No abstract

No abstract

Objective:To determine the frequency of hypocalcemia in term neonates with jaundice receiving phototherapy.Methods:This was a cross sectional study conducted at Neonatal intensive care unit, National Institute of Child Health, Karachi from 1st January 2014 to 30th December 2014. A total of 123 term neonates with jaundice of either gender managed by phototherapy were enrolled in the study. Gestational age was assessed through modified Ballard scoring. Duration of phototherapy was recorded. A sample of 3 ml of blood was sent to the laboratory for serum calcium level before initiating phototherapy and after 24 hours of continued phototherapy. All the data were recorded in the preformed proforma. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 19. P value <0.05 was taken as significant.Results:The mean age of the neonates was 8.35±6.74 days. Mean gestational age at the time of birth was 39.08±1.37 weeks. Mean duration of jaundice was 2.4±1.20 days. Mean duration of phototherapy was 1.74±0.98 days. Serum calcium level before and after 24 hours of initiating phototherapy was 8.73±0.68 mg/dl and 7.47±0.82mg/dl respectively Frequency of hypocalcemia in term jaundiced neonates receiving phototherapy were observed in 22.76% (28/123).Conclusions:The frequency of hypocalcemia is significant in the jaundiced neonates treated with phototherapy. One needs to be vigilant in dealing neonates in this context while serial monitoring for hypocalcemia and its complications should be considered in institutional policy and research priority.

We report on an all chemical bath deposition (CBD) fabrication of self-assembled vertically aligned heteroepitaxy grown (002)ZnO//(002)CdS ZnO/CdS core/shell nanorod (NR) arrays. These single-technique processed NR arrays comprising of CdS QDs conformally and epitaxially grown on faceted single-crystalline ZnO NRs achieve effective charge separation and collection, resulting from visible light driven highest ever, reported photocurrent density without any postdeposition process step, unlike previous such studies. The low ion-flux controlled ion-by-ion deposition induces chemical-epitaxy growth mechanism, with a 38° tilt of CdS c-axis. Structural characterizations confirm the homogeneous growth of (002) CdS QDs (size ∼30 nm) on hexagonal prismaticc-axis oriented ZnO NRs (400 nm diameter). Compared with pristine ZnO NR array, a 20-fold enhancement in photocurrent density (∼8.5 mA/cm2 at +1.0 V vs Ag/AgCl) under AM1.5 light illumination is observed without any additional passivation/sensitization layer, attributed to the enlarged defect-free sharp ZnO/CdS interface and improved optical properties involving high visible light absorption as well as suppressed recombination of photoinduced charge carriers due to staircase type-II band alignment and hence effective charge separation and transport. Low-temperature short-time anneal further enhances the photocurrent density to 9–10 mA/cm2 and photoconversion efficiency to 4.4%. Our results demonstrate that formation of atomically aligned interface is key to realizing high performance junction without any postdeposition step and have significant bearing on photoelectrochemical as well as photovoltaic performance of ZnO/CdS radial junction devices.

No abstract