Awareness Campaign Against Cell Phone Radiation Hazard: Case Study Oman

AbstractThe fast spread of mobile phone usage is a subject of several polemics in terms of adverse health effect such as cancers, headaches and memory loss as shown by recent research. Cell phone's radiation became one of the most pervasive problems worldwide. With the aim of attracting public attention to this issue and increasing awareness in health's dangers and risks of cell phone radiation a campaign incorporating educational strategies and including a logo and poster design by a student of Dhofar University in Sultanate of Oman was initiated. At the completion of this campaign, a mobile phone's radiation influence on peoples’ health awareness program was developed and implemented through gearing it to the clinics, hospitals, doctor offices, supermarkets and schools

Iatrogenic sciatic nerve injury: a case report

Sciatic nerve injury is an uncommon presentation seen in primary care. Detailed history and careful physical examination may sometimes be able to elicit this diagnosis and possible cause. Sometimes additional imaging modality such as ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging may be needed to confirm the diagnosis. This case report will look at a case of 60 years old woman who presented with severe pain and limping over her right lower limb which eventually linked to intramuscular injection given two days earlier for severe knee pain

An evaluation of Pakistan's food supply and security

Governments prioritize global food insecurity. Food insecurity affects a billion people, with Asia and the Pacific Islands having the highest rates and Sub-Saharan Africa the lowest. Pakistan is one of the worst-hit countries due to a surge in chronically food-insecure people. Pakistan's food crisis persists. Due to improved worldwide methods and statistics on population, food balance sheets, and consumption patterns, Pakistan's PoU for 2017-19 is 12.3%, up from 12.0% the year before. This is helping measure progress on SDG indicator 2.1.1. 26 million individuals cannot fulfill their basic calorie needs, and the number is rising

Iatrogenic sciatic nerve injury : a case report

Sciatic nerve injury is an uncommon presentation seen in primary care. Detailed history and careful physical examination may sometimes be able to elicit this diagnosis and possible cause. Sometimes additional imaging modality such as ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging may be needed to confirm the diagnosis. This case report will look at a case of 60 years old woman who presented with severe pain and limping over her right lower limb which eventually linked to intramuscular injection given two days earlier for severe knee pain.peer-reviewe

Mislocalization of Nucleocytoplasmic Transport Proteins in Human Huntington’s Disease PSC-Derived Striatal Neurons

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene (HTT). Disease progression is characterized by the loss of vulnerable neuronal populations within the striatum. A consistent phenotype across HD models is disruption of nucleocytoplasmic transport and nuclear pore complex (NPC) function. Here we demonstrate that high content imaging is a suitable method for detecting mislocalization of lamin-B1, RAN and RANGAP1 in striatal neuronal cultures thus allowing a robust, unbiased, highly powered approach to assay nuclear pore deficits. Furthermore, nuclear pore deficits extended to the selectively vulnerable DARPP32 + subpopulation neurons, but not to astrocytes. Striatal neuron cultures are further affected by changes in gene and protein expression of RAN, RANGAP1 and lamin-B1. Lowering total HTT using HTT-targeted anti-sense oligonucleotides partially restored gene expression, as well as subtly reducing mislocalization of proteins involved in nucleocytoplasmic transport. This suggests that mislocalization of RAN, RANGAP1 and lamin-B1 cannot be normalized by simply reducing expression of CAG-expanded HTT in the absence of healthy HTT protein

The effectiveness of nurse-led self-management support program for people with chronic kidney disease stage 3-4 CKD-NLSM: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

The complexity of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and its treatments have made self-management behaviors inevitably challenging. However, supplementing education with self-management skills may improve numerous health outcomes in people with nondialysis CKD. This study protocol describes a randomized controlled trial (RCT) aimed to evaluate the effects of a nurse-led self-management support program as an intervention for kidney disease knowledge and CKD self-management behaviors among people with pre-dialysis CKD. In Phase 1, people with CKD stage 3–4 and their family members are involved in co-designing, development and pilot testing of a theory-based self-management intervention. In Phase 2, we perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the Kidney Disease Knowledge Survey, CKD Self-Management and Self-efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease questionnaires. In Phase 3, a parallel RCT will be conducted to evaluate the intervention where 154 participants with CKD stage 3–4 will be randomly assigned to either the intervention (n = 77) or control group (n = 77). The intervention group will receive 6-week self-management program from a nurse-coach in addition to standard usual care, while the control group will receive only standard usual care. Outcome measures include kidney disease knowledge, CKD self-management behavior, self-efficacy, quality of life, blood pressure control and adherence to CKD diet as indicated by 24-h urine urea nitrogen, 24-h urine sodium and net endogenous acid production. Data will be collected at baseline and 12-week post-baseline. The between- and within-group intervention effects will be estimated using the Generalized Estimating Equations. The self-management intervention offers strategies to delay CKD progression and to encourage motivation to better self-manage at home. This study integrates self-management education and psychosocial support with culturally relevant scenarios, and evaluates important self-reported and objective outcomes. Clinical Trials Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT03974646

c-di-GMP modulates type IV MSHA pilus retraction and surface attachment in Vibrio cholerae.

Biofilm formation by Vibrio cholerae facilitates environmental persistence, and hyperinfectivity within the host. Biofilm formation is regulated by 3',5'-cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) and requires production of the type IV mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MSHA) pilus. Here, we show that the MSHA pilus is a dynamic extendable and retractable system, and its activity is directly controlled by c-di-GMP. The interaction between c-di-GMP and the ATPase MshE promotes pilus extension, whereas low levels of c-di-GMP correlate with enhanced retraction. Loss of retraction facilitated by the ATPase PilT increases near-surface roaming motility, and impairs initial surface attachment. However, prolonged retraction upon surface attachment results in reduced MSHA-mediated surface anchoring and increased levels of detachment. Our results indicate that c-di-GMP directly controls MshE activity, thus regulating MSHA pilus extension and retraction dynamics, and modulating V. cholerae surface attachment and colonization

c-di-GMP modulates type IV MSHA pilus retraction and surface attachment in Vibrio cholerae

Biofilm formation by Vibrio cholerae facilitates environmental persistence, and hyperinfectivity within the host. Biofilm formation is regulated by 3’,5’-cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) and requires production of the type IV mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MSHA) pilus. Here, we show that the MSHA pilus is a dynamic extendable and retractable system, and its activity is directly controlled by c-di-GMP. The interaction between c-di-GMP and the ATPase MshE promotes pilus extension, whereas low levels of c-di-GMP correlate with enhanced retrac- tion. Loss of retraction facilitated by the ATPase PilT increases near-surface roaming motility, and impairs initial surface attachment. However, prolonged retraction upon surface attach- ment results in reduced MSHA-mediated surface anchoring and increased levels of detachment. Our results indicate that c-di-GMP directly controls MshE activity, thus reg- ulating MSHA pilus extension and retraction dynamics, and modulating V. cholerae surface attachment and colonization

Solubilisation & purification of membrane proteins using benzylamine-modified SMA polymers

Extraction of proteins from the membrane using styrene maleic acid co-polymers (SMA), forming SMA lipid particles (SMALPs), has allowed for the first time the purification of membrane proteins with their lipid bilayer environment. To date, SMA2000 has been the most effective polymer used for this purpose, with a 2:1 ratio of styrene:maleic acid, and styrene and maleic acid moieties spread statistically throughout the chain. However, SMA2000 is a highly polydisperse polymer that contains an array of different polymer lengths and sequences. RAFT polymerisation offers much better control over the polymer length; however, homogeneous distribution of styrene and maleic acid throughout the polymer is difficult to achieve. Instead, here RAFT polymerisation was used to produce a 1:1 styrene:maleic anhydride polymer, which was then modified with benzylamine. This mimics the 2:1 hydrophobic:hydrophilic nature of SMA2000, while controlling the length and obtaining a homogeneous distribution of the hydrophobic moieties (styrene and N-benzylmaleimide). SMA-benzylamine (SMA-BA) polymers of three different lengths (2, 4, and 7 kDa) were all able to solubilise purified lipids, cellular membranes, and a range of specific proteins. However, the larger 7 kDa polymer solubilised membranes more slowly and less efficiently than the shorter polymers. This also affected the yield of purified protein obtained by affinity purification with this polymer. The smallest 2 kDa polymer solubilised membranes the fastest but appeared to offer less stability to the extracted proteins. The SMA-BA polymers were more sensitive to Mg2+ ions than SMA2000. SMA-BA 4 kDa was otherwise comparable to SMA2000 and even gave a higher degree of purity

Test case generation from state machine with OCL constraints using search-based techniques / Aneesa Ali Ali Saeed

Software testing consumes half of the entire software development cost where test case generation is the most cost consuming activity in the whole process. The emergence of automatic test case generation has helped in reducing the cost eventually. Recently, model-based testing (MBT) for automatic test case generation gains interest in industry and academia due to its provision of systematic, automated, and comprehensive testing. One of the input models for MBT is state machine model which currently widely utilized to model embedded systems. Generating test cases from Unified Modeling Language (UML) state machine models has two major challenges: generating feasible paths, and generating data to satisfy the paths. The existing infeasible path detection methods are restricted to extended finite state machine (EFSM) models with integer data type only. For detecting infeasible paths that involve Object Constraints Language (OCL) constraints, new method is needed to cover all the sophisticated constructs of OCL. For test data generation, the existing search-based techniques (SBTs) have been applied to satisfy only one OCL constraint by time. In order to generate optimal data to satisfy whole constraints in the feasible path, new method with SBTs is necessary to satisfy the whole constraints at the same time of the whole path executing. This thesis presents a method for generating feasible test cases from UML state machine models with OCL constraints. One contribution of this thesis is developing an efficient technique for detecting automatically infeasible paths that contain transitions with conflicted OCL constraints. A model-driven approach was used for generating abstract test cases from the feasible paths. This model driven approach was integrated with the proposed infeasible path detection method which based on analyzing various OCL constructs and operations. The second contribution of this thesis is developing an accurate search-based test data generator for generating automatically optimal test data to satisfy the whole constraints in the path. In the proposed search-based test data generator, a whole constraints analyzer and a fitness function that evolves itself based on the error feedback were proposed. The whole constraint analyzer and the fitness function were combined with four SBTs (genetic algorithm, evolutionary algorithm, simulating annealing, and quantum genetic algorithm). Case study evaluation was conducted based on three industrial open source case studies in order to evaluate empirically the significant of the performance of the proposed method. The results were statically analyzed using t-test to show the significance of the proposed method compared to the existing methods. The results show that the proposed infeasible path detection method was efficient and detect 99 percent of the infeasible paths in the three industrial systems. The results of the proposed search-based test data generator show significant performance compared to the existing search-based test data generator