination using nonlocal variational models for document image analysis

In this paper, we investigate two new reflectance and illumination decomposition models based on a nonlocal partial differential equation (PDE) applied to text images. Taking into consideration the higher regularity level of the illumination compared to the reflectance, we propose a nonlocal PDE which deals with repetitive structures and textures that characterize the text image much better compared to the classical local PDEs. The aim of this approach is to use the repetitive features of the reflectance to efficiently extract it from the non-uniform illumination. This idea is motivated by extending the range of application of the nonlocal operators to such a problem. Numerical experiments on both grayscale and color text images show the performance and strength of the proposed nonlocal PDE.     

The triad-iodine deficiency,hyperlipidaemia, high coronary risk— in a ‘maternal-neonate’ population of rural Africa

In order to see the pattern of changes in differential serum lipid and lipoprotein fractions as a risk marker of coronary complication in paired ‘maternal—neonate’ blood samples in an iodine deficient zone, 26 pregnant women and their corresponding new born infants at term delivery from the iodine deficient Bassa region of Plateau state, Nigeria were assessed and the results were compared with those seen in a similar 44 group of women and their newborns assessed in non lodine deficient region of Jos. The serum thyroid function and lipid and lipoprotein profiles were determined by ‘ELISA’ and ‘enzymatic’ methods respectively. Urinary iodide excretion level was also measured in 14 pregnant women in Bassa, 23 pregnant women in Jos and 16 non pregnant control from Jos. Results indicate that the pregnant women assessed in Bassa were iodine deficient (P<0.01) and their thyroid status was strikingly reduced as reflected by a drop in serum level of T4/TBG ratio (P<0.01) and a rise in TSH (P<0.005) in comparison to that seen in Jos. There was marked hypertriglyceridaemia and total hypercholesterolaemia (P<0.005), with differential significant rise in LDL cholestotol fraction (P<0.005) in the women assessed in Bassa as compared to Jos. The HDL cholesterol however dropped less significantly in the group (P<0.05) with a concurrent marked rise (P<0.001) in the serum ratio of LDL cholesterol/HDL cholesterol, total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol and triglycerides/HDL cholesterol in the lodine deficient group. A similar pattern of changes were seen in the corresponding neonates in the Bassa group as compared to Jos group. It is concluded that the pregnant women and their newborn offsprings living in a longstanding environmental iodine deficiency run a higher risk of developing coronary complications than those living in non endemic region. It is striking that such newborns surrounded by a continued state of lodine deficient may at a later adult-period of life develop marked risk of coronary complication and other features of hyperlipidaemias associated with varying thyroid insufficiency and accompanied iodine deficiency disorders. Prophylaxis measures as intervention has been highlighted.     

The English Translation of Arabic Puns in the Holy Quran

The pun is a tricky use of a word or phrase which has very different meanings that are closely interrelated, or of words with the same sound but different meanings. The Pun is a term with a dual meaning: “close” using obvious reference, and “far” using obscure reference. The hidden is usually meant. The close meaning is the sooner that comes to the listener’s mind. However, the speaker targets at the far one yet use the close to hide it. Translating the Quran text always raises several serious challenges in translation; these challenges are due to the different translations of puns and the misinterpretations between the intended meanings of a pun with their basic concepts, which could result in a certain amount of ambiguity. The study examines the Quranic corpus and its three versions of English translations. The study utilizes the typology of Delabastita?s for horizontal puns, Nida’s techniques of dynamic and formal equivalent and Newmark’s translation methods. This research attempts to investigate the semantic meaning of puns in the Quran translation and to define the translation techniques applied in translating the Quranic puns from Arabic into English.     

Parent-Infant Rough Play: Its Cultural Specificity

The salience of father-infant rough play in some industrialized and nonindustrialized countries around the world was reviewed, and data were presented on the physical play interactions of 34Indianmothers and fathers with their year-old infants in the home. Our review of the parent-infant physical play literature failed to show that fathers had a uniformly greater propensity to engage in vigorous rough activity with infants than mothers did. The data from the observational study suggest that Indian parents are not vigorous play partners to infants. Mothers were more likely to engage in object-mediated play than were fathers. In total, the data reviewed do not support the contention that rough play is a major activity between fathers and infants across cultures. Rather, the data from parent-infant play in the nonindustrialized countries suggest that rough play may be culture specific, casting doubts about its biological underpinnings.     

A comparative study of conventional and supercritical fluid extraction methods for the recovery of secondary metabolites from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Syzygium campanulatum</Emphasis> Korth

Syzygium campanulatum Korth is a plant, which is a rich source of secondary metabolites (especially flavanones, chalcone, and triterpenoids). In our present study, three conventional solvent extraction (CSE) techniques and supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) techniques were performed to achieve a maximum recovery of two flavanones, chalcone, and two triterpenoids from S. campanulatum leaves. Furthermore, a Box-Behnken design was constructed for the SFE technique using pressure, temperature, and particle size as independent variables, and yields of crude extract, individual and total secondary metabolites as the dependent variables. In the CSE procedure, twenty extracts were produced using ten different solvents and three techniques (maceration, soxhletion, and reflux). An enriched extract of five secondary metabolites was collected using n-hexane:methanol (1:1) soxhletion. Using food-grade ethanol as a modifier, the SFE methods produced a higher recovery (25.5%?84.9%) of selected secondary metabolites as compared to the CSE techniques (0.92%?66.00%).