West Nile Virus (WNV) first arrived in Ontario, Canada in 2001 and has since spread throughout most of the province, causing disease in humans. The provincial government established a province-wide surveillance program to monitor WNV transmission throughout the 36 regional health units. Here we have acquired records of WNV human and mosquito surveillance from 2002 to 2013 to describe seasonal and geographic trends in WNV activity in southern Ontario. Additionally, we obtained climate data from seven municipalities to investigate how temperature and precipitation affect WNV transmission dynamics. We identified a strong quadratic relationship between the number of confirmed human cases and positive Culex mosquito pools recorded at the end of each year (R2 = 0.9783, p < 0.001). Using Spearman rank correlation tests, we identified that the minimum infection rate of Culex pipiens/restuans pools are the strongest predictor of human cases at a 1 week lag period. We also identified positive correlations between minimum infection rates, temperature, vector abundance, and cumulative precipitation. Global Moran’s I index indicates strong positive autocorrelation and clustering of positive Culex pool counts in southern Ontario. Local indicators of spatial association tests revealed a total of 44 high-high and 1 high-low trap locations (n = 680). In the current work we have identified when and where hot spots of WNV activity have occurred in southern Ontario. The municipalities surrounding the western shore of the Lake Ontario and Windsor-Essex County have the largest records of positive mosquitoes and human cases. We identified that positive mosquitoes are a strong indicator of human cases to follow in the coming weeks. An epidemic action threshold of cumulative positive Culex pools was established, allowing Ontario public health officials to predict an epidemic at epidemiological week 34 (rho = 0.90, p < 0.001). These data have the potential to contribute to more efficient larvicide programs and awareness campaigns for the public.
Information is wealth of any organization and in present era in which information transferred through digital media and internet, it became a top priority for any organizations to protect this wealth. Whatever technique we adopt for the security purpose, the degree and level of security always remains top concern. Steganography is one such technique in which presence of secret message cannot be detected and we can use it as a tool for security purpose to transmit the cofidential information in a secure way. It is an ongoing research area having vast number of applications in distinct fields such as defense and intelligence, medical, on-line banking, on-line transaction, to stop music piracy and other financial and commercial purposes. There are various steganography approaches exist and they differs depending upon message to be embedded, use of file type as carrier or compression method used etc. The focus of this paper is to classify distinct image steganography techniques besides giving overview, importance and challenges of steganography techniques. Other related security techniques are also been discussed in brief in this paper. The classification of steganography techniques may provide not only understanding and guidelines to researchers in this field but also provide directions for future work in this field.
Objective: To evaluate efficacy of predischarge transcutaneous bilirubin (TcB) measurement and clinical risk assessment in predicting hyperbilirubinemia needing treatment.Study Design: A diagnostic test was performed in a prospective cohort study conducted at a teaching hospital in North India. Subjects included healthy neonates with a gestation period of X35 weeks or birth weight X2000 g. Maternal, neonatal and delivery risk factors for hyperbilirubinemia were prospectively collected. TcB was measured in all enrolled neonates at 24±6, 72 to 96 and 96 to 144 h of postnatal age and when indicated clinically. Neonates were followed up during hospital stay and after discharge till completion of the 7th postnatal day. The key outcome was significant hyperbilirubinemia defined as need of phototherapy on the basis of modified American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. In neonates born at X38 weeks of gestation and in neonates born at p37 completed weeks of gestation, middle line and lower line of phototherapy thresholds were used to initiate phototherapy, respectively. Variables observed to be significantly associated with significant hyperbilirubinemia on multivariate analysis were used for construction of a clinical risk assessment tool. Predictive ability of the risk assessment tool was assessed by calculating sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value, by plotting receiver-operating characteristics curve and calculating c-statistic.Result: A total of 997 neonates (birth weight: 2627 ± 536 g, gestation: 37.8 ± 1.5 weeks) were enrolled in the study, of which 931 completed follow-up. Among enrolled neonates, 344 (34.5%) were low birth weight. Overall, a total of 199 (20%) neonates developed significant hyperbilirubinemia. On stepwise logistic regression analysis, predischarge TcB percentile and gestation were significantly found to be associated with significant hyperbilirubinemia. A risk assessment graph was constructed to predict subsequent development of significant hyperbilirubinemia. Area under curve for this risk assessment strategy was 0.75. Conclusion:A risk assessment graphical tool consisting of TcB and gestation accurately predicted subsequent need of phototherapy. Further studies are needed to validate performance of this risk assessment tool.
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