Mass scale screening of common arboviral infections by an affordable,cost effective RT-PCR method

Objective:To develop a rapid,cost effective RT-PCR method for the mass scale diagnosis of such diseases at the vireraia stage to find out the actual disease burden in that area.Methods:For this purpose,cases with the history of only short febrile illness were considered.Thus 157 samples with the history of dengue/chikungunya like illness and only 58 samples with a history of acute encephalitis syndrome(AES)were selected.Results:Out of 157 samples,42 and 74 were detected as dengue and chikungunya,respectively and out of 58 AES cases only 23 could be detected as Japanese encephalitis by this RT-PCR method.Conclusions:This cost effective RT-PCR method can detect the total positive cases that remain undetected by EL1SA method.Moreover,this method is capable to detect the viral RNA from patients'sera even after the appearance of IgM antibody at one fifth costs as compared with the other commercially available kits.

Sero diagnosis of dengue activity in an unknown febrile outbreak at the Siliguri Town,District Darjeeling,West Bengal

Objective:To investigate the outbreak of unknown fever at Siliguri town,Darjeeling District on request from the State Health Department,Government of West Bengal.Methods: Investigations were made to the affected wards,Sub Divisional Hospital and the nursing homes of Siliguri Town.Duration of illness was 3-5 days.Interesting observations were made in some cases which had gastrointestinal disorders with high serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase(SGPT) and serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase(SCOT) levels.A total of 69 blood samples and 7 throat swabs(in Minimum Essential Media) were collected and brought to the ICMR Virus Unit, Kolkata for analysis.Mosquitoes from different affected areas were collected for the identification of the definite vector.Results:Amongst the 69 blood samples,42(60.86%) were positive to IgM antibody against dengue virus by Mac enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) test.No IgM antibody to Japanese encephalitis virus was detected among the collected blood samples.Based on the clinical symptoms,presence of IgM antibody to dengue virus and identification of Aedes mosquito,it amply proves that,the illness of those cases were due to dengue virus infection. Conclusions:Based on clinical-epidemiological observations of the investigations the possibility of a communicable disease of viral origin,the detection of IgM antibody and the identification of Aedes egypti,and the potential circulation of denge virus in Siliguri town for the first time were all suggested.

Temporal Evolution of Scour at Submerged Circular Cylinders

Temporal evolutions of scour at submerged circular cylinders were investigated.Flow visualization was carried out around the cylinders over plane,under developed and equilibrium scour holes.Video analysis technique was used to formulate the equations for determining the diameter of the horseshoe vortex around the submerged cylinders,which is also verified from the vector diagrams drawn using the velocity measurements.The scour process similar to live bed scour was noticed around the downstream cylinder.The diameter of the horseshoe vortex is found to depend on the diameter of respective cylinder,submergence ratio,spacing between the cylinders and skew angle.This formulation along with the dislodgement and transportation of a single sediment particle is further incorporated in the proposed model for determining the time variation of scour around the submerged cylinders.It is evident from the results that the upstream cylinder shelters the downstream cylinder and thereby reduces the scour at the downstream cylinder.Proposed model is further extended to incorporate the effect of non-uniformity of the sediment particles on the time variation of scour depth.The results indicate significant reduction of scour depth of around 6%and 35%for upstream and downstream cylinders respectively due to the formation of the armor layer.The model is also compared with the local scour component of field data around cylindrical bridge piers to establish the differences in the scour process around a partially submerged cylinder and fully submerged tandem and skewed cylinders.

Influence of socio-economic status and environmental factors on serologically diagnosed Japanese encephalitis cases in the state of West Bengal, India during 2005-2010

Objectives: The main aim of the current study is to examine the influence of socio-economic status and environmental factors on serologically diagnosed Japanese encephalitis cases in the state of West Bengal, India during 2005-2010. Materials and methods: A total of 648 blood/CSF specimens were collected and/or referred from the suspected AES cases, admitted in the different medical colleges and hospitals of the state during the year of 2005-2010. These specimens were subjected to JE Mac ELISA to determine the actual JE case amongst these AES. The association of the socio-economic status and environmental factors with the serologically diagnosed JE positive cases was studied by a statistical analysis through Normal Deviate test or Z test. Result: Out of 648 specimens, only 175 (27.0%) specimens were reactive to JE IgM antibody, of which 60.0% were from the male individuals and 40.0% from the female population. Major cases were observed in the age group of 0 - 10 years;followed by 11 - 20 years. Regarding literacy, only 58.3% cases had no education and 41.7% were from the literate with varying level of education, i.e., from primary level to post gra- duate level. A total of 65.7% cases were from low income group where as only 34.3% cases were from high income group. Regarding house type, 62.3% cases lived in mud house and 37.7% cases lived in the brick house. In most of the cases (74.3%), persons were living in close proximity to rice fields/lakes/ponds. 69.7% cases were found to occur in the monsoon and post-monsoon period whereas 30.3% cases were reported in the pre-monsoon period. Conclusion: Our study concludes that socio-economic status and environmental conditions were statistically significant contextual risk factors for serologically diagnosed JE incidences in West Bengal where JE is proved to be endemic in nature and such study constitutes a new report of this kind in the region.

Soil Geomorphology of Garpanchkot Hill Area and Its Influence on Land Use and Land Cover

The present study is about to find out different attributes of soil as well as geomorphology. It is very much relevant to the study of land use land cover (LULC). Garpanchkot hill is situated in Purulia district of West Bengal. There are two geomorphological and seven pedological parameters that have been selected for the study. Shuttle radar topographic mission (SRTM) and advanced land observing satellite (ALOS) data are analyzed by remote sensing software to find out the geomorphological character of the area. There are twenty soil samples that have been taken from top of the hill to foothill pediment area with the change of elevation and slope for laboratory analysis. Different statistical techniques are used for representation. Foot hill area of the Garpanchkot hill can be determined by less than 150 m elevation and 5o slope. Elevation and slope of rest of the hill area (greater than 150 m and 5o) are fully dominated by forest and scattered vegetation. Elevated area (greater than 205 m) with less slope (10o - 15o) is associated with dense forest. Escarpment area is associated with grass land and scattered vegetation. Foothill area is bearing the signature of scattered vegetation, bare soil ground and agriculture. The richness of clay minerals plays an important role in the foothill pediment area for development of agriculture. Sandy loam is dominating soil texture in the rest of the hill area. Percentage of organic matter (1.8%), status of salinity (6.65 - 7.72) and alkalinity (up to 138.6 μs/cm) remain high in the high elevated area due to forest cover. The area is very dry, only fed by the rainfall during monsoon season. Artificial reservoir feeds the foothill agriculture system. Rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane, pulses chili and vegetables are the main crops of this area.

Analysis of flow over backward facing step with transition

The present study deals with the study of the velocity distribution and the separation phenomenon of flow of air over a two dimensional backward facing step. The flow of air over a backward facing step has been investigated numerically using FLUENT. Flow simulation has been carried out in a backward facing step having an expansion ratio （ratio of the height before and after the step） of 1：1.94 and the results obtained are compared with the published experimental results. Comparison of flow characteristics between steps with three different transitions is made. The variation ofreattachment length for all the three cases are analyzed for wide range of Reynolds number ranging from 100 to 7000 which covers the laminar, transition and turbulent flow of air. Simulation of the flow over steps with expansion ratios of 1：1.24, 1：1.38, 1：1.47, 1：1.53, 1：1.94, 1：2.20 are also carried out to examine the effect of different expansion ratios on the reattachment length. It is found that the primary reattachment length increases with increase in the expansion ratio. The primary reattachment length at the bottom wall downstream of the step is minimum for the step with round edged transition and maximum for the step with a vertical drop transition.

Study of flow characteristics within randomly distributed submerged rigid vegetation

Flow through submerged rigid vegetation has been studied both analytically and experimentally.The Reynolds stress,present in the governing equation,has been modeled using one of the turbulent stress equations,adopted in numerous cases.The adva ntage of this turbulent stress model is to replace the mixing length non linear term of the stress with a linear relatio n between stress and the velocity gradient.The velocity field and shear stress are obtained by solving the governing force balance equation numerically.A correlation,validated with the experimental results,has been developed for the relevant non-dimensional numbers.