British Sign Language detection using ultra-wideband radar sensing and residual neural network

This study represents a significant advancement in sign language detection (SLD), a crucial tool for enhancing communication and fostering inclusivity among the hearing-impaired community. It innovatively combines radar technology with deep learning techniques to develop a sophisticated, noninvasive SLD system. Traditional SLD methods often rely on cumbersome wearable devices or struggle with environmental inconsistencies. In contrast, this system uses the distinctive ability of radar to function effectively across various lighting conditions. The core of this research lies in its application to British Sign Language (BSL) detection, using advanced neural network architectures for real-time interpretation. A key highlight is the impressive 92% accuracy rate achieved in BSL recognition, using the residual neural network (ResNet) model. This success is attributed to a comprehensive dataset and the strategic adaptation of ResNet for processing radar data. The fusion of radar technology with deep learning in this context not only marks a novel approach in the field but also establishes this research as a foundational contribution to the realm of SLD. Its implications extend beyond technical achievement, offering a more accessible and inclusive communication alternative for the hearing-impaired

Patterns of Motorbike Accidents Related Head Injuries in Patients Presenting to a Tertiary Care Hospital of Peshawar

Objective: To determine the different patterns of motorbike related head injuries in patients presenting to a tertiary care hospital of Peshawar.Materials and Methods: It was a prospective (observational) study, which was conducted at the Neurotrauma ward of Neurosurgery department, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar from January 2016 to June 2016. Total number of patients were 246. We included those patients who were having impaired Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), danger signs and having some abnormal findings on CT brain. We excluded those patients who were having GCS 15/15 and those patients of head injury having associated co-morbid conditions.Results: There were 230 (93.49%) males and 16 (6.5%) females. Age range was 1 to 80 years. Majority of pati-ents were drivers (55.28%). Only 6 (2.43%) drivers used helmet. Ninety patients (36.58%) had an ICU stay of more than one week. Seventy six (30.89%) patients were operated and 170 (69.1%) patients were treated con-servatively. Mortality was 14.63% in our study.Conclusion: Majority were males in our study, most of the patients who sustained head injury in motorbike accidents were drivers. Thirty six percent of the patients needed ICU stay of more than 1 week. Maximum of the patients needed conservative treatment

A deep learning-based model for plant lesion segmentation, subtype identification, and survival probability estimation

Plants are the primary source of food for world’s population. Diseases in plants can cause yield loss, which can be mitigated by continual monitoring. Monitoring plant diseases manually is difficult and prone to errors. Using computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) for the early identification of plant illnesses can prevent the negative consequences of diseases at the very beginning and overcome the limitations of continuous manual monitoring. The research focuses on the development of an automatic system capable of performing the segmentation of leaf lesions and the detection of disease without requiring human intervention. To get lesion region segmentation, we propose a context-aware 3D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model based on CANet architecture that considers the ambiguity of plant lesion placement in the plant leaf image subregions. A Deep CNN is employed to recognize the subtype of leaf lesion using the segmented lesion area. Finally, the plant’s survival is predicted using a hybrid method combining CNN and Linear Regression. To evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of our proposed plant disease detection scheme and survival prediction, we utilized the Plant Village Benchmark Dataset, which is composed of several photos of plant leaves affected by a certain disease. Using the DICE and IoU matrices, the segmentation model performance for plant leaf lesion segmentation is evaluated. The proposed lesion segmentation model achieved an average accuracy of 92% with an IoU of 90%. In comparison, the lesion subtype recognition model achieves accuracies of 91.11%, 93.01 and 99.04 for pepper, potato and tomato plants. The higher accuracy of the proposed model indicates that it can be utilized for real-time disease detection in unmanned aerial vehicles and offline to offer crop health updates and reduce the risk of low yield

An effective deep learning approach for the classification of Bacteriosis in peach leave

Bacteriosis is one of the most prevalent and deadly infections that affect peach crops globally. Timely detection of Bacteriosis disease is essential for lowering pesticide use and preventing crop loss. It takes time and effort to distinguish and detect Bacteriosis or a short hole in a peach leaf. In this paper, we proposed a novel LightWeight (WLNet) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model based on Visual Geometry Group (VGG-19) for detecting and classifying images into Bacteriosis and healthy images. Profound knowledge of the proposed model is utilized to detect Bacteriosis in peach leaf images. First, a dataset is developed which consists of 10000 images: 4500 are Bacteriosis and 5500 are healthy images. Second, images are preprocessed using different steps to prepare them for the identification of Bacteriosis and healthy leaves. These preprocessing steps include image resizing, noise removal, image enhancement, background removal, and augmentation techniques, which enhance the performance of leaves classification and help to achieve a decent result. Finally, the proposed LWNet model is trained for leaf classification. The proposed model is compared with four different CNN models: LeNet, Alexnet, VGG-16, and the simple VGG-19 model. The proposed model obtains an accuracy of 99%, which is higher than LeNet, Alexnet, VGG-16, and the simple VGG-19 model. The achieved results indicate that the proposed model is more effective for the detection of Bacteriosis in peach leaf images, in comparison with the existing models

Validated RP-HPLC method for the simultaneous determination of glucosamine sulphate and curcumin in cream formulation: A novel stability-indicating study

Purpose: To develop and validate a stability-indicating reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for the simultaneous determination of glucosamine sulphate (GS) and curcumin (Cur) in drug solution and formulation.Methods: The optimized chromatographic conditions were achieved by passing various compositions of mobile phases over  different reverse phase chromatographic columns. Various validation parameters, including linearity, range, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), accuracy, precision, specificity and system suitability were performed and evaluated. Stability studies under stressed conditions were done to evaluate the effects of acid, alkali, oxidation, heat and degradation by UV light.Results: The validated method was linear over the concentration range of 0.094 to 1.5 mg/mL for GS and 0.125 to 1.5 mg/mL for Cur, with a correlation coefficient > 0.999. The Intra and inter-day precision were 1.9 % for GS and 0.5 % for Cur, while accuracy was 96 and 102 % for GS and Cur, respectively. Stability studies showed that GS was highly sensitive to acid, alkali and oxidation and less sensitive to heat and UV. Cur was stable against acid, heat and oxidation but sensitive to alkali and UV.Conclusion: The developed and validated method was precise and accurate for both GS and Cur and can potentially be utilized for their identification and quantification at industrial, research and quality control laboratories

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Outcomes from elective colorectal cancer surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

This study aimed to describe the change in surgical practice and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mortality after surgical resection of colorectal cancer during the initial phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Elective cancer surgery in COVID-19-free surgical pathways during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: An international, multicenter, comparative cohort study

PURPOSE As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19–free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19–free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19–free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19–free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score–matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19–free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks

Elective Cancer Surgery in COVID-19-Free Surgical Pathways During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: An International, Multicenter, Comparative Cohort Study.

PURPOSE: As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19-free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19-free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS: Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19-free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19-free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score-matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION: Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19-free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks