No abstract

Objective To study the clinical profile and outcome of children with MIS-C treated with methylprednisolone pulse therapy and/or intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). Method This prospective observational study included children satisfying CDC MIS-C criteria admitted from September to November, 2020. Primary outcome was persistence of fever beyond 36 hours after start of immunomodulation therapy. Secondary outcomes included duration of ICU stay, mortality, need for repeat immunomodulation, time to normalization of CRP and persistence of coronary abnormalities at 2 weeks. Results Study population included 32 patients with MIS-C with median (IQR) age of 7.5 (5–9.5) years. The proportion of children with gastrointestinal symptoms was 27 (84%), cardiac was 29 (91%) and coronary artery dilatation was 11 (34%). Pulse methylprednisolone and intravenous immunoglobulin were used as first line therapy in 26 (81%), and 6 (19%) patients, respec-tively. Treatment failure was observed in 2/26 patients in methylprednisolone group and 2/6 patients in IVIG group. C-reactive protein levels less than 60mg/L by day 3 was seen in 17(74%) in methylprednisolone group and 2 (25%) in IVIG group ( P =0.014). There was no mortality. At 2 weeks follow-up coronary artery dilatation persisted in 4 in methylprednisolone group and 1 in IVIG group. Conclusion In patients with SARS-CoV-2 related MIS-C, methylprednisolone pulse therapy was associated with favorable short-term outcomes.

Waste produced from medical facilities systems incorporates a blend of dangerous waste which can posture dangers to humans and ecological receptors. Lacking administration of healthcare waste can prompt hazard to medicinal service specialists, patients, public health, communities and the wider environment. Hence, proper management of healthcare waste is imperative to reduce the associated health and environment risk. In this paper, we extend the MULTIMOORA decision making method with intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy set to evaluate the healthcare waste treatment methods. Intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy set is a generalized form of a hesitant fuzzy set. Intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy set considers the uncertainty of data in a single framework and take more information into account. The MULTIMOORA method consists of three parts namely the ratio system, reference point approach and the full multiplicative form. In the optimal ranking methods, the IHF-MULTIMOORA method is uncomplicated it is able to be used practically with high dimension intuitionistic hesitant fuzzy sets. For pathological, pharmaceutical, sharp, solid and chemical wastes, the preferred waste disposal methods are deep burial, incineration, autoclave, deep burial, and chemical disinfection, respectively.

India imposed a nationwide lockdown from 25th March 2020 onwards to combat the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. To model the spread of a disease and to predict its future course, epidemiologists make use of compartmental models such as the model. In order to address some of the assumptions of the standard model, a new modified version of model is proposed in this paper that takes into account the percentage of infected individuals who are tested and quarantined. This approach helps overcome the assumption of homogenous mixing of population which is inherent to the conventional model. Using the available data of the number of COVID-19 positive cases reported in the state of Kerala, and in India till 26th April, 2020 and 12th May 2020, respectively, the parameter estimation problem is converted into an optimization problem with the help of a least squared cost function. The optimization problem is then solved using differential evolution optimizer. The impact of lockdown is quantified by comparing the rising trend in infections before and during the lockdown. Using the estimated set of parameters, the model predicts that in the state of Kerala, by using certain interventions the pandemic can be successfully controlled latest by the first week of July, whereas the value for India is still greater than 1, and hence lifting of lockdown from all regions of the country is not advisable.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are predicted to be the most dynamic growth sector of the world aerospace market this decade. This technology is swiftly strengthening its presence in multiple fields of human life. In the global aerospace industry, UAVs have become an essential means of securing growth and competitiveness. The investment in UAVs is estimated at billions of dollars in developed countries. However, despite the rapid growth of UAVs, few studies have classified UAV technologies into detailed technologies, or analyzed the technology development trends of UAVs. We used the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) method of topic modeling and network analysis to analyze the technological trends and technological portfolio of UAVs. The UAV patents were collected from the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service. Analyzing the results shows that the most popular topics are communication technology (34.1%), power supply (19.5%) and navigation system (17.6%). The technological portfolio of a UAV is constituted of three groups: control system, operation system and device. This study is expected to be guidelines for developers and policy-makers on UAVs.