Leveraging Blockchain Technology for Indian Healthcare system: An assessment using value-focused thinking approach

Indian Healthcare system is a complex and distinguished structure due to variety of factors viz. population size it serves, presence of organized and unorganized services of healthcare, economic disparity and governance structure among others. Extant research emphasizes on the aspects like transparency, trust, disintermediation, non-repudiation, benchmarking of processes and practices, traceability and data integrity among others to stimulate the Indian Healthcare system for an improvised and more effective format. Blockchain Technology is recent innovation that offers many of these aforementioned aspects as a feature to the host systems. However, it is critical to understand and articulate the utility of Blockchain Technology specific to the Indian Healthcare system. Further, it is important to gauge the requirement elicitation of key stakeholders for Blockchain Technology adoption in Indian Healthcare system w.r.t any attribute prioritization/customization or design considerations (Consensus mechanism, type of blockchain, smart contracts etc.). There have been some research works on aspects of Blockchain applications in Indian Healthcare but lack a strong perspective of stakeholder requirements. We use Value-Focused Thinking framework based on discussions with the stakeholders to address the above mentioned research premise. We identify Fundamental Objectives and Strategic Objectives from the stakeholder interactions that contribute to the strategic goal. This is a niche work with a significant analytical contribution from the information systems perspective of Blockchain Technology adoption in the Indian Healthcare ecosystem given the light of premises from realms of human agents, behavioural and applications requirement from a stakeholder viewpoint.     

Effect of vitamin E on the platelet xanthine oxidase and lipid peroxidation in the patients of myocardial infarction

Platelets play important role in precipitating ischaemic myocardial syndromes in many ways. One of the consequences of ischaemic diseases is excessive generation of oxygen derived free radicals that have numerous pathophysiological consequences. Platelet pro-oxidant enzyme, xanthine oxidase is one of the sources of generation of free radicals. In the present paper, we report the effect of administration of vitamin E along with aspirin on the levels of platelet xanthine oxidase and extent of free radical mediated damage in the patients reperfused after myocardial infarction. Our findings show that administration of 400 mg. vitamin E for six days along with 80 mg. aspirin has an excellent anti-oxidant effect as evidenced by reduced platelet xanthine oxidase activity and lowering of malondialdehdye (MDA) levels which is an index of the extent of free radical mediated damage.     

A Structural Model of Educational Aspirations

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model to predict educational aspirations of Canadian adolescents. Participants were a national sample of 4,034 students from grades 8–13 (2,037 males, 1,973 females). Results of a modified structural model included three sets of influences: a) a background factor comprised of parental occupation and education; b) a family involvement factor consisting of parental personal and school-based involvement with adolescents; and c) a personal factor with school marks, school and course perceptions, extracurricular reading and parental educational expectations as indicator measures. Educational aspirations was the main outcome variable. Results indicated that the personal factor had a strong direct influence on educational aspirations ( = 1.17, p < .001, R² = .76). The effects of the background and family involvement factors on educational aspirations were mediated through the personal factor. Additional analyses performed in order to test the relationships obtained in the model, revealed several significant interactions amongst the three predictor factors and educational aspirations. The findings emphasize the importance of efforts to enhance the educational aspirations of adolescents through targeted change of modifiable environmental and personal factors.     

Lactoferrin in cervical mucus as a biochemical marker for inflammation

Lactoferrin, an iron-binding protein, has been proposed to act as an anti-infective agent and has been used as a diagnostic marker in several inflammatory disorders. A sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay developed earlier was used for lactoferrin estimation in cervical mucus. A brief study was undertaken to observe if lactoferrin is detectable in cervical mucus and to correlate its level with reproductive tract infection, if present. One hundred and twelve cervical mucus samples were collected from healthy as well as infected females. Some of these females were using CuT-200 intrauterine copper devices for contraception. Women were at different phases of their menstrual cycle. The presence of detectable amount of lactoferrin in cervical mucus was confirmed. The average level of lactoferrin in cases either with clinical symptoms of cervicitis or with proven infection by PAP smear was significantly (t=7.6, P<0.01) higher than the normal controls. CuT users have higher (P<0.01) mean level of lactoferrin than corresponding non-users.