MAPIT - A Mapping Application for Freshwater Invertebrate Taxa

With the increasing popularity of the World Wide Web among internet users across the world, the need for building web based applications is increasing with time. The Western Center for Monitoring and Assessment of Freshwater Ecosystems (WMC) and the National Aquatic Monitoring Center (NAMC) jointly host a central database containing biological data that is used to assess the condition of aquatic ecosystems. The information stored in the database contains biological and, - geographical data. This information is made available easily through a simple but effective tool called MAPIT. MAPIT is a search engine which can be used to search through the environmental and biological data related to aquatic invertebrates and their locations. MAPIT also produces a map of the location of where the individual taxa were collected. Users can also download the data in a standard format for further analysis

Maternal Anthropometry and it’s Relationship to Birth Weight

Introduction: Nutrition plays a major role in maternal and child health and it is perhaps the most influential non-genetic factor in foetal development. Understanding the relation between maternal nutrition and birth outcomes may provide a basis for developing nutritional interventions that will improve birth outcomes and long-term quality of life. Many research projects have studied maternal anthropometric indicators as predictors of birth weight; not many of them have focused on the question as to which is the best indicator for prediction of pregnancy outcomes with greater accuracy. Hence this study was taken up to assess the relationship between specific maternal anthropometric indicator including Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and pregnancy outcome. The objective of the study was to assess the relationship between maternal anthropometric indicators and birth weight, crown-heel length and new-born’s head circumference.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among mothers who come for safe confinement to District Hospital, Tumkur during June - August 2018. Data was collected using pre-tested, semi structured proforma. Anthropometric measurements like weight, height & MUAC of mother and new-borns’ birthweight & length was collected. Data was analysed using SPSS and linear regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between maternal & newborn anthropometric measures.Results: There was a statistically significant positive correlation between: Birth-weight and maternal height (r=0.301), MUAC (r=0.222) & gestational weight-gain (r=0.233); Crown-heel length of new born and MUAC (r=0.209); Head circumference and MUAC (r=0.475) and gestational weight-gain (r=0.263).Conclusion: MUAC as an indicator of maternal nutritional status is having a positive correlation with birth weight, and can be used as a predictor of new-born’s anthropometry

IEEHR: Improved Energy Efficient Honeycomb based Routing in MANET for Improving Network Performance and Longevity

In present scenario, efficient energy conservation has been the greatest focus in Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs). Typically, the energy consumption rate of dense networks is to be reduced by proper topological management. Honeycomb based model is an efficient parallel computing technique, which can manage the topological structures in a promising manner.  Moreover, discovering optimal routes in MANET is the most significant task, to be considered with energy efficiency. With that motive, this paper presents a model called Improved Energy Efficient Honeycomb based Routing (IEEHR) in MANET. The model combines the Honeycomb based area coverage with Location-Aided Routing (LAR), thereby reducing the broadcasting range during the process of path finding. In addition to optimal routing, energy has to be effectively utilized in MANET, since the mobile nodes have energy constraints. When the energy is effectively consumed in a network, the network performance and the network longevity will be increased in respective manner. Here, more amount of energy is preserved during the sleeping state of the mobile nodes, which are further consumed during the process of optimal routing. The designed model has been implemented and analyzed with NS-2 Network Simulator based on the performance factors such as Energy Efficiency, Transmission Delay, Packet Delivery Ratio and Network Lifetime

Impact of international travel and border control measures on the global spread of the novel 2019 coronavirus outbreak

The novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) in mainland China has rapidly spread across the globe. Within 2 mo since the outbreak was first reported on December 31, 2019, a total of 566 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS CoV-2) cases have been confirmed in 26 other countries. Travel restrictions and border control measures have been enforced in China and other countries to limit the spread of the outbreak. We estimate the impact of these control measures and investigate the role of the airport travel network on the global spread of the COVID-19 outbreak. Our results show that the daily risk of exporting at least a single SARS CoV-2 case from mainland China via international travel exceeded 95% on January 13, 2020. We found that 779 cases (95% CI: 632 to 967) would have been exported by February 15, 2020 without any border or travel restrictions and that the travel lockdowns enforced by the Chinese government averted 70.5% (95% CI: 68.8 to 72.0%) of these cases. In addition, during the first three and a half weeks of implementation, the travel restrictions decreased the daily rate of exportation by 81.3% (95% CI: 80.5 to 82.1%), on average. At this early stage of the epidemic, reduction in the rate of exportation could delay the importation of cases into cities unaffected by the COVID-19 outbreak, buying time to coordinate an appropriate public health response.Integrative Biolog

Projecting hospital utilization during the COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States

Data deposition: The computational system is available in Github (https://github.com/affans/ncov2019odemodel).In the wake of community coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in the United States, there is a growing public health concern regarding the adequacy of resources to treat infected cases. Hospital beds, intensive care units (ICUs), and ventilators are vital for the treatment of patients with severe illness. To project the timing of the outbreak peak and the number of ICU beds required at peak, we simulated a COVID-19 outbreak parameterized with the US population demographics. In scenario analyses, we varied the delay from symptom onset to self-isolation, the proportion of symptomatic individuals practicing self-isolation, and the basic reproduction number R0. Without self-isolation, when R0 =2.5, treatment of critically ill individuals at the outbreak peak would require 3.8 times more ICU beds than exist in the United States. Self-isolation by 20% of cases 24 h after symptom onset would delay and flatten the outbreak trajectory, reducing the number of ICU beds needed at the peak by 48.4% (interquartile range 46.4-50.3%), although still exceeding existing capacity. When R0 =2, twice as many ICU beds would be required at the peak of outbreak in the absence of self-isolation. In this scenario, the proportional impact of self-isolation within 24 h on reducing the peak number of ICU beds is substantially higher at 73.5% (interquartile range 71.4-75.3%). Our estimates underscore the inadequacy of critical care capacity to handle the burgeoning outbreak. Policies that encourage self-isolation, such as paid sick leave, may delay the epidemic peak, giving a window of time that could facilitate emergency mobilization to expand hospital capacity.S.M.M. acknowledges support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant OV4-170643; Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus Rapid Research), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. A.P.G. gratefully acknowledges funding from the NIH (grant UO1-GM087719), the Burnett and Stender families’ endowment, the Notsew Orm Sands Foundation, NIH grant 1R01AI151176-01, and National Science Foundation grant RAPID-2027755. M.C.F. was supported by the NIH grant K01 AI141576.Integrative Biolog

A Prospective Randomized Trial of Either Famotidine or Pantoprazole for the Prevention of Bleeding after Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has been reported to have a higher bleeding rate than conventional methods. However, there are few reports on whether a proton pump inhibitor or a histamine2-receptor antagonist is the more effective treatment for preventing bleeding after ESD. In a prospective trial, patients undergoing ESD due to gastric adenoma or adenocarcinoma were randomly assigned to pantoprazole or famotidine. Both drugs were given intravenously for the first 2 days, thereafter by mouth. Eighty-five in the pantoprazole group and 79 in the famotidine group were included for analysis. Primary outcome measure was the delayed bleeding rate. Clinical characteristics were not different between the two groups. The delayed bleeding rate was significantly lower in the pantoprazole group compared with the famotidine group (3.5% vs. 12.7%, p=0.031). On multivariate analysis, the preventive use of pantoprazole (relative hazard: 0.220, 95% CI: 0.051- 0.827, p=0.026) and the specimen size (≥34 mm, relative hazard: 4.178, 95% CI: 1.229-14.197, p=0.022) were two independent factors predictive of delayed bleeding. There were no significant differences in en bloc and complete resection rate between the two groups. In conclusion, pantoprazole is more effective than famotidine for the prevention of delayed bleeding after ESD

Signal Fluctuation Sensitivity: An Improved Metric for Optimizing Detection of Resting-State fMRI Networks

Task-free connectivity analyses have emerged as a powerful tool in functional neuroimaging. Because the cross-correlations that underlie connectivity measures are sensitive to distortion of time-series, here we used a novel dynamic phantom to provide a ground truth for dynamic fidelity between blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD)-like inputs and fMRI outputs. We found that the de facto quality-metric for task-free fMRI, temporal signal to noise ratio (tSNR), correlated inversely with dynamic fidelity; thus, studies optimized for tSNR actually produced time-series that showed the greatest distortion of signal dynamics. Instead, the phantom showed that dynamic fidelity is reasonably approximated by a measure that, unlike tSNR, dissociates signal dynamics from scanner artifact. We then tested this measure, signal fluctuation sensitivity (SFS), against human resting-state data. As predicted by the phantom, SFS—and not tSNR—is associated with enhanced sensitivity to both local and long-range connectivity within the brain's default mode network

Colonic epithelial ion transport is not affected in patients with diverticulosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Colonic diverticular disease is a bothersome condition with an unresolved pathogenesis. It is unknown whether a neuroepithelial dysfunction is present. The aim of the study was two-fold; (1) to investigate colonic epithelial ion transport in patients with diverticulosis and (2) to adapt a miniaturized Modified Ussing Air-Suction (MUAS) chamber for colonic endoscopic biopsies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Biopsies were obtained from the sigmoid part of the colon. 86 patients were included. All patients were referred for colonoscopy on suspicion of neoplasia and they were without pathological findings at colonoscopy (controls) except for diverticulosis in 22 (D-patients). Biopsies were mounted in MUAS chambers with an exposed area of 5 mm². Electrical responses to various stimulators and inhibitors of ion transport were investigated together with histological examination. The MUAS chamber was easy to use and reproducible data were obtained.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Median basal short circuit current (SCC) was 43.8 μA·cm^-2(0.8 – 199) for controls and 59.3 μA·cm^-2(3.0 – 177.2) for D-patients. Slope conductance was 77.0 mS·cm^-2(18.6 – 204.0) equal to 13 Ω·cm²for controls and 96.6 mS·cm^-2(8.4 – 191.4) equal to 10.3 Ω·cm²for D-patients. Stimulation with serotonin, theophylline, forskolin and carbachol induced increases in SCC in a range of 4.9 – 18.6 μA·cm^-2, while inhibition with indomethacin, bumetanide, ouabain and amiloride decreased SCC in a range of 6.5 – 27.4 μA·cm^-2, and all with no significant differences between controls and D-patients. Histological examinations showed intact epithelium and lamina propria before and after mounting for both types of patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We conclude that epithelial ion transport is not significantly altered in patients with diverticulosis and that the MUAS chamber can be adapted for studies of human colonic endoscopic biopsies.</p