An Investigation of Nutrition Risk among Hospitalised Older Adults Admitted to the Assessment, Treatment and Rehabilitation Wards of Waitemata District Health Board Hospitals : A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics Massey University, Albany New Zealand

Background: The proportion of older adults in New Zealand is increasing. Studies shows compromised nutrition status is prevalent in older adults, and can exacerbate poor health. It is therefore important to identify those who are malnourished, or those who are at nutrition risk for early nutrition intervention. Nutrition screening tools allow for the identification of nutrition risk status and initiation of nutritional care to result in improved health outcomes. Current data on the prevalence of nutrition risk in hospitalised older adults in New Zealand is limited. Design: Cross-sectional, observational study as part of a multicentre prospective study. Aim: To investigate the prevalence of nutrition risk among older adults (65-84 years) in the Assessment, Treatment and Rehabilitation (AT&R) wards of North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals. Potential nutrition risk factors including dysphagia risk, muscle mass and hand grip strength will also be investigated, as well as other relevant physiological and socio-demographic risk factors. Methods: Participants were recruited within five days of admission to the AT&R wards. Face-to-face interviews and assessments were conducted on the wards. A questionnaire incorporating participant characteristics, health and support data and validated screening and assessment tools were used. Nutrition risk status was assessed by the Mini Nutrition Assessment-Short Form, dysphagia risk status was assessed by the Eating Assessment Tool, cognitive status was assessed by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and muscle mass was assessed by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Hand grip strength was measured using a hydraulic dynamometer. Results: A total of 89 participants took part in the study. Nutrition risk and malnutrition was evident in 43.8 and 27.0 percent of the study participants respectively. Indicated by the Mini-Nutrition Assessment-Short Form, participants with poor nutritional status were more likely to report reduced food intake, unintentional weight loss, requiring aid with activities of daily living, having previous dietetic input and being at risk of dysphagia compared to participants with ‘normal’ nutritional status. Conclusion: A high percentage of hospitalised older adults recently admitted to the AT&R wards had compromised nutritional status. Routine screening is highly advised to identify nutritional risk and instigate nutritional care

CLIMATE CHANGE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO RISK FACING SMALL ISLAND STATES

Climate change is the burning issue of the current era. Because of the advancement in the technology and accelerated use of fuels have lead to the increasing concentration of the Greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases affect the climate system very badly. The Climate of the Earth varies naturally because of a variety of cosmological and geological processes but Climate change refers to an additional and relatively rapid change induced by human actions. The average temperature of the Earth is increasing very rapidly over the past 30 years and because of that the snow is melting on the glaciers and the sea water level is increasing gradually rapidly and as a result of that many temperature sensitive systems / processes have been disturbed and changed over the past two decades. The additional change of several degree centigrade (oC) with in a century will disrupt the foundations of life on Earth

Occurrence of the metabolic syndrome in newly diagnosed hypertensive adult Gujarati patients in G. K. General Hospital, Bhuj

Background: A study of 30 newly diagnosed hypertensive Gujarati patients visiting the OPD of G. K. General Hospital, Bhuj, Gujarat, India was carried out. The main aim of the study was to estimate the occurrence of metabolic syndrome in newly diagnosed hypertensive patientsMethods: The study was carried out in a period of 2 months and data was collected after obtaining prior consent of patients and IEC approval. Blood pressure, waist circumference and BMI (body mass index) of the selected patients were measured while blood sample was collected for the laboratory investigations. The data collected was analysed using appropriate softwareResults: On observation, out of 30 hypertensive patients 22 (73.33%) patients suffered from metabolic syndrome. Also in patients suffering from metabolic syndrome, along with hypertension 63.63% (n=14) patients suffered from hypertriglyceridemia, 68.18% (n=15) patients had low HDL cholesterol, 77.27% (n=17) patients had high FBS, 72.72% (n=16) patients had abnormal BMI and 63.63% (n=14) patients had abnormal waist circumference.Conclusions: This very high occurrence values signifies the need of study with larger sample size based on region for further evaluation to treat the high risk patients on early diagnosis

Tissue plasminogen activator dose and pulmonary artery pressure reduction in catheter directed thrombolysis of submassive pulmonary embolism.

PURPOSE:The purpose of this study is to assess the incremental effect of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) dose on pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and bleeding during catheter directed thrombolysis (CDT) of submassive pulmonary embolism (PE). MATERIALS AND METHODS:Records of 46 consecutive patients (25 men, 21 women, mean age 55±14 y) who underwent CDT for submassive PE between September 2009 and February 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. Mean t-PA rate was 0.7±0.3 mg/h. PAP was measured at baseline and daily until CDT termination. Mixed-effects regression modeling was performed of repeated PAP measures in individual patients. Bleeding events were classified by Global Utilization of Streptokinase and Tissue Plasminogen Activator for Occluded Coronary Arteries (GUSTO) and t-PA dose at onset. RESULTS:Mean t-PA dose was 43.0±30.0 mg over 61.9± 28.8 h. Mean systolic PAP decreased from 51.7±15.5 mmHg at baseline to 35.6±12.7 mmHg at CDT termination (p<0.001). Mixed-effects regression revealed a linear decrease in systolic PAP over time (β = -0.37 (SE = 0.05), p<0.001) with reduction in mean systolic PAP to 44.8±1.9 mmHg at 12 mg t-PA/20 h, 39.5±2.0 mmHg at 24 mg t-PA/40 h, and 34.9±2.1 mmHg at 36 mg/60 h. No severe, one moderate, and 8 mild bleeding events occurred; bleeding onset was more frequent at ≤24 mg t-PA (p <0.001). One patient expired from cardiopulmonary arrest after 16 h of CDT (15.4 mg t-PA); no additional intra-procedural fatalities occurred. CONCLUSION:Increased total t-PA dose and CDT duration were associated with greater PAP reduction without increased bleeding events

The Importance of Data Visualization in Exploratory Data Analysis

Data analysis or data science is the most talked about and buzz world in recent time it is also the most research area. Exploratory data analysis also popularly known as EDA is a statistical method or process which helps you to get a better understanding of the data or dataset which you are working on. Exploratory data analysis is considered an essential process in any data science project life cycle. The better you understand your data the better report you will provide or you will able to build more robust and better models. The EDA is consisting of several steps or is a process of several steps that you need to perform on your dataset. The data visualization technics help you a better representation of your data. There n-numbers of way to visualize your data. In this work, we are going to see the importance of data visualization in exploratory data analysis and the graphs you look for in any EDA. There are many paperwork and books available on exploratory data analysis and the steps involved in it. But here we will only try to focus on the different types of visualization techniques involved in the EDA. All the examples we going to see here are built by using python. There many tools available in the market to perform exploratory data analysis but in python where you write your own code to perform anything and python is widely used in the data science field. We will segregate each and every stage of EDA and see the important role plays by data visualization in order to understand the data you are working on

A Smart Real Time Ridesharing Android Application

Due to the rising population growth and rapid increase in urbanization, there are lot of problems faced in travelling especially in india. People are migrating from rural areas to urban areas in search of job and better lifestyle. This results in increasing population and thus resulting in insufficient transportation facilities. That is why people probably prefer to travel through private vehicles. This leads to problems such as increasing number of private vehicles, traffic congestion,increasing consumption o ffuels, heavy cost on resources, parking problems and many more. In order to overcome this situation very much different but realistic solution is “Ridesharing” which facilitates users especially employees, classmates, to share their vehicles with unacquainted person who is travelling to the same destination or nearby destination. Ridesharing reduces each person’s travels costs such as tolls cost, fuel expenses and distress the driver environment while driving. Carpooling or Ridesharing is one method that helps to resolve problems that continue to plague urban areas. This paper describes the architecture for a collaborative Ridesharing android System which is gaining popularity worldwide especially in india

Knowledge, Perception and Practice of Telemedicine among Undergraduate Medical Students at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Telemedicine is crucial in supporting the healthcare sector in developing countries as it can assist in various scenarios, such as low physician-to-population ratios, lack of access to specialty physicians, and patient and physician needs in remote areas. The study aimed to assess the knowledge, perception, and practice of telemedicine among undergraduate medical students, recognizing the importance of equipping future healthcare professionals with the necessary skills and understanding of this technology. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 307 undergraduate medical students at a tertiary care teaching hospital. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic information, computer literacy, knowledge, perception, and practice of telemedicine. Data entry and analysis were done using Microsoft Office Excel 2010. The mean, percentage, and standard deviation were calculated to describe the characteristics of respondents. This study found that 75.8% of participants were aware of telemedicine; however, only 18.8% recognized its use for prescribing drugs. Additionally, 59.9% had a low level of perception towards telemedicine. Although 45% agreed to incorporate telemedicine into medical education, 61% preferred traditional hospital visits due to concerns about information, expertise, and technical challenges. The study emphasizes the imperative for telemedicine training to address the existing knowledge gap. It underscores the critical importance of integrating telemedicine education into medical curricula at an early stage

A Hybrid Efficient PV-Battery Powered LED Lighting Scheme

As we all know now a day�s developing countries across Asia and Africa are hit with the serious energy crisis. So To fulfill the power demand people started looking towards renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind energy. In this paper fully controlled, flexible and self-adjusting LED lighting PV-Battery powered scheme using a pulse-width modulation (PWM) switching and controlled by a dual-loop error driven, time de-scaled, WM proportional-integral-derivative (WM-PID) control scheme for the PV-battery interfaced to the LED load. It decreases the amplitude of transient voltage and minimize inrush current for balancing common DC bus to the LED load. The new adjustable controller uses a directed dual-loop error-driven, error-time descaled controller for the PWM switching along with MOSFET/IGBT switches. The dual-action regulator uses error driven weighted modified (WM-PID) proportional-integral-derivative controller with quick response auxiliary derivative loops to achieve efficient control action

EVALUATION OF ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF FENUGREEK (TRIGONELLA FOENUM-GRAECUM) EXTRACTS

Objective: The present investigation was performed to evaluate the antimicrobial potential of Trigonella foenum-graecum leaves extracts and to elucidate the presence of phytochemicals responsible for its biological activity.Methods: The plant extracts were prepared by sequential cold maceration method by using four solvents viz., hexane, ethyl acetate, methanol and distilled water. Antimicrobial activity of extracts was carried out by agar well diffusion method against four bacteria and five fungi. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of different extracts was determined using the broth dilution method. Thin layer chromatography (TLC), TLC bioautography and phytochemicals analysis were also performed.Results: The antibacterial activity of T. foenum-graecum leaves extracts was found maximum on Serratia marcescens with a zone of inhibition (ZOI) of 12.33±0.57 mm by aqueous extract followed by inhibition of Bacillus cereus (ZOI = 11.50±0.50 mm) by the methanol extract. The range of MIC of different extracts recorded was 6.25 to 25 mg/ml. Results of the antifungal activity showed that methanol extract showed a maximum zone of inhibition against Trichoderma viridae (ZOI = 14.5±0.5 mm) followed by ethyl acetate extract (ZOI = 12.0±1.0 mm). The MIC value for methanol extract against T. viridae was 6.25 mg/ml. The result of TLC bioautography revealed that compounds eluted at Rf 0.58 and Rf 0.67 exhibited strong while compounds eluted at Rf 0.31 and Rf 0.37 showed moderate antibacterial activity against S. marcescens. Phytochemicals analysis indicated that methanol and aqueous extracts contain more phytochemicals as compared to hexane and ethyl acetate extracts.Conclusion: The results obtained in this study clearly indicate that T. foenum-graecum leaves extracts to have a significant potential to be used as an antimicrobial agent due to the presence of different phytochemicals.Keywords: Antimicrobial activity, Phytochemicals analysis, TLC bioautography, Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), Trigonella foenum-graecumÂ

A Case Study of the Anomalous Extensor Digitorum Brevis Manus

During routine forearm dissection of 12 cadavers, which originated from the PCOM Georgia Body Donor Program, at PCOM South Georgia, an aberrant muscle was discovered on the dorsal surface of the hand of a 72-year-old Caucasian male. The muscle, known as the Extensor Digitorum Brevis Manus (EDBM), was located bilaterally and deep to the tendons of the Extensor Digitorum. On assessment, the left hand of the donor had two EDBM tendons that intersected and attached to the proximal phalanx of the third digit. The right-hand tendons ran parallel and inserted onto the third digit of the proximal phalanx. An investigation of the cadaveric origin and insertion sites as well as the anatomical structure is presented. In addition, this case study analyzes the anomalous EDBM muscle along with its clinical significance and prevalence