Reducing Clinical Laboratory Footprints on the Environment With Intuitionistic Fuzzy Distance Measure

Reducing Clinical Laboratory Footprints on the Environment With Intuitionistic Fuzzy Distance Measure

Vijay Kumar, Jyoti Chawla, Rajeev Kumar
Copyright: © 2019 |Pages: 12
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8579-4.ch010
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Abstract

Medical diagnosis with the help of computational techniques is a very useful tool for doctors for the purpose of better diagnosis. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to reduce the number of tests required for diagnosis using generalized fuzzy sets for initial decision making as per the characteristics of ingested water in normal routine. The quality of water in terms of type and concentration of contaminants varies from region to region. The analogy between concentration of different contaminants in drinking water and risk analysis based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) have been investigated. Hypothetical data was processed in view of the finite set of heavy metals, diseases, and places to investigate the effect of selected heavy metal on the human health. The findings will not only help in diagnosis but also offer cost-cutting and ecofriendly strategy by avoiding unnecessary clinical laboratory examinations.
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Introduction

Clinical laboratory investigations are one of the primary requirements in health care sector. Water is one of the fundamental requirements for supporting healthy life. Due to the industrialization, water is polluted by various contaminants. Water pollution due to cadmium, copper, lead, chromium, silver, thorium and arsenic is one of important concern throughout the world (Tao, 2016). The presence of such contaminants in water poses a potential health hazard to human beings from long term exposure by increasing the risk of certain diseases (Alves, 2017). Several studies have reported the occurrence of these contaminants in environmental water samples and their concentration in water was found to be more than the limits deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (EPA, 2018; WHO, 2008). On 7th Jan, 2016 Flint, Michigan, was declared to be in state of emergency due to its drinking water contamination with lead (CNN, 2016). In Kolkata (India), 150 out of 250 blood samples of kids were tested positive for high levels of lead. Daily use items such as lead pencils, toys, cheap colors and crayons, cheap plastic mugs and wall paints are to be blamed for this lead poisoning (The Times of India, 2013). As per the survey dated January, 2015 conducted by the Punjab government on the contamination of vegetables reveals that they are contaminated with toxic metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, nickel etc (Dawn, 2015). In hospitals the number of patient with different kind of complaints are increasing day by day and contaminated drinking water is one of the main cause of diseases. Health problems due to the presence of contaminants in water include gastrointestinal infection, kidney damage, neurological disorders and even cancer (Kaur, 2016; Kumar, 2014; Kumar, 2015). Infants, young children, pregnant women, and the old people are particularly vulnerable to illness from some contaminants.

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