Pathways from women's group-based programs to nutrition change in South Asia: a conceptual framework and literature review

Improving the nutritional status of women and children in South Asia remains a high public health and development priority. Women's groups are emerging as platforms for delivering health- and nutrition-oriented programs and addressing gender and livelihoods challenges. We propose a framework outlining pathways through which women's group participation may facilitate improvements in nutrition. Evidence is summarized from 36 studies reporting on 24 nutritional indicators across infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices, intake/diet, and anthropometry. Our findings suggest that women's group-based programs explicitly triggering behavior change pathways are most successful in improving nutrition outcomes, with strongest evidence for IYCF practices. Future investigators should link process and impact evaluations to better understand the pathways from women's group participation to nutritional impact

Application of Remote Sensing GIS in Agriculture

This article provides an overview of some of the recent research in agriculture involving remote sensing and GIS. Attention focuses on application of remote sensing and GIS specially in agriculture including geography, land surveying, most Earth Science disciplines, parent child relationship, unique identification, attributes, technical parameters, 2D/3D view and any other requirement customized. These advances have been made over recent years and foundations for future research established and can be efficiently used in Agriculture for better results

A Review Of E-Voting System Based on Blockchain Technology

Voting is arguably the most important as well as elementary right in democracy that has existed for the past hundreds of years; it has taken place in the context of a large- and small-scale community. The process transitioned from paper ballots to electronic voting machines (EVM) in the late 20th century, but even with all the advancement, transparency in the election process remained the same. Blockchain technology came in existence in 2008 with the introduction of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto, and in the last decade we saw enormous growth in development and execution of this technology in various fields e-voting is one of them, blockchain-based e-voting system has potential to improve the election process if utilized to its potential. Blockchain can eliminate the need to print ballot paper as it is secure, immutable and convenient to voters and can make elections more transparent

Smart City IoT Data Management with Proactive Middleware

With the increased emergence of cloud-based services, users are frequently perplexed as to which cloud service to use and whether it will be beneficial to them. The user must compare various services, which can be a time-consuming task if the user is unsure of what they might need for their application. This paper proposes a middleware solution for storing Internet of Things (IoT) data produced by various sensors, such as traffic, air quality, temperature, and so on, on multiple cloud service providers depending on the type of data. Standard cloud computing technologies become insufficient to handle the data as the volume of data generated by smart city devices grows. The middleware was created after a comparative study of various existing middleware. The middleware uses the concept of the federal cloud for the purpose of storing data. The middleware solution described in this paper makes it easier to distribute and classify IoT data to various cloud environments based on its type. The middleware was evaluated using a series of tests, which revealed its ability to properly manage smart city data across multiple cloud environments. Overall, this research contributes to the development of middleware solutions that can improve the management of IoT data in settings such as smart cities

Réduction de bruit et traitements paramétriques de la parole en large bande destinés à améliorer la compréhension des sujets malentendants

- Nous tentons de pallier les déficiences des aides auditives actuelles pour certaines surdités, par une plus grande prise en compte de la structure particulière du signal de parole. Pour cela nous voulons intégrer à une aide auditive des traitements paramétriques en bande élargie (0-8000 Hz). L'appareil doit savoir isoler les signaux qui bénéficieront de ces traitements. Il s'agit exclusivement des signaux de parole suffisamment peu bruités. Cette étude vise donc à déterminer les limites d'applicabilité des traitements paramétriques, après passage du signal dans un réducteur de bruit. Le réducteur de bruit basé sur un filtrage de Wiener est intégré au codeur. Les performances sont testées par l'évaluation, pour des normo-entendants et des malentendants : (1) de la capacité auditive (CA), via la mesure de la capacité de discrimination des indices acoustico-phonétiques de la parole en situation de bruit, (2) du confort auditif, par un test de préférence sur des phrases traitées et non traitées, prononcées dans diverses situations sonores significatives. Alors que la réduction de bruit isolée peut améliorer la CA chez certains normo-entendants uniquement, le codage paramétrique détériore la CA pour l'ensemble des sujets, ainsi que la qualité de la parole perçue par les malentendants

Predictive Modeling of Patient Outcomes Using Machine Learning Algorithms in Health Informatics

The quick development of health informatics technology now utilizes machine learning (ML) methods to improve predictive models that forecast patient results. A comprehensive research analyzes how ML algorithms predict healthcare situations including patient wellness status and hospital re-entry needs and disease advancement tracking. ML models show better ability to predict patient outcomes with higher precision than established statistical solution techniques. The text explores both the practical obstacles related to data quality and interpretability as well as ethical issues faced by ML models. Research confirms that ML demonstrates its ability to transform personalized medical care as well as clinical choice processes

Adverse maternal, fetal, and newborn outcomes among pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection: an individual participant data meta-analysis

Introduction: Despite a growing body of research on the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy, there is continued controversy given heterogeneity in the quality and design of published studies. Methods: We screened ongoing studies in our sequential, prospective meta-analysis. We pooled individual participant data to estimate the absolute and relative risk (RR) of adverse outcomes among pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared with confirmed negative pregnancies. We evaluated the risk of bias using a modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Results: We screened 137 studies and included 12 studies in 12 countries involving 13 136 pregnant women. Pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection—as compared with uninfected pregnant women—were at significantly increased risk of maternal mortality (10 studies; n=1490; RR 7.68, 95% CI 1.70 to 34.61); admission to intensive care unit (8 studies; n=6660; RR 3.81, 95% CI 2.03 to 7.17); receiving mechanical ventilation (7 studies; n=4887; RR 15.23, 95% CI 4.32 to 53.71); receiving any critical care (7 studies; n=4735; RR 5.48, 95% CI 2.57 to 11.72); and being diagnosed with pneumonia (6 studies; n=4573; RR 23.46, 95% CI 3.03 to 181.39) and thromboembolic disease (8 studies; n=5146; RR 5.50, 95% CI 1.12 to 27.12). Neonates born to women with SARS-CoV-2 infection were more likely to be admitted to a neonatal care unit after birth (7 studies; n=7637; RR 1.86, 95% CI 1.12 to 3.08); be born preterm (7 studies; n=6233; RR 1.71, 95% CI 1.28 to 2.29) or moderately preterm (7 studies; n=6071; RR 2.92, 95% CI 1.88 to 4.54); and to be born low birth weight (12 studies; n=11 930; RR 1.19, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.40). Infection was not linked to stillbirth. Studies were generally at low or moderate risk of bias. Conclusions: This analysis indicates that SARS-CoV-2 infection at any time during pregnancy increases the risk of maternal death, severe maternal morbidities and neonatal morbidity, but not stillbirth or intrauterine growth restriction. As more data become available, we will update these findings per the published protocol