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Objective: To evaluate the design and dimensions of Indian and Chinese pediatric toothbrushes commercially available in India and compare them with the standard specifications for pediatric toothbrushes. Methods: The present study involved 16 Indian and 14 Chinese pediatric toothbrushes which were evaluated for length and width of head of the toothbrushes, number of bristles, number of rows and diameter of the bristles. Moreover, both the Indian and Chinese pediatric tooth brushes were compared with length and height of head, number of rows, number of tufts per row and bristle diameter of standard specifications for pediatric toothbrush. Results: The width and height of the Indian tooth brushes were significantly less than the Chinese while the number of bristles per tuft in Indian tooth brushes (15.12±17.97) was approximately half of the Chinese (39.14±6.35) variants. In contrast, the head of the Indian (5.14±0.45) tooth brushes was significantly greater than their Chinese (4.72±0.47) counterparts. Chinese tooth brushes differed significantly from standard values in length, height, rows, tufts per rows and also bristle diameter. The length and height of head in Chinese toothbrushes was significantly lower while the number of rows and bristle diameter was significantly greater than the standard values. Indian toothbrushes differed from standard values only in height of the head, number of tufts per row and bristle diameter. Conclusions: Indian and Chinese toothbrushes differed significantly for most of the dimensions. Furthermore, both the Indian and Chinese variants did not conform to the standard dimensions of pediatric tooth brushes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive control involves modifying the control law used by the controller to cope with the fact that the parameters of the system being controlled change drastically due to changes in environmental conditions or in system itself. This technique is based on the fundamental characteristic of adaptation of living organism. The adaptive control process is one that continuously and automatically measures the dynamic behavior of a plant, compares it with the desired output and uses the difference to vary adjustable system parameters or to generate an actuating signal in such a way so that optimal performance can be maintained regardless of system changes. The nature of the adaptation mechanism for controlling the system performance is greatly affected by the value of adaptation gain. It is observed that for the lower order systems, wide range of adaptation gain can be used to study the system's performance. As the order of the system increases the applicable range of adaptation gain becomes narrow. This paper deals with application of model reference adaptive control (MRAC) scheme to second order systems with different values of adaptation gain. The rule which is used for this application is the MIT rule. Simulation is done in MATLAB and simulink and the results are compared for varying adaptation mechanisms due to variation in adaptation gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A packet-switched 6\,\times\,4 2-D mesh network providing 2 Tb/s of bisectional bandwidth with a per-hop latency of 4-cycles, forms the high performance communication fabric for a Single-Chip Cloud Computer (SCC) with 48 Pentium™ class IA-32 cores. The fabric operates on an independent power supply and frequency domain. The router micro-architecture achieves over 90% network utilization by effective use of a single-cycle Wrapped Wave-Front Allocator (WWFA) and virtual channel (VC) flow control. A router transit latency of 2\,ns is achieved through early buffer write, route pre-computation and a single-cycle WWFA implementation. This 640\,K transistor, 1.32\,mm^2 router operates at 2 GHz at 1.1 V while dissipating 550~mW. The 24-node mesh network with 1.28 Tb/s router and 16B, 5.4 mm wide links consumes only 5% of the chip area, 1.2% of the transistors and 10% of total chip power at 1.1 V in a 45~nm nine-metal CMOS process. The router energy efficiency scales from 1.3 Tb/s/W to 7.2 Tb/s/W over a dynamic voltage range from 0.7 V to 1.25 V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a multi-core processor that integrates 48 cores, 4 DDR3 memory channels, and a voltage regulator controller in a 6\,\times\,4 2D-mesh network-on-chip architecture. Located at each mesh node is a five-port virtual cut-through packet-switched router shared between two IA-32 cores. Core-to-core communication uses message passing while exploiting 384 KB of on-die shared memory. Fine grain power management takes advantage of 8 voltage and 28 frequency islands to allow independent DVFS of cores and mesh. At the nominal 1.1 V supply, the cores operate at 1 GHz while the 2D-mesh operates at 2 GHz. As performance and voltage scales, the processor dissipates between 25 W and 125 W. The 567~\ mm^2 processor is implemented in 45 nm Hi-K CMOS and has 1.3 billion transistors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hewlett-Packard (HP) offers many innovative products to meet diverse customer needs. The breadth of its product offering has helped the company achieve unparalleled marketr each; however, ithas come with significant costs and challenges. By offering multiple similar products, a manufacturer increases its overall demand volatility, reduces forecast accuracy, and can adversely affect revenue and costs across the entire product life cycle. At HP, these impacts included increases in inventory-driven costs and order-cycle time; liabilities to channel partners; and costs of operations, research and development, marketing, and administration. Furthermore, complexity in HP's product lines confused customers, sales representatives, and channel partners, sometimes driving business to competitors. HP developed two powerful operations research-based solutions for managing product variety. The first, a framework for screening new products, uses custom-built return-on-investment (ROI) calculators to evaluate each proposed new product before introduction; those that do not meet a threshold ROI level are targeted for exclusion from the proposed lineup. The second, HP's Revenue Coverage Optimization (RCO) tool, which is based on a fast, new maximum-flow algorithm, is used to manage product variety after introduction. By identifying a core portfolio of products that are important to order coverage, RCO enables HP businesses to increase operational focus on their most critical products. These tools have enabled HP to increase its profits across business units by more than $500 million since 2005. Moreover, HP has streamlined its product offerings, improved execution, achieved faster delivery, lowered overhead, and increased customer satisfaction and market share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms routinely offer warranties, often as attempts to differentiate their offerings from those of competitors. Despite this practice common to virtually every consumer durable category, extant research has been inconclusive regarding the effect of warranties on quality judgments. One potential limitation of these prior investigations is the failure to model a key element of a product warranty�consumer-side transaction costs associated with warranty redemption. In this article, we introduce the role of consumer-side transaction costs associated with warranty redemption and examine the joint impact of warranty length and warranty redemption costs for brand names of varying strength on consumers' judgments of product quality. Two experiments show that warranty length signals security but not quality, and that perceived quality increases as consumers' warranty redemption costs decrease, provided that the warranty length is short. Different dimensions or aspects of warranties have different effects on perceived quality. The implications of the results for understanding conflicting findings in the warranty-quality literature are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy, feasibility, tolerability, and toxicity of concurrent chemotherapy and brachytherapy for locally advanced cervical carcinoma.Materials and Methods: Forty patients of cervical carcinoma were included in this study. The study period ranges from October 2016 to September 2019. Patients were evaluated and treated as per the protocol: external beam radiotherapy (50 Gy in 25 fractions) and concurrent weekly chemotherapy with injection (Inj.) cisplatin (30 mg/m2) followed by high-dose rate brachytherapy (3 fractions of 7 Gy each) and concurrent chemotherapy Inj. cisplatin (30 mg/m2).Results: Out of 40 patients enrolled in the study, 36 patients completed the treatment (17 Stage II and 19 Stage III). The incidence of Grade I and II skin toxicities were 78% and 10%, respectively. The incidence of genitourinary toxicities with respect to Grade I and II were 72% and 12%, respectively. There were Grade III hematological toxicities in two patients and the brachytherapy treatment was delayed for 4-6 days. The overall complete response was found in 28 (78%) patients, partial response in six (16.7%) patients, and progressive disease in two (5.6%) patients at 3 months of follow-up. On the last follow-up, 21 (58%) patients were disease-free and there was disease failure in seven patients (5 local recurrence and 2 with distant metastasis).Conclusion: Brachytherapy with the addition of concurrent chemotherapy is effective and feasible with acceptable toxicity for advanced stages of carcinoma cervix. This study upholds an interesting approach that can be regarded as feasible and tolerable for cervical cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various addiction patterns, dietary habits, associated medical problems and socioeconomic status in gastro-intestinal malignancies: A prospective study in rural area of Maharashtra, India. Jain Vandana S., MD, Professor & Head Kawale Darshana, MBBS, Senior Resident Jain Shailendra M., MD, Professor Waghmare Chaitali, MD, Associate Professor Pemmaraju Gopal, MBBS, Senior Resident Abstract Background: Gastro intestinal (GI) malignancies (from Esophagus to anus) are increasing with advancing age, various addictions and poor dietary habits. Early detection is difficult till patient notices symptoms. Primary prevention by knowing various risk factors and early symptom awareness will help in the healthier outcome. Objectives: This study is carried out to see various addiction patterns, dietary habits, associated medical problems and socioeconomic status with various sites involved in GI malignancies, in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Western Maharashtra, India. Materials and Methods: This prospective study is designed to know about various addiction patterns, dietary habits, associated medical problems and socioeconomic status, along with age, sex, various sites and the stage at first visit of all histopathologically proven cases of gastrointestinal malignancies reporting in the Department of Radiotherapy & Oncology for treatment. Oral cavity to cricopharyngeal carcinomas is included in head and neck malignancies. Carcinoma esophagus, carcinoma stomach, carcinoma small intestine, colorectal (colon and Rectum) and anal canal carcinomas are considered in gastrointerstitial malignancies (and for this study). Data collection was done from Feb 2016 to Dec 2016 for the period of eleven months. A detailed questionnaire was filled after taking written informed consent from the patient. Once the target of 100 patients was achieved all the data was compiled and analyzed for the study. Patients unable to provide or not willing to give desired information are excluded from the study. Results and Conclusions: In this study out of total 100 registeredcases of GI malignancy, 61 were males and 39 were females, which show male preponderance. Most of the patients belonged to lower and upper lower class (64%) as per modified B G Prasad classification. Various histopathological types recorded were Squamous cell carcinoma (35), Adenocarcinoma (60), Adenosquamous carcinoma (2), Basaloid carcinoma (2) and Gastro intestinal stromal tumor (GIST (2)). Associated medical illnesses were rarely observed (only two cases with Diabetes Mellitus and three with Hypertension) and they were on regular treatment. One patient was on anti- retroviral therapy for HIV, two were positive for HBsAg and one for VDRL. The commonest site involved was Esophagus (41) followed by Recto sigmoid, colon & caecum, stomach & anal canal (29, 14, 13 & 2 respectively). Mean age was 59.1 years. The youngest patient was 28 years and oldest was 86 years old. 45 cases were above 60 years and only five were below 30 years of age. 85% of cases were in advanced stage of disease (III & IV). Details of various addictions alone and in combinations with duration of consumption are shown in table no-1. Commonest addiction for all sites was smokeless tobacco (SLT). 81% of cases were non-vegetarian; only 16% were pure vegetarian, details of dietary habits is shown in table-2. Gastrointestinal malignancy is showing increasing trends in India. This study gives an idea about various risk factors for the increasing trends of gastro-intestinal malignancy. The present study shows that carcinoma Esophagus is the commonest & cancer recto sigmoid in second commonest GI malignancy. Mostly the cases were addicted to one or other addiction and were taking regularly nonvegetarian diet. Awareness program for harmful effects of various addictions, the importance of vegetarian diet (high fiber) and about the early symptoms of GI malignancy will help in health promotion, prevention of various malignancies & early diagnosis of disease as well as better treatment outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Medium voltage direct current (MVDC) is an emerging trend in ship power system to cater the growing power demand in modern navy applications. Marine diesel oil (MDO) is the primary fuel in the shipping sector. However, with rising oil prices and harmful emissions, there is a greater need than ever for ship operators to consider clean power generating options. Keeping this in mind, this paper aims to present a renewable energy solution through development and integration of a three‐phase self‐excited induction generator (SEIG)–based renewable biofuel generator in MVDC ship power system. A three‐phase current controlled voltage source inverter (VSI) working as a static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) performs multiple tasks of harmonic elimination and regulation of the generated voltage under varying load. Gating pulses to the STATCOM switches are generated using indirect current theory‐based controller. An integral sliding mode‐controlled direct current to direct current (DC‐DC) converter feeding ship service loads in MVDC shipboard system has taken as a nonlinear load. A laboratory prototype of the complete system has developed to validate the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given curiosity's characterization as a motivational drive for knowledge, prior research has primarily focused on curiosity's positive effects on knowledge exploration, information acquisition, and learning. Once the desired knowledge has been acquired, curiosity is said to be satisfied. But what happens if curiosity is left unsatisfied? Across five experiments, spanning four domains of indulgence-related decisions and relying on different methods of curiosity elicitation, the present research sheds light on an unexpected yet crucial consequence of curiosity—that unsatisfied curiosity tempts indulgent consumption in domains unrelated to the source of the curiosity. This effect is explained by a generalized desire for rewards. Experiments 1–3 establish and replicate the proposed mediation model of curiosity —› desire for rewards —› indulgence, employing manipulation-of-process, moderation-of-process, and measurement-of-process experimental designs. Experiment 4 utilizes neurophysiological data to indicate brain activation in the insular cortex for unsatisfied (vs. satisfied) curiosity. Experiment 5 addresses the role of cognitive depletion as a possible alternative mechanism. In summary, this article demonstrates that the hunger for information that accompanies unsatisfied curiosity is converted into a generalized desire for rewards, which in turn tempts indulgence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food waste is a critical global issue, posing substantial environmental, social, and financial challenges, even as millions continue to face uncertainty regarding their next meal source. The seriousness of this problem necessitates a closer look into ways to reduce food waste. In this investigation, we identify a key factor which contributes to food waste—imperfect fruits and vegetables (FaVs), defined as foods that are non-uniform in shape, color, or texture. Because of their unusual and sometimes ugly appearance, people are often averse to buying them, making it important to understand factors that influence people's acceptance or rejection of imperfect FaVs. Across four online studies (including an exploratory study) with nearly 1400 U.S. respondents and using varied designs, we test political ideology as a moderator of this aversion to imperfect FaVs. Our findings indicate that politically conservative people are less likely to purchase imperfect FaVs (vs. perfect FaVs) compared to politically liberal people. The last study also uncovers the psychological mechanism underlying this greater aversion to FaVs by conservatives: lower openness to experience explains why this segment of population may be less willing to purchase imperfect FaVs. Implications and future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies are increasing with advancing age. Various addictions and poor dietary habits are among the major risk factors. Early detection is difficult until patient notices symptoms. Primary prevention by knowing various risk factors and early symptom awareness will help in early diagnosis and better treatment outcome.Objectives: This study is carried out to see various addiction patterns, dietary habits, associated medical problems, and socioeconomic status with various sites involved in GI malignancies, at a tertiary care teaching hospital of Western Maharashtra, India.Materials and Methods: Prospective questionnaire-based study was carried out for 11 months. A total of 100 diagnosed carcinoma cases of GI tract malignancy were taken for study.Results and Conclusions: Out of total 100 cases, 61 were male and 39 were female. The most common site involved was esophagus (41) followed by rectosigmoid, colon and cecum, stomach, and anal canal (29, 14, 13, and 3, respectively). There were 45% of cases above 60 years of age. The most common addiction was smokeless tobacco. Most of the patients belonged to lower and upper lower class (64%). Majority of cases (81%) were nonvegetarian, only 16% were pure vegetarian. Most of the cases (85%) were in advanced stage of disease (III and IV). Awareness program for harmful effects of various addictions and importance of high-fiber diet (vegetarian diet) will help in health promotion and prevention of various malignancies. Awareness about the early symptoms of GI malignancy will help in early detection of disease and better treatment outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, an increased incidence of mucormycosis infection was noted globally, the majority being from India. We aimed to study the clinical profile of the mucormycosis patients during the COVID-19 pandemic admitted at tertiary care centers., Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective record-based observation study conducted at Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. All suspected or laboratory-proven mucormycosis patients were included. Detailed data on demography, clinical features, risk factors, laboratory/radiological findings, and outcomes were recorded., Results: A total of 288 patients were enrolled and 121(42%) showed mucormycosis on potassium hydroxide (KOH) mount. The mean age was 51.52 ± 10.88 years, male:female ratio was 2.3:1. Most common symptom was facial swelling/pain and fever. The most common risk factor was COVID-19 infection (78.5%) followed by the presence of diabetes mellitus (DM) (70.8%) out of which 152 (52.8%) patients were previously diagnosed cases and 52 (18%) patients were newly diagnosed, 159 (55.2%) had a history of corticosteroid use, 87 (30.2%) had a history of use of oxygen support and 67 (23.2%) had hypertension. Most patients had invasion limited to sinus (46.5%) but the presence of DM was associated with an increased risk of cerebral invasion. Out of 288 patients admitted with mucormycosis, 31 patients collapsed to death while the remaining 257 patients were discharged from the hospital., Conclusion: It is observed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, hyperglycemia and inappropriate use of corticosteroids were associated with an increased risk of development of mucormycosis in patients with or without DM. We conclude that regular blood glucose monitoring, adequate glycemic control, and judicious evidence-based use of corticosteroids and immunosuppressants in COVID-19 are recommended to reduce the emergence of mucormycosis in such circumstances., (© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2024.)

Aim: This study aims to evaluate the long-term treatment outcome of conventional and hypofractionation radiotherapy in postmastectomy cancer breast patients., Material and Methods: A total of 140 postmastectomy breast cancer patients were included in this retrospective study, who were treated from 2012 to 2014 with chemotherapy and various fractionation radiotherapy schedules. Radiotherapy treatment records for study group-I received radiotherapy 4256 cGy in 16 fractions over 3½ weeks, group-II patients received 4005 cGy in 15 fractions over 3 weeks, and conventional radiotherapy group-III received 5000 cGy in 25 fractions over 5 weeks., Results: The median follow-up of patients from all groups was 60 months (range 9 to 111 months). There were 39 cases with disease failure, 13 (26%) in group I (42.56 Gy), 16 (40%) in group II (40.05 Gy), and 10 (20%) in group III (50 Gy). There were 4 locoregional recurrences (LRRs), two isolated, and 11 distant failures in group I, 3 LRRs (1 isolated LRR) and 15 distant failures in group II, and only one LRR and 9 distant failures in group III. The disease-free survival (DFS) were 74%, 60%, and 80%, respectively, in groups I, II, and III (P =0.044)., Conclusion: The long-term results of this study show that hypofractionation radiotherapy in postmastectomy cases is well tolerated and acute and late side effects are also comparable to conventional fractionation. In our study, locoregional and distant failure seems slightly higher with hypofractionation schedules than in other studies, highlighting the need for more studies with long-term follow-up in postmastectomy patients., (Copyright © 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Journal of Cancer Research and Therapeutics.)

An ongoing debate in the United States relating to COVID-19 features the purported tension between containing the coronavirus to save lives or opening the economy to sustain livelihoods, with ethical overtones on both sides. Proponents of opening the economy argue that sustaining livelihoods should be prioritized over virus containment, with ethicists asking, "What about the risk to human life?" Defendants of restricting the spread of the virus endorse saving lives through virus containment but contend with the ethical concern "What about people's livelihoods and individual freedoms?" A commonly held belief is that political ideology drives these differential preferences: liberals are more focused on saving lives, whereas conservatives favor sustaining livelihoods with no additional government intervention in the free-market economy. We examine these lay beliefs among US residents in four studies and find that economic system justification (ESJ), an ideology that defends the prevailing economic system when under threat, is a reliable psychological predictor beyond political ideology. Specifically, compared to those who scored low on ESJ, people who scored high on ESJ judged China as more justified in downplaying the spread of virus to protect its interest in the global free-market economy, supported in-person over online learning, viewed shelter in place as less desirable, and perceived the opening of the Texas economy as more legitimate. We also find that multiple psychological mechanisms might be at work-resistance to market interventions, perceived legitimacy of opening the economy, perceived seriousness of the health crisis, and violation of human rights., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05091-4., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022.)

Five studies examine how perceived financial constraints and abundance determine when consumers will engage in solitary or social purchases. When financially constrained, consumers prefer solitary (vs. social) purchases. We also identify self-construal as a moderator of how consumers spend their discretionary income. While independent consumers prefer solitary (vs. social) purchases, interdependent consumers prefer social (vs. solitary) purchases. Interestingly, when consumers have adequate discretionary income, independent as well as interdependent consumers have similar preferences for solitary and social purchases. In addition, for interdependent consumers, communal norms mediate the preference for social purchases. Finally, for independent consumers, making the communal norm salient reverses their preference for solitary purchases, resulting in a preference for social purchases. Our findings suggest how managers can effectively promote different types of purchases under varying financial resource conditions in their global communication strategy., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-021-00814-x., (© Academy of Marketing Science 2021.)

Pandemics have been an unfortunate but consistent facet of human existence over centuries, threatening lives as well as livelihoods globally. Disconcertingly, their frequency persists, with four "major" pandemics disrupting the planet in the last 65 years and more expected in the future. While many of the economic and health consequences of pandemics are well-documented, their marketing implications are less understood. Addressing this gap, we develop a broad, conceptual framework to highlight the characteristics and impacts of pandemics as they relate to marketing. We first identify four macro-level forces that characterize pandemics and highlight their marketing implications. Next, using the 7P marketing mix model as the organizing structure, we discuss these implications at a micro-level and identify a set of research questions to stimulate further inquiry, not only to generate deeper insights pertaining to pandemics' marketing implications but also to envision new developments in these areas. Finally, we identify pandemics' disproportionate impacts on and implications for some industry sectors, including healthcare, retail, education, hospitality, and tourism., (© Academy of Marketing Science 2021.)

Background: Post Herpetic neuralgia (PHN) is neuropathic pain that occurs after herpes zoster infection. Several treatments have been suggested in the management of PHN. This study evaluates the efficacy of subcutaneous injection of botulinum toxin in patients suffering from PHN., Methods: Nineteen patients suffering from PHN for more than 2 months were enrolled in the study. The severity of pain was assessed by visual analog scale (VAS). A total dose 500 units of BTX-A was injected around the site of pain. This was administered in about 25 sub-cutaneous injection around the site, delivering approximately 20U/ml of BTX-A per injection. The patients were followed at 1,2, 3,4,12 and 16 weeks after the administration of the drug., Results: The mean age was 56 years (age range 36 to 63) for non-pregnant patients. The two pregnant patients of age 28 and 32 year old who were in their 28 and 30 weeks of gestation were also included. The mean duration of PHN was 4.78 wks. At each visit VAS was used to evaluate the degree of pain (0: painless; 10: maximum pain). There was a significant reduction in the severity of pain after the injection., Conclusions: Botulinum toxin significantly decreases the severity of pain in PHN patients and last for 4-6 month of the period. This decrease is less prominent by passing time., (© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.)