Big Data Analytics in Education: Insights for Improved Learning Outcomes via ICT

The integration of Big Data Analytics (BDA) in education has transformed traditional teaching and learning approaches, offering significant potential to enhance student learning outcomes. This paper explores the role of BDA in the educational sector, focusing on its applications through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). With the increasing availability of digital data, BDA provides educators, administrators, and policymakers with the tools to make data-driven decisions that promote personalized learning, optimize educational processes, and predict student performance. The paper outlines how BDA enables institutions to analyze vast amounts of student data, such as academic performance, engagement patterns, and learning behaviors, to identify trends, challenges, and areas for improvement. Furthermore, the review highlights the transformative impact of BDA in curriculum design, student support services, and resource allocation, ensuring a more tailored educational experience. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges of implementing BDA in educational settings, including data privacy concerns, resource constraints, and the need for skilled professionals to analyze and interpret data effectively. It also presents case studies of institutions that have successfully leveraged BDA for enhancing educational practices, demonstrating its practical applications in improving learning outcomes. By examining current trends and future prospects, this paper contributes valuable insights into how BDA, when integrated with ICT, can foster a more efficient, inclusive, and personalized learning environment. In conclusion, while the adoption of BDA in education faces several barriers, its potential to revolutionize learning and teaching practices is undeniable, paving the way for more data-driven, student-centered educational models globally

(R1954) Fractional Order on Modeling the Transmission of Devastative COVID-19 Infection: Efficacy of Vaccination

The second wave of COVID-19 is an unprecedented condition in India and began in mid February 2021. Individuals who were already suffering from other comorbidities were found with lung infection, and hence, the number of disease induced deaths were rising faster during the second wave in relation to the first wave. This paper has proposed a mathematical model with fractional order derivatives by correlating the model based number of infectives with the real number of infectives in India. For the system of fractional differential equations, a disease-free state has been computed and proved to be locally asymptotically stable with certain restrictions. The mathematical model has been numerically simulated using the predictor-corrector method to highlight the role played by fractional order in controlling the disease spread. Numerical simulations signify the fact that a vital role has been played by fractional order model over integer order model in determining the transmission of COVID-19. It can be visualized that the increment rate in the infectives is lower by taking into consideration the memory effect due to a previous exposure to COVID-19

Can it be tuberculosis? A case series of atypical presentation of pulmonary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major health concern. It is a contagious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The disease can present in almost all sites-pulmonary and extrapulmonary. We always consider TB in our differentials. The commoner presentations are picked up early and treatment started promptly.  However, when the presentation is atypical, diagnostic delays influence outcomes. We report six cases of pulmonary TB with varied radiological presentations. The findings include interstitial lung disease (ILD), malignancy, pulmonary infarction, tracheal thickening. All cases were diagnosed as TB after thorough invasive investigations, and successfully treated with anti-tubercular medication. Clinicians should be aware of atypical presentations of TB to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment

FPGAN-Control: A Controllable Fingerprint Generator for Training with Synthetic Data

Training fingerprint recognition models using synthetic data has recently gained increased attention in the biometric community as it alleviates the dependency on sensitive personal data. Existing approaches for fingerprint generation are limited in their ability to generate diverse impressions of the same finger, a key property for providing effective data for training recognition models. To address this gap, we present FPGAN-Control, an identity preserving image generation framework which enables control over the fingerprint's image appearance (e.g., fingerprint type, acquisition device, pressure level) of generated fingerprints. We introduce a novel appearance loss that encourages disentanglement between the fingerprint's identity and appearance properties. In our experiments, we used the publicly available NIST SD302 (N2N) dataset for training the FPGAN-Control model. We demonstrate the merits of FPGAN-Control, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in terms of identity preservation level, degree of appearance control, and low synthetic-to-real domain gap. Finally, training recognition models using only synthetic datasets generated by FPGAN-Control lead to recognition accuracies that are on par or even surpass models trained using real data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to demonstrate this

Hospital acquired acute renal failure

Background: Acute renal failure has continued to attract interest and stimulate investigators .This is in part, a reflection of many clinical entities that can result in an acute renal failure. HAARF is an important cause of morbidity and mortality and is associated with the ten fold increase in the risk of death during the hospitalization.14 Despite advances in diagnosis and management it still carries a high mortality. HAARF is associated with grave consequences. Some of the clinical setting leading to HAARF can be limited by monitoring of renal function, better control of infection, avoiding nephrotoxic drugs and initiation of therapy at the earliest. Present study is proposed to evaluate the incidence, etiological factors and measures to reduce the incidence of HAARF.Methods:All patients were admitted to RPGMC from Dec. 2010 to APRIL 2014. They were screened for the development of the ARF during their hospital stay. The parameters of Prakash et al. were taken for the diagnosis of HAARF.  Results:In our present study HAARF was diagnosed in 88 patients of 56904 admission during 40 month period, representing 0.15% of the admission. Predisposing factors were present in 64 % of the patients. They were elderly age >60 years (22.72%), DM (13.64%), pre-existing renal disease (13.64%) and HTN (4.54%). It was due to nephrotoxic dugs in 45.45%, decreased renal perfusion in 22.72%, infections in 13.64%, hepatorenal syndrome 9.09% surgery in 4.54% and Weil’s disease in 4.54 %. Among the nephrotoxic drugs antibiotics were the most common and NSAIDs were the second most common etiological factors. Decrease renal perfusion secondary to volume depletion and heart failure were equally responsible for HAARF in 9.09% each. Septicemia was responsible for 4.54% of cases. Oliguric renal failure was seen in the 31.82% where as nonoliguric renal failure was seen in 50% of cases. Great majority of non oliguric renal failure was due to nephrotoxic drugs. Oliguric patients have longer duration of hospital stay and high mortality as compared to the non oliguric renal failure. A high s. creatinine and high urea levels at the time of admission were associated with the earlier development of HAARF. Oliguria and anuric patients had a longer duration of hospital stay. Overall mortality of HAARF was 18.18% and nephrotoxic drugs responsible for one half of the total mortality.Conclusion:High risk group patients for HAARF needs meticulous monitoring during hospital stay. Hospitalized patients on nephrotoxic drugs should have frequent renal function tests. Proper fluid and electrolyte balance in hospitalized patients needs special emphasis to avoid HAARF.   

Evaluation of relationship between bone mineral density and fragility fracture in perimenopausal women between 40-58 years of age: a hospital based prospective observational study

Background: At present the risk assessment for osteoporosis using low bone mineral density (BMD) is based on data obtained from elderly females, largely ≥ 65 years of age. The risk factors for low peak bone mass or accelerated bone loss that occurs during perimenopausal phase is ignored in this risk assessment. Osteoporosis is found to occur at a relatively younger age in the Indian population. Although lower BMD values have an established identity as a major risk factor for fractures in postmenopausal women, we endeavour to evaluate relationship between bone mineral density and fragility fracture in perimenopausal women.Methods: 65 Patients were recruited for the study. After X-ray of involved part, patients were divided into cases (with fracture, n=33) and control (no bony injury, n=32). All patients underwent dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan. Results of DEXA scans were evaluated in both the groups. BMD was expressed in g/cm2.Results: 33 patients (50.77%) were diagnosed as fracture, 32(49.23%) had no bony injury. Threshold bone mineral density (BMD) for fragility fracture found out asfor L1, cut off ≤0.767. For L2, cut off ≤0.829. For L3, cut off ≤0.811. L4, cut off ≤0.798. For L1-L4, cut off ≤0.845. For left femur total hip, cut off ≤0.918. For left forearm-total, cut off ≤0.411. For right femur total hip-cut off ≤0.795. For right forearm-total, cut-off≤0.382.Conclusions: Perimenopausal women having BMD below threshold for involved site are at risk of fragility fracture and should be given prophylactic treatment to improve bone mineral density

Mcl-1 Inhibition: Managing Malignancy in Multiple Myeloma.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cells neoplasm. The overexpression of Bcl-2 family proteins, particularly myeloid cell leukemia 1 (Mcl-1), plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of MM. The overexpression of Mcl-1 is associated with drug resistance and overall poor prognosis of MM. Thus, inhibition of the Mcl-1 protein considered as a therapeutic strategy to kill the myeloma cells. Over the last decade, the development of selective Mcl-1 inhibitors has seen remarkable advancement. This review presents the critical role of Mcl-1 in the progression of MM, the most prominent BH3 mimetic and semi-BH3 mimetic that selectively inhibit Mcl-1, and could be used as single agent or combined with existing therapies

The Evolutionary Basis of Naturally Diverse Rice Leaves Anatomy

Rice contains genetically and ecologically diverse wild and cultivated species that show a wide variation in plant and leaf architecture. A systematic characterization of leaf anatomy is essential in understanding the dynamics behind such diversity. Therefore, leaf anatomies of 24 Oryza species spanning 11 genetically diverse rice genomes were studied in both lateral and longitudinal directions and possible evolutionary trends were examined. A significant inter-species variation in mesophyll cells, bundle sheath cells, and vein structure was observed, suggesting precise genetic control over these major rice leaf anatomical traits. Cellular dimensions, measured along three growth axes, were further combined proportionately to construct three-dimensional (3D) leaf anatomy models to compare the relative size and orientation of the major cell types present in a fully expanded leaf. A reconstruction of the ancestral leaf state revealed that the following are the major characteristics of recently evolved rice species: fewer veins, larger and laterally elongated mesophyll cells, with an increase in total mesophyll area and in bundle sheath cell number. A huge diversity in leaf anatomy within wild and domesticated rice species has been portrayed in this study, on an evolutionary context, predicting a two-pronged evolutionary pathway leading to the ‘sativa leaf type’ that we see today in domesticated species