The Role of Micro credit and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) - Extent and Intensity of poverty, poverty alleviation and Outreach

This study is about micro credit and its contribution to the improvement and poverty reduction for millions of the poorest people of Bangladesh. Micro credit has a huge impact on the lives of millions of poor people particularly to women. Numerous scholars and NGOs have been working with micro credit to reach poor people, who are still not benefited by the conventional financial system. In this study, it has been tried to present evidence of the important contributions made by micro credit in the eradication of poverty by increasing the income generating activities, empowerment of poor people to access development services such as health and education, and reduction in vulnerability. Micro credit is now being considered as one of the most important and an effective mechanism for poverty reduction. Present study describes about micro credit activities and helps to investigate the impact of micro credit on the poor people of the society with the main focus on target people of the study area. Researcher mainly concise this study through client's (the poor people, who borrowed loan from micro credit institutions) perspective and build up this research based on questionnaire survey and field observation. Therefore, the objective of this study is to show how micro credit works to improve the quality of poor targeted groups and reducing poverty and how it affects the living standard (income, saving & health etc.) of the poor people in study area. Several micro credit institutions are working in the study area. Grameen Bank, BRAC, ASA and PROSHIKA are some of the prominent of them. These institutions are working tremendously to the empowerment, poverty reduction and improvement of living standards for the poor people in the study area. Keywords: Micro credit, MFIs and Poverty alleviation

Role of yoga in improving pulmonary efficiency in post-menopausal women

Background: Menopause is a natural transition in a women’s life. Menopausal transition has been linked to impairment of respiratory function. Female hormones play an important role in overall lung health. Yoga is an ancient Indian science as well as the way of life, which includes practice of yogasana in specific posture and pranayama which includes the regulated breathing techniques. The aim of the study was to evaluate the cumulative effect of practicing yoga and pranayamas on certain respiratory parameters and physical characteristics in post-menopausal women. Methods: A total of forty post-menopausal women (46-60 years) were divided into two groups. Group I was control group (women not doing yoga) and group II was regularly doing yoga for one year. Based on the duration of yoga- pranayama and meditation, the respiratory parameters such as VC, FVC, FEV1, PEFR, and FEF50 was measured with the help of vitalograph (pneumotrac; 11). Data collected were compiled, categorized and statistically analyzed, t-test was used for comparing the effect of yoga between the two groups and p≤0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: One-year yoga showed a significant decrement in Body weight (p<0.001) and Body Mass Index (p<0.01). Group II showed significant improvement (p<0.001) in all the respiratory parameters such as VC, FVC, FEV1, PEFR, and FEF50 when compared to respective control group. Respiratory rate was decreased significantly (p<0.0001) and Breath hold time was increased significantly (p<0.0001) when compared to control group.   Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that the one-year of yogic practice is suitable for improving pulmonary efficiency and physical characteristics in post-menopausal women

Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes: Two Sides of the Same Coin!

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are rapidly rising around the globe. Empirical researches demonstrated rapid increase in mortality and morbidity related to CVD and T2DM. Much of the diabetes-associated morbidity and mortality predominantly reflects its deleterious effect on macrovascular and microvascular diseases. The microvascular complications of T2DM include retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy and the macrovascular complications include ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and peripheral vascular diseases. Research indicates that coronary heart disease (CHD) is the major cause of mortality in people with T2DM. Herein, this chapter reviews relationship between CVD and T2DM, associated complications and effectiveness of relevant treatment modalities to treat/prevent diabetic macrovasculopthy. Macrovascular disease occur due to underlying obstructive atherosclerotic changes of major arteries which cause functional and structural abnormalities of blood vessels. The long-term complications can be controlled and prevented by controlling glycemia, maintaining normal lipid profiles, adopting a healthy lifestyle and using pharmacological interventions. Clinical trials have shown that lifestyle interventions help in prevention and reduction of CVD risk, but evidence for long-term CVD outcomes is lacking. A multidisciplinary approach involving patients, health professionals and researchers and governments should be undertaken to reduce the incidence and prevalence of diabetes-related cardiovascular complications

Deep learning in computed tomography pulmonary angiography imaging: a dual-pronged approach for pulmonary embolism detection

The increasing reliance on Computed Tomography Pulmonary Angiography (CTPA) for Pulmonary Embolism (PE) diagnosis presents challenges and a pressing need for improved diagnostic solutions. The primary objective of this study is to leverage deep learning techniques to enhance the Computer Assisted Diagnosis (CAD) of PE. With this aim, we propose a classifier-guided detection approach that effectively leverages the classifier's probabilistic inference to direct the detection predictions, marking a novel contribution in the domain of automated PE diagnosis. Our classification system includes an Attention-Guided Convolutional Neural Network (AG-CNN) that uses local context by employing an attention mechanism. This approach emulates a human expert's attention by looking at both global appearances and local lesion regions before making a decision. The classifier demonstrates robust performance on the FUMPE dataset, achieving an AUROC of 0.927, sensitivity of 0.862, specificity of 0.879, and an F1-score of 0.805 with the Inception-v3 backbone architecture. Moreover, AG-CNN outperforms the baseline DenseNet-121 model, achieving an 8.1% AUROC gain. While previous research has mostly focused on finding PE in the main arteries, our use of cutting-edge object detection models and ensembling techniques greatly improves the accuracy of detecting small embolisms in the peripheral arteries. Finally, our proposed classifier-guided detection approach further refines the detection metrics, contributing new state-of-the-art to the community: mAP$_{50}$, sensitivity, and F1-score of 0.846, 0.901, and 0.779, respectively, outperforming the former benchmark with a significant 3.7% improvement in mAP$_{50}$. Our research aims to elevate PE patient care by integrating AI solutions into clinical workflows, highlighting the potential of human-AI collaboration in medical diagnostics.Comment: Published in Expert Systems With Application

Perceptions of medical students regarding community-based teaching experiences: an observation from Bangladesh

Introduction: Community orientation in medical education, which prepares medical students to become more effective practitioners, is now a global movement. Many medical schools around the world have adopted the concept as the main curricular framework in order to align learning programs with the needs of the community and the learner. Despite many changes over the past few decades, many improvements are still needed in medical education in Bangladesh. This study investigated medical students’ perceptions of the community-based learning experiences incorporated into the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree at Uttara Adhunik Medical College, Dhaka (UAMC), Bangladesh. Methods: A total of 135 students from three undergraduate year levels of the MBBS degree at UAMC, Dhaka, Bangladesh, undertook study tours (community-based teaching, CBT) as a part of a community medicine course and visited a medical college, two rural health centres and a meteorology centre in the Cox’s Bazar district, 400 km from Dhaka city. A questionnaire was used to assess the perceptions of students regarding the administration, organisation and learning experiences of the study tours. Students were required to write reports, present their findings and answer questions in their examinations related to the study tours and CBT. Results: The majority of the students agreed or strongly agreed that the tour was a worthwhile (93%) and enjoyable (95%) learning experience that helped them to understand rural health issues (91%). More than half of the students reported that the study tours increased their awareness about common rural health problems (54%) and provided a wider exposure to medicine (61%). Only 41% of students reported that the study tour increased their interest in undertake training in a rural area. A substantial number of students also expressed their concerns about the planning, length, resources, finance and organisation of the study tours. Conclusions: Overall, the study tours had a positive effect, enhancing students’ awareness and understanding of common rural health problems. As study tours failed to increase the motivation of the students (approximately 60%) to work in rural areas, CBT in the medical curriculum should be reviewed and implemented using effective and evidence-based models to promote interest among medical students to work in rural and underserved or unserved areas

A 2-year-old male child with diffuse abdominal pain, mass in the abdomen and red currant jelly stool

This article has no abstract. The first 100 words appear below: A 2-year-old male child, the second issue of non-consanguineous parents, from average socio-economic status hailing from Dinajpur, Bangladesh was attended at Pediatric Surgery outpatient department with the complaints of vague diffuse abdominal pain in the lower right side of abdomen and around the umbilical region for last 3 days. His mother also reported the feeling of a solid mass in the abdomen during dressing of her child. Then, gradually his problems were increasing in nature with several times of nausea, vomiting, and the passage of blood mixed stool three times before his admission

Self-medication of antibiotics: investigating practice among university students at the Malaysian National Defence University

Background: Self-medication of drugs to alleviate symptoms is a common global behavior, helping relieve burdens on health services, but many drugs eg, antibiotics are prescription-only. Self-medication of antibiotics (SMA) is an irrational use of drugs, contributing to microbial resistance increasing health care costs and higher mortality and morbidity. This study aimed to assess SMA among university students. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among medical and non-medical students of the National Defence University of Malaysia. A validated instrument was used to gather data. Ethics approval was obtained. Random and universal sampling was adopted, and SPSS 21 was used for data analysis. Results: A total of 649 students participated in the study: 48.5% male and 51.5% female, 39.3% reported self-medicating with antibiotics. Penicillin, doxycycline, clarithromycin were the antibiotics most used with the majority reporting no adverse drug reactions. Cost savings and convenience were the principal reasons for SMA which were mainly obtained from local retail pharmacies. Despite medical students (particularly the more senior) having better knowledge of antibiotic use than non-medical students, 89% of all research participants responded that practicing SMA was a good/acceptable practice. Conclusion: SMA is common amongst Malaysian students and, despite understanding why SMA is unwise, even medical students self-medicate

Impact of Intimate Partner violence on ever married women and utilization of antenatal care services in Tanzania

Background and Objectives: Sub Saharan Africa region is considered as one of the deprived regions of this world and women from this part of the world are suffering from intimate partner violence. This study was undertaken to assess the impact of intimate partner violence on utilization of antenatal care services among the ever married women. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study design. The data used in this research was extracted from the Tanzania Demographic Health Survey 2015-16. A total of 13, 266 women were interviewed. Results: The mean age of the respondents is 28.69 years. About 74% women visited antenatal care services more than 4 times. Logistic regression results indicate that the middle-aged adult women (35-49 years age group) were identified having lower odds (Odds ratio: 0.807, 95% CI: 0.693-0.940, P<0.001) than women in younger age group. Women who did not complete their secondary education were less likelihood to experience IPV (Odds ratio: 0.705, 95% CI: 0.540-0.922, P<0.010). Conclusion: Intimate partner violence is one main challenge to women’s health and wellbeing during pregnancy period. Proper implementation and community based interventions to support pregnant women to seek antenatal care services and to raise awareness regarding intimate partner violence are advocated

Personal protective equipment (PPE) related adverse skin reactions among healthcare workers at the main COVID-19 isolation center in Barbados

Background: The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) reduces the risk of transmission of infectious agents significantly among healthcare workers (HCWs). The study aimed to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of PPE-related adverse skin reactions among HCWs working at the main COVID-19 isolation center in Barbados. Methods: A cross-sectional web-based online survey was conducted during April to June 2021 which recorded demographic information, details of PPE use and adverse skin reactions including severity and duration of onset of symptoms. Results: Most of the respondents used PPE for consecutive days (77.9%), 1–6 h/day (59.2%), and more than a year (62.5%). Fewer than half of the participants (45.6%) experienced adverse skin reactions from the use of PPE. The reactions were mostly observed in the cheeks (40.4%) and nose bridges (35.6%). Females had more reactions than their male counterparts (p = 0.003). The use of N95 masks and a combination of surgical and N95 masks produced adverse effects predominantly in the ears (60%) and cheeks (56.4%). Binary logistic regression showed that female HCWs (OR = 5.720 95% CI: 1.631, 20.063), doctors (OR = 5.215 95% CI: 0.877, 31.002), and longer duration of PPE use (>1 year) (OR = 2.902 95% CI: 0.958, 8.787) caused a significantly higher prevalence of adverse skin reactions. Conclusion: The PPE-related skin reactions were common among HCWs which mainly occurred due to prolonged use. Preventive measures inclusive of appropriate training of HCWs on the use of PPE are recommended to minimize these adverse event

Domestic violence and decision-making power of married women in Myanmar: analysis of a nationally representative sample

BACKGROUND: Women in Myanmar are not considered decision makers in the community and the physical and psychological effect of violence makes them more vulnerable. There is a strong negative reaction, usually violent, to any economic activity generated by women among poorer and middle-class families in Myanmar because a woman's income is not considered necessary for basic survival. OBJECTIVE: Explore the relationship between domestic violence on the decision-making power of married women in Myanmar. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: National, both urban and rural areas of Myanmar. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data from the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16 were used in this analysis. In that survey, married women aged between 15 to 49 years were selected for interview using a multistage cluster sampling technique. The dependent variables were domestic violence and the decision-making power of women. Independent variables were age of the respondents, educational level, place of residence, employment status, number of children younger than 5 years of age and wealth index. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Domestic violence and decision-making power of women. SAMPLE SIZE: 7870 currently married women. RESULTS: About 50% respondents were 35 to 49 years of age and the mean (SD) age was 35 (8.4) years. Women's place of residence and employment status had a significant impact on decision-making power whereas age group and decision-making power of women had a relationship with domestic violence. CONCLUSION: Giving women decision making power will be indispensable for the achievement of sustainable development goals. Government and other stakeholders should emphasize this to eliminate violence against women. LIMITATIONS: Use of secondary data analysis of cross-sectional study design and cross-sectional studies are not suitable design to assess this causality. Secondly the self-reported data on violence may be subject to recall bias. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None