Benthic community survey of Gwadar (east bay) Balochistan, Pakistan

Benthic communities of the Gwadar east bay (Balochistan) was surveyed during the onset of S.W. monsoon. A total 1030 specimens were collected which represented Phyla of Arthropoda, Mollusca, Annelida, Echinodermata. The most abundant class observed was that of Bivalvia. Seawater parameters such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, salinity together with sediment characteristics were measured. Analysis of variance between observed stations and fauna do not show any significant difference (P<0.05). The present observation forms a baseline study in the area

Infantile haemangioendothelioma of the parotid gland: Case report and review of literature

Haemangioendotheliomas (HAE), although rare but are the most common parotid gland tumours in children. We report a 4-month-old girl who presented with a progressively enlarging right sided facial swelling overlying the angle of the mandible. An Ultrasound of the lesion and a computed tomography (CT) scan of the head and neck was carried out which revealed a large lesion within the right parotid gland. CT scan further demonstrated a direct communication with the right external carotid artery and external jugular vein. Considering the clinical course and radiological findings, there was sufficient evidence to avoid any invasive testing. Due to the self-limiting nature of the disease, patient was managed expectantly

AN ANALYSIS OF DIURNAL AIR TEMPERATURE RANGE CHANGE AND ITS COMPONENTS IN SHAHEED BENAZIR ABAD SINDH

A study has been carried out to analyse the temporal and seasonal patterns in the trends of diurnal air temperature range (DTR) and its components in Shaheed Benazir Abad for the time period 1996–2014.The magnitude, the slope and the significance of trends were investigated by using the linear regression method, the trend magnitude, the Mann-Kendall test and the Sen’s estimator of slope. The Mann-Kendall test and Sen's estimator of slope were calculated by using Addinsoft's XLSTAT 2015 software. The hypothesis of Mann-Kendall test was investigated at 95% confidence level for all variables. The result shows that minimum temperature of Shaheed Benazir Abad has increased at the rate of 0.063°C per year during study period while the maximum temperature for all months exhibits no change. This increase of minimum temperature contributed to the decreasing trend of diurnal temperature range. The DTR decreased at the rate of 0.057°C /year in Shaheed Benazir Abad. The investigation of seasonal DTR trends revealed that Summer and Spring seasons also witnessed a decreasing trends at the rate of 0.26 °C/year and 0.047°C/year respectively. Winter and aseasons, on the other hand, have experienced the increasing trends of DTR at the rate of 0.136 °C/year and 0.115 °C/year respectively. It is found by MK test that Tmax (winter), Tmax (Spring) and Tmin (Spring) exhibited the significant positive trends at the rate of 0.21°C/year, 0.368 °C/year and 0.421°C/year respectively. The increasing trends of Tmax of winter and spring indicate that winter and spring are warmer now

Immune boosting and anti-influenza effects of an Unani decoction in influenza like illness and COVID-19 like epidemics: a rationale approach

The Unani system of medicine is one of the traditional systems of medicine practised since centuries in many parts of the world including India. At a time when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is still raging across the globe and there is still no appreciable satisfactory management available with vaccination being the only panacea in the near future, unani medicine chiefly composed of herbal drugs is replete with many classical references for the management of influenza like illness and COVID-19 like epidemics. In Unani medicine, nazla-i-wabāi is referred as influenza for which a decoction containing Behidana (Cydonia oblonga), Unnab (Ziziphus jujuba) and Sapistan (Cordia myxa) are recommended to relieve the clinical features of nazla-i-wabāi and other COVID-19 like epidemics. All the three ingredients of this formulation are also individually used for the treatment of sore throat, cough, septicaemia, fever, dyspnoea, pharyngitis, chest pain etc. Certain scientific studies have validated various pharmacological actions of these drugs as claimed by unani physicians. A concerted rational approach has been attempted to highlight the effect of the unani decoction as to its immune boosting property both as prophylactic and therapeutic use in the treatment of influenza like illness and COVID-19 like epidemics in the light of ancient Unani classics and recent scientific studies

Coexistence of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma in a renal transplant recipient: A case report.

In solid organ transplant patients, non-melanoma skin cancer remains a leading cause of mortality. The most common skin malignancies in solid organ transplant patients are squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC). In organ transplant patients, SCC is 100 times more prevalent, and BCC is 10 times more prevalent than in the general population. Many risk factors for developing such malignancies are equivalent to those in the general population. However, in the transplant population, such cancers occur at an earlier age, act more aggressively, and often appear at multiple locations. Thus, assiduousness on the patient\u27s part and healthcare providers is the highest priority. The concurrence of SCC and BCC together is rarely encountered in a post-transplant individual. We report a rare case of coexistence of SCC and BCC in the same patient. A 63-year-old man had been diagnosed with SCC and BCC simultaneously by a punch biopsy performed at two different scalp lesions of different diameters. This review describes an unusual occurrence of both skin cancers concurrently in a kidney transplant recipien

Impact of Maternal Education about Complementary Feeding on Their Infants\u2019 Nutritional Outcomes in Low- and Middle-income Households: A Community-based Randomized Interventional Study in Karachi, Pakistan

This cluster-randomized interventional trial at peri-urban settings of Karachi was conducted to evaluate the impact of maternal educational messages regarding appropriate complementary feeding (CF) on the nutritional status of their infants after 30 weeks of educational interventions delivered by trained community health workers. Mothers in the intervention group received three education modules about breastfeeding (BF) and appropriate CF at a baseline visit and two subsequent visits 10 weeks apart. The control group received advice about BF according to national guidelines. Infants\u2019 growth [weight, length, and mid-upper arm-circumference (MUAC), stunting, wasting, and underweight] were measured at four time points. At the end of the study, infants in the intervention group had a higher mean weight of 350 g (p=0.001); length of 0.66 cm (p=0.001), and MUAC of 0.46 cm (p=0.002) compared to the controls; proportionate reduction of stunting and underweight were 10% (84% vs 74%; ORadj 8.36 (5.6-12.42) and 5% (25% vs 20%; ORadj 0.75 (0.4-1.79) in the intervention compared to the control group. For relatively food-secure populations, educational interventions about appropriate CF to mothers had a direct positive impact on linear growth of their infants

Serial population-based serosurveys for COVID-19 in two neighbourhoods of Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: To determine population-based estimates of COVID-19 in a densely populated urban community of Karachi, Pakistan.Methods: Three cross-sectional surveys were conducted in April, June and August in low- and high-transmission neighborhoods. Participants were randomly selected to provide blood for Elecsys® immunoassay for detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Bayesian regression model was used to estimate seroprevalence after adjusting for the demographic characteristics of each district RESULTS: We enrolled 3005 participants from 623 households. In Phase 2, adjusted seroprevalence was estimated as 8.7% (95% CI 5.1-13.1) and 15.1% (95% CI 9.4 -21.7) in low and high transmission areas respectively, compared to 0.2% (95% CI 0-0.7) and 0.4% (95% CI 0 - 1.3) in Phase 1. In Phase 3, it was 12.8% (95% CI 8.3 - 17.7) and 21.5% (95% CI 15.6-28) in low and high transmission areas, respectively. CRI was 0.31 (95% CI 0.16-0.47) and 0.41(95% CI 0.28-0.52) in low and high transmission neighborhoods respectively in Phase 2. Similar trends were observed in Phase 3. Only 5.4% of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 were symptomatic. IFR was 1.66%, 0.37% and 0.26% in Phases 1, 2 and 3 respectively.Conclusion: Continuing rounds of seroprevalence studies will help us better understand secular trends and extent of infection during the course of the pandemic

Medikamentöse Therapie der Adipositas – Konkurrenz zur bariatrischen Chirurgie oder sinnvolle Ergänzung?

Obesity is a complex chronic disease and requires a long-term multimodal approach. The current treatment algorithm for treatment of obesity mainly consists of a stepwise approach, which starts with a lifestyle intervention followed by or combined with medication treatment, whereas bariatric surgery is often reserved for the last option. This article provides an overview of the currently available conservative medicinal treatment regimens and the currently approved medications as well as medications currently undergoing approval studies with respect to the efficacy and possible side effects. Special attention is paid to the importance of combination treatment of pharmacotherapy and surgery in the sense of a multimodal treatment. The data so far show that using a multimodal approach an improvement in the long-term weight loss and metabolic benefits can be achieved for the patients. [Abstract copyright: © 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.

Optimal learning paradigm and clustering for effective radio resource management in 5G HetNets

Ultra-dense heterogeneous networks (UDHN) based on small cells are a requisite part of the future cellular networks as they are proposed as one of the enabling technologies to handle coverage and capacity problems. But co-tier and cross-tier interferences in UDHN severely degrade the quality of service due to K-tiered architecture. Machine learning based radio resource management either through independent learning or cooperative learning is a proven efficient scheme for interference mitigation and quality of service provision in UDHN in a both distributive and cooperative manner. However, an optimal learning paradigm selection, i.e., either independent or cooperative learning and optimal cooperative cluster size in cooperative learning for efficient radio resource management in UDHN is still an open research problem. In this article, a Q-learning based radio resource management scheme is proposed and evaluated for both distributive and cooperative schemes using independent and cooperative learning. The proposed Q-learning solution follows the $\epsilon -$ greedy policy for optimal convergence. The simulation results for the UDHN in an urban setup show that in comparison to the independent learning paradigm, cooperative learning has no significant impact on macro cell user capacity. However, there is a significant improvement in small cell user capacity and the sum capacity of the cooperating small cells in the cluster. A significant increase of 48.57% and 37.9% is observed in the small cell user capacity, and sum capacity of the cooperating small cells, respectively, using cooperative learning as compared to independent learning which sets cooperative learning as an optimal learning strategy in UDHN. The improvement in small cell user capacity is at cost of increased computational time which is directly proportional to the number of cooperating small cells. To solve the issue of computational time in cooperative learning, an optimal clustering algorithm is proposed. The proposed optimal clustering reduced the computational time by four times in cooperative Q-learning

Neural Networks based Shunt Hybrid Active Power Filter for Harmonic Elimination

The growing use of nonlinear devices is introducing harmonics in the power system networks that results in distortion of current and voltage signals causing damage to the power distribution system. Therefore, in power systems, the elimination of harmonics is of great concern. This paper presents an efficient techno-economical approach to suppress harmonics and improve the power factor in the power distribution network using neural network algorithms-based Shunt Hybrid Active Power Filter (SHAPF), such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The objective of the proposed algorithms for SHAPF is to reduce Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) within an acceptable range to improve system quality. In our filter design approach, we tested and compared conventional pq0 theory and neural networks to detect the harmonics present in the power system. Moreover, for the regulation of the DC supply to the inverter of the SHAPF, the conventional PI controller and neural networks-based controllers are used and compared. The applicability of the proposed filter is tested for three different nonlinear load cases. The simulation results show that the neural networks-based filter control techniques satisfy all international standards with minimum current THD, neutral wire current elimination, and small DC voltage fluctuations for voltage regulation current. Furthermore, all three neural network architectures are tested and compared based on accuracy and computational complexity, with RNN outperforming the rest