Unilateral reexpansion pulmonary edema after tube thoracostomy: A case report

We report a case of unilateral reexpansion pulmonary edema (RPE) in a patient of secondary spontaneous pneumothorax of 2 day

A case of pleural neurofibroma: A rare pleural tumor

Neurofibromas (NFs) are benign tumors involving any nerve from the root level to the smallest branch. They may enlarge locally and cause a pressure effect on thoracic structures such as trachea, superior vena cava, and esophagus. Pulmonary and pleural involvement is very rarely seen. We have reported a case of a pleural effusion secondary to lymphatic obstruction due to remnant NF for which patient had undergone surgical resection in the past

Plasmodium Vivax Associated Myocarditis

Plasmodium infection in human beings is often associated with complications. Complications such as cerebral malaria, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury and cardiac complications including myocarditis, pericarditis and hypoglycaemia may be seen in infection by Plasmodium falciparum. However, these complications have rarely been reported with Plasmodium vivax infections. Myopericarditis complicating P. vivax malaria is particularly rare and only a few cases have been reported so far. We report on a case of myopericarditis due to P. vivax malaria to add to the literatur

Risk factors for early mortality in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis admitted to the emergency room.

Abstract Background and objectives Mortality of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) admitted to emergency departments is high. This study was aimed at analysing the risk factors associated with early mortality and designing a risk score based on simple parameters. Methods This prospective case-control study enrolled patients admitted to the emergency department of a referral TB hospital. Clinical, radiological, biochemical and microbiological risk factors associated with death were compared among patients dying within one week from admission (cases) and those surviving (controls). Results Forty-nine of 250 patients (19.6%) experienced early mortality. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that oxygen saturation (SaO2) ≤90%, severe malnutrition, tachypnoea, tachycardia, hypotension, advanced disease at chest radiography, severe anaemia, hyponatremia, hypoproteinemia and hypercapnia were independently and significantly associated with early mortality. A clinical scoring system was further designed to stratify the risk of death by selecting five simple parameters (SpO2 ≤ 90%, tachypnoea, hypotension, advanced disease at chest radiography and tachycardia). This model predicted early mortality with a positive predictive value of 94.88% and a negative predictive value of 19.90%. Conclusions The scoring system based on simple parameters may help to refer severely ill patients early to a higher level to reduce mortality, improve success rates, minimise the need for pulmonary rehabilitation and prevent post-treatment sequelae

Impacts of Drought on Vegetation Assessed by Vegetation Indices and Meteorological Factors in Afghanistan

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)Drought has severe impacts on human society and ecosystems. In this study, we used data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) sensors to examine the drought effects on vegetation in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2018. The MODIS data included the 16-day 250-m composites of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) with Land Surface Temperature (LST) images with 1 km resolution. The TRMM data were monthly rainfalls with 0.1-degree resolution. The relationship between drought and index-defined vegetation variation was examined by using time series, regression analysis, and anomaly calculation. The results showed that the vegetation coverage for the whole country, reaching the lowest levels of 6.2% and 5.5% were observed in drought years 2001 and 2008, respectively. However, there is a huge inter-regional variation in vegetation coverage in the study period with a significant rising trend in Helmand Watershed with R = 0.66 (p value = 0.05). Based on VCI for the same two years (2001 and 2008), 84% and 72% of the country were subject to drought conditions, respectively. Coherently, TRMM data confirm that 2001 and 2008 were the least rainfall years of 108 and 251 mm, respectively. On the other hand, years 2009 and 2010 were registered with the largest vegetation coverage of 16.3% mainly due to lower annual LST than average LST of 14 degrees and partially due to their slightly higher annual rainfalls of 378 and 425 mm, respectively, than the historical average of 327 mm. Based on the derived VCI, 28% and 21% of the study area experienced drought conditions in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is also found that correlations are relatively high between NDVI and VCI (r = 0.77, p = 0.0002), but slightly lower between NDVI and precipitation (r = 0.51, p = 0.03). In addition, LST played a key role in influencing the value of NDVI. However, both LST and precipitation must be considered together in order to properly capture the correlation between drought and NDVI.Y.A.L. appreciates the financial support from MOST of Taiwan under the codes 108–2111-M-008-036-MY2 and 108–2923-M-008-002-MY3.Peer Reviewe

Multi-criteria decision based geospatial mapping of flood susceptibility and temporal hydro-geomorphic changes in the Subarnarekha basin, India

The Subarnarekha River in east India experiences frequent high magnitude flooding in monsoon season. In this study, we present an in-depth analysis of flood hydrology and GIS-based flood susceptibility mapping of the entire catchment. About 40 years of annual peak discharge data, historical cross-sections of different gauging sites, and 12 flood conditioning factors were considered. Our flood susceptibility mapping followed an expert knowledge-based multi-parametric analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and optimized AHP-VIP methods. Peak hydrology data indicated more than 5 times higher discharge contrasted with the mean streamflow of the peak monsoon month in all hydro-monitoring stations that correspond to possible overbank flooding in the shallow semi-alluvial reaches of the Subarnarekha River. Width-depth ratio revealed continuous changes on the channel cross-sections at decadal scale in all gauging sites. Predicted flood susceptibility map through optimized AHP-VIP method showed a great amount of areas (38%) have a high probability of flooding and demands earnest attention of administrative bodies. The AHP-VIP based flood susceptibility map was theoritically validated through AUC approach and it showed fairly high accuracy (AUC = 0.93). Our study offers an exceptionally cost and time effective solution to the flooding issues in the Subarnarekha basin

Impact of environmental factors on COVID-19 pandemic in India

The present study has investigated the role of regional meteorology and air quality parameters in the outbreak pattern of COVID-19 pandemic in India. Using the remote sensing based dataset of 12 environmental variables we correlated infective case counts at a district level in India. Our investigation carried out on the circumstantial data from more than 300 major affected districts in India and found that air quality parameters are playing very crucial role in this outbreak. Among the air pollutants, O3 was better correlating with infection counts followed by AOD, CO, NO2, BC and SO2. We also observed that among the weather parameters air temperature, incoming shortwave radiation, wind speed are positively and significantly associate with outbreak pattern and precipitation and humidity are negatively correlated with confirmed cases; only cloud cover has no significant relation. We noted that coastal districts in the both coast of India and districts located in the plain and low-lying areas have experienced bitter situation during this pandemic. Our study suggests that improving air quality with proper strict regulations and complete lockdown during the peak of pandemic might reduce the misfortune in all over India

Assessment of temporal trend of COVID-19 outbreak in India

The COVID-19 pandemic has outspread obstreperously in India. Within a period of 95 days, from March 02 to June 04, India surpassed 2 lakh in count of infected cases. Approximately 3 out of each 1000 people in India has been tested till date and 53 per 1000 tests results positively infected. During the first week of March, only 14 out of each 1000 tests were resulting as positively infected and it has been extended at a rate of 71/1000 tests in the first week of June, which may indicate a sign of community spread of this disease. Mann-Kendall test denotes that the count of daily confirmed cases is significantly increasing with estimated Sen’s slope of ~ 76 persons/day in entire country. This trend has escalated from ~ 5 persons/day in March to ~ 249 persons/day in the very first week of June. Among major affected cities, Mumbai and Delhi are noted with extremely high rate of increase. In the 3 out of 5 megacities in India: Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai, the count of daily transmission have reached beyond of 1200 after the third week of May which indicate that the allowance to the migrants might make an easy-way of coronavirus transmission. Additionally, Pettitt test indicates an abrupt change in increasing trend over entire country on April 17, 2020. The nationwide transmission rate was ~ 22 persons/day before April 17 and afterward it amplified to ~ 174 persons/day. Moreover, all the major affected cities also registered multi-fold increase in transmission rate after the evaluated change point over that city; explicitly, this increment was more than 20 times over Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad. Therefore, the nationwide imposed lockdown in India might have very less impact on flattening the curve of daily confirmed case

Land Subsidence Monitoring in Jagadhri City Using Sentinel 1 Data and DInSAR Processing

DInSAR is a renowned method for estimating land subsidence based on the principles of interferometric synthetic aperture radar using different series of the temporal dataset. The present study has been performed using GMTSAR software with Sentinel 1 SAR data of C band for the duration of 2017–2019 (January to April) and focused particularly over the area of Jagadhri city which is situated 100 km away from Chandigarh, which has been identified under the potential threat of land subsidence. The DInSAR method has been applied in this study that came up with an outcome of three interferograms and yearly displacement that broadcast an update on the diagnosis of subsidence activity in the area. A total of six Single Look Complex (SLC) datasets were selectively chosen with a minimum temporal and spatial baseline so that the problem of decorrelation would be minimal. Goldstein filtering has been applied to the deburst interferograms which reduced the noise and, in turn, improved the quality of output. The city is located on the western bank of river Yamuna and about 55 km on the east of Ambala. Due to the presence of unconsolidated sediments in the aquifer system and over-exploitation of groundwater to meet the domestic needs has led to surface deformation in and around the city area. The outcome of this study identifies the area of depression quite distinctly while the accuracy has been assessed by ground survey. The rate of subsidence estimated approximately 4.98 cm/year which can prove to be disastrous over the course of time

Hatha Yoga: Effect On Lung Volumes Including Diffusion Capacity In Uncomplicated Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract Background: The science of yoga has its origin thousands of years ago. With prevailing unhealthy and stressful lifestyles, yoga is seen as both complementary and integrative approach to achieving better health. Today, Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is an epidemic which is engulfing whole world at a very fast pace. In recent years, lung impairment has been seen in DM irrespective of drug therapy. It’s the dire need of the hour to devise a protocol that can actually slow down the progression of diabetes and hence, this study was done to evaluate the effect of yoga on lung functions in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Objectives: To assess the effect of hatha yoga on lung parameters including diffusion capacity in T2DM patients in comparison to conventional therapy alone. To compare lung functions in T2DM patients before and after yoga. Material and Methods: Randomized Control Trial was carried out with Sixty Uncomplicated T2DM patients (35-55 years of age) who were equally divided into YOGA and CONTROL group. CONTROL group received only conventional therapy including medication and restricted diet for DM while YOGA group underwent yoga along with conventional therapy for 8 weeks. Pre- and Post-study assessments of lung functions was done in both the groups. Statistical Analysis: Repeated measure ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test. Results: YOGA group patients showed a significant (p-value<0.05) improvement in their lung functions post study. Conclusion: Yoga can be used as an adjunct to conventional treatment for DM, for improvement of pulmonary parameters and delay in complications of DM. Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Yoga, Mind-Body Therapy, Lung Function Tests, Pulmonary Diffusing Capacity