Search

Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the top three causes of mortality worldwide. The overall incidence rate of COPD was 8.9/1000 person-years. Several studies have evaluated the prevalence of COPD underdiagnosis in different settings. Simple tool to identify COPD cases is extremely useful for physicians. PUMA pre-screening questionnaire is such a tool. The rationale of our study is as our institute is the only institute for 2 districts where pulmonary function test (PFT) is available, so by correlating PUMA score with PFT we could generate questionnaire and use it as as a screening tool in primary care centers where PFT is not available. The aim of the current study was to evaluate predictive capability (sensitivity and specificity) of PUMA score in detecting COPD. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted from January to March 2024 on 50 patients with clinical suspicion of COPD attending tertiary care center. Seven variables of PUMA questionnaire were used in this study: age (40-49 years-0 points, 50-59 years- 1 point, 60-69 years -2 points), sex (female-0 points, male-1 point), pack years of smoking (30 -3 points), chronic phelgm-1 point, chronic cough-1 point, Dyspnea-1 point and history of previous spirometry -1 points. Details regarding 7 variables and spirometry data were taken and compared. Patient’s consent and ethical committee approval were taken prior to the study. Results: Out of 50 patients, 4 patients were excluded as 3 patients were having pneumothorax and 1 patient had recent eye surgery for which PFT can’t be done. Out of 46 people, 34 (74%) were males and 12 (26%) were females. Most common age group involved was greater than 60 years, which represents 28 (60%) patients. Most common symptom was breathlessness seen in 46 (100%) patients. Past history of spirometry was noted in 9 (19%) patients. 32 (76%) of patients had history of smoking of which >30 pack years of smoking was seen in 21 (46%) of patients. PUMA score greater than or equal to 6 was seen in 32 (69%) of patients in whom obstructive pattern (post bronchodilator FEV1/FVC less than 0.70) in spirometry was seen in 27 (84%) of patients. Conclusion: In primary care centers where spirometry is not available PUMA questionnaire can play a significant role in identifying patients with risk to develop COPD.

Objective: Vaccinating people can be an effective way of controlling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic because vaccines have shown high efficacy in preventing serious illness and hospitalization. However, the long-term effectiveness of the vaccines is still unknown. Vaccines are not fully effective as evidenced by the reports of fully vaccinated people who developed COVID-19 infection. The aim of the study was to compare the clinical profile and outcomes of the COVID 19 infection among vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. Methods: The observational study was conducted from March to May 2023 at tertiary care center, Kakinada, India. Results: In this study out of 56 COVID-19 infected patients, frequency of COPVID-19 according to age distribution was higher in 41 to 50 years of age population. There was no significant sex preponderance. Out of 56, most common presenting symptoms were breathlessness 37 (66%). Out of 56, 51 (91%) patients were vaccinated (Covisheild, Serum Institute India PVT LTD, India), remaining were not vaccinated. Out of 56, 35 {62%) patients had comorbidities. Out of 56, 44(79 %) patients presented with bilateral multiple opacities on chest X- Ray. Out of 56, 36 patients` saturation was maintained on room air which constitutes (64%). Out of 56, 36(64%) patients presented with mild disease severity. Out of 56, 10 patients succumbed to death of whom 7 (70%) patients were vaccinated , 3 (30%) patients were unvaccinated (p>0.05). Conclusion: Although the vaccination does not restrict/avoid infections, it appears to protect the vaccinated people from severe forms of COVID 19 infections.

Background Cardiovascular disease is the world’s leading killer, accounting for 16.7 million deaths, or 29.2%, of the total number of global deaths in 2003. In India, in the past five decades, rates of coronary disease among the urban population have risen from 4% to 11%. Most of the deaths due to CVD at a young age are preventable by early identification of the risk factors and adapting healthy lifestyles.

Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the top three causes of mortality worldwide. The overall incidence rate of COPD was 8.9/1000 person-years. Several studies have evaluated the prevalence of COPD underdiagnosis in different settings. Simple tool to identify COPD cases is extremely useful for physicians. PUMA prescreening questionnaire is such a tool. The rationale of our study is as our institute is the only institute for 2 districts where pulmonary function test (PFT) is available, so by correlating PUMA score with PFT we could generate questionnaire and use it as as a screening tool in primary care centers where PFT is not available. The aim of the current study was to evaluate predictive capability (sensitivity and specificity) of PUMA score in detecting COPD. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted from January to March 2024 on 50 patients with clinical suspicion of COPD attending tertiary care center. Seven variables of PUMA questionnaire were used in this study: age (40-49 years-0 points, 50-59 years- 1 point, 60-69 years -2 points), sex (female-0 points, male-1 point), pack years of smoking (<20-0 points, 20- 30-1 point, >30 -3 points), chronic phelgm-1 point, chronic cough-1 point, Dyspnea-1 point and history of previous spirometry -1 points. Details regarding 7 variables and spirometry data were taken and compared. Patient's consent and ethical committee approval were taken prior to the study. Results: Out of 50 patients, 4 patients were excluded as 3 patients were having pneumothorax and 1 patient had recent eye surgery for which PFT can't be done. Out of 46 people, 34 (74%) were males and 12 (26%) were females. Most common age group involved was greater than 60 years, which represents 28 (60%) patients. Most common symptom was breathlessness seen in 46 (100%) patients. Past history of spirometry was noted in 9 (19%) patients. 32 (76%) of patients had history of smoking of which >30 pack years of smoking was seen in 21 (46%) of patients. PUMA score greater than or equal to 6 was seen in 32 (69%) of patients in whom obstructive pattern (post bronchodilator FEV1/FVC less than 0.70) in spirometry was seen in 27 (84%) of patients. Conclusion: In primary care centers where spirometry is not available PUMA questionnaire can play a significant role in identifying patients with risk to develop COPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nimesulide is a widely used drug for the treatment of pain in humans as well as in animals. The presence of trace amounts of drugs in milk or other food supplement affects seriously human health. This study reports a method based on LC-MS detection for the determination of nimesulide and its hydroxy metabolite in cow milk samples. Waters ACQUITY BEH C18 column (100 mm × 2.1 mm, 1.7 µm), with gradient elution using 0.1% formic acid and acetonitrile as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.3 mL min−1 was used for the chromatographic separation. The ion scans were quantified at m/z 307.0393 for nimesulide, m/z 323.0375 for hydroxy nimesulide metabolite and m/z 434.2198 for IS (valsartan) in negative ESI mode. A double extraction method with protein precipitation by acetonitrile followed by solid-phase extraction was developed to detect nimesulide at 1.30 ng mL−1 and hydroxy nimesulide at 1.03 ng mL−1 in milk. The calibration curve was constructed for nimesulide in the range of 1.30 ng mL−1 to 125.07 ng mL−1 while for hydroxy nimesulide calibration curve was constructed in the range of 1.03 ng mL−1 to 99.70 ng mL−1 in whole cow milk without any treatment. The validation parameters like accuracy, precision, selectivity, stability, matrix effect and dilution integrity were also performed on nimesulide and hydroxy nimesulide. The developed processing and chromatographic method can be used to quantitatively determine nimesulide or its hydroxy nimesulide metabolite in biological matrices, i.e., milk, plasma, faecal, tissue, etc.

The examination of corrosion prevention effectiveness in various media demonstrates how the chemical properties of carbon steel can result in potent engineering uses. In this study, the corrosion inhibition efficiency of the Sodium + Molybdate-Zn² system on carbon steel in seawater was evaluated using the weight loss method. The results of AC impedance investigations and surface analysis methods such as FTIR, AFM, and luminescence spectroscopy provide the basis of this study's mechanistic elements. Because zinc ions are believed to be efficient corrosion inhibitors for the + protection offered by a cathodic polarization process, they have been used in this study. Together, Zn² and sodium molybdate stop carbon steel from corroding when it is submerged in seawater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermittency in the grid creates operational issues for power system operators (PSO). One such intermittent parameter is load. Accurate prediction of the load is the key to proper planning of the power system. This paper uses regression analyses for short-term load forecasting (STLF). Assumed load data are first analyzed and outliers are identified and treated. The cleaned data are fed to regression methods involving Linear Regression, Decision Trees (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Ensemble, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), and Neural Networks. The best method is identified based on statistical analyses using parameters such as Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Square Error (MSE), R2, and Prediction Speed. The best method is further optimized with the objective of reducing MSE by tuning hyperparameters using Bayesian Optimization, Grid Search, and Random Search. The algorithms are implemented in Python and Matlab Platforms. It is observed that the best methods obtained for regression analysis and hyperparameter tuning for an assumed data set are Decision Trees and Grid Search, respectively. It is also observed that, due to hyperparameter tuning, the MSE is reduced by 12.98%.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a long-standing debilitating medical condition. CKD patients who are undergoing haemodialysis commonly experience depressive and anxiety symptoms because of various physical and psychosocial factors. The present study aimed to assess psychiatric morbidities i.e., depression in patients with CKD undergoing haemodialysis. The objective of study was to evaluate depression and its relation to socio-demographic factors in patients with CKD. Materials and Methods: Descriptive Cross-Sectional study was conducted in the Nephrology Department of a Tertiary care hospital, Visakhapatnam for a period of 2 months among Chronic Kidney Disease Patients (Adult patients (age>18 years) both Genders who are attending a dialysis unit during study period. Results: The mean age of participants was of 50.91 years, median is of 53 years and the standard deviation is of 11.6 years. The minimum age of the participant taken is of 18 years and the maximum age is of 80 years. Around 54.7% of participants have depression while about 45.3% of the people have no depression but there are some people who are prone to depression. Conclusion: Majority of the patients are prone to depression due to their socio-economic status and financial burden. The increased medication became a great burden, in terms of pill count and finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the conceptual features of Fault Detection, Isolation, and Restoration (FDIR) following an outage in an electric distribution system.This paper starts with a discussion of the premise for distribution automation, including its features and the different challenges associated with its implementation in a smart grid paradigm. Then, this article explores various concepts, control schemes, and approaches related to FDIR. Service restoration is one of the main strategies for such distribution automation, through which the healthy section of the power distribution network is re-energized by changing the topology of the network. In a smart grid paradigm, the presence of intelligent electronic devices can facilitate the automatic implementation of the service restoration scheme. The concepts of service restoration and various approaches are thoroughly presented in this article. A comparison is made among various significant approaches reported for distribution automation. The outcome of our literature survey and scope for future research concludes this review.

The current state of economic, social ideas, and the advancement of cutting-edge technology are determined by the primary subjects of the contemporary information era, big data. People are immersed in a world of information, guided by the abundance of data that penetrates every element of their surroundings. Smart gadgets, the IoT, and other technologies are responsible for the data's explosive expansion. Organisations have struggled to store data effectively throughout the past few decades. This disadvantage is related to outdated, expensive, and inadequately large storage technology. In the meanwhile, large data demands innovative storage techniques supported by strong technology. This paper proposes the bigdata clustering and classification model with improved fuzzy-based Deep Architecture under the Map Reduce framework. At first, the pre-processing phase involves data partitioning from the big dataset utilizing an improved C-Means clustering procedure. The pre-processed big data is then handled by the Map Reduce framework, which involves the mapper and reducer phases. In the mapper phase. Data normalization takes place, followed by the feature fusion approach that combines the extracted features like entropy-based features and correlation-based features. In the reduction phase, all the mappers are combined to produce an acceptable feature. Finally, a deep hybrid model, which is the combination of a DCNN and Bi-GRU is used for the classification process. The Improved score level fusion procedure is used in this case to obtain the final classification result. Moreover, the analysis of the proposed work has proved to be efficient in terms of classification accuracy, precision, recall, FNR, FPR, and other performance metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The management of gastric outlet obstruction poses diagnostic and therapeutic challenges to general surgeons practicing in resource-limited countries. The outcome of treatment of gastric outlet obstruction may be poor especially in developing countries where advanced diagnostic and therapeutic facilities are not readily available in most centers. Objective: To evaluate the variable presentations and management options of gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) in a tertiary care centre, Karimnagar. Methods: The study was a prospective follow up study; total 30 patients of Gastric outlet obstruction (GOO) have been included in this study. Patients have been selected from those attending to General Surgery Department, Chalmeda Anand Rao Institute of Medical Sciences during the period of November 2015 to November 2017. Results: Out of 30 cases studied 20 cases are males and 10 females with GOO patients. The male to female ratio was 2:1. With regards to individual etiologies carcinoma stomach male to female ratio 1.4: 1 and chronic duodenal ulcers are seen in ratio of 2.5:1. Conclusion: In present day, carcinoma stomach appears to be the most common cause of gastric outlet obstruction. Malignant GOO had poor prognosis and mostly palliation is done. It focuses on the fact that there is delayed presentation with patients of upper gastro intestinal malignancy.