Modern Applications of Electronic Nose: A Review

Electronic noses have provided a plethora of benefits to a variety of commercial industries, including the agricultural, biomedical, cosmetics, environmental, food, manufacturing, military, pharmaceutical, regulatory, and various scientific research fields. Advances have improved product attributes, uniformity, and consistency as a result of increases in quality control capabilities afforded by electronic-nose monitoring of all phases of industrial manufacturing processes. This paper is a review of some of the more important and modern applications that have been of greatest benefit to the humankind.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v3i1.122

Trends Of Antibiotic Susceptibility Of Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhi And Paratyphi In An Urban Hospital Of Dhaka City Over 6 Years Period

The antibiotic resistance pattern of salmonella is ever changing over time. The present study is a retrospective analysis of rate of isolation of Salmonella Typhi and Paratyphi and their antibiotic resistance pattern over 6 years period in an urban hospital of Dhaka city. Blood culture submitted in BIRDEM hospital from 2004-2009 were analyzed. Isolated Salmonella sp were identified and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out by a standard disc diffusion method. Among 385 isolated Salmonella sp 304 (79%) were Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and 81 (21%) were Salmonella enterica serover Paratyphi A. The rate of isolation of S. Paratyphi A has increased over 6 the year period from 14% to 24%. Resistance to individual first line anti-salmonella drugs has increased from 2004 to 2006 (42 to 63%) but has decreased thereafter. Similar pattern was found when simultaneous resistance to three first line antibiotics namely ampicillin, chloramphenicol and co-trimoxazole were considered. Out of total 304 S. Typhi, 117 (38%) were simultaneously resistant to all three first line drugs compared to only 1.8% S. Paratyphi A. Analysis showed that 80 to 90% of isolated S. Typhi was nalidixic acid resistant (NARST) with reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin while the rate for S. Paratyphi A was 71-94%. All S. Typhi and Paratyphi A were sensitive to ceftriaxone. The study showed that there was a gradual decline of resistance of S. Typhi to first line antibiotics but very high prevalence of nalidixic acid resistant S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi in Bangladesh. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/imcj.v5i2.10097 IMCJ 2011; 5(2): 42-45</jats:p

Wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance to monitor the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in developing countries with onsite sanitation facilities

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a valuable approach for forecasting disease outbreaks in developed countries with a centralized sewage infrastructure. On the other hand, due to the absence of well-defined and systematic sewage networks, WBE is challenging to implement in developing countries like Bangladesh where most people live in rural areas. Identification of appropriate locations for rural Hotspot Based Sampling (HBS) and urban Drain Based Sampling (DBS) are critical to enable WBE based monitoring system. We investigated the best sampling locations from both urban and rural areas in Bangladesh after evaluating the sanitation infrastructure for forecasting COVID-19 prevalence. A total of 168 wastewater samples were collected from 14 districts of Bangladesh during each of the two peak pandemic seasons. RT-qPCR commercial kits were used to target ORF1ab and N genes. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic materials was found in 98% (165/168) and 95% (160/168) wastewater samples in the first and second round sampling, respectively. Although wastewater effluents from both the marketplace and isolation center drains were found with the highest amount of genetic materials according to the mixed model, quantifiable SARS-CoV-2 RNAs were also identified in the other four sampling sites. Hence, wastewater samples of the marketplace in rural areas and isolation centers in urban areas can be considered the appropriate sampling sites to detect contagion hotspots. This is the first complete study to detect SARS-CoV-2 genetic components in wastewater samples collected from rural and urban areas for monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. The results based on the study revealed a correlation between viral copy numbers in wastewater samples and SARS-CoV-2 positive cases reported by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) as part of the national surveillance program for COVID-19 prevention. The findings of this study will help in setting strategies and guidelines for the selection of appropriate sampling sites, which will facilitate in development of comprehensive wastewater-based epidemiological systems for surveillance of rural and urban areas of low-income countries with inadequate sewage infrastructure.This research was supported by Water Aid Bangladesh, North South University, Dhaka, COVID-19 Diagnostic Lab, Department of Microbiology, Noakhali Science and Technology University (NSTU), Noakhali, Bangladesh, the International Training Network of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (ITN-BUET) - Centre for Water Supply and Waste Management, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. We acknowledge the sincere help and support of the staff and volunteers of NSTU-COVID-19 Diagnostic Lab, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh during the different phases of the study. PB and MTI acknowledge the Life Science Technology Platform, Science for Life Laboratory for the seed funding to initiate the wastewater-based epidemiological studies for SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh. We would also like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments as well as their thoughtful insights, which has significantly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewe

RELIABILITY CENTERED MULTI OBJECTIVE HYBRID FLOW SHOP SCHEDULING

Real world scheduling problems are complex in nature. They require satisfying multiple objectives. To get a realistic schedule, consideration of machine reliability and availability is very important to allocate job in machine. This research aims to develop two fuzzy inference systems (FIS) for hybrid flow shop problem. First FIS is used to get priority of each job considering multiple objectives of processing time, due date and cost over time. Second FIS is used to get machine reliability and availability based priority using the information of mean time to failure (MTTF) & mean time to repair (MTTR) of each individual machine at each stage. To distribute the workload depending on their reliability and availability based priority of each machine, maximum utilization target is determined. An algorithm has been developed for grouping, sequencing & allocating the jobs to the machines at every stage in such a way that total percentage of over utilization will minimum. Based on this algorithm, a computing tool has been developed and, explained with a three stage hybrid flow shop scheduling problem.Hybrid flow shop, fuzzy inference systems (FIS), reliability, availability

Depression and anxiety among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh: A web-based cross-sectional survey

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of depression and anxiety among Bangladeshi university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also aimed at identifying the determinants of depression and anxiety. A total of 476 university students living in Bangladesh participated in this cross-sectional web-based survey. A standardized e-questionnaire was generated using the Google Form, and the link was shared through social media—Facebook. The information was analyzed in three consecutive levels, such as univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis. Students were experiencing heightened depression and anxiety. Around 15% of the students reportedly had moderately severe depression, whereas 18.1% were severely suffering from anxiety. The binary logistic regression suggests that older students have greater depression (OR = 2.886, 95% CI = 0.961–8.669). It is also evident that students who provided private tuition in the pre-pandemic period had depression (OR = 1.199, 95% CI = 0.736–1.952). It is expected that both the government and universities could work together to fix the academic delays and financial problems to reduce depression and anxiety among university students

Changes in the menstrual hygiene management facilities and usage among Bangladeshi school girls and its effect on school absenteeism from 2014 to 2018

Background The lack of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) information and facilities in schools is a major contributor to adolescent girls’ school absenteeism in low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh. Objectives This paper examines the changes over time in school MHM facilities, knowledge and perceptions among adolescent girls, in relation to school absenteeism between 2014 and 2018 in Bangladesh. Methods We examined changes in MHM and school absenteeism among schoolgirls using nationally representative data from the Bangladesh National Hygiene Baseline Survey 2014 and National Hygiene Survey 2018. Given the repetitive nature of our data and its clustering within participants, our method included performing descriptive analysis, bivariate analysis, and multivariate Generalised Estimating Equation (GEE) modelling to analyse these changes. Results Results showed that adolescent girls’ menstruation-related absenteeism decreased between 2014 and 2018. Percentage of adolescents who missed school decreased from 25% to 14% (PD: −11; CI: −16 to −6.1), while the average number of missed days reduced from 2.8 to 2.5 (PD: −0.33; CI: −0.57 to −0.10). In the GEE model, we found that living in rural areas (coef: −5.6; CI: −10.06 to −1.14), parental restrictions on going outside (coef: 4.47; CI: 0.75 to 8.2), education levels of girls (coef: −9.48; CI: −14.17 to −4.79), girl’s belief that menstruation affects school performance (coef: 23.32; CI: 19.71 to 26.93), and using old cloths (coef: −4.2; CI: −7.6 to −0.79) were significantly associated with higher absenteeism. However, participant’s age, type of school, knowledge of menstruation before menarche, receiving information regarding MHM, separate place for changing absorbents, and separate latrine and urine facility were not significantly associated with the changes in absenteeism over time. Conclusion This paper emphasised the associations between changes in school absenteeism, parental restrictions on students, students’ education levels, and menstruation-related misperceptions. Ongoing research, policy reviews, and targeted interventions to improve MHM perceptions among girls are required to provide long-term benefits for adolescent girls in Bangladesh