Evaluation of air quality and its variation due to COVID-19 lockdown in Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Air pollution in India is a serious health issue. A countrywide lockdown was imposed in India in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, firstly for three weeks starting from March 24 to April 14, 2020, and then extended until May 3, 2020. Because of the restrictions imposed, pollution levels in cities all over the country have dropped dramatically in just a few days, raised questions among scientists about lockdown as the most effective alternative approach for reducing air pollution. Hyderabad was chosen for this study because it is India's 5th largest city by area and 4th largest city by population, as well as major industrial centre in South-East Asia with strong air quality statistics. In light of the recent COVID-19 outbreak around the country, a detailed analysis based on air quality parameters from six distinct air quality monitoring sites in Hyderabad, Telangana, has been performed. For simple interpretation of air quality data, establishing a correlation between different pollutants, identifying sources of pollution, and determining the most significant parameters, different multivariate statistical approaches such as Cluster analysis (CA), Principle component analysis (PCA), correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis (MLR) were used. The aim of this study is to evaluate the major air pollution sources in Hyderabad and to identify the most significant air pollutants based on their individual contributions to the Air Quality Index (AQI). Variation in air quality parameters collected for six air quality monitoring stations were represented using box or whisker plots. The data set has been grouped into four major clusters depending on the similarities in the air quality data. Major sources of air pollution in each cluster were identified using PCA. MLR analysis was used to create models for predicting AQI for each cluster based on concentrations of important air contaminants. The findings revealed that PM10 and PM2.5 play a significant role in determining AQI levels. © 2023 Author(s).

Assessment of changes in air quality in Bangalore, India, during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown: Statistical modelling

COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a halt to the daily lifestyle of people around the world and bound them to abide by the lockdown measures enforced to prevent the disease from further spreading. In India also, lockdown has been enforced from March 2020. As a result, the level of air pollutants in the atmosphere goes on decreasing. To know the air quality pattern of Bangalore city, ten stations around the city were selected. Air quality data of these stations has been availed from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of India website. Box chart concept of graphical representation has been applied to show the range of temporal variation of the air pollutants selected (CO, NO2, Ozone, PM2.5, PM10 and SO2) for the study area over two distinct periods (pre-lockdown and post-lockdown). It has been observed that all the pollutants level were drastically or significantly reduced except for SO2 which showed mixed behavior during the entire study period probably due to no restriction on the operation of power plants. GIS based contour mapping is done for each pollutant over the entire study area and separately for two distinct periods (pre-lockdown and post-lockdown). It was found that, change in CO level over the entire study area was significant and the reason behind it was complete restriction on vehicular movement which is the primary reason for CO emission in atmosphere. Reduction in PMs and ozone was also noticeable, but change in SO2 over the entire study area was almost insignificant. To find out the probable sources of pollution during the lockdown and before the lockdown period and the most significant parameters statistical approach has been adopted. The whole data set has been grouped based on similarity and divided into three distinct clusters for both pre-lockdown and post-lockdown period separately using Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster Analysis (HACA) concept. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was done for each of the clusters and each time period considered. From the results of PCA it can be confirmed that the most significant parameters were PM10, PM2.5, ozone and SO2. Results suggest that the probable sources of pollution during pre-lockdown period were vehicular emissions, power plants, industrial activities etc. In contrast, during post-lockdown period the sources of pollution were power plants, construction sites and household pollution only. MLR (Multiple Linear Regression) models were developed to predict Air Quality Index (AQI). Most of the models showed good fit with adjusted R2 value more than 0.9. Regression coefficient (R2) values for PM10 followed PM2.5 were highest in each cluster. © 2023 Author(s).

A Brief Study on Drug Repurposing: New Way of Boosting Drug Discovery

Background: Even with the massive increase in financial investments in pharmaceutical research over the last decade, the number of new drugs approved has plummeted. As a result, finding new uses for approved pharmaceuticals has become a prominent alternative approach for the pharmaceutical industry. Objective: Drug repurposing or repositioning is a game-changing development in the field of drug research that entails discovering additional uses for previously approved drugs. Methods: In comparison to traditional drug discovery methods, drug repositioning enhances the preclini-cal steps of creating innovative medications by reducing the cost and time of the process. Drug reposition-ing depends heavily on available drug-disease data, so the fast development of available data as well as developed computing skills has resulted in the boosting of various new drug repositioning methods. The main goal of this article is to describe these different methods and approaches for drug repurposing. Results: The article describes the basic concept of drug repurposing, its significance in discovering new medications for various disorders, drug repurposing approaches such as computational and experimental approaches, and previous as well as recent applications of drug repurposing in diseases such as cancer, COVID-19, and orphan diseases. Conclusion: The review also addresses obstacles in drug development using drug repurposing strategies, such as a lack of financing and regulatory concerns and concludes with outlining recommendations for overcoming these challenges. © 2023 Bentham Science Publishers.

In-Silico Investigation Based Plant Secondary Metabolites as Promising Immunostimulants against Covid-19

Objectives : The present study is focused to introduce a better preventive and treatment prospective to fight against the COVID-19 crisis by improving the immune system along with inhibiting the viral activity by a comprehensive review and supportive in-silico study.Methodology : The study was conducted with a systemic review on the phytochemicals possessing immunostimulatory potentiality, which was further supported by an in-silico investigation of thosephytocomponents in improving the immunity of the patient as well as in preventive measures which cancontribute a major part to manage the dangerous consequences of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).Results : In in-silico study showed that scutellarein, hesperidin andbaicalin exhibited strong binding affinity with ACE2, PAK1, Protease by strong molecular interaction forming several hydrogen bonds.Conclusion : The present finding interprets scutellarein, hesperidin and baicalin to be potential herbal immune boosters with antiviral potentiality which are to be further explored by in-vitro and in-vivo methods.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF COVID-19 PULMONARY VIRAL INFECTION AND REPURPOSING OF DRUGS FOR ITS TREATMENT

A novel coronavirus disease, which is transmitted from human to human has quickly become the cause of the current worldwide health crisis. This virus is, also known as SARS coronavirus, belongs to the Coronaviridae family of viruses. The recent outbreak of acute respiratory disorders starting in Wuhan, China is found to be caused by this virus. The condition caused by it, known as COVID-19 has spread very rapidly all over the world, causing so many death. This led WHO on Mar 11, 2020, to designate it as a global pandemic. An update on the history, etiology, epidemiology, pathophysiology and preventive methods for COVID-19 such as masking, quarantine, and social distancing are discussed in this paper. Repurposed drugs, antibodies, corticosteroids, vaccination and plasma transfusion, are among the treatments explained in the study. Finally, the study discusses India’s COVID vaccination programme. The major aspects of this entire review are to describe COVID-19 infection, its prevention and treatment approach.

Portable Health Monitoring Module using Machine Learning

Amidst the current covid-19 pandemic situation continuous health monitoring becomes important. In this work, we propose a low cost portable healthcare module which helps in tracking a patient's health conditions using various parameters such as heart rate, carbon dioxide exhalation, body temperature and electrical heart recording (ECG). This monitoring can be done autonomously without the presence of a doctor. This module is helpful in the health monitoring of patients who are in quarantine, or under treatment in a hospital. It can also be used for the health monitoring of elderly and diabled patients. In this work, we also compare some of the existing modules and draw a comparison. In addition to that we also compare different machine learning algorithms used for prediction of asthma. Our results for different algorithms have been quantified and we found that using K neighbors we got the maximum score of 87%. © 2021 IEEE.

Effect of covid-19 on digital transformations in teaching learning methodology and its consequences in society: A review

Covid-19 forced all the schools, colleges and universities to suspend their physical classrooms and implemented the digital transformations into the entire education system worldwide. The structure of teaching-learning-assessment methodology becomes affected by this closure. Just a handful of universities, colleges and schools might follow teaching methods online, but private, government and low-income schools, on the other hand, have totally shut down because they do not have access to e-learning solutions. The higher education industry has been profoundly impacted by the pandemic. However, the biggest concern to everyone is how the illness impacts the pace of work. Recent graduates in India fear that the present situation will result in work offers being withdrawn from companies. To manage the crisis and develop a long-term, resilient Indian education system, a multi-stakeholder strategy is required. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.