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Blind students' mathematics learning results during the Covid-19 epidemic will be examined in this research using a Flipped Classroom approach. This research makes use of a quasi-experimental approach that includes non-equivalent control groups. Blind kids in grades IV and V make up the study's population of 16 participants. Saturated sampling was used to collect the samples. Students in the experimental class are taught using the Flipped Classroom paradigm, while those in the control class are taught using a direct learning approach as a comparison. A p-value greater than 0.05 indicates that the data are normal and homogenous. The average of two unpaired samples from data is compared using the independent sample t-test. There is no H0 for a t-statistic of less than 0.05;if it is less than 0.05, it is not accepted. First, the Sig.t count (2-tailed) or the P-value are compared to make the first decision. After the second judgment, H0 is no longer a valid hypothesis. Learning arithmetic in a traditional classroom or without any treatment utilizing the Flipped Classroom methodology was shown to be less beneficial for blind pupils during the covid-19 outbreak © 2023, Journal for ReAttach Therapy and Developmental Diversities.All Rights Reserved.
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The discovery of the Covid-19 virus in China at the end of 2019 has drastically altered the global landscape. The virus, which has now become a pandemic, has wrought devastation on the world, infecting over 500 million people and killing over 6 million. The virus's mutation into a few variations, however, has enabled the world's alarming situation to continue until now. Airborne particles and viruses including the new Covid-19 variant -Omricon, is not only extremely contagious but also can be transferred by airborne transmission, putting vulnerable people like children at risk, particularly in classrooms. Amongst the strategies to control airborne transmission of viruses and to improve indoor thermal and air quality is using ventilation strategies -such as dynamic insulation. Thus, this paper will review at how dynamic insulation systems in conventional farming and residential buildings, cleanrooms and other controlled environments work to reduce airborne viruses and particles in a room. An innovative "Airhouse" concept that combines with activated carbon has been researched and investigated with regard to the dynamic insulation systems.This system has a high potential to reduce the air temperature, humidity, and airborne viruses including Covid-19 whilst maintaining a steady airflow rate in a normal room. Therefore, it has a great deal of potential to decrease or eliminate concerns about the transmission of airborne viruses and adapt ventilation systems to new pandemic threats.
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Nurses are one of the most important personnel that plays a major role in ensuring safe and high-quality care to the patients. Their attitudes toward patient safety could affect the patient experience in the hospital setting. Contrasting evidence in the previous study on the relationship between duration of working experience with the attitude toward patient safety warranted further exploration in the current pandemic era. The purpose of this study was to determine the perception of attitude towards patient safety and other associated factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted involving nurses from selected teaching hospitals in Klang Valley, Malaysia during the Covid-19 pandemic period. Data was collected using validated online Safety Attitude Questionnaires (SAQ). The target group was nurses in charge of general medical and surgical wards and was conveniently sampled. A total of 152 nurses participated and had working experience of more than 2 years (93.4%). The majority of positive responses were observed in 4 domains which were the teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, and stress recognition. The highest positive responses were found for the safety climate domain. In terms of negative responses, it was observed to be highest in the preparation of the unit management domain. However, there was no significant association between any domains with age group, gender, or working experience. In conclusion, the perception of the nurses toward patient safety attitude might be influenced by the managerial style, geographical work setting, and different job scopes. The leaders in a healthcare facility or service delivery should consider focusing on a strategy to ensure adequate management support for the medical personnel that might influence their attitude to patient safety culture in the future.Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.
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Donor specific antibodies (DSA) are known to be associated with increased mortality following heart transplant (HT). Despite the high overall burden of disease from novel coronavirus (COVID-19) among HT recipients, little is known about the subsequent development of de novo or increased DSA (diDSA) in COVID-19 survivors. We performed a retrospective analysis at 8 large centers of HT recipients diagnosed with COVID-19 between 3/1/2020 and 3/31/2021. Acting on anecdotal reports, we began checking DSA approximately 3, 6, and 12 months after acute COVID-19 as standard of care. Incidence of diDSA, defined as an increase in MFI by >2500, was determined. Treatment of acute cellular rejection (ACR) and antibody mediated rejection was recorded. Of 380 HT patients who developed COVID-19, 191 (70% male) had DSA data available by study end-date. A total of 5% developed diDSA by 3 months (11/191), 10% by 6 months (17/172) and 18% by 12 months (24/131). The median time for development of diDSA was 144 days. Patients with pre-existing DSA had a significantly increased incidence of diDSA compared to those without pre-existing DSA (15/32 vs 9/159, p<0.001). There was no difference in diDSA between patients who had immunosuppression reduced during acute COVID-19 and those who did not (6/47 vs 17/107, p=0.890). Compared to those without diDSA, there was a significant increase in the incidence of ACR (ISHLT grade ≥2R) in the year following infection in those with diDSA (3/165 vs 4/24, p=0.006). This study demonstrates a high incidence of diDSA (18%) at 12 months among HT recipients after COVID-19. In addition, diDSA was more common among those with pre-existing DSA, and diDSA was associated with higher incidence of ACR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Heart & Lung Transplantation is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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COVID-19 has shaken the business industry and forced a revisit of the resilience literature. Though organizations' management have adopted measures prescribed by the literature, these measures have been unable to provide a fit-for-all solution. This has motivated this study to re-examine the organizational resilience factors driving operational performance in the post-pandemic era, specifically in consideration of the role of firm industry orientation and firm size. Thus, the preset study aims it to identify to what extent the organizational resilience (ability, adaptability, agility and flexibility) effects the operational performance;and, to determine how the firm size influence the relationship between organizational resilience and the operational performance of the manufacturing and service sectors. Data was collected from 85 organizations in the Malaysian manufacturing and services industries and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results show that the agility and flexibility dimensions of resilience have a significant positive effect on operational performance, while the ability and adaptability dimensions have no such effect. Additionally, firm size was found to be insignificant in the relationship between organizational resilience and operational performance. The findings reveal that resilience is vital for the sustainability of an organization in this turbulent and complex business climate. Therefore, managers should thus consider incorporating appropriate resilience strategies in both opportunities and operations to embrace different strategies to leverage organizational resilience post COVID. Ultimately, the government should utilize these findings for policymaking when leading post-COVID-19 projects and initiatives. © 2022 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.
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Background:The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) is a global viral pandemic that originated in East Asia (China) and is quickly spreading to every corner of the globe. In Bangladesh, no research has been conducted on olfactory dysfunction in COVID-19 infected patients and its associated factors. We aimed to determine the correlation between olfactory dysfunction (OD), particularly anosmia and COVID-19 infected patients' demographic and clinical characteristics. Method(s): We conducted a hospital-based prospective observational study. We collected patients' information, including laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 test results from a COVID dedicated hospital, Square Hospitals Ltd., Dhaka, Bangladesh. We used the Pearson Chi-square test and logistic regression model to assess the associations between demographic and clinical characteristics and OD (i.e. anosmia). Result(s): Out of 600 COVID-19 positive patients, 38.7% were diagnosed with OD. We found that patients' age, smoking status, cough, dyspnea, sore throat, asthenia, and nausea or vomiting were significantly associated with anosmia. We observed smoking patients were 1.73 times more likely to experience anosmia than non-smoking patients Odd ratio (OR)=1.73, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.01-2.98]. Interestingly, our data showed that the risk of developing anosmia was greater in younger patients than in older patients, and this risk decreased as age increased (OR) range for different age groups: 1.26 to 1.08]. In addition, patients who complained of asthenia had a significantly double risk of developing anosmia [OR = 1.96, CI = 1.23-3.06]. Conclusion(s): Our study shows that 38.7% of patients diagnosed with OD. Patients' age, smoking status, and asthenia are significantly positively associated with anosmia. Since anosmia can be a significant marker for the diagnosis of COVID-19, we suggest regular screening of OD in patients with early symptoms of COVID-19, particularly younger patients, smokers, and who complained of asthenia. Copyright © 2023, Ibn Sina Trust. All rights reserved.
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A global pandemic of Coronavirus appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan and spread globally. The objective behind the study was to find out the impact of COVID-19 on mental status and quality of life of physical therapists of Pakistan. This cross-sectional survey was carried out from August 2020 to January 2021. Data was collected online and personally from teaching and practicing physiotherapists working in universities and in departments of rehabilitation sciences of hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. A sample of 110 physiotherapists was selected through non-probability convenience sampling. Standardized questionnaires including Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), World Health Organization-Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) and Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) were used to assess depression, anxiety, stress, fear and quality of life. Out of 110 physiotherapists, 48 were males and 62 were females. Through DASS-21, it was assessed that the prevalence of psychological distress was 40.0%, anxiety was 57.3% and depression was 40%. Scores on all four sub-scales of WHOQOL depicted that COVID-19 also impacted the quality of life of physiotherapists including physical, psychological, social and environmental health related quality of life. Similarly, through IES-R, it was assess that 35.5% physiotherapists were having mild to severe level of fear regarding COVID-19. This study concludes us that COVID-19 has a great impact on mental health and quality of life of physiotherapists during this pandemic. Copyright © Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
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Objective: Aim was to compare the outcome of conservative management versus open appendicectomy in early presentation of Acute Appendicitis in children during Covid-19 pandemic. Study Design: Retrospective study Place and Duration: The Children's Hospital PIMS. March 2020 to Sep 2020 Methods: This research comprised 80 children of both sexes who were diagnosed with acute appendicitis during the Covid-19 epidemic. Following the collection of written informed consent, complete demographic data, including age, sex, and sickness severity, was collected from all recruited patients. There were two sets of patients, and both were treated similarly. Forty individuals in Group I underwent for open appendicectomy, whereas the same number in Group II underwent conservative treatment (intravenously injection Tanzo, Flagyl, Amikacin). Complications after therapy and antibiotic resistance were analysed and compared between the two groups. All of the data was analyzed using SPSS 22.0. Result(s): There were majority males 47 (58.8%) and 33 (41.2%) females in this study. Mean age of the patients was 9.09+/-5.29 years. Disease severity was found in 67 (83.8%) cases. Although there was no statistically significant difference between the groups, the more conservatively treated group had a higher risk of complications. Between the two groups, there was no discernible difference in the average length of hospitalization. Surgery patients had significantly higher white cell counts (WCCs) and Alvarado scores (p=0.010 and p=0.018, respectively) at arrival. We found higher readmission and reoperation during Covid-19 pandemic among both groups. Conclusion(s): We concluded in this study that severity of acute appendicectomy was higher during pandemic wave of coronavirus. Both conservative and open appendicectomy was effective in terms of minimum complications and decrease hospital say while readmission and reoperation was higher among both groups because of pandemic disease Covid-19. Copyright © 2022 Lahore Medical And Dental College. All rights reserved.
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Introduction: Hybrid teaching method has been implemented in majority of medical schools to adapt with the Covid pandemic era. With this integrated method, we aim to determine the student's experience, satisfaction and barriers of hybrid undergraduate teaching in obstetrics & gynaecology posting. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among medical students undergoing hybrid teaching during obstetrics & gynaecology posting in the year of 2020 and 2021. Participants were 112 fourth and fifth year medical students whom were affected by the pandemic. Online questionnaires through Google forms were distributed to all eligible students. The questionnaire consists of four sections: socio-demographic, experience, satisfaction and barriers. Results: The response rate was 75%. Majority (90.2%) of the respondents were satisfied with the hybrid teaching. Among the barriers that sometimes encountered by our students were inability to adjust learning style, lack of technical skills, mental health difficulties, emotional difficulties, unreliable internet access and an unconducive study environment. Among all the demographic data studied, only ethnicity showed a significant association with the satisfaction of the students. Conclusion: Our study found that majority of students were satisfied with hybrid teaching with minimal barriers experienced. Hence its practice can be continued as it can be utilised at any time as compared to traditional teaching. © 2022 UPM Press. All rights reserved.
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Coronavirus (Covid-19) disease is a rapidly spreading type of virus that was discovered in Wuhan, China, and emerged towards the end of 2019. During this period, various studies were conducted, and intensive studies are continued in different fields regarding coronavirus, especially in the field of medicine. The virus continues to spread and is yet to be controlled fully. Machine learning is a well-explored field in the domain of computer science that can learn patterns based on existing data and make predictions on new data. This study focused on using various machine learning approaches for predicting the spreading behavior of the COVID-19 virus. The models that were considered include SARIMAX, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Linear Regression (LR), Decision Tree (DT), Gradient Boosting (GB), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The models were trained and then predictions were made by applying these models to the daily updated data provided by the Turkish Ministry of Health. Experiments on the test data showed that both XGBoost and Decision Tree models outperformed other models. © 2022 IEEE.
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COVID-19 is contagious virus that first emerged in China in 2019's last month. It mainly infects the both the lungs and the respiratory system. The virus has severely impacted life and the economy, which exposed threats to governments worldwide to manage it. Early diagnosis of COVID-19 could help with treatment planning and disease prevention strategies. In this study, we use CT-Scanned images of the lungs to show how COVID-19 may be identified using transfer learning model and investigate which model achieved the best and fastest results. Our primary focus was to detect structural anomalies to distinguish among COVID-19 positive, negative, and normal cases with deep learning methods. Every model received training with and without transfer learning and results were compared for various versions of DenseNet and EfficientNet. Optimal results were obtained using DenseNet201 (99.75%). When transfer learning was applied, all models produced almost similar results. © 2022 IEEE.
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Introduction: Hybrid teaching method has been executed in majority of medical schools during Covid19 pandemic. With this integrated method being employed, a check and balance mechanism is required. We aim to determine the student's satisfaction and experience of hybrid undergraduate teaching in obstetrics and gynaecology posting. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students undergoing hybrid teaching during obstetrics and gynaecology posting in the year of 2020 and 2021. A total of 112 fourth and fifth year medical students whom were affected by the pandemic participated in this study. Online questionnaires consist of socio-demographic, experience and satisfaction domains were distributed through Google Forms to all eligible students. Results: The response rate was 75%. Up to 92% of participants own a personal computer or laptop with 61.6% own a smartphone and use them to access the online class. Majority (90.2%) of the respondents were satisfied with the hybrid teaching. Only ethnicity showed a significant association with the satisfaction of the students. Conclusion: Our study found that the majority of students were satisfied with hybrid teaching. Hence its practice can be continued as it can be utilized at any time as compared to traditional teaching.
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Background: COVID shelters and many emergency centers were established as a countermeasure to control this pandemic that hit the word by the end of 2019. Due to unavailability of medical care, along with physical health is-sues, these patients suffer with mental health related issues. Aims: This study aimed to explore the both, physical and psychological impacts upon the patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted in intensive care units of hospitals of Pakistan during the third wave. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was performed during the peak time of COVID-19 for the duration of two months i.e. April & May 2021. After getting ethical approval from Shifa International Hopsital (Ref# 070-021), permission was sorted from public and private hospitals of Pakistan. 183 conscious patients diagnosed with COVID and currently admitted in intensive care units were randomly selected from hospitals of Islamabad and Rawal-pindi. Written consent was taken from patients and their caregivers after they were briefed regarding the importance of the study. PHQ-15 was used to assess somatic symptoms related to COVID-19 whereas DASS-21 was used to assess level of depression, anxiety and stress among patients. Results: Of 183 hospitalized patients of COVID-19 in intensive care units, 170 (92.9%) participants showed mild to severe level of somatic symptoms on PHQ-15. Shortness of breath, feeling hearth race, back pain, stomach pain, low energy and sleeping difficulties were the most common somatic complaints reported by patients. The statistics of DASS-21 showed that 51 (27.86%) participants had mild to severe level of depres-sion, 74 (40.4%) had mild to profound level of anxiety and 96 (52.45%) reported mild to profound level of stress. Conclu-sion: This study portrayed a better understanding and confirms the physical and psychological impacts upon hospitalized COVID-19 patients, therefore highlighting the need of both physical and mental health interventions to minimize these impacts.
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Rationale: GM-CSF (granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor) has emerged as a promising target against the hyperactive host immune response associated with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Objectives: We sought to investigate the efficacy and safety of gimsilumab, an anti-GM-CSF monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of hospitalized patients with elevated inflammatory markers and hypoxemia secondary to COVID-19. Methods: We conducted a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, BREATHE (Better Respiratory Education and Treatment Help Empower), at 21 locations in the United States. Patients were randomized 1:1 to receive two doses of intravenous gimsilumab or placebo 1 week apart. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality rate at Day 43. Key secondary outcomes were ventilator-free survival rate, ventilator-free days, and time to hospital discharge. Enrollment was halted early for futility based on an interim analysis. Measurements and Main Results: Of the planned 270 patients, 225 were randomized and dosed; 44.9% of patients were Hispanic or Latino. The gimsilumab and placebo groups experienced an all-cause mortality rate at Day 43 of 28.3% and 23.2%, respectively (adjusted difference = 5% vs. placebo; 95% confidence interval [-6 to 17]; P = 0.377). Overall mortality rates at 24 weeks were similar across the treatment arms. The key secondary endpoints demonstrated no significant differences between groups. Despite the high background use of corticosteroids and anticoagulants, adverse events were generally balanced between treatment groups. Conclusions: Gimsilumab did not improve mortality or other key clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and evidence of systemic inflammation. The utility of anti-GM-CSF therapy for COVID-19 remains unclear. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04351243).
Subject(s)
COVID-19 Drug Treatment , Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized/therapeutic use , Double-Blind Method , Humans , InflammationABSTRACT
We present a thorough analysis of socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on public health through data mining strategies including correlation index matrix, auto-regressive integrated moving average, decision trees, heatmaps and statistical performance evaluation. We acquired and filtered data for mortality and outbreak prediction through key features such as total cases, daily new cases, active cases, total deaths, daily new deaths, newly recovered, death rate and recovery rate for 54 days. The socio-economic impacts of the pandemic through quantitative analysis of stock market index, currency inflation,gasoline prices, interest rate, consumer price index and crude oil prices were also investigated. With correlation index matrix and heatmaps, we discovered the nature and intensity of interdependency of these features and developed the regressive estimation model to forecast the values of inter-related features for 10 days. We observed a highest correlation of +0.95 between recovery rate and total infected cases. We also observed aninverse correlation of -0.81 between daily new cases and recovery rate due to unexpected rise in outbreak. Also, the mild but positive index for economic impacts, such as currency inflation,depict the virus' adverse impact on the fiscal situation. The statistical representation of the developed prediction models through bar charts show outstanding performance when evaluated on the benchmarking merits of mean absolute error, root mean square error, relative error and percentage accuracy.
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Summary Originating with unexplained symptoms from Wuhan, city of China, COVID-19 being a global pandemic causing tremendous morbidity and mortality, has proved to be the biggest challenge of the 20th century. This study aimed to explore the functional impacts of COVID-19 upon those patients who were diagnosed with this disease and were admitted in hospitals. This cross-sectional survey included 183 COVID-19 diagnosed patients from COVID-19 isolation wards of public and private hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. After getting ethical permission from Institutional Review Board of Shifa International Hospital (Ref # 070-21), this survey was conducted for the time period of 6 months from December 2020 to May 2021. Through convenient sampling, 183 patients with the age range of 25 to 55 years with no already diagnosed psychological complaints were assessed for eligibility briefed regarding the study purpose and then were asked for their voluntary participation. The Functional Status Scale for the Intensive Care Unit (FSS-ICU) was used to assess the functional status impacted due to COVID-19 during hospitalization. Frequencies and percentages were calculated through SPSS-21. On FSS-ICU, out of 183 COVID-19, 11 (6%) patients reported that they were dependent, 18 (9.8%) required maximum assistance, 32 (17.5%) required moderate assistance, 27 (14.8%) required minimal, 24 (13.1%) required supervision to complete their tasks, 28 (15.3%) required assistive devices, whereas 43 (23.5%) were totally independent. Results indicated a temporal impact of COVID-19 upon functional status of hospitalized patients in intensive care units, therefore highlighting the need of physiotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic interventions.
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BACKGROUND: Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is a common herb consumed worldwide as functional food and traditional remedy for the prevention of infectious diseases since ancient time. Garlic and its active organosulfur compounds (OSCs) have been reported to alleviate a number of viral infections in pre-clinical and clinical investigations. However, so far no systematic review on its antiviral effects and the underlying molecular mechanisms exists. SCOPE AND APPROACH: The aim of this review is to systematically summarize pre-clinical and clinical investigations on antiviral effects of garlic and its OSCs as well as to further analyse recent findings on the mechanisms that underpin these antiviral actions. PubMed, Cochrane library, Google Scholar and Science Direct databases were searched and articles up to June 2020 were included in this review. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS: Pre-clinical data demonstrated that garlic and its OSCs have potential antiviral activity against different human, animal and plant pathogenic viruses through blocking viral entry into host cells, inhibiting viral RNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase, DNA synthesis and immediate-early gene 1(IEG1) transcription, as well as through downregulating the extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK)/mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. The alleviation of viral infection was also shown to link with immunomodulatory effects of garlic and its OSCs. Clinical studies further demonstrated a prophylactic effect of garlic in the prevention of widespread viral infections in humans through enhancing the immune response. This review highlights that garlic possesses significant antiviral activity and can be used prophylactically in the prevention of viral infections.
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In the last few decades, social media usage has exponentially increased, and people often share information covering various topics of interest. The social media platforms such as Twitter allow users to share images, audio, videos, and text. The textual content can be used as a powerful tool for sentiment analysis. The main goal of this work is to investigate the deep learning models for sentiment analysis of tweets related to COVID-19. The dataset was obtained using tweeter web API between December 20, 2019, to December 15, 2020, and labels were assigned manually as positive, negative, or neutral. Two deep learning models were selected for sentiment analysis: Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and the Bidirectional Encoder Representations (BERT) model. The experimental results showed that both RNN and BERT models were effective for sentiment analysis, resulting in 86.4% and 83.14% accuracy, respectively. © 2021 IEEE.