Khalid Ansari

Surface electromyography (sEMG) plays a crucial role in decoding neuromuscular activity, with applications in prosthetic control and human–computer interaction. While extensive research has focused on hand gesture classification, discriminating identical hand movements performed at varying wrist angles remains underexplored. This study evaluates five feature reduction techniques, namely, principal component analysis (PCA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), chi‐square test, mutual information (MI), and recursive feature elimination with cross‐validation (RFECV) for classifying five wrist‐based hand movements. Two independent sEMG datasets were analyzed. Experimentally collected Dataset 1 comprised 17 subjects performing 5 repetitions of hand movements at wrist angles (+45°, +90°, 0°, −45°, and −90°) using the Delsys Trigno electromyography system. Dataset 2 (Ninapro DB1, Exercise B, Movements 13–17) comprised 27 subjects performing 10 repetitions of 5 distinct wrist and hand movements. Gradient boosting, LightGBM, random forest, SVM‐RBF, and a 1D‐CNN classifier were evaluated under different validation strategies, including subject‐wise hold‐out, subject‐wise cross‐validation, and movement‐level cross‐validation. RFECV consistently delivered strong performance across both datasets. Mean accuracies ranged from 77.73% under movement‐level cross‐validation to 90.11% under subject‐wise hold‐out, with best subject‐wise accuracies reaching 95.38% on Dataset 1 and 96.35% on Dataset 2. In contrast, the 1D‐CNN on raw EMG windows yielded only 36.64% mean accuracy, confirming the importance of feature engineering. These findings demonstrate that RFECV is a reliable and generalizable feature selection technique for sEMG‐based movement classification, particularly for challenging tasks involving angular variations of identical hand movements.

Background: Ventilator‐associated pneumonia (VAP) and non‐ventilator hospital‐acquired pneumonia (NVHAP) remain among the most common and serious infections in adult critical care settings. Despite strong biological plausibility, oral care is inconsistently specified and rarely measured as a preventive strategy. This review synthesizes evidence on oral hygiene practices in critically ill adults, examines their relationship to VAP and NVHAP, and proposes a pragmatic and dentistry‐informed oral‐care bundle for clinical use. Methods: An integrative review was conducted using a structured literature search in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science from 2005 to 2025. Search terms combined pneumonia‐related concepts, critical care setting and oral health. Eligible sources included studies addressing oral health and the prevention of VAP or NVHAP in adult critical care settings. Only full‐text publications in English or with an available English translation were included. Results: The database search identified 935 records. After removing 224 duplicates, 711 studies were selected for title and abstract screening. Furthermore, studies focused exclusively on non‐oral pneumonia prevention strategies, those without an oral health‐related component, or those not conducted in an acute hospital or intensive care unit (ICU) setting were excluded during the synthesis phase, resulting in 20 studies included in the final synthesis. The evidence synthesis was conducted narratively, organized around domains corresponding to the review objectives such as pathophysiologic mechanisms along the oral–lung axis; current oral care practices; modality‐specific interventions; assessment and documentation; implementation and workforce factors; safety, equity, and feasibility. Conclusion: Oral hygiene occupies a modifiable point along the oral–lung axis, where simple bedside interventions can reduce pneumonia risk; however, clinical practice remains heterogeneous and under‐specified. Structured oral care practices reduce VAP incidence and represent a reliable and scalable contribution to safer critical and acute care.

Problem: Accurate diagnosis of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries from knee magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is clinically essential but remains challenging due to subtle anatomical variations, limited labeled data, and severe class imbalance. Aim: This study aims to develop a lightweight and computationally efficient deep learning model for automated detection of complete ACL tears from knee MRI scans. Methods: A custom 3D convolutional neural network (3D‐CNN) with approximately 153 k trainable parameters was proposed. Two publicly available datasets included are Stanford ML Group and Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka, which were combined to improve generalization. To address dataset heterogeneity and class imbalance, standardized preprocessing, conservative geometric data augmentation, and class weighting were employed. The model was trained using 5‐fold stratified cross‐validation. Results: The proposed model achieved an average classification accuracy of 97.6% and an average AUC of 0.993, outperforming several state‐of‐the‐art deep learning architectures while maintaining a small model size (∼2 MB) and short training time (∼10 min per fold). Conclusion: The results demonstrate that a lightweight 3D‐CNN can accurately and efficiently detect complete ACL tears from knee MRI scans, highlighting its potential for clinical decision support and deployment in resource‐constrained environments.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major public health crisis worldwide. In less than 12 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak, several different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and deployed mostly in developed countries since January 2021. However, hesitancy to accept the newly developed vaccines is a well-known public health challenge that needs to be addressed. The aim of this study was to measure willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines among health care practitioners' (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online self-reported survey was conducted among HCPs in Saudi Arabia between April 4th to April 25th 2021 using snowball sampling. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the possible factors affecting HCPs’ willingness and hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Out of 776 participants who started the survey, 505 (65%) completed it and were included in the results. Among all HCPs, 47 (9.3%) either said “no” to receive the vaccine [20 (4%)] or were hesitant to receive it [27 (5.3%)]. Of the total number of the HCPs, 376 (74.5%) already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and 48 (9.50%) were registered to receive it. The main reason of agreement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was “wanting to protect self and others from getting the infection” (24%). Conclusion: Our findings have shown that hesitancy toward receiving COVID-19 vaccines among HCPs in Saudi Arabia is limited and therefore may not be a serious issue. The outcomes of this study may help to understand factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia and help public health authorities to design targeted health education interventions aiming to increase uptake of these vaccines.

Background: The aim of this study is to evaluate the knowledge, perceptions, and attitude of the public in Pakistan (using social media) towards COVID-19. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst 1120 individuals nationwide. A self-developed, pre-tested questionnaire was used that comprised of sections covering demographic characteristics, medical history, hygiene awareness, COVID-19-related knowledge, and learning attitude. Descriptive statistics were used for frequencies, percentages, averages and standard deviations. Inferential statistics were done using the Student’s t-test and ANOVA. Results: The average age of participants was 31 years (range 18-60 years). In total 56 individuals (5%) had completed primary or secondary school education; 448 (40%) were employed (working from home) and 60% were jobless due to the COVID-19 crisis. Almost all the study subjects (1030 (92%)) were washing their hands multiple times a day. A total of 83% had awareness regarding quarantine time, 82% used face masks whenever they left their homes, 98% were aware of the origin of the disease, and 70% had knowledge regarding the most common symptoms of COVID-19. Conclusion: It can be concluded from the current study that female participants had higher level of education, and more awareness regarding the coronavirus. The majority of the participants followed proper hand washing regimes and washed their faces. Further knowledge and awareness should be promoted.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major public health crisis worldwide. In less than 12 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak, several different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and deployed mostly in developed countries since January 2021. However, hesitancy to accept the newly developed vaccines is a well-known public health challenge that needs to be addressed. The aim of this study was to measure willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines among health care practitioners' (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online self-reported survey was conducted among HCPs in Saudi Arabia between April 4th to April 25th 2021 using snowball sampling. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the possible factors affecting HCPs’ willingness and hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Out of 776 participants who started the survey, 505 (65%) completed it and were included in the results. Among all HCPs, 47 (9.3%) either said “no” to receive the vaccine [20 (4%)] or were hesitant to receive it [27 (5.3%)]. Of the total number of the HCPs, 376 (74.5%) already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and 48 (9.50%) were registered to receive it. The main reason of agreement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was “wanting to protect self and others from getting the infection” (24%). Conclusion: Our findings have shown that hesitancy toward receiving COVID-19 vaccines among HCPs in Saudi Arabia is limited and therefore may not be a serious issue. The outcomes of this study may help to understand factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia and help public health authorities to design targeted health education interventions aiming to increase uptake of these vaccines.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major public health crisis worldwide. In less than 12 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak, several different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and deployed mostly in developed countries since January 2021. However, hesitancy to accept the newly developed vaccines is a well-known public health challenge that needs to be addressed. The aim of this study was to measure willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines among health care practitioners' (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online self-reported survey was conducted among HCPs in Saudi Arabia between April 4th to April 25th 2021 using snowball sampling. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the possible factors affecting HCPs’ willingness and hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Out of 776 participants who started the survey, 505 (65%) completed it and were included in the results. Among all HCPs, 47 (9.3%) either said “no” to receive the vaccine [20 (4%)] or were hesitant to receive it [27 (5.3%)]. Of the total number of the HCPs, 376 (74.5%) already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and 48 (9.50%) were registered to receive it. The main reason of agreement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was “wanting to protect self and others from getting the infection” (24%). Conclusion: Our findings have shown that hesitancy toward receiving COVID-19 vaccines among HCPs in Saudi Arabia is limited and therefore may not be a serious issue. The outcomes of this study may help to understand factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia and help public health authorities to design targeted health education interventions aiming to increase uptake of these vaccines.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major public health crisis worldwide. In less than 12 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak, several different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and deployed mostly in developed countries since January 2021. However, hesitancy to accept the newly developed vaccines is a well-known public health challenge that needs to be addressed. The aim of this study was to measure willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines among health care practitioners' (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online self-reported survey was conducted among HCPs in Saudi Arabia between April 4th to April 25th 2021 using snowball sampling. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the possible factors affecting HCPs’ willingness and hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Out of 776 participants who started the survey, 505 (65%) completed it and were included in the results. Among all HCPs, 47 (9.3%) either said “no” to receive the vaccine [20 (4%)] or were hesitant to receive it [27 (5.3%)]. Of the total number of the HCPs, 376 (74.5%) already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and 48 (9.50%) were registered to receive it. The main reason of agreement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was “wanting to protect self and others from getting the infection” (24%). Conclusion: Our findings have shown that hesitancy toward receiving COVID-19 vaccines among HCPs in Saudi Arabia is limited and therefore may not be a serious issue. The outcomes of this study may help to understand factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia and help public health authorities to design targeted health education interventions aiming to increase uptake of these vaccines.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a major public health crisis worldwide. In less than 12 months since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak, several different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and deployed mostly in developed countries since January 2021. However, hesitancy to accept the newly developed vaccines is a well-known public health challenge that needs to be addressed. The aim of this study was to measure willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines among health care practitioners' (HCPs) in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online self-reported survey was conducted among HCPs in Saudi Arabia between April 4th to April 25th 2021 using snowball sampling. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the possible factors affecting HCPs’ willingness and hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Out of 776 participants who started the survey, 505 (65%) completed it and were included in the results. Among all HCPs, 47 (9.3%) either said “no” to receive the vaccine [20 (4%)] or were hesitant to receive it [27 (5.3%)]. Of the total number of the HCPs, 376 (74.5%) already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and 48 (9.50%) were registered to receive it. The main reason of agreement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was “wanting to protect self and others from getting the infection” (24%). Conclusion: Our findings have shown that hesitancy toward receiving COVID-19 vaccines among HCPs in Saudi Arabia is limited and therefore may not be a serious issue. The outcomes of this study may help to understand factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia and help public health authorities to design targeted health education interventions aiming to increase uptake of these vaccines.