Design and Implementation of IoT-Based Automatic Oxygen Flow Control in Response to the Covid-19 Crisis

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has brought a revolution in several ways to a common person's life by making everything smart and intelligent. During the Covid-19 crisis, health workers around the world needed to monitor patients' health and needed to provide sufficient oxygen, when necessary, as Covid-19 was responsible for many respiratory cases. Health workers were at high risk of being contaminated while treating Covid-19 patients. The study of this paper is to propose an IoT-based automatic oxygen flow control in response to the Covid-19 crisis. The proposed approach helped to real-time monitoring of SpO2, heartbeat, oxygen quantity of oxygen cylinder, and control of the flow of oxygen based on SpO2 value. A health worker can monitor a patient's health-related parameters and control the flow of oxygen without any physical contact with it. Also, provides an alarm to the health worker when SpO2 is below the threshold and re-measuring oxygen quantity of oxygen cylinder with the help of our developed android app. Implementation of IoT-based low-cost pulse oximeter and IoT-based pressure gauge helps to monitor and control different health parameters. The IoT-based system may potentially be valuable during the Covid-19 pandemic for accurate oxygen flow distribution and for saving people's lives. © 2022 IEEE.

Surviving amid crisis episodes: The case of women-owned small enterprises in Bangladesh

The chapter examines how women-owned small businesses in Bangladesh responded to crisis episodes such as COVID-19 and discusses their resilience to shocking events. The study involved a qualitative exploration of three women-owned online small businesses conducted using the case study method. The cases included businesses that sold jewelry and fashion accessories, both imported and locally procured, and exclusively operated on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The findings suggest that the businesses adopted innovative social media strategies to survive the crisis episode, including page boosting and paid promotions, Facebook and Instagram Live coupled with sales and discount promotions, temporary closure, vendor switching, and product basket modification. The enterprises showed an overall moderate level of resilience, with a moderate level of adaptability, agility, and low flexibility with a high vulnerability to crisis events. Recommendations for policymakers and credit institutions are also discussed. © 2022, IGI Global.

Impact, reaction, and learning from overcoming the COVID-19 crisis: Cases from small-scale businesses in Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic has created devastating consequences for all businesses globally, including the small businesses in Bangladesh. The small business sector in Bangladesh is a key driver of its economic growth and has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic due to its pre-existing vulnerabilities and lower resilience to crisis. This chapter investigates the impact of COVID-19 on small-scale businesses, their subsequent response measures, and learning experiences that have created a route to resilience. A qualitative investigation on six small-scale enterprises across manufacturing and service areas was included in the study. The cases covered fashion and clothing and organic food and beverage businesses. The findings of the study suggest that the impacts of the pandemic are primarily financial, operational and supply chain, and logistical in nature. The policymakers need to take urgent measures to ensure the sustainability of this sector amid the ongoing pandemic. © 2021, IGI Global.

Interaction of temperature and relative humidity for growth of COVID-19 cases and death rates

Akin to respiratory tract infection diseases, climatic conditions may significantly influence the COVID-19 epidemic. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant efforts have been made to explore the relationship between climatic condition and growth in number of COVID-19 cases. Contentious findings of either positive, negative, or no association with climatic conditions have been reported in many studies based on some early data on COVID-19 cases over a shorter time span. We integrate COVID-19 datasets with long meteorological time series of 29 countries to explore cross-country variation in COVID-19 cases and death rates with respect to temperature and relative humidity. Our empirical study reveals that temperature and relative humidity jointly influence the growth of COVID-19 cases and death rates. We generate predictive scenarios for changes in daily cases and death rates under different combinations of temperature and relative humidity. Low temperature with low humidity in a temperate climate and high temperature with high humidity in a hot and humid climate are found to surge the growth of COVID-19 cases and death rates. These relationships and our predictive scenarios can be applied to generate early warning for any future outbreak to adopt stringency policies, kick-start economic activities, prepare healthcare service plans, and target vaccination coverage.

Pathophysiological mechanisms of disease severity in COVID-19: an update. (Special Issue: COVID-19: conventional therapies, fates, and mechanisms.)

The pandemic of COVID-19 has created a confounding global health crisis with more than 25 million cases and 870,000 deaths worldwide. The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, exploits the human ACE2 receptor and potential CD147 to invade a plethora of organ systems including cardiovascular, renal, endocrine, nervous, and gastrointestinal. The pathophysiological mechanisms of COVID-19 infection were found to be associated with the direct viral invasion, dysregulated renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), hypoxia, hyperinflammation, cytokine storm, endotheliopathy, and thrombosis. Emerging evidence suggests that the kinin-kallikrein system, iron dysregulation, and complement component C5a anaphylatoxin have roles in disease severity. In critical patients, the effects manifest as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), lymphopenia, acute kidney injury (AKI), disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), hypovolemic shock leading to multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MODS). In this review, we provided an update on the pathophysiology of COVID-19 with an emphasis on the clinical outcomes in severe patients that will help facilitate a deeper understanding of the disease.

Molecular Detection of Human Coronavirus from North Central Part of Bangladesh Depending on ORF1ab and N Gene.

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted severe respiratory illness such as pneumonia and lung dysfunctions that was first identified at Wuhan, the capital of Hubeiin China during the end of December 2019. The etiological cause of COVID-19 has been confirmed as a novel coronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which was similar with the zoonotic virus SARS-CoV (2002). Now a days for early diagnosis of COVID-19 the nucleic acid based test like RT PCR (real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) is most consistent and used all over the world. In this study among 11,280 cases 825(7.31%) were positive by molecular RT PCR method on June 2020 at Microbiology department of Mymensingh Medical College and the samples are collected from different areas of Northern part of Bangladesh. Among this positive cases 588(71%) N gene, 10 ORF1ab (2%) and 227(27%) both N and ORF gene showed significant curve which is specific for COVID-19 positive patients. Because N and ORF gene of this virus inhibit immune system of human body especially interferon. Out of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases maximum number of N gene were found in male patients and above 40 years old aged group. So, Molecular diagnosis of this pandemic virus especially by N and ORF gene might be helpful to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 as well as early treatment for saving many lives.

Detection of 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by rRT-PCR at Mymensingh Medical College, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is highly pathogenic viral infection caused by SARS-CoV-2. Currently, COVID-19 has caused global health concern. WHO has declared COVID-19 as a pandemic disease on March 11, 2020 and characterized by fever, dry cough, fatigue, myalgia and chest pain with pneumonia in severe cases. The virus has spread to at least 213 countries and more than 9093827 confirmed cases and 471490 deaths have been recorded. In the beginning, the world public health authorities tried to eradicate the disease in China through quarantine but are now transitioning to prevention strategies worldwide to delay its spread. There are some newly developed and promising methods for detection of SARS-CoV-2, in order to facilitate the development of novel approaches for early diagnosis. Nucleic acid based tests currently offer the most sensitive and early detection and confirmation for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among them Real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) is the most popular and the "gold standard" testing method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The present study was carried out to detect 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by rRT-PCR method at Mymensingh Medical College, Mymensingh, Bangladesh from 1st April, 2020 to 31st May, 2020. A total of 14356 samples were tested from four districts of Mymensingh division namely, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Sherpur, Netrokona and some parts of Sunamganj for rRT-PCR. Among them 1086 (7.5%) patients were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Out of 1086 positive cases 716(65.9%) were male and 370(34.1%) were female with a Mean±SD age 34.1±12 years. Maximum positivity was found in Mymensingh district followed by Netrokona, Jamalpur, Sherpur and Sunamganj respectively. This is the first base line study for genetic detection of 2019-nCoV in Mymensingh division which may reflect the total scenario of Bangladesh situation. We hope this paper will help the researcher to increase the availability, accuracy, and speed of widespread COVID-19 testing throughout the world in this crisis moment.