NextGen Big DWH: Big Data Oriented Data Warehouse Architecture for Improved Business Intelligence

Data Warehousing is highly essential for achieving Business Intelligence in an Enterprise. A traditional Data Warehouse is built in par with the Inmon’s Architecture which follows Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) strategy for data pre-processing and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) for Analysis. With several recent trends like the Online Social Networks (OSNs), e-commerce and increasingnumber of internet users, the amount of data has risen exponentially. The Data is highly dynamic where existing Data Warehouse Architectures are unable to keep in par with large amount of data for processing. Though the ETL strategy performs fairly well, it consumes a lot of time for realtime data processing. To enhance the processing capability of large volumes of Data, several Big Data Technologies and frameworks are introduced. In this paper, a Big Data Oriented Data Warehouse Architecture is proposed where the Big Data Technologies are accommodated in the Data Warehouse Architecture in a highly logical manner with an essence of chronological arrangement of the Big Data technologies. A detailed Empirical Evaluation of the proposed architecture is conducted based on a survey involving big data expertsin order to validate the proposed Data Warehouse Architectureincorporating Big Data Technologies. Incorporation of Intelligent and Semantic agents is also achieved for customizing and making the Analysis of Enterprise Level data more efficientand in turn paving a way for improved Business Intelligence at the Enterprise Leve

Cent CORE: Centralized Cloud Oriented Requirement Engineering Strategy for Tracking and Elicitation of Dynamic Requirements

Requirement Engineering is one of the most important stages of Software Engineering. Eliciting requirements is highly critical and a complex process as the software end product totally depends on the quality of requirements that were collected. The property of the requirements is dynamic that keeps changing and constantly evolving. The Traditional Strategies for Requirement Engineering lacked organization and change management was entirely manual which consumed a lot of time and skilled labor. A centralized strategy for Elicitation of Dynamic Requirements using the concept of Requirement Cloud is proposed with high level of organization and structuring. A novel idea of using Cloud Storage Service for Requirement Engineering is implemented using a heuristics approach. Change management is incorporated and a few activities like requirements document generation is automated in this approach. Finally a survey between the Traditional Requirement Engineering and Proposed Cloud Methodology is conducted to prove the proposed methodology is better than the traditional strategies of Requirement Engineering

EFFECT OF ALENDRONATE ON THE HEALING TIME OF DISTAL RADIAL FRACTURES TREATED CONSERVATIVELY: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

  Objective: Although fragility fractures of the distal radius are common, osteoporosis treatment requires exploration as attempts to improve postfracture investigations have been only partially successful. Bisphosphonates may help minimize the risk of secondary fractures but being a potent antiresorptive agent; it raises concerns about adverse effects on the healing process. This observational study examines the effect of bisphosphonate (alendronate) on healing of acute fractures of distal radius through 66 patients aged >45 years admitted to two tertiary care hospitals in Mangalore from May 2014 to September 2016.Methods: The methodology consists of purposive sampling from two groups: Control having 33 patients not on alendronate therapy and cases comprising 33 who are on alendronate as part of prophylaxis for osteoporosis before fracture occurrence, with outpatient reviews at 2-week intervals starting from the 6th till fracture union seen. At each visit, plain radiographs of the involved wrist were taken to yield time to cortical bridging, with range of active movement of the affected wrist taken using a goniometer. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software version 17.0 for t values, p values and correlations and results were presented in the form of graphs and tables.Results: No significant differences were observed in the groups (as per p values) w.r.t. gender (0.804), age (0.835), time to healing (1.000), dorsiflexion (0.956), palmar flexion (0.670), ulnar deviation (0.441), radial deviation (1.000), supination (0.132), or pronation (0.302). Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand score did not differ by >95% between the groups over the analysis period.Conclusion: It was observed that alendronate administration in distal radius fractures did not appear to delay fracture healing times radiologically or clinically

Evaluation of safety, clinical outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes after meniscus repair using surestitch all inside meniscal repair implant: a retrospective and observational study

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries and meniscus injuries frequently co-occur, underscoring the interconnected nature of knee joint structures. Meniscus injuries, often caused by sports trauma or degenerative changes, necessitate careful management to preserve joint function and prevent complications like osteoarthritis. This retrospective observational study evaluates the safety, clinical outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes of meniscus repair using Surestitch all inside meniscal repair implant, a contemporary solution designed to optimize meniscal repair. Methods: The study, approved by the institutional ethics committee, included patients aged 18-80 years who underwent meniscus repair with Surestitch between October 2020 and July 2022. Data on demographics, surgical details, and outcomes were collected from medical records and telephonic follow-ups. Results: Among 36 subjects, the mean age was 36.89 years. The mean (SD) duration of follow-up was 364 days (127). There was no meniscus repair failure noted in any of the patients. Functional patient-reported outcomes assessed using international knee documentation committee (IKDC) with a score of (60.15±12.40), and Lysholm scores (77.03±14.45) demonstrated favorable results. The knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS) of (54.63) further indicated positive knee health across domains. There were no adverse events or reoperations. Conclusions: The study demonstrated favorable safety, clinical outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes, yielding satisfactory results, and consequently establishing the safety and effectiveness of the Surestitch All inside meniscal repair implant in meniscus repair

Clinical care recommendations for cardiologists treating adults with myotonic dystrophy

Myotonic dystrophy is an inherited systemic disorder affecting skeletal muscle and the heart. Genetic testing for myotonic dystrophy is diagnostic and identifies those at risk for cardiac complications. The 2 major genetic forms of myotonic dystrophy, type 1 and type 2, differ in genetic etiology yet share clinical features. The cardiac management of myotonic dystrophy should include surveillance for arrhythmias and left ventricular dysfunction, both of which occur in progressive manner and contribute to morbidity and mortality. To promote the development of care guidelines for myotonic dystrophy, the Myotonic Foundation solicited the input of care experts and organized the drafting of these recommendations. As a rare disorder, large scale clinical trial data to guide the management of myotonic dystrophy are largely lacking. The following recommendations represent expert consensus opinion from those with experience in the management of myotonic dystrophy, in part supported by literature-based evidence where available

Clinical care recommendations for cardiologists treating adults with myotonic dystrophy

Myotonic dystrophy is an inherited systemic disorder affecting skeletal muscle and the heart. Genetic testing for myotonic dystrophy is diagnostic and identifies those at risk for cardiac complications. The 2 major genetic forms of myotonic dystrophy, type 1 and type 2, differ in genetic etiology yet share clinical features. The cardiac management of myotonic dystrophy should include surveillance for arrhythmias and left ventricular dysfunction, both of which occur in progressive manner and contribute to morbidity and mortality. To promote the development of care guidelines for myotonic dystrophy, the Myotonic Foundation solicited the input of care experts and organized the drafting of these recommendations. As a rare disorder, large scale clinical trial data to guide the management of myotonic dystrophy are largely lacking. The following recommendations represent expert consensus opinion from those with experience in the management of myotonic dystrophy, in part supported by literature-based evidence where available

Impact of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium multidimensional approach on central line-associated bloodstream infection rates in adult intensive care units in eight cities in India

SummaryObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) multidimensional infection control approach on central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) rates in eight cities of India.MethodsThis was a prospective, before-and-after cohort study of 35650 patients hospitalized in 16 adult intensive care units of 11 hospitals. During the baseline period, outcome surveillance of CLABSI was performed, applying the definitions of the CDC/NHSN (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Healthcare Safety Network). During the intervention, the INICC approach was implemented, which included a bundle of interventions, education, outcome surveillance, process surveillance, feedback on CLABSI rates and consequences, and performance feedback. Random effects Poisson regression was used for clustering of CLABSI rates across time periods.ResultsDuring the baseline period, 9472 central line (CL)-days and 61 CLABSIs were recorded; during the intervention period, 80898 CL-days and 404 CLABSIs were recorded. The baseline rate was 6.4 CLABSIs per 1000 CL-days, which was reduced to 3.9 CLABSIs per 1000 CL-days in the second year and maintained for 36 months of follow-up, accounting for a 53% CLABSI rate reduction (incidence rate ratio 0.47, 95% confidence interval 0.31–0.70; p=0.0001).ConclusionsImplementing the six components of the INICC approach simultaneously was associated with a significant reduction in the CLABSI rate in India, which remained stable during 36 months of follow-up

Open X-Embodiment:Robotic learning datasets and RT-X models

Large, high-capacity models trained on diverse datasets have shown remarkable successes on efficiently tackling downstream applications. In domains from NLP to Computer Vision, this has led to a consolidation of pretrained models, with general pretrained backbones serving as a starting point for many applications. Can such a consolidation happen in robotics? Conventionally, robotic learning methods train a separate model for every application, every robot, and even every environment. Can we instead train "generalist" X-robot policy that can be adapted efficiently to new robots, tasks, and environments? In this paper, we provide datasets in standardized data formats and models to make it possible to explore this possibility in the context of robotic manipulation, alongside experimental results that provide an example of effective X-robot policies. We assemble a dataset from 22 different robots collected through a collaboration between 21 institutions, demonstrating 527 skills (160266 tasks). We show that a high-capacity model trained on this data, which we call RT-X, exhibits positive transfer and improves the capabilities of multiple robots by leveraging experience from other platforms. The project website is robotics-transformer-x.github.io

Potential therapeutic applications of microbial surface-activecompounds

Numerous investigations of microbial surface-active compounds or biosurfactants over the past two decades have led to the discovery of many interesting physicochemical and biological properties including antimicrobial, anti-biofilm and therapeutic among many other pharmaceutical and medical applications. Microbial control and inhibition strategies involving the use of antibiotics are becoming continually challenged due to the emergence of resistant strains mostly embedded within biofilm formations that are difficult to eradicate. Different aspects of antimicrobial and anti-biofilm control are becoming issues of increasing importance in clinical, hygiene, therapeutic and other applications. Biosurfactants research has resulted in increasing interest into their ability to inhibit microbial activity and disperse microbial biofilms in addition to being mostly nontoxic and stable at extremes conditions. Some biosurfactants are now in use in clinical, food and environmental fields, whilst others remain under investigation and development. The dispersal properties of biosurfactants have been shown to rival that of conventional inhibitory agents against bacterial, fungal and yeast biofilms as well as viral membrane structures. This presents them as potential candidates for future uses in new generations of antimicrobial agents or as adjuvants to other antibiotics and use as preservatives for microbial suppression and eradication strategies

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016