Telemedicine in hematology; long-term implications of a short-term experience during COVID-19 pandemic

Telemedicine is healing at a distance, and it was under-utilized ever since its reintroduction till this COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has moved the field of telemedicine and almost every health specialty has embraced it to provide remote, timely, safe health-care services to their patients from the comfort of their home and prevent undesired exposure to COVID-19 infection. With the reach of smart phones and cheaper internet data, this has reached tier II/III cities and is also making inroads in the rural areas. Telemedicine in hematology is becoming increasingly popular because many of the hematology patients are immunocompromised and are more prone to various infections including COVID-19. It is very beneficial in follow-up visits for benign disorders such as anemia, immune thrombocytopenia as well as certain chronic leukemias such as Myeloproliferative neoplasms and for the patients on oral therapy. Astronaut getting treated on NASA mission from the earth is ultimate telemedicine. COVID-19 pandemic has reinvented telemedicine which is helping not only patients in getting medical advice but also physicians and medical students in attending medical conferences and keep them up to date with advances in their field. After this pandemic end, telemedicine is here to stay along with the age-old personal visit like a hand in gloves.

Enhanced Drug Permeation into Human Keloid Tissues by Sonophoresis-Assisted Microneedling

Keloids are disfiguring pathological scars that could cause pain and pruritus. The conventional treatments, such as bolus injection of drugs or surgery, are invasive and require a personal visit to clinic. Microneedle (MN) technology has great potential to offer a self-administered and minimally invasive treatment of keloids. However, drugs delivered using MNs suffer from limited penetration in keloid tissue. This study demonstrates enhanced drug penetration in human keloid scar tissue by combining MN and sonophoresis.

Travesties

This chapter turns to the comedies of William Wycherley, which have long been taken to epitomize the libertine spirit of Restoration court culture. However, it argues that Wycherley (and others) pushed back against the court. The playwright's close relationship with the monarch enabled this resistance: he enjoyed royal patronage, had an affair with a royal mistress, and even received a personal visit from a concerned Charles II when he fell ill. The connection began before the poet's birth: Wycherley's family lost much of their wealth supporting the Stuarts during the civil wars, which gave William access to the court's inner circle. Such deep connections have often been read to suggest that Restoration plays promoted the aristocratic ideology of the Stuarts. The libertinism in the comedies, Jeremy Webster, Harold Weber, and others have argued, emerged from a libertine court culture, and the scandalous nature of the plays reflected the scandalous experimentation at court. But Wycherley did not include scandalous scenes to create libertine solidarity; instead, he exploited the leeway created by libertine envelope-pushing to critique royal ambitions with two figures that have entered standard theatrical vocabulary: in The Gentleman Dancing-Master (1672), the fop, and in The Country Wife (1675), the provincial girl shocked into sophistication. Wycherley immortalized but did not invent these two figures; in different ways they each come to embody anxieties at the heart of many comedies of the period. The chapter concludes that Wycherley is an outlier for his extremity and wit, but representative in his concerns.

Bariatric tourists. Foreign bariatric patients treated in Poland – a survey based study.

Introduction: Bariatric procedures are becoming more popular worldwide. We present current situation of foreign patients treated by high-volume bariatric surgeons in Poland in 2016. Material and Methods: We sent an online survey to twenty high-volume bariatric surgeons. The questionnaire regarded 2016. We asked for number and types of bariatric procedures performed or supervised, number of foreign bariatric patients, their qualification process, country of origin, types of procedure, and post-op recommendations. Results: We received 9 surveys (45%). Five surgeons performed or supervised from 100 to 300 bariatric procedures, 2 performed or supervised over 300 procedures, 2 performed or supervised from 50 to 100 procedures. All of the respondents performed laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) and laparoscopic gastric bypass (LRYGB), four carried out mini gastric bypass, two – gastric banding (LAGB), one – SADI-S and duodenal switch (DS). Six surgeons operated on the total of 64 foreign patients, mainly performing LSG, LRYGB and mini gastric bypass. Most of the patients were qualified based on international criteria (BMI over 40 kg/m2 or BMI over 35 kg/m2 with comorbidities). United Kingdom was the most popular country of origin, followed by Germany, USA, Ireland and Sweden. Qualification for surgery was based on personal visit. After surgery 83.3% (n=5) of the respondents gave out discharge documents in English, recommending long term bariatric follow-up in the country of origin. Every respondent maintained 3-month personal follow-up of every foreign patient. Conclusions: Foreign bariatric patients travelling to Poland are qualified for surgery according to known international standards. Most of the patients receive post-op discharge documents in English, with a 3-month follow-up performed by their surgeon. Further bariatric supervision in the country of origin is routinely recommended.

Voices from the dead: the uneasy case of indigenous cultural expression

PurposeTraditional cultural expression (TCE) includes music, dance, art, designs, names, signs and symbols, performances, ceremonies, architectural forms, handicrafts and narratives or many other artistic or cultural expressions [World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO)]. To constitute TCEs, the expressions must form part of the identity and heritage of a traditional or indigenous community and need to be passed down from generation to generation (Kuprecht, 2014). This paper aims to analyse the protection of TCE in Malaysia by focusing on the Mah Meri tribe. This paper examines copyright over TCE, recordation as a means of preserving a dying tradition and customary practices and native law. Design/methodology/approachInformation is drawn from personal discussions with the weavers and carvers of the Mah Meri tribe, and a focus group discussion with subject matter experts. As a way of comparison, a personal visit has been made to Sarawak Biodiversity Centre, Sarawak Native Courts, the Dayak Iban Association and Dayak Bidayuh Association. FindingsThe research found that copyright law has no specific provision for the protection of TCEs. Customary practices of the indigenous people and the native law of Sarawak have limited effect outside their traditional domain. Recordation and documentation of TCEs are the prime initiatives, but the documents or the recordings do not carry any legal status. Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited only to the Mah Meri tribe with a comparison drawn to the Dayak Iban and Dayak Bidayuh tribe. Practical implicationsThe research examines the practical implications of copyright and recording and documentation of cultural expression in Malaysia. Social implicationsThe research sets to unearth and highlight the ideation process in a tribal setting and how that clashes with the formal creation setting in a modern intellectual property system. Originality/valueThis paper was presented at the IAITL Congress 2013. It also appeared in the Conference Proceedings edited by Slyvia Kieerkgard, but it has not been published in any journals.

An Examination of the Images of the Sun and the Moon in the Visoki Dečani Monastery in Kosovo

This paper investigates the celestial-religious images in the Visoki Dečani monastery in Kosovo, particularly the tear-shaped paintings with human figures inside located on the left and right side of The Crucifixion of Christ fresco. The aim of this research is to put these images into a cultural and contemporary cosmological context. The images in the fresco that contain human figures have been the subject of controversy in the second part of the last century. A highly speculative popular view was put forward, that the images portrayed extraterrestrials in UFOs. Yet these images have been mostly ignored in academic circles. In this research the images from The Crucifixion fresco were compared with similar frescoes from other Serbian medieval churches and with the philosophical thought of the time. The methodology used was, first, a personal visit and observation of the images, including photos taken by a professional photographer. A comparison of those findings was then made with what had been written about those images in the academic literature. The conclusion is that they present personifications of the Sun and the Moon which could be explained by the synergy of Hellenistic and Christian thought.

Grassroot Innovations on Fishing Rafts in India

Fisheries are entirely a people driven industry and have been growing at an impressive rate. Innovations in fisheries sector are happening continuously that lead to the creation of novel solutions to both common and uncommon problems faced by fishers. Different kinds of fishing boats and rafts are used in fishing which is expensive for poor fishers hence; innovations are a phenomenon in the development of fishing rafts. These innovations are made from locally available materials. Keeping this assertion in mind, a study was conducted with an objective to record the innovations on the development of fishing rafts and to check the appropriateness of these innovations on select parameters. The case of five innovations has been examined and discussed in this paper and confirmed by means of a personal visit. Appropriateness of these innovations was tested on a fivepoint Likert scale. Point 5 being highly appropriate and 1 being least appropriate with innovation considered as appropriate if its score was above 3. Innovations were ranked by respondents (N= 140) who had graduation in Fisheries Sciences and all innovations were found to be appropriate with a score of above 3/5. It was observed that these innovations are contributing to the economic saving of the fishers and they are very effective in daily use and found efficiently contributing to routine work. The government must encourage farmers who are practising innovative methods which are easy to use, sustainable and offer economic incentives for good practices.

Comparing Research Output in Library & Information Science: A Bibliometric Study of Panjab University and Guru Nanak Dev University

The present study focuses on analysis of research output in the discipline of Library and Information Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar till 31 December 2014. The curriculum vitae (CV) and publication details of faculty members of Department of Library and Information Science were obtained by personal visit to universities and bibliographic information on their papers were recorded. The study deals with 152 publications of Panjab University, Chandigarh and 111 publications of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, in the field of Library and Information Science. It examines the Library and Information Science output by different ways like document type, authorship pattern, and degree of collaboration. The study also examines the relative growth rate of publications and doubling time for publications.