The dilemma of COVID-19 vaccination among Health Care Workers (HCWs) of Uttar Pradesh

Background: Immediately after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, with an unprecedented cooperation between biomedical, pharmaceutical, technological, and political sectors, new vaccines were developed and approved in record times. However, doubts were raised on their efficacy and adverse effects. Globally, it was agreed that the first recipients for vaccines would be the health care workers (HCWs). Logically, it was bound to raise some concerns and result in hesitancy among the HCWs. Aims: The current study was planned to study the proportion of HCWs having hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccination and factors effecting it. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study conducted among HCWs of Uttar Pradesh. Methods and Material: The survey was conducted both in online and offline mode and attempted by 254 HCWs eligible for receiving COVID-19 vaccine. Statistical analysis used: t-test, chi-square test, proportion, mean, SD Results: Vaccine hesitancy was present in 35.8% HCWs. Only social factors like caste (p=0.023) and religion (p<0.001) were found to be significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy. Gender, type of health worker, fear of COVID-19 infection, fear of lethality or pre-existing diseases did not affect vaccine hesitancy. The maximum number of HCWs (71.4%) were hesitant because they were unsure of the side-effects followed by the reason of being unsure about its effect on their own health (53.8%). When asked about their attitude towards compulsory COVID-19 vaccination for HCWs, should it be made mandatory by the government, 42.9% were in favour and 40.6% were against any such mandate. Conclusions: The study concluded that social factors like religion and caste are more deterministic for vaccine hesitancy

Prevalence of dementia and its associated risk factors among elderly patient attending Outpatient Department of a tertiary care hospital in Lucknow

Background: Dementia is a broad category of brain diseases that causes a chronic, progressive and gradual decrease in cognitive function i.e. ability to think and remember that is great enough to affect a person’s daily functioning beyond what might be expected from normal ageing. According to American Psychiatric Association, “Dementia is a syndrome caused by a variety of brain illnesses that affect memory, thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday activities”. Aim & Objectives: To assess the prevalence of dementia among the patients above 60 years of age attending the outpatient department of Tertiary care super specialty hospital. To assess the risk factors associated with occurrence of dementia in patients attending outpatient department of Tertiary care super specialty hospital. Settings and Design: Study design: - Cross-sectional observational study. Study area: - Tertiary care super-specialty hospital. Study setting: - Outpatient department (OPD)of Tertiary care super specialty hospital. Methods and Material: Study population: - Patients above 60 years of age and attending Outpatient Department of the tertiary care super specialty hospital. Duration of Study: - 4 months.  Sample size:- 223 elderly participants from the registration counter of the Outpatient Department of tertiary care hospital. Statistical analysis used: Data was analysed using SPSS, version 24.0. Univariate Logistic Regression, Multivariate Logistic Regression, Odds Ratio. Results: The study was conducted on a total of 223 patients out of which only 210 patients completed the questionnaire and matched our criteria. Thus, 210 patients are analysed for the result. In our study which included the patients above 60 years of age out of which the maximum participants (52.4%) were of age group 65-75. In our study 66.2% participants had normal cognitive functioning while 33.8% of total participants were found to have dementia. Out of these 33.8% participants having impaired cognitive functioning, 13.8% and 20% had severe and borderline dementia respectively. Dementia was found to be more common in females. Conclusions: Statistically significant association of dementia has been found with female gender, rural residence, joint family and a greater number of family members, poor education, pan masala consumption, daytime drowsiness, and problem in sleep pattern, social intolerance and frequent fights

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Regarding Electronic Waste (e-waste) Management Among Users of Electronic Equipments Living in Lucknow City

Background: Contemporary society has led to the increasing use of electronic equipment that is very much responsible for the burden of electronic waste (e-waste). E-waste contains very hazardous substance that harms health and environmental conditions. There is no delicate mechanism for the management of e-waste in Lucknow city, Uttar Pradesh. This study assessed knowledge, practice, and awareness of e-waste management among residents of this city. Material and methods: The study was conducted amongst users of electronic equipment living in the Lucknow City of Uttar Pradesh. The study was a Cross-sectional descriptive study. Multi-stage random sampling was done for the selection of participants for the study. A predesigned and pretested questionnaire was administered in a single setting for all phases. The total optimum sample size is 700 individuals who participated in the study. Data were entered in MS Excel 2016 and descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages were calculated, applying the chi-square test for association using R-4.2.1 Statistical software. Aim and objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding the management of electronic waste among users of electronic equipment residing in Lucknow city. Results: Only 37% of users are aware that e-waste adversely affects health. Only 34.3% of users knew that e-waste should be given to the seller or manufacturer for recycling while rest told that it should be stored at home, sold to a scrap dealer, or disposed with normal waste. 87.3% users are not aware about e-waste govt guidelines. In the current study electronic and print media like television, radio and news paper were not found to be source of information for e-waste disposal. Conclusion: Education regarding the ill effects of e-waste is essential for people and awareness of proper disposal of e-waste is the need of the hour. Electronic and print media as well as companies producing electronic equipment should play a significant role to awaken the respondent about the disposal of e-waste

CD4⁺CD25⁻ T Cells Transduced to Express MHC Class I-Restricted Epitope-Specific TCR Synthesize Th1 Cytokines and Exhibit MHC Class I-Restricted Cytolytic Effector Function in a Human Melanoma Model

Cytolytic T cell-centric active specific and adoptive immunotherapeutic approaches might benefit from the simultaneous engagement of CD4⁺ T cells. Considering the difficulties in simultaneously engagingCD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells in tumor immunotherapy, especially in an Ag-specific manner, redirecting CD4⁺ T cells to MHC class I-restricted epitopes through engineered expression of MHC class I-restricted epitope-specific TCRs in CD4⁺ T cells has emerged as a strategic consideration. Such TCR-engineered CD4⁺ T cells have been shown to be capable of synthesizing cytokines as well as lysing target cells. We have conducted a critical examination of functional characteristics of CD4⁺ T cells engineered to express the α- and β-chains of a high functional avidity TCR specific for the melanoma epitope, MART-1, as a prototypic human tumor Ag system. We found that unpolarized CD4⁺CD25⁻ T cells engineered to express the MART-1 TCR selectively synthesize Th1 cytokines and exhibit a potent Ag-specific lytic granule exocytosis-mediated cytolytic effector function of comparable efficacy to that of CD8⁺ CTL. Such TCR engineered CD4⁺ T cells, therefore, might be useful in clinical immunotherapy

Investigation of Gallium Nitirde High Electron Mobility Transistors

Gallium Nitride (GaN) based transistors have been in the spotlight for power electronics due to promising properties like high bandgap, high breakdown field, high electron mobility, and high-frequency applications. While there are some commercial devices based on these transistors available, there is still room for improvement in these devices for widespread usage. In this project, GaN-based transistors fabricated at RISE AB were investigated. These devices had previously shown high leakage current. Different approaches taken to reduce the said leakage current were analysed. The main scope of the thesis was static electrical testing of a new batch of these transistors at room temperature, mainly investigating their leakage current. The new transistors were subjected to surface treatments and also a new in-situ dielectric layer was used. The surface treatments did not show much improvement but the in-situ grown dielectric showed almost half of the initial leakage current. In addition to this different device architectures with varying gate length, gate width, and gate to drain distance were tested and compared. It was found that devices with 3 μm gate length and 12 μm gate to drain distance showed the best performance. The blocking characteristic of the transistors was also tested and the devices could withstand up to 350V. Suggestions to further identify the sources of the leakage current are presented. Possible improvement in the design of the transistors to increase the blocking voltage is also described. Transistorer baserade på galliumnitrid (GaN) har varit i strålkastaren för kraftelektronik på grund av lovande egenskaper som högt bandgap, högt nedbrytningsfält, hög elektronmobilitet. Dessa egenskaper gör materialet synnerligen lämpligt för komponentapplikationer vid höga effekter och, framför allt, höga frekvenser. Även om det finns några kommersiella applikationer baserade på dessa transistorer finns det fortfarande stort utrymme för förbättringar. I detta projekt undersöktes GaN-baserade transistorer tillverkade vid RISE AB. Dessa komponenter hade tidigare visat hög läckström och olika tillvägagångssätt för att minska nämnda läckström har analyserats. Transistorerna i detta projekt var ytbehandlade på ett nytt sätt och dielektirkat i styrelektroden var ocskå tillverkat på ett nytt sätt. Ytbehandlingarna visade inte mycket förbättring men det dielektrikat visade nästan hälften av den initiala läckströmmen. Utöver detta testades och jämfördes olika layouter med varierande geometri, gate-längd, gate-bredd och avstånd mellan gate/source. Det visade sig att komponenter med 3 μm gate-längd och 12 μm mellan gate och drain visade bästa prestanda. Transistorernas blockeringskaraktäristik testades också och visade sig tåla upp till 350V. Förslag för att ytterligare identifiera källorna till läckströmmen presenteras. Eventuell förbättring av utformningen av transistorerna för att öka blockeringsspänningen beskrivs också

Generalised Lindley shared additive frailty regression model for bivariate survival data

Frailty models are the possible choice to counter the problem of the unobserved heterogeneity in individual risks of disease and death. Based on earlier studies, shared frailty models can be utilised in the analysis of bivariate data related to survival times (e.g. matched pairs experiments, twin or family data). In this article, we assume that frailty acts additively to the hazard rate. A new class of shared frailty models based on generalised Lindley distribution is established. By assuming generalised Weibull and generalised log-logistic baseline distributions, we propose a new class of shared frailty models based on the additive hazard rate. We estimate the parameters in these frailty models and use the Bayesian paradigm of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique. Model selection criteria have been applied for the comparison of models. We analyse kidney infection data and suggest the best model

On a Bivariate XGamma Distribution Derived from Copula

In this paper, a new bivariate XGamma (BXG) distribution is presented using Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern (FGM) copula. We derive the expressions for conditional distribution, regression function and product moments for the BXG distribution. Concept of reliability and various measures of local dependence are also studied for the proposed model. Furthermore, estimation of the parameters of the BXG distribution is obtained through maximum likelihood estimation and inference function of margin estimation procedures. Finally, an application of the same is also demonstrated to a real data set