Smoking and blood pressure levels in hypertensive patients: evaluating the role of gender, age and hypertension duration

Background: Hypertension is estimated to affect about 40% of adults above 25 years of age globally. While many of the risk factors of hypertension are well known, such is not the case with smoking. Pertinent published literature is heterogeneous, with a dearth of relevant local data. Objectives was to study the relationship between smoking and blood pressure levels in hypertensive patients and to assess the effects of gender, age and hypertension duration on such a relationship.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on a total of 298 conveniently sampled patients, aged 18 or above, from the medical outpatient department of a secondary care hospital of Karachi. The relevant data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire whereas the blood pressure level was checked using sphygmomanometer with stethoscope. Mann Whitney U test was used for inferential analysis whereas the significance level was set at 0.05.Results: Overall, both the systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were significantly associated with smoking history (p<0.05 for both) where they were found to be higher in smokers than in non-smokers. Furthermore, after gender, age and hypertension duration based stratifications; both the systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were still significantly associated with smoking history in patients who were male, were ≥35 years old and had <5 years hypertension duration (p<0.05 for both) where they were again found to be higher in smokers than in non-smokers.Conclusions: The study results showed a significant association of positive smoking history with higher mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels, though after stratifying for gender, age and hypertension duration, this relationship persisted only in patients who were male, were ≥35 years old and had <5 years hypertension duration

Characteristics of chicken slaughterhouse wastewater

The chicken slaughterhouse wastewater is a class of wastewater, which is heavily polluted with organic matters including proteins, blood residues, fats and lard. Therefore, the direct discharged of untreated chicken slaughterhouse wastewater into the environment is associated with the occurrence of eutrophication phenomenon. In the present study, the characteristics of chicken slaughterhouse wastewater were investigated to ascertain the role of these wastes in the adverse effect on the environment and natural water system. The parameter tested included biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solid (TSS), total nitrogen (TN), total organic carbon (TOC), orthophosphate (PO4 3-), temperature and pH. The results revealed available high concentrations of BOD (1,341 - 1,821 ± 242.7 mg L1 ), COD (3,154.19 - 7,719.3 ± 2,282.69 mg L-1), TSS (377.67 - 5,462 ± 2,696.1 mg L-1) which have exceeded the EQA1974 standard limits for disposal of wastewater into the environment. The concentrations of TN (162.6 -563.8 ± 215 mg L-1) and PO4 3- (7.047 - 17.111 ± 4.25 mg L-1) were within the range required for microalgae growth which confirm their role in the occurrence of eutrophication phenomenon. It can be concluded that the direct discharge of chicken slaughterhouse wastewater contributes negatively on the environmental biodiversity and thus they should be subjected for an effective treated before the final disposal

A Highly Secured Image Encryption Scheme using Quantum Walk and Chaos

The use of multimedia data sharing has drastically increased in the past few decades due to the revolutionary improvements in communication technologies such as the 4th generation (4G) and 5th generation (5G) etc. Researchers have proposed many image encryption algorithms based on the classical random walk and chaos theory for sharing an image in a secure way. Instead of the classical random walk, this paper proposes the quantum walk to achieve high image security. Classical random walk exhibits randomness due to the stochastic transitions between states, on the other hand, the quantum walk is more random and achieve randomness due to the superposition, and the interference of the wave functions. The proposed image encryption scheme is evaluated using extensive security metrics such as correlation coefficient, entropy, histogram, time complexity, number of pixels change rate and unified average intensity etc. All experimental results validate the proposed scheme, and it is concluded that the proposed scheme is highly secured, lightweight and computationally efficient. In the proposed scheme, the values of the correlation coefficient, entropy, mean square error (MSE), number of pixels change rate (NPCR), unified average change intensity (UACI) and contrast are 0.0069, 7.9970, 40.39, 99.60%, 33.47 and 10.4542 respectively

A Novel Chaotic Permutation-Substitution Image Encryption Scheme Based on Logistic Map and Random Substitution

Privacy is a serious concern related to sharing videos or images among people over the Internet. As a method to preserve images’ privacy, chaos-based image encryption algorithms have been used widely to fulfil such a requirement. However, these algorithms suffer from a low key-space, significant computational overhead, and a lag in resistance against differential attacks. This paper presents a novel chaos-based image encryption method based on permutation and substitution using a single Substitution Box (S-Box) to address issues in contemporary image encryption algorithms. The proposed encryption technique’s efficiency is validated through extensive experiments as compared to the state-of-the-art encryption algorithms using different measures and benchmarks. Precisely, the collected results demonstrate that the proposed technique is more resilient against well-known statistical attacks and performs well under plaintext attacks. Indeed, the proposed scheme exhibits very high sensitivity concerning the plaintext attack. A minor change in the encryption key or the plain text would result in a completely different encrypted image

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), through their complex cargo, can reflect the state of their cell of origin and change the functions and phenotypes of other cells. These features indicate strong biomarker and therapeutic potential and have generated broad interest, as evidenced by the steady year-on-year increase in the numbers of scientific publications about EVs. Important advances have been made in EV metrology and in understanding and applying EV biology. However, hurdles remain to realising the potential of EVs in domains ranging from basic biology to clinical applications due to challenges in EV nomenclature, separation from non-vesicular extracellular particles, characterisation and functional studies. To address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) updates its 'Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles', which was first published in 2014 and then in 2018 as MISEV2014 and MISEV2018, respectively. The goal of the current document, MISEV2023, is to provide researchers with an updated snapshot of available approaches and their advantages and limitations for production, separation and characterisation of EVs from multiple sources, including cell culture, body fluids and solid tissues. In addition to presenting the latest state of the art in basic principles of EV research, this document also covers advanced techniques and approaches that are currently expanding the boundaries of the field. MISEV2023 also includes new sections on EV release and uptake and a brief discussion of in vivo approaches to study EVs. Compiling feedback from ISEV expert task forces and more than 1000 researchers, this document conveys the current state of EV research to facilitate robust scientific discoveries and move the field forward even more rapidly

Improving Patient behavioral Consent through Different Service Quality Dimensions: Assessing the Mediating Role of Patient Satisfaction

This study aimed to examine the impact of the five-dimensional health care service quality (SQ) on patient behavioral consent (PBC). This study further explored the mediating role of patient satisfaction (PS) on the SQ&ndash;PBC relationship. A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data from public sector hospitals situated in Bahawalpur division, Punjab, Pakistan. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. This study found positive and significant relationships between SQ and PBC, SQ and PS, and PS and PBC. Our results further revealed that PS partially mediates the relationship between SQ and PBC. Our study offers a comprehensive theoretical framework of several service quality attributes (SQs) affecting patient behavioral consent (PBC) and patient satisfaction (PS) in health care institutions. Testing these above relationships via a mediation approach is novel and contributed to the current study on service quality

A Comparative study on lipase enzyme immobilized on acid and glutaraldehyde functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes

Nanomaterials are being increasingly employed as support materials for enzyme immobilization owing to their biocompatibility and large surface area. Immobilization of lipase on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) has shown significant enhancement in the enzyme stability with respect to temperature and pH variations. Functionalization of MWCNT results into cross linking of enzyme with the MWCNT. The present study focused on the comparative performance evaluation of the immobilized lipase on MWCNT functionalized using acid and glutaraldehyde, respectively. Acid treatment of MWCNT will cause lipase to physically adsorb on MWCNT while glutaraldehyde treatment will act as a cross linker and form a covalent bond between lipase and the functionalized MWCNT. Immobilization efficiency was assessed by comparing enzyme loading for the two differently functionalized MWCNTs. Enzyme loading is defined as the ratio of the enzyme that is attached to the MWCNT to the enzyme present in the original enzyme solution. Glutaraldehyde-MWCNT (GL-MWCNT) cross-linking showed 96% of loading efficiency while acid treatment showed 94% efficiency. The maximum enzyme activity on GA-MWCNT was obtained at 45°C and pH 7 while acid-MWCNT showed highest activity at 40°C and pH 8. Enzyme activity was higher for lipase immobilized on GA-MWCNT compared to acid-MWCNT possibly owing to greater enzyme loading in the former support. Immobilized enzyme showed higher relative activity compared to the free enzyme. Lipase on GA-MWCNT showed greater stability at higher pH and temperature compared to that of the acid-MWCNT. Further, lipase on GA-MWCNT exhibited almost 81% residual activity after 5 consecutive uses. In short, GA-MWCNT appears to be a better support material for lipase performance in terms of operational stability, enhanced activity and high residual activity upon multiple uses

Adaptive CNN Ensemble for Complex Multispectral Image Analysis

Multispectral image classification has long been the domain of static learning with nonstationary input data assumption. The prevalence of Industrial Revolution 4.0 has led to the emergence to perform real-time analysis (classification) in an online learning scenario. Due to the complexities (spatial, spectral, dynamic data sources, and temporal inconsistencies) in online and time-series multispectral image analysis, there is a high occurrence probability in variations of spectral bands from an input stream, which deteriorates the classification performance (in terms of accuracy) or makes them ineffective. To highlight this critical issue, firstly, this study formulates the problem of new spectral band arrival as virtual concept drift. Secondly, an adaptive convolutional neural network (CNN) ensemble framework is proposed and evaluated for a new spectral band adaptation. The adaptive CNN ensemble framework consists of five (05) modules, including dynamic ensemble classifier (DEC) module. DEC uses the weighted voting ensemble approach using multiple optimized CNN instances. DEC module can increase dynamically after new spectral band arrival. The proposed ensemble approach in the DEC module (individual spectral band handling by the individual classifier of the ensemble) contributes the diversity to the ensemble system in the simple yet effective manner. The results have shown the effectiveness and proven the diversity of the proposed framework to adapt the new spectral band during online image classification. Moreover, the extensive training dataset, proper regularization, optimized hyperparameters (model and training), and more appropriate CNN architecture significantly contributed to retaining the performance accuracy

Linking Transformational Leadership with Nurse-Assessed Adverse Patient Outcomes and the Quality of Care: Assessing the Role of Job Satisfaction and Structural Empowerment

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), structural empowerment (SE), job satisfaction (JS), nurse-assessed adverse patient outcomes (APO), and the quality of care (QOC). The study further investigates the mediating effects of SE and JS on TL-APO and TL-QOC relationships. A total of 600 nurses working at 17 government hospitals in Pakistan completed the survey. The hypothesized model was tested using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. We found a positive relationship between TL, SE, JS, and QOC but negative relationships between TL and APO, SE and APO, and JS and APO. Our study further suggests that SE and JS strongly mediate both TL-APO and TL-QOC relationships