Lockdown and Insomnia among Undergraduate Healthcare Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Insomnia is a risk factor for various physical and mental disorders as well can affect the academic performance of a student(s). AIM: To assess the prevalence of insomnia among university going students (medical, dental and nursing streams) in the South Asian continent during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemicMATERIALS AND METHOD: The present study was conducted amongst 743 medical, dental and nursing undergraduate students residing in South Asia using convenience sampling. Data was collected using a pre-tested and pre-validated questionnaire [the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS)] using google forms and had a total of 8 questions (score range 0-3) . Final scores (the individual AIS score) were obtained by adding the scores for each question (range 0 -24). The higher the score was, the worse was the sleep quality; students with score of ≥ 6 were considered insomniac. Data Analysis was done using SPSS version 21.012 by using the independent samples t-test, and multiple logistic regression.RESULTS: A total of 921 entries were recorded, out of which 743 were complete and hence, were included in the study (response rate: 80.7%). Insomnia was reported in 421 (56.7%) students, out of which, the highest was seen among dental (62.7%), followed by medical (59.8%) and nursing (45.3%) undergraduates. The highest range of AIS was observed among females (6-22) and dental students (6-21). Gender differences revealed a significant association among females in both range obtained (t-test) (p=0.03) as well as the multiple linear regression analyzing insomnia in relation to gender (p=0.03).CONCLUSION: There is a need to regularly assess insomnia among students and to take preventive measures incase of high prevalence is found among them, especially while pursuing academics online and from their homes due to the pandemic

Thermoelastic Properties of Superoxide

We have applied an Extended Three Body Force Shell Model (ETSM) by incorporating the effect of translational- rotational coupling for the investigation of thermoelastic properties such as cohesive energy(??, molecular force constant(f), compressibility(b), Restrahlen frequency (??), Debye temperature (qD), Gruneisen parameter (g), second Gruneisen parameter (q), Moelwyn Hughes constants (F1), and ratio of volume expansion coefficient (av) to volume specific heat (cv ) of superoxide materials NaO2 and KO2 at 300K. Besides this we have calculated static shear modulii (c44). The shear modulii computed between the temperatures ranges 50K to 500K. Here, we could compare our result with experimental data for thermal properties only at room temperature and the magnitudes of SOECs seem to be correct, also the ETSM method produces the sign of SOECs correctly. Keywords: Orientationally Disordered Materials, Shear modulii, ETSM, TR coupling, Elastic constants] PACS: 62.60.bc,; 65.50-

A Study of Climate Variability and Socioeconomic Impact on Tourism Industry of Nepal

In Nepal, tourism is the second largest industry after agriculture. Furthermore, Nepal offers numerous opportunities for adventurous outdoor recreation, especially in the Himalayas, and attracts touristsfrom all over the World. However, future prosperity of Nepal’s tourism industry might be affected by a changing climate and a socioeconomic environment. A log-level regression model is employed to estimate the impact of climatic and socioeconomic factors on the number of international tourists visiting Nepal. Climatic estimates indicated that an increase in temperature did not have a significant impact on the numbers of international tourist arrival. Results show that the number of international tourists visiting Nepal was positively associated with GDP and population growth, inflation rate, and an exchange rate. These results help policy makers for facilitating growth of tourism industry and its adaptability to climate change in Nepal

Demand and Supply of Forest Products in Bandevi Buffer Zone Community Forest, Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Buffer Zone Community Forestry (BZCF) in the Chitwan National Park (CNP) started with an objective to engage locals and fulfill their resource needs without jeopardizing conservation. This study estimates the forest product demand and supply of fuelwood, fodder, and timber in Bandevi BZCF user group. Data was collected using stratified random sampling and forest inventory using the quadrate method. Results indicated Bandevi BZCF conditions improved since its handover to the community. However, the study estimated a deficit of 26173 cubic meters per year of timber, 3.21 million tonnes per year (Mt/yr) of fodder, and 0.12 Mt/yr of fuelwood. Deficits were fulfilled from agricultural lands outside BZCF and illegal collection from the Bharandavar corridor forest and CNP. BZCF program is a success in improving forest conditions and needs continuation. Policy and programs must focus primarily on livelihood improvement and income generations to reduce the dependency of local people on the forest

Impact of COVID 19 on Rhinology Practice: The Way Forward

Introduction COVID-19 has been labelled as pandemic that has spread across many countries in 2020. Otorhinolaryngologists are considered high risk for contracting disease, as the virus resides in the nasal cavity,nasopharynx, and oropharynx. There is an urgent need of safety measures regarding rhinologic practice that need to be clarified both for the current epidemic as well as for future expected “waves”. In this study significant decline was seen in patients viewed physically during pandemic. Nasal endoscopy also became rarer with maximum rhinologists preferring RTPCR before any procedure. Imaging was substituted for endoscopy frequently to adhere to safety protocols relating to OPD rhinologic procedures. We need to discuss these aspects of rhinology as well as practical concerns relating to telemedicine, as these issues take on increasing importance for Rhinologists both in the present and the future. Material and Methods A 27 question survey was designed to assess the present scenario of rhinology practise. The survey was electronically transmitted to rhinologists from 1st November 2020 and their responses were recorded. Result A total of 117 rhinologists responded to the survey. There was significant drop in the number of patients seen by each specialist in the Covid era. There was significant reduction in the number of diagnostic nasal endoscopies performed in clinic daily by the specialists. This study provides an overview of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Rhinologic practice. Conclusion Rhinologists need to develop standardized guidelines for their practise. These include protocols pertinent to safety, the substitution of imaging for endoscopy when appropriate, RTPCR test prior to rhinologic procedures, donning of proper PPE and liberal use of telemedicine

SERUM HOMOCYSTEINE AS A RISK FACTOR FOR STROKE: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY FROM A RURAL TERTIARY CARE CENTRE

Objective: Stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and long-term disability in both developed and developing countries. Serum homocysteine level is one of the emerging modifiable risk factors for atherosclerosis which may result into a cerebrovascular accident. This study was designed to study the association of Serum Homocysteine level with the development of acute stroke at a rural tertiary care centre in North India.Methods: The present study was a prospective cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Medicine, Maharishi Markandeshwar Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Mullana, Ambala. The study population included 100 patients presenting with Stroke (either ischemic or hemorrhagic) in the indoor and outdoor facilities in the Department of Medicine. 50 age and sex-matched healthy individuals were taken as controls. Serum total Homocysteine level was measured in all the cases and controls.Results: Majority of the patients suffered from ischemic stroke (78%), while only 22% patients had hemorrhagic stroke. The mean Serum Homocysteine level in stroke patients (19.88±8.78 μmol/l) was significantly higher than in controls (10.48±4.39 μmol/l) (p<0.01). In a subgroup analysis, stroke patients with a positive history of smoking had significantly higher homocysteine level as compared to non-smokers (p<0.05).Conclusion: Increased level of Serum Homocysteine is significantly associated with risk of cerebrovascular accident, which is independent of the risk attributed to traditional risk factors.Â

EzPC: Programmable, Efficient, and Scalable Secure Two-Party Computation for Machine Learning

We present EZPC: a secure two-party computation (2PC) framework that generates efficient 2PC protocols from high-level, easy-to-write, programs. EZPC provides formal correctness and security guarantees while maintaining performance and scalability. Previous language frameworks, such as CBMC-GC, ObliVM, SMCL, and Wysteria, generate protocols that use either arithmetic or boolean circuits exclusively. Our compiler is the first to generate protocols that combine both arithmetic sharing and garbled circuits for better performance. We empirically demonstrate that the protocols generated by our framework match or outperform (up to 19x) recent works that provide hand-crafted protocols for various functionalities such as secure prediction and matrix factorization

Ranking LLM-Generated Loop Invariants for Program Verification

Synthesizing inductive loop invariants is fundamental to automating program verification. In this work, we observe that Large Language Models (such as gpt-3.5 or gpt-4) are capable of synthesizing loop invariants for a class of programs in a 0-shot setting, yet require several samples to generate the correct invariants. This can lead to a large number of calls to a program verifier to establish an invariant. To address this issue, we propose a {\it re-ranking} approach for the generated results of LLMs. We have designed a ranker that can distinguish between correct inductive invariants and incorrect attempts based on the problem definition. The ranker is optimized as a contrastive ranker. Experimental results demonstrate that this re-ranking mechanism significantly improves the ranking of correct invariants among the generated candidates, leading to a notable reduction in the number of calls to a verifier.Comment: Findings of The 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP-findings 2023