Knowledge Attitude and Practice on Sexual Health Education among Teachers of Intellectually Challenged Children in Villupuram District

Sexual health education has always been a controversial topic. Parents of intellectually challenged children experience fear about other people that they might take advantage of their child, thus special educators have greater role in assisting children with intellectual disability in their growth and development, and sexuality is part of that growth. Special educators need to start early to educate the intellectually challenged children about sexuality-related issues and continue the conversation well into their teen years. Sexual health education helps children with an intellectual disability recognize if someone is trying to take advantage of them so they can recognize inappropriate sexual advances early on, better protect themselves from exploitation and be able to report incidents of suspected sexual abuse. Hence, all the special educators should be aware about sexual health education. Against this background, the present study is aimed at measuring the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Sexual Health Education among teachers of intellectually challenged children in Villupuram District. Having adopted descriptive research design, a total of 32 special educators were selected from 93 special educators using Simple Random Sampling Method (Lottery Method) for the study. A tool on KAP on Sexual Health Education prepared by Venkat Lakshmi and Navyas was applied by the authors to measure the KAP on Sexual Health Education. Salient findings and Suggestions pertaining to the study will be discussed in the full paper. Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Sexual Health Education, Teachers of Intellectually Challenged Children, Role of Teachers

Identification of suitable soils for cultivation of pomegranate (Punica granatum) cv Ganesh

An experiment was conducted during 2008-13 to study the performance of pomegranate (Punica granatum L) cv. Ganesh with respect to changes in soil properties, plant growth, fruit yield and disease incidence on the plants grown under different soil types. After five years of experimentation, soil pH and organic carbon was increased while calcium carbonate content decrease in most of the soils. Plants grown on heavy textured soil have better macro-nutrient uptake, leaf chlorophyll content and vigorous plant growth compared to light textured soil. Fruit yield was highest in the plants grown on clayey soils having 30 cm depth. Plant growth and fruit yield were drastically reduced with the increase in depth of clayey soil (90 and 120 cm). Better quality fruits were produced on the plants grown in gravelly, sandy loam texture soil having depth of 60 cm and even in the plants grown on weathered rock only. Incidence and severity of bacterial blight and wilt disease was higher in the plants grown on clay textured soils compared to light textured soils

Chromosome-specific potential intron polymorphism markers for large-scale genotyping applications in pomegranate

Despite the availability of whole genome assemblies, the identification and utilization of gene-based marker systems has been limited in pomegranate. In the present study, we performed a genome-wide survey of intron length (IL) markers in the 36,524 annotated genes of the Tunisia genome. We identified and designed a total of 8,812 potential intron polymorphism (PIP) markers specific to 3,445 (13.40%) gene models that span 8 Tunisia chromosomes. The ePCR validation of all these PIP markers on the Tunisia genome revealed single-locus amplification for 1,233 (14%) markers corresponding to 958 (27.80%) genes. The markers yielding single amplicons were then mapped onto Tunisia chromosomes to develop a saturated linkage map. The functional categorization of 958 genes revealed them to be a part of the nucleus and the cytoplasm having protein binding and catalytic activity, and these genes are mainly involved in the metabolic process, including photosynthesis. Further, through ePCR, 1,233 PIP markers were assayed on multiple genomes, which resulted in the identification of 886 polymorphic markers with an average PIC value of 0.62. In silico comparative mapping based on physically mapped PIP markers indicates a higher synteny of Tunisia with the Dabenzi and Taishanhong genomes (>98%) in comparison with the AG2017 genome (95%). We then performed experimental validation of a subset of 100 PIP primers on eight pomegranate genotypes and identified 76 polymorphic markers, with 15 having PIC values ≥0.50. We demonstrated the potential utility of the developed markers by analyzing the genetic diversity of 31 pomegranate genotypes using 24 PIP markers. This study reports for the first time large-scale development of gene-based and chromosome-specific PIP markers, which would serve as a rich marker resource for genetic variation studies, functional gene discovery, and genomics-assisted breeding of pomegranate

An exploration of the determinants for decision to migrate existing resources to cloud computing using an integrated TOE-DOI model

Migrating existing resources to cloud computing is a strategic organisational decision that can be difficult. It requires the consideration and evaluation of a wide range of technical and organisational aspects. Although a significant amount of attention has been paid by many industrialists and academics to aid migration decisions, the procedure remains difficult. This is mainly due to underestimation of the range of factors and characteristics affecting the decision for cloud migration. Further research is needed to investigate the level of effect these factors have on migration decisions and the overall complexity. This paper aims to explore the level of complexity of the decision to migrate the cloud. A research model based on the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework was developed. The model was tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The quantitative analysis shows the level of impact of the identified variables on the decision to migrate. Seven determinants that contribute to the complexity of the decisions are identified. They need to be taken into account to ensure successful migration. This result has expanded the collective knowledge about the complexity of the issues that have to be considered when making decisions to migrate to the cloud. It contributes to the literature that addresses the complex and multidimensional nature of migrating to the cloud

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

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Mitigating Malicious Attacks Using Trust Based Secure-BEFORE Routing Strategy in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc Networks (MANET), being infrastructureless and dynamic in nature, are predominantly susceptible to attacks such as black hole, worm hole, cunning gray hole attack at source or destination. Various solutions have been put forth so far in literature in order to mitigate the effects of these attacks on the network performance and to improve the reliability of the network. However, these attacks are still prominently a serious threat in MANET. Hence, a trust based routing strategy termed Secure-BEFORE routing (Best FOrwarding Route Estimation) is proposed to ensure optimal route estimation in computing the trust value and hop counts using the dummy packets inside the network at 1-hop level. It is observed that the overall performance of the network is improved in providing one-hop level security by maintaining the packet equivalence ratio. Malicious and suspicious nodes are isolated and eliminated from the network, based on their behavior