Bangalore Research Articles

An early description of monomelic amyotrophy: An excerpt from the diaries of Dr. Charles I Smith (1830-1880) in Bangalore, Southern India.

An early description of paralysis confined to an upper limb can be found in the casebook of Dr. Charles I Smith, who was a doctor in Bangalore in the 19th century. The historical and clinical aspects, as well as the current importance of this entity are described briefly.

Assessment of Self-Medication Practice Among Students of A Dental College of Bangalore City: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Self-medication is defined as use of medicines by the individuals on their own without professional advice to treat self-diagnosed conditions. It is prevalent not only among general population but also among doctors including dentists. Aim: To assess the pattern of self-medication practice among students of a dental college of Bangalore city. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate dental students through convenience sampling. A questionnaire consisting of 20 close-ended questions related to various aspects of self-medication practice was handed to the students. Results: Among 165 students, 68.5% of the participants were females. The most common ailments responsible for usage of self-medication were cough, cold and sore throat (22.4%) followed by headache (6.7%). Antibiotics (34.2%) and analgesics (23.9%) were the most commonly used drug groups for self-medication. Old prescription (58.2%) was found as the most common source of information for encouraging this type of practice. Conclusion: Majority of the dental students self-medicate themselves. Measures should be adopted to reduce such type of practice by guiding the students about the pros and cons of using medicines without prescription.

Mothers’ Sense of Coherence as a Predictor of Oral Health Related Quality of Life Among Preschool Children: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Sense of coherence (SOC) influences an individual’s health-related behaviours and practices. A mother’s SOC can influence oral health status and oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) of their children. Studies exploring the association between these variables are scarce. Aim: To determine a mother’s SOC, the child’s caries experience and OHRQoL and the association between these variables among mother–child pairs in Bangalore city. Materials and Methods: A total of 200 preschool children and their mothers from government and private preschools participated in the study. The mother’s SOC was assessed using Antonovsky’s 13-item SOC questionnaire, whereas OHRQoL of preschool children was assessed using Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (ECOHIS). Caries experience [decayed, missing and filled teeth (dmft)] was recorded using World Health Organization criteria 2013. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. Mann–Whitney U test, t-test, Pearson correlation test and regression analysis were also applied. Significance was set at 5%. Results: The mean SOC score of the mothers and ECOHIS score were 53.79 ± 11.68 and 17.23 ± 7.87, respectively. The mean caries experience score was 0.99 ± 1.48. In this study, dmft negatively correlated with SOC [(r = −0.367), (P < 0.001)] and positively correlated with ECOHIS [(r = 0.679), (P < 0.001)]. SOC negatively correlated with ECOHIS [(r = −0.369), (P < 0.001]. Conclusion: Mother’s SOC negatively correlated with the child’s caries experience, which affected their OHRQoL. Hence, improving a mother’s SOC is the key to better oral health and quality of life.

The challenges of offshoring and outsourcing

The challenges of offshoring and outsourcing

'Team Learning' as an Innovative Pedagogical Tool: A Study among ' EE Generation ' in Bangalore

The concept of team learning has gained greater importance in modern Engineering Education and there are many formal recommendations to adopt team culture so as to groom them to face the real life situations after they graduate from Engineering Educational institutions. A descriptive study regarding the usefulness of team learning among 137 Engineering Education (EE) students was undertaken. The focus of the study was on contextual variables. Chi-square tests were employed and it was found that there exists association between and among all the variables considered for this study. It is strongly recommended that the Engineering students be provided with these opportunities so as to enable them to have hands on experience on managing a team in real life situations.

Clinicopathological study of Salivary Gland Tumors

Background: The tumors of the salivary glands are uncommon head and neck neoplasms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative frequencies, types, site distribution and the histopathological features of salivary gland tumors. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 50 patients of salivary gland tumors in the department of General Surgery in Victoria hospital attached to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore . Tumors were analyzed based on demographics, anatomic location and histopathological type. Results: Out of 50 cases, 39 (78 %) were benign and 11 (22 %) were malignant with M:F ratio of 1.5:1. Highest incidence of tumors were found in 3 rd decade of life and next common age incidence have been noted in 2 nd decade. Male were more prone to develop both benign and malignant parotid tumor than that of female. Pleomorphic adenoma was found to be the commonest benign tumor (52 %). The mucoepidermoid carcinoma was the most common malignant tumor (10 %). Parotid was the most common site for the location of tumors (70%) followed by submandibular (26%) and sublingual salivary glands (4 %). Conclusion: Pleomorphic adenoma was the commonest salivary gland tumor observed in both sexes. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma was the most common malignant salivary gland tumor. The parotid gland was the most common site of origin in both benign and malignant tumors.

Adverse childhood experiences, health, and employment: A study of men seeking job services

The present study explored factors associated with barriers to current employment among 199 low-income, primarily Black American men seeking job services. The study took place in an urban setting located within the upper Midwest region of the U.S., where the problem of Black male joblessness is both longstanding and widespread. Recent research suggests that Black male joblessness regionally and nationally is attributable to myriad macro- and micro-level forces. While structural-level factors such as migration of available jobs, incarceration patterns, and racism have been relatively well-studied, less is known about individual-level predictors of Black male joblessness, which are inextricably linked to macro-level or structural barriers. This study therefore examined relations between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), health-related factors, and employment-related problems. Participants faced both specific and cumulative childhood adversities at much higher rates than men from more economically advantaged contexts. In addition, the physical, behavioral, and mental health of the study participants were, according to self-report survey results, notably worse than that of the general population or alternative samples. Finally, results indicated that exposure to ACEs may have helped to undermine the men’s ability to attain current employment and that drug problems along with depression symptoms helped explain the link between ACEs and employment barriers. Theoretical and practical implications of results are explored.

Marketing Strategy – Corporate Social Responsibility of Creating Jobs

Today, it is a time of greatest economic challenges the world has even gone through in the recent times. The global markets are in turbulence, economies are struggling to revive growth and political systems face enormous challenges to meet the basis needs of the society. The trend of Outsourcing has increasingly seen the movement of jobs from US to developing economies like China, India, Brazil etc. Compared to addition of 4.4 million domestic jobs & 2.7 million jobs abroad during 1990s, American enterprises during 2000s had cut the domestic jobs by 2.9 million while adding 2.7 jobs abroad. Study of 2000 US companies by Duke University & ORG [7] shows that over 80 percent of large enterprises and 58 percent of medium enterprises are offshoring. The expansion of US MNC into Global markets has led to the drop in US share of R&D from 38 percent (1999) to 31 percent (2009). The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are being increasingly used by the US companies to promote brand and to create a positive impact in the community. The Nielsen Report [10], shows that the 46 percent of the surveyed consumers are willing to pay extra for products and services of socially responsible companies. The CSR initiatives by top 50 CSRI Companies [9] are focused on health & safety standards, recycling & renewable energy, conservation of natural resources, philanthropy & contributions to non-profitable organizations etc.. Very few companies have CSR programs that are targeted to retain or generate jobs. This paper reviews the spending of the top 50 CSRI companies in USA during 2009, 2010 & 2011 and presents the points that the enterprises should focus their CSR spending towards direct and indirect activities that create short term and long term jobs. The CSR initiatives that can create jobs include Entrepreneurship, Local Sourcing, “Made in USA”, Innovation, Education, Vocational Training, Global Placements and Community Funding.

On the Value of Job Migration in Online Makespan Minimization

Makespan minimization on identical parallel machines is a classical scheduling problem. We consider the online scenario where a sequence of n jobs has to be scheduled non-preemptively on m machines so as to minimize the maximum completion time of any job. The best competitive ratio that can be achieved by deterministic online algorithms is in the range [1.88, 1.9201]. Currently no randomized online algorithm with a smaller competitiveness is known, for general m. In this paper we explore the power of job migration, i.e. an online scheduler is allowed to perform a limited number of job reassignments. Migration is a common technique used in theory and practice to balance load in parallel processing environments. As our main result we settle the performance that can be achieved by deterministic online algorithms. We develop an algorithm that is $$\alpha _m$$źm-competitive, for any $$m\ge 2$$mź2, where $$\alpha _m$$źm is the solution of a certain equation. For $$m=2$$m=2, $$\alpha _2 = 4/3$$ź2=4/3 and $$\lim _{m\rightarrow \infty } \alpha _m = W_{-1}(-1/e^2)/(1+ W_{-1}(-1/e^2)) \approx 1.4659$$limmźźźm=W-1(-1/e2)/(1+W-1(-1/e2))ź1.4659. Here $$W_{-1}$$W-1 is the lower branch of the Lambert W function. For $$m\ge 11$$mź11, the algorithm uses at most 7m migration operations. For smaller m, 8m to 10m operations may be performed. We complement this result by a matching lower bound: No online algorithm that uses o(n) job migrations can achieve a competitive ratio smaller than $$\alpha _m$$źm. We finally trade performance for migrations. We give a family of algorithms that is c-competitive, for any $$5/3\le c \le 2$$5/3≤c≤2. For $$c= 5/3$$c=5/3, the strategy uses at most 4m job migrations. For $$c=1.75$$c=1.75, at most 2.5m migrations are used.

Study of sharp injuries and blood splash exposures among healthcare workers in a tertiary hospital in Bangalore

The working environment of healthcare workers (HCW) exposes them to sharp injuries. This communication attempts to examine the injury registers, incidence of sharps injuries and blood splash exposures, and the post-exposure prophylaxis status of employees in a tertiary care hospital. Analysis included records form 54 locations of two units of a tertiary hospital attached to a Medical College. Maintenance of the injury register overall was highly satisfactory in both units. Two hundred and nine injuries were recorded from both units of the hospital. The majority of injuries (60.5%) occurred in the age group of 20-30 years with 70% among females. Waste handlers were at increased risk during waste management procedures. Thirty two percent of sharps injury injuries occurred in wards. Of the ward nursing staff, 25.3% received sharps injuries. Post-exposure prophylaxis for Hepatitis B (primary dose) was given to 25 HCWs; 11 received booster doses. The basic regimen for HIV post-exposure prophylaxis was given to 4 HCWs. Awareness about records maintenance, regular documentation, awareness and training, and implementation of appropriate preventive measures can reduce the incidence of injuries. Key words: Sharps, injury register, Health care workers (HCW),Post exposure prophylaxis (PEP)

An Optimal Load Balancing Technique for Cloud Computing Environment using Bat Algorithm

Background/Objectives: In this research, load balancing algorithm based on Bat Algorithm is implemented to achieve the goals of load balancer. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The proposed algorithm is implemented using “Parallel Processing toolbox” in Mat lab and the results are compared with other techniques, namely, Round Robin and Fuzzy GSO. Findings: Results are discussed in the context of response time and based on the number of tasks. While balancing the load among the virtual machines, job migration to another virtual machine will affect the response time. In future, further work is on the development of job migration algorithm.

Dynamic Threshold Based Load Balancing Algorithms

In this scenario, dynamic and decentralized Load Balancing (LB) considers all the factors pertaining to the characteristics of the Grid computing environment. Dynamic load-balancing algorithms attempt to use the run-time state information to make more informative decisions in sharing the system load and in decentralization, algorithm is executed by all nodes in the system and the responsibility of LB is shared among all the nodes in the same pool. For this purpose, in this work, an extensive survey of the existing LB has been done. A detailed classification and gap analysis of the existing techniques is presented based on different parameters. The issue of LB in a Grid has been addressed while maintaining the resource utilization and response time for dynamic and decentralized Grid environment. Here, a hierarchical LB technique has been analyzed based on variable threshold value. The load is divided into different categories, like, lightly loaded, under-lightly loaded, overloaded, and normally loaded. A threshold value, which can be found out using load deviation, is responsible for transferring the task and flow of workload information. In order to improve response time and to increase throughput of the Grid, a random policy has been introduced to reduce the resource allocation capacity etc. Poisson process has been used for random job arrival and then load calculation has been done for assigning job to the appropriate Processing Entity for balancing the load in the pool. After balancing the load, it comes into the normally loaded pool, and then Job Migration process is executed. The performance of the proposed model, algorithms and techniques has been examined over the GridSim simulator using various parameters, such as response time, resource allocation efficiency, etc. Experimental results prove the superiority of the proposed techniques over the existing techniques.

Regional trends of aerosol optical depth and their impact on cloud properties over Southern India using MODIS data

Remote sensing of global aerosols has constituted a great scientific interest in a variety of applications related to global warming and climatic change. In the present study we investigate the spatial and temporal variations of aerosol optical properties and its impact on various properties of clouds over Southern India for the last ten years (2005–2014) by using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data retrieved from the onboard Terra and Aqua satellites. The spatial distributions of annual mean lowest Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) value is observed in Bangalore (BLR) (0.22±0.04) and the highest AOD value is noted in Visakhapatnam (VSK) (0.39±0.05). Similarly high Fine Mode Fraction (FMF) is noticed over VSK and Thiruvananthapuram (TVM), while lower values are observed in Anantapur (ATP), Hyderabad (HYD), Pune (PUNE) and BLR. From the results, a negative correlation was found between AOD and Cloud Top Temperature (CTT), Cloud Top Pressure (CTP) where as, a positive correlation was observed between AOD and Cloud Fraction (CF), Water Vapor (WV) over the selected regions. Monthly average AOD and FMF are plotted for analysis of the trends of aerosol loading in a long-term scale and both values showed statistically significant enhancing trend over all regions as derived from the MODIS measurements. Further, the annual variation of spatial correlation between MODIS and MISR (Multi - Angle Imaging Spectro Radiometer) AOD has been analyzed and the correlation coefficients are found to be higher in two of the regions VSK and PUNE (>0.8), and considerably lower for TVM (<0.7).

Fragmented Territories: Incomplete Enclosures and Agrarian Change on the Agricultural Frontier of Samlaut District, North‐West Cambodia

In Cambodia, the interactions between large‐scale land investment and land titling gathered particular momentum in 2012–13, when the government initiated an unprecedented upland land titling programme in an attempt to address land tenure insecurity where large‐scale land investment overlaps with land appropriated by peasants. This paper is based on a spatially explicit ethnography of land rights conducted in the Samlaut district of north‐west Cambodia – a former Khmer Rouge resistance stronghold – in a context where the enclosures are both incomplete and entangled with post‐war, socially embedded land tenure systems. We discuss how this new pattern of fragmentation affects the prevailing dynamics of agrarian change. We argue that it has introduced new forms of exclusion and a generalized perception of land tenure uncertainty that is managed by peasants through the actualization of hybrid land tenure arrangements borrowing from state rules and local consensus. In contrast with common expectations about land formalization, the process reinforces the patterns of social differentiation initiated by land rent capture practices of early migrants and pushes more vulnerable peasants into seeking wage labour and resorting to job migration.

Job Migration Policies for Grid Environment

For efficient resource management in Grid, the resources overloading must be prevented, which can be obtained by efficient Load Balancing and Job Migration (JM) mechanisms. JM addresses the problem of resource overloading through various techniques in a Grid environment. In this paper, JM model has been designed. The proposed JM model offers three policies based on the scheduling, checkpointing and replication for Grid environment decisions. The JM problem has been formulated as an optimization problem and resource scheduling algorithm minimizes the average finish time and makespan. For all the three proposed techniques, JM policies have been designed and the policy rules have been specified in Extensible Markup Language schema for decision making. Each of the above techniques has been executed according to its specific condition at run time. Finally, the performances of the proposed model, algorithms and techniques have been rigorously examined over the GridSim simulator using various parameters, such as makespan, hit-ratio etc. Experimental results establish the superiority of the proposed techniques over the existing techniques.

Air-pollution and economics: diesel bus versus electric bus

The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) took an initiative to check the overall benefits of introducing electric buses as a suitable replacement for the diesel buses to tackle the burgeoning pollution in the city of Bengaluru, India. For a trial run of three months, an electric bus was procured from a Chinese company `Build Your Dreams' (BYD). Data were collected by BMTC on the operation and maintenance of the bus. This new initiative, if rightly guided, could have a direct impact on the lives of those in the city. An economic analysis of the running as well as maintenance of the electric buses within the city limits was performed. For comparison, the same analysis was performed for the data from the existing diesel bus operating on the same route. On the basis of the study, it can be concluded that the introduction of electric buses as a means of public transport in the city would be beneficial both economically as well as environmentally. The electric bus also makes much less noise, thereby helping reduce noise pollution and makes less vibration when compared to the diesel bus. This results in a more comfortable journey for the passengers.

Load rebalancing games in dynamic systems with migration costs

We consider the following dynamic load balancing game: Given an initial assignment of jobs to identical parallel machines, the system is modified; specifically, some machines are added or removed. Each job's cost is the load on the machine it is assigned to; thus, when machines are added, jobs have an incentive to migrate to the new unloaded machines. When machines are removed, the jobs assigned to them must be reassigned. Consequently, other jobs might also benefit from migrations. In our job-extension penalty model, for a given extension parameterδ≥0, if the machine on which a job is assigned to in the modified schedule is different from its initial machine, then the job's processing time is extended by δ.We provide answers to the basic questions arising in this model. Namely, the existence and calculation of a Nash Equilibrium and a Strong Nash Equilibrium, and their inefficiency compared to an optimal schedule. Our results show that the existence of job-migration penalties might lead to poor stable schedules; however, if the modification is a result of a sequence of improvement steps or, better, if the sequence of improvement steps can be supervised in some way (by forcing the jobs to play in a specific order) then any stable modified schedule approximates well an optimal one.Our work adds two realistic considerations to the study of job scheduling games: the analysis of the common situation in which systems are upgraded or suffer from failures, and the practical fact according to which job migrations are associated with a cost.

DwarfCode: A Performance Prediction Tool for Parallel Applications

We present DwarfCode, a performance prediction tool for MPI applications on diverse computing platforms. The goal is to accurately predict the running time of applications for task scheduling and job migration. First, DwarfCode collects the execution traces to record the computing and communication events. Then, it merges the traces from different processes into a single trace. After that, DwarfCode identifies and compresses the repeating patterns in the final trace to shrink the size of the events. Finally, a dwarf code is generated to mimic the original program behavior. This smaller running benchmark is replayed in the target platform to predict the performance of the original application. In order to generate such a benchmark, two major challenges are to reduce the time complexity of trace merging and repeat compression algorithms. We propose an O ( mpn ) trace merging algorithm to combine the traces generated by separate MPI processes, where m denotes the upper bound of tracing distance , p denotes the number of processes, and n denotes the maximum of event numbers of all the traces. More importantly, we put forward a novel repeat compression algorithm, whose time complexity is O ( nlogn ). Experimental results show that DwarfCode can accurately predict the running time of MPI applications. The error rate is below 10 percent for compute and communication intensive applications. This toolkit has been released for free download as a GNU General Public License v3 software.

EPHP 2016, Bangalore, 8-9 July 2016, Third national conference on bringing Evidence into Public Health Policy Equitable India: All for Health and Wellbeing.

EPHP 2016, Bangalore, 8-9 July 2016, Third national conference on bringing Evidence into Public Health Policy Equitable India: All for Health and Wellbeing.

FACTORS AFFECTING ADOPTION OF INNOVATIONS BY DAIRY PRODUCERS IN INDIA

A study was conducted in Bangalore rural district of Karnataka, India with the objective to analyze the various factors affecting adoption of innovations by dairy farmers as well as their relation with the rate of adoption. Primary data were collected from 180 farmers using random sampling method. A semi structured interview schedule was used to collect the data, by personal interviews. Herd size, occupation, and social participation are positively correlated with the adoption; family education level of the respondent is highly positively correlated with adoption, whereas farm size is negatively correlated. The results show that the majority of livestock owners had a medium level of adoption behavior with respect to dairy farming innovations. Information, farmer to farmer communication, farmer-researcher communication, farmer-extension agent communication, availability of inputs and overall knowledge level about dairy technologies have a positive and highly significant relationship with the overall adoption of dairy innovations by livestock owners. The communication among farmers, scientists, extension agents and other stakeholders has to be strengthened, for favoring a faster adoption of appropriate technologies.