ABSTRACT
A global pandemic is the cause of concern for humanity. The data collection and their analytics are a critical part of research and clinical studies for decision-making activities in the healthcare sector. Healthcare informatics systems and analytics (HCI&A) is a rapidly emerging technology in the medical domain that could be explored for analyzing pandemics like coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The ethical, legal, and privacy issues to be considered during data collection for research activities. Data governance and data stewardship are required to be addressed during interoperability and interpretation while sharing and reusing the data in collaborative research. The sharing of comprehensive records of clinical data collected by EHRs, also known as electronic health records, to be stored and analyzed on a time-to-time basis. The emerging area of information technology, represented by big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technology, has been widely studied in recent circumstances like COVID-19 for pandemic management. The possibility of using machine learning is explored for better predictive diagnostics and treatment. This chapter discusses the application of artificial intelligence in pandemic management including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and also critical policy decisions in the COVID-19 pandemic. The methods to collect the digital data of health records are categorized along with few constraints as most of the electronic records related to clinical and epidemiological data are obtained through a shared database such as national and international collaborative informatics infrastructure. The necessity of digital technologies for pandemic emergencies including medical infrastructure reorganization and data workflow model is highlighted. A comparative study of different machine learning models is discussed in the subsequent sections. The digital healthcare informatics envisage a decentralized network architecture and better privacy and security such as blockchain and heterogeneous data collection with machine learning capability are also emphasized. © 2022 River Publishers.
ABSTRACT
In the recent times it is found that there is a growing interest in the field of controlling the contagious diseases, especially after the outbreak of the novel COVID-19 (coronavirus). It still remains to be one of the biggest threats to humanity and people are dying and getting infected on a daily basis. Governments across the globe are trying their level best to contain the virus. They are also taking the necessary steps (e.g., travel bans, suspension of recreational and outdoor activities concerning mass audiences or public, isolation and contact tracing, social distancing, etc.). There are many patients who are undocumented just because they have coronavirus in their systems but they show no symptoms. Around 79% patients come under this category. It is to be noted that the total count of the number of cases at present in several countries differ from the actual people who are infected at present. This is because in the maj ority of cases, the symptoms show after a certain period of days and not just instantly. Also testing the whole population of a country in such a limited time is simply not possible. The World Health Organization recommended COVID-19 patients to isolate themselves from the healthy individuals in order to stop the spread of the disease. In order to ensure that this happens more efficiently and smoothly, in this paper an IoT based wearable band called QuArm band (i.e) Quarantine Arm band, which the patient can wear on his/her arm for tracking the real-time location of the patient to ensure that the quarantine rules are being followed is designed. This band is made keeping in mind the requirements of the public and the cost is set accordingly. Web interface alongside the band is made to retrieve the information. Notification on band tampering is also enabled. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has resulted in global pandemic and crisis in health care system. Several studies have focused only on hospitalized patients with 30 to 90 days after one cycle of illness but post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 existing even after a year remains unclear. Moreover, long-term sequelae in outpatients have not been documented and henceforth myriad clinical sequelae in long haulers continue to evolve. In this study, we report three cases represents a single family presenting several post-acute sequelae one after the other extending beyond one year of recovery. To our knowledge such a case series has not been reported in earlier studies. Herein, we present the sequelae in various organs namely neuropsychiatric (tinnitus, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and posttraumatic stress disorder, cognitive decline), cardiovascular (tachycardia, bradycardia), gastrointestinal (appendicitis) and Dermatologic (erythematous rash and acne) besides ophthalmic manifestations (conjunctivitis and dry eyes) in Long-COVID-19 and recommend management strategies.
ABSTRACT
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) has caused a global human outbreak, making it a more serious threat to human health than any other infectious disease. Coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) has severely affected the lifestyles of people around the world and caused high mortality throughout the world. In both pandemic and seasonal influenza, co-infection of COVID-19 with other diseases has been linked to worse outcomes. The literature revealed that it is char-acteristically associated with comorbidities such as hypertension, blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and other microbial infections. Furthermore, microbial coinfections worsen respiratory viral infections and are a common cause of death in influenza pandemics. Deplorably, Tuberculosis (TB) is also a dreadful lung infection and attains cytokine equilibrium with host cells to maintain the latent stage. Studies showed that human coronaviruses (hCoV) activate latent TB to an active state due to unregulated cytokine production, called a cytokine storm. The present review concisely discusses the reason and status of co-infection of COVID-19 with TB based on previous case reports, cohorts, and scientific studies. COVID-19 patients are prone to be infected with TB and vice-versa in TB-prone areas. The therapeutic opportunities for overcoming the COVID-19 induced cytokine storm have also been emphasized by the present clinical trial candidates. In conclusion, we recommend categorizing the patients based on their medical history and cured or latent TB patients should be particularly closely monitored. They should be tested for Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) regularly on and after COVID-19 infection.Copyright © 2022 Bentham Science Publishers.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Construction employee safety and health continue to be a concern for construction contractors who experience high injury rates. The COVID-19 pandemic added a layer of challenge to the already hazardous industry. It is critical to understand the challenges the construction industry stakeholders encountered and how they responded. Materials and Methods: Several rounds of informal interviews and surveys were conducted with construction safety professionals to identify the COVID-19 challenges faced and understand the construction contractors' responses in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Results: Contractors' responses included Covid-19 Safety policies and procedures, 100% mask policy, employee outreach and training, infection control plan, vaccination requirement, etc. The results indicated that contractors' common challenges included compliance and enforcement of mask mandates, maintaining social and physical distances for specific tasks, eye protection fog-up due to masks, hot weather-related issues, and so forth. Conclusions: Contractors adapted to the challenges by treating COVID-19 as a hazard and ensuring proper control measures to protect the workers. Contractors are well-prepared for future outbreaks.
ABSTRACT
A global pandemic has reduced mobility, impacting the healthcare assessment, and diagnostics on co-morbid patients. Various challenges for location finding and indoor signalling issues give rise to the necessity for compact and low-cost ultra-wideband sensor technology. Lockdown has played a vital role during crisis in engaging with specific conditions like position estimation in areas under LOS and NLOS caused by diffraction and reflection of UWB signals across obstacles. UWB-based localisation system with edge/fog computing is used to analyse the indoor/outdoor usage of quarantined patients reducing the transmission, which becomes a threat for society and healthcare personals. The mathematical models to symbolise various patterns utilising UWB sensors with anchors and tags were used to determine the flow of all rapid and random movements within the specified clustered locations. The proposed system achieves high classification accuracy with SVM to classify the patterns and assist frontline medical workers in containing pandemics through human interaction. Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
ABSTRACT
The population has been marginally increasing over the decade, thereby increasing the demand for resources and outgrowth of several diseases. One such significant year, 2020, has revolutionized the globe and put forth a different trend of living. Occasional public gathering around the world has been a sign of importance and inevitable circumstances. Managing the crowd and adhering to the ethics and norms of government is the reason behind effective diversion of resources and appropriate strategy in reducing human density in a particular location. In this year of 2020, every individual of this world is facing a problem in many issues. But the pandemic COVID19 made the situation of the individual even worse. The place where every individual can access without any restriction is public places. But gathering of peoples in the public places will lead to crowd formation. Government has advised not use the public places for certain period of time (lockdown) in order to avoid the crowd formation. This situation could still exist for few more days. Once the lockdown gets over, the crowd in the public places will get increased day by day. Peoples have waited for this situation for a long time, to get chill out, to breathe fresh air present outside, to have a meet up with their friends etc. Hence, the spreading of virus cannot be predicted and it would vanish after the lockdown comes to an end. This project has been proposed to avoid the crowd formation. Our ideology mainly focuses on closed public spaces like shopping complex, temples, sports arena and malls. The existing methodology of people count in public places doesn't possess the ideology of witnessing the count at any place and any instant of time. This project pays attention to this particular ideology of assisting people to choose a better public place based on their desire even before visiting the place with the help of the information provided to them via application. The process is achieved by implementing two IP cameras in the entry point and exit point of the closed public places. The person detected in the camera, is detected and recognized using Haar Cascade algorithm. The count value of people and the recognition of stranger(law breaker) is achieved using this algorithm. The count value and stranger recognition will be directed to the cloud storage as a real time value. Then the mobile webpage developed will access the data from cloud storage and gives the real time head count of people in particular public spaces. The stranger is recognized and notified to the authenticated user via mail. Henceforth, the crime rates in the city will be reduced. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is a systemic shock that affects all areas of the global food system. A growing range of impacts on aquatic food producers, value chain actors and consumers is evident. In response, the report provides the impacts of COVID-19 on aquatic food value chains in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Myanmar and Nigeria. Results show that: (1) COVID-19 and associated containment measures severely disrupted aquatic food value chains, but effects on supply were relatively short-lived;(2)Demand for aquatic foods has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels;(3) prices of aquatic foods have downward trend while prices of manufactured feeds have risen;and (4) COVID-19 has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. As COVID-19 pandemic reversed years of progress on key human development indicators, it is important to revitalize aquatic food value chains to protect livelihoods and human nutrition. The paper also provides policy recommendations for both supply and demand sides.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19, an epidemic viral disease which originated in Wuhan, China, has caused a major halt in the normal routine of people worldwide. It was declared as a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation. The novel corona virus has caused major challenges to the health professionals owing to its different speed of reaction and types of response around the world. Due to the characteristics of dental setting and treatment modalities, the dental professionals and the patients are at major risk of cross infection. Periodontists can be at high risk while performing aerosol generating procedures to asymptomatic patients, as saliva has been identified in saliva of infected patients. This review article aims to discuss the effect of COVID-19 on periodontal practise and future changes to be done in the COVID-19 era.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: It is well known that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 could enter the human host through the oral cavity. In patients with periodontal disease, there is an increase of Furin, Cathepsin, and CD14+ CD16+ monocytes. The hypothesis stated here sheds light on the regular need of periodontal management to reduce inflammation and the levels of deleterious host enzymes and cytokines, which could pave the way for deadly viral diseases such as COVID-19. The Hypothesis: Patients with periodontal disease are at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection due to elevated levels of Furin and Cathepsin in oral cavity and COVID-19 complications like cytokine storm could occur with increased frequency in patients with periodontal disease due to the significant increase of CD14+ CD16+ monocytes in blood. Evaluation of the Hypothesis: Oral and periodontal examination of patients with mild, moderate, and severe SARS-CoV-2 infection could shed light on the significant role played by periodontal disease in making an individual more prone to get SARS-CoV-2 infection by elevation of Furin and Cathepsin and the elevation of CD14+CD16+ monocytes and proinflammatory cytokines in the blood that could consequently worsen COVID-19 complications like cytokine storm. The blood counts of CD14+CD16+ monocytes need to be assayed in SARS-CoV-2 patients with and without periodontal disease to observe if periodontal disease as a coexisting condition elevates the proportion of CD14 CD16 + monocytes in SARS-CoV-2 patients. In fact, assessment of monocyte subsets in peripheral blood could be used as an immunosurveillance marker in SARS-CoV-2 patients. Hence, SARS-CoV-2 positive patients with chronic periodontal disease should be closely monitored for potential signs of a cytokine storm and its related complications. © 2021 Dental Hypotheses ;Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
ABSTRACT
Aerosol formation in dental practice is almost inevitable and the potential risk of acquiring an infection due to airborne pathogens is very high. Dental procedures involving use of ultrasonics, air polishing, use of airotors and micromotors, air-water syringes and lasers emit large amount of aerosol and microbial pathogens from saliva, dental unit waterlines and respiratory tract. Depending on the nature of the bacteria/virus/fungi in the aerosol and its pathogenic nature, the microbe travels through the lung alveoli and affects the upper/lower respiratory system. The recent episode of COVID has driven further fear among dental professionals, as the virus sheds into air and transmits the disease. As dental professionals, it is essential that we take steps to prevent transmission by following universal precautions and social precautionary measures. This review revisits on the physics of aerosol formation, spatial microbiome in aerosol, the types of pathogens associated with dental procedures, risk of disease getting transmitted to dental healthcare workers and infection control.
ABSTRACT
Prior to COVID-19 lockdown in our country, the air around us was highly polluted due to emission of greenhouse gases for over centuries. Melting of glaciers and rising of the sea levels were evidenced as the alarming signs of Global warming. Environmental degradation was observed rapidly due to depletion and exploitation of natural resources like soil, water and air. But there are few changes observed in the environment after the country's lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic. The effects of lockdown are also entwined with human and political effects such as uncontrollable public mobility, poor access to health care due to lack of sufficient medical facilities, unemployment, migrants' crisis, starvation and prevailing poverty. However, apart from sufferings of entire country especially the people by social, economic and psychologic effects in day-to-day life, this lockdown has given to the nature the most optimistic scenarios in environment especially with enhanced air quality, cleaner water and undisturbed pristine forest. The present review brings out the actual picture of the eco-processes that reduced man-made pollution in air and water as well as disposal of domestic or biological waste along with societal implications after imposing lockdown in the state of Tamil Nadu.