Emerging Global Health Crisis of Our Times- Climate Change

The progress of the human race over the last 200 years is unprecedented in recent history. Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and consumerism have made lives easier for humankind. Still, these changes come at a very high price. We never anticipated that we will have to pay the price in the form of climate change and global warming. Our planet, the earth is getting warmer by 0.85 ̊centigrde annually for the last one hundred and seventy years. Hence, glaciers are melting faster than ever, water levels are rising, and cities are sinking, while greenhouse gas emission numbers are at their highest points in human history. Unfortunately we humans are living in anthropogenic epoch and are also speeding up the destruction of the earth's ecosystem by being the dominant cause of the warming observed since the 20th century. Deforestation coupled with increased greenhouse gas emissions has led to a surge of heat-waves globally. These environmental disasters not only affect the environment, plants, and land but also have a profound direct and indirect impact on the health of people. In-fact the health impact has already debuted in the form of worsening key health indicators. In Pakistan alone, the 2015 heat-wave claimed the lives of twelve hundred people in Sindh province. Due to variable rainfall patterns that affect the availability of fresh water, it also affects food production & delivery and brings on the drought. Quality of air, clean drinking water, and availability of food are the top three indicators most influenced by these disasters. Coupled with these, the more than the frequent occurrence of natural calamities; tsunamis, wildfires, snowstorms, and extremes of temperatures has put an extra financial burden on already, stretched to limits budgets of health

Predatory Journals: a Literature Review

Background: Predatory publishing is an exploitative fraudulent open-access publishing model. Most predatory journals do not follow policies that are set forth by organizations including the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Jeffrey Beall, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver and a librarian at Auraria Library, coined the term ‘predatory journals' to describe pseudo-journals. Our literature review has highlighted that predatory journal authorship is not limited to early-career researchers only. Majority of authors are unfamiliar with practices in pseudo journals despite publishing manuscripts. Methodology: For the purpose of this review, a systematic literature search was carried in October 2019 of the following databases: (1) Web of Science (all databases), (2) ERIC, and (3) LISTA. All stages of the review process included access to the search results and full articles for review and consequent analysis. Articles were added after screening fulltext articles by meeting the inclusion criteria and meeting none of the exclusion criteria. As there were a high number of articles reporting findings on predatory journals, they were further screened re-evaluating them for any deviations from the theme of this study. Relevant material published within the last five years was used. Results: After a thorough review, 63,133 were located using the Boolean logic. After reviewing 63 abstracts and titles for relevance, 9 articles were included in the literature review. Four themes are concerned with the results of the synthesis that demarcate legitimate and predatory publications. They include factors: (1) Related to the journal, (2) Academic and professional, (3) Dissemination, and (4) Personal. Conclusion: Our literature review found that there is a lack of one single definition for predatory journals. We believe that it is essential for potential authors and young researchers to have clear guidelines and make demarcations of potential journals that seem dubious. Moreover, the authors' selection of publishers should be modified to control the risks of tainting ‘open-access' publishing with fraudulent journals. The academic and research community ought to revise their criteria and recognize high quality and author journals as opposed to ‘predatory' journals. Research mentorship, realigning research incentives, and education is vital to decrease the impact of predatory publishing in the near future

Effects of sand-shale anisotropy on amplitude variation with angle (AVA) modelling: The Sawan Gas Field (Pakistan) as a key case-study for South Asia's sedimentary basins

Amplitude variation with angle (AVA) is a technique widely used in the characterisation of hydrocarbon reservoirs and assumes the Earth’s crust to be an isotropic medium. Yet, anisotropy is ubiquitous in stratigraphic sequences and has first-order effects on seismic AVA responses when investigating subsurface prospects. This work analyses the effects of anisotropic strata on AVA responses using the Lower Goru Formation, middle Indus basin (Pakistan) as a case study. In the study area, shale intervals are interbedded with reservoir sands of the Sawan gas field. Shales in this field form laminae or are dispersed within reservoir sands, making the Lower Goru Formation an example of a vertically transversely isotropic (VTI) medium. In this work, we calculate the effective (saturated) mechanical properties of the Lower Goru Formation based on rock physics templates; the Backus (1962) average typically designed for layered media, combined with the empirical relations of Brown and Korringa (1975) and Wood (1955). The input data used in our rock physics modelling is based on detailed petrophysical analyses of well data. Using the saturated effective mechanical properties of the Lower Goru Formation, we generate angle-dependent reflection coefficient curves (and seismic AVA responses) based on exact and approximate solutions, for both isotropic and anisotropic reservoir scenarios. Our results suggest that the effects of lithological anisotropy are more pronounced in places with thick shale beds within reservoir sands. Conversely, angle-dependent reflection curves, and seismic AVA responses based on isotropic or anisotropic cases, give similar solutions in the presence of thin shale beds. As a corollary of this work, we present a Bayesian inversion method for the estimation of porosity in VTI media

Natural variation reveals that intracellular distribution of ELF3 protein is associated with function in the circadian clock

Natural selection of variants within the Arabidopsis thaliana circadian clock can be attributed to adaptation to varying environments. To define a basis for such variation, we examined clock speed in a reporter-modified Bay-0 x Shakdara recombinant inbred line and localized heritable variation. Extensive variation led us to identify EARLY FLOWERING3 (ELF3) as a major quantitative trait locus (QTL). The causal nucleotide polymorphism caused a short-period phenotype under light and severely dampened rhythm generation in darkness, and entrainment alterations resulted. We found that ELF3-Sha protein failed to properly localize to the nucleus, and its ability to accumulate in darkness was compromised. Evidence was provided that the ELF3-Sha allele originated in Central Asia. Collectively we showed that ELF3 protein plays a vital role in defining its light-repressor action in the circadian clock and that its functional abilities are largely dependent on its cellular localization

Detection of Kids milk Quality using Methylene Blue Reduction test

Back ground and Objectives: Milk is a highly nutritious food that serves as an excellent growth medium for a wide range of microorganisms. Rapid, simple and inexpensive microbiological quality determination methods including Methylene Blue Reduction (MBRT) test could be commonly used as a quick method to assess the microbiological quality of raw and pasteurized milk. The aim of study is to determine quality of kids milk using Methylene Blue Dye Reduction Test Methods: A total of 37 samples comprising of kids milk collected at different levels of collection and processed. Accordingly 12 different milk samples from hypermarket, 8 different milk samples from unlicensed hawker (retail market), 11 different samples with additives from hyper market samples and 6 different samples with high price. Samples were collected. One ml of the Methylene Blue Thiocyanate solution added into a test tube then 10 ml of milk poured into test tube. Tubes incubated at 37 oC Results: Results showed that all types of milk that purchased from super market, local market and high price milk types shown no change of methylene Blue color appear on the base of time, that indicate very good quality of the milk. On the base of milk types with additive materials only one milk showed change in colour but after confirm test the colour remained blue and not changed. Conclusion: Methylene blue reduction test is rapid economic method that can be used for detection of milk quality. Approximately all the kids of milks that is purchased in our market and local markets showed sterility and the source contamination if take place may be by storage condition and transvers vehicle

Isolation and Identification of Fungi from fast food restaurants in Langa Bazar

A total of (218) samples from Eleven different foods were processed between October 2016 and February 2017 which include (Tomato, Chicken meat, red meat, falafel, potato, bread, eggplant, cabbage, celery, cucumber and onion). Samples were collected from 4 different fast food restaurants inoculated on Potato dextrose agar and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar. Isolated fungus identified morphologically and microscopically in accordance with standard procedures. Results showed that six fungal genera were associated with the selected fast food restaurants. The isolated fungal genera were Aspergillus sp., Alternaria sp., Mucor sp., Rhizopus sp., Saccharomyces sp., Brettanomyces sp. The number of total colonies in October were 236 and in February were 119 and the number of colonies were higher when cultured on Potato dextrose agar than Sabouraud Dextrose Agar. There was variation in the pattern of occurrence of the fungus in fast foods Aspergillus sp. appears to be the most pathogenic fungi that present in the food samples

Impact of remittances on economic growth in developing countries: The role of openness

The paper examines the empirical relationship between remittances and economic growth for a sample of 62 developing countries over the time period 1990–2014. Remittances seem to promote growth only in the ‘more open’ countries. That is because remittances are in themselves not sufficient for growth. The extent of the benefit depends on domestic institutions and macroeconomic environment in the receiving country. Unlike the ‘less open’ countries, ‘more open’ countries have better institutions and better financial markets to take advantage of the remittances income and channelise them into profitable investments which, in turn, accelerates the rate of economic growth in these countries.N/

Carbonic anhydrase II based biosensing of carbon dioxide at high temperature: an analytical and MD simulation study

Concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased significantly due to anthropogenic activities and attributed as a major factor to global warming. Its detection by biosensing methods will provide an alternative for the assessment of CO2 concentration. Biomineralization of CO2 is one of the available methods for the biological conversion of CO2 to carbonate using a highly active enzyme, carbonic anhydrase II (CAII). CAII was used for the carbonation reaction to convert CO2 to CaCO3. The precipitation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) was promoted in the presence of the CAII at 325 K. CAII showed an enhanced formation of solid CaCO3 through the acceleration of CO2 hydration rate at 325 K. Furthermore, the electrocatalytic properties of glassy carbon electrode enable us to determine the reduction peak potential values of CO2 through cyclic voltammetry at –1.75 and 0.3 V at 325 K. Molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were performed each at 50 ns time scale provided a deeper insight into the molecular basis of the CAII interaction with CO2 at different temperatures, highlighted that the CAII can detect CO2 up to 325 K. We assume that CAII could be an effective and economical biosensor for biomineralization of CO2 at high temperature 325 K

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy