Surveillance to achieve malaria elimination in eastern Myanmar: a 7-year observational study

Background The collection and utilization of surveillance data is essential in monitoring progress towards achieving malaria elimination, in the timely response to increases in malaria case numbers and in the assessment of programme functioning. This paper describes the surveillance activities used by the malaria elimination task force (METF) programme which operates in eastern Myanmar, and provides an analysis of data collected from weekly surveillance, case investigations, and monitoring and evaluation of programme performance. Methods This retrospective analysis was conducted using data collected from a network of 1250 malaria posts operational between 2014 and 2021. To investigate changes in data completeness, malaria post performance, malaria case numbers, and the demographic details of malaria cases, summary statistics were used to compare data collected over space and time. Results In the first 3 years of the METF programme, improvements in data transmission routes resulted in a 18.9% reduction in late reporting, allowing for near real-time analysis of data collected at the malaria posts. In 2020, travel restrictions were in place across Karen State in response to COVID-19, and from February 2021 the military coup in Myanmar resulted in widescale population displacement. However, over that period there has been no decline in malaria post attendance, and the majority of consultations continue to occur within 48 h of fever onset. Case investigations found that 43.8% of cases travelled away from their resident village in the 3 weeks prior to diagnosis and 36.3% reported never using a bed net whilst sleeping in their resident village, which increased to 72.2% when sleeping away from their resident village. Malaria post assessments performed in 82.3% of the METF malaria posts found malaria posts generally performed to a high standard. Conclusions Surveillance data collected by the METF programme demonstrate that despite significant changes in the context in which the programme operates, malaria posts have remained accessible and continue to provide early diagnosis and treatment contributing to an 89.3% decrease in Plasmodium falciparum incidence between 2014 and 2021

Secure Framework for e-Government Application using Short-Lived Certificate and Hybrid Encryption

Although electronic documents have beengreatly widely used in different applicationsincluding the e-government and e-business, itwould also result that electronic documentsinformation is disclosed, counterfeited,tampered, repudiated and so on. Some of the e-Government applications may require providinguser access in short limited time. Besides thatsending and receiving back information must besecured and confidentiality and integrity must beguaranteed for the users. In order to solve theproblems and greatly improve the security ofelectronic documents, a hybrid encryptiontechnology, that is, encryption technology,digital digest, digital authentication and digitalsignature will be used. This paper proposes anapplicable solution for e-GovernmentApplications (where users only need limitedshort time access and ensure the security,confidentiality and integrity of information beingsent) by using the hybrid encryption technologytogether with a short-lived certificateframework

Classification and Discovery on Intra-Firewall Policy Anomalies

Firewalls are core elements in networksecurity. However, managing firewall rules is anerror-prone task especially for less experienceadministrator. The reason is that firewall filteringrules itself might cause network vulnerability due tothe firewall policy anomalies unless carefully writtenand ordered them. Thus, firewall rule analysis isessential to determine the proper rule placement andordering without any policy anomalies wheninserting or modifying filtering rules. In this thesis,we develop a firewall rules analyzer based on IntraFirewall Policy Anomaly Algorithm in order todiscover and alert all possible policy anomalies inIPCOP firewall that is used in Small Office HomeOffice (SOHO) network. And the main purpose of thisanalyzer is to assist the administrators who settingtheir firewall to be able to configure conflict-freefirewall rules easily by giving advising alerts. Weimplemented the firewall in a small campus networkprototype and experimented it in a virtual networkthat is built by using Virtual Machine Software(VMWare) Workstation 10. Firewall policy for thissystem is based on our own predefined securitypolicy for this network. We will test the system thathow the developed analyzer can assist theadministrators by comparing of the administrator'sability for firewall setting with the help of theanalyzer and those without the help of it

Efficient Data Partitioning for Entity Resolution Systems

Entity Resolution is the task of identifying duplicated records that refer to the same real-world entity. It is costly process that can take up to days for large datasets. Various Blocking Methods have been applied in Entity Resolution Systems to reduce the number of record pairs for comparison. It is still a big issue because a good blocking key is critical to the success of a blocking method and will ideally result in lots of small blocks. The efficiency of a blocking method is hindered by these large blocks since the resulting number of record pairs is dominated by the sizes of these large blocks. So, the researchers are still doing researches on handling the problems of large blocks. To overcome these problems, we would like to propose an efficient data partitioning system by introducing “Dynamic Block Based Structure” to enhance the blocking efficiency

Web Usage Mining Using Clustering and Association Rule Mining

Data mining methods are used to discoverthe behaviour of the users. Therefore, the dataused for the mining purpose must be qualified forthe data cleaning stage and must be consideredand planned efficiently to meet the requirement.For this reason, the data cleaning of the preprocessingstage becomes the essential key.Similarity measurement method is used to discoverweb usage data that have same category or usagepurpose for clustering. Association rule mininguses the clustered data to generate rules thatdiscover the patterns of interest.This proposed system presents web usage miningusing data mining methods. The main componentsthat are included in this system are thepreprocessing of web access log, computingsimilarity measurement using Jaccard coefficient,clustering the web pages using K-Mean Algorithmand finally the generation of rules for frequentpattern of web pages using Apriori Algorithm forinteresting relationships among web pages ingiven web usage data set

Mobile Agent Based Online Examination System

This paper presents a case study namely MobileAgent Based Online Examination System and the roles of mobileagents used in the system. The system provides theinfrastructure for conducting computer-based examinationwhich the candidates may be spread over in large areas. Thesystem aims to map the real world examination system andconcentrates the full stage of the examination from questionsetting to answer evaluation. By implementing this system usingMobile Agent gives us several advantages like scalability, flexiblestructuring, dynamic extensibility, push-pull modes ofinformation dissemination, evaluation of subjective question,and transparency to varying communication channels,application layer multicasting, network latencies and dynamiccontent delivery

Coping with changing conditions: alternative strategies for the delivery of maternal and child health and family planning services in Dhaka, Bangladesh

The door-to-door distribution of contraceptives and information on maternal and child health and family planning (MCH-FP) services, through bimonthly visits to eligible couples by trained fieldworkers, has been instrumental in increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate and immunization coverage in Bangladesh. The doorstep delivery strategy, however, is labour- intensive and costly. More cost-effective service delivery strategies are needed, not only for family planning services but also for a broader package of reproductive and other essential health services. Against this backdrop, operations research was conducted by the Centre for Health and Population Research at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) from January 1996 to May 1997, in collaboration with government agencies and a leading national nongovernmental organization, with a view to developing and field-testing alternative approaches to the delivery of MCH-FP services in urban areas. Two alternative strategies featuring the withdrawal of home-based distribution and the delivery of basic health care from fixed-site facilities were tested in two areas of Dhaka. The clinic-based service delivery strategy was found to be a feasible alternative to the resource-intensive doorstep system in urban Dhaka. It did not adversely affect programme performance and it allowed the needs of clients to be addressed holistically through a package of essential health and family planning services

Mobile Health App for Tuberculosis Screening and Compliance to Undergo Chest X-ray Examination Among Presumptive Cases Detected by the App in Myanmar: Usability Study

BackgroundIn Myanmar, the use of a mobile app for tuberculosis (TB) screening and its operational effect on seeking TB health care have not been evaluated yet. ObjectiveThis study aims to report the usability of a simple mobile app to screen TB and comply with chest X-ray (CXR) examination of presumptive cases detected by the app. MethodsA new “TB-screen” app was developed from a Google Sheet based on a previously published algorithm. The app calculates a TB risk propensity score from an individual’s sociodemographic characteristics and TB clinical history and suggests whether the individual should undergo a CXR. The screening program was launched in urban slum areas soon after the COVID-19 outbreak subsided. A standard questionnaire was used to assess the app’s usability rated by presumptive cases. Compliance to undergo CXR was confirmed by scanning the referral quick response (QR) code via the app. ResultsRaters were 453 presumptive cases detected by the app. The mean usability rating score was 4.1 out of 5. Compliance to undergo CXR examination was 71.1% (n=322). Active TB case detection among CXR compliances was 7.5% (n=24). One standard deviation (SD) increase in the app usability score was significantly associated with a 59% increase in the odds to comply with CXR (β=.464) after adjusting for other variables (P<.001). ConclusionsThis simple mobile app got a high usability score rated by 453 users. The mobile app usability score successfully predicted compliance to undergo CXR examination. Eventually, 24 (7.5%) of 322 users who were suspected of having TB by the mobile app were detected as active TB cases by CXR. The system should be upscaled for a large trial