Human Rights Advocates Program 30th Anniversary Report

This handbook was created to share the experiences of alumni of the Human Rights Advocates Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University, with aspiring human rights advocates around the globe

IoT-Enabled Classification of Echocardiogram Images for Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction with Pre-Trained Recurrent Convolutional Neural Networks

Cardiovascular diseases currently present a key health concern, contributing to an increase in death rates worldwide. In this phase of increasing mortality rates, healthcare represents a major field of research, and the knowledge acquired from this analysis of health information will assist in the early identification of disease. The retrieval of medical information is becoming increasingly important to make an early diagnosis and provide timely treatment. Medical image segmentation and classification is an emerging field of research in medical image processing. In this research, the data collected from an Internet of Things (IoT)-based device, the health records of patients, and echocardiogram images are considered. The images are pre-processed and segmented, and then further processed using deep learning techniques for classification as well as forecasting the risk of heart disease. Segmentation is attained via fuzzy C-means clustering (FCM) and classification using a pretrained recurrent neural network (PRCNN). Based on the findings, the proposed approach achieves 99.5% accuracy, which is higher than the current state-of-the-art techniques

Green Synthesised Silver Nanoparticles Using <i>Anoectochilus elatus</i> Leaf Extract: Characterisation and Evaluation of Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, Antidiabetic, and Antimicrobial Activities

The present study investigates the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles was carried out using a leaf extract of Anoectochilus elatus (Ae-AgNPs). The synthesised Ae-AgNPs were characterised using different analytical techniques like UV-visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). Additionally, in vitro activities were investigated, and they possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and antimicrobial properties. The UV-Vis spectra exhibited characteristic absorption peaks at approximately 480 nm. FTIR identified functional groups of the Ae-AgNPs. The crystalline structure of the Ae-AgNPs was verified via XRD analysis. SEM studies revealed that the nanoparticles exhibited a spherical morphology. The fabrication of Ae-AgNPs was established by the EDX spectrum, which exhibited prominent signals of silver atoms. The Ae-AgNPs show potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antidiabetic activity compared to standard drugs. In addition, Ae-AgNPs demonstrated the most significant zone of Inhibition. This study affirms the superior biological capability of Ae-AgNPs for target drug delivery and their potential for usage in biomedical research and therapeutics

Implementation of the pulse rhythmic rate for the efficient diagnosing of the heartbeat

The mortality rate has risen due to the increase in number of cardiac patients in recent times due to the lack of unawareness of the symptoms. This work mainly aims to detect the anomalies of the rhythmic conditions of the pulse derived from the electrocardiogram (ECG) pattern based on correlation and the method of mapping. As this device is a programmable one and a real-time application wearable system on the wrist which is physically connected to the veins, it continuously monitors the photoplethysmography (PPG) pattern based on certain parameters and rhythmic conditions, it ensures whether the patient is under the safe condition or not. The salient features of PPG waveform are extracted with respect to various abnormal categories of ECG beats subdivided into various time durations of one, two and three. The PPG pattern using various feature extraction and the correlation transforms with the signal processing application. The extracted features help to find the skipped beat with irregularities of the rhythm will activate the emergency condition protocol in the device. The location of the patient with a critical condition is sent to the nearest health centre. This innovation is a portable one and a user-friendly application which can save many lives in the society

Pooled nucleic acid testing strategy for monitoring HIV-1 treatment in resource limited settings.

BackgroundVirological monitoring (VM) and drug resistance (DR) analysis are crucial for effective HIV management. Due to the high cost of commercial assays, VM and DR analysis is not performed in resource-limited-settings.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to develop a pooling based algorithm for the combined identification of virologic treatment failure (VTF) by nucleic acid testing (NAT) and DR by sequencing - NAT+DR assay.Study designWe enrolled 559 participants on first-line therapy and analyzed for VTF. The virologically suppressed participants were followed-up to see the VTF prevalence (&gt;1000 copies/mL) and DR by the NAT+DR pooling. Each pool comprising 5 plasma samples were amplified by targeting reverse transcriptase gene, if found positive, the pool was deconvoluted and samples were individually tested for HIV RNA and DR. Assay characteristics of NAT+DR assay were calculated in comparison with commercial assay.ResultsOf 559 participants, 67 had VTF at baseline and were excluded. Of the remaining 478 participants, 325 returned for follow-up and NAT+DR assay was performed for them. Of 65 pools tested, 13 pools were positive. On deconvolution 14 individuals were found to have VTF. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value was 100%, relative efficiency was 59% and 87% &amp; 85% cost was saved for identifying VTF and combined identification of VTF and DR, respectively.ConclusionsPooled NAT+DR assay is likely a good strategy to drastically reduce the cost and sustainability of the VM and can thereby facilitate the scale-up of successful HIV treatment programs, and reduce unnecessary switching to second-line drugs in resource-limited-settings

Pooled nucleic acid testing strategy for monitoring HIV-1 treatment in resource limited settings.

BackgroundVirological monitoring (VM) and drug resistance (DR) analysis are crucial for effective HIV management. Due to the high cost of commercial assays, VM and DR analysis is not performed in resource-limited-settings.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to develop a pooling based algorithm for the combined identification of virologic treatment failure (VTF) by nucleic acid testing (NAT) and DR by sequencing - NAT+DR assay.Study designWe enrolled 559 participants on first-line therapy and analyzed for VTF. The virologically suppressed participants were followed-up to see the VTF prevalence (&gt;1000 copies/mL) and DR by the NAT+DR pooling. Each pool comprising 5 plasma samples were amplified by targeting reverse transcriptase gene, if found positive, the pool was deconvoluted and samples were individually tested for HIV RNA and DR. Assay characteristics of NAT+DR assay were calculated in comparison with commercial assay.ResultsOf 559 participants, 67 had VTF at baseline and were excluded. Of the remaining 478 participants, 325 returned for follow-up and NAT+DR assay was performed for them. Of 65 pools tested, 13 pools were positive. On deconvolution 14 individuals were found to have VTF. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value was 100%, relative efficiency was 59% and 87% &amp; 85% cost was saved for identifying VTF and combined identification of VTF and DR, respectively.ConclusionsPooled NAT+DR assay is likely a good strategy to drastically reduce the cost and sustainability of the VM and can thereby facilitate the scale-up of successful HIV treatment programs, and reduce unnecessary switching to second-line drugs in resource-limited-settings

Mitochondrial DNA content of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in ART untreated & stavudine/zidovudine treated HIV-1-infected patients

Background & objectives: Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) are known to cause mitochondrial toxicity. This study was done to estimate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected, NRTI treated and antiretroviral therapy (ART)-naïve patients and evaluate the utility of mtDNA content as a biomarker of mitochondrial toxicity. Methods: mtDNA content in PBMCs of 57 HIV-infected ART untreated and 30 ART treated with stavudine (d4T) or zidovudine (AZT) containing regimen were compared against 24 low-risk healthy controls (LoRHC). Results: There was a significant (P=0.01) reduction in mtDNA content among HIV-infected (104; 80-135) compared to LoRHC (127; 110-167), and it was the same in both the treated (104.8; 88-130) and untreated patients (104.7; 78-142). mtDNA significantly (P=0.014) declined in ART treated patients symptomatic for toxicity (97; 74-111) than the asymptomatic patients (128; 103- 153). Interpretation & conclusions: mtDNA depletion in PBMCs was evident among HIV-infected individuals on ART. Moreover, as mtDNA content was reduced among the patients symptomatic for toxicity than the asymptomatic in both the HIV-infected groups, the current study supports mtDNA content of PBMCs to serve as a biomarker of mitochondrial dysfunction induced by NRTI and HIV. Longitudinal studies with a large sample need to be done to confirm these findings