Usability Enhancement of SMS Interface for Illiterate Users

This article analyzes several User Interface (UI) designs and puts forward some more general design principles for interfaces designed for low-literate users. The results of this study highlight the importance of text-free interfaces compared to text-based interfaces for the illiterate and low-literate population. The study developed a Short Message Service (SMS) interface consisting of many design elements, including graphical icons, voice, and text reduction. The participants were more satisfied with the designed SMS interface as compared to the traditional text-based interface of SMS. We believe that if the user interface is appropriately designed, users will not need formal literacy, computer skills, or any external help to operate the application. It has been shown that an interface with minimal or no text but one or more graphics, audio, and digital components is helpful for users with low literacy rates

Gall stones: a fundamental clinical review

Formation of stones in the gall bladder is known as cholelithiasis. About 10% to 20% of Western population are suffering from gall stones and this percentage is increasing day by day. Biochemically gall stones are classified into black pigment stones, brown pigment stones and cholesterol stones. Gall stones can be anatomically located at two possible sites; in the gall bladder known as cholelithiasis and in the common bile duct known as choledocholithiasis. Gall stones may present with symptoms known as symptomatic gallstones or without symptoms known as asymptomatic gallstones. The major causes of gallstones are high cholesterol diet, low bile salt levels, decreased gall bladder motility etc. Obesity, female gender, family history, rapid weight loss and vitamin B12 or folic acid deficiency are considered as important risk factors in the development of gall stones. The clinical presentations include acute cholecystitis and febrile illness with pain and tenderness in the right upper quadrant (Murphy sign). Generalized body weakness and weight loss are considered as generalized symptoms of gallstones. The complications include cholangitis, empyema of gall bladder, pancreatitis, abscess formation, porcelain gall bladder and gall bladder perforation. The differential diagnosis of gall stones is carried out based on endoscopy, ALT and AST serum levels. Non-surgical treatment for gall stones is oral dissolution therapy. The standard surgical treatment for gall stones is cholecystectomy

Band Ligation VersusGlue Injection for Bleeding Gastric Varices

Background : To compare endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy with N-butyl-2-cyanoacrylate- Histoacryl (EVS) and endoscopic variceal band ligation (EBL) for treatment of bleeding gastric varices (GV).Methods: In this  randomized control trial 140 patients  with bleeding gastric varices were included.Bleeding GV patients diagnosed endoscoically were treated with EVS or EBL in two equal groups after randomization. Bleeding control or otherwise was confirmed during the procedure. Patients were followed for 1 month for re-bleeding. Comparison of the patients undergoing EVS or EBL was done in terms of bleeding control and re-bleeding during follow up period. Chi2 test was used to seek statistically significant association in this regard. Results: Endoscopic bleeding control was confirmed in all except 1 of EBL patients who expired. 4 (5.7%) of EVS 10 (14.28%) EBL patients had re-bleeding (P >0.05).Conclusion: EVS and EBL are comparative procedures for treatment ofbleeding GV for control of active bleeding and re-bleeding over one month follow up

Diabetes insipidus: the basic and clinical review

Diabetes insipidus (DI) is a complex disease. DI is inability of the body to conserve water. Polydipsia and polyuria are the major manifestations of DI. DI has various variants including central diabetes insipidus (due to defect in ADH secretion), nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (due to defect in ADH receptors or urea receptors), gestational diabetes insipidus (due to catabolism of ADH by placental vasopressinase) and primary polydipsia (due to massive fluid intake). The cause of various variants of DI is either acquired or congenital. High plasma osmolality due to hypotonic urine excretion can be fatal because it can cause psychosis, lethargy, seizures, coma or even death. Polyuria and polydipsia help in the diagnosis of DI. Differential diagnosis of various variants of DI can be carried out on the basis of water deprivation test, MRI and other radiological techniques. The proper management of DI is the replenishment of water loss and correction of clinical presentations produced as a result of DI, major is hypernatremia. The best management for primary polydipsia is fluid restriction while fluid intake is used for adipsic diabetes insipidus. ADH replacement therapy is widely used to treat DI. DDAVP or desmopressin is mostly preferred ADH analogue because it has less side effects and resistant to placental vasoprssinase

A Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network Model for Automatic Diabetic Retinopathy Classification From Fundus Images

Objective: Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a retinal disease that can cause damage to blood vessels in the eye, that is the major cause of impaired vision or blindness, if not treated early. Manual detection of diabetic retinopathy is time-consuming and prone to human error due to the complex structure of the eye. Methods & Results: various automatic techniques have been proposed to detect diabetic retinopathy from fundus images. However, these techniques are limited in their ability to capture the complex features underlying diabetic retinopathy, particularly in the early stages. In this study, we propose a novel approach to detect diabetic retinopathy using a convolutional neural network (CNN) model. The proposed model extracts features using two different deep learning (DL) models, Resnet50 and Inceptionv3, and concatenates them before feeding them into the CNN for classification. The proposed model is evaluated on a publicly available dataset of fundus images. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CNN model achieves higher accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, and f1 score compared to state-of-the-art methods, with respective scores of 96.85%, 99.28%, 98.92%, 96.46%, and 98.65%.©2023 The Authors. Published by IEEE. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Comparative Analysis Of Fault-Tolerance Techniques For Space Applications

Fault-tolerance technique enables a system or application to continue working even if some fault /error occurs in a system. Therefore, it is vital to choose appropriate fault tolerant technique best suited to our application. In case of real-time embedded systems in a space project, the importance of such techniques becomes more critical. In space applications, there is minor or no possibility of maintenance and faults occurrence may lead to serious consequences in terms of partial or complete mission failure. This paper describes the comparison of various fault tolerant techniques for space applications. This also suggests the suitability of these techniques in particular scenario.  The study of fault tolerance techniques relevant to real-time embedded systems and on-board space applications (satellites) is given due importance. This study will not only summarize fault tolerant techniques but also describe their strengths. The paper describes the future trends of faults-tolerance techniques in space applications. This effort may help space system engineers and scientists to select suitable fault-tolerance technique for their mission.

Description of Sivalhippus (Equidae: Perissodactyla) from the Late Miocene Siwalik Sub-Group of Pakistan

New fossil mandible as well as isolated upper and lower dentitions of the late Miocene Hipparionine species, have been discovered from a locality of Chakwal, Punjab, Pakistan. By using morphometric and morphologic analysis, we have deduced that these specimens belong to Sivalhippus theobaldi. The body size of this species was intermediate between Sivalhippus perimensis and Hipparion antilopinum while its hypsodonty indicates that this species was a grazer to a larger extent which existed in mosaic of woodland and grassland in the Latest Miocene. However, the comparison with the recent horse (Equus caballus) mandible indicates some differences in dental and jaw lengths. The recent horse tends to have bigger and longer molars (higher hypsodonty indices) which may be attributed to a response towards changing vegetation, started at the end of the Miocene (ca. 6-7 Ma) strengthening the hypothesis that adaptive physiologies are a response towards a changing climate

Evaluation of Currently Available Molecular Assays and Performance of Sampling Approaches for Detection of Sars-Cov-2 RNA

OBJECTIVES This study aims to identify the essential characteristics of diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 and to discuss the limitations of currently available tests and their impact on the test selection process. METHODOLOGY The current study was conducted at Mardan Medical Complex (MMC). One hundred nasopharyngeal-positive samples were collected from February to March 2021. Oropharyngeal swab OPS, sputum, and blood samples were collected from the participants to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA. RNA extraction of SARS-CoV-2 was done using a BigFish auto extractor. A Qiagen Thermal Cycler was used for genome amplification. Five different molecular assays, namely COVSIGN (N gene) Spain, BGI (ORF1ab gene) China, Maccura(ORF1ab, E and N gene) China, R-GENE (RdRp and N genes) France and Genuru (N gene, S gene and ORF ab/1) were used. RESULTS100 % positivity was recorded in the sputum of all individuals, followed by 91 % OPS and 21% blood. The highest positivity rate for different genes was observed. ROC (Receiver operating characteristic curve) was developed through SPPS version 26.00 to compare the sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSION By comparing the results of different diagnostic kits, it was found that BGI and Maccura are the most sensitive and specific for diagnostic purposes against COVID-19

Usability Evaluation of Online Educational Applications in COVID-19

COVID-19 is a pandemic faced by almost every country in the world, this has resulted in health crisis. Due to COVID-19, all the countries around the world have decided to close all educational institutes to prevent this pandemic. Educational institutes have taken every possible measure to minimize the impact of the closure of schools and introduce the concept of an online education system which is not only a massive shock for parents but it also affects the children's learning process and social life. The educational applications (Apps) are very important, because they offer more opportunities for development and growth to society. In this pandemic situation, educational Apps like Zoom, HEC LMS, Google Classroom, and Skype, etc. are the need of the hour when everything goes online. In this paper, the usability features of online educational Apps are thoroughly discussed including the effectiveness and usability for students. Using the results obtained from the survey, this paper observes the student's perspective of usefulness of online educational Apps in student’s learning process of different age groups. It also analyzes the easiness for students to understand, interact and use these Apps