Epidemiological characteristics of acute dehydrating diarrhea during an epidemic of cholera: a study from North India

Background: Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease which continues to be a public health problem since inception. It is a disease related to poverty, overcrowding, poor sanitation and inaccessibility to clean water. India forms a fertile ground for the sustenance and transmission of cholera. However the diagnosis of cholera doesn’t easily come to mind when dealing with cases of dehydrating diarrheas.Methods The study was a prospective cohort study conducted in a tertiary care center of North India. All patients presenting to the medicine department of this hospital with acute dehydrating diarrhea were enrolled for the study. Stool samples for hanging drop test and culture were sent in all patients to rule this cholera.Results: Eighty four patients presenting to the medicine department of this hospital with acute dehydrating diarrhea were included in this study. All the patients had loose watery stools but classical rice water stools were seen in only 20.2% of patients. Patients with rice water stools were more likely to be positive for stool culture (70.6%, n = 12/17) and hanging drop preparations (82.3%, n = 14/17) as compared to those with watery stools. The difference was found to be statistically significant for culture (70.6% vs 40.3%, p-value = 0.02) as well as hanging drop preparation (82.3% vs 47.8%, p-value = 0.01).Conclusions: The prevalence of culture positive cholera cases was found to be 46.4% out of all the cases presenting with acute dehydrating diarrhea which is quite high. Rice water stools which are considered characteristic for cholera were found in less than half of culture positive cases of cholera (43.6%, n = 17/39). Hanging drop preparation was found to have a sensitivity of 87.2% and a specificity of 86.5% in comparison to stool culture which is regarded as gold standard for diagnosis of cholera. Cholera may be considered as an ongoing epidemic with periodic surge in cases and should be suspected whenever cases of acute watery diarrhea present in increased numbers with features of severe dehydration, especially when the cases are clustered together and from a poor socio-economic background

Clinical profile of dengue fever infection in patients admitted in NC Medical College, Haryana in the year 2019

Background: Dengue infections can result in a wide spectrum of disease severity ranging from an influenza-like illness (dengue fever; DF) to the life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF)/dengue shock syndrome (DSS). The study was aimed to compare the clinical profile of all patients diagnosed with dengue viral infection at NCMC.Methods: This retrospective study included 24 patients infected with dengue virus, aged 19 years to 45 years. Laboratory and haematological data were included.Results Peak of infection occurred in November 2019 and no cases were recorded in October 2019. Common clinical symptoms were fever, joint pains, headache and rash. Common haematological abnormalities were thrombocytopenia. All patients survived. There was no case of dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome.Conclusions: Significant differences in the clinical profile is possibly because of infection with different serotypes of dengue virus (DENV), concurrent/sequential infection of more than one serotype, and differences in host immune responses associated with host genetic variations

Factors Effecting Human Resource Practices on Employee Performance in Libya Oil & Gas Industry

The success of every organization depends highly on the human resources of the organizations. This is where the human resource has the skills, knowledge and competencies required for the execution of organizational strategy and planning. Many HRM studies have indicated positive effect of HR practices on employee performance, but there are some other studies that indicate the otherwise, indicating that the findings of the existing HRM studies are seemingly inconclusive. Equally, most studies are conducted in other contexts other in Libyan context, most especially in the context of Oil and Gas sector. Therefore, this study try to examine the effect of human resource practices (job design, training and development, compensation, performance appraisal and employee participation and communication) on employee performance in the Libyan oil and gas sector. Using the cross-sectional research approach, data were collected from a sample of 100 employees of Waha Oil Company (WOC). Multiple regression analysis technique will be used to test the study’s hypotheses. The results provided support for two out of the five hypotheses. The overall findings signified a positive effect of training development and performance appraisal on employee performance. This indicates that HR practices could have significant effect on performance, but the effect could be altered and modified by the contingent variables. The findings could also imply that the direct relationship between HR practices and performance could contain some mechanisms in-between. Lastly, the implications, limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis of Bio-Based and Synthetic Petroleum Based Polymer Foams with Powder Type Organic Filler at Prolonged Ultra-Violet Exposure

Wood powder filler that have been added in the bio-based and epoxy polymer foams can be proved that it have ability to strengthen the structure of polymer foams. In this study, ‘Meranti’ type wood filler has been used as the filler. This study was developed to observe the pore size of each sample when expose to different hours of UV irradiation exposure using Optical Microscopy (OM). This study was also to compare the mechanical properties of every sample with different ratio filler of 0 wt%, 5 wt%, 10 wt%, 15wt% and 20 wt% at different hours of UV irradiation exposure which is 0 hour until 6,000 hours with increment of 2,000 hours. The testing was run by DMA Q800 TA machine. The samples that have 40 x 10 x 5 mm size were clamped in the machine to get the result of their mechanical properties. From the DMA testing, the results will show the value of tan delta, loss modulus and storage modulus. The value of tan delta shows that higher ratio filler will give the high value of tan delta. The epoxy polymer foams with powder filler have the highest value of tan delta compare to bio-based polymer foams. It proves that the higher filler ratio, the lower value of tan delta can be recorded.  The result of storage and loss modulus was found to increase as the more filler ratio filler in the polymer foams. The higher the loss modulus and storage modulus, the lower the temperature. Bio-based polymer foams with high powder filler ratio can dissipate more energy as energy are lost as heat during UV irradiation exposure

Role of serum procalcitonin level in early diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in children, a hospital based study

Background: Procalcitonin (PCT) is a precursor of hormone calcitonin. It is composed of 116 amino acids and is produced by para follicular C cells of the thyroid and by neuroendocrine cells of lungs and intestine. The level of Procalcitonin in healthy individuals is below the limit of detection (0.01µg/L).These levels may rise from extra thyroid tissues especially in response to inflammatory stimulus of bacterial origin. PCT has the greatest sensitivity and Specificity for differentiating patients with sepsis from those with systemic inflammatory response syndrome. And the objective of the study is to discuss the method for early diagnosis and use of antibiotic therapy in patients of bacterial pneumonia.Methods: A hospital based study was conducted in our hospital from January 2015 to June 2015. Eighty six children with severe pneumonia were enrolled from Department of Paediatrics and were divided into two groups according to bacteriological detection; bacterial pneumonia group consisting of 44 children patients and non-bacterial pneumonia group of 42 children patients. Meanwhile, 45 healthy children were also enrolled and grouped into normal control group. Chest X-ray and Peripheral venous blood of all children was collected to detect complete blood count, CRP and procalcitonin (PCT).Results: Serum PCT level of patients with bacterial pneumonia was significantly higher than that in the non-bacterial pneumonia patients and normal controls ; serum PCT level of patients with bacterial pneumonia, before and after treatment had statistical significance ; Serum PCT level of patients with non-bacterial pneumonia had no statistical significance before and after treatment .Conclusions: Serum PCT is an important biomarker for prompt diagnosis of bacterial infection and a sensitive indicator to distinguish bacterial from non-bacterial pneumonia. Evaluating serum PCT levels helps in early use of antibiotic therapy and prognosis of underlying disease.

Copy number variation of CNVesv27061 analysis among young adults with high blood pressure using optimized droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) method

Several reports and databases on genomic variants have associated variation in DNA sequences (≥ 1kb), or copy number variation (CNV), with susceptibility to common diseases. However, very few reports are found on hypertension and no study has been reported on CNV in prehypertensive and hypertensive young adult Malaysians. In this comparative cross-sectional study, 133 young adults were recruited, comprising of normotensive (45 subjects), prehypertensive (40 subjects) and mild hypertensive (48 subjects) subjects. DNA for CNV determination was extracted from 3 ml of blood samples collected. CNV esv27061 was analysed using optimized droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) method which has enhanced sensitivity and precision. Frequency distribution patterns of CNV among mild hypertensives showed highest peak copy-number-gain (number of copies more than 2) particularly in copy numbers 3 and 5. The prehypertensive subjects exhibited marked increase in copy number 5 when compared with normotensives. All the subjects in this study showed low frequency distribution pattern for copy numbers 2, 6 and 7. This discovery emphasizes the importance of frequency patterns in determining CNV status of prehypertensive and mild hypertensive subjects. Optimization method in this study showed that the detection of CNV esv27061 is possible in our sample population

Near field communication enabled mobile payments: preliminary study

The ubiquitous computing has made consumers life easy, it has given the new way to interact with family and friends and perform many activities which were impossible in previous time. One of the profound achievement of ubiquitous computing is Mobile Payment and an advanced mode of the mobile payment is the near field communication mobile payment. In this study the authors have proposed theoreti-cal near field communication mobile payment model that is based on extended unified technology acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) .In this paper, the author have performed the pilot study to validate the variables and to verify their reliability among the proposed items. The results has proven that there is a reliability among the items in variables, as the Cronbach’s alpha value for the vari-ables is above or equal to 0.7

Study of absorption loss effects on acoustic wave propagation in shallow water using different empirical models

Efficient underwater acoustic communication and target locating systems require detailed study of acoustic wave propagation in the sea. Many investigators have studied the absorption of acoustic waves in ocean water and formulated empirical equations such as Thorp's formula, Schulkin and Marsh model and Fisher and Simmons formula. The Fisher and Simmons formula found the effect associated with the relaxation of boric acid on absorption and provided a more detailed form of absorption coefficient which varies with frequency. However, no simulation model has made for the underwater acoustic propagation using these models. This paper reports the comparative study of acoustic wave absorption carried out by means of modeling in MATLAB. The results of simulation have been evaluated using measured data collected at Desaru beach on the eastern shore of Johor in Malaysia. The model has been used to determine sound absorption for given values of depth (D), salinity (S), temperature (T), pH, and acoustic wave transmitter frequency (f). From the results a suitable range, depth and frequency can be found to obtain best propagation link with low absorption loss

Optimization and Characterization of CMOS for Ultra Low Power Applications

Aggressive voltage scaling into the subthreshold operating region holds great promise for applications with strict energy budget. However, it has been established that higher speed superthreshold device is not suitable for moderate performance subthreshold circuits. The design constraint for selecting Vth and TOX is much more flexible for subthreshold circuits at low voltage level than superthreshold circuits. In order to obtain better performance from a device under subthreshold conditions, it is necessary to investigate and optimize the process and geometry parameters of a Si MOSFET at nanometer technology node. This paper calibrates the fabrication process parameters and electrical characteristics for n- and p-MOSFETs with 35 nm physical gate length. Thereafter, the calibrated device for superthreshold application is optimized for better performance under subthreshold conditions using TCAD simulation. The device simulated in this work shows 9.89% improvement in subthreshold slope and 34% advantage in ION/IOFF ratio for the same drive current

Causes of in-hospital delay for door-to-needle times in patients presenting with acute ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarct in Rural Malaysia

Study Objective: Background: In developing countries such as Malaysia, the primary mode for revascularization is via thrombolytic therapy. The Malaysian Clinical Practice Guideline on acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction advised the implementation of a 30-minute door-to-needle time. This study aims to evaluate the mean door-to-needle times and the reasons for in-hospital delays. Methods: Ninety four patients with acute ST elevation myocardial infarction patients were screened and 75 patients were recruited in this prospective observational study. The mean door-to-needle times were recorded and the reasons for delays in door-to-needle times were elucidated. Results: The majority of patients were male (89.3%), of Malay ethnicity (84%), presenting with anterior MI (69.3%) with a mean age of 57.0 � 9.52 years. The mean door-to-needle time was 80.54 � 84.8 minutes. Only 20% achieved the 30- minute door-to-needle time and only 65.3% achieved the 60 minute door-to-needle time. The reasons for late thrombolysis were quoted as late referrals from A�E (50%), hypertensive emergency (22%), resuscitation (17%) and others (11%). Conclusion: There is significant in-hospital delay in administrating thrombolytic agents for patients presenting with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction. Some of the delays were unavoidable (hypertensive emergency and hypotension or VT/VF requiring resuscitation) but the majority of the delay is due to late referrals from A�E to attending cardiology on-call officers