A cross sectional study on the prevalence of diabetes mellitus among adult population in a peri-urban area of West Tripura, India

Background: Diabetes mellitus, a major lifestyle disease is undoubtedly the most challenging public health problem of 21st century with a worldwide prevalence of 387 million (8.3%).  The objective of this study was to get an estimate of the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and associated factors in a sample of adult population in a peri-urban area of West Tripura.Methods: In a cross-sectional study, prevalence of diabetes mellitus was found among adult population of a peri-urban area (Dukli) of west Tripura from April 2016 to May 2016. Multistage random sampling was followed to include 76 participants. Taking house as a sampling unit, every 5th house was chosen for this study. From every selected house, one adult participant was chosen by simple random sampling until desired sample size was attained. Collected data was compiled and analyzed with the help of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 16.0.). Chi-square, Fischer exact test was applied to find out association.Results: The mean age of the study participants was 42.21±17.65 years, comprised of 23.7% male and 76.3% female. The prevalence of diabetes mellitus was 17.1% among study participants. Diabetes was found highest in 39-58-year age group (37.5%). Males were more affected with diabetes mellitus (22.2%) compared to females (15.5%). The study also revealed a significant association of diabetes mellitus with family history of diabetes mellitus (p value 0.00).Conclusions: Present study showed very high prevalence of diabetes mellitus among adult population. Healthy lifestyle measures might reduce burden of diabetes mellitus which could be evaluated in future research

Oil Price And Real Exchange Rate: The Case Of India

This paper studies the effect of oil price change on the real exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the U.S. dollar.  For that, a model is developed which is based on a monetary model of exchange rate which incorporates the real GDP, real money balances, and the interest rates of both the home and foreign country and the real price of the crude oil.  Quarterly time series data from 1996 to 2012 is used.  Before estimating the model, the time series properties of the data are diagnosed in order to ensure the stationarity of the data.  The data series are found to be integrated of order one and the null hypothesis of no cointegration is rejected.  Therefore an error correction model is developed and estimated.  The estimated results suggest that there is no detectable effect of oil price change on the real exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the U.S. dollar

Knowledge, attitude and practice about hospital acquired infection among health care personnel in a tertiary care hospital of Tripura

Background: Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at increased risk of hospital acquired infections transmitted from both blood-borne pathogens. This study was aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of health care professionals towards hospital acquired infections.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 191 on health care personnel (staff nurses, nursing student, lab technicians, OT assistants, ward girls, and sweepers) available on the day of survey of Tripura Medical College and Dr. BRAM Teaching Hospital, Hapania; data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire and analysed using Microsoft excel.Results: Majority (70.7%%) of the participants belonged to 18 to 25 years age group and were females (75.9%); mostly were Staff Nurses (35.1%) followed by nursing student (31.9%). The present study showed that, 87.4% healthcare personnel have some knowledge about Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI). According to study participants, most common hospital acquired infections was urinary tract infections (60.5%) and nurses were the most susceptible (34.6%) group to HAI. Among participants, 94.8% believed that working in hospital exposed them to infectious diseases and 60.2% were willing to change their working environment to avoid hospital acquired infection. Most of the study participants washed their hands after handling the patients (90.2%).Conclusions: Knowledge about Hospital Acquired Infection is present among health care personnel but there is still lack of adequate quality control practice to prevent Hospital Acquired Infection. Importance of prevention of Hospital Acquired Infection should be emphasized among health care personnel by intensive IEC activities

Effect of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin Combination Use in COVID‑19 Patients : An Umbrella Review

Peer reviewe

A cross-sectional study on morbidity pattern of elderly population residing in a rural area of Tripura

Background: The elderly is one of the most vulnerable and high-risk groups in terms of health and their health seeking behaviour is crucial in any society. A major component of the burden of illness for the elderly derives from prevalent chronic disease. The objective of study aims to find out morbidity pattern of elderly population aged 60 years and above.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was done in rural areas of Madhupur, Sepahijala district, Tripura from August 2015-January 2016. A total of 260 (elderly aged 60 years and above) study participants were selected by simple random sampling.Results: Majority (52.7%) were between 60-70 years of age, least (1.5%) was in 90-100 years age group. Most of the study population (84.6%) were Hindu and female were more than male (51.9 % vs 48.1%). Majority (38.8%) of them were suffering from two (2) morbidities and 8.1% of study population had 4 and more morbidities. Non-specific generalized weakness was the most common (62.7%) morbidity, followed by gastrointestinal problems (56%) found in geriatric population. Musculoskeletal problems (low back pain, joint pain, osteoarthritis) were 45% followed by anaemia (42%) and impaired vision (36%). Increasing age group and non-smoke tobacco habit among the elderly population was associated with number of morbidities (≥ 3 morbidities/ person) per person (p <0.05).Conclusions: The study showed high prevalence of morbidities among elderly population. Non-specific generalized weakness was one of the most important problems in this age group. We have to find out the underlying cause of this non-specific generalized weakness by further clinical examination and laboratory investigations in future research

Self-medication practices among medical and nursing students in Tripura, India: a mixed-method study

Background: In developing countries like India, self-medication is a common practice because of costly clinical services and easy availability of medicine from pharmacies. There is an increase trend of self-medication among different health professional students apart from general people. This study aims to assess self-medication practice among medical and nursing students in Tripura, India.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical and nursing students of Tripura Medical College and Tripura College of Nursing, of Tripura for two months (January- February 2018). A pre-tested, semi-structured schedule was used to collect the required information. The collected data was entered in SPSS version 16.0, represented in proportions and p <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Results: Overall 353 (88.3%) students of both courses practiced self-medication; prevalence was more among medical (91.5%) than nursing students (85%). Main source of information among medical students were books (90.2%) while 56.5% nursing students replied friends and/or seniors as primary source. Majority (53%) respondents took self-medication for headache (79.2% medical vs 72.4% nursing students) followed by fever (77.6% medical vs 52.4% nursing). Less than half of the respondents (48.5% medical vs 46.5% nursing students) believed that self-medication was harmful; maximum nursing students (71.5%) believed that self-medication is self-care as compare to medical students (56.5%).Conclusions: The study found wide practice of self-medication among students, inappropriate use of which may cause serious health hazards. Promoting education regarding self-medication and making healthcare system available can reduce self-medication practices substantially

Importance of Geriatric Health Care in India during Covid 19 Pandemic

World is facing a dual challenge of deadly Covid 19 pandemic and economic instability with its best health care facility and advanced science & technology. We need to support and protect our physically and economically vulnerable population like geriatric or elderly people during this difficult time. India has nearly 120 million elderly people with various physical, mental, social, economic, and spiritual problems. Ministry of health has created geriatric centers and geriatric clinics in most of the states. Routine care clinics cannot handle the burden of geriatric population to address their co-morbidities. Rapid training of healthcare professionals of various disciplines in geriatric care, home nursing is now of utmost importance. Government must provide financial support to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other agencies for helping geriatric population by providing affordable health care

Origin of magnetic moments and presence of a resonating valence bond state in Ba2_2YIrO6_6

While it was speculated that 5$d^4$ systems would possess non-magnetic $J$~=~0 ground state due to strong Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOC), all such systems have invariably shown presence of magnetic moments so far. A puzzling case is that of Ba$_2$YIrO$_6$, which in spite of having a perfectly cubic structure with largely separated Ir$^{5+}$ ($d^4$) ions, has consistently shown presence of weak magnetic moments. Moreover, we clearly show from Muon Spin Relaxation ($\mu$SR) measurements that a change in the magnetic environment of the implanted muons in Ba$_2$YIrO$_6$ occurs as temperature is lowered below 10~K. This observation becomes counterintuitive, as the estimated value of SOC obtained by fitting the RIXS spectrum of Ba$_2$YIrO$_6$ with an atomic $j-j$ model is found to be as high as 0.39~eV, meaning that the system within this model is neither expected to possess moments nor exhibit temperature dependent magnetic response. Therefore we argue that the atomic $j-j$ coupling description is not sufficient to explain the ground state of such systems, where despite having strong SOC, presence of hopping triggers delocalisation of holes, resulting in spontaneous generation of magnetic moments. Our theoretical calculations further indicate that these moments favour formation of spin-orbital singlets in the case of Ba$_2$YIrO$_6$, which is manifested in $\mu$SR experiments measured down to 60~mK.Comment: 20 Pages, 7 Figure

A CdZnTeSe Gamma Spectrometer Trained by Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Radioisotope Identification

We report the implementation of a deep convolutional neural network to train a high-resolution room-temperature CdZnTeSe based gamma ray spectrometer for accurate and precise determination of gamma ray energies for radioisotope identification. The prototype learned spectrometer consists of a NI PCI 5122 fast digitizer connected to a pre-amplifier to recognize spectral features in a sequence of data. We used simulated preamplifier pulses that resemble actual data for various gamma photon energies to train a CNN on the equivalent of 90 seconds worth of data and validated it on 10 seconds worth of simulated data

LIFE HISTORY TRAITS OF GANGETIC AILIA Ailia coila (Hamilton 1822) IN THE TETULIA RIVER, SOUTHERN BANGLADESH

Gotovo ugrožena gangetska ailia (Ailia coila) vrsta je soma iz obitelji Ailiidae koja je autohtona u Bangladešu, Pakistanu, Nepalu i Indiji. Ovaj rad opisuje biološka obilježja vrste Ailia coila, uključujući distribuciju duljine i frekvencije (LFD), obrasce rasta (dužinsko-masene odnose i odnose duljina-dužina), faktor oblika (a3.0), faktore kondicije (alometrijski, KA; Fultonov, KF; relativni, KR i relativnu težinu, WR), veličinu pri prvoj spolnoj zrelosti (Lm), optimalnu lovnu duljinu (Lopt) i prirodnu smrtnost (Mw) iz rijeke Tetulia u južnom Bangladešu. Nadalje, Lα, a3.0, Lm, Mw i Lopt iz raznih otvorenih voda iz cijelog svijeta izračunati su u ovoj studiji pomoću postojeće literature. Ukupno 316 uzoraka nasumično je prikupljeno povremenim korištenjem tradicionalnih alata tijekom godine od srpnja 2021. do lipnja 2022. S točnošću od 0,01 cm i 0,01 g, ukupna duljina (TL), standardna duljina (SL) i tjelesna težina (BW) svake pojedinačne ribe su izmjereni. TL od 10,00 do 10,99 cm bila je brojčano vodeća skupina, a b vrijednosti LWR-a ukazuju na pozitivan alometrijski rast. A3.0 je 0,005, a KF je najbolji za procjenu dobrobiti A. coila. Osim toga, WR pokazuje da je stanište bilo neuravnoteženo s višim udjelom grabežljivaca. Izračunati Lm, Lopt i Mw bili su 9,19 (~ 9,2 cm TL), 10,7 cm TL i 1,37 godina-1 za A. coila u rijeci Tetulia. Ovi će uvidi biti od vitalnog značaja za buduća istraživanja i preporuku prikladnih strategija upravljanja za A. coila u rijeci Tetulia i susjednim vodama.The near-threatened Ailia coila, commonly referred to as Gangetic ailia, is a catfish species in the Ailiidae family that is indigenous to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, and India. This study describes the comprehensive explanation of life-history traits of Ailia coila, including length-frequency distribution (LFD), growth pattern (length-weight relationships, LWRs and length-length relationship, LLR), form factor (a3.0), condition factors (allometric, KA; Fulton’s, KF; relative, KR and relative weight, WR), size at first sexual maturity (Lm), optimum catchable length (Lopt) and natural mortality (Mw) from the Tetulia River in southern Bangladesh. Additionally, Lα, a3.0, Lm, Mw and Lopt from various water bodies worldwide using the existing literature were calculated in this study. A total of 316 samples were randomly collected occasionally using traditional gear for a year from July 2021 to June 2022. With an accuracy of 0.01 cm and 0.01 g, each fish’s total length (TL), standard length (SL), and body weight (BW) were measured. The group from 10.00 to 10.99 cm TL was numerically leading and the b values of LWRs indicate positive allometric growth. The a3.0 was 0.005 and KF was the best for assessing the well-being of A. coila. Additionally, WR indicates that the habitat was imbalanced with higher predators. The calculated Lm, Lopt and Mw were 9.19 (~ 9.2 cm TL), 10.7 cm TL and 1.37 year-1 for A. coila in the Tetulia River, respectively. These insights are vital for future research and recommending suitable management strategies for A. coila in the Tetulia River and neighboring basins