Job Anxiety and Occupational Stress among Employees of IT Sector: Impact on their Attitude towards Management

Information technology is the fastest growing sector in the country and the highest employer in the private sector. The fast-paced technological changes, the need to keep up with it and the huge workload puts enormous demands on the employees. They experience anxiety and stress at the workplace which affects, positively and negatively, their attitude towards their job and management. Hence, the study investigated the relationship between anxiety and stress experienced by the employees at the workplace and how each factor affects their attitude towards their management respectively. Since the study covered both male and female employees, hence similar nature of relationship between the variables was also examined separately for each gender For this ex-post facto research, a convenience sample of 200 respondents through stratified sampling technique was chosen in 2019 from various IT firms in Hyderabad. The age of the respondents was between 24-36 years. The data for analysis was collected through 3 scales/ index viz. 1) Job Anxiety Scale by Dr. A. K. Srivastava 2) Occupational Stress Index by A K Srivastav and A P Singh 3) Attitude Scale for Measuring Employee Attitude Towards Management Attitude Scale for Measuring Employee Attitude Towards Management by Dr. K D Kapoor and a personal information sheet. Statistical tools of Pearson was applied to analyse the data. The results of the study confirmed that occupational stress significantly and negatively predicted attitude towards management of the employees. But, on the contrary for job anxiety the relationship with employee attitude was found to be insignificant. The attitude towards management of female employees was found to be more significantly and negatively related to job anxiety and occupational stress respectively as compared to their male counterparts. This result belied the expectations. However, no interaction effect was observed between job anxiety and occupational stress while predicting attitude towards management. It is recommended that IT companies must design general and gender based intervention strategies to reduce job anxiety and occupational stress among employees

Acceptability of Telegenetics for Families with Genetic Eye Diseases

Healthcare providers around the world have implemented remote routine consultations to minimise disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual clinics are particularly suitable for patients with genetic eye diseases as they rely on detailed histories with genetic counselling. During April–June 2019, the opinion of carers of children with inherited eye disorders attending the ocular genetics service at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (MEH) were canvassed. Sixty-five percent of families (n = 35/54) preferred to have investigations carried out locally rather than travel to MEH, with 64% opting for a virtual consultation to interpret the results. The most popular mode of remote contact was via telephone (14/31), with video call being least preferred (8/31). Hence, 54 families who had received a telephone consultation mid-pandemic (November 2020–January 2021) were contacted to re-evaluate the acceptability of telegenetics using the Clinical Genetics Satisfaction Indicator and Telemedicine Satisfaction Questionnaire. Overall, 50 carers participated (response rate 93%); 58% of participants found teleconsultations acceptable and 54% agreed they increased their access to care, but 67.5% preferred to be seen in person. Patient satisfaction was high with 90% strongly agreeing/agreeing they shared and received all necessary information. Ocular genetics is well-suited for remote service delivery, ideally alternated with face-to-face consultations

Private Index Coding

This paper has been presented at: 2018 IEEE International Symposium On Information Theory (ISIT)We study the problem of index coding under the privacy requirement that receivers do not learn anything more than the messages they already have as side information and the message they want from the server. To achieve this private index coding, we consider the use of secret keys that are shared among various subsets of users and the server. We characterize key access structures that allow private index coding. For up to three receivers, we characterize the rate region of transmission and key rates and show that scalar coding is optimal; we also show that scalar linear codes are sub-optimal for four receivers. Furthermore, when no keys are available, we consider a weaker notion of privacy analogous to weak security. Finally, for a different setting in which the server is allowed to send messages exclusively to a subset of users, we study the number of transmissions required to achieve error-free decoding and privacy.Prabhakaran and N. Karamchandani acknowledge initial discussions with Parathasarathi Panda and Vaishakh Ravi. V. Narayanan was supported by a travel fellowship from the Sarojini Damodaran Foundation. This work was done while Jithin Ravi was at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and IIT Bombay. He has received funding from ERC grant 714161

PCA Encrypted Short Acoustic Data Inculcated in Digital Color Images

We propose develop a generalized algorithm for hiding audio signal using image steganography. The authors suggest transmitting short audio messages camouflaged in digital images using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as an encryption technique. The quantum of principal components required to represent the audio signal by removing the redundancies is a measure of the magnitude of the Eigen values. The aforementioned technique follows a dual task of encryption and in turn also compresses the audio data, sufficient enough to be buried in the image. A 57Kb audio signal is decipher from the Stego image with a high PSNR of 47.49 and a correspondingly low mse of 3.3266 × 1

Biosurfactants’ multifarious functional potential for sustainable agricultural practices

Increasing food demand by the ever-growing population imposes an extra burden on the agricultural and food industries. Chemical-based pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and high-breeding crop varieties are typically employed to enhance crop productivity. Overexploitation of chemicals and their persistence in the environment, however, has detrimental effects on soil, water, and air which consequently disturb the food chain and the ecosystem. The lower aqueous solubility and higher hydrophobicity of agrochemicals, pesticides, metals, and hydrocarbons allow them to adhere to soil particles and, therefore, continue in the environment. Chemical pesticides, viz., organophosphate, organochlorine, and carbamate, are used regularly to protect agriculture produce. Hydrophobic pollutants strongly adhered to soil particles can be solubilized or desorbed through the usage of biosurfactant/s (BSs) or BS-producing and pesticide-degrading microorganisms. Among different types of BSs, rhamnolipids (RL), surfactin, mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs), and sophorolipids (SL) have been explored extensively due to their broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities against several phytopathogens. Different isoforms of lipopeptide, viz., iturin, fengycin, and surfactin, have also been reported against phytopathogens. The key role of BSs in designing and developing biopesticide formulations is to protect crops and our environment. Various functional properties such as wetting, spreading, penetration ability, and retention period are improved in surfactant-based formulations. This review emphasizes the use of diverse types of BSs and their source microorganisms to challenge phytopathogens. Extensive efforts seem to be focused on discovering the innovative antimicrobial potential of BSs to combat phytopathogens. We discussed the effectiveness of BSs in solubilizing pesticides to reduce their toxicity and contamination effects in the soil environment. Thus, we have shed some light on the use of BSs as an alternative to chemical pesticides and other agrochemicals as sparse literature discusses their interactions with pesticides. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) quantifying their impact on human activities/interventions are also included. Nanoencapsulation of pesticide formulations is an innovative approach in minimizing pesticide doses and ultimately reducing their direct exposures to humans and animals. Some of the established big players and new entrants in the global BS market are providing promising solutions for agricultural practices. In conclusion, a better understanding of the role of BSs in pesticide solubilization and/or degradation by microorganisms represents a valuable approach to reducing their negative impact and maintaining sustainable agricultural practices

Synergistic Activity of Rhamnolipid Biosurfactant and Nanoparticles Synthesized Using Fungal Origin Chitosan Against Phytopathogens

Phytopathogens pose severe implications in the quantity and quality of food production by instigating several diseases. Biocontrol strategies comprising the application of biomaterials have offered endless opportunities for sustainable agriculture. We explored multifarious potentials of rhamnolipid-BS (RH-BS: commercial), fungal chitosan (FCH), and FCH-derived nanoparticles (FCHNPs). The high-quality FCH was extracted from Cunninghamella echinulata NCIM 691 followed by the synthesis of FCHNPs. Both, FCH and FCHNPs were characterized by UV-visible spectroscopy, DLS, zeta potential, FTIR, SEM, and Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA). The commercial chitosan (CH) and synthesized chitosan nanoparticles (CHNPs) were used along with test compounds (FCH and FCHNPs). SEM analysis revealed the spherical shape of the nanomaterials (CHNPs and FCHNPs). NTA provided high-resolution visual validation of particle size distribution for CHNPs (256.33 ± 18.80 nm) and FCHNPs (144.33 ± 10.20 nm). The antibacterial and antifungal assays conducted for RH-BS, FCH, and FCHNPs were supportive to propose their efficacies against phytopathogens. The lower MIC of RH-BS (256 μg/ml) was observed than that of FCH and FCHNPs (>1,024 μg/ml) against Xanthomonas campestris NCIM 5028, whereas a combination study of RH-BS with FCHNPs showed a reduction in MIC up to 128 and 4 μg/ml, respectively, indicating their synergistic activity. The other combination of RH-BS with FCH resulted in an additive effect reducing MIC up to 128 and 256 μg/ml, respectively. Microdilution plate assay conducted for three test compounds demonstrated inhibition of fungi, FI: Fusarium moniliforme ITCC 191, FII: Fusarium moniliforme ITCC 4432, and FIII: Fusarium graminearum ITCC 5334 (at 0.015% and 0.020% concentration). Furthermore, potency of test compounds performed through the in vitro model (poisoned food technique) displayed dose-dependent (0.005%, 0.010%, 0.015%, and 0.020% w/v) antifungal activity. Moreover, RH-BS and FCHNPs inhibited spore germination (61–90%) of the same fungi. Our efforts toward utilizing the combination of RH-BS with FCHNPs are significant to develop eco-friendly, low cytotoxic formulations in future

The prevalence and long-term health effects of Long Covid among hospitalised and non-hospitalised populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to systematically synthesise the global evidence on the prevalence of persistent symptoms in a general post COVID-19 population. METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted using multiple electronic databases (MEDLINE and The Cochrane Library, Scopus, CINAHL, and medRxiv) until January 2022. Studies with at least 100 people with confirmed or self-reported COVID-19 symptoms at ≥28 days following infection onset were included. Patient-reported outcome measures and clinical investigations were both assessed. Results were analysed descriptively, and meta-analyses were conducted to derive prevalence estimates. This study was pre-registered (PROSPERO-ID: CRD42021238247). FINDINGS: 194 studies totalling 735,006 participants were included, with five studies conducted in those <18 years of age. Most studies were conducted in Europe (n = 106) or Asia (n = 49), and the time to follow-up ranged from ≥28 days to 387 days. 122 studies reported data on hospitalised patients, 18 on non-hospitalised, and 54 on hospitalised and non-hospitalised combined (mixed). On average, at least 45% of COVID-19 survivors, regardless of hospitalisation status, went on to experience at least one unresolved symptom (mean follow-up 126 days). Fatigue was frequently reported across hospitalised (28.4%; 95% CI 24.7%-32.5%), non-hospitalised (34.8%; 95% CI 17.6%-57.2%), and mixed (25.2%; 95% CI 17.7%-34.6%) cohorts. Amongst the hospitalised cohort, abnormal CT patterns/x-rays were frequently reported (45.3%; 95% CI 35.3%-55.7%), alongside ground glass opacification (41.1%; 95% CI 25.7%-58.5%), and impaired diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (31.7%; 95% CI 25.8%-3.2%). INTERPRETATION: Our work shows that 45% of COVID-19 survivors, regardless of hospitalisation status, were experiencing a range of unresolved symptoms at ∼ 4 months. Current understanding is limited by heterogeneous study design, follow-up durations, and measurement methods. Definition of subtypes of Long Covid is unclear, subsequently hampering effective treatment/management strategies. FUNDING: No funding