A Case for Pharmacogenomics in Management of Cardiac Arrhythmias

Disorders of the cardiac rhythm are quite prevalent in clinical practice. Though the variability in drug response between individuals has been extensively studied, this information has not been widely used in clinical practice. Rapid advances in the field of pharmacogenomics have provided us with crucial insights on inter-individual genetic variability and its impact on drug metabolism and action. Technologies for faster and cheaper genetic testing and even personal genome sequencing would enable clinicians to optimize prescription based on the genetic makeup of the individual, which would open up new avenues in the area of personalized medicine. We have systematically looked at literature evidence on pharmacogenomics markers for anti-arrhythmic agents from the OpenPGx consortium collection and reason the applicability of genetics in the management of arrhythmia. We also discuss potential issues that need to be resolved before personalized pharmacogenomics becomes a reality in regular clinical practice

Gender Classification by Speech Analysis

-Gender classification is widely used in automatic speech recognition systems to recognize a speaker speaking continuously in any language. This work aims at analysing speech signals based on some parameters so as to predict the gender of the speaker. This paper comprises of male and female voice samples which were collected to form a database. Parameters such as mean, variance and standard deviation were determined to help in classifying the gender of the speaker

A need for a health IT portal to disseminate information about national health programmes in India

The objective of our study is to evaluate information about the national health programmes in India, available over the internet and to study the challenges faced while acquiring this information. To achieve our objective, we used the key words National Health Programmes OR Public Health Programmes OR Health Programs AND India in Google from January 1-January 10 2012, to find information about the existing Health Programmes. We chose first 20 web links across all the three search terms to yield 60 websites, which were then reviewed for their relevance. Only 16 websites were found to be relevant that met the inclusion criteria. The study showed that there was inadequate information about the existing national health programmes in India. This suggests a need to develop a National Public Health IT portal that can disseminate information about the various health programmes in a more structured manner and which is tailored to the needs of diverse group of stakeholders. Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Multi-temporal analysis of groundwater depletion-induced land subsidence in Central Ganga Alluvial plain, Northern India

This study explores the Persistent Scatterer Interferometry technique to identify the developing pattern of groundwater depletion-induced land subsidence in Lucknow, northern India. The results show the development of two significant subsidence zones, one each in the north and south of Lucknow. The situation is potentially alarming as ∼9.3% (∼27.6 km2) of the total area is under the expression of a weak degree of subsidence (∼10–40 mm/yr). The detected displacement trends substantially correspond to the constant dwindling of groundwater levels in the city, further indicating that the first unconfined aquifer is under high stress and faces a continuous storage capacity loss with time. The time-series displacement trends have been later forecasted using the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average method, indicating the city might face subsidence at the rate of ∼25–40 mm/yr. The findings of this study are significant to take precise mitigation measures in the areas facing continuous groundwater depletion on a long-term basis

Adverse Reactions Due to Directly Observed Treatment Short Course Therapy: An Indian Prospective Study

Abstract Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) causes enormous social and economic disruption and hampers nation's development. DOTS strategy under RNTCP is one of the largest public health programs found to be beneficial against TB. Adverse drug reactions lead to decrease in patient compliance and adherence. Good patient adherence to the treatment regimen is the foundation stone to effective antitubercular therapy. Noncompliance is cited as the major problem to the control of the tuberculosis at the level of public health which finally leads to drug resistance in case of TB. Aim and Objectives: To identify the occurrence and pattern of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) associated with anti-tubercular drugs in TB patients under DOTS therapy during Intensive phase of treatment. Materials and methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in 2 randomly selected DOTS centers of Jalandhar. A total of 102 patients of categories I and II who were registered in third quarter of 2014 were selected for study. The follow up period was during the intensive phase of DOTS regimen. All patients on ATT were followed up at the end of 1 week, 1 month and after the completion of intensive phase or if/ when self reporting was done due to adverse drug reactions. Detection and monitoring of adverse drug reaction was done by interviewing patients, consulting with physicians about the patient's clinical problems, reviewing laboratory test and medical records. The data so collected was entered and analyzed using SPSS 21 software. Results: The Incidence of adverse drug reaction was observed in 20.4% i.e. 21 out of 102 patients. Total number of adverse reactions developed in 21 patients were 31, with most common being GI

Immediate Postpartum Intrauterine Contraceptive Device Insertions in Caesarean and Vaginal Deliveries: A Comparative Study of Follow-Up Outcomes

Background. Immediate postpartum intrauterine contraceptive device (IPPIUCD) is a lucrative postpartum family planning method which provides effective reversible contraception to women in the delivery setting. Our aim was to study the clinical outcomes of IPPIUCD insertions and compare them as a factor of route of insertion (vaginal versus caesarean). Methods. This is a retrospective analytical study done in a tertiary care teaching institute. A Cohort of 593 vaginal and caesarean deliveries with IPPIUCD insertions, over a two-year period, was studied and compared for follow-up results. Outcome measures were safety (perforation, irregular bleeding, unusual vaginal discharge, and infection), efficacy (pregnancy, expulsions, and discontinuations), and incidence of undescended IUCD strings. Descriptives were calculated for various outcomes and chi square tests were used for comparison in between categorical variables. Results. Overall complication rates were low. No case of perforation or pregnancy was reported. Spontaneous expulsions were present in 5.3% cases and were significantly higher in vaginal insertions (p=0.042). The incidence of undescended strings was high (38%), with highly significant difference between both groups (p=0.000). Conclusion. IPPIUCD is a strong weapon in the family planning armoury and should be encouraged in both vaginal and caesarean deliveries. Early follow-up should be encouraged to detect expulsions and tackle common problems

The Emerging Role of Blockchain Technology Applications in Routine Disease Surveillance Systems to Strengthen Global Health Security

Blockchain technology has an enormous scope to revamp the healthcare system in many ways as it improves the quality of healthcare by data sharing among all the participants, selective privacy and ensuring data safety. This paper explores the basics of blockchain, its applications, quality of experience and advantages in disease surveillance over the other widely used real-time and machine learning techniques. The other real-time surveillance systems lack scalability, security, interoperability, thus making blockchain as a choice for surveillance. Blockchain offers the capability of enhancing global health security and also can ensure the anonymity of patient data thereby aiding in healthcare research. The recent epidemics of re-emerging infections such as Ebola and Zika have raised many concerns regarding health security which resulted in strengthening the surveillance systems. We also discuss how blockchains can help in identifying the threats early and reporting them to health authorities for taking early preventive measures. Since the Global Health Security Agenda addresses global public health threats (both infectious and NCDs); strengthen the workforce and the systems; detect and respond rapidly and effectively to the disease threats; and elevate global health security as a priority. The blockchain has enormous potential to disrupt many current practices in traditional disease surveillance and health care research

Modulation of DNA Vaccine-Elicited CD8(+) T-Lymphocyte Epitope Immunodominance Hierarchies

Generating broad cellular immune responses against a diversity of viral epitopes is a major goal of current vaccine strategies for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and other pathogens. Virus-specific CD8(+) T-lymphocyte responses, however, are often highly focused on a very limited number of immunodominant epitopes. For an HIV-1 vaccine, the breadth of CD8(+) T-lymphocyte responses may prove to be critical as a result of the need to cover a wide diversity of viral isolates in the population and to limit viral escape from dominant epitope-specific T lymphocytes. Here we show that epitope modification strategies can alter CD8(+) T-lymphocyte epitope immunodominance hierarchies elicited by a DNA vaccine in mice. Mice immunized with a DNA vaccine expressing simian immunodeficiency virus Gag lacking the dominant D(b)-restricted AL11 epitope generated a marked and durable augmentation of responses specific for the subdominant D(b)-restricted KV9 epitope. Moreover, anatomic separation strategies and heterologous prime-boost regimens generated codominant responses against both epitopes. These data demonstrate that dominant epitopes can dramatically suppress the immunogenicity of subdominant epitopes in the context of gene-based vaccines and that epitope modification strategies can be utilized to enhance responses to subdominant epitopes

Improvement of Nutrition Perception in Adult Women with Health Belief Model Approach

Adult has higher risk of degenerative diseases. Healthy diet is a way to prevent degenerative diseases. Based on the interviews with the head of RT 01 RW 02 Dukuh Menanggal Surabaya, there was no nutrition education conducted, thus knowledge and implementation of healthy eating in that area was low. Improvement in healthy diet can be done through nutrition education using Health Belief Model approach. The purpose of this activity was to increase participants' perceptions of nutrition and health. The participants were 17 adult women from RT 01 RW 02 Dukuh Menanggal Surabaya. Nutrition education regarding Pedoman Gizi Seimbang was carried out using Health Belief Model, as well as demonstrations of nutritional status measurement. The activity’s results showed that majority of participants had high nutritional status. Based on the evaluation with the pre-post test, participants' perceptions of vulnerability, severity, and benefit was elevated, while the perception of barrier declined. There was an improvement in participants' perceptions of diet and health as much as 201.3%. In addition, regular monitoring of nutritional status in adults must be carried out as screening of nutrition and health problem risk