TELEMEDICINE IN TIMES OF CORONAVIRUS DISEASE-19 AT A TERTIARY CARE GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL IN UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA

Objective: The present study aimed to describe the common symptoms and diagnosis for each specialty which can be used in future for expansion of teleconsultation services and implementation of the E Sanjeevani model in health care. Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study which comprises the data collected from various specialties over a 4-month period. The telemedicine consultations were given by the consultants of the concerned specialty in adherence to the telemedicine guidelines issued by the government and mostly generic names of the medicine were advised to the patients. The demographic details, chief complaint of the patient, diagnosis, and treatment were recorded. Results: The total number of calls which was received in 4 months period at the telemedicine center in Government Medical College, Ayodhya, was 4848. Maximum number of calls was attended by the department of obstetrics and gynecology which was 771 (15.9%). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had a substantial and transformative influence on routine clinical practice across the entire clinical continuum in a very short period of time. Conclusion: The use of telemedicine emerged as a critical tool to improve the provision of health services. The virtual media and other technologies that can be delivered to patients doorsteps need to strengthened. The trailer which telemedicine showed up in times of COVID-19 can definitely produce a good show in days to come with proper communication between the service provider and receiver

To study the relation between spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and serum ascitis albumin gradient in chronic liver disease patients

Background: About half the patients with cirrhosis develop ascites during 10 years of observation. The present study was designed to study the relation between spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and serum ascites albumin gradient in chronic liver disease patients.Methods: This prospective observational study was done in 55 patients with chronic liver disease attending IPD of tertiary hospital. Based on investigation findings, patients were divided into two groups: Group A-Patients with sterile cirrhotic ascites, Group B- Patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis. Detailed history, examination and relevant investigation were done. Data was collected, recorded and statistical calculation was done using in Microsoft excel 2007.Results: Most common presenting symptoms of SBP patients were increasing ascites refractory to treatment (90%), followed by peripheral edema (80%). Jaundice and hepatic encephalopathy was found in 75% and 65% respectively. Serum and ascites albumin levels were lower in Group B (2.54±0.33 and 0.43±0.23 g/dl respectively) as compared to Group A (2.85±0.36 and 0.91±0.31 g/dl respectively) and it was statistically significant. The Mean±SD of SAAG for group A and group B was (1.94±0.36) and (2.09±0.47 g/dl) respectively. This difference was statistically not significant.Conclusions:Study conclude that the development of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in chronic liver disease patients with sterile ascites is directly proportional to ascitic fluid albumin and serum albumin concentration whereas occurrence of SBP is not affected by variation in SAAG ratio if it is already higher than 1.1 g/dl.

Coupled Evolutionary Behavioral and Disease Dynamics under Reinfection Risk

We study the interplay between epidemic dynamics and human decision making for epidemics that involve reinfection risk; in particular, the susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) and the susceptible-infected-recovered-infected (SIRI) epidemic models. In the proposed game-theoretic setting, individuals choose whether to adopt protection or not based on the trade-off between the cost of adopting protection and the risk of infection; the latter depends on the current prevalence of the epidemic and the fraction of individuals who adopt protection in the entire population. We define the coupled epidemic-behavioral dynamics by modeling the evolution of individual protection adoption behavior according to the replicator dynamics. For the SIS epidemic, we fully characterize the equilibria and their stability properties. We further analyze the coupled dynamics under timescale separation when individual behavior evolves faster than the epidemic, and characterize the equilibria of the resulting discontinuous hybrid dynamical system for both SIS and SIRI models. Numerical results illustrate how the coupled dynamics exhibits oscillatory behavior and convergence to sliding mode solutions under suitable parameter regimes.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2203.1027

First Results from MFOSC-P : Low Resolution Optical Spectroscopy of a Sample of M dwarfs within 100 parsecs

Mt. Abu Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (MFOSC-P) is an in-house developed instrument for Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) 1.2m telescope at Mt. Abu India, commissioned in February 2019. Here we present the first science results derived from the low resolution spectroscopy program of a sample of M Dwarfs carried out during the commissioning run of MFOSC-P between February-June 2019. M dwarfs carry great significance for exoplanets searches in habitable zone and are among the promising candidates for the observatory's several ongoing observational campaigns. Determination of their accurate atmospheric properties and fundamental parameters is essential to constrain both their atmospheric and evolutionary models. In this study, we provide a low resolution (R$\sim$500) spectroscopic catalogue of 80 bright M dwarfs (J$<$10) and classify them using their optical spectra. We have also performed the spectral synthesis and $\chi^2$ minimisation techniques to determine their fundamental parameters viz. effective temperature and surface gravity by comparing the observed spectra with the most recent BT-Settl synthetic spectra. Spectral type of M dwarfs in our sample ranges from M0 to M5. The derived effective temperature and surface gravity are ranging from 4000 K to 3000 K and 4.5 to 5.5 dex, respectively. In most of the cases, the derived spectral types are in good agreement with previously assigned photometric classification.Comment: Accepted for Publication in MNRA

Analysis and advanced characterization of municipal solid waste vermicompost maturity for a green environment

Rapid demographic expansion along with increasing urbanization has aggravated the problem of solid waste management. Therefore, scientists are seeking waste management methods that are eco-friendly, cost effective and produce immediate results. In the developing world, municipal solid waste (MSW) contains mostly organic substances, therefore vermicomposting could be a better and cost-effective option for waste management. In this study, vermicomposting of organic portion of MSW with cow dung (additive) was performed using Eisenia fetida. The results showed significant (p < 0.001) decline in pH (13.17%), TOC (21.70%), C: N (62.53%) and C: P (57.66%) ratios, whilst total N (108.9%), P (84.89%) and K (21.85%) content increased (p < 0.001) in matured vermicompost. Different enzymatic activities declined during termination phase of vermicomposting experiment with maximum decrease of 41.72 (p = 0.002) and 39.56% (p = 0.001) in protease and β-glucosidase, respectively. FT-IR, TGA, DSC and SEM studies suggested that final vermicompost was more stabilized as compared to initial waste mixture, characterized by reduced levels of aliphatic materials, carbohydrates and increase in aromatic groups possibly due to biosynthesis of humic substances. Both, the conventional (physicochemical and enzyme activity) and advanced techniques depict maturity and stability of the ready vermicompost. However, FT-IR, TGA, DSC and SEM were proved to be more promising, fast and reliable techniques over conventional analyses

Harnessing genetic potential of wheat germplasm banks through impact-oriented-prebreeding for future food and nutritional security

The value of exotic wheat genetic resources for accelerating grain yield gains is largely unproven and unrealized. We used next-generation sequencing, together with multi-environment phenotyping, to study the contribution of exotic genomes to 984 three-way-cross-derived (exotic/elite1//elite2) pre-breeding lines (PBLs). Genomic characterization of these lines with haplotype map-based and SNP marker approaches revealed exotic specific imprints of 16.1 to 25.1%, which compares to theoretical expectation of 25%. A rare and favorable haplotype (GT) with 0.4% frequency in gene bank identified on chromosome 6D minimized grain yield (GY) loss under heat stress without GY penalty under irrigated conditions. More specifically, the ‘T’ allele of the haplotype GT originated in Aegilops tauschii and was absent in all elite lines used in study. In silico analysis of the SNP showed hits with a candidate gene coding for isoflavone reductase IRL-like protein in Ae. tauschii. Rare haplotypes were also identified on chromosomes 1A, 6A and 2B effective against abiotic/biotic stresses. Results demonstrate positive contributions of exotic germplasm to PBLs derived from crosses of exotics with CIMMYT’s best elite lines. This is a major impact-oriented pre-breeding effort at CIMMYT, resulting in large-scale development of PBLs for deployment in breeding programs addressing food security under climate change scenarios

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects