438 research outputs found
UNDERSTANDING COVID-19 RELATED HEALTH LITERACY SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES AMONG THE WORKING LIS PROFESSIONALS IN DR. ZAKIR HUSAIN CENTRAL LIBRARY, JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA: A STUDY
Health literacy has become an integral component of human life, and it plays a significant role in ensuring safety from a variety of deadly diseases. India\u27s health literacy rate is below average when compared to other countries. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, doctors and volunteers from all over the world have been striving to promote health literacy to raise public awareness through various media. Given the foregoing, the main objective of this study is to identify the level of Covid-19 related health literacy among working LIS professionals at Jamia Millia Islamia\u27s Dr.Zakir Husain Central Library. The survey approach is being used in this study\u27s methodology. For ease of understanding, a well-structured questionnaire was created in both Hindi and English. A total of 54 questionnaires were distributed, with 40 completed questionnaires received. The key findings demonstrate that 100% of LIS professionals are aware of health literacy, and that the most common source of health information is family/friends 23(57.5%), followed by doctors 19 (47.5%). Electronic media (short clip videos provided by health organisations) is the most favoured medium for obtaining health-related information, i.e. 38. (95%). Furthermore, respondents are well-versed on COVID-19 transmission mechanisms; yet, respondents\u27 difficulties in obtaining health information are attributed to a lack of understanding of health literacy sources. Another significant finding from the study is that 100% of respondents believe that libraries can play an essential role in improving health literacy among academic community. The entire work is based on original research and serves as a resource for other scholars working in the same field
Liposomes, The Attractive Vehicles for Drug Delivery: A Scientometric Mapping of Web of Science Indexed Literature
The Liposome is a spherical-shaped vesicle composed of one or more phospholipid bilayers, closely resembling cell membranes' structure. It has a novel drug delivery system (NDDS); the lipid bilayer can fuse with other bilayers, such as the cell membrane, thus delivering the liposome contents. The present study has been conducted to map the research productivity of 'liposomes as drug delivery' between 1980 and 2021. This study employed the scientometric method to analyze 629 research papers indexed in the Web of Science database. Different bibliometrics indicators were used to assess the annual research growth, prolific authors, authorship pattern, funding agencies, productive source, organization, country, author keywords, cited paper and cited references, etc. Biblioshiny, Bibexcel, VOSviewer, and MS Office were used to analyze the 629 published papers. The findings show that 629 publications were published between 1980 and 2001, with 24674 citations. 2018 and 2019 recorded the highest research with 49 publications and 758 and 471 citations, respectively. Journal of Controlled Release was the most relevant source in the field, with 45 publications and 3063 citations. LIU Y was the most productive author, with 15 publications and 342 citations. Northwestern University USA has the highest record with 11 publications, and the USA was the most productive country with 181 publications, while China emerged as a leading collaborator with the USA (19 publications). Liposomes and cationic liposomes were identified as the most important research themes. Permeability, ocular drug delivery, Chemotherapy, Cancer therapy, Hypoxia, Combination therapy, and hyaluronic acid were research topics that had gained recent popularity. At the same time, Vesicles targeted drug delivery, cellular uptake, ultrasound, Chitosan, and Pegylation were identified as the research areas that require further attention in the field of liposomes as drug delivery research
AFOM: ADVANCED FLOW OF MOTION DETECTION ALGORITHM FOR DYNAMIC CAMERA VIDEOS
The surveillance videos taken from dynamic cam-eras are susceptible to multiple security threats like replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, pixel correlation attacks etc. Using unsupervised learning, it is a challenge to detect objects in such surveillance videos, as fixed objects may appear to be in motion alongside the actual moving objects. But despite this challenge, the unsupervised learning techniques are efficient as they save object labelling and model training time, which is usually a case with supervised learning models. This paper proposes an effective computer vision-based object identification algorithm that can detect and separate stationary objects from moving objects in such videos. The proposed Advanced Flow Of Motion (AFOM) algorithm takes advantage of motion estimation between two consecutive frames and induces the estimated motion back to the frame to provide an improved detection on the dynamic camera videos. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed AFOM outperforms a traditional dense optical flow (DOF) algorithm with an average increased difference of 56 % in accuracy, 61 % in precision, and 73 % in pixel space ratio (PSR), and with minimal higher object detection timing
Preserving Chain-of-Evidence in Surveillance Videos for Authentication and Trust-Enabled Sharing
Surveillance video recording is a powerful method of deterring unlawful activities. A robust data protection-by-design solution can be helpful in terms of making a captured video immutable, as such recordings cannot become a piece of evidence until proven to be unaltered. Similarly, video sharing from closed-circuit television video recording or in social media interaction requires self-authentication for responsible and reliable data sharing. This article presents a computationally inexpensive method of preserving a chain-of-evidence in surveillance videos by means of hashing and steganography. The method conforms to the data protection regulations, which are increasingly adopted by governments, and is applicable to network edge storage. Encryption keys are stored in a hardware wallet independently of the video capture device itself, while evidential information is stored steganographically within video frames themselves, independently of the content. Added protection is provided by hiding information within the two least-valued of pixel bitplanes, using a newly introduced technique that randomizes the pixel storage locations on a per video frame and video-capture device basis. Overall, the proposed method has turned out to not only preserve the integrity of stored video data but also results in minimal degradation of the video data resulting from steganography. Despite the inclusion of hidden information, video frames will still be available for common image-processing tasks such as tracking and classification, as their objective video quality is almost unchanged
TAT-peptide conjugated repurposing drug against SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro): potential therapeutic intervention to combat COVID-19
The Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that originated in Chinese city of Wuhan has caused around 906,092 deaths and 28,040,853 confirmed cases worldwide (WHO, 11 September, 2020). In a life-threatening situation, where there is no specific and licensed anti-COVID-19 vaccine or medicine available; the repurposed drug might act as a silver bullet. Currently, more than 211 vaccines, 80 antibodies, 31 antiviral drugs, 35 cell-based, 6 RNA-based and 131 other drugs are in clinical trials. It is therefore utter need of the hour to develop an effective drug that can be used for the treatment of COVID-19 before a vaccine can be developed. One of the best-characterized and attractive drug targets among coronaviruses is the main protease (3CL^{pro}). Therefore, the current study focuses on the molecular docking analysis of TAT-peptide^{47–57} (GRKKRRQRRRP)-conjugated repurposed drugs (i.e., lopinavir, ritonavir, favipiravir, and hydroxychloroquine) with SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CL^{pro} to discover potential efficacy of TAT-peptide (TP) - conjugated repurposing drugs against SARS-CoV-2. The molecular docking results validated that TP-conjugated ritonavir, lopinavir, favipiravir, and hydroxychloroquine have superior and significantly enhanced interactions with the target SARS-CoV-2 main protease. In-silico approach employed in this study suggests that the combination of the drug with TP is an excelling alternative to develop a novel drug for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. The development of TP based delivery of repurposing drugs might be an excellent approach to enhance the efficacy of the existing drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. The predictions from the results obtained provide invaluable information that can be utilized for the choice of candidate drugs for in vitro, in vivo and clinical trials. The outcome from this work prove crucial for exploring and developing novel cost-effective and biocompatible TP conjugated anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic agents in immediate future
MuLViS: Multi-Level Encryption Based Security System for Surveillance Videos
Video Surveillance (VS) systems are commonly deployed for real-time abnormal event detection and autonomous video analytics. Video captured by surveillance cameras in real-time often contains identifiable personal information, which must be privacy protected, sometimes along with the locations of the surveillance and other sensitive information. Within the Surveillance System, these videos are processed and stored on a variety of devices. The processing and storage heterogeneity of those devices, together with their network requirements, make real-time surveillance systems complex and challenging. This paper proposes a surveillance system, named as Multi-Level Video Security (MuLViS) for privacy-protected cameras. Firstly, a Smart Surveillance Security Ontology (SSSO) is integrated within the MuLViS, with the aim of autonomously selecting the privacy level matching the operating device's hardware specifications and network capabilities. Overall, along with its device-specific security, the system leads to relatively fast indexing and retrieval of surveillance video. Secondly, information within the videos are protected at the times of capturing, streaming, and storage by means of differing encryption levels. An extensive evaluation of the system, through visual inspection and statistical analysis of experimental video results, such as by the Encryption Space Ratio (ESR), has demonstrated the aptness of the security level assignments. The system is suitable for surveillance footage protection, which can be made General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, ensuring that lawful data access respects individuals' privacy rights
Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders during 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015
Background
Comparable data on the global and country-specific burden of neurological disorders and their trends are crucial for health-care planning and resource allocation. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) Study provides such information but does not routinely aggregate results that are of interest to clinicians specialising in neurological conditions. In this systematic analysis, we quantified the global disease burden due to neurological disorders in 2015 and its relationship with country development level.
Methods
We estimated global and country-specific prevalence, mortality, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), years of life lost (YLLs), and years lived with disability (YLDs) for various neurological disorders that in the GBD classification have been previously spread across multiple disease groupings. The more inclusive grouping of neurological disorders included stroke, meningitis, encephalitis, tetanus, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease, migraine, tension-type headache, medication overuse headache, brain and nervous system cancers, and a residual category of other neurological disorders. We also analysed results based on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a compound measure of income per capita, education, and fertility, to identify patterns associated with development and how countries fare against expected outcomes relative to their level of development.
Findings
Neurological disorders ranked as the leading cause group of DALYs in 2015 (250·7 [95% uncertainty interval (UI) 229·1 to 274·7] million, comprising 10·2% of global DALYs) and the second-leading cause group of deaths (9·4 [9·1 to 9·7] million], comprising 16·8% of global deaths). The most prevalent neurological disorders were tension-type headache (1505·9 [UI 1337·3 to 1681·6 million cases]), migraine (958·8 [872·1 to 1055·6] million), medication overuse headache (58·5 [50·8 to 67·4 million]), and Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (46·0 [40·2 to 52·7 million]). Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths from neurological disorders increased by 36·7%, and the number of DALYs by 7·4%. These increases occurred despite decreases in age-standardised rates of death and DALYs of 26·1% and 29·7%, respectively; stroke and communicable neurological disorders were responsible for most of these decreases. Communicable neurological disorders were the largest cause of DALYs in countries with low SDI. Stroke rates were highest at middle levels of SDI and lowest at the highest SDI. Most of the changes in DALY rates of neurological disorders with development were driven by changes in YLLs.
Interpretation
Neurological disorders are an important cause of disability and death worldwide. Globally, the burden of neurological disorders has increased substantially over the past 25 years because of expanding population numbers and ageing, despite substantial decreases in mortality rates from stroke and communicable neurological disorders. The number of patients who will need care by clinicians with expertise in neurological conditions will continue to grow in coming decades. Policy makers and health-care providers should be aware of these trends to provide adequate services
Synergies, Strengths and Challenges: Findings on Community Capability from a Systematic Health Systems Research Literature Review
Background:
Community capability is the combined influence of a community’s social systems and collective resources that can address community problems and broaden community opportunities. We frame it as consisting of three domains that together support community empowerment: what communities have; how communities act; and for whom communities act. We sought to further understand these domains through a secondary analysis of a previous systematic review on community participation in health systems interventions in low and middle income countries (LMICs).
Methods:
We searched for journal articles published between 2000 and 2012 related to the concepts of “community”, “capability/participation”, “health systems research” and “LMIC.” We identified 64 with rich accounts of community participation involving service delivery and governance in health systems research for thematic analysis following the three domains framing community capability.
Results:
When considering what communities have, articles reported external linkages as the most frequently gained resource, especially when partnerships resulted in more community power over the intervention. In contrast, financial assets were the least mentioned, despite their importance for sustainability. With how communities act, articles discussed challenges of ensuring inclusive participation and detailed strategies to improve inclusiveness. Very little was reported about strengthening community cohesiveness and collective efficacy despite their importance in community initiatives. When reviewing for whom communities act, the importance of strong local leadership was mentioned frequently, while conflict resolution strategies and skills were rarely discussed.
Synergies were found across these elements of community capability, with tangible success in one area leading to positive changes in another. Access to information and opportunities to develop skills were crucial to community participation, critical thinking, problem solving and ownership. Although there are many quantitative scales measuring community capability, health systems research engaged with community participation has rarely made use of these tools or the concepts informing them. Overall, the amount of information related to elements of community capability reported by these articles was low and often of poor quality.
Conclusions:
Strengthening community capability is critical to ensuring that community participation leads to genuine empowerment. Our simpler framework to define community capability may help researchers better recognize, support and assess it
The reasons why Pakistan might be at high risk of Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever epidemic; a scoping review of the literature
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