Iron status in children with febrile seizure.

This hospital based cross sectional analytic study was carried out in department of Pediatrics Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Combined Military Hospital from July 2009 to June 2010 to find out the relationship of iron status with febrile seizure in children. Sixty children aged 6 months to 5 years having febrile seizure were enrolled as cases after taking proper consent by purposive sampling. Sixty age matched children with fever but no seizures were taken as control after taking proper consent. Children having a febrile seizure, developmental delay, hemorrhagic disorder, severe malnutrition or micronutrient deficiency and abnormal CSF findings were excluded from the study. In cases after control of seizure 2 ml of CSF was taken for cytology, biochemistry, Gram & AFB staining. Two milliliter of blood from cases as well as control was collected, released to EDTA bottle for Hb, MCV and MCHC. Again 2 ml of blood was taken in plain test tube for testing serum iron, TIBC and for serum ferritin. Serum iron, TIBC, serum ferritin was estimated by automated analyzer (PENTRA for serum iron, DADE BEHRING for TIBC, IMMULITE 1000 for serum ferritin). There was no significant difference between two groups regarding age (p>0.05), sex (p>0.05). High fever (p<0.001) and continuous fever (p<0.001) was significantly associated with febrile seizure. Seizure was generalized in all with positive family history in 83.3% cases. The Mean±SD of blood Hb (Case 9.8±1.6; Control 10.7±0.9), MCH (Case 22.1±2.3; Control 24.3±3.6) & serum ferritin (Case 55.1±29.3; Control 99.6±81.9) level were significantly low associated with febrile seizure (p<0.05). No significant difference was found between cases and control regarding MCV, serum iron and serum TIBC.

Experimental evaluation of control performance of MPC as a regulatory controller.

Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control is widely practised as the base layer controller in the industry due to its robustness and design simplicity. However, a supervisory control layer over the base layer, namely a model predictive controller (MPC), is becoming increasingly popular with the advent of computer process control. The use of a supervisory layer has led to different control structures. In this study, we perform an objective investigation of several commonly used control structures such as 'Cascaded PI controller', 'DMC cascaded to PI' and 'Direct DMC'. Performance of these control structures are compared on a pilot-scale continuous stirred tank heater (CSTH) system. We used dynamic matrix control (DMC) algorithm as a representative of MPC. In the DMC cascaded to PI structure, the flow-loops are regulated by the PI controller. On top of that a DMC manipulates the set-points of the flow-loops to control the temperature and the level of water in the tank. The 'Direct DMC' structure, as its name suggests, uses DMC to manipulate the valves directly. Performance of all control structures were evaluated based on the integrated squared error (ISE) values. In this empirical study, the 'Direct DMC' structure showed a promise to act as regulatory controller. The selection of control frequency is critical for this structure. The effect of control frequency on controller performance of the 'Direct DMC' structure was also studied.

The impact of family planning on fertility in a rural area of East pakistan.

This pape revaluates a family planning pilot project conducted by the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development in Comilla, East Pakistan. The evaluation is based upon an analysis of the extent to which adoption of conventional contraceptives (condoms and foam tablets) has reduced fertility in selected villages of the Comilla-Kotwali precinct, during the years 1962-66.The study was carried out by comparing adopter and non-adopter rates of pregnancy and analyzing the trends in pregnancy reduction that resulted from adoption. The findings indicate that (1) although the pregnancy rate of adopters has increased steadily throughout the time period, in 1966 the rate is still less than half of what was expected had adoption not occurred; (2) contraceptive use-effectiveness decreases with length of time of use; and (3) pregnancy reduction has been declining since 1964.

The impact of family planning on fertility in Comilla.

PIP: Evaluation of the impact of adoption of conventional contraceptives (condoms and foam tablets) on fertility was conducted by comparing adopter and nonadopter rates of pregnancy and analyzing trends in pregnancy reduction due to adoption from 1962 through 1966 in selected villages of Comilla-Kotwali Thana, Pakistan. The findings indicated that: 1) although the pregnancy rate of adopters increased steadily throughout the time period, in 1966 the rate was still less than half of what was expected had adoption not occurred; 2) contraceptive use effectiveness decreased with length of time of use; and 3) pregnancy reduction (due to the increasing rate of pregnancy combined with increasing termination rates and decreasing rates of recruitment) has declined since 1964. It is noted that, in general, the effectiveness or impact of the program resembles a bell-shaped curve, i.e., in the initial phases pregnancy reduction increased to reach a plateau and then declined in the remaining phases. This may represent a cyclical occurrence and pregnancy reduction may again increase. Continual follow-up is necessary for an extended time period to analyze any additional trends in fertility reduction.^ieng