Effect of Constructivist Based Training on Learning and Teaching: An Experiment in Classroom

The aim of the study was to study the effect of constructive based training approach on teachers’ attitude and students’ achievement. The study comprised 80 students of class VI from Nagar Palika Girls Middle School Balmiki Basti New Delhi and Nagar Palika Girls Sr. Sec. School, Havelock Square, New Delhi. A quasi experimental pre-test and post-test design was applied in the present study. A pre and post -test design was applied on students and teachers learning and teaching Hindi subject. A training of 200 hours of constructive teaching training was given to one group of 15 teachers, whereas a conventional teaching training was given to another grou of 15 teachers. The training for both the groups was completed in 8 weeks.  After receiving the training both the groups used the approaches in their classes in which they had been trained. Therefore one group of students was taught the Hindi Subjects by using constructive approach where as another group was taught by using conventional approach of teaching. Teacher-made test with multiple-choice objective type questions was used to assess the learners’ achievement in pre-test, and post-test was carried out just after two month of the experiment. Similarly teacher’s attitude scale of S P Ahluwalia (1990) was administered before the training of teachers and also after completion of the training.The t values obtained revealed that constructivist method enhances the academic achievement and problem solving ability of the pupils. It was also found that both the group of teachers differs significantly on the teaching attitude. Keywords: Constructive based training approach, teachers’ attitude and students achievemen

Impedance Spectroscopy: A Powerful Technique for Study of Electronic Ceramics

Electronic ceramics are technological materials having a vast variety of applications such as actuators and sensors, computer memories, electrically controlled microwave tuning devices for RADAR, etc. and are playing key role in electronics industry today. An electronic ceramic component can be visualised as grain-grain boundary-electrode system. Impedance spectroscopy is being widely used to separate out contributions of these to the overall property of a ceramic. This involves equivalent circuit models. To facilitate development of suitable equivalent circuit models and obtain values of the components, some most useful circuits with their simulated behaviour are presented. Steps highly useful in the modelling process are summarised. The procedure of impedance spectroscopy is illustrated by analysing the impedance data of the ceramic system BaFexTi1-xO3 (x = 0.05) containing two phases

The Effect of Melatonin on Essential Oil Production in Mentha Spicata

Mentha Spicata (spearmint), an herbaceous perennial aromatic plant, is the most common herb in tropical and subtropical countries. The essential oil (EO) of Mentha spicata is a valuable source of antioxidants in nutraceuticals and cosmetic industries. In-vitro culturing of Mentha Spicata was done via the micro-propagation technique, and exogenous Mel was used as a plant growth regulator. The field trials involved the plant’s foliar spray of different concentrations of Mel at various time points. The EO of leaves of control and Mel-treated plants (S1-S6) was steam-distilled using a Clavenger-type apparatus. The UV, FTIR, and GC analyses of the EO of control and S1-S6 were recorded. The antioxidant capacity of the EO of control and S1-S6 was measured using a DPPH (1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) assay. The nodal explants of Mentha Spicata showed different responses to the shoot proliferation process in the presence of exogenous Mel. The EO yield percentage of control and S1-S6 were in the range of 0.92±0.05% and 0.74±0.03%-0.39±0.04%%, respectively. The UV, FTIR, and GC spectra of the EO of control and S1-S6 presented different numbers of peaks and compounds in the selected range. The EO of control and Mel-treated plants could reduce the free radical DPPH to DPPHH with varying values of IC50. Melatonin could regulate the plant’s growth and development, change the EO yield, improve the EO’s phytochemical profile qualitatively, and enhance the free-radical scavenging capacity of the plant’s EO in a concentration and time-dependent mode. So, it may act as a promising molecule to increase aromatic crop yield with the desired quality

A prospective, double blind randomised controlled trial on efficacy of laparoscopic uterosacral nerve ablation as an alternative of pharmacotherapy in treatment of chronic pelvic pain

Background: Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP) is one of the commonest symptomatology in gynaecologist’s outpatient clinics. CPP has a profound impact on a woman's health and quality of life, including an economic impact through loss of working hours. Treatment for chronic pelvic pain is often unsatisfactory. Present study compares Laparoscopic Uterosacral Nerve Ablation (LUNA) with laparoscopy without pelvic denervation in patients presenting with chronic pelvic pain to our outpatient clinic.Methods: It was a Randomised Controlled Trial Study. After considering inclusion and exclusion criteria, 120 patients were selected, out of which 60 (Group I) had undergone diagnostic laparoscopy and 60 (Group II) had undergone diagnostic laparoscopy with LUNA.Results: The overall success rate for group I and group II were 80%, 78.3% and 66.6% versus 85%, 81.6%, and 83.3% at 3, 6, and 12 months, respectively. However, on subgroup analysis it was found that in patients suffering from Congestive Dysmenorrhoea, there was a significant difference in success rate of both the groups.Conclusions: It was found in present study that there was a benefit for patients with dysmenorrheal, further research in this area is desirable to reach towards a discrete conclusion regarding the benefits of LUNA in patients of CPP

Enabling Secure UAV-Assisted IoT Communications with RF Energy Harvesting in the Presence of Eavesdropper

This paper considers multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enable secure and reliable communications between energy-constrained Internet of Things devices (IoDs). First, these IoDs harvest energy using the radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted from a power beacon. Then, the harvested energy is used to exchange information via multiple UAV relays in the presence of an eavesdropper. Among multiple UAVs, the best UAV relay is selected based on the achievable signalto-noise ratio of the first hop. The selected UAV applies a decode-and-forward (DF) operation to forward the information. However, an eavesdropper present in the vicinity of IoDs can wiretap the information transmission through the UAV-to-ground channel. Thus, the UAV employs artificial noise (AN) injection technique to prevent the eavesdropper from intruding on the information transmission. For modeling the composite fading channel, we use the log-normal distribution to characterize the shadowing components. Further, we adopt the Gauss-Hermite quadrature method to derive the closed-form secrecy outage probability (SOP) expression. Moreover, we offer a reliability and security trade-off analysis by providing closed-form expressions for the outage probability (OP) and intercept probability (IP) as reliability and security performance measures, respectively. The numerical and simulation results corroborate the analytical findings, highlight the impact of various channel/system parameters on the secrecy and reliability performance, and provide valuable insights into the system’s behavior.acceptedVersion© Copyright 2023 IEEE - All rights reserved

UAV-Assisted Communications With RF Energy Harvesting: A Comprehensive Survey

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently achieved sky-rocketed prominence in assisting various wireless communication scenarios due to their implicit characteristics like line-of-sight connectivity, three-dimensional mobility, on-demand deployment, and payload abilities. For realizing UAV-assisted communications in practical scenarios, one of the key challenges is the onboard power limitation of UAVs, which can affect their flight duration, maneuverability, and network lifetime. Exploiting energy harvesting (EH) techniques with UAV networks can improve operational time by addressing the UAV’s power constraints. In addition, UAVs can facilitate seamless connectivity for energy-constrained low-power devices in remote locations, disaster-struck areas, emergencies, and areas where human intervention is challenging and recharging or replacing batteries is problematic. In such scenarios, a low-altitude UAV, which flies flexibly, can serve as a radio-frequency (RF) energy transmitter to charge the nearby low-power devices efficiently and help enable their communications. Focusing on these aspects, this paper comprehensively surveys the current state-of-the-art EH techniques that can be utilized with UAV communications in various practical scenarios. Then, we highlight crucial challenges in integrating UAVs with prevailing wireless infrastructure and discuss different RF-EH receiver architectures that can be viable solutions for power-constrained UAV networks. Further, we show the channel modeling of UAV-assisted communications with EH and provide critical insights into the system performance. Besides, we offer an exhaustive review of recent works on RF-EH in UAV networks with next-generation paradigms and different problem-solving techniques/optimization methods. Finally, we suggest forthcoming trends and highlight open issues and future research directions.acceptedVersio

Epithelioid Leiomyosarcoma of Greater Omentum- Case Report of a Rare Tumour

A 50 year old man presented with a large, circumscribed mass in the abdomen. With ultrasonography, computed tomography, endoscopy and FNAC, preoperative diagnosis could not be made. Complete resection of the mass was performed; the tumor weighed 10.5 kg. Immuno-histochemical study confirmed the diagnosis of epithelioid leiomyosarcoma (ELMS). These are generally solid tumours commonly arising from the stomach. It is uncommon in the greater omentum

Case report: multiple gastric adenomatous polyps- a rare occurrence

Multiple gastric polyps usually occur as a part of multiple polyposis syndrome of the gut. Multiple gastric polyps are rarely encountered in general surgical practice, with an incidence of <1% including those detected incidentally. Most common multiple gastric polyps are hyperplastic polyps. Multiple adenomatous gastric polyps without polyps anywhere else in gut is a very rare occurrence. Aggressive approach with total gastrectomy should be done to all cases of multiple adenomatous gastric polyps due to the high chances of developing cancer even if it localised

A rare case of squamous cell carcinoma of the scrotum with infiltration into penis

Squamous cell carcinoma of the scrotum is a tumour that is of interest for clinical and historical reasons.This is a rare case of carcinoma of scrotum invading the penis.We describe, a case of  scrotal and penile squamous cell carcinoma. An old case of balanitis xerotica obliterans for which he had undergone Johannson’s urethroplasty earlier.&nbsp