In the last decade due to ever growing environmental concerns, use of natural fibres as fibre materials has gained momentum and acceptance. Natural fibres provide advantage of being economical and environment friendly at the same time. Rice husk, an agricultural waste is being utilized as a natural fibre for development of bio-composites. Present paper attempts to understand the applicability of rice husk as a fibre with various polymers based on the recent research works. It also throws light on various modification techniques that can further enhance the associated mechanical properties by altering the chemical and physical properties of husk. The paper may assist in understanding the phenomenon associated in manufacture of rice husk based bio-composite and provide a critical insight to the future applications of rice husk.
In the present work finite element method has been employed to study the interaction of multiple cracks in a finite rectangular plate of unit thickness with cracks on the same side under uniaxial loading conditions. The variation of the stress intensity factor and stress distribution around the crack tip with crack offset distance has been studied. Due to the presence of a neighbouring crack, two types of interactions viz. intensification and shielding effect have been observed. The interaction between the cracks is seen to be dependent on the crack offset distance. It is seen that the presence of a neighbouring crack results in the appearance of mode II stress intensity factor which was otherwise absent for a single edge crack. It can be said that the proximity of cracks is non-desirable for structural integrity. The von-Mises stress for different crack orientations has been computed. Linear elastic analysis of state of stress around the crack tip has also been done.
Anemia in the elderly is an extremely common problem that is associated with increased mortality and poorer health-related quality of life, regardless of the underlying cause of the low hemoglobin. A cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Pathology, Assam Medical College and Hospital, Dibrugarh, in collaboration with the Department of Medicine . The purpose of this study was to study the prevalence of elderly patients with anemia and to study the pattern of anemia in such patients as well as the closest possible etiological profile. Prevalence calculated was 77% .Hundred patients above the age of 60 years were included for studying the pattern of anemia. Clinical profile with laboratory studies of Hemoglobin and diagnostic tests were done to know the etiology. Majority of patients had normocytic blood picture constituting 53%, microcytic 26%, macrocytic/dimorphic 13% and pancytopenia in 8%.Anemia of chronic disease was the commonest cause of anemia followed by iron deficiency anemia. 53/100 patients had normocytic blood picture .45 out of 53 patients had serum ferritin levels more than 100ng/ml. 13/26 of cases showing microcytic anemia had ferritin levels <20ng/ml and 5/26 had no evidence of iron deficiency have ferritin values >100ng/ml. None of the cases with macrocytic anemia and pancytopenia had serum ferritin values <100ng/ml. This shows that serum ferritin closely correlates with iron stores. Absence of iron capable of being stained by pearls stain is considered to be a reliable parameter of iron deficiency. Serum ferritin together with pearls stain in bone marrow is considered to be a reliable parameter of iron deficiency anemia. Confirming the type of anemia is critical to direct the investigation for profiling the etiology since it is well known that the treatment of anemia goes a long way in improving the overall outcome and quality of life.
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