A study on premenstrual syndrome among adolescent girl students in an urban area of West Bengal

Background: Previous studies in India reported a prevalence of premenstrual syndrome to be 20% in a general population and severe symptoms in 8%. The present study was conducted to study the socio-demographic characteristics of adolescent school girls, to estimate the proportion of premenstrual syndrome among them and to find out factors associated with premenstrual syndrome, if any.Methods: It was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted at a Kolkata city. Data were collected from the students of Class IX to XII in the classroom using pre-tested pre-designed self-administered questionnaire. Total 278 students were included in the study. Data analysis was done with the help of SPSS version 20.0.Results: The mean age of the students was 15.61 years ± 1.3. 54% of girls reported to have PMS. Out of the affective symptoms in ACOG criteria depression was by 45.7%, anger by 61.2%, irritability by 88.1%, anxiety by 51.8%, confusion by 46.4%, rejection by 24.8, breast pain by 22.7, abdominal distension by 37.5%, headache by 40.6% and swelling of limbs by 5% of girls.Conclusions: Proper medical care and psychological counselling should be sought earlier for increased blood flow during menstruation and dysmenorrhoea to get rid of PMS in adolescent girls

Role of predictors in acceptance of post-exposure prophylaxis with single-dose rifampicin among contacts of leprosy in rural area of Bankura: An explanatory mixed-method study

Background: India achieved the elimination of leprosy two decades ago although its sustenance continues to be threatened by ongoing active transmission in few remaining pockets. There is a paucity of data regarding the acceptance of single-dose rifampicin (SDR) prophylaxis among healthy contacts. Aims and Objectives: The aims and objectives of the study are to assess the factors influencing the acceptability of SDR among contacts. Materials and Methods: A community-based, sequential, explanatory mixed-method study was conducted over 6 months from September 2022 to February 2023 among 168 contacts of leprosy patients from two blocks in Bankura district, West Bengal. Quantitative analysis was done for SDR acceptance and its predictors among contacts using the Chi-square test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Logistic regression. This was followed by qualitative assessment using focus group discussions and in-depth interviews among contacts to explain the findings through a thematic approach. Results: Household contacts (aOR=13.72, 95% CI=2.09–90.19), increasing knowledge score of contacts (aOR=3.18, 95% CI=1.88–5.38), counseling by health workers (aOR=11.98, 95% CI=2.20–65.15), trust in health workers (aOR=152.96, 95% CI=13.17–1776.09), and not taking other medicines for comorbidity (aOR=35.82, 95% CI=2.94–436.02) were associated with increased SDR uptake among leprosy contacts. Barriers and facilitators of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP)-SDR were categorized as contact, health workers, and program-related factors. Conclusion: SDR acceptability among contacts was 77.4%. Facilitators of SDR-PEP were awareness of side-effects, follow-up, prompt support by health workers, IEC, belief in National programs, etc. Lack of knowledge of PEP-SDR and contraindications, ineffective counseling by health workers, stigma of the disease, the increased workload of health workers, etc., were the barriers to SDR-PEP implementation

Abnormalities in semen analysis among male partners of infertile couples: a study in a tertiary care level hospital of West Bengal, India

Background: The prevalence of infertility in the general population is 15%-20%. Of this, the male factor is responsible for 20%-40%.Analysis of semen is the most important diagnostic tool for evaluation of role of males in infertility. The study was conducted to determine the abnormalities in semen among male partners in infertile couples.Methods: A descriptive study with cross-sectional design among male partners of infertile couples was conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Pathology at Burdwan Medical College, Burdwan in West Bengal during August 2011 to July 2012. Analysis of semen was done for semen volume, sperm number, sperm motility and presence of other cells.Results: 7.45% samples were of inadequate quantity. 19.87 % of cases had oligozoospermia, 12.42% had azoospermia and 4.35% of males had asthenozoospermia. Pus cells were found in 12.42% cases.Conclusions: Majority of the cases of infertility in males is due to oligozoospermia followed by azoospermia while less sperm motility or less amount of semen are also responsible in some cases

Cytological profile of Pap smears in a tertiary care hospital of West Bengal, India

Background: Among Indian women cancers of cervix and breast account for a very large proportion of malignancies. Majority of the cancer patients present themselves to the doctor at an advanced and incurable stage. Screening for cervical cancer can be done by Pap test which is a very simple and inexpensive test. Early detection and treatment of pre-cancerous conditions and cancers provide the best possible protection against cancer for the individual and the community.Methods: A descriptive study with cross-sectional design was conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Pathology at Bankura Sammilani Medical College, Bankura in West Bengal during January 2014 to December 2014. Analysis of cervical cytology was done for neoplastic cells.Results: Out of 288 smears 8.3% samples were unsatisfactory, 77.9% were without epithelial cell abnormality while 13.8% were abnormal comprising of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) 1.4%, low grade squamous intra-epithelial lesion (LSIL) 8.3%, had high grade squamous intra-epithelial lesion (HSIL) 3.5% and squamous cell carcinoma, and post-radiation effect 0.3% each. Abnormality of smear was significantly associated with age group and religion of the cases (p<0.05).Conclusions: Majority of the cases cervical cytology were reported to be without any epithelial cell abnormality followed by LSIL. Age and religion were significantly associated with the abnormality of smears

Coverage and Awareness of and Compliance with Mass Drug Administration for Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis in Burdwan District, West Bengal, India

India adopted WHO\u2019s strategy of repeated rounds of mass drug administration (MDA) with diethylcarbamazine to eliminate lymphatic filariasis. The present study attempted to assess the coverage and awareness of and compliance with MDA for elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Burdwan district of India, following MDA round in July 2010. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the four randomly-selected clusters in the district of Burdwan, West Bengal, India, covering 603 individuals from 154 households, using a predesigned pretested schedule. The drug distribution coverage, compliance, and effective coverage were 48.76 %, 70.07%, and 34.16% respectively. Only 41.4% of the study population was aware of the MDA activity. This evaluation study noted that MDA is restricted to tablet distribution only. There is an urgent need to improve compliance with drug intake through strengthening of the awareness programme involving both government health workers and community volunteers

Differentiable Spline Approximations

The paradigm of differentiable programming has significantly enhanced the scope of machine learning via the judicious use of gradient-based optimization. However, standard differentiable programming methods (such as autodiff) typically require that the machine learning models be differentiable, limiting their applicability. Our goal in this paper is to use a new, principled approach to extend gradient-based optimization to functions well modeled by splines, which encompass a large family of piecewise polynomial models. We derive the form of the (weak) Jacobian of such functions and show that it exhibits a block-sparse structure that can be computed implicitly and efficiently. Overall, we show that leveraging this redesigned Jacobian in the form of a differentiable "layer" in predictive models leads to improved performance in diverse applications such as image segmentation, 3D point cloud reconstruction, and finite element analysis.This is a proceeding preprint from Cho, Minsu, Aditya Balu, Ameya Joshi, Anjana Deva Prasad, Biswajit Khara, Soumik Sarkar, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Adarsh Krishnamurthy, and Chinmay Hegde. "DIFFERENTIABLE SPLINE APPROXIMATIONS." arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.01532 (2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2110.01532. Copyright 2021 The Authors

Dynamics of Hot QCD Matter -- Current Status and Developments

The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The experimentalists around the world not only collect an unprecedented amount of data in heavy-ion collisions, at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland but also analyze these data to unravel the mystery of this new phase of matter that filled a few microseconds old universe, just after the Big Bang. In the meantime, advancements in theoretical works and computing capability extend our wisdom about the hot-dense QCD matter and its dynamics through mathematical equations. The exchange of ideas between experimentalists and theoreticians is crucial for the progress of our knowledge. The motivation of this first conference named "HOT QCD Matter 2022" is to bring the community together to have a discourse on this topic. In this article, there are 36 sections discussing various topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and related phenomena that cover a snapshot of the current experimental observations and theoretical progress. This article begins with the theoretical overview of relativistic spin-hydrodynamics in the presence of the external magnetic field, followed by the Lattice QCD results on heavy quarks in QGP, and finally, it ends with an overview of experiment results.Comment: Compilation of the contributions (148 pages) as presented in the `Hot QCD Matter 2022 conference', held from May 12 to 14, 2022, jointly organized by IIT Goa & Goa University, Goa, Indi

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Forward-central two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between trigger particles in the forward pseudorapidity range (2.5 2GeV/c. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B. V.Peer reviewe