A review on the mobile applications developed for COVID-19: An exploratory analysis

The objective of this research is to explore the existing mobile applications developed for the COVID-19 pandemic. To obtain this research objective, firstly the related applications were selected through the systematic search technique in the popular application stores. Secondly, data related to the app objectives, functionalities provided by the app, user ratings, and user reviews were extracted. Thirdly, the extracted data were analyzed through the affinity diagram, noticing-collecting-thinking, and descriptive analysis. As outcomes, the review provides a state-of-the-art view of mobile apps developed for COVID-19 by revealing nine functionalities or features. It revealed ten factors related to information systems design characteristics that can guide future app design. The review outcome highlights the need for new development and further refinement of the existing applications considering not only the revealed objectives and their associated functionalities, but also revealed design characteristics such as reliability, performance, usefulness, supportive, security, privacy, flexibility, responsiveness, ease of use, and cultural sensitivity.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 4 table

Blood pressure and its associated factors: a comparative study among rural and urban adolescents in Bangladesh

Background: Hypertension in adolescents may lead to irreversible damages in vital organs, such as heart, brain, kidney and may cause death if treatments are not given despite early diagnosis. The aim of this study is to identify the status of blood pressure and its associated factors among adolescents.Methods: It was a cross-sectional study. 810 adolescents of 8 schools and colleges in Chittagong district were collected by stratified cluster sampling technique. Ages of the respondents were 14 to 19. Status of Blood pressure and its associated factors in urban and rural area were the main outcome of interest.Results: The study found the significant difference in physical activities and overweight statistics between urban and rural adolescents (P<0.001). Obesity was found only in the urban area that was 1.2%. The mean systolic blood pressure (114.53 mmHg, 110.61 mmHg) and mean diastolic blood pressure (69.87 mmHg, 68.58 mmHg) of boys and girls in urban respondents were more than rural (109.79 mmHg, 68.97 mmHg and 105.02 mmHg, 67.941 mmHg respectively) and was statistically significant (P<0.001). The mean SBP and DBP were 126 mmHg and 79 mmHg respectively among obese. In the study prevalence of hypertension was 1.5% in urban adolescents and 0.2% in rural adolescents. Consumption of fast food, living area, physical activity, paternal hypertension and BMI were found significantly associated (p<0.05) with hypertension among urban adolescents.Conclusions: The results suggest that hypertension and pre-hypertension is an important public health problem among adolescents in urban than rural. The main associated factors are fast food consumption, living area, physical activity, paternal hypertension and BMI

Peptides as potent antimicrobials tethered to a solid surface: Implications for medical devices

Medical devices are an integral part of therapeutic management; despite their importance, they carry a significant risk of microbial infection. Bacterial attachment to a medical device is established by a single, multiplying organism, leading to subsequent biofilm formation. To date, no preventative measures have impacted the incidence of device-related infection. We report the bidirectional covalent coupling of an engineered cationic antimicrobial peptide (eCAP), WLBU2, to various biological surfaces is accomplished. These surfaces included (i) a carbohydrate-based gel matrix, (ii) a complex polymeric plastic bead, and (iii) a silica-calcium phosphate nanocomposite associated with bone reconstruction. WLBU2-conjugated surfaces are shown to retain potent antimicrobial activity related to bacterial surface adhesion. This study provides proof of principle that covalently coating laboratory and bone-regenerating materials with eCAPs has the potential for decreasing infection rates of implanted devices. These findings have important consequences to the patient management component of our current health care technology

Green underwater wireless communications using hybrid optical-acoustic technologies

Underwater wireless communication is a rapidly growing field, especially with the recent emergence of technologies such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). To support the high-bandwidth applications using these technologies, underwater optics has attracted significant attention, alongside its complementary technology – underwater acoustics. In this paper, we propose a hybrid opto-acoustic underwater wireless communication model that reduces network power consumption and supports high-data rate underwater applications by selecting appropriate communication links in response to varying traffic loads and dynamic weather conditions. Underwater optics offers high data rates and consumes less power. However, due to the severe absorption of light in the medium, the communication range is short in underwater optics. Conversely, acoustics suffers from low data rate and high power consumption, but provides longer communication ranges. Since most underwater equipment relies on battery power, energy-efficient communication is critical for reliable underwater communications. In this work, we derive analytical models for both underwater acoustics and optics, and calculate the required transmit power for reliable communications in various underwater communication environments. We then formulate an optimization problem that minimizes the network power consumption for carrying data from underwater nodes to surface sinks under varying traffic loads and weather conditions. The proposed optimization model can be solved offline periodically, hence the additional computational complexity to find the optimum solution for larger networks is not a limiting factor for practical applications. Our results indicate that the proposed technique yields up to 35% power savings compared to existing opto-acoustic solutions

Creek`s Aquaculture Techniques in Rangamati Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

An experiment was conducted in nine suitable (average .10±2 ha) creeks of Rangamati hill tracts Bangladesh viz., of Langadu, Naniarchar and Sadar Upazila for evaluating growth, survival and production performance of Indian major carps (Labeo rohita, Catla catla, Cirrhinus mrigala) in a completely randomized design into three different treatments with three replications for a period of one year. Stocking density, growth, survival was checked periodically and total yield calculated from stocking and harvesting data. A significant spatial variation in specific growth rate (SGR) and yields was found despite uniform stocking densities, attributable to variation in environmental parameters. Among the results rohu was found to have comparatively higher SGR of 1.51±0.55 in Naniarchar where as langadu creek was reported with higher SGR of 1.46±0.94, 1.57±0.41 and 1.46 ±.64 for rohu catla, and mrigal. Rangamati sadar Upazilla creek was found to be conducive to Catla with a SGR of 1.55±.78. In general, higher gross and net productions were reported from Sadar Upazilla, Langadu and Naniarchar creeks, suggestive of its suitability for developing creeks aquaculture technology. However research findings will help the community of Chittagong hill tracts by giving appropriate technology for sustainable fish production in creeks

Factors associated with relapse amongst substance abusers

Background: Relapse amongst substance abusers is common throughout the world, and Bangladesh is no exception to this. In Bangladesh, drug related problems are gradually becoming a burning issue in context of social, economical and medical perspective. The present study aimed to find out factors indicating relapse amongst substance abuser. Methods: This descriptive type of observational study was conducted in the combined military hospital and other government/private hospital/institute, especially the central drug addict treatment center, Dhaka. Informed consent was obtained prior to data collection. Collected data was classified, edited, coded, and entered into the computer for statistical analysis by using SPSS-23. The chi-Square test was used to analyze the categorical variables, and a p&lt;0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The study involved 100 patients who had a history of substance abuse. The most common substance abused was Yaba (27%), followed by cannabis (21%). The average duration of abuse for Yaba was 5.8 years, while the longest mean duration was for Alcohol (14.2 years). In the 2nd admission, the largest percentage of patients was aged 21-30 years and were male. The majority of patients were Muslim and were either unemployed or had a lower socioeconomic status. Patients age, occupation, socioeconomic status, peer pressure, and family problems all had a significant association (p&lt;0.05) with relapse at different admissions. Peer pressure and family problems were also identified as factors affecting relapse, with 67.57% and 56.76% of patients experiencing them during their 2nd admission, respectively. Conclusions: The study found Yaba to be the most commonly used drug, followed by cannabis, phensedyl, heroin, etc. Alcohol was found to have the longest duration of abuse. Most patients were aged 21-30 and unemployed in multiple admissions. Peer pressure and unemployment were major factors in substance abuse, and psychiatric illness was a common factor in relapse. The results align with global findings and highlight the need for a comprehensive approach to addressing substance abuse, considering all relevant factors.

Performance Across Worldview-2 and RapidEye for Reproducible Seagrass Mapping

Satellite remote sensing offers an effective remedy to challenges in ground-based and aerial mapping that have previously impeded quantitative assessments of global seagrass extent. Commercial satellite platforms offer fine spatial resolution, an important consideration in patchy seagrass ecosystems. Currently, no consistent protocol exists for image processing of commercial data, limiting reproducibility and comparison across space and time. Additionally, the radiometric performance of commercial satellite sensors has not been assessed against the dark and variable targets characteristic of coastal waters. This study compared data products derived from two commercial satellites: DigitalGlobe\u27s WorldView-2 and Planet\u27s RapidEye. A single scene from each platform was obtained at St. Joseph Bay in Florida, USA, corresponding to a November 2010 field campaign. A reproducible processing regime was developed to transform imagery from basic products, as delivered from each company, into analysis-ready data usable for various scientific applications. Satellite-derived surface reflectances were compared against field measurements. WorldView-2 imagery exhibited high disagreement in the coastal blue and blue spectral bands, chronically overpredicting. RapidEye exhibited better agreement than WorldView-2, but overpredicted slightly across all spectral bands. A deep convolutional neural network was used to classify imagery into deep water, land, submerged sand, seagrass, and intertidal classes. Classification results were compared to seagrass maps derived from photointerpreted aerial imagery. This study offers the first radiometric assessment of WorldView-2 and RapidEye over a coastal system, revealing inherent calibration issues in shorter wavelengths of WorldView-2. Both platforms demonstrated as much as 97% agreement with aerial estimates, despite differing resolutions. Thus, calibration issues in WorldView-2 did not appear to interfere with classification accuracy, but could be problematic if estimating biomass. The image processing routine developed here offers a reproducible workflow for WorldView-2 and RapidEye imagery, which was tested in two additional coastal systems. This approach may become platform independent as more sensors become available