Toffee Sized Cardiac Monitor

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cardiac monitor, IIT Bombay, TCS

Amazing! Quite amazing!!

“Made in Mumbai, Wanted by the World” in the Hindustan Times speaks of a toffee- sized cardiac monitor developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (now called Mumbai). While the tiny computer that can store a week’s electrocardiogram (ECG) data awaits a manufacturer, it is already in demand.

The demand for a user-friendly cardiac monitor is urgent in India, where, as top cardiologist Devi Shetty puts it, ‘heart disease is like an epidemic.’ “Indians are genetically 3 times more vulnerable to heart attacks than Europeans,’’ Dr Shetty, chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, told HT from Bangalore. “The average age of my patients in India is 45 years. Fathers bring their young sons for bypass grafting.”

Indians and South Asians are prone to a first heart attack at age 53, and the World Health Organisation estimates that 60 per cent of the world’s cardiac patients could be Indians by 2010.

When a user feels uneasy, he can press a locket button to ‘mark’ that data so a doctor can later scrutinise marked segments and check the heart’s activity before the irregularity. Connected to a cell phone, the locket can be programmed to send SMS containing marked data to a doctor. Software in the locket forwards the data to the mobile, which sends the SMS.

This project at IIT, Bombay’s Microelectronics Dept. is funded by Tata Consultancy Services.

It is heart warming ( no pun intended) to see such path breaking innovations taking place in our country.

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Lowering Cholesterol

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Cholesterol management, reducing risk of heart disease

A friend of mine had a routine medical examination recently. The results showed a high level of cholesterol.  No matter your age, this poses a big health risk. That’s because unhealthy cholesterol levels can boost your risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other problems.

To understand the issues involved, I liked the simple explanations given in WebMD by Morgan Griffin.

Stating with some basics. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance that circulates in your blood. Some of it is made naturally by your body, and the rest comes from foods you eat. There are two main types: HDL and LDL.

• LDL is “bad cholesterol.” It can clog your arteries, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke. Optimal number: Less than 100mg/dL.
• HDL is “good cholesterol.” What’s good about it? HDL attaches to bad cholesterol and escorts it to the liver, which filters it out of the body. So HDL reduces the amount of bad cholesterol in your system. Desirable number: 60mg/dL or higher.
• Total cholesterol is the sum of all types of cholesterol in your blood. Although your doctor may still refer to this number, it’s less significant than your HDL and LDL levels. Desirable number: Less than 200 mg/dL.
• Triglycerides , while not cholesterol, are another type of fat floating in your blood. Just as with bad cholesterol, having a high level of triglycerides increases your risk of cardiovascular problems. Healthy number: Less than 150 mg/dL.

Experts maintain that there are 4 ways to get your cholesterol down to the desired levels:

1.  Lower Cholesterol by eating right: Cut down on fried food. Nuts like walnuts and almonds are recommended. Diet tends to help people lower triglycerides and raise good HDL cholesterol, but it’s less likely to have a big impact on bad LDL cholesterol.
2. Improving cholesterol with Exercise: Increased physical activity can have a modest effect on cholesterol, lowering triglycerides (and bad LDL cholesterol to a lesser extent), while boosting your good HDL cholesterol.
3. Lose Weight:Lower Cholesterol: Losing weight can lower your bad LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. It also can raise your good HDL cholesterol.
4. Controlling cholesterol with Medication:  Medication in combination with other measures can reduce your cholesterol levels. However, take medication only on the specific advice of your doctor.

“Exercise and dietary changes have a lot of cardiovascular benefits that won’t show up on a cholesterol test,” says Jorge Plutzky MD, director of the Vascular Disease Prevention Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. ” Exercise, eating well, and losing weight can lower blood pressure, lower your heart rate, and decrease your risk of diabetes and other diseases. And remember that your real goal is not merely better cholesterol numbers, but a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Management Defined

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humour, Management

Here’s something I enjoyed immensely. Saw this in Regina’s Adventures, Musings and Aphorisms.

Realizing he was lost, a balloonist dropped down to ask directions.
“Excuse me, but I’m a little off course,” he shouted. “I promised to
meet a friend an hour ago. I don’t know where I am.”

A woman yelled back, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately
30 feet above the ground. You’re at exactly 37 degrees, 24 minutes and
26.16 seconds North latitude and 122 degrees, 8 minutes and 42.3 seconds
West longitude.”

“Amazing,” the balloonist replied. “You must be an Engineer!”

“I am,” she replied. “How did you know?”

“Well, everything you told me is technically correct, but I can’t use
your information. I’m still lost, and you haven’t been much help at
all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman thought for a moment, and then replied, “You must be in
Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well, you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen
to your position due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise
that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to
solve your problems. In fact, you’re in exactly the same position you
were before we met, but somehow it’s now my fault.”

Excellent!

Vikram Akula & SKS

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Entrepreneurs, microfinance, Vikram Akula

A recent issue of “Business Today” carries an article on Vikram Akula, CEO & Founder of SKS Microfinance. The 39 year old US returned Akula started SKS in 1997 with the dream to offer microcredit to millions of poor families.

Although born in India, Akula spent many years in the US where he got his BA from Tufts University, MA from Yale and PhD from the University of Chicago. He was a consultant with McKinsey & Co before he launched SKS.

His dream is to scale SKS to 5 million clients by 2010. So far, his firm has provided $ 400 million in unsecured loans to over 1.4 million poor women and their families in more than 20,000 villages. SKS was first set up as an NGO . The first foundation to support SKS was a small, volunteer Indian Amercian organization called The India Development Services which gave him $ 10,000. Later Akula has attracted private equity from foriegn investors like Sequoia Capital and Vinod Khosla to grow into a NBFC.

SKS has been a success story. He has been able to maintain a 99 % repayment rate. As of December 2007, SKS has 1.4 million clients with 595 branches and a staff of 6100 to service their requirements. He was selected to be one of TIME magazines’ 100 Most Influential People in the world for 2006.

It is reported that SKS is adding over 50 new branches and 130,000 new customers each month and growing at an annual rate of 200 %.

SKS currently only targets women both because they are the most marginalized and because they tend to use resources more productively than men. Social science research has shown that women tend to undertake small, manageable activities rather than risky ventures and they invest the majority of their income into the household and for their children.

A very creditable success story of an entrepreneur who followed his dreams and made them a reality.

Resistance to Change

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A Step A Day, change management, resistance to change

“We are under pressure” said the manager. “Our old ways of doing things are no longer as profitable as they used to be. We must look to new and better ways of doing things. If we are to meet our profit targets for the next year, we have to make major changes. Unfortunately, our people are very much against change”.

Change is the subject of perhaps the best quotations.  “If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change.  If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” wrote John A. Simone, Sr.

All of us have had to face issues when we came up against employee resistance to change. This may be covert or overt. Employee resistance to change is a complex issue. It is becoming more common in a rapidly changing work environment with organizations themselves constantly seeking to evolve to meet the new market requirements.

Employee resistance is a critically important contributor to the failure of many well-intended and well-conceived efforts to initiate change within the organization.
How does one get the commitment of people to change? Communication is key. Their fears or apprehensions must be identified and addressed.

I liked the concept of “personal compacts” written of by Professor Paul Strebel  of the International Institute for Management Development. He is the Director of the Change Program for International Managers at the IMD. Prof. Strebel attributes resistance as a violation of “personal compacts” managements have with their employees. Personal compacts are the essence of the relationship between employees and organizations defined by reciprocal obligations and mutual commitments that are both stated and implied. Any change initiatives proposed by the organization would alter their current terms.

Personal compacts are made up of formal, psychological, and social dimensions. The formal dimension is the most familiar. It is the aspect of the relationship that addresses the basic tasks and performance requirements of the job. It is defined by job descriptions, employee contracts, and performance agreements. Management, in return, agrees to supply the employee the resources needed to perform their job.

The psychological dimension address aspects of the employment relationship that incorporate the elements of mutual trust, loyalty and commitment. The social dimension of the personal compact deals with organizational culture, which encompasses, mission statement, values, ethics and business practices.

Strebel points out that when these personal compacts are disrupted it upsets the balance, and increases the likelihood of resistance. He suggests that management view how change looks from the employees perspective, and to examine the terms of the personal compacts currently in place. ‘Unless manages define new terms and persuade employees to accept them, it is unrealistic for managers to expect employees to fully buy into changes that alter the status quo”.

Don’t dive head long into a change management process. To succeed, you need to invest time and effort in planning the change before you begin any form of implementation.

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