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Background: The determination of the fetal condition during labour is important to minimize fetal mortality, morbidity and neurological sequelae of fetal hypoxia. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of intrapartum cardiotocography (CTG) in detecting fetal outcomes. Methods: This cross-sectional observational study was conducted at the department of obstetrics and gynecology in the centre for women and child health (CWCH), Ashulia, Dhaka from November 2020 to August 2022. The study was carried out with a total of 63 pregnant women (n=63) who had delivered their child either by lower uterine caesarian section (LUCS) or normal vaginal delivery (NVD) during the study period. Result: Among the participants, almost half participants (47.6%) were aged between 25-29 years. Intrapartum CTG was reactive in around half (54%) of the participants, while non-reactive in 46% of the participants. During the study period, intrapartum CTG was reactive in 34 patients. Of them, only 19 patients had an NVD, while 15 patients despite normal intrapartum CTG also underwent LUCS due to various reasons such as having meconium-stained liquor or slightly stained liquor, non-progressing labour or prolonged labour, premature rupture of the membrane (PROM), fear of NVD etc. During the study period, all twenty-nine patients having intrapartum non-reactive CTG underwent LUCS. During the study period, intrapartum CTG was non-reactive in 29 cases. However, after delivery, the baby’s APGAR score was ≥7 for the 20 neonates of those 29 non-reactive CTG cases. On the other hand, intrapartum CTG was reactive in 34 of the participants. Among them, 3 neonates were delivered through NVD. However, meconium-stained liquor was found and the baby’s APGAR score was

Background: Traditional oral examination is a subjective tool of assessment, day by day which is losing its credibility because lack of its objectivity and impartiality. On the other hand, Structured Oral Examination (SOE) is a modified form of oral examination with some criteria where whole system is structured beforehand by preparing the questions in advance covering the educational objectives, carefully selecting the examiner, equal time allocated for each examinee & concurrent marking for each response. Structured Oral Examination (SOE) may be considered as the appropriate concept to overcome the drawbacks of the traditional oral examination but its implementation is a tedious, keen, time-consuming job. Aim of the Study: The aim of this study- to sought out suggestions of medical teachers in overcoming the problems in practicing SOE. Methods: This descriptive cross sectional qualitative study was conducted in two public and two private medical colleges, namely Dhaka Medical College, Sir Salimullah Medical College, Ibrahim Medical College and Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College in Bangladesh during the period from July 2010-June 2011. The MBBS course was then divided into 3 phases. In total 50 teachers who were conducting Structured Oral Examinations (SOE) for at least last two years in any of selected medical colleges were enrolled as the study subjects. An open-ended questionnaire was used to collect research data. Data were edited after collection. Then the content was analyzed by the researcher and has been presented in a narrative form and also quantification of these data shown separately for convenience. Results: Lack of proper teacher training & motivation, lack of uniformity in examination process in different medical colleges were common problem faced uniformly by all (100%). Inadequate number & remuneration of teachers, undue intervention of authority/political leaders/influential/co-examiner, chance of leakage of ill prepared & inadequate number of questions were other important problems & drawbacks in the opinion of 3/4th (74%) of the respondents. Above-all preparing well-structured SOE question card is a tedious & time-consuming procedure to all (100%) teachers. The ultimate recommendations of our teachers to overcome these were, regular & continuous training of teachers on assessment, central question bank & central monitoring & moderation of question for all medical colleges, appointment of post graduate doctor of same discipline in registrar or in equivalent post who are directly related to teaching & assessment were uniform opinion of all (100%) teachers. Other recommendations include number of competent teachers & remuneration of teachers should be increased - opinion of 3/4th (74%) of the respondents, separate medical education service so only motivated doctors can be selected in teaching profession, enforcing some strict regulatory laws, judicious setup/pairing of examiner, some (20%) open ended questions may be included in all question card for giving extra marks to extra ordinary student or for assessing exact level of learning in case of very poor performed student, rearrangement of subjects in different Phases to overcome time constraint, final examination may be conducted by separate medical college in separate venue. Conclusion: As per the findings of this study we can conclude that, considering the scholar opinion of medical teachers if their recommendations can be implemented, undoubtedly our medical education will progress further by certifying more competent and safer doctor for ourselves and universe.

Introduction: Pregnancy is a special period of altered physiological & psychological condition of woman which is mainly due to the secretion of hormones from placenta like estrogen, progesterone, HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin), Human Placental Lactogen, Somatomammotropin, Human Chorionic Thyrotrophin & Human Chorionic Corticotrophin etc. In this changed internal milieu a special set of diseases (problems) occur in pregnant women. This study aimed to find out the ear, nose & throat problems among pregnant women of Bangladesh. Methods: A Cross- sectional study to find out the common ENT problems that face our pregnant ladies of various age and different part of pregnancy which was observed both at the tertiary level hospitals in Dhaka city & rural consultation center at Chandpur district. Results: This study included 140 pregnant ladies of 16 to 45 years of ages of whom mostly 61(43.57%) presented with ear (otological) problems followed by nasal (rhinological) problem 40(28.57%) then throat 29(20.71%) & neck disorders 10(7.14%). Among all these diseases otomycosis scores the highest comprising 29(20.7%), followed by lumpy feeling in throat 26(18.5%) followed by nasal blockage including deviated nasal septum, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, hypertrophied turbinates 25(17.8%) , CSOM 16( 11.4%) & altered smell sensation10(7.1%). Of them mostly 94(67.14%) in the age group of 21-30 years, followed by 31-40 years of age group 25(17.85%), then age group up to 20 years actually (16-20years) which comprises 19(13.57%) and least patients in the age group of above 41 years this group comprises only 2(1.42%) patients. Most of the presenting patients were multiparous 86 (61.4%) & 54 (28.6%) were primi. Among all presenting women mostly presented in 1st (40.7%) & 2nd (40%) trimester and the rest in 3rd trimester. Conclusion: Pregnancy is a special physiological condition where a unique group of ENT problems occurred during this period. Although some of them are self-reverting ..

Backgound: The burden of pelvic organ prolapse in parous women is enormous. Bangladeshi women suffers a lot due to (POP) pelvic organ prolapse. Minor prolapse or laxity is generally ignored. When serious functional disability develops, women seek treatment advice. Home delivary and subinvolutions during puerperium is thought to predispose to urogenital prolapse. Here the incidence of different degree of prolapse and associated risk factors are assessed. Materials and method; This prospective observational study was carried out in outpatient department of gynaecology and obstetrics of SSMCMH during the period of January 2018 to September 2018. 100 parous women with subjective symptom of prolapse were included. Degree of prolapse and related risk factors were identified. Results: Here 53% had Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification System (POP-Q) grade 1,32% had grade II and 15% had grade III and IV. Majority showed anterior vaginal wall defect. Cystocoele was 77% and perineal tear was 79%. Rectocoele was also present in 60% cases. Risk increases with increasing age 45% was >60 years. Multipara (>4 child) had the highest incidence. Also H/O home delivery, delivery by untrained personal, puerperial unusual work load increases the risk. Conclusion : POP is a common condition. Here the prevalence of grade I and II were high. But grade III and IV requiring surgical treatment among the women was 12% and 3% respectively .Incidence rises with increasing age, parity, prolonged and difficult labour . Birth spacing

BACKGROUND: Acquired pemetrexed resistance leads to treatment interruption in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Insulin-like growth factor-I receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor is a candidate for treating pemetrexed-naïve MPM. However, the efficacy of cytotoxic and targeted drugs in acquired-pemetrexed resistant MPM is unclear. We explored anticancer drugs, including the IGF-1R inhibitor picropodophyllin, against acquired pemetrexed-resistant MPMs. METHODS: Acquired pemetrexed-resistant human MPM cell lines, named as H2452/PEM and 211H/PEM after their parental lines H2452 and 211H, respectively, were established by exposure to pemetrexed in vitro. Picropodophyllin and siRNA for IGF-1R knockdown were used to evaluate the efficacy of IGF-1R inhibition. Immunofluorescence was used to evaluate microtubule localization. The efficacy of picropodophyllin was evaluated in 3-dimensional MPM models. RESULTS: The acquired pemetrexed-resistant MPM lines retained their resistance after the removal of culture treatment. IGF-1R levels in H2452/PEM cells were higher than those in H2452 cells but not in 211H/PEM cells compared to the respective parental line. Picropodophyllin induced sub-G1 arrest in H2452/PEM cells but induced G2/M phase arrest in 211H/PEM cells, leading to caspase-independent cell death in the two acquired pemetrexed-resistant MPM lines. Although picropodophyllin inhibited phosphorylation of IGF-1R, specific inhibition of IGF-1R by RNA interference did not reduce the viability of pemetrexed-resistant MPM lines. Additionally, picropodophyllin reduced the viability of both IGF-1R knockdown pemetrexed-resistant MPM cells. Picropodophyllin was cytotoxic in acquired-pemetrexed-resistant MPM lines because of inhibition of microtubule formation and induction of aberrant mitosis. Moreover, combination treatment with picropodophyllin and vinorelbine synergistically affected the pemetrexed-resistant MPM lines but not the parental lines. Furthermore, we observed a similar efficacy of picropodophyllin in 3-dimensional pemetrexed-resistant MPM models. CONCLUSIONS: Picropodophyllin may offer novel therapeutic properties for treating acquired pemetrexed-resistant MPM. Targeting tubulin may be an important strategy in the treatment of MPM after the discontinuation of pemetrexed.

The objective of the current study was to examine the phytochemical and in vitro thrombolytic, anti-arthritic, anthelmintic, and insecticidal effects of Trewia nudiflora (TN) methanolic leaf extract with its methanol (MTN), chloroform (CTN), and ethyl acetate (ETN) fractions. Pheretima posthuma and Tribolium castaneum were employed for evaluating the antihelmintic and insecticidal properties, respectively. All the tested extracts showed the presence of copious potential constituents in phytochemical analysis. Among all extracts, MTN extract exhibited the utmost clot lysis (35.95 ± 4.81%) property compared to standard streptokinase (SK) (53.77 ± 7.52%). All samples displayed striking protein denaturation activity in a dose-dependent manner (100–500 µg/mL), where the highest inhibition was observed for MTN (67.26 ± 6.39% at 500 µg/mL). Each extract demonstrated considerable anthelmintic activity at 25–75 mg/mL dose ranges. ETN showed the strongest anthelmintic activity at the highest dose. Among all samples, the CTN extract displayed the utmost mortality rate (77.22%) in the insecticidal test. The results of the study suggest that T. nudiflora leaf extracts may have potential against thrombosis, arthritis, helminths, and insects, which warrants the necessity of extensive isolation and identification of bioactive compounds to develop newer effective drugs upon preclinical and clinical investigations.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients are a significant threat to chronic kidney disease (CKD) development during their life. However, there is always a high chance of delay in CKD detection because CKD can be asymptomatic, and T1DM patients bypass traditional CKD tests during their routine checkups. This study aims to develop and validate a prediction model and nomogram of CKD in T1DM patients using readily available routine checkup data for early CKD detection. This research utilized 1375 T1DM patients’ sixteen years of longitudinal data from multi-center Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials conducted at 28 sites in the USA and Canada and considered 17 routinely available features. Three feature ranking algorithms, extreme gradient boosting (XGB), random forest (RF), and extremely randomized trees classifier (ERT), were applied to create three feature ranking lists, and logistic regression analyses were performed to develop CKD prediction models using these ranked feature lists to identify the best performing top-ranked features combination. Finally, the most significant features were selected to develop a multivariate logistic regression-based CKD prediction model for T1DM patients. This model was evaluated using sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, precision, and F1 score on train and test data. A nomogram of the final model was further generated for easy application in clinical practices. Hypertension, duration of diabetes, drinking habit, triglycerides, ACE inhibitors, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, age, and smoking habit were the top-8 features ranked by the XGB model and identified as the most important features for predicting CKD in T1DM patients. These eight features were selected to develop the final prediction model using multivariate logistic regression, which showed 90.04% and 88.59% accuracy in internal and test data validation. The proposed model showed excellent performance and can be used for CKD identification in T1DM patients during routine checkups.

Nativism or nationalism both carried one strong message of love, devotion, dedication for a country from an individual, a group of people to a whole nation. It is an ideology, a belief that holds people together living in the same country but with different cultures, languages, traditions, education, religion, and a different perspective of seeing life. This research delved into performing a comparative and theoretical analysis of R K Narayan's The Guide and Syed Waliullah's The Ugly Asian. Here the paper is based on nativism or nationalism, the attitude and the actions of the characters presented in the books with the point of view of the writers. R K Narayan's The Guide pictured a rural man and his journey, journey toward finding himself, finding his unconditional love for people, and finding the nationalist under his bare skin where the heartbeats. Syed Waliullah's The Ugly Asian is breaking the chain which tries to suffocate freedom of the country, whether it is the fraudulent and anti-people government or the bloodsucking white-skin colonial people.

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasingly prevalent worldwide. CKD may present with different cutaneous manifestations. Objectives: To evaluate the dermatological manifestations and compare these manifestations between patients with maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) and non-dialysis groups. Methods: It was a cross sectional study conducted in the Department of Nephrology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh from April 2013 to March 2014. A total of 150 hospital admitted CKD patients were evaluated for dermatological manifestations. Age, gender, haemoglobin level, 24-hours urinary total protein (UTP), serum creatinine, serum fasting lipid profile, estimated glomerular filtration rate (e-GFR) and dermatological manifestations of the study subjects were recorded accordingly. Inter-group comparisons were made between patients with and those without cutaneous abnormality. Results: Out of 150 study subjects, 99 (66%) were male and 51 (34%) were female, 69 (46%) patients were on MHD and 81 (54%) patients were without dialysis, their mean (±SD) age was 44.6 ± 12.3 year. A Total of 126 (84%) patients had cutaneous abnormalities; among them 69 (54.76%) were pre-dialytic and 57 (45.24%) were on MHD group. The mean (±SD) serum creatinine was relatively higher but haemoglobin level was significantly lower (p = 0.021), while UTP was significantly higher (p = 0.038) among patients with cutaneous abnormality. There was no relationship between lipid profile with cutaneous abnormality. Among 126 (84%) patients with cutaneous abnormality; pallor was the most common cutaneous abnormality (72%) followed by xerosis (68.66%), pruritus (65.33%), half and half nails (38.66%), pigmentation (33.33%), purpura/ecchymosis (16.66%), fungal infection (16%), ulcerative stomatitis (10.66%) and bacterial infection (10%). Pigmentation (52.6%), purpura (35.1%), ulcerative stomatitis (21.1%) and bacterial infection (19.3%) were significantly higher in MHD group. Among 69 (54.76%) predialytic patients; 11 (15.94%), 20 (28.98%) and 38 (55.07%) of them were on CKD stage-III, IV and V respectively. Conclusions: The dermatological disorders are frequent among CKD patients. Pallor, pruritus, xerosis, pigmentation and purpura are predominant changes. Pigmentation, purpura, ulcerative stomatitis and bacterial infection are significantly higher in MHD patients. Cutaneous abnormalities are more frequent in advance stages of CKD.

Systems-on-Chip’s (SoC) design complexity demands a high-performance linear regulator architecture to maintain a stable operation for the efficient power management of today’s devices. Over the decades, the low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator design has gained attention due to its design scalability with better performance in various application domains. Industry professionals as well as academia have put forward their innovations such as event-driven explicit time-coding, exponential-ratio array, switched RC bandgap reference circuit, etc., to make a trade-off between several performance parameters such as die area, ripple rejection, supply voltage range, and current efficiency. However, current LDO architectures in micro and nanometer complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology face some challenges, such as short channel effects, gate leakage, fabrication difficulty, and sensitivity to process variations at nanoscale. This review presents the LDO architectures, optimization techniques, and performance comparisons in different LDO design domains such as digital, analog, and hybrid. In this review, various state-of-the-art circuit topologies, deployed for the betterment of LDO performance and focusing on the specific parameter up-gradation to the overall improvement of the functionality, are framed, which will serve as a comparative study and reference for researchers.

Background. Diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) is a major form of complication that arises in long-term diabetic patients. Even though the application of machine learning (ML) in disease diagnosis is very common and well-established in the field of research, its application in DSPN diagnosis using nerve conduction studies (NCS), is very limited in the existing literature. Method. In this study, the NCS data were collected from the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and its follow-up Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials. The NCS variables are median motor velocity (m/sec), median motor amplitude (mV), median motor F-wave (msec), median sensory velocity (m/sec), median sensory amplitude (μV), Peroneal Motor Velocity (m/sec), peroneal motor amplitude (mv), peroneal motor F-wave (msec), sural sensory velocity (m/sec), and sural sensory amplitude (μV). Three different feature ranking techniques were used to analyze the performance of eight different conventional classifiers. Results. The ensemble classifier outperformed other classifiers for the NCS data ranked when all the NCS features were used and provided an accuracy of 93.40%, sensitivity of 91.77%, and specificity of 98.44%. The random forest model exhibited the second-best performance using all the ten features with an accuracy of 93.26%, sensitivity of 91.95%, and specificity of 98.95%. Both ensemble and random forest showed the kappa value 0.82, which indicates that the models are in good agreement with the data and the variables used and are accurate to identify DSPN using these ML models. Conclusion. This study suggests that the ensemble classifier using all the ten NCS variables can predict the DSPN severity which can enhance the management of DSPN patients.

The need for securing data privacy has increased as the online publication of data has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. This situation puts a lot of people at risk of a security breach. K-anonymity, which was the first published method of providing data anonymity is no longer as effective to keep up with the demands of various types of dynamic data, like-medical, transactional, trajectory, educational etc. Research into data privacy has gained more focus to keep up with the demands of time, but educational data is still relatively unexplored. As more of the schooling system is moving online, it caused an increase of research into student’s results. This published academic information can cause a breach of privacy for the students. In our paper, we compare educational data with transactional data and modify the anony method to suit the safe publication of educational data.

Transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is an essential component of optical receivers, and this type of amplifier converts the photocurrent to a voltage signal. The overall performance of the optical receiver greatly depends on the performance of this component. Low-power, low-noise, and compact TIA has been realized in current development in CMOS technology. The high demands of an optical receiver has led to the optimization and development of the TIA designed specifications. However, the conventional CMOS TIA design is limited mainly because of its dependency on input node capacitance. In this article, the advancement of TIAs in data communication and instrumentation based on different design architectures and performances is discussed. This review will serve as a comparative study and reference for designing fully integrated CMOS TIA for future optical receivers.

A force-invariant feature extraction method derives identical information for all force levels. However, the physiology of muscles makes it hard to extract this unique information. In this context, we propose an improved force-invariant feature extraction method based on nonlinear transformation of the power spectral moments, changes in amplitude, and the signal amplitude along with spatial correlation coefficients between channels. Nonlinear transformation balances the forces and increases the margin among the gestures. Additionally, the correlation coefficient between channels evaluates the amount of spatial correlation, however, it does not evaluate the strength of the electromyogram signal. To evaluate the robustness of the proposed method, we use the electromyogram dataset containing nine transradial amputees. In this study, the performance is evaluated using three classifiers with six existing feature extraction methods. The proposed feature extraction method yields a higher pattern recognition performance, and significant improvements in accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, and F1 score are found. In addition, the proposed method requires comparatively less computational time and memory, which makes it more robust than other well-known feature extraction methods.

Background: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DSPN), a major form of diabetic neuropathy, is a complication that arises in long-term diabetic patients. Even though the application of machine learning (ML) in disease diagnosis is a very common and well-established field of research, its application in diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DSPN) diagnosis using composite scoring techniques like Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrumentation (MNSI), is very limited in the existing literature. Method: In this study, the MNSI data were collected from the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials. Two different datasets with different MNSI variable combinations based on the results from the eXtreme Gradient Boosting feature ranking technique were used to analyze the performance of eight different conventional ML algorithms. Results: The random forest (RF) classifier outperformed other ML models for both datasets. However, all ML models showed almost perfect reliability based on Kappa statistics and a high correlation between the predicted output and actual class of the EDIC patients when all six MNSI variables were considered as inputs. Conclusions: This study suggests that the RF algorithm-based classifier using all MNSI variables can help to predict the DSPN severity which will help to enhance the medical facilities for diabetic patients. 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Funding: This research is financially supported by Xiamen University Malaysia, Project number XMUMRF/2018-C2/IECE/0002, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), grant nos. DPK-2021-001, GP-2019-K017701, and DIP-2020-004; and Qatar National Research Foundation (QNRF), grant no. NPRP12s-0227-190164. Scopus

Background: Diabetic Sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) is one of the major indelible complications in diabetic patients. Michigan neuropathy screening instrumentation (MNSI) is one of the most common screening techniques used for DSPN, however, it does not provide any direct severity grading system. Method: For designing and modeling the DSPN severity grading systems for MNSI, 19 years of data from Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials were used. Different Machine learning-based feature ranking techniques were investigated to identify the important MNSI features associated with DSPN diagnosis. A multivariable logistic regression-based nomogram was generated and validated for DSPN severity grading using the best performing top-ranked MNSI features. Results: Top-10 ranked features from MNSI features: Appearance of Feet (R), Ankle Reflexes (R), Vibration perception (L), Vibration perception (R), Appearance of Feet (L), 10-gm filament (L), Ankle Reflexes (L), 10-gm filament (R), Bed Cover Touch, and Ulceration (R) were identified as important features for identifying DSPN by Multi-Tree Extreme Gradient Boost model. The nomogram-based prediction model exhibited an accuracy of 97.95% and 98.84% for the EDIC test set and an independent test set, respectively. A DSPN severity score technique was generated for MNSI from the DSPN severity prediction model. DSPN patients were stratified into four severity levels: absent, mild, moderate, and severe using the cut-off values of 17.6, 19.1, 20.5 for the DSPN probability less than 50%, 75%-90%, and above 90%, respectively. Conclusions: The findings of this work provide a machine learning-based MNSI severity grading system which has the potential to be used as a secondary decision support system by health professionals in clinical applications and large clinical trials to identify high-risk DSPN patients. 2021 This research is financially supported by Xiamen University Malaysia, Project number XMUMRF/2018-C2/IECE/0002; Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Grant Number DPK-2021-001, GP-2020-K017701 and MI-2020-002 and Qatar National Research Foundation (QNRF), grant no. NPRP12s-0227-190164 and International Research Collaboration Co-Fund (IRCC) grant: IRCC-2021-001.We would like to thank the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for providing the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (DCCT/EDIC) and Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS) database. The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and its follow-up the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study were conducted by the DCCT/EDIC Research Group and supported by National Institute of Health grants and contracts and by the General Clinical Research Center Program, NCRR. The Diabetes Prevention Program outcome study (DPPOS) was conducted by the DPP Research Group and supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the General Clinical Research Center Program, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Office of Research on Women's Health, the Office of Research on Minority Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Diabetes Association. The data [and samples] from the DCCT/EDIC and DPPOS study were supplied by the NIDDK Central Repositories. This manuscript was not prepared under the auspices of the DCCT/EDIC and DPPOS and does not represent analyses or conclusions of the DPP Research Group, the NIDDK Central Repositories, or the NIH. The database is available on request from the NIDDK websites. EDIC database:, https://repository.niddk.nih.gov/studies/edic/and DPPOS database: https://repository.niddk.nih.gov/studies/dppos/ Scopus

Forensic pathology applies medical skills and knowledge to a criminal inquiry that recognizes or develops the information regarding the accidental or unlawful death of an innocent person or the victims of significant physical injury. It is a legal process which collects, examines, analyzes and reports the evidence. Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned and private blockchain structure which includes the present estimation of the element’s property and the historical backdrop of transactions. In forensic department, every piece of evidence should be properly identified, collected, preserved, analyzed and finally admitted to the proper authority. But in reality assembling, evaluating, storing evidence is not secured enough. So in this paper, we are focused on creating a blockchain based medical forensic system using Hyperledger. The system can track any unauthorized access and modification by retrieving the Historian Record and Asset Registries and thus guarantees the impartiality of evidence, secrecy and validity of transactions.

Modern systems rely on wireless communication for data transmission and system control. Power dissipation and circuit area are crucial factors for such communication systems in portable devices. Ring oscillators are the popular choice for voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) architecture for Phase locked loop (PLL). This is because ring oscillators exhibit wider tuning range and consume less area on chip. This paper presents a low power ring oscillator designed for wireless application at 5 GHz in the ISM band. A 3-stage starved current voltage-controlled ring oscillator was implemented with $\mathbf{0.13}\ \mu\mathbf{m}$ CMOS technology using ELDO Spice simulator from Mentor Graphics. With supply voltage of 1.2V, the power dissipation is 1.08 mW and the phase noise is -78 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz additionally, the proposed ring oscillator with new delay cell layout size occupied 7.1 by $\mathbf{11.7}\ \mu\mathbf{m}^{\mathbf{2}}$ .

Despite the availability of various clinical trials that used different diagnostic methods to identify diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN), no reliable studies that prove the associations among diagnostic parameters from two different methods are available. Statistically significant diagnostic parameters from various methods can help determine if two different methods can be incorporated together for diagnosing DSPN. In this study, a systematic review, meta-analysis, and trial sequential analysis (TSA) were performed to determine the associations among the different parameters from the most commonly used electrophysiological screening methods in clinical research for DSPN, namely, nerve conduction study (NCS), corneal confocal microscopy (CCM), and electromyography (EMG), for different experimental groups. Electronic databases (e.g., Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar) were searched systematically for articles reporting different screening tools for diabetic peripheral neuropathy. A total of 22 studies involving 2394 participants (801 patients with DSPN, 702 controls, and 891 non-DSPN patients) were reviewed systematically. Meta-analysis was performed to determine statistical significance of difference among four NCS parameters, i.e., peroneal motor nerve conduction velocity, peroneal motor nerve amplitude, sural sensory nerve conduction velocity, and sural sensory nerve amplitude (all p < 0.001); among three CCM parameters, including nerve fiber density, nerve branch density, and nerve fiber length (all p < 0.001); and among four EMG parameters, namely, time to peak occurrence (from 0 to 100% of the stance phase) of four lower limb muscles, including the vastus lateralis (p < 0.001), tibialis anterior (p = 0.63), lateral gastrocnemius (p = 0.01), and gastrocnemius medialis (p = 0.004), and the vibration perception threshold (p < 0.001). Moreover, TSA was conducted to estimate the robustness of the meta-analysis. Most of the parameters showed statistical significance between each other, whereas some were statistically nonsignificant. This meta-analysis and TSA concluded that studies including NCS and CCM parameters were conclusive and robust. However, the included studies on EMG were inconclusive, and additional clinical trials are required. 2020, The Author(s). Study Funded by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) under the Grant Number DIP-2020-004, and DIP-2018-017 and the Qatar National Research Fund, Grant Number: NPRP12s-0227-190164). Scopus

Growing plants in the gulf region can be challenging as it is mostly desert, and the climate is dry. A few species of plants have the capability to grow in such a climate. However, those plants are not suitable as a food source. The aim of this work is to design and construct an indoor automatic vertical hydroponic system that does not depend on the outside climate. The designed system is capable to grow common type of crops that can be used as a food source inside homes without the need of large space. The design of the system was made after studying different types of vertical hydroponic systems in terms of price, power consumption and suitability to be built as an indoor automated system. A microcontroller was working as a brain of the system, which communicates with different types of sensors to control all the system parameters and to minimize the human intervention. An open internet of things (IoT) platform was used to store and display the system parameters and graphical interface for remote access. The designed system is capable of maintaining healthy growing parameters for the plants with minimal input from the user. The functionality of the overall system was confirmed by evaluating the response from individual system components and monitoring them in the IoT platform. The system was consuming 120.59 and 230.59 kWh respectively without and with air conditioning control during peak summer, which is equivalent to the system running cost of 13.26 and 25.36 Qatari Riyal (QAR) respectively. This system was circulating around 104 k gallons of nutrient solution monthly however, only 8&ndash, 10 L water was consumed by the system. This system offers real-time notifications to alert the hydroponic system user when the conditions are not favorable. So, the user can monitor several parameters without using laboratory instruments, which will allow to control the entire system remotely. Moreover, the system also provides a wide range of information, which could be essential for plant researchers and provides a greater understanding of how the key parameters of hydroponic system correlate with plant growth. The proposed platform can be used both for quantitatively optimizing the setup of the indoor farming and for automating some of the most labor-intensive maintenance activities. Moreover, such a monitoring system can also potentially be used for high-level decision making, once enough data will be collected. This work presents significant opportunities for the people who live in the gulf region to produce food as per their requirements.

This paper presents a comparative study between a porous core kagome lattice photonic crystal fiber (PCF) and a air filled Hollow core kagome lattice PCF (HC-PCF), which acts as a low loss and polarization maintaining tera hertz (THz) waveguide. Proposed PCFs are simulated using finite element method (FEM), including the effective material loss (EML), confinement loss and single mode propagation. Cyclic olefin copolymer, also known as TOPAS material have been chosen for the air micro structured inhibited coupled design of PCF which has the lowest bulk material absorption loss of 0.2 cm-1. Expressions are given to asses this optimization and the result are shown for the variation of core diameter from 425 μm to 600 μm for both the Hollow core and porous core PCFs and for the comparison with porous core the optimized porosity taken as 60% and 70% along with the frequency of 1THz. The analysis results approximately 80% to 90% improvement in losses in case of passing THz waves through HC-PCF rather than Porous core PCF. By varying core parameter such as core porosity and core diameter and strut width at 1THz, the goal is to show an optimized solution consisting of low EML and confinement loss for both of the wave guidance and comparing the results to analyze and hence finding out a better solution.

From ancient to modern time, the materials of teaching and learning have been changing with different innovations and scientific revolutions. The use of podcasts or digital audio files as a material of EFL teaching and learning, although a relatively recent phenomenon has now been marked with somewhat a very enthusiastic attitude by its stakeholders. Podcasts have been made and used by teachers and students in many technologically advanced countries across the globe. The present study aims at exploring the EFL learners? and teachers? perception towards the use of podcasting as well as its possibilities and challenges as a material of teaching and learning English at the undergraduate level in Bangladesh. The study has been conducted based on data collected from ten EFL teachers and fifty EFL students randomly selected from one public and one private university of Bangladesh. The research follows a case study approach though it employs both qualitative and quantitative approach by using questionnaires that include only close-ended questions. The data have been analyzed by employing descriptive methods as well as the statistical packages. The analysis of the data reveals the perception of using educational podcasts at the undergraduate level in Bangladesh in teaching EFL. The findings of the study reveals that the perception of EFL students and teachers of undergraduate level about the effectiveness and utility of using educational podcasts in Bangladesh is positive and they are ready to accept the use of podcast enthusiastically. Finally, as a result of the findings, some recommendations in terms of future studies have been conversed in order to ensure the effective use of educational podcasting as a complementary tool to the conventional teaching of EFL at the undergraduate level in Bangladesh.

A novel hollow core Kagome lattice photonic crystal fiber(PCF) has been designed and analyzed for terahertz (THz) wave guidance by pumping Xenon (Xe) gas inside the hollow core of the PCF. Using finite element method (FEM), optical properties have been simulated and optimized with different strut width of Kagome lattice PCF. In addition, those properties have been optimized by changing Xe-gas pressure inside the hollow core in the THz regime from 1 to 10 THz. Simulation results show tightly mode field confinement of light through the hollow core for single mode operation within the band of frequency and the lowest EML of 5.18E-5 dB/cm has been found in operating frequency of 10 THz for strut width of 5 μm and the core diameter of 800 μm with constant pressure at 1000 bar. These losses have been further reduced up to 20% i.e. 4.16E-5 dB/cm, by increasing the pressure of Xe-gas to 3000 bar. Findings of this paper can help to make extremely low loss THz waveguide for potential beneficial biomedical applications.

Earlier studies in platelet aggregation have shown that females seemed to have greater aggregability than males as detected by conventional aggregometry which used light transmission (LT), but controversy still remains. This study was performed to determine whether sex difference exists in platelet aggregation by using the recently developed laser light scattering (LS) method, which can detect small aggregates (i.e., two or three platelets). Blood was drawn from healthy volunteers (10 male and 10 female in follicular phase after menstruation), and platelet aggregation was detected by either LT or LS method in platelet rich plasma. Platelet aggregation was stimulated by increasing concentration of adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP, 0, 0.5, 1 and 2 microM). To detect the effect of sex hormones, platelets were incubated with estradiol (10 nM) or testosterone (40 nM) for 30 min, then platelet aggregation studies were performed. LT method revealed that female had greater aggregability than male. With weak stimuli (< or = 1 microM ADP), LS method showed that females had more medium aggregates than males, and that testosterone decreased small aggregates, and that estradiol decreased all sizes of aggregates. These data suggest that the female is more conductive to platelet aggregation than the male at a physiologic concentration of ADP (< or = 1 microM), but that both estradiol (10 nM) and testosterone (40 nM) have countereffects on platelet aggregation at the same condition. Therefore, the reason why females have greater aggregability than males may partly be explained by their lack of testosterone, but the mechanism still remains to be elucidated.

Low-dose aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid 81 mg/day, LDA) is often used as an antiplatelet drug in the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases as well as for patients with anti-phospholipid antibody syndrome. In this study, we explored the duration of the inhibitory effect of a single LDA on platelet aggregation, using the newly developed aggregometry with the laser light scattering method. Five healthy volunteers (females between 23 and 30 years old) ingested 81 mg of buffered aspirin. Platelet aggregation was measured with adenosine 5'-diphosphate before the ingestion and at the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th day thereafter. The results showed that the effect of 81 mg of aspirin continues for at least 8 days, which suggested that the intermittent administration of 81 mg of aspirin (a few times a week) might be an alternative way to induce the anti-platelet effect.