Electrospun Polymer Nanofibers for Technology Applications: A Short Review

Nanofibers are a type of nanomaterial with a diameter ranging from ten to a few hundred nanometers with a high surface-to-volume ratio and porosity. They can build a network of high-porosity material with excellent connectivity within the pores, making them a preferred option for numerous applications. This review explores nanofibers from the synthesis techniques to fabricate nanofibers, with an emphasis on the technological applications of nanofibers like water and air filtration, photovoltaics, batteries and fuel cells, gas sensing, photocatalysis, and biomedical applications like wound dressing and drug delivery. The nanofiber production market has an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6% and should reach around 26 million US $ in 2026. The limitations and potential opportunities for large-scale applications of nano-fibrous membranes are also discussed. We expect this review could provide enriched information to better understand Electrospun Polymer Nanofiber Technology and recent advances in this field. © 2023 Bentham Science Publishers.

Changes in self-care maintenance during quarantine in patients with heart failure

Background: Patients with heart failure (HF) experience challenges in self-care that contribute to poor quality of life and high health care utilization. The COVID-19 pandemic required HF patients, especially living in countries with strict lockdowns and quarantines, to change their lifestyle including health promoting behaviors. Purpose(s): To assess changes in self-care maintenance in patients with HF changed during quarantine compared to before quarantine. We hypothesized that the self-care maintenance behavior physical activity was most effected during quarantine. Method(s): This is a cross-sectional survey study. From the medical chart, patients' disease severity (NYHA-class), ejection fraction and comorbidities were collected. Self-care maintenance was assessed using subscale Self-Care of Heart Failure Index 6.2. The total score ranges from 0-100, where 70 or higher is seen as having good self-care maintenance. With all the questions in the self-care maintenance scale a question was added: Did this change due to the COVID-19 pandemic Patients could answer yes or no. When patients answered yes, they were asked the elaborate. Patients self-reported physical activity, before and during the pandemic, using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (short form). Descriptive analyses were used for self-care maintenance, content analysis was applied for the qualitative data. Paired sample t-test were performed to assess the change in the total physical activity. Result(s): In total, 120 patients with HF were included in this study (mean age was 79+/-13, 39% female, 78% NYHA-class I/II). Patients had a mean self-care maintenance of 32 (+/-6). No participant had good self-care maintenance (score of 70 or higher). Patients were non-adherent to regular physical activity (77%, n=92), keeping weight down (74%, n=89) and weighing themselves (66%, n=79) during quarantine (Figure). Behaviors which changed the most included keeping medical appointments (81%) and regular exercise (82%). Significantly higher levels of physically active was noticed before quarantine (776 Mets-minutes) compared to during quarantine (106 Mets-minutes) (p<0.01). The change in self-care maintenance was explained by change in motivation and self-confidence. Because of the pandemic and the quarantine, patients reported not being able to rely on health care and their usual social support system. Patients tried to create new habits when trying to maintain their self-care. Conclusion(s): Patients with HF reported experiencing low self-care maintenance during quarantine due to not being able to go to medical appointments and decrease in physical activity. Public health policies during crisis events such as a pandemic should strive to provide support in coping with these changes and offer alternative ways of maintaining their self-care maintenance, especially with physical activity. (Figure Presented).

Rapid detection of COVID-19 from chest X-ray images using deep convolutional neural networks

The entire world is suffering from the corona pandemic (COVID-19) since December 2019. Deep convolutional neural networks (deep CNN) can be used to develop a rapid detection system of COVID-19. Among all the existing literature, ResNet50 is showing better performance, but with three main limitations, i.e.: 1) overfitting;2) computation cost;3) loss of feature information. To overcome these problems authors have proposed four different modifications on ResNet50, naming it as LightWeightResNet50. An image dataset containing chest X-ray images of coronavirus patients and normal persons is used for evaluation. Five-fold cross-validation is applied with transfer learning. Ten different performance measures (true positive, false negative, false positive, true negative, accuracy, recall, specificity, precision, F1-score and area under curve) are used for evaluation along with fold-wise performance measures comparison. The four proposed methods have an accuracy improvement of 4%, 13%, 14% and 7% respectively when compared with ResNet50.

Comparison of musculoskeletal condition and quality of life by sex in patients with heart failure during COVID-19 quarantine: an observational study

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a highly disabling health condition that affects around 20 million people in the world. It is assumed that musculoskeletal condition of this population is low, although there are no studies in this regard. In addition, musculoskeletal pain seems to predict reduced levels of physical activity, functional capacity, adverse psychosocial status and quality of life (QoL). Musculoskeletal discomfort could have been aggravated by activity restrictions due to COVID-19, being necessary a gender approach to characterize this population. Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the musculoskeletal condition and QoL of men and women with HF during COVID-19 quarantine. Methods: An observational study in patients with HF was performed. Sociodemographic data, musculoskeletal condition (Musculoskeletal System Assessment Inventory, MSAI, and Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire, CMDQ) and QoL (Cantril Ladder of Life) were collected. Descriptive and inferential analyzes were performed to explore the differences between men and women with HF. Results: A total of 100 participants were included, 58 men and 42 women, with a mean age=71, 20±13, 19 years. From the total number of patients, 58.10% suffered from musculoskeletal discomfort. Regarding MSAI, when compared to men, women suffered higher musculoskeletal pain in general (p = 0.031), higher musculoskeletal pain that increased with exercises (p = 0.020), and musculoskeletal pain in the last month (p = 0.031). Moreover, CMDQ showed differences by sex in the main location of pain (p = 0.006), the intensity of pain (p = 0.019) and the frequency of pain in the main affected area (p = 0.037), being higher in women than in men. Finally, there were no significant differences by sex (p = 0.665) in QoL during COVID-19 quarantine. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained, we conclude that women with HF presentedmore intense and frequentmusculoskeletal pain in different locations than men during COVID-19 quarantine. In contrast, there were no differences in QoL by sex.

Electroencephalogram-based deep learning framework for the proposed solution of e-learning challenges and limitations

There is a high surge in usage of online e-learning platforms due to the current ongoing COVID-19 scenario. There are specific problems that persist in the current e-learning online models, i.e., validations and tracking of students’ learning curves, validation of presented course material, content-based personalisation as per the requirements of the students, identification of learning disabilities among students, etc. Our paper proposes the deep learning model to solve the issues related to existing machine learning models of manual feature extraction and training on limited data. Also, real-time e-learning data will be collected from students wearing EEG-headband while taking online classes. It solves the issues associated with conventional machine learning models and historical data. The proposed CNN model will classify the students on different grades and help in the development of an automated framework for the tracking of a student learning curve, providing recommendations for the betterment of e-learning course materials. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Chemoprophylatic, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic Approaches for COVID-19 Prophylaxis

The world is grappling for US FDA-approved therapies for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is the virus that has caused Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Several pharmacological drugs are under various phases of clinical trials, and their current clinical use is primarily based on the in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 or related coronaviruses. While the efficacy of drug therapies is yet to be established, and the efficacy of the vaccine for COVID-19 is to be accomplished, we need to focus on prophylactic measures. The current article describes the chemoprophylactic, Ayurvedic, homeopathic, and Unani prophylactic approaches for combating COVID-19 based on the guidelines issued by the Ministry of AYUSH, India. The article is based on the guidelines issued by the Ministry of AYUSH, India. The proposed approaches have been supported by scientific evidence. The article also provides an outlook on the global scenario of herbal practices. In the absence of effective treatment, efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic heavily rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions such as personal preventive measures. The alternative system of medicine offers prophylactic solutions that are simple and inexpensive. These simple measures will go a long way in tackling the pandemic.

Idea of Pandemic-Pedagogy: Reflexive Rumination on Teaching and Learning Practices

Lately, the debates on teaching-practices in the online mode have given grounds to ask a fundamental question, does pedagogy really matter? For educationists, it surely does. But, what idea of pedagogy prevails upon the pedagogues, the teachers, techno-managerial professors, particularly in the higher education? This article rummages through the contemporary milieu that solicits debate on the idea of pedagogy, by and large marginal in the teaching practices in higher education. The structural academic Brahmanism of the ‘old normal’ has been melodramatically palpable in the time of ‘new normal’ too. In the academic years during the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenology of teaching practices occasions a polemical realization about limits and possibilities of pedagogy. © 2021 The Kerala State Higher Education Council.

Improving Smart Healthcare Safety and Security Using Kinect

Modern healthcare operating rooms are cumbersome, especially in the current pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) to manage the safety and security of the patients and the staff. Conditions in a modern operating room are like, a patient’s medical diagnosis or x-ray or the MRI images are the vital resources to be considered. In general, the doctors are impelled to scrub out their hands every time they scroll through or examine the images in mid-operation. To avoid departing the operating table, several doctors put their faith in assistants or nurses and ask to examine the system that can be clumsy and disappointing and can rise the gathering in the room itself. To overcome this problem and emphasizing the use of the touchless smart healthcare system in medical diagnosis we have developed an application for the same. We propose and demonstrate a gesture and speech-based system to help staff to deal with such critical conditions. The proposed system is composed of two main parts: the healthcare operating software and sensor Microsoft Kinect. Test results conclude the efficiency of the viewing system in terms of time complexity, and the value and the safety of the recording system have increased. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

SeVa: A Food Donation App for Smart Living

An important goal in our world today is to eliminate food waste by reutilizing available food sources within local communities: leftover food items in restaurants, stores and food distribution centers that may be approaching expiration;and any perishable items not used in entirety within their desired period. This is highly significant, particularly during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper focuses on creating an interesting mobile application (app) called SeVa that provides a ubiquitous platform wherein users can visualize available food resources in their local area and consequently gain access to food, thereby tackling two major issues, i.e. hunger and food waste. This app is pertinent to the UN SDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) and fits the general realm of AI for Smart Living in Smart Cities. In addition to entailing IoT (Internet of Things) and ubiquitous computing, this work makes positive impacts on both healthcare and environment by reducing hunger and food waste respectively. We describe our SeVa app development using principles from AI, and especially HCI (Human Computer Interaction), along with its evaluation encompassing user surveys. We also list some open issues with the scope for future work.

The work-life balancing act: A study on the mandatory work from home due to COVID-19 on the IT and non-IT industry sectors

The study investigated the impact of mandatory work from home due COVID-19 on personal and professional lives of people with different demographics. Statistical analysis of an online survey data (N=237) reveals that the impact on personal life dimensions—healthy lifestyle, family bonding, and physical stress—does not differ across people within different demographics. However, impact on emotional well-being is sensitive to gender and industry groups. Family size is also an important demographic factor impacted upon personal life dimensions. Professional dimensions related to work productivity and adopting new ways of working does not differ across demographics except for occupational role. Dimensions related to new skill development and change in professional attitude does differ across occupational roles. The study concludes by stating future research directions for mandatory work from home situation, and prescription to post-COVID-19 strategies for organizations. Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Current updates on COVID-19 vaccines

Objective: COVID-19 caused the world to shut down and made us to critically look out at our advanced healthcare systems that are well prepared for heart diseases, cancers, organ transplantation but not for attack of a tiny virus. WHO and other authorized bodies are continuously issuing advisory on preventive measurements, tracking the outbreak and distributing vital medical kits. Scientific community and vaccine experts have developed and started to distribute safe and effective immunization worldwide. The paper outlines several developed and developing immunization vehicles for the management of COVID -19 that will hit global market in year 2021. Method: Non clinical and clinical data are collected from authentic sources of World Health Organization portal and press release provided by COVID-19 vaccine developers. Result: Different platforms including mRNA, DNA, Viral vectors, Synthetic peptides etc. have been conversed that are globally involved for elimination of SARS-CoV-2, a causative virus of COVID-19. Conclusion: Numerous academic institutions and companies of worldwide have developed and evaluated their inoculums after extremely compressed clinical trial agendas. Worldwide eminent developers such as Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZenaca and Bharat Biotech are ready with their esteemed products for the management of pandemic COVID-19. They explored pharmaceutical technologies reliant on genetics, nanoengineering and biotechnology for successful development of these anti SARS-CoV-2 inoculums. Taking account on conditions of more vulnerable community including immunocompromised, geriatrics and comorbidities patients the safety and efficacy of vaccine are yet to be monitored..

Convalescent plasma therapy for covid-19 patients: Regulatory guidance on collection, testing, processing, storage, distribution, and clinical trials

Convalescent plasma can be transfused to patients suffering from the same infection or for preparing immunoglobulin concentrates. Plasma obtained from recovered patients can be a valuable alternative during the COVID-19 pandemic for supporting its treatment within a randomized or case-control clinical trials or observational studies of plasma transfusion and for preparing plasma-derived biological products. WHO Blood Regulators Network highlighted that a systematic approach for collecting convalescent plasma from patients recovered from COVID-19 could provide a useful intervention. Structured clinical trials can be used to assess safety and effectiveness of convalescent plasma. The convalescent plasma therapy is still in the experimental stage and is currently not included in the interim clinical guidelines of WHO. However, an emergency investigational new drug application (eIND) process has been induced to ensure the availability of COVID-19 convalescent plasma to the patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19 conditions. USFDA is regularly amending its guidance as new results, and best practices are emerging. The write-up provides an overview of convalescent plasma, from a regulatory considerations viewpoint, systematic workflow protocol, and a cross-section of clinical trials underway.