bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Differential expression of CEP112 in cancers of the breast.
Authors: Mamoor Shahan
Published: May 2021

Breast cancer affects women at relatively high frequency (1). We mined published microarray datasets (2, 3) to determine in an unbiased fashion and at the systems level genes most differentially expressed in the primary tumors of patients with breast cancer. We report here significant differential expression of the gene encoding centrosomal protein 112, CEP112, also known as FAM126A, when comparing primary tumors of the breast to the tissue of origin, the normal breast. CEP112 mRNA was present at significantly lower quantities in tumors of the breast as compared to normal breast tissue. Analysis of human survival data revealed that expression of CEP112 in primary tumors of the breast was correlated with post-progression survival in patients with luminal B subtype cancer, demonstrating a relationship between primary tumor expression of a differentially expressed gene and patient survival outcomes influenced by molecular subtype. CEP112 may be of relevance to initiation, maintenance or progression of cancers of the female breast.
How Do Visual Explanations Foster End Users' Appropriate Trust in Machine Learning?
Authors: Yang Fumeng
Published: May 2021

We investigated the effects of example-based explanations for a machine learning classifier on end users' appropriate trust. We explored the effects of spatial layout and visual representation in an in-person user study with 33 participants. We measured participants' appropriate trust in the classifier, quantified the effects of different spatial layouts and visual representations, and observed changes in users' trust over time. The results show that each explanation improved users' trust in the classifier, and the combination of explanation, human, and classification algorithm yielded much better decisions than the human and classification algorithm separately. Yet these visual explanations lead to different levels of trust and may cause inappropriate trust if an explanation is difficult to understand. Visual representation and performance feedback strongly affect users' trust, and spatial layout shows a moderate effect. Our results do not support that individual differences (e.g., propensity to trust) affect users' trust in the classifier. This work advances the state-of-the-art in trust-able machine learning and informs the design and appropriate use of automated systems.
LINTAS BUDAYA JAWA TIMUR
Authors: Wijayanto Adi
Published: May 2021

Para peserta KKN telah berusaha semaksimal mungkin sesuai dengan kemampuan penulis demi penyelesaian buku antalogi. Tetapi sebagai manusia biasa penulis tak luput dari kesalahan ataupun kekhilafan baik pada segi teknik penulisan ataupun tata bahasa itu sendiri. Pengambilan tema antalogi ini didasarkan pada budaya lokal masing-masing daerah anggota kelompok KKN VDR 010. Sehingga dengan adanya buku ini peserta KKN bisa berbagi cerita mengenai budaya apa saja yang ada di daerahnya entah budaya itu ada sebelum pandemi ataupun muncul setelah pandemi datang. Dan juga dengan adanya buku ini kami berharap bisa menambah wawasan tentang budaya kepada masyarakat.
Differential expression of the alpha subunit of the receptor for the platelet-derived growth factor in cancers of the breast.
Authors: Mamoor Shahan
Published: May 2021

Breast cancer affects women at relatively high frequency (1). We mined published microarray datasets (2, 3) to determine in an unbiased fashion and at the systems level genes most differentially expressed in the primary tumors of patients with breast cancer. We report here significant differential expression of the gene encoding platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha, PDGFRA, when comparing primary tumors of the breast to the tissue of origin, the normal breast. PDGFRA mRNA was present at significantly lower quantities in tumors of the breast as compared to normal breast tissue. Analysis of human survival data revealed that expression of PDGFRA in primary tumors of the breast was correlated with overall survival in patients with luminal A cancers, demonstrating a relationship between primary tumor expression of a differentially expressed gene and patient survival outcomes influenced by molecular subtype. PDGFRA may be of relevance to initiation, maintenance or progression of cancers of the female breast.
Resume mata kuliah hukum tata negara_169
Authors: algamar Qorunia
Published: May 2021

Sumber hukum adalah segala sesuatu yang telah menimbulkan aturan-aturan yang mempunyai kekuatan yang bersifat memaksa, yaitu aturan-aturan yang jika dilanggar akan mengakibatkn sanksi yang tegas dan nyata
Resume mata kuliah hukum tatanegara(Riski_151)
Authors: Riski
Published: May 2021

Hukumtatanegaraadalahbentukhukumyangmendefinisikanhubunganantaraberbagailembagadidalamsuatunegarayaitueksekutif,legislatif,danyudikatif.
On the Optimistic Bias of Core Damage Frequency, and why it should be excluded from nuclear regulatory requirements.
Authors: Wortman Martin Alan
Published: May 2021

Core Damage Frequency (CDF) is a risk metric often employed by nuclear regulatory bodies worldwide. Numerical values for this metric are required by U.S. regulators, prior to reactor licensing, and reported values can trigger regulatory inspections. CDF is reported as a constant, sometimes accompanied by a confidence interval. It is well understood that CDF characterizes the arrival rate of a stochastic point process modeling core damage events. However, consequences of the assumptions imposed on this stochastic process as a computational necessity are often overlooked. Herein, we revisit CDF in the context of modern point process theory. We will argue that the assumptions required to yield a constant CDF are typically unrealistic. We will further argue that treating CDF as an informative approximation is suspect, because of the inherent difficulties in quantifying its quality as an approximation.
More Error than Attitude in Implicit Association Tests (IATs), a CFA-MTMM analysis of measurement error.
Authors: Chequer Susan , Quinn Michael G.
Published: May 2021

Many design characteristics of the popular Implicit Association Test (IAT) appear to make the task highly susceptible to measurement error. This study examined potential sources of measurement error for two types of IAT, the classic verbal IAT (VIAT) and a fully pictorial IAT (PIAT). A CFA-MTMM analytical approach was used to estimate the influence of both random error and method variance on the IAT scores. Four empirical IATs were employed to assess implicit bias towards Middle Eastern and European people (‘Racial’ VIAT and PIAT) and countries (‘Country’ VIAT and PIAT). They were completed by 198 student participants from an Australian University. The CFA-MTMM analysis provided clear evidence of measurement error confounding IAT scores. Specifically, IAT data was shown to be, on average, comprised of just over 50% random error variance, nearly 30% method variance and under 20% trait variance. These results demonstrate unequivocally that IAT scores are predominantly composed of measurement error not implicit attitudes. These findings have significant implications for the use of IATs in applied research. Options for minimising the impact of high error variance in future implicit attitudinal research are considered.
Problematic Smartphone Use in a Large Nationally Representative Sample: Age, Reporting Biases, and Technology Concerns
Authors: Horwood Sharon , Anglim Jeromy , Mallawaarachchi Sumudu R.
Published: May 2021

This study utilized data from a nationally representative sample of Australian adults (n =1164; 50.7% female; age M = 44.9 years, SD = 16.3) to examine the relationships between age, technology concerns, self-rated and objective amount of smartphone use, and problematic smartphone use. Participants completed measures of problematic smartphone use and technology concern, while amount of smartphone use was self-rated and objectively measured using smartphone screen time reporting tools (Screen Time for iOS and Digital Wellbeing for Android). Amount of self-rated and objective smartphone use declined linearly with age. In contrast, problematic smartphone use was relatively high and stable in young adults before rapidly declining around age 40. People were reasonably good at estimating their amount of smartphone use (r = .73), although they did tend to underestimate usage. Technology concern was high across all ages, but unrelated to amount of usage and problematic smartphone usage. Age related differences are interpreted in terms of a combination of developmental and generational changes. Results also suggest that amount of use is an important but not complete cause of problematic smartphone use.
Computational approaches to mentalizing during observational learning and strategic social interactions
Authors: Charpentier Caroline J , O'Doherty John
Published: May 2021

In order to make decisions, we often seek and integrate information coming from other people, while at times also keeping track of the knowledge other people acquire from observing our own actions. In this chapter, we examine the computational mechanisms and the involvement of mentalizing when we learn from observing other people and when we engage in strategic social interactions in which two agents recursively represent each other’s beliefs and intentions. We shed light on evidence that regions of the brain’s mentalizing system play a key role in implementing these social learning computations, by representing (i) the mental states of other agents, (ii) how these mental states are dynamically updated over time and (iii) how other agents represent our own beliefs and intentions. We argue in favor of using a neuro-computational approach to study these processes, combining computational modelling to identify specific variables predicting behavior and model-based neuroimaging to understand how and where these variables are represented in the brain. We conclude by highlighting some open questions that remain to be addressed to provide a fully integrated account of mentalizing computations during social learning.
Spatial attention impairments are characterized by specific electro-encephalographic correlates and partially mediate the association between early life stress and anxiety
Authors: Keller Arielle S. , Ling Ruth , Williams Leanne Maree
Published: May 2021

Although impaired attention is a diagnostic feature of anxiety disorders, we lack an understanding of which aspects of attention are impaired, the neurobiological basis of these impairments and the contribution of stressors. To address these gaps in knowledge, we developed and tested behavioral tasks designed to parse which subdomains of attention are more impaired with higher self-reported anxiety symptoms and used electro-encephalographic (EEG) recordings to probe the neural basis of attentional performance. Participants were n=57 individuals aged 18-35 with mild-to-moderate mood and anxiety symptoms. We took account of the COVID-19 pandemic as a naturalistic probe for prolonged stress occurring at a similar point in time for each participant. In these same participants, we assessed stressful events in early life prior to age 18 within discrete age brackets that may have a prolonged impact on neural functioning. Severity of anxiety was found to be specifically associated with impairments in spatial attention but not feature-based attention. Impairments in spatial selective attention were associated with decreased posterior alpha oscillations in EEG recordings, while spatial divided attention impairments were associated with a different profile of decreased fronto-central theta oscillations. These impairments in spatial attention also partially mediated the association between early life stressors and anxiety symptoms and were found to worsen as a function of prolonged current stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results provide a thorough characterization of attention impairments associated with anxiety, their electro-encephalographic correlates and the impact of stressors both in early life and in adulthood.
Evaluating the Acquisition of Semantic Knowledge from Cross-situational Learning in Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Nikolaus Mitja , Fourtassi Abdellah
Published: May 2021

When learning their native language, children acquire the meanings of words and sentences from highly ambiguous input without much explicit supervision. One possible learning mechanism is cross-situational learning, which has been successfully tested in laboratory experiments with children. Here we use Artificial Neural Networks to test if this mechanism scales up to more natural language and visual scenes using a large dataset of crowd-sourced images with corresponding descriptions. We evaluate learning using a series of tasks inspired by methods commonly used in laboratory studies of language acquisition. We show that the model acquires rich semantic knowledge both at the word- and sentence-level, mirroring the patterns and trajectory of learning in early childhood. Our work highlights the usefulness of low-level co-occurrence statistics across modalities in facilitating the early acquisition of higher-level semantic knowledge.
TALEP at CMCL 2021 Shared Task: Non Linear Combination of Low and High-Level Features for Predicting Eye-Tracking Data
Authors: Dary Franck , Nasr Alexis , Fourtassi Abdellah
Published: May 2021

In this paper we describe our contribution to the CMCL 2021 Shared Task, which consists in predicting 5 different eye tracking variables from English tokenized text. Our approach is based on a neural network that combines both raw textual features we extracted from the text and parser-based features that include linguistic predictions (e.g. part of speech) and complexity metrics (e.g., entropy of parsing). We found that both the features we considered as well as the architecture of the neural model that combined these features played a role in the overall performance. Our system achieved relatively high accuracy on the test data of the challenge and was ranked 2nd out of 13 competing teams and a total of 30 submissions.
Education, Financial Stress, and Trajectory of Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: Jiang Yanping , Zilioli Samuele , Balzarini Rhonda Nicole , Zoppolat Giulia , Slatcher Richard B.
Published: May 2021

Socioeconomic disparities in mental health have been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, few studies have examined the mechanisms through which such disparities in mental health occurred. This pre-registered study aimed to examine socioeconomic disparities, as indexed by education levels, in the trajectory of mental health at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether financial stress associated with the pandemic mediated socioeconomic disparities in mental health. Data were drawn from the Love in the Time of COVID project, of which we included four waves of data (N = 2,204) collected between March 27th and June 21st, 2020. Education was assessed at baseline, and mental health outcomes (i.e., eudaimonic well-being, positive affect, negative affect, depressive and anxious symptoms) and financial stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic were assessed at each wave. Results indicated that there were educational disparities in eudaimonic well-being, negative affect, and depressive and anxiety symptoms at baseline, with those with lower education levels reporting poorer mental health. However, education did not amplify disparities in mental health outcomes over time, showing no associations with the rates of change in mental health outcomes. Financial stress mediated the associations between education and eudaimonic well-being, negative affect, and depressive and anxious symptoms at baseline, and there were no temporal variations in the mediation effects of financial stress. These results highlight persistent educational disparities in mental health at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and such educational disparities may be partially explained by financial stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reasons to postpone childbearing during fertility decline in Finland
Authors: Savelieva Kateryna , Jokela Markus , Rotkirch Anna
Published: May 2021

We examined self-reported reasons to postpone childbearing during fertility decline in Finland in 2010s and their associations with socio-demographic factors, as well as social media use and work-related attitudes. Using representative survey data from Finnish Family Barometers, the sample comprised participants aged 20-44 who did not plan having (more) children soon. Based on exploratory factor analysis, reasons to postpone childbearing were grouped into uncertain life situation, lifestyle preferences, and completed fertility. Regression analysis results indicate that more stable life situation, infrequent social media use, and lower work-orientation were related to lower uncertainty, whereas being a woman, having no children, frequent social media use, and higher work-orientation were associated with increased lifestyle preferences. Uncertain life situation and lifestyle preferences influence childbearing decisions independently of socio-demographic characteristics.
Interactions in Fixed Effects Regression Models
Authors: Giesselmann Marco , Schmidt-Catran Alexander
Published: May 2021

An interaction in a fixed effects (FE) regression is usually specified by demeaning the product term. How-ever, algebraic transformations reveal that this strategy does not yield a within-unit estimator. Instead, the standard FE interaction estimator reflects unit-level differences of the interacted variables. This property allows interactions of a time-constant variable and a time-varying variable in FE, but may yield unwanted results if both variables vary within units. In such cases, Monte Carlo experiments confirm that the standard FE estimator of z∙x is biased if x is correlated with an unobserved unit-specific moderator of z (or vice-versa). A within estimator of an interaction can be obtained by first demeaning each variable and then demeaning their product. This “double-demeaned” estimator is not subject to bias caused by unobserved effect heterogeneity. It is, however, less efficient than standard FE and only works with T > 2.
The Effect of Meeting Opportunities on Local Urban Residents’ Prejudice against Migrant Children in China
Authors: Nieuwenhuis Jaap , Shen Xinyi
Published: May 2021

This article explores the effect of meeting opportunities between local urban and nonlocal residents on locals’ prejudice against migrant children in China by focusing on three contexts: friendships, schools, and neighborhoods. China’s hukou policy creates a boundary between urban and rural residents, which also takes the form of locals and nonlocals in rural-to-urban migration. Urban public schools with a mix of local and migrant students offer a chance to observe the intergroup relationships between local and nonlocal students as well as their parents. Using the two waves of data of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this study examines how changes in the migrant friends, schoolmates, and neighbors of local children affect changes in their parents’ prejudice among a sample of 1,630 student-parent pairs. With longitudinal data, this study mitigates the effect of reverse causality between intergroup contact and prejudice. The findings show that parents whose children have more migrant friends have less prejudice, under certain conditions. Additionally, more nonlocal students in the school are related to less prejudice, especially among parents who are more embedded in the school. Furthermore, local families with low socioeconomic status experience an increase in prejudice, potentially due to an increased feeling of threat. Besides, this article finds that prejudiced attitudes spread through the social networks of children and parents at the school level. This study emphasizes the importance of different contexts of meeting opportunities and sheds new light on the generalizability of the contact hypothesis to the understudied context of Chinese internal migration.
The Nested Precarities of Platformized Creative Labor
Authors: Duffy Brooke Erin , Pinch Annika , Sannon Shruti , Sawey Megan
Published: May 2021

While metrics have long played an important, albeit fraught, role in the media and cultural industries, quantified indices of visibility—likes, favorites, subscribers, and shares—are indelibly cast as routes to professional success and status in the digital creative economy. Against this backdrop, this study sought to examine how creative laborers’ pursuit of social media visibility impacts their processes and products. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 30 aspiring and professional content creators—including Instagrammers, YouTubers, TikTok creators, and those seeking monetization through Pinterest and Twitter—we contend that their experiences are not only shaped by the promise of visibility, but also by its precarity. As such, we present a framework for assessing the volatile nature of visibility in platformized creative labor, which includes unpredictability across three levels: (1) markets, (2) industries, and (3) platform features and algorithms. After mapping out this ecological model of the nested precarities of visibility, we conclude by addressing both continuities with—and departures from—the earlier modes of instability that characterized cultural production, most especially the guiding logic of platform capitalism.
KEMEROSOTAN NILAI MORAL YANG TERJADI PADA GENERASI MUDA DI ERA MODERN
Authors: Wijayanti Indriana
Published: May 2021

Era modern merupakan era dimana marak sekali yang namanya perkembangan, baik itu perkembangan kebudayaan, perkembangan pendidikan maupun teknologi. Akan sangat di sayangkan apabila adanya era global ini malah membuat generasi Mudanya tidak memiliki nilai moral dalam dirinya. Tujuan penulisan artikel ini sendiri ialah ditujukan untuk pembaca agar mereka mengetahui bahwa dimasa sekarang kita sedang menghadapi urgensi moral di masyarakat. hal itu dapat dilihat dari moral terutama anak anak muda yang sedang mengalami krisis dan keringnya kepekaan terhadap lingkungan sekitar. Adapun metode penulisan dalam artikel ini, yaitu metode literatur dengan mengumpulkan berbagai sumber bacaan yang kemudian di analisis dan kemudian menghubungkanya dengan permasalahan yang di bahas. Berdasarkan hasil analisis yang di telah di lakukan, adapun hasil yang kemudian di bahas dalam artikel ini yaitu, yang pertama tentang nilai moral, kedua tentang fenomena kemerosotan moral pada remaja yang di sebabkan oleh adanya perkembangan zaman dan adanya globalisasi, ketiga pentingnya penananman nilai moral pada anak yang di lakukan melalui jalur pendidikan
The Ambiguous Effects of Targeting Trade Surpluses
Authors: Eichacker Nina
Published: May 2021

Ceteris Paribus, current account surpluses may be preferable to current account deficits. Export surpluses should increase domestic GDP, and they may lend economic and political power to industries and states in domestic and international systems. However, the frame of analysis matters when considering the net benefits or costs of pursuing current account surpluses: benefits of pursuing export-led strategies may change over time, they may be unevenly distributed within a given economy, and they may create problems for trade partners, depending on the trade-boosting strategies deployed. This chapter considers potential downsides of pursuing current account surpluses over time, across economic sectors, and at the international level. It surveys work on export-led growth, neomercantilism, and import-substitution strategies in work by a range of economists in Post-Keynesian, structural development, and world-systems theories. Every economy cannot run a trade surplus all of the time: the costs of avoiding this inevitability may be greater at the global level or over time than the benefits of accruing current account surplus in the moment.
Improving the stability of market segmentation analysis
Authors: Hajibaba Homa , Grün Bettina , Dolnicar Sara
Published: May 2021

Data-driven market segmentation is heavily used by academic tourism and hospitality researchers to create knowledge, and by data analysts in tourism industry to generate market insights. The stability of market segmentation solutions across repeated calculations is a key quality indicator of a segmentation solution. Yet, stability is typically ignored, risking that the segmentation solution arrived at is random. The present study offers an overview of market segmentation analysis and proposes a new procedure to increase the stability of market segmentation solutions derived from binary data.
School Segregation and Native Flight. Evidence from School Catchment Area Borders.
Authors: Rogne Adrian F. , Borgen Solveig Topstad , Nordrum Erlend
Published: May 2021

Although extensively theorized, determining the mechanisms that produce ethnic or racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods has proven difficult. We investigate one potential mechanism behind ethnic segregation; native flight from schools. In contexts where school enrollment is determined primarily by geographic proximity to schools, Native or White parents with a preference for schools with low minority concentrations may choose to move away from schools with higher minority concentrations among students, contributing to both residential and school segregation. Using detailed, population-wide, geo-coded register data on families and school catchment areas for elementary schools in Oslo, Norway, we investigate whether native parents move away from schools with higher shares of students with non-Western immigrant backgrounds. We first show that native origin families systematically move away from schools with high shares of students with non-Western immigrant backgrounds. Employing a Geographic Regression Discontinuity design, exploiting the fact that catchment area borders sort neighboring children into different schools, our results indicate that such moves may be causally linked to local school characteristics, not just their neighborhoods. This may contribute to segregation in schools and neighborhoods. However, the results are ambiguous and sensitive to model specifications, and more research is needed to draw firm conclusions.
PENGEMBANGAN BIAYA PERJALANAN DENGAN METODE KONTINGENT VALUASI EKONOMI (CVM)
Authors: Safri Muhammad
Published: May 2021

Pariwisata alam memberikan dampak positif dalam menunjang upaya konservasi dan meningkatkan upaya perlindungan terhadap flora dan fauna sebagai salah satu cara mencapai paradigma baru pembangunan, seraya meminimalisir dampak negatif yang ditimbulkan dalam pengembangan sektor pariwisata. Untuk itu buku metode kontingen valuasi ekonomi lingkungan ini sengaja ditulis, mudah-mudahan akan bermanfaat bagi pihak yang membutuhkan.
A quantitative assessment of body iron status and its relationship with glycemic control in patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus in a tertiary care hospital of Kolkata
Authors: Saha Ananya , Mukhopadhyay Pradip , Nath Indrajit , Kumar Arun , Biswas Utpal Kumar
Published: May 2021

Background: Diabetes is one of the most common disease which is observed in every household of Indian population. The longevity of the diabetic patients is dependent upon the frequency of complication and comorbidity that they encounter. Serum iron and ferritin, both being the aggravators to the oxidative stress accelerating the development of complications, gives us the reason to venture into the territory exploring the possibility of monitoring the body iron stores and taking prevent measures to control such complication. The current study was designed with an aim to knot the relationship between body iron stores and glycemic control in patients of type-II diabetes mellitus.
Aims and Objectives: To measure the levels of serum ferritin, serum Iron, transferrin saturation and HbA1C and finding out the relationship between body iron stores and glycemic control in patients of Type-II Diabetes Mellitus.
Materials and Methods: A total of 50 diagnosed cases of type II DM and 50 healthy controls between the age group of 35-65 years were taken following inclusion and exclusion criteria. Body iron stores were assessed by measuring serum ferritin, Serum iron and Transferrin saturation and Glycemic control was assessed by measuring levels of HbA1C.
Results: A significant increase in serum ferritin, serum iron and Transferrin saturation (P<0.001) was noted in diabetic patients as compared to controls. There was a positive correlation between serum iron and transferring saturation in the diabetic patients.
Conclusion: The co-morbidities and complications in the Diabetic population can be prevented by monitoring Body iron stores as they can significantly contribute to the oxidative stress leading to the complication and decreased life expectancy. Early detection in the abnormality in the body iron store can help us in employing proper measures for a better management of Type-II diabetic patients and thereby improving their survival.
Diabetes Mellitus and Dyslipidemia- A Detailed Analysis
Authors: Mukherjee Brijesh , Mohanty Monalisa
Published: May 2021

Background: Diabetic atherosclerosis is a heterogeneous condition, and that dyslipidemia is only one aspect of the pathophysiology. However, dyslipidemia is the most readily measured and, at the present time, the most readily treated aspect of the problem. The occurrence of dyslipidemia can be reduced by good glycemic control. However poor awareness and other socio-economic factors is a major concern and pose a major hindrance in controlling blood sugar levels.
Aims and Objective: This study was conducted to study the dyslipidemia pattern in diabetic patients and its association with other factors.
Materials and Methods: The study included 500 subjects and was divided into two groups: Group 1(Diabetic) included 276 patients and Group 2 (Non-diabetic) included 224 patients. The study patients were screened using a pretested structured questionnaire. Fasting plasma glucose and serum lipid profile (cholesterol, TG, HDL) were estimated in automated analyzer (Erba Manheim EM 200).
Results: In the current study, all characteristics of diabetes were correlated with each parameter and it was found that disproportionate body mass index, high waist girth was correlated with incidence of dyslipidemia. The education levels and financial background of the subjects were also studied and it was found to correlate well with diabetic dyslipidemia.
Conclusion: Early diagnosis and treatment of dyslipidemia in diabetic patients can reduce the morbidity and mortality due to the disease.
Orientia beyond fever and rash (Unusual presentations of scrub typhus)
Authors: Rajanna Avinash Hanbe , Rajoli Swetha
Published: May 2021

Scrub typhus is a zoonotic disease caused by an obligate intracellular gram-negative bacterium of the family Rickettsiaceae called Orientia tsutsugamushi. We are reporting three cases: Case 1:- A 42 year old male, farmer who presented with fever, rash and pandigital gangrene. Case 2:- A 52 year old female positive for scrub typhus treated came with c/o bilateral lower limb weakness which gradually progressed to upper limb, diagnosed to be AIDP, Case 3:- A 32 year old male presented with fever, maculopapular rash and leukocytoclastic vasculitis in first week of illness proved by biopsy. All three cases were positive for OXK (Weil Felix). Scrub typhus can present with unusual clinical features and complication during the course of illness and cases are reported for its varied presentations.
The effect of serum insulin on the blood pressure responses after oral glucose load in lean and centrally obese adult male subjects
Authors: Htein Thiri Win , Thant Zarli , Mar Ohn
Published: May 2021

Background: The vasodilator action of insulin might contribute to the reduction of blood pressure in the postprandial state and it remains to be clarified whether this action is impaired in the insulin- resistant obese state or not.
Aims and Objective: The present study aimed to determine the blood pressure responses after an oral glucose load in lean and insulin resistant centrally obese adult male subjects.
Materials and Methods: This study was carried out in eleven lean and eleven centrally obese adult male subjects. After a 75 g oral glucose load, blood pressures were measured at 15-minute intervals and the serum insulin level was determined at 30-minute intervals for two hours. Blood pressure was measured by indirect sphygmomanometry and serum insulin concentration was analyzed by ELISA method.
Results: All centrally obese subjects were insulin resistant (HOMA-IR≥2.6). After oral glucose load, the per cent change in glucose-stimulated insulin responses at 30 minutes (626% vs 344%, p<0.05) and at 60 minutes (756% vs 417%, p<0.01) were significantly greater in the lean group than the centrally obese group. The fall in postprandial blood pressures started at 15 minutes and returned to baseline values at 120 minutes. The per cent change in SBP at 15 minutes (-2.2% vs -1.2%, p<0.05) and at 30 minutes (-3.2% vs -2.1%, p<0.05) were significantly greater in the lean group than the centrally obese group.
Conclusion: The present findings suggest that attenuation in BP responses as well as a lesser change in glucose-stimulated insulin responses in the centrally obese subjects might be attributable to the presence of insulin resistance.
To Correlate Serum Ferritin Levels with Clinical Outcome in Covid-19 Patients
Authors: Rajanna Avinash Hanbe , Krishnegowda Ravi , Govindaiah Rohith Maraludevanapura
Published: May 2021

Background: COVID-19 a pandemic, affecting worldwide causing significant morbidity and to some extent mortality needs to be evaluated and urgently identify reliable predictors of disease severity and outcome. The fatal outcomes by COVID-19 are accompanied by cytokine storm syndrome. The cytokine storm is determined by serum ferritin.
Aims and Objective: To determine the role of Serum ferritin in assessing the severity and outcome of COVID-19.
Materials and Methods: A single-center, cross-sectional, observational study was conducted among SARS-CoV-2 infected patients from March 2020 to May 2020. The diagnosis was confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Serum ferritin levels were compared with the treatment outcomes of COVID-19 positive patients.
Results: A total of 1977 COVID-19 patients were studied. The mean age was 43.89±15.58 years and had male preponderance of 61.56% of the total subjects. The mean serum ferritin levels among recovered and expired patients were 1225.6 ± 2502.91 ng/ml and 285.71 ± 391.99 ng/ml, respectively.
Conclusion: Serum ferritin was markedly increased in COVID-19 patients who could not survive as compared to the patients who finally recovered from the infection, proving it as a useful marker for assessing the severity of COVID-19.
Morbidity and mortality profile of children admitted in pediatric department – A single center study
Authors: Ramawat Pramila , Jain Nilesh
Published: May 2021

Back ground: Child morbidity and mortality is an issue of great concern for policy makers because in spite of good efforts still less than 5 years mortality rate is very high and many babies could not survive beyond infancy. Majority of pediatric deaths occurred due to preventable and treatable causes. An emphasis needed on early diagnosis and timely interventions in pediatric patients associated with high risk factors.
Aims and Objectives: To study clinical spectrum, morbidity and mortality profile in hospitalized children and to evaluate association of clinicodemographic variable with outcome.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 2315 patients admitted during study period to evaluate morbidity and mortality profile of patients in pediatric department. Data was collected between January to December 2018 and analyzed for demography, clinical profile including diagnosis, hospital and pediatric intensive care stay, management and outcome.
Results: Mean age (mean ± SD) reported was 42.35 ± 35.85 months. Under 5 years children were admitted in majority (62.5%). Respiratory system (21.9%) and nervous system diseases (21.7%) were leading reasons for admission followed by gastrointestinal (11.2%) and hematological disorders (10.8%). Based on etiology infection was leading cause, most common infection in hospitalized children lower respiratory tract infections (19.5%). Vaccine preventable diseases were present in 3.7% patients. 2.5% children admitted due to severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Nervous system diseases (18.2%) associated with highest mortality followed by cardiac (11.7%) and respiratory diseases (11.2%) Mortality rate was 8.07%. Significant association was found between gender, duration of PICU stay, condition at admission, under nutrition and severe anemia to outcome (p <0.01).
Conclusion: Early diagnosis and timely interventions can improve outcome in patients with co morbidities and high risk factors. Social awareness is very important to prevent gender discrimination. Emphasis on simple hygiene measures, vaccination and nutrition improvement can decrease the disease burden in pediatric population. Vaccine preventable diseases still occurring and needed hospitalization so strengthening of awareness program for vaccination required, especially in remote rural areas.
Study on the relationship between respiratory scores and hyponatremia in children with bronchiolitis
Authors: Turkmenoglu Yelda , Kacar Alper , Bezen Digdem , Kırar Haticenur , Ozdemir Ebru Mısırlı , Irdem Ahmet , Petmezci Mey Talip , Dursun Hasan
Published: May 2021

Background: Tal et al. severity score (TSS) and Modified Wood’s Clinical Asthma Score (M-WCAS) are used to evaluate the severity of the disease in children with bronchiolitis. It has recently been suggested that there is a relationship between bronchiolitis severity and hyponatremia.
Aims and Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between both of scores and hyponatremia in children with bronchiolitis.
Materials and Methods: This prospective observational study included 172 patients (age range: 1-24 months) admitted to the hospital with bronchiolitis diagnosis. Demographic and clinical features of patients were recorded, and the TSS and the M-WCAS were calculated. These values and their components were compared with serum sodium (Na) results obtained at hospital admission.
Results: Of the 172 patients, 114 (66.3%) were male, and the mean age was 5.5 ± 4.6 months. The mean TSS and M-WCAS of the patients were 6.73±1.9, and 3.34±1.4, respectively. Hyponatremia (Na<135mEq/L) was detected in 30 (17.4%) patients. When the TSS and M-WCAS of patients with and without hyponatremia were compared, there was no statistically significant difference (p = 0.517; p = 0.662, respectively); however, there was a significant relationship between hyponatremia and low oxygen saturation levels (p= 0.026).
Conclusion: No relationship was found between hyponatremia and TSS & M-WCAS. However, the relationship between hyponatremia and hipoxia suggests that hyponatremia is likely to increase with the severity of the disease.
Clinicodemographic profile of head neck oncology patients in COVID-19 pandemic: A descriptive study in a tertiary hospital of Eastern Nepal
Authors: Thakur Rishikesh , Thakur Sanjeev
Published: May 2021

Background: Head neck cancer needs early diagnosis and treatment for better outcome. There is lack of oncological awareness in our scenario and which is further masked by COVID-19 pandemic. Further masked by scarce published data from eastern Nepal.
Aims and Objective: Our study aims to fulfil the lacunae and helps in providing head neck oncological clinicodemographic profile that will be useful for oncological awareness and early detection that ultimately willlead proper management leading to good outcome.
Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study performed during the COVID-19 pandemic between 15th March 2020 to 12th February 2021 for the biopsy or cytology proven head neck cancer patients. Demographic profile and clinical parameters were recorded. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS-16 software. Analysis of clinical parameters with subsites was done by Pearson Chi Square test. The p value <0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Fifty-six head neck cancer patients were enrolled as per inclusion criteria. Median age and median duration of clinical presentation were 59.5 years and 3.5 months respectively. Higher prevalence of diseasenoticed in male and higher age group (>60 years). Thyroid cancer was most common site (19.1%) followed by oral cancer (14.3%). Most common presentation was swelling (55.4%) followed by non-healing ulcer (14.3%). Male patients and having history of tobacco/alcohol use had more site specific cancer as evaluated by Pearson chi square test by SPSS-16 with p -value of 0.021 and 0.004 respectively.
Conclusions: Most common subsite is thyroid followed by oral cavity. Swelling is most common clinical presentation. Advancing age, male sex and history of tobacco/alcohol use were risk factors.
Reassessing the population based Seroprevalence for IgG antibodies against SARS COV2 in Ahmedabad
Authors: Prakash Om , Solanki Bhavin , Sheth Jay , Kharadi Ashwin , Kadam Mina , Vyas Sheetal , Shukla Aparajita , Tiwari Hemant
Published: May 2021

Background: Assessing population based seroprevalence can help in monitor the pandemic, and suggest appropriate corrective public health measures.
Aims and Objectives: To study seroprevalence of IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV2 to understand the pandemic status and deriving valid conclusions for guiding the public health measures for managing the covid19 pandemic.
Materials and Methods: A serosurveillance study was carried out using population based stratified sampling for the general population of Ahmedabad city. Seroprevalence for Cases, Contacts and Health Care Workers (HCWs) was also estimated as separate additional categories. The seroprevalence was compared with various demographic factors for valid and precise predictions regarding the immunity status of the population.
Results: As on October 2020, the seroprevalence for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV2 in the general population of Ahmedabad is 24.20% (95% Confidence Interval 23.57%–24.85%) The sero-positivity has increasing trend with age and is higher among females (24.83%) than males (23.72%) but is statistically not significant. The zone wise positivity ranged from 18.70% to 33.52%. The seropositivity among HCWs, contacts and cases are 20.84%, 26.05% and 54.51% respectively and it closely correlate with the risk.
Conclusion: As on October 2020, general population demonstrate a seropositivity of 24.20%. The seropositivity among various groups is according to the risk of contracting the disease. Results also indicate the possibility of undetectable level or disappearing IgG during the post-covid period. Results also indicate that the preventive measures must be strongly followed for continued control of the pandemic situation till an effective vaccine is provided to the people at large.
Evaluation of clinical parameters of patients with Covid-19 pneumonia on admission and medications used for their comorbidities
Authors: Civan Murat , Haciosman Hasan
Published: May 2021

Background: Risk factors and molecular mechanisms of severe respiratory involvement of Covid-19 are investigated more intensely and some doubts about non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors has also emerged.
Aims and Objective: We aimed to detect potential associations between medications taken regularly for comorbid diseases before the diagnosis of Covid-19 pneumonia and demographic or clinical features on admission.
Materials and Methods: Patients diagnosed with pneumonia between March 11th, 2020 and April 15th, 2020 in emergency, internal medicine and cardiology outpatient clinics were recruited and their clinical and demographic features including blood tests, oxygen saturations (SO2) along with degree of lung infiltrations in computed tomography on admission were analyzed in regard to their medications used regularly.
Results: Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inh.) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) users were older than no-ACE inh./ARB group and had significantly lower SO2 on admission, whereas NSAID users with Covid-19 displayed a marked female predominance and lower hemoglobin levels than no-NSAID group. Proton pump inhibitor (PPI) users had also a significant female predominance and older age with lower hemoglobin levels. Lastly, antiaggregant users with Covid-19 had a lower SO2 on admission and overall, cases with regular drug intake were markedly associated with older age.
Conclusion: Noteworthy associations were observed between demographic and clinical features on admission for Covid-19 pneumonia and major drug groups used regularly including RAAS inhibitors, NSAIDs and proton pump inhibitors.
Evaluation of weibull parameter estimators for wind speed of Jumla, Nepal
Authors: Parajuli Ayush
Published: May 2021

Weibull Probability Distribution Function (PDF) is widely used across world for estimation of wind power. Weibull function is a two parameter probability distribution function. The methods employed for the evaluation of these two parameters are critical for the efficient use of Weibull PDF. In the present study, three different Weibull PDF parameter estimators have been evaluated. For this purpose, the daily averaged wind speed data of Jumla Station, Nepal for period of 10 year (2004 – 2014: 2012 excluded) is studied. The parameter estimator evaluated in this study are Method of Moments (MoM), Least Square Error Method (LSEM) and Power Density Method (PDM). It has been found that Method of Moments (MoM) is the best estimator for evaluating Weibull Parameters.
Assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on transportation and its inter-linked sectors of Nepal
Authors: Singh Dipendra Bahadur , Sah Deepak Kumar
Published: May 2021

Nepal being a landlocked country is completely dependent on the roadways and airways for means of transportation however, the railway has not been started in Nepal to date. Transportation is interlinked with mobility and due to lockdown every sector related to mobility has been affected. Consequently, the aviation sector has been worst hit as airlines were prohibited to operate. The aviation industry of Nepal has foreseen significant decadence in the mobility of passengers and cargo (international and domestic) which has affected revenue generation. Similarly, the imposed lockdown has influenced the ongoing nation's pride and the long-term investment projects which have been considered as a milestone in the infrastructural development of Nepal and those projects need to be reprogrammed and reprioritized. Moreover, the sharp decrease in import of petroleum products has decreased the revenue paid to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) which will help to reduce trade loss. The lockdown induced due to COVID-19 has also affected the agricultural sector as the supply chain has been disrupted due to travel restrictions. The overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that the transport and its inter-linked sector contribute has been reduced during lockdown than the preceding years. Identifying the paucity of research in the transportation sector of Nepal this paper is focused on the comprehensive study of the impact of the COVID-19 transportation sector along with its inter-connected areas.