Exploring a new frontier in cardiac diagnosis: ECG analysis enhanced by machine learning and parametric quartic spline modeling.

The heart's study holds paramount importance in human physiology, driving valuable research in cardiovascular health. However, assessing Electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis techniques poses challenges due to noise and artifacts in authentic recordings. The advent of machine learning systems for automated diagnosis has heightened the demand for extensive data, yet accessing medical data is hindered by privacy concerns. Consequently, generating artificial ECG signals faithful to real ones is a formidable task in biomedical signal processing. This paper introduces a method for ECG signal modeling using parametric quartic splines and generating a new dataset based on the modeled signals. Additionally, it explores ECG classification using three machine learning techniques facilitated by Orange software, addressing both normal and abnormal sinus rhythms. The classification enables early detection and prediction of heart-related ailments, facilitating timely clinical interventions and improving patient outcomes. The assessment of synthetic signal quality is conducted through power spectrum analysis and cross-correlation analysis, power spectrum analysis of both real and synthetic ECG waves provides a quantitative assessment of their frequency content, aiding in the validation and evaluation of synthetic ECG signal generation techniques. Cross-correlation analysis revealing a robust correlation coefficient of 0.974 and precise alignment with a negligible time lag of 0.000 s between the synthetic and real ECG signals. Overall, the adoption of quartic spline interpolation in ECG modeling enhances the precision, smoothness, and fidelity of signal representation, thereby improving the effectiveness of diagnostic and analytical tasks in cardiology. Three prominent machine learning algorithms, namely Decision Tree, Logistic Regression, and Gradient Boosting, effectively classify the modeled ECG signals with classification accuracies of 0.98620, 0.98965, and 0.99137, respectively. Notably, all models exhibit robust performance, characterized by high AUC values and classification accuracy. While Gradient Boosting and Logistic Regression demonstrate marginally superior performance compared to the Decision Tree model across most metrics, all models showcase commendable efficacy in ECG signal classification. The study underscores the significance of accurate ECG modeling in health sciences and biomedical technology, offering enhanced accuracy and flexibility for improved cardiovascular health understanding and diagnostic tools.

Effect of lignocellulosic corn stalk on mechanical, physical, and thermal properties of injection moulded low density polyethylene composites: An approach towards a circular economy.

Escalating concern over global warming, which is mostly associated with deforestation, has led to the development of new classes of materials that can replace wood and better utilise natural resources. Presently, waste is a significant factor in recycling. In this regard, one of the leading contributors to waste is agricultural waste, which includes dried branches, leaves of trees, plants, and other organic materials. In the current study, waste from corn agriculture was utilised as a potential reinforcement for the fabrication of corn stalk-low density polyethylene (CS-LDPE) composites via an injection moulding technique at 170 °C. The different parameters were assessed to develop composites using CS, including physico-chemical, macromolecular, mineralogical, elemental, and morphological analysis. The amount of corn stalk (CS) was varied from 10 to 50 wt% with respect to the polymer. The mechanical, physical and thermal performance of the composites was examined. The density and water absorption of the composites were found to remain within the ranges of 1.00-1.11 g/cm3 and 0.22-1.01 %, respectively, whereas these parameters increased as the proportion of CS increased. The thermal conductivity decreases with the addition of CS from 0.36964 ± 0.020 to 0.22388 ± 0.002 W/mK. It was observed that adding CS to the composites increased their tensile and flexural properties, but decreased their impact strength. The maximum flexural strength of 14.40 ± 1.558 MPa, flexural modulus of 752.53 ± 180.409 MPa, tensile strength of 10.49 ± 0.946 MPa and tensile modulus of 539.79 ± 91.044 MPa were observed with a 50 % CS content. The results suggest that these materials have considerable potential to serve as a cost-effective substitute for the conventional lignocellulosic fillers in the manufacturing of wood-plastic composites.

Land cover changes and carbon dynamics in Central India's dry tropical forests: A 25-year assessment and nature-based eco-restoration approaches.

Anthropogenic land use and land cover changes are major drivers of environmental degradation and declining soil health across heterogeneous landscapes in Central India. To examines the land cover changes and spatio-temporal variations in forest carbon stock and soil organic carbon (SOC) over the past 25 years in central India. Geospatial techniques, coupled with ground measurements were employed to detect changes in land cover, carbon stocks in vegetation, and soil carbon in various vegetation types. The results indicate that forested areas have decreased, while agriculture and habitation have expanded between 1997 and 2022. Vegetation C stocks varied significantly (P < 0.05) from 39.42 to 139.95 Mg ha-1 and the SOC varied from 7.02 to 17.98 Mg ha-1 under different soil profiles across vegetation types, which decreased with soil depth, while the pH and bulk density increased. The maximum bulk density in the soil was found at a depth of 40-60 cm (lower profile) in Bamboo Brake, while the minimum was observed under Dense Mixed Forest at a depth of 0-20 cm (top profile). The topsoil profile contributed 33.6%-39%, the middle profile (20-40 cm) was 33.6%-34.4%, and the lower profile was 26.5%-30.8% of soil organic carbon. The study site has experienced rapid carbon losses due to changes in land cover, such as illegal expansion of agriculture, encroachments into forest fringes, and activities like selective logging and overgrazing, which have degraded dense forests. The ecological engineering of degraded ecosystems poses a great challenge and application of complex biological, mechanical and engineering measures is highly cumbersome, expensive, uneconomical and practically not feasible for upscaling. Nevertheless, proposed nature-based solutions mimic natural reparation and processes provide sustainable interventions for the reclamation of ruined landscapes besides improving ecological integrity and rendering many co-benefits to ecosystems and human societies.

Functional hBN decorated Ni(OH)2 nanosheets synthesized for remarkable adsorption performance for the elimination of fluoride ions.

Occurrence of fluoride in groundwater is a serious concern due to its fatal effects. Functionalized hexagonal boron nitride sheets have been combined with nickel hydroxide nanoparticles by a one step process and a hybrid adsorbent Ni(OH)2@hBN has been developed with an exceptionally high fluoride adsorption capacity of 365 mg g-1, higher than those of Ni(OH)2 and hBN. This maximum adsorption capacity is higher than those of most common adsorbents used for defluoridation including activated alumina, reported nickel oxide and carbon-based 2D material-supported alumina adsorbents. The presence of functionalized boron nitride significantly increased the surface area to 680 m2 g-1 with a pore volume of 0.33687 cm3 g-1 and provided rich hydroxyl group-containing surface sites for the removal of fluoride present in contaminated water. In addition, the adsorption of fluoride onto boron nitride-modified nickel hydroxide followed pseudo-second-order kinetics and the equilibrium data fitted well with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, suggesting a monolayer adsorption mechanism. Furthermore, the material developed is tested with the water sample collected from a real affected area, from the Dhar district of India, and the material showed promising results in terms of fluoride removal efficacy.

A piecewise spline approach for modeling of ECG signals.

This paper presents a new spline-based modeling method of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal that can reproduce normal as well as abnormal ECG beats. Large volume ECG data is required for automatic machine learning diagnostic systems, medical education, research and testing purposes but due to privacy issues, access to this medical data is very difficult. Given this, modeling an ECG signal is a very challenging task in the field of biomedical signal processing. Spline-based modeling is the latest and one of the most efficient methods with very low computational complexity in the domain of ECG signal generation. In this paper, healthy ECG and arrhythmia conditions have been considered for the synthetic generation, (namely Atrial fibrillation and Congestive heart failure ECG beats) because these are the leading causes of death globally. To validate the performance of the presented modeling method, it is tested on 100 signals, also the percentage root mean square difference (PRD) and the root mean square error (RMSE) have been determined. These calculated values are analyzed and the results are found to be very promising and show that the presented method is one of the best methods in the field of synthetic ECG signal generation. A comparison amongst relevant existing techniques and the proposed method is also presented. The performance merit values PRD and RMSE, for the proposed method obtained are 38.99 and 0.10092, respectively, which are lower than the values obtained in other compared methods. To ensure fidelity of the proposed modeling technique with respect to IEC60601 standard, few Conformance Testing Services (CTS)database signals have also been modelled with a very close resemblance with the standard signals.

Use of Wild Edible Plants: Can They Meet the Dietary and Nutritional Needs of Indigenous Communities in Central India.

Despite significant evidence base on quantifying ecosystem services, the role of biodiversity in supporting such services in diversified landscapes, and how indigenous communities exploit, utilize and manage plant resources in a biocultural regime, remains understudied. This study examines the role of wild edible plants (WEPs) in meeting the food, nutrition and household income of indigenous communities under the biodiversity rich landscape of the Achanakmaar-Amarkantak Biosphere Reserve (AABR-22°15' to 22°58' N latitudes and 81°25' to 82°5' East longitudes) of Central India. Results revealed remarkable differences among Baiga, Gond, Kol, and Oraon ethnic communities and also location (core, buffer and transition) effect on utilization pattern of wild edibles. A sum total of 172 WEPs comprising 60 vegetables, 70 fruits, seeds and nuts, 23 underground tubers and 19 mushrooms were collected, consumed, and surplus were marketed by the communities. On average, the number of wild edibles collected annually by households were in the following quantities: 40-240 kg leafy vegetables, 125-386 kg flowers, 120-250 kg fruits, 12-125 kg legumes, 24-120 kg tubers, 5-35 kg mushrooms. Among ethnic groups, the Baiga primitive community utilized 70-90% followed by Gonds (58-81%), Kols (52-78%), Oraons (43-79%), and other communities (38-68%) in different zones. WEPs have contributed to 5-24% (Rs 3559- 12,710) of household income, which was highest in the core zone and lowest in the transition zone. It was observed that WEPs were complemented the diets rather than being a substitute for staple foods. They supplied only 3.7-8.3% of energy and 1.1-4.9% protein requirements; however, they significantly supplemented ascorbic acid, thiamine, calcium, and iron by 38.1-73%, 13.7-35.4%, 17.2-29.1%, 2.6-13.5%, respectively. Significantly higher quantities of nutrients were supplemented in the core zone compared to other zones. WEPs were currently underutilized (less intake) especially in buffer and transition zones, complementing the staple foods and partially supplementing the essential macro- and micro-nutrients. However, these have the potential to fulfill the dietary needs and ensure balanced nutrition, if consumed in recommended portions and sizes. The paper discusses policy implications that ensure coherence and coordination of local indigenous communities for conservation and sustainable utilization of WEPs of AABR, Central India.

The use of integrative therapy based on Yoga and Ayurveda in the treatment of a high-risk case of COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 with multiple comorbidities: a case report.

BACKGROUND: We report a high-risk case of a coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19)-positive patient with comorbidities including diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension (HTN), hypothyroidism and chronic kidney disease (CKD), treated successfully using an integrative therapy plan based on Ayurveda and Yoga, along with government-mandated compulsory modern western medicine (MWM) treatment. Recently, some evidence has been emerging on the use of Ayurveda for treatment of COVID-19. The classical texts of Ayurvedic medicine such as Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita contain descriptions of pandemics of similar proportions and describe them as Janapadoddhvansa, meaning the destruction of communities, along with their causes and treatment. CASE PRESENTATION: The case reported herein is a 55-year-old man from Delhi, India, with confirmed (tested) COVID-19, who first took MWM for 7 days before seeking integrative therapy. The patient has comorbidities including DM, HTN, hypothyroidism and CKD and had developed symptoms including fever (which was resolved by the time integrative therapy was started), sore throat, dry cough, body aches, weakness, bad taste and smell, and heaviness in the abdomen. Based on the patient's symptoms and comorbidities, a treatment plan including Ayurvedic medicines, Yoga protocol, dietary recommendations and lifestyle modifications was prescribed by a registered Ayurveda doctor and a Yoga consultant. The patient started experiencing improvement in all the symptoms within 2 days after starting the treatment; he reported approximately [Formula: see text] relief from the symptoms after 5 days, and almost complete relief within 9 days. Also, the blood sugar levels (both fasting blood sugar [FBS] and postprandial blood sugar [PPBS]) exhibited significant improvement after 5 days, and decreased to within the normal range within 12 days. Besides relief in symptoms, the patient's real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test done on the 19th day returned negative results. CONCLUSIONS: Integrative therapy was found to be effective in mitigating the symptoms of COVID-19 in this patient with multiple comorbidities. Moreover, a significant improvement in blood sugar levels (not under control with modern medicine) was also achieved. Integrative therapy based on the classical texts of Ayurveda and Yoga may offer a promising and scalable treatment option for COVID-19 patients. A case series or a suitably designed randomized controlled trial is needed to assess its efficacy.

Effect of seed source, light, and nitrogen levels on biomass and nutrient allocation pattern in seedlings of Pongamia pinnata.

Nitrogen (N) and light are critical determinants of plant growth and productivity. The present study attempts to quantify the underlying mechanisms and effects of light, N levels, and seed source on growth, biomass, nutrient allocations, and nutrient use efficiencies (NUEs) in seedlings of Pongamia pinnata. The differential and fixed hypothesis and isometric and allometric relationships were also examined. Six morphologically superior seed sources of P. pinnata from three contrasting agro-climatic conditions of India were evaluated with application of two levels of both N (low dose @ 5g plant-1 and 15 g plant-1) and light regimes (full light-100% and low light-50%) in mother nursery. Among the seed sources, the native Raipur seed source was found outstanding in growth, biomass, and nutrient use efficiency. N was more critical than light in promoting growth in seedlings of P. pinnata. High N and high light regimes increased shoot/root ratios. The components showed allometric growth and followed a differential allocation pattern. The exploitation of suitable genetic resources combined with managerial interventions is necessary for development of quality planting stock of P. pinnata. Nutrient use efficiencies, biomass production, and their allocation were important indicators and criteria for selection. The study suggests that Raipur and Jabalpur seed sources having high NUE should be grown along with adequate N application (15 g plant-1) and light conditions.

Massive retroperitoneal tubercular abscess mimicking a leaking abdominal aortic aneurysm: a case report.

In spite of being a common diagnosis in the patients of Asian origin, atypical presentations of tuberculosis may pose diagnostic challenges. We report a huge prevertebral abscess in a 30-year-old female, mimicking a leaking aortic aneurysm. The patient was managed successfully by emergency decompression and stabilization. The issues related to poor patient compliance to chemotherapy and management of atypical presentations of spinal tuberculosis are discussed here.

Comparison of growth, biomass and nutrient distribution in five promising clones of Populus deltoides under an agrisilviculture system.

Variations in growth, above- and below-ground biomass and nutrient distribution were examined in five clones (G3, G48, 65/27, D121 and S7C1) of Populus deltoides grown under agrisilviculture system in sub-humid tropics of Central India. The monoclonal blocks were planted at 4x5 m in a randomized block design with three replications. Diameter at breast height (dbh) and tree height were consistently higher in clone 65/27 and lowest in clone S7C1. Mean annual increments (MAI) in dbh and height were 1.6 and 1.3 times higher in clone 65/27 compared to clone S7C1. Total biomass varied from 48.5 to 62.2 Mg ha(-1) in six-year-old clones. In rank order, the total biomass of clones was: 65/27>D121>G48>G3>S7C1. Stem wood accounted 60.4-68.9% to total biomass followed by coarse roots (12.2-18.9%), branches (12.3-15%), leaves (3.02-6.9%) and fine roots (1.5-2.7%). Root-shoot ratio ranged from 0.2 to 0.35. It was highest in clone G48 and lowest in clone S7C1. In six-year-old clones, total N ranged from 184.3 to 266.3 kg ha(-1), P from 16.8 to 31.1 kg ha(-1) and K from 81.9 to 128.7 kg ha(-1). Total N and P were highest in clone 65/27, while K in clone G48. Nutrients were lowest in clone S7C1. In general, maximum nutrients (N, P and K) were allocated to above-ground components (leaves>stem>branches) than below-ground components. Available N, P and K in the soil improved significantly after six years of planting. It was higher in 0-20 cm and decreased with soil depth. At 0-20 cm soil depth, N increased from 14.9% to 24.1%, P from 17.2% to 23.3% and K from 3.1% to 5.1% under different clones. The yield of both soybean and wheat reduced under poplar clones. Yield losses in soybean ranged from 10.1% to 33% and wheat from 15% to 30.3% under different clones. The management strategies for reducing tree-crop competition and nutrient export from the site under P. deltoides based agrisilviculture system for achieving sustainable production are discussed.

Antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities of some leafy vegetables.

Some leafy vegetables were studied for their nutritional composition, antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities. The aerial parts of Coriandrum sativum, Spinacia oleracea, Trigonella corniculata and Trigonella foenum-graecum showed lower inhibitory concentration values (4.1-7.9 mg/ml), efficiency concentration values (178-321 mg/mg DPPH) and higher values of anti-radical power (0.31-0.51) as compared with their seeds. Thermal treatment reduced the total phenolic contents, antioxidant and free radical scavenging activities. The leaves of C. sativum were found with good amounts of caffeic acid, ferulic acid, gallic acid and chlorogenic acid.