Carrying Capacity Assessment for Religious Crowd Management - An Application to Sabarimala Mass Gathering Pilgrimage, India

Crowd Management is always a challenging task when people gather in large numbers. Crowd disasters in India, including recurring incidents at religious venues, demands a crowd management system developed on the characteristics of the place, event, and participants. Assessment of carrying capacity is the prime process to design crowd management protocols and regulations. Carrying capacity assessment of religious gathering venues in India is often an overlooked process. The present study assessed the crowd carrying capacity of Sabarimala pilgrimage, Kerala, India. Physical carrying capacity assessment methods used for tourism venues have been applied and contextualised for crowd carrying capacity assessment. Characteristics of the venue, pilgrimage and pilgrims were studied to map the active crowd area and space utilisation zones. The physical carrying capacity was estimated based on the comfortable crowd density and threshold crowd density assessments. The study identified two factors influencing pilgrim movement within the venue viz. service level at the holy step and capacity of the darshan facility. Service level at the holy step is the prime factor that regulates the flow of the pilgrim within the venue including the pilgrim movement for deity darshan and hence the comfortable capacity of the holy step was distinguished as the effective carrying capacity of the venue. Physical carrying capacity at the comfortable crowd density has to be maintained throughout the event to avoid the triggering of crowd crushes. The crowd carrying capacity assessment (CCCA) method applied in this study is a simple process. Considering the crowd density and crowd regulation factors, the CCCA method can be applied to design crowd management protocols of other religious pilgrimage destinations in India

Customized News Filtering and Summarization System Based on Personal Interest

AbstractAbstract_ In the World Wide Web the information consists large amount of news contents. In Web intelligence Recommendation, filtering, and summarization of Web news have received much attention and also aims to find interesting news to the users .In this paper we present Customized news filtering and summarization system based on personal interest and it summarizes concise content for users .A user interest model induced by embedded learning component of CNFS and it also recommends customized news. Retrieving useful Web news involves both filtering and keyword extraction and also maintains key word knowledge base. The non-news content irrelevant to the news Webpage is filtered out .This extraction method substantially outperforms methods based on term frequency and lexical chains to represent semantic relation between words

Cognitive functional therapy (CFT)-based rehabilitation improves clinical outcomes in UK military personnel with persistent low back pain

Introduction Low back pain (LBP) has been reported as the most common reason for presentation to the Medical Centre in the British Military, and the most common re-referral for the same condition. In 2015, the UK Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) adopted a cognitive functional therapy (CFT) approach to spinal rehabilitation in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and military best practice guidelines. The aim of this study is to evaluate the functional and psychosocial outcomes of all patients with chronic LBP treated with CFT-based multidisciplinary rehabilitation at DMRC, Headley Court. Methods A prospective observational service evaluation of British Military patients (n=238) with LBP who attended 3 weeks of inpatient multidisciplinary CFT-based programme from 2015 to the end of 2017 at DMRC was analysed. Functional outcomes include: multistage locomotion test (MSLT) and sit and reach test. Psychosocial outcomes include: Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia, Oswestry Disability Index, Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), General Anxiety Disorder-7 and Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Results There were significant improvements in endurance (MSLT), range of motion, kinesiophobia, pain-related lifestyle interference (BPI-Lifestyle), anxiety and depression (p≤0.001). However, no improvements in pain intensity (BPI-Intensity) were demonstrated (p>0.05). Conclusion After 3 weeks of CFT-based multidisciplinary rehabilitation, function and psychosocial health improved with symptoms of pain being less obtrusive to activities of daily activity. There were however no patient-reported reductions in pain intensity. The improvements demonstrated are indicative of outcomes that facilitate greater integration back to work or into society

EVALUATION OF SERUM TOLL-LIKE RECEPTOR 4 AND NUCLEAR FACTOR-ΚBP65 PROTEINS IN ORAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA

Objective: The present study is aimed to estimate the serum toll-like receptor 4 (sTLR 4) and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) p65 proteins in patients of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Methods: The study was performed in prospective cases of 22 OSCC patients, 10 oral epithelial dysplasia patients, 8 control with chewing habits, and 4 control patients. The estimation of sTLR 4 and NF-κBp65 proteins was done by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. The Pearson correlation test was performed to find out the relationship between these two proteins. Results: There was an increase in the sTLR 4 protein level in study groups OSCC, oral premalignant disorders, control with chewing habits, and control habits such as 1.31 ng/ml±1.06 ng/ml, 1.99 ng/ml±0.98 ng/ml, and 2.11 ng/ml±0.61 ng/ml, respectively, when comparable (p=0.008) to control patients with 0.60 ng/ml±0.24 ng/ml. However, in the case of serum level NF-κBp65 protein all the study groups including the control showed same values. The Pearson correlation test showed significant relationship (rpearson=0.91, [p<0.0005]) of these two proteins only in the OSCC patients. Conclusion: It can be concluded that serum levels of TLR 4 are increased in OSCC patients, but there was no variation seen for the NF-κBp65 protein. There is a strong interrelationship exist between the serum levels of TLR 4 and NF-κBp65 proteins in the OSCC patients only

Trends in prevalence and determinants of severe and moderate anaemia among women of reproductive age during the last 15 years in India

Background: Anaemia is a serious global public health problem that disproportionally affects children, adolescent girls, and women of reproductive age, especially pregnant women. Women of reproductive age are more vulnerable to anaemia, particularly severe and moderate anaemia leads to adverse outcomes among pregnant women. Despite continuous Government efforts, anaemia burden still poses a serious challenge in India. The objective of this study is to assess the trends in prevalence and determinants of severe and moderate anaemia among women of reproductive age between 15 and 49 years. Method: We used three rounds of the large-scale National Family Health Survey (NFHS) India, conducted on a representative sample of households using a cross-sectional design across the country in 2005–06, 2015–16 and 2019–2021. We included all the women aged 15 to 49 years in our analysis. We used the same haemoglobin (Hb) cut-off values for all the three rounds of surveys to ensure comparability. Generalized linear regression analyses with log link were done. Survey weights were incorporated in the analysis. Results: The prevalence of severe or moderate Anaemia (SMA) in non-pregnant women was 14.20%, 12.43% and 13.98%; it was 31.11%, 25.98% and 26.66% for pregnant women in 2006, 2016 and 2021 respectively. The decline in SMA prevalence was 1.54% in non-pregnant women, whereas it was 14.30% in pregnant women in 15 years. Women who were poor, and without any formal education had a higher risk for severe and moderate Anaemia. Conclusion: Despite the intensive anaemia control program in India, SMA has not declined appreciably in non-pregnant women during the last two decades. Despite the decline, the prevalence of SMA was about 26% in pregnant women which calls for a comprehensive review of the existing anaemia control programmes and there must be targeted programmes for the most vulnerable and high-risk women such as rural, poor and illiterate women of reproductive age to reduce the burden of anaemia among them

Exact correction factor for estimating the OR in the presence of sparse data with a zero cell in 2 × 2 tables

In case-control studies, odds ratios (OR) are calculated from 2 × 2 tables and in some instances, we observe small cell counts or zero counts in one of the cells. The corrections to calculate the ORs in the presence of empty cells are available in literature. Some of these include Yates continuity correction and Agresti and Coull correction. However, the available methods provided different corrections and the situations where each could be applied are not very apparent. Therefore, the current research proposes an iterative algorithm of estimating an exact (optimum) correction factor for the respective sample size. This was evaluated by simulating data with varying proportions and sample sizes. The estimated correction factor was considered after obtaining the bias, standard error of odds ratio, root mean square error and the coverage probability. Also, we have presented a linear function to identify the exact correction factor using sample size and proportion

Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing in the Assessment of Dysfunctional Breathing.

Dysfunctional breathing (DB) is a disabling condition which affects the biomechanical breathing pattern and is challenging to diagnose. It affects individuals in many circumstances, including those without underlying disease who may even be athletic in nature. DB can also aggravate the symptoms of those with established heart or lung conditions. However, it is treatable and individuals have much to gain if it is recognized appropriately. Here we consider the role of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in the identification and management of DB. Specifically, we have described the diagnostic criteria and presenting symptoms. We explored the physiology and pathophysiology of DB and physiological consequences in the context of exercise. We have provided examples of its interplay with co-morbidity in other chronic diseases such as asthma, pulmonary hypertension and left heart disease. We have discussed the problems with the current methods of diagnosis and proposed how CPET could improve this. We have provided guidance on how CPET can be used for diagnosis, including consideration of pattern recognition and use of specific data panels. We have considered categorization, e.g., predominant breathing pattern disorder or acute or chronic hyperventilation. We have explored the distinction from gas exchange or ventilation/perfusion abnormalities and described other potential pitfalls, such as false positives and periodic breathing. We have also illustrated an example of a clinical pathway utilizing CPET in the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with suspected DB