Non O1, non O139 vibrio cholerae bacteraemia in an infant; case report and literature review

Non 01, Non O139 Vibrio cholerae bacteraemia is a rare but potentially fatal occurrence. There have been very few incidents of this infection from around the world. The treatment regimen of antibiotics also varies in literature. We present a case of bacteraemia caused by Non O1, Non O139 Vibrio cholerae along with associated risk factors, disease manifestations, laboratory diagnosis and treatment regimen. This serves to add additional information regarding symptoms and signs of this infection along with management of patient. Knowledge regarding this topic shall be highly useful to professionals if further cases are detected. In the discussion section, a review of literature of previous cases is also presented

The aftermath of a crypto-ransomware attack at a large academic institution

In 2016, a large North American university was subject to a significant crypto-ransomware attack and did not pay the ransom. We conducted a survey with 150 respondents and interviews with 30 affected students, staff, and faculty in the immediate aftermath to understand their experiences during the attack and the recovery process. We provide analysis of the technological, productivity, and personal and social impact of ransomware attacks, including previously unaccounted secondary costs. We suggest strategies for comprehensive cyber-response plans that include human factors, and highlight the importance of communication. We conclude with a Ransomware Process for Organizations diagram summarizing the additional contributing factors beyond those relevant to individual infections.Ontario Trillium || Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Counci

Engaging children about online privacy through storytelling in an interactive comic

Children’s privacy is put at risk through online sharing of location-based information. We study the effectiveness of an educational interactive comic on improving 11- to 13-year-old children’s privacy knowledge and behaviour immediately and one week after reading. Children’s privacy knowledge increased after reading either the comic or the text-only control, but the comic promoted superior knowledge retention a week later and was more successful at influencing children’s reported privacy behaviour than the control. Our 22 child-parent pairs found the comic facilitated learning for children, engaging, and easy to use. We discuss the implication on children’s short and long-term knowledge retention and behaviour, and the educational potential of comics at addressing the challenges of privacy and security education for children

Dynamic soft tissue mobilization versus proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation in reducing hamstring muscle tightness in patients with knee osteoarthritis: a randomized control trial

Abstract Background Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) considered as one of the most common degenerative diseases of synovial joint. KOA is mostly managed by physical therapy, focused on pain management, the range of motion and muscle strengthening but muscle flexibility is usually neglected. A study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of dynamic soft tissue mobilization (DSTM) in comparison with the proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching in the management of hamstring tightness, reduction of pain intensity and improvement of physical functionality in KOA. Methods Forty eight patients with KOA were randomly allocated to group A receiving DTSM and group B receiving PNF stretching. The cryotherapy and isometric strengthening exercises were also given to both groups. Total treatment duration consisted of 4 weeks, 3 sessions per week and total 12 sessions per patient. Each treatment session comprised of 30 min. At baseline and post treatment, Active knee extension test(AKET), Visual analogue scale (VAS), and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) were used to assess hamstring flexibility, pain intensity level and physical functional capability respectively. The continuous variables were shown as mean and standard deviations. For the comparison of outcome within and between groups, paired sample and independent t-test was applied. Considerable p value was less than 0.05. Results The between group analysis of VAS, right AKE test, and left AKE test showed non-significant (p > 0.05) mean difference as 0.2 (95% CI= -0.29, 0.70), 1.79 (95% CI= -1.84, 4.59), 1.78 (95% CI= -1.6, 5.19) respectively. KOOS domains of symptom, pain, ADLs, sports and recreational, and quality of life had also non-significant (p > 0.05) mean difference as 1.12 (95% CI= -4.05, 6.3), -5.12 (95% CI= -12.71, 2.46), -2.55 (95% CI= -7.47, 2.38), -2.7 (95% CI= -9.72, 4.3), and − 0.68 (95% CI= -7.69, 6.36) respectively. Significant (p < 0.001) improvement was shown in both groups for all outcome measures after 12 sessions. Conclusion DSTM and PNF stretching, both treatments are equally beneficial in KOA for hamstring flexibility, pain reduction and functional mobility in terms of AKET, VAS, and KOOS respectively. Trial Registration ClincalTrials.Gov with ID: NCT04925895, 14/06/2021, retrospectively registered

Prevalence of work related neck and shoulder pain among office receptionist of Karachi

Objective: To determine the prevalence of work related neck and shoulder pain among office receptionist of Karachi.Methods: It was a cross sectional study. Office receptionists from different private organizations of Karachi were selected by convenient sampling. After approval from Institutional Ethical Review Committee of Isra University, data was collected from January 2018 to June 2018. We selected office receptionist from both gender between 22 to 41 years of age. Those participants who had work experience of about one year using computer for at least two hours. A self-administered questionnaire was used to determine the work related neck and shoulder pain. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 21. Results: The highest prevalence of work related neck and shoulder pain was found and their frequency was 72 and 62. 61% participants responded that pain starts when they perform their work. 47% participants responded that they keep their neck in bending position and shoulders elevated while using computer. Conclusions: The prevalence of work related neck pain and shoulder pain among office receptionist was 72%. Symptoms increases with the increase contact time with the computer. So the complaints of work related neck and shoulder pain among receptionist of Karachi are much higher when they perform their work. Therefore, it is recommended that as postural training and ergonomically designed furniture can decrease complaints of pain and occurrence of injuries, increase productivity, improve morale, and decrease work-related musculoskeletal disorders

ACTION-EHR ::patient-centric blockchain-based electronic health record data management for cancer care

Background: With increased specialization of health care services and high levels of patient mobility, accessing health care services across multiple hospitals or clinics has become very common for diagnosis and treatment, particularly for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer. With informed knowledge of a patient’s history, physicians can make prompt clinical decisions for smarter, safer, and more efficient care. However, due to the privacy and high sensitivity of electronic health records (EHR), most EHR data sharing still happens through fax or mail due to the lack of systematic infrastructure support for secure, trustable health data sharing, which can also cause major delays in patient care. Objective: Our goal was to develop a system that will facilitate secure, trustable management, sharing, and aggregation of EHR data. Our patient-centric system allows patients to manage their own health records across multiple hospitals. The system will ensure patient privacy protection and guarantee security with respect to the requirements for health care data management, including the access control policy specified by the patient. Methods: We propose a permissioned blockchain-based system for EHR data sharing and integration. Each hospital will provide a blockchain node integrated with its own EHR system to form the blockchain network. A web-based interface will be used for patients and doctors to initiate EHR sharing transactions. We take a hybrid data management approach, where only management metadata will be stored on the chain. Actual EHR data, on the other hand, will be encrypted and stored off-chain in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–compliant cloud-based storage. The system uses public key infrastructure–based asymmetric encryption and digital signatures to secure shared EHR data. Results: In collaboration with Stony Brook University Hospital, we developed ACTION-EHR, a system for patient-centric, blockchain-based EHR data sharing and management for patient care, in particular radiation treatment for cancer. The prototype was built on Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source, permissioned blockchain framework. Data sharing transactions were implemented using chaincode and exposed as representational state transfer application programming interfaces used for the web portal for patients and users. The HL7 Fast healthcare Interoperability Resources standard was adopted to represent shared EHR data, making it easy to interface with hospital EHR systems and integrate a patient’s EHR data. We tested the system in a distributed environment at Stony Brook University using deidentified patient data. Conclusions: We studied and developed the critical technology components to enable patient-centric, blockchain-based EHR sharing to support cancer care. The prototype demonstrated the feasibility of our approach as well as some of the major challenges. The next step will be a pilot study with health care providers in both the United States and Switzerland. Our work provides an exemplar testbed to build next-generation EHR sharing infrastructures