Study of the sensitivity and specificity of smell and taste disorders as a predictive factor of SARS-CoV-2 infection among primary care healthcare professionals

Backgroundamong the manifestations of COVID-19 are Taste and Smell Disorders (TSDs).AimThe aim of the study is to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of TSDs and other associated symptoms to estimate predictive values for determining SARS-CoV-2 infection.Design and settingRetrospective observational study.Methodsa study of the sensitivity and specificity of TSDs has been carried out using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 as the Gold Standard value. Logistic regressions adjusted for age and sex were performed to identify additional symptoms that might be associated with COVID-19.Resultsthe results are based on 226 healthcare workers with clinical symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, 116 with positive PCR and 111 with negative PCR. TSDs had an OR of 12.43 (CI 0.95 6.33–26.19), sensitivity 60.34% and specificity 89.09%. In the logistic regression model, the association of TSD, fever or low-grade fever, shivering, dyspnoea, arthralgia and myalgia obtained an area under the curve of 85.7% (CI 0.95: 80.7 % - 90.7 %), sensitivity 82.8 %, specificity 80% and positive predictive values 81.4% and negative 81.5%.ConclusionsTSDs are a strong predictor of COVID-19. The association of TSD, fever, low-grade fever or shivering, dyspnoea, arthralgia and myalgia correctly predicts 85.7% of the results of the COVID-19 test.

A Rudimentary X band CW-EPR Spectrometer Based on FPGA

A rudimentary Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectrometer is design using a field programmable gate array (FPGA) equipped with two digital-to-analog (DAC) and two analog-to-digital (ADC) channels. The single stage heterodyne setup operates at X band frequencies and is used to detect EPR signals from 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) in a loop-gap resonator. We design the loop gap resonator with 3 loops 2 gaps for high field homogeneity and moderate Q-factor. The resonator is coupled capacitively to the coaxial cable and is designed to have an unloaded resonant frequency of 8.856 GHz with a Q-factor of 646.0 when critically coupled. The loaded resonant frequency is reported to be 8.668 GHz with a Q-factor of 615.8. Using this setup, EPR signal is successfully detected at 311.4 mT and 8.688 GHz with an experimental g-factor of 1.99450.0012, which is very near to the standard value for DPPH.

Association between occupational testicular radiation exposure and lower male sex ratio of offspring among orthopedic surgeons

Background Exposure to occupational radiation can lower the male sex ratio. However, specific radiation exposure to the testes has not been evaluated. Objective This study aimed to examine the association between testicular radiation exposure and lower male sex ratio in children. Methods A comprehensive questionnaire survey was administered to 62 full-time male doctors with children aged < 10 years at 5 hospitals. Based on the possibility of testicular radiation exposure 1 year before the child’s birth, participants were assigned to 3 groups as follows: RT (orthopedic surgery), RNT (cardiology/neurosurgery), and N (others). Intergroup differences in the proportion of female children were ascertained, and the female sex ratio (number of female/total number) of each group was compared against the standard value of 0.486. Multivariate logistic regression analysis with a generalized estimating equation was used to model the effects on the probability of female birth while controlling for the correlation among the same fathers. Results The study population included 62 fathers and 109 children, 49 were female: 19/27, 11/30, and 19/52 in the RT, RNT, and N group, respectively; the RT group had the highest proportion of females (p = 0.009). The p values for comparisons with the standard sex ratio (0.486) were 0.02, 0.19, and 0.08 for the RT, RNT, and N groups, respectively. Based on the N group, the adjusted odds ratios for the child to be female were 4.40 (95% confidence interval 1.60–2.48) and 1.03 (0.40–2.61) for the RT and RNT groups, respectively. Conclusions Our results imply an association between testicular radiation exposure and low male sex ratio of offspring. Confirmatory evidence is needed from larger studies which measure the pre-conceptional doses accumulated in various temporal periods, separating out spermatogonial and spermatid effects.

PENGUATAN KOMPETENSI PENGELOLA PERPUSTAKAAN MADRASAH DAN SEKOLAH MELALUI DIKLAT BERKESINAMBUNGAN

Education and training for madrasah and school library managers in the city of Padang to manage existinglibraries should have an educational background in Library Science. In fact, the head of the library is ateacher in the field of study and the library manager is still honorary. Lack of attention from the leadershipso that library managers are not creative because there is no continuous education and training. Thequestionnaire was distributed by the service team to 74 schools and madrasahs in the city of Padang andonly 30 returned questionnaires, where the average school library accreditation score was very low andbelow the standard value of accreditation issued by the Jakarta National Library. This research-basedservice method is Participation Action Research (PAR) which involves parties from the Head of the WestSumatra Provincial Education Office, West Sumatra Provincial Archives and Libraries, the Head of theMinistry of Religion of Padang City is invited as a speaker. From the results of the education and trainingactivities, it is not clear that the policies that will be carried out by leaders and decision makers to advancethe library in a better direction.

Design and Development of a Power Quality Based Digital Energy Meter

In power distribution systems of many countries, service lines are directly connected to the consumer meters without any load management system. Conventional meters lack in internal power quality measurement, and utility also cannot measure the power factor and other values during the month. This study aims to design a smart kit that aids conventional single-phase energy meters and calculates the power values of all phases by measuring the voltage, current, and power factor on the load side; and the calculated power values will be sent to the cloud data base Voltage and current are measured by a current transformer (CT) and a potential transformer (PT) connected on both the incoming side and the load side in order to avoid meter bypassing. A program-based algorithm has also been developed to calculate the power factor and other power quantities. This IoT-based energy meter uploads the measured quantities to an online database, and the same are also displayed on an LCD meter. An Android™-based application is also developed for user-end control. Consumers can observe the resultant values, switch loads remotely, and pay electricity bills through the same application. When the power factor of any consumer is less than the standard value, the system will automatically notify utility company about the affecting load.

UTILIZATION RATE OF DENTAL SERVICES IN THE ERA OF NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE IN PRATAMA CLINIC, CITY OF JEPARA

ABSTRACTBackground: The utilization rate is the use of dental and oral health which can be calculated using the number of National Healthcare Security (BPJS) patients per month compared to the number of BPJS participants multiplied by 100%Method: This study was an observational study used cross sectiona design and nominal data scale that produced quantitative data which was carried out by analysing the Pcare data started from March-August 2019 in eight primary clinics of Jepara City and District. Before conducted the study, Ethics Review No.098 / b.1-KEPK / SA-FKG / VII / 2019 was done.Result: The results of the utilization rate study based on the visit rates, Armina Pratama Clinic was 1.585%, Multisari II Pratama Clinic was 0.665%, Sentra Husada Pratama Clinic was 0.68%, Jepara General Pratama Clinic was 2.329%, Yasmin Medika Pratama Clinic was 2.173%, Hanis Pratama Clinic was 0.752%, Az-Zahra pratama clinic 2.945%, and Armina Denta pratama clinic was 1.885%.Conclusion: In conclusion, the utilization rate based on pratama clinic visits in the city and the regency of Jepara was still in the low to the ideal category. Meanwhile, the utilization rate based on the referral numbers of pratama clinic in the city and the regency of Jepara was far from the standard value

A Sub-6 GHz MIMO Antenna Array for 5G Wireless Terminals

This paper presents a novel antenna with its array and MIMO configuration for the 5G sub-6 GHz applications. The proposed antenna element operates at the central frequency of 5.57 GHz dedicated for Sub-6 GHz 5G communication applications. The antenna element holds a circular-shaped radiating portion with an inner-circular slot, plus a rectangular slot at its right edge to make the proposed design resonate at the desired frequency band. The RT5880 substrate is used with a thickness of 0.787 mm, and the low-loss tangent of 0.0009. To achieve a desired gain of 12 dB, a four-element array configuration is adopted, which improved a bore side gain to 12.4 dB from 6.66 dB. Then, the two-port configuration is adopted such that the isolation achieved between them is more than −30 dB. The total efficiency of the proposed antenna array is observed to be more than 80% within the operating bandwidth. Moreover, the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) analysis is also presented for the proposed MIMO configuration, obeying the standard value (i.e., <2 W/kg for any 10 g of tissue). The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated results. All the simulations of the proposed design are performed in the CST MWS software.

Transactional Analysis Shows Child Factor Would be Influential Egogram for Late Teenager

Background: Transactional Analysis (TA) and egogram have been in focus for medical and educational fields. There has been a reliable personality battery, Tokyo University Egogram (TEG). Recent topic includes TEG new version 3 for clinical introduction. Using TEG ver.3, university students were investigated for their egogram pattern. Subjects & Methods: Subjects were 99 late teenagers. They were given lectures of TEG and their data was analyzed three months after the admission of the university. Results: TEG ver3 presents 33 egogram types which are related to the personality of Japanese people. Among them, there were four higher prevalence of egogram types, which were Free Child (FC) dominant, Adapted Child (AC) dominant, Critical Parent (CP) inferior and Child (C) Dominant. The percentage datum of current study vs previous standard value in each type was 10 vs 6.8%, 26 vs 6.1%, 8 vs 2.1% 9 vs 1.1%, respectively. Discussion & Conclusion: These four types are estimated as free-spirit, dependent, loose and selfishness. Elevated FC and AC would be probably due to the influence of educational and social environment in Japan. Among them, high school students must study hard for entrance exams without meaningful social experiences. Further investigation will be required for TEG.

Comparison of Modeling SPARC spiral galaxies’ rotation curves: halo models vs. MOND

The tension between luminous matter and dynamical matter has long been an interesting and controversial topic in the investigation of galaxies. This is particularly true when we study spiral galaxies for which we have high quality observations of rotation curves. The solutions to the tension are proposed in two different approaches, one is the dark matter hypothesis and the other is MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) theory. When we test the solutions by using observational data of rotation curves, the controversy arises when we apply them to both low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies and high surface brightness (HSB) galaxies. Usually one likes to use the rotation curves of LSB galaxies, since dark matter is needed or the Newtonian acceleration falls below the characteristic acceleration a 0 in most regions of such galaxies, even near their centers. But for HSB galaxies, dark matter is needed or Newtonian acceleration falls below the characteristic acceleration a 0 only in their outer regions so it is helpful to single out HSB galaxies from some large sample to test the solutions. To this end, we employ a sub-sample of the rotation curves consisting of 45 non-bulgy HSB galaxies selected from the Spitzer Photometry and Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) database to test two dark halo models (NFW and Burkert) and MOND. We find that, among the three models, the core-dominated Burkert halo model ( χ ν 2 = 1.00 ) provides a better description of the observed data than the NFW model ( χ ν 2 = 1.44 ) or MOND model ( χ ν 2 = 1.87 ). This is not consistent with the most recent numerical simulations, which tend to favor some cuspy density profiles for HSB galaxies. For MOND, when we take a 0 as a free parameter, there is no obvious correlation between a 0 and disk central surface brightness at 3.6 μm of these HSB spiral galaxies, which is in line with the basic assumption of MOND that a 0 should be a universal constant, but is surprisingly not consistent with the results when LSB galaxies are included. Furthermore, our fittings give a 0 an average value of (0.74 ±0.45) ×10−8 cm s−2, which only marginally supports the standard value of a 0 (1.21 ×10−8 cm s−2). Since the standard value of a 0 is strongly supported when both HSB and LSB galaxies are included in the large SPARC sample, we conclude that our slightly smaller value of a 0 cannot be explained by the so called external field effect in MOND theory.

Physicochemical and microbiological evaluation of surface water quality of aquaculture ponds Located in Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Aquaculture is one of the most vital sectors in Bangladesh as it exhibits a major role in nutrition, livelihoods and foreign exchange incomes/earnings every year. However, due to chemical impurities, infectious diseases caused by microorganisms, heavy metal accumulation, and aquaculture in Bangladesh is gradually declining and posing serious health risks. In Savar, which is one of the major industrial zones in Bangladesh, all industrial sewage and wastes severely deteriorate the water quality of the ponds, rivers, lakes and various waterways that are involved in aquaculture/fish culture. Hence, to determine the water quality by assessing different physicochemical and microbiological parameters, water samples were collected from five selected ponds located in Atomic Energy Research Establishment premises, Savar, Dhaka and analyzed according to the standard procedures. The obtained values of temperature, pH, Salinity, TDS, TA, EC, TH, Chloride content, Free CO2, DO, Nitrate and Sulfate were compared with the recommended values of Bangladesh and WHO standard for suitable water quality. Most of the physicochemical parameters exceeded the Standard value. Total Viable Count, Total Coliform and Fecal Coliform Count were also found to be higher than the standard value of WHO indicating fecal contamination of the pond water. Some fish pathogens were also isolated from the ponds. Water quality index (WQI) was calculated for five sampling sites to determine the level of pollution. It was observed that the water quality of the all the ponds reached to critical point of pollution. It is therefore, a high time to take initiatives to save the ponds that are involved in aquaculture from further pollution. The results revealed that the pond waters of five different sites were excessively polluted and unsuitable for fish culture.