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Background and Objective: The WHO declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency which has affected every sphere of life including mental health and is expected to affect the patients of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) adversely. This study aimed to study phenomenology and treatment adherence in patients with the OCD during COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 96 old and new patients of OCD between the age of 18 and 60 years, with the Yale–Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) ≥16 and onset of illness prior to COVID-19 (March 2020). Diagnosis was made as per ICD-10-DCR, the likelihood of treatment adherence was assessed using the Medication Adherence Rating Scale, and the severity of OCD was assessed on Y-BOCS. The current and past phenomenologies as per D-YBOCS were compared. Among the patients adherent to treatment, subjective response on the current severity of symptoms as compared to before the onset of COVID-19 was recorded. Results: The likelihood of treatment adherence was high (according to the Medication Adherence Scale) in 59.2% of cases. Pandemic reasons were reported by 69% of patients with low likelihood of treatment adherence. Few patients developed new symptoms, but no statistically significant change was found when compared to the pre-COVID-19 phenomenology. Conclusions: Majority of the treatment adherent patients experienced a decrease or no change in their symptom severity as compared to the before COVID-19 severity, suggesting that no worsening of OCD symptoms during the pandemic was observed if the patients were adherent to medications. However, there is a need for long-term considerations and plan interventions accordingly to minimize this deleterious effect.

Compared with other aquaculture issues, attention to human and social dimensions is lagging behind. Sectoral development, policy, and programmatic factors have created inequities and sub‐optimal social outcomes, which are jeopardizing the broader contribution the sector could make to human well‐being. Human rights in aquaculture are at the core of this article, which argues that aquaculture development, as a major economic and food producing sector, needs to be about human development. The article reviews: the application of human rights in aquaculture, and the related right to decent work; the notions of justice and equity including the idea of Blue Justice and its relevance in aquaculture; and ethics and social license to operate with the challenges that business ethics and public acceptance pose to the sector. It also reviews how these issues affect people: women, along with slow progress in gender equality in the sector; youth and their engagement in aquaculture, while noting that 'youth' does not equate to "jobs" and requires the lifting of many more societal hurdles for their full participation in the sector; indigenous people and local ecological knowledge—a precious asset for future aquaculture as well as the survival and enhancement of the cultural value of aquaculture; and people with disabilities and other minorities who have yet to become fully visible and accounted for in aquaculture development. Redressing human and social issues in aquaculture, and placing people at the center of aquaculture development requires a fundamental change from business as usual. To humanize aquaculture development, a renewed human relationship with aquaculture is proposed, which is founded on recognizing substantive equality and agency, embracing intersectionality, that is, the multiple social dimensions of identity and interaction, and valuing cross‐disciplinary knowledge systems. It would be implemented through new, inclusive, business models, social provisioning approaches, and procedural justice and governance mechanisms for overcoming inequalities. Public, private, and non‐state actors will need to be involved, inclusive of small‐scale farmers, women, youth, people with disabilities, and indigenous communities as key groups. Six key messages conclude the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Short term symptomatic relief with single dose PRP in early knee OA has been established. We studied the effect of Chitosan as an additive to PRP, in an attempt to improve and prolong the effects. Methods. 42 Dunkin Hartley guinea pigs were divided into 4 groups of 10 each; 2 animals were used for preparation of allogeneic PRP. Disease control group (DC) had 10 animals where no intervention was done in either knee. Groups G1, G2 and G3 (10 animals each) were given single intra-articular injections of PRP, Chitosan gel alone and Chitosan + PRP in one knee respectively. Isotonic saline injection was given in the contralateral knees in all 3 groups to act as control. Five animals from each group (subgroup DC.3, G1.3, G2.3 and G3.3) were euthanized at three months and the remaining five (subgroup DC.6, G1.6, G2.6 and G3.6) at six months post intervention. Upon euthanasia, knee joint synovial fluid was taken for cartilage oligomeric protein (COMP) estimation by ELISA, and histologic assessment of articular cartilage and synovium was done using Mankin score. Results. The mean synovitis scores was significantly lower in both the PRP and Chitosan PRP group compared to disease control and Chitosan gel alone groups at 3 months (p < 0.05) signifying effectiveness of PRP for synovitis; at 6 months there was no difference between the 3 intervention groups and disease control group, implying that the effects of PRP wear off. There was no significant difference between Chitosan PRP and PRP groups at 3 or 6 months in terms of mean total articular cartilage score and COMP levels. The above findings imply that Chitosan addition did not improve or prolong the effects of PRP. Conclusions. Addition of chitosan poloxamer gel did not offer any additional advantage in prolonging efficacy of PRP in a Guinea pig Knee OA model. Nevertheless, the efficacy of single dose PRP, with or without Chitosan, has been again demonstrated in the short term, due to decreased synovitis scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the measured sensitivities of a superconducting NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) heterodyne receiver at 5.25 THz. Terahertz (THz) radiation is quasioptically coupled to a HEB mixer with a lens and a spiral antenna. Using a measurement setup with black body calibration sources and a beam splitter in vacuo, and an antireflection coated Si lens, we obtained a double sideband (DSB) receiver noise temperature (TrecDSB) of 1150 K, which is nine times hν/2k, where h is the Planck constant, ν the frequency, and k the Boltzmann constant. In addition, the measured far field beam patterns of the integrated lens antenna show nearly collimated beams from 2.5 to 5.3 THz that allow reliable measurement of TrecDSB using the vacuum setup. Our experimental results in combination with an antenna-to-bolometer coupling simulation suggest that the HEB mixer can work well at least up to 6 THz, making it suitable for next generation of high-resolution spectroscopic space telescopes and, in particular, for the detection of the neutral atomic oxygen line at 4.7 THz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terror of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is present universally. The number of cases is on rise. There is always debate about the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as a prophylaxis. Healthcare workers being the front-line soldiers need additional protection as compared to general population. This review article highlighted the mechanism of action of both drugs and their role in COVID-19 patients.

Signcryption aims to provide both confidentiality and authentication of messages more efficiently than performing encryption and signing independently. The “Commit-then-Sign & Encrypt” (CtS&E) method allows to perform encryption and signing in parallel. Parallel execution of cryptographic algorithms decreases the computation time needed to signcrypt messages. CtS&E uses weaker cryptographic primitives in a generic way to achieve a strong security notion of signcryption. Various message pre-processing schemes, also known as message padding, have been used in signcryption as a commitment scheme in CtS&E. Due to its elegance and versatility, the sponge structure turns out to be a useful tool for designing new padding schemes such as SpAEP [T. K. Bansal, D. Chang and S. K. Sanadhya, Sponge based CCA2 secure asymmetric encryption for arbitrary length message, Information Security and Privacy – ACISP 2015, Lecture Notes in Comput. Sci. 9144, Springer, Berlin 2015, 93–106], while offering further avenues for optimization and parallelism in the context of signcryption. In this work, we design a generic and efficient signcryption scheme featuring parallel encryption and signature on top of a sponge-based message-padding underlying structure. Unlike other existing schemes, the proposed scheme also supports arbitrarily long messages. We prove the construction secure when instantiated from weakly secure asymmetric primitives such as a trapdoor one-way encryption and a universal unforgeable signature. With a careful analysis and simple tweaks, we demonstrate how different combinations of weakly secure probabilistic and deterministic encryption and signature schemes can be used to construct a strongly secure signcryption scheme, further broadening the choices of underlying primitives to cover essentially any combination thereof. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first signcryption scheme based on the sponge structure that also offers strong security using weakly secure underlying asymmetric primitives, even deterministic ones, along with the ability to handle long messages, efficiently.

Purpose: To get rid of the morbidities incurred with prolonged use of trans urethral Foley catheter, supra-pubic Malecot catheter and intra-abdominal pelvic drain by doing ultra short decompression of bladder for three days using solitary wide bore 16 F Foley catheter in selected patients of repaired vesico vaginal fistulas (VVFs). Material and Methods: Five non-obese, medically fit and physically active women, aged between 35 and 40 years, presented with 3-15 years history of continuous leakage of urine per-vaginam atier hysterectomies in four cases, prolonged and obstructed delivery in one case. All were counseled and consented for ultra short bladder decompression. Transabdominal transvesical repair was done in four patients and trans vaginal repair in one. Circum-dissection of fistula upto two centimeters was followed by tension free separate closure of bladder and vagina at right angle to each other in two layers, inner continuous and outer interrupted sutures using 2-0 vicryl on round bodied needle. Water tight closure of bladder was confirmed on operation table. Vigilant post-operative care was provided to all patients to ensure uninterrupted bladder decompression for first 72 hours and maintenance of adequate hydration. Once patients became fully active and ambulatory, the Foley catheter was removed and patients were advised to evacuate bladder every two hours without any straining. Results: All the patients had uneventiul postoperative recovery and were fully continent at three months of follow-up. Conclusions: Ultra short bladder decompression would prevent various tubes and catheters related morbidities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cystic hygroma is a benign tumor composed of large lymph containing cysts mainly in head and neck region. Perioperative management of such cases is a real challenge encountered by the anaesthesiologist in view of the difficult airway management and postoperative respiratory complications. We hereby report a case of 10 day old child presented with gross and huge swelling on the left side of the neck with difficulty in feeding. It was diagnosed to be cystic hygroma and a decision was made to excise the swelling, to enable the child to swallow and thrive better. Difficult intubation was anticipated and the child was intubated with inhalation induction maintaining spontaneous respiration. The intra-operative and postoperative period was smooth and the tumor was excised completely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complete heart block is a significant complication following surgical closure of ventricular septal defect. Pacemakers are being used for increased frequency for management of complete heart block in these patients. Anaesthetic management should be planned preoperatively as per patient's medical status and careful monitoring should be done intraoperatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study regarding the use of split one-half rectus abdominis muscle (SRAM) re-enforcement flap strategy for utero-cervico-vesical fistula treatment in a 20-year-old woman with onset of continuous leakage after removal of Foley's catheter. It says that cystoscopy supported the presence of supra-trigonal fistula with normal ureteric orifices. Results showed that the use of SRAM interposition flap has helped lower segment caesarian section (LSCS) without bladder injury.