Search

India has the largest deaf population in the world and sign language is the principal medium for such persons to share information with normal people and among themselves. Yet, normal people do not have any knowledge of such language. As a result, there is a huge communication barrier between normal and deaf-dumb persons. Again, sign language interpreters are not easily available and it is a very costly solution for a long period. The sign language recognition system reduces the communication gaps between normal and deaf-dumb persons. The methodologies to recognize Indian sign language are recently in the developing stage and there is no approach to recognize signs in real-time. Here, we have proposed a fingerspelling recognition system of static signs for the Indian sign language alphabet using convolutional neural networks combined with data augmentation, batch normalization, dropout, stochastic pooling, and diffGrad optimizer. To continue the research, a total of 62,400 images of 26 static signs have been taken from various users. The proposed method achieves the highest training and validation accuracy of 99.76% and 99.64%, respectively , that outperforms other examined systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer incidence and its related mortality has been a public health concern for Arunachal Pradesh in India. However, there is a lack of evidence about the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) for cancer risk factors, screening programmes and preventive behaviour – especially among indigenous tribal populations. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using Google Forms from 16 September 2020 to 2 January 2021 among an indigenous population of Arunachal Pradesh. Snowball sampling was used to enrol 565 participants aged ≥18 years (264 were male and 301 were female). Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted using SPSS version 23 to test the hypothesis of KAP. (There is no difference in the level of knowledge / in the attitude / level of practice among study participants with respect to any independent (socio-demographic and other) factors.) The Papumpare Cancer Registry reported the highest cancer density among women and the second highest among men among all population-based cancer registries in India (Indian Council of Medical Research, Report of National Cancer Registry Programme, Bengaluru, India 2020). Knowledge about the cause of cancer and risk factors was poor among 23% of the respondents. Attitude towards screening was negative among 14.9%. Practice levels to prevent cancer were also low (31%). More than 50% of the cases were treated outside the state and at private hospitals. Knowledge about cancer symptoms and risk factors was limited in the population. There is a need for more effective health promotional services in the state. Mass screening facilities and behavioural change activities are required and could be disseminated through social media platforms. Our analysis of a north-eastern region of India, which has unique geographical and cultural characteristics, informs future policy designs and other related studies for controlling cancer in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Seroepidemiology and genomic surveillance are valuable tools to investigate infection transmission during a pandemic. North East (NE) India is a strategically important region being the gateway connecting the country with Southeast Asia. Here, we examined the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in NE India during the first and second waves of COVID-19 using serological and whole genome sequencing approaches., Methods: qRT-PCR analysis was performed on a selected population (n ​= ​16,295) from June 2020 to July 2021, and metadata was collected. Immunoassays were studied (n ​= ​2026) at three-time points (August 2020, February 2021, and June 2021) and in a cohort (n ​= ​35) for a year. SARS-CoV-2 whole genomes (n ​= ​914) were sequenced and analyzed with those obtained from the databases., Results: Test positivity rates (TPR) in the first and second waves were 6.34% and 6.64% in Assam, respectively, and a similar pattern was observed in other NE states. Seropositivity in the three time points was 10.63%, 40.3%, and 46.33%, respectively, and neutralizing antibody prevalence was 90.91%, 52.14%, and 69.30%, respectively. Persistence of pan-IgG-N SARS-CoV-2 antibody for over a year was observed among three subjects in the cohort group. Normal variants dominated the first wave, while B.1.617.2 and AY-sublineages dominated the second wave in the region. The prevalence of the variants co-related well with high TPR and seropositivity rate in the region and identified mostly among vaccinated individuals., Conclusion: The COVID-19 first wave in the region witnessed low transmission with the evolution of diverse variants. Seropositivity increased during the study period with over half of the individuals carrying neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. High infection and seroprevalence in NE India during the second wave were associated with the dominant emergence of variants of concern., (Copyright © 2022 Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)