Precision Medicine Informatics: Principles, Prospects, and Challenges

Precision Medicine (PM) is an emerging approach that appears with the impression of changing the existing paradigm of medical practice. Recent advances in technological innovations and genetics, and the growing availability of health data have set a new pace of the research and imposes a set of new requirements on different stakeholders. To date, some studies are available that discuss about different aspects of PM. Nevertheless, a holistic representation of those aspects deemed to confer the technological perspective, in relation to applications and challenges, is mostly ignored. In this context, this paper surveys advances in PM from informatics viewpoint and reviews the enabling tools and techniques in a categorized manner. In addition, the study discusses how other technological paradigms including big data, artificial intelligence, and internet of things can be exploited to advance the potentials of PM. Furthermore, the paper provides some guidelines for future research for seamless implementation and wide-scale deployment of PM based on identified open issues and associated challenges. To this end, the paper proposes an integrated holistic framework for PM motivating informatics researchers to design their relevant research works in an appropriate context.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, 5 tables, journal pape

Nighttime Light Intensity and Child Health Outcomes in Bangladesh

This study examines the impact of nighttime light intensity on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use nighttime light intensity as a proxy measure of urbanization and argue that the higher intensity of nighttime light, the higher is the degree of urbanization, which positively affects child health outcomes. In econometric estimation, we employ a methodology that combines parametric and non-parametric approaches using the Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Bootstrap Aggregating that originate from machine learning algorithms. Based on our benchmark estimates, findings show that one standard deviation increase of nighttime light intensity is associated with a 1.515 rise of Z-score of weight for age after controlling for several control variables. The maximum increase of weight for height and height for age score range from 5.35 to 7.18 units. To further understand our benchmark estimates, generalized additive models also provide a robust positive relationship between nighttime light intensity and children's health outcomes. Finally, we develop an economic model that supports the empirical findings of this study that the marginal effect of urbanization on children's nutritional outcomes is strictly positive.Comment: 44 page

Knowledge and attitude of key community members towards tuberculosis: mixed method study from BRAC TB control areas in Bangladesh

This article was published in BMC Public Health [© 2015 BioMed Central Ltd.] and the definite version is available at: http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-1390-5Background: Bangladesh National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme adopted a number of strategies to facilitate TB diagnosis and treatment. 'Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilization' (ACSM) was one of the key strategies implemented by BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, a non-governmental development organization) TB control program. The purpose of this study is to assess the knowledge and attitudes of the key community members (KCMs) participated in ACSM in BRAC TB control areas. Methods: This study combined quantitative and qualitative methods using a mixed method approach. KCMs in three districts with low TB case detection rates were targeted to assess the ACSM program. The quantitative survey using a multi-stage random-sampling strategy was conducted among 432 participants. The qualitative study included in-depth interviews (IDIs) of a sub sample of 48 respondents. For quantitative analysis, descriptive statistics were reported using frequencies, percentages, and Chi square tests, while thematic analysis was used for qualitative part. Results: Most (99%) of the participants had heard about TB, and almost all knew that TB is a contagious yet curable disease. More than half (53%) of the KCMs had good knowledge regarding TB, but BRAC workers were found to be more knowledgeable compared to other KCMs. However, considerable knowledge gaps were observed among BRAC community health workers. Qualitative results revealed that the majority of the KCMs were aware about the signs, symptoms and transmission pathways of TB and believed that smoking and addiction were the prime causes of transmission of TB. The knowledge about child TB was poor even among BRAC health workers. Stigma associated with TB was not uncommon. Almost all respondents expressed that young girls diagnosed with TB. Conclusions: This study finding has revealed varying levels of knowledge and mixed attitudes about TB among the KCMs. It also provides insight on the poor knowledge regarding child TB and indicate that despite the significant success of the TB program stigma is yet prevalent in the community. Future ACSM activities should engage community members against stigma and promote child TB related information for further improvement of BRAC TB Control Programme

Association between clinically diagnosed lumbar intervertebral disc prolapse and magnetic resonance image findings

There are contradictory reports on the findings of magnetic resonance image (MRI) in lumbar intervertebral disc prolapse. A study was conducted on 54 patients using 3 of 4 clinical criteria (low back pain with radiation down to the lower limbs, radicular pain along specific dermatomes, positive straight leg raising test, presence of neurological symptoms and signs e.g. motor or sensory deficit and MRI of lumbosacral spine of the respondent). Evaluation of MRI of lumbosacral spine was done based on extent of disc prolapse, disc degeneration, nerve root compression neural foramen compromise. The logistic regression analysis between the findings of MRI and the clinical features show that there was a significant association in the neural foramen or lateral recess (Odd's ratio 7.106, p<0.05), the root compression (p<0.01) as well as the disc extrusion (p<0.05). There was no statistical association between clinical levels and other MRI findings like disc protrusion and disc bulge (p value 0.21 and 0.14, respectively). The strength of agreement between clinical and MRI diagnosis level of disc prolapse was calculated using kappa statistics (k-value). The test revealed a very good agreement for L3/4 (k-value = 0.812) and good agreement for L4/5 and L5/SI  level (k-value 0.75 and 0.75 respectively) between these two procedures, suggesting that level of disc prolapse could be correctly  diagnosed without MRI findings.  In conclusion, clinically diagnosed levels associate well with MRI levels, but all MRI abnormalities do not have any clinical significance.

A 50-year-old woman presented with severe reduction of vision and recurrent pain in right eye following cataract surgery

This article has no abstract. The first 100 words appear below: A 50-year-old female, hailing from Patuakhali, was admitted at the Department of Ophthalmology for the management of severe reduction of vision and pain at the right eye for the last 7 months following cataract surgery at a government hospital. Her cataract surgery (small incision cataract surgery with PC-IOL implantation) of the right eye was performed on October 28, 2018. On the first post-operative day, she developed pain, redness and severe reduction of vision in the right eye. The following day, she was discharged with the advice of some medications like moxifloxacin, dexamethasone, bromfenac eye drops and oral acetazolamide and potassium

Autologous serum eye drops for treatment of dry eye syndrome

Not availabl

DESIGN AND MIXING PERFORMANCE OF PASSIVE MICROMIXERS: A CRITICAL REVIEW

This study extracts and reports notable findings on passive micromixers by conducting an exhaustive review of designs, their features, and mixing performance. The study has covered the relevant articles on passive micromixers published from 2010 to 2020. The analysis of filtered and selected articles sums up passive micromixers into four categories: designed inlets, designed mixing-channel, lamination-based, and flow obstacles-based. The prominent mixing channel categories identified in the study are split-and-recombine (SAR), convergent-divergent (C-D), and mixed (SAR, C-D, and others). Moreover, differences in mixing channel designs, number of inlets, and evaluation methods have been used in comparing the mixing performance of passive micromixers. The SAR and the obstacles-based micromixers were found to outperform the others. The designs covered in the present review show significant improvements in the mixing index. However, these studies were conducted in an isolated environment, and most of the time, their fabrication and device integration issues were ignored. The assortment and critical analysis of micromixers based on their design features and flow parameters will be helpful to researchers interested in designing new passive micromixers for microfluidic applications

Comparison Between Fully and Partially Filled Dielectric Materials on the Waveguide of Circularly Polarised Radial Line Slot Array Antennas

This paper presents an investigation on the waveguide of circularly polarised radial line slot array (RLSA) antennas to improve gain and radiation bandwidth. Two circularly polarised (CP) RLSA antennas were designed with two different waveguide configurations. In the first configuration the waveguide is fully filled with dielectric materials and in the second configuration the waveguide is partially filled with dielectric materials and rest of the waveguide is filled with air. Numerical results of these two CP-RLSA antennas with two different waveguide configurations are presented and compared. Significant improvements have been made in the 3-dB directivity bandwidth and aperture efficiency of the antenna having waveguide partially filled with dielectric material. The 3-dB directivity bandwidth was measured 6.2% and aperture efficiency increased to 55.5%. The CP-RLSA antenna has also achieved a peak directivity of 31.7 dBic and a gain of 31.2 dBic as compared to the directivity 30.1 dBic and gain 29.5 dBic, respectively achieved with the CP-RLSA antenna having waveguide fully filled with dielectric material

Heuristic edge server placement in Industrial Internet of Things and cellular networks

Rapid developments in industry 4.0, machine learning, and digital twins have introduced new latency, reliability, and processing restrictions in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and mobile devices. However, using current Information and Communications Technology (ICT), it is difficult to optimally provide services that require high computing power and low latency. To meet these requirements, mobile edge computing is emerging as a ubiquitous computing paradigm that enables the use of network infrastructure components such as cluster heads/sink nodes in IIoT and cellular network base stations to provide local data storage and computation servers at the edge of the network. However, optimal location selection for edge servers within a network out of a very large number of possibilities, such as to balance workload and minimize access delay is a challenging problem. In this paper, the edge server placement problem is addressed within an existing network infrastructure obtained from Shanghai Telecom’s base station the dataset that includes a significant amount of call data records and locations of actual base stations. The problem of edge server placement is formulated as a multi-objective constraint optimization problem that places edge servers strategically to the balance between the workloads of edge servers and reduce access delay between the industrial control center/cellular base-stations and edge servers. To search randomly through a large number of possible solutions and selecting those that are most descriptive of optimal solution can be a very time-consuming process, therefore, we apply the genetic algorithm and local search algorithms (hillclimbing and simulated annealing) to find the best solution in the least number of solution space explorations. Experimental results are obtained to compare the performance of the genetic algorithm against the above-mentioned local search algorithms. The results show that the genetic algorithm can quickly search through the large solution space as compared to local search optimization algorithms to find an edge placement strategy that minimizes the cost functio