Predicting preterm labour by cervical length measurement

Background: This study was undertaken to ascertain the role of cervical length measurement by Transvaginal Ultrasonography as a predictor for preterm labour.Methods: Routine Antenatal cases presenting to the O.P.D. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at 18-24 weeks of gestation were enrolled and subjected to transvaginal ultrasound for measurement of cervical length. The STUDY group consisted of 50 patients with cervical length being </=25mm. The CONRTOL group consisted of 50 patients with cervical length being >25mm. Patients were followed up to observe the outcome of their pregnancies. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0 software.Results: The positive predictive value of cervical length </=25mm was 6%, 16%, 30% and 50% for delivery before 28, 32, 34 and 37 weeks respectively; the negative predictive value for the same was 100%, 100%, 98% and 86%. A cervical length of < 25 mm at the initial sonographic examination was associated with a relative risk (RR) of 15 for spontaneous preterm birth before 34 weeks and 3.75 for spontaneous preterm birth before 37 weeks. Maternal outcome was comparable in the study and control groups. However, the babies born in the study group had greater morbidities associated with prematurity, lower birth weight, higher NICU admission rates, longer duration of NICU stay and greater mortality rates as compared to the babies born in the control group.Conclusions: Measurement of cervical length aids in early detection of patients who are likely to go into preterm labour and identification of high-risk group.

Library and Information Services of A.C. Joshi Library during COVID – 19 pandemic: a study of faculty satisfaction

The ongoing pandemic is a global challenge that has resulted in significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. It has severely affected the economy and social integrity of most of the nations. Everyone who has lived through this period of uncertainty has acknowledged the fact that these circumstances have changed the way of life of people across the globe. While there has been a rising concern about the severity of the health challenges faced by the general population, especially vulnerable is the situation of the elderly, the children, health professionals, and also academicians who are braving the mal-effects of this grave onslaught that is a threat to mankind’s very existence. The teaching fraternity is constantly facing the negative effect of information deprivation due to the closure of libraries and overload through available technologies. The focus of this study is to understand the problems of stress and dissatisfaction experienced by the academicians at Panjab University, Chandigarh (India) during and post lockdown COVID-19 pandemic. The classic empirical mixed-method approach was used for data collection by using quantitative and qualitative techniques. A structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews were conducted to obtain views of the teaching fraternity. The study highlights various mental stress challenges experienced by teaching fraternity and how libraries have been coming to the forefront to maintain a strategic equilibrium and balance between mind and body during the pandemic. The findings could have tremendous scope for other studies on the subject as well as evolving policy implications

BIOACTIVITIES OF THE ETHYL ACETATE EXTRACT OF RHODOCOCCUS QINGSHENGII STRAIN BJC15-A38 AN ENDOPHYTE OF AZADIRACHTA INDICA A. JUSS

Objective: This study evaluated the antidiabetic activities of the ethyl acetate-methanol (4:1) extract (EA) of Rhodococcus qingshengii strain BJC15-A38 supernatant.Methods: In vitro alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase inhibitory assays, were used to determine the antidiabetic activity of EA (100, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 μg/ml). Also, the total phenol content of the extract was determined, followed by understanding the mode of α-amylase inhibition.Results: The crude extract from Azadirachta indica A. Juss. endophytic actinomycete Rhodococcus qingshengii strain BJC15-A38 was found to have significant inhibition against α-amylase (IC50 = 65.93 µg/ml) and α-glucosidase (IC50 = 929.56 µg/ml). The total phenol content of the crude was found to be 97.25±6.47 and 15.40±0.43 mg/g of the extract in terms of catechol and gallic acid equivalents respectively. Purification of the extract was carried out using silica gel column chromatography. Kinetic analysis revealed the mixed competitive with mixed competitive of inhibition towards α-amylase.Conclusion: The findings suggest that the extract of Rhodococcus qingshengii strain BJC15-A38 possesses antidiabetic effects

Study of significance of elevated maternal serum β-human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG) level in 16 to 20 weeks pregnant women as predictor of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy

Background: Hypertensive disorder of pregnancy affects both mother and fetus, leading their high morbidity and mortality and a major killer of women in developing country. The etiologic of preeclampsia is still not clear. It seems that placenta plays main role in path-physiology of preeclampsia, but there is strict relationship between hypertensive disorder of pregnancy and elevated β-hCG level, indicating there should be an abnormal placental secretary function in patients with severe preeclampsia.Methods: 245 patients were recruited from our institute (OPD) and Prospective analytical study was started with 16-20 weeks pregnant women. Cases were subjected to detailed history and thorough physical examination including baseline blood pressure. β-hCG measurement was done between 16-20 weeks and cases were followed at regular interval for the development of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy. Statistical testing was conducted with appropriate tests.Results: Total 245 women were enrolled in the study, only 208 were followed till delivery, 24 were developed hypertension. On analysis of data, maximum cases were younger, primigravida and of lower class. β-hCG levels (Mean ± SD) were also significantly higher (30100±16250 V/S 74700±23790; p<0.001) in subjects who later developed hypertension. Cut off value of β-hCG was 45755 mIU/ml, and analysis establishes validity of β-hCG as predictor of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy with sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value for β hCG were 87.5, 83.2, 70.4 and 83.7% respectively.Conclusions: Present study shows that elevated serum β-hCG in early second trimester can be considered as predictor of subsequent hypertensive disorder of pregnancy

Hate Me Not: Detecting Hate Inducing Memes in Code Switched Languages

The rise in the number of social media users has led to an increase in the hateful content posted online. In countries like India, where multiple languages are spoken, these abhorrent posts are from an unusual blend of code-switched languages. This hate speech is depicted with the help of images to form “Memes which create a long-lasting impact on the human mind. In this paper, we take up the task of hate and offense detection from multimodal data, i.e. images (Memes) that contain text in code-switched languages. We firstly present a novel triply annotated Indian political Memes (IPM) dataset, which comprises memes from various Indian political events that have taken place post-independence and are classified into three distinct categories. We also propose a binary-channelled CNN cum LSTM based model to process the images using the CNN model and text using the LSTM model to get state-of-the-art results for this task

Pattern Analytical Module for EDOS Attacker Recognition

Abstract: Cloud computing has provided a platform to its users where they are charged on the basis of usage of the cloud resources; this is known as &quot;pay-as-you-use&quot;. Today, Cloud computin

Preliminary studies on different extracts of some honey bee products

The aim of present study was to compare the phytochemical composition of different extracts of bee pollen, propolis and honey and to analyse the best solvent for maximum phytochemicals extraction. These preliminary studies are significant in locating the pharmacological bioactive compounds in different extracts of bee products. The tests showed greater number of constituents present in bee pollen and propolis as compared to honey. The concentration of these bioactive constituents was greater in ethanolic extract of propolis and water extract of bee pollen and honey. Ethanolic extract of propolis showed higher concentration of tannins and glycosides. Bee pollen had more concentration of saponins, flavonoids and proteins in water extract. Reducing sugars and carbohydrates were present in larger amount in water extract of honey. These studies will be useful to select the best solvent for honey, pollen and propolis for various research purposes

Measles rubella campaign - India’s journey from expanded program on immunization to measles elimination

Infectious diseases have always been a major cause of mortality and morbidity in children under 5 years of age and more so in developing countries like India. Steps toward control of these infectious diseases, especially the vaccine-preventable diseases, have been the priority of Indian Government. Smallpox was eliminated followed by polio and next target being measles. Although the journey has been tough, finally, the results are appreciable considering the large population and limited resources of the country. India has traveled a very long distance from the introduction of vaccination and acquiring country’s vaccine manufacturing to finally eliminating measles

Impact of co-morbidities in COVID -19 infected patients

Background- During the COVID- 19 pandemic in the first wave, infected patients age was range from 4 weeks to 90 years and those who have more age and with comorbidities are more susceptible to develop serious illness and have high mortality rates. Objective-To study the association between survivor vs non survivor on the basis of demographic profile and high risk factors. Material &amp; methods: This study was done in the Government Medical College, Kannauj on the COVID-19 patients who were admitted in the isolation wards, from 1st September 2020 to December 31st 2020. Statistical Analysis- Analysis was done using SPSS- 23 trial version software. Results: case fatality rate was 2.7% in this study. Most common symptoms was cough (61.0%) and among these admitted patients the most common comorbidities was hypertension (26.7%), followed by diabetes (20.7%), and COPD (14.0%) respectively. Platelets (&lt; 0.02), post prandial blood sugar (PPBS) (&lt; 0.01) have significant role in survivability of COVID- 19 patients. Conclusion: This study concludes that those patients who were older in age and with comorbidity especially (hypertension, COPD, high PPBS, High platelets) have poorer prognosis as compare to those without

Hindi Automatic Speech Recognition Using HTK” in

Abstract: Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) is the ability of a machine or program to recognize the voice commands or take dictation which involves the ability to match a voice pattern against a provided or acquired vocabulary. At present, mainly Hidden Markov Model (HMMs) based speech recognizers are used. This paper aims to build a speech recognition system for Hindi language. Hidden Markov Model Toolkit (HTK) is used to develop the system. It recognizes the isolated words using acoustic word model. The system is trained for 113 Hindi words. Training data has been collected from nine speakers. The experimental results show that the overall accuracy of the presented system with 10 states in HMM topology is 96.61 and 95.49%