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Background Following a massive outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a significant number of survivors are still suffering from residual symptoms and complications. We designed a preliminary study to evaluate such symptom spectra in COVID-19 patients who had been discharged from the hospital. Methods A telephone interview was conducted with 100-randomly chosen hospital-discharged COVID-19 survivors from the electronic patient record. The interview structure and method were developed by a panel of experts. A specially trained group conducted the interviews and data collection. The statistical analysis was performed in accordance with the data type (continuous and categorical). Group comparisons were also done between intensive care unit (ICU) versus general ward admission, and patients discharged between 3 and 12 weeks versus more than 12 weeks. Additionally, world clouds were used for better visualization of various prevalent symptoms. Results Eighty-two participants were finally included for interview after preliminary screening. Fifty-three patients (64.6%) were male participants; 74.4% had at least one symptom. In general, fatigue, cough, insomnia, and shortness of breath were the most common persistent symptoms. Symptoms were more prevalent among the patients discharged from ICU compared with those discharged from the general ward. Cough, loss of appetite, depression, and incoherence were more common in patients after 12 weeks of hospital discharge. Conclusion There is a wide range of persistent symptoms in the COVID-19 survivors who have been discharged from the hospital. Some symptoms arise or persisted even after 12 weeks. Based on the study results, available literature, and expert consensus, an assessment form has been developed that could be used for further research and clinical assessment of similar problems. Large-scale epidemiological study (longitudinal and cross-sectional) is needed to understand the nature and prevalence of the postacute phase of COVID-19 at the country level. The results of this study could inform the stakeholders and policymakers for taking necessary steps toward a further decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel hierarchical method for finding tracer clouds from weather satellite images is proposed. From the sequence of cloud images, different features such as mean, standard deviation, busyness, and entropy are extracted. Based on these features, clouds are segmented using the k-means clustering algorithm and considering the coldest cloud segment, potential regions for tracer clouds are identified. These regions are represented by a set of features. All such steps are repeated for images taken at three consecutive time instants. Then, simulated annealing is used to establish an association between cloud segments of successive image frames. In this way, several chains of associated cloud regions are found and are ranked using fuzzy reasoning. The method has been tested in several image sequences, and its results are validated by determining cloud motion vector from the associated chains of tracers. Index Terms--Association of regions, best tracer cloud, cloud motion vector (CMV), feature vector, tracer cloud.

INTRODUCTION: Semi-automated equipment using Column agglutination technology (CAT) is widely used where centrifugation and incubation are automated but substantial amount of the work is still executed manually. Larger laboratories are moving towards automation to eliminate errors, reducing exposure to bio-hazardous samples, assuring traceability, reliability, turnaround time (TAT) and throughput. Moving towards automation and greater reliability, we therefore, decided to install an automated immunohematological (IH) analyzer "Vision". In this study we evaluated reliability and performance before clearing "Vision" for routine use. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Study was conducted in the Department of Transfusion-Medicine. The primary objective was to assess the reliability of results and compare with routine use semi-automated BIOVUE system (Reference system). Secondary objective was to evaluate the performance (TAT and throughput) of the Vision to handle routine and emergency workload. RESULTS: Total of 1276 known samples were used to assess 2640 pre-transfusion tests (1229 ABO/Rh D typing; 1229 antibody screening; 54 antibody identification; 86 crossmatch and 42 DAT). All 1229 ABO Rh typing results were concordant between the two systems. Overall agreement between the Vision IH analyzer and reference system for ABO Rh typing was 99.95%. All antibody screening, crossmatch and DAT results were concordant between the two systems. TAT of Vision was substantially shorter than the reference system for all test profiles. CONCLUSION: Based on study results, Vision was approved for routine use in laboratory. It was found to be reliable with considerably shorter TAT and capable of handling high throughput of immunohematological tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients of β-thalassemia major are dependent on regular blood transfusions for their entire lifetime. Development of antibodies against red blood cell (RBC) antigen which may be alloantibody or autoantibody, several times as a result of frequent red cell component transfusions, further complicates the subsequent transfusion therapy. Among the autoantibodies, warm-reactive autoantibodies are commoner and interfere in the pretransfusion testing. These RBC autoantibodies present in patient's serum potentially react with all the cells of antibody identification panel giving “pan-reactive” picture and making alloantibody identification complex. In this report, we present our approach in a thalassemia patient who presented with warm-type autoimmune hemolytic anemia, low hemoglobin of 5.8 g/dl, and three significant alloantibodies (anti-D, anti-S, and anti-Jk b) which were masked by pan-reactive warm autoantibody(s). Differential adsorption was used to unmask underlying alloantibodies. We suggest that differential adsorption procedure is an effective and efficient method for autoantibody adsorption, detection, and identification of masked alloantibody(s), especially in patients with low hemoglobin and history of recent blood transfusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conclusions: This scientific article emphasizes the importance of a policy for antibody screening of all blood donors as a step to further improve blood safety. We also report the incidence of red blood cell (RBC) alloimmunization in healthy blood donors obtained using a cross-sectional prospective study from September 2017 to January 2019 in the Department of Transfusion Medicine of a tertiary care referral and teaching institute in northern India. The indirect antiglobulin test (IAT) for unexpected RBC antibodies was performed by the conventional tube test with pooled group O RBCs on all donor units irrespective of their D status. Samples with positive IATs were sent to the Immune Hematology Reference Laboratory for further immunohematolo-gy workup, maintaining predefined optimal storage and transport conditions. Of the 10,390 donors studied, 9959 were males and 431 were females. The incidence of unexpected antibodies (antibodies other than those of the ABO blood system) among the blood donors was found to be 0.18 percent (19 of 10,390 with 25 alloantibodies). Of the 19 alloimmunized donors, 16 (84.2%) were male (alloimmunization rate 0.16%, 16 of 9959) and 3 (15.8%) were female (alloimmunization rate 0.69%, 3 of 431) (p = 0.01; chi-square test). In our study, the most frequent alloantibodies identified were of the Lewis blood group system (17 of 25 [68%] in 14 of the 19 alloimmunized donors). The second most common allo-antibodies belonged to the Rh blood group system (4 of 25 [16%] in 3 of the 19 alloimmunized donors), followed by those of the MNS blood group system (3 of 25 [12%] in 2 of 19 alloimmunized donors). Anti-K was found in one donor (1 of 25 [4%]). Based on the results of the study, we recommend that a policy of routinely performing IATs on all donor units, irrespective of their D status, be adopted as an essential component of safe blood transfusion practices.