A community-based study to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors for osteoporosis among menopausal and pre-menopausal women

Background: To determine the prevalence of osteoporosis among pre and post menopausal women using quantitative ultrasound of calcaneal bone and to identify the risk factors associated with osteoporosis.Methods: This prospective community based epidemiological study was conducted during 2019 in a suburban area attached to Sri Muthu Kumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Chennai. 305 subjects met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Using a structured questionnaire, demographic details, obstetric, gynaecological and medical history were collected. Quantitative ultrasound of the calcaneal bone was used to calculate the bone mineral density. Using statistical methods, risk factors for osteoporosis were analysed.Results: The mean age of the participants was 52.67±9.41 years, 62.2% were post menopausal and 37.38% were premenopausal. The BMD ‘T’ score was normal in 29.8%, osteopenia was diagnosed in 38.4% and osteoporosis in 31.8% of participants. 14% of premenopausal women and 42.4% of postmenopausal women were osteoporotic. Age, menopausal status, duration of menopause, and previous history of fractures emerged as significant risk factors for osteoporosis.Conclusions: The prevalence of osteoporosis is high among both pre-menopausal and menopausal women, but the awareness is limited. This study highlights the need for screening all women after the age of 40 years which is feasible using portable and easily available technology such as quantitative ultrasound of peripheral bones

Seroprevalence of Rubella IgG in Women of Reproductive Age Group in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Rubella is a highly contagious infection caused by the rubella virus. Mothers who develop rubella early in pregnancy have a 90% chance of transmitting the infection to their unborn babies. Adverse effects on the fetus include stillbirth and congenital rubella syndrome. Pregnant women are not regularly screened for rubella antibodies in government hospitals in Kerala. Therefore, to raise awareness of healthcare providers, it is necessary to collect epidemiological data on the seroprevalence of rubella in this vulnerable group. Several sociodemographic variables as potential predictors of immunity to rubella were also analyzed. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at Govt TD Medical College in Alappuzha, Kerala, of 604 women of childbearing potential who attended the Out patient department of the Obstetrics and gynecology division for the year from June 2016 to June 2017. Rubella-specific IgG (Quantitative) ELISA was done on patients after obtaining informed consent and filling out a questionnaire through direct interview. The test sera were considered seropositive (>15 IU/ml), seronegative (<13 IU/ml), or intermediate (13 -15 IU/ml) as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Rubella seroprevalence in the study group was found to be 73.3%. Around 26.65% were nonimmune to rubella infection. About 27.4% of antenatal cases in the present study were susceptible to rubella. The primigravidae had lower seroprevalence(28.5%) than multigravidae. The percentage of seropositivity was found to increase with age. Our observations show that women of childbearing age are highly susceptible to rubella. High seroprevalence without regular childhood vaccination indicates continued infection transmission of the rubella virus in the community. Hence there is a need for proper sero surveillance in this group who has not been vaccinated, before conception to eradicate CRS and Rubella

Antibiotic susceptibility pattern of Shigella isolates in a tertiary healthcare center

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Shigellosis is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in children in developing countries. To the best of our knowledge, there is no published data in the study area on the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern and prevalence of Shigella species among diarrheagenic cases. Therefore, a retrospective analysis was done to find the Shigella serotypes, common age group affected, and antimicrobial resistance pattern of Shigella isolates in South Kerala METHODS: Stool samples collected from cases of dysentery and diarrhea from January 2011 to December 2016 were processed. Standard bacteriological methods were used to isolate, identify, and determine the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of Shigella isolates. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 16. RESULTS: Among 1585 stool samples, 48(3%) yielded Shigella . The most common serogroup isolated was Shigella sonnei (62.5%) followed by Shigella flexneri. Of 48 isolates, 44(91.6%) isolates were found to be multidrug resistant. Over the 5-year period, the isolates show 100% resistance to nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin, and cotrimoxazole. Eight isolates were found to be resistant to ceftriaxone and cefotaxime. The presence of Extended spectrum betalactamase (ESBL) was phenotypically confirmed in five isolates. CONCLUSION: Even though S. flexneri is the most common Shigella-causing diarrhea, S. sonnei was found to be the most important species responsible in our study. Multidrug resistance was common (91.6%) and the most common multidrug resistance profile was ampicillin-nalidixic acid-cotrimoxazole-ciprofloxacin. Regular monitoring of antibiotic susceptibility pattern including detection of beta lactamases should be done in all microbiology laboratories. Guidelines for therapy should be monitored and modified based on regional susceptibility reports

Evaluation of Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization Time-of flight Mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF MS) and VITEK 2 in routine microbial identification

Background: Microbial Identification was done by phenotypic methods. VITEK-2 and Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) are now being increasingly used in laboratories.Objectives: To compare and evaluate the usefulness of MALDI-TOF MS and VITEK-2 in routine microbial identification.Methods: The performances of MALDI-TOF MS and VITEK 2 were compared for identifying microorganisms.Results: MALDI- TOF MS and VITEK-2 correctly identified 96 % (96/100) and 97% (97/100) of the isolates upto the genus level.Conclusion: MALDI TOF MS and VITEK -2 gave comparable identification and error rates. The rapid reduction in turnaround time with MALDI TOF is a significant game-changer in the field of clinical microbiolog

Comparison of knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding needle-stick injury among health care providers

Introduction: Needle-stick injury (NSI) is one of the most potential hazards for health care workers. They pose a significant risk of occupational transmission of blood-borne pathogens. The present study was done to determine the incidence of NSI among interns and nurses; their knowledge, attitude, and preventive strategies undertaken by the respondents after NSI. Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional study was done among interns and nurses in various departments of a tertiary care center in Kerala, India using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: The incidences of NSI among interns and nurses were 75.6% and 24.4%, respectively. The most common clinical activity leading to NSI among interns was blood withdrawal (42%) followed by recapping (29%). It was found that nurses had enough knowledge and followed better NSI practices and attitude than the interns. Conclusion: All the parameters analyzed were inadequate among the interns, indicating the need for continual awareness programs particularly during the preclinical years

FPGA-Based Reconfigurable Convolutional Neural Network Accelerator Using Sparse and Convolutional Optimization

Nowadays, the data flow architecture is considered as a general solution for the acceleration of a deep neural network (DNN) because of its higher parallelism. However, the conventional DNN accelerator offers only a restricted flexibility for diverse network models. In order to overcome this, a reconfigurable convolutional neural network (RCNN) accelerator, i.e., one of the DNN, is required to be developed over the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) platform. In this paper, the sparse optimization of weight (SOW) and convolutional optimization (CO) are proposed to improve the performances of the RCNN accelerator. The combination of SOW and CO is used to optimize the feature map and weight sizes of the RCNN accelerator; therefore, the hardware resources consumed by this RCNN are minimized in FPGA. The performances of RCNN-SOW-CO are analyzed by means of feature map size, weight size, sparseness of the input feature map (IFM), weight parameter proportion, block random access memory (BRAM), digital signal processing (DSP) elements, look-up tables (LUTs), slices, delay, power, and accuracy. An existing architectures OIDSCNN, LP-CNN, and DPR-NN are used to justify efficiency of the RCNN-SOW-CO. The LUT of RCNN-SOW-CO with Alexnet designed in the Zynq-7020 is 5150, which is less than the OIDSCNN and DPR-NN

Coscinium fenestratum: a review on phytochemicals and pharmacological properties

Coscinium fenestratum has been used in the traditional medicine, especially in the Ayurvedic method of healing as this plant can be found vastly in the Western Ghats of India. The distribution of this plant is concentrated to the Southeast Asiaincluding Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, West Java, Borneo, Northeast of Thailand and Laos. This review is related to the phytochemicals and pharmacological effects of C. fenestratum. The major chemi- cal constituents present in this plant include alkaloids, flavonoids and steroids. The most important bio-active compound is the berberine, which is the most widely studied plant compound. This plant exerts several pharmacological effects including antidiabetic, anticancer, antibacterial, antimalarial, antioxidant, antihy- pertensive, antiulcer, neuroprotector and wound healing activities. This chapter is supported by in vitro and in vivo studies carried out from the year of 1970 to 2016, which are available from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar and Scopus