Evaluation of Pathogens Causing Urinary Tract Infection and Their Sensitivity Pattern

Background: UTI constitute a major public health problem in India accounting 2nd most common infection next to respiratory tract infection. They are responsible for increasing treatment cost and significant morbidity.Aim:-To determine the incidence of UTI, evaluation of pathogens responsible and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern in the population.Methods:Urine samples were collected from 300 patients attending the OPD Patna medical college, Patna during the period of 18 months (January 2017 to June 2018) Antimicrobial sensitivity testing was done for the bacterial isolates present in the sample by Kirby- Bauer disc diffusion method. Only those samples were taken into consideration which develops count equal to or greater than 1*105CFU/ml as indicated by Kass.Results:Out of 300 samples collected 146 (48.66%)) yielded bacterial growth. Out of 146 culture isolates E.Coli was the most common pathogen followed by klebsiella, CoNS and staphylococcus. Antibiotic sensitivity was performed on all the isolates. It was observed that highest sensitivity was 49.31% to amikacin, gentamycin (45.89%), nitrofurantoin (38.35%) meropenem (27.39%).Conclusions:It was observed that high grade of resistance to ampicillin, cotrimoxazole, ciprofloxacin, cefuroxime, chloramphenicol, cefotaxime, cefazolin, amoxicillin + clavulanic acid and gentamycin is present as a result of misuse or improper use of antibiotic in the community. Hence urine culture is necessary for the diagnostic screening of UTI before the treatment.

APPLICATIONS OF ITEM RESPONSE THEORY MODELS TO ASSESS ITEM PROPERTIES AND STUDENTS’ ABILITIES IN DICHOTOMOUS RESPONSES ITEMS

A test is a tool meant to measure the ability level of the students, and how well they can recall the subject matter, but items making up a test may be defectives, and thereby unable to measure students’ ability or traits satisfactorily as intended if proper attention is not paid to item properties such as difficulty, discrimination, and pseudo guessing indices (power) of each item. This could be remedied by item analysis and moderation. It is a known fact that the absence or improper use of item analysis could undermine the integrity of assessment, certification and placement in our educational institutions. Both appropriateness and spread of items properties in accessing students’ abilities distribution, and the adequacy of information provided by dichotomous response items in a compulsory university undergraduate statistics course which was scored dichotomously, and analyzed with stata 16 SE on window 7 were focused here. In view of this, three dichotomous Item Response Theory (IRT) measurement models were used in the context of their potential usefulness in an education setting such as in determining these items properties. Ability, item discrimination, difficulty, and guessing parameters as unobservable characteristics were quantified with a binary response test, then discrete item response becomes an observable outcome variable which is associated with student’s ability level is thereby linked by Item Characteristic Curves that is defined by a set of item parameters that models the probability of observing a given item response by conditioning on a specific ability level. These models were used to assess each of the three items properties together with students’ abilities; then identified defective items that were needed to be discarded, moderated, and non-defectives items as the case may be while some of these chosen items were discussed based on underlining models. Finally, the information provided by these items was also discussed.

Literature review: The Effect of Using Non-Herbal Panty Liners on Abnormal Vaginal Discharge in Adolescent Girls

Teenagers are very vulnerable to experiencing problems such as vaginal discharge and because of that teenage girls often wear panty liners outside of their menstrual period. Improper use of panty liners will make vaginal discharge abnormal. Therefore, this literature review aims to find out how to use non-herbal panty liners so that they can cause abnormal vaginal discharge. This research usesliterature review with data sources from the PubMed, Research Gate, and Google Scholar databases with a range of 2018-2021. The results of this literature review contained 4 journals which stated that the effect of using panty liners could cause vaginal discharge but under normal conditions and 4 journals also stated that abnormal vaginal discharge was caused by panty liners. It can be concluded that abnormal vaginal discharge is caused by a different way of using panty liners and the lack of information about using panty liners properly.

Role of parents, teachers at home and school in prevention of female sexual abuse: an analysis

Background: Sexual assault is an act performed by one person on another without the person’s consent or on a victim who is incapable of giving consent. The purpose of this article is to analyze the female sexual assault cases reported in one year –and the role of parents, teachers, at home and school in prevention of child sexual abuse.Methods: Data of victims who were admitted in GDMCH in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology in the year 2020 were collected from the medico legal register retrospectively and analyzed.Results: Age wise distribution showed 70% of cases were in the age group 15-19 years. 57% of assaults were with consent and 43% without consent. 93% of the perpetrators were known to the victim. Around 48% of the assaults were multiple episodes by a single perpetrator. The place of assault in 39% of cases was perpetrator’s house, 35% was in friend’s or relative’s house.Conclusions: 86% of the victims were <19 years of age, hence, educational awareness services are to be given to high school students and teachers .School authorities and teachers should implement strict vigilance against improper use of the internet and mobile phones by the students. Most common location of assault was the perpetrator's house (39%), followed by their friend’s house (22%). Hence parents should take every care to watch over the child and never leave them unsupervised.

STUDY OF THE QUALIT Y OF PHARMACEUTICAL INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OFTHE PROPER USE OF ANTI-ASTHMATIC DRUGS

RELEVANCE. Bronchial asthma, along with cardiovascular and oncological diseases, is one of the three most common chronic non- communicable diseases. For the most part, anti-asthmatic drugs (LP) are presented in the form of aerosols, powders, solutions for inhalation and other dosage forms intended for administration directly into the human respiratory tract. It is obvious that misunderstanding of the method of application and / or insufficient effectiveness of LP due to improper use can lead to a decrease in patients’ adherence to the prescribed therapy. In this regard, the availability of pharmaceutical information in the instructions becomes important, i.e. the more accessible the information in the instructions is to the patient, the higher the probability of proper use of the drug, maintaining patient compliance and preserving the patient’s quality of life. PURPOSE. The aim of the study was to analyze the completeness of pharmaceutical information provided in the instructions for the medical use of anti-asthmatic drugs (LP) and on the websites of manufacturing companies, from the standpoint of patients’ compliance with the rules for the use of LP. The main objectives of the analysis were: identification of the proportion of anti- asthmatic drugs that have a detailed scheme of use in the instructions; analysis of the instructions of anti-asthmatic drugs from the position of having indications of additional features of the use / use of drugs; analysis of instructions for anti-asthmatic drugs, the use of which is possible for groups of patients with physical or cognitive disabilities; identification of the share of companies producing anti-asthmatic drugs that support patients by conducting a specialized consulting service on the use of drugs. METHODS. The assessment of the quality of pharmaceutical information for patients was carried out on the basis of an analysis of 165 instructions for the medical use of pharmacotherapeutic groups of drugs designated in GINA-2021 (Global Initiative for Asthma-2021) and Federal Clinical Guidelines for the Treatment of Bronchial Asthma of the Russian Respiratory Society (2019) as anti-asthmatic drugs. The analysis was also carried out in relation to the information content of the websites of anti-asthmatic LP manufacturers, additionally, by creating a direct search query, the presence of a private page on the Internet for specific LP was determined. In the course of the research, methods of logical, comparative analysis, as well as generalization and grouping were used. To process the results obtained, the Excel computer program of the Microsoft Office 10 package was used. RESULTS. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the vast majority of anti-asthmatic drugs of all the studied pharmacotherapeutic groups are intended for administration directly into the respiratory tract, the article presents the results of a study on the ratio of inhaled and non-inhaled dosage forms in the context of the analyzed pharmacotherapeutic groups. The article presents data on the proportion of anti-asthmatic drugs that have a detailed description in the instructions in addition to the standard method of application (figure, diagram, pictogram) the method of introduction / use of LP. The fact of the absence of a detailed method of application in the instructions of various pharmacotherapeutic groups has been established. The results of the analysis of the number of instructions with the additional properties of LP indicated in them, allowing the use of LP data in patients with physical or cognitive characteristics (limitations), are presented. The number of companies producing anti-asthmatic drugs that have posted detailed information for consumers regarding the use of these drugs on their websites, as well as the number of drugs that have their own website, has been revealed. CONCLUSION. The information in the instructions for the medical use of anti-asthmatic drugs and on the official websites of the manufacturing companies (holders of registration certificates) of the studied drugs is not always exhaustive in terms of the use of inhaled dosage forms, which does not fully ensure the safe and effective receipt of anti-asthmatic pharmacotherapy. According to the authors, improving the quality of information for patients about the rules of using drugs for the treatment of bronchial asthma will simplify the use of dosage forms specific for its therapy, increase patients’ adherence to prescribed pharmacotherapy, reduce the risks from insufficient effectiveness of anti-asthmatic pharmacotherapy and preserve the quality of life of patients associated with the disease.

Reduced Susceptibility and Increased Resistance of Bacteria against Disinfectants: A Systematic Review

Disinfectants are used to reduce the concentration of pathogenic microorganisms to a safe level and help to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. However, bacteria have a tremendous ability to respond to chemical stress caused by biocides, where overuse and improper use of disinfectants can be reflected in a reduced susceptibility of microorganisms. This review aims to describe whether mutations and thus decreased susceptibility to disinfectants occur in bacteria during disinfectant exposure. A systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted with the databases PubMed, Science Direct and Web of Science. For the final analysis, 28 sources that remained of interest were included. Articles describing reduced susceptibility or the resistance of bacteria against seven different disinfectants were identified. The important deviation of the minimum inhibitory concentration was observed in multiple studies for disinfectants based on triclosan and chlorhexidine. A reduced susceptibility to disinfectants and potentially related problems with antibiotic resistance in clinically important bacterial strains are increasing. Since the use of disinfectants in the community is rising, it is clear that reasonable use of available and effective disinfectants is needed. It is necessary to develop and adopt strategies to control disinfectant resistance.

Sensitivity Analysis and Power Systems: Can We Bridge the Gap? A Review and a Guide to Getting Started

Power systems are increasingly affected by various sources of uncertainty at all levels. The investigation of their effects thus becomes a critical challenge for their design and operation. Sensitivity Analysis (SA) can be instrumental for understanding the origins of system uncertainty, hence allowing for a robust and informed decision-making process under uncertainty. The SA value as a support tool for model-based inference is acknowledged; however, its potential is not fully realized yet within the power system community. This is due to an improper use of long-established SA practices, which sometimes prevent an in-depth model sensitivity investigation, as well as to partial communication between the SA community and the final users, ultimately hindering non-specialists’ awareness of the existence of effective strategies to tackle their own research questions. This paper aims at bridging the gap between SA and power systems via a threefold contribution: (i) a bibliometric study of the state-of-the-art SA to identify common practices in the power system modeling community; (ii) a getting started overview of the most widespread SA methods to support the SA user in the selection of the fittest SA method for a given power system application; (iii) a user-oriented general workflow to illustrate the implementation of SA best practices via a simple technical example.

Escherichia coli antimicrobial resistance; Phenotypic and genotypic characterization

Improper use of the antimicrobials as E. coli giving the microorganism multi-resistance against many antimicrobials by gene mutation on integrons, transposons and plasmids. Therefore, our aim in this study is to 1)examine antibiotics resistance phenotype and genotype in Escherichia coli, 2) identifying the structure of bacterial resistance genes on whole-genome sequencing against multi-drug resistant of Escherichia coli in marketed poultry meat. Samples collected, prepared and Bacteriological examination, Antimicrobial sensitivity test performed, Serological identification of Escherichia coli isolates. Results declared that; the prevalence of E. coli from tested chicken meat samples of 100 chicken meat samples surveyed against E. coli the result declared that about 40%. Antimicrobial susceptibility was; antibiotics of choice against E. coli Sulfonamides, Cephalosporins,Tetracyclines, Quinolones. Serologically, STEC (O157:H7) 30%, ETEC (O142) 10%, EHEC (O26:H11). The subunit B of shiga-like toxin (SLT) gene appeared as a homogenous band. Heat-labile toxin (LT) gene was screened in both genomic DNA and plasmid preps in tested strains. Control STEC as it represents a danger to the poultry consumers. We recommended to increase the hygienic measures during slaughtering, processing and/or handling of chicken carcasses and avoidance unnecessary usage of any antimicrobials to avoid appearance of new antimicrobials resistant.

Assessing effective mask use by the public in two countries: an observational study

ObjectivesDuring the COVID-19 pandemic wearing a mask in public has been recommended in some settings and mandated in others. How often this advice is followed, how well, and whether it inadvertently leads to more disease transmission opportunities due to a combination of improper use and physical distancing lapses is unknown.DesignCross-sectional observational study performed in June–August 2020.SettingEleven outdoor and indoor public settings (some with mandated mask use, some without) each in Toronto, Ontario, and in Portland, Oregon.ParticipantsAll passers-by in the study settings.Outcome measuresMask use, incorrect mask use, and number of breaches (ie, coming within 2 m of someone else where both parties were not properly masked).ResultsWe observed 36 808 persons, the majority of whom were estimated to be aged 31–65 years (49%). Two-thirds (66.7%) were wearing a mask and 13.6% of mask-wearers wore them incorrectly. Mandatory mask-use settings were overwhelmingly associated with mask use (adjusted OR 79.2; 95% CI 47.4 to 135.1). Younger age, male sex, Torontonians, and public transit or airport settings (vs in a store) were associated with lower adjusted odds of wearing a mask. Mandatory mask-use settings were associated with lower adjusted odds of mask error (OR 0.30; 95% CI 0.14 to 0.73), along with female sex and Portland subjects. Subjects aged 81+ years (vs 31–65 years) and those on public transit and at the airport (vs stores) had higher odds of mask errors. Mask-wearers had a large reduction in adjusted mean number of breaches (rate ratio (RR) 0.19; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.20). The 81+ age group had the largest association with breaches (RR 7.77; 95% CI 5.32 to 11.34).ConclusionsMandatory mask use was associated with a large increase in mask-wearing. Despite 14% of them wearing their masks incorrectly, mask users had a large reduction in the mean number of breaches (disease transmission opportunities). The elderly and transit users may warrant public health interventions aimed at improving mask use.

Risks to the National Security Generated By the Widespread Use of Cryptocurrency

The pronounced multi-domain technologicalization specific to the last decades has had a significant impact on all areas of activity, including the financial one. The use of cyberspace to facilitate the actions undertaken in the monetary activity has generated the development of this field to the point where virtual currencies have been created and new technologies have been developed to support their use. Like any emerging domain, the cryptocurrency field and the related technology are in a relatively early stage and exclusively imply operating in cyberspace, thus generating security risks in the event of the involvement of malicious entities in illicit activities. In this context, it is worth analyzing how the improper use of the crypto domain can lead to various risks to national security.