Prevalence of Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak in Traumatic Head Injury at a Tertiary Care Center

Background: Cerebrospinal fluid circulates around the surface of brain and spinal cord and through the brain’s ventricles. CSF leak is a condition that occurs when the CSF leaks through a defect in the dura or skull and out through the ear or nose. The most common causes of CSF leak include head injury, brain and sinus surgery. The objective of this study was to determine the frequencies of post-traumatic cerebrospinal fluid leak in traumatic head injury. Material and Methods: A descriptive case series was carried out in the Department of Neurosurgery, Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar for a period of 1 year, from 1st February 2016 to 31st January 2017. A total of 422 patients presenting within 48 hours of acute trauma to the head were included in a consecutive manner and followed up till 7th day to determine the CSF leak. Results: The mean age group of our sample was 37.37 + 12.3 years of which 79.6% were male patients and 20.4% female patients. Most of the patients (55.5%) were ≤ 40 years of age. CSF leak was observed in 5.2% of patients, with otorrhea seen in 2.1% patients and rhinorrhea in 3.1% patients, respectively. Conclusion: CSF leak is quite common in our population after acute trauma to the head. The high prevalence may be due to high frequency of accidents in our society with high velocity impact and more commonly seen in the younger age group (≤ 40 years)

The Role of Decompressive Craniectomy in Traumatic Cerebral Contusions; A Prospective Observational Study

Background: To investigate the role of decompressive craniectomy in traumatic cerebral contusions in terms of factors affecting outcome and the various surgical strategies which can be taken into consideration for contusion resection and cerebral decompression.Material and Methods: The study was conducted from July 2013 to June 2014 at Department of Neurological Surgery Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar. A total of 35 patients were enrolled. The criteria included patients with traumatic cerebral contusion(s) who were eligible to undergo surgical decompression. The surgical procedures for intervention were classified according to the individual patient needs. Demographic data, inclu-sion parameters, surgical procedures, post-operative outcome and complications were recorded and analysed.Results: Thirty five patients were included with a mean age of 37.8 ± 13.8 years, 23 (65.7%) males and 12 (34.3%) females. The median Glasgow coma score at arrival was 8 ± 2.4, median Glasgow comma score at discharge was 9 ± 5. The median Glasgow outcome score at 3 months was 4 ± 1.6 and a mean total hospital stay of 10.9 ± 8.1 days.Conclusion: Cerebral contusions comprise one of the most serious kind of traumatic brain insult with long term physical, mental and economic sequelae while imparting a heavy load of hospital inpatient mortality and mor-bidity

Slum Terrain Mapping Using Low-Cost 2D Laser Scanners

This paper presents a motorbike-based custom made scanning and mapping system for surveying slums and highly populated urban regions. These vicinities are difficult to reach through standard vehicular scanning systems and require a compact solution as presented in this paper. The system consists of two small range 2D Hokuyo laser scanners mounted in right angle orientations to capture the environment. In addition, the global positioning system, the wheel encoder, the inertial measurement unit, and cameras have been integrated with the system to estimate the pose and visual information. Sensorial information has been used to localise the system using Kalman Filtering. Later, by applying the standard transformations, the 3D point cloud map of the surveyed vicinity has been developed. The scanning system has been tested at various locations including densely populated and slum regions. Precise and detailed 3D mapping results have been obtained, which are further extensively analysed to understand the built structure and the road furniture. The working of the system is found to be quite economical and faster than that of local urban surveying systems

The Pakistan risk of myocardial infarction study: A resource for the study of genetic, lifestyle and other determinants of myocardial infarction in south Asia

The burden of coronary heart disease (CHD) is increasing at a greater rate in South Asia than in any other region globally, but there is little direct evidence about its determinants. The Pakistan Risk of Myocardial Infarction Study (PROMIS) is an epidemiological resource to enable reliable study of genetic, lifestyle and other determinants of CHD in South Asia. By March 2009, PROMIS had recruited over 5,000 cases of first-ever confirmed acute myocardial infarction (MI) and over 5,000 matched controls aged 30-80 years. For each participant, information has been recorded on demographic factors, lifestyle, medical and family history, anthropometry, and a 12-lead electrocardiogram. A range of biological samples has been collected and stored, including DNA, plasma, serum and whole blood. During its next stage, the study aims to expand recruitment to achieve a total of about 20,000 cases and about 20,000 controls, and, in subsets of participants, to enrich the resource by collection of monocytes, establishment of lymphoblastoid cell lines, and by resurveying participants. Measurements in progress include profiling of candidate biochemical factors, assay of 45,000 variants in 2,100 candidate genes, and a genomewide association scan of over 650,000 genetic markers. We have established a large epidemiological resource for CHD in South Asia. In parallel with its further expansion and enrichment, the PROMIS resource will be systematically harvested to help identify and evaluate genetic and other determinants of MI in South Asia. Findings from this study should advance scientific understanding and inform regionally appropriate disease prevention and control strategies

A New Performance Metric for User-preference Based Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract—In this paper, we propose a metric for evaluating the performance of user-preference based evolutionary multiobjective algorithms by defining a preferred region based on the location of a user-supplied reference point. This metric uses a composite front which is a type of reference set and is used as a replacement for the Pareto-optimal front. This composite front is constructed by extracting the non-dominated solutions from the merged solution sets of all algorithms that are to be compared. A preferred region is then defined on the composite front based on the location of a reference point. Once the preferred region is defined, existing evolutionary multi-objective performance metrics can be applied with respect to the preferred region. In this paper the performance of a cardinality-based metric, a distance-based metric, and a volume-based metric are compared against a baseline which relies on knowledge of the Pareto-optimal front. The experimental results show that the distance-based and the volume-based metrics are consistent with the baseline, showing meaningful comparisons. However, the cardinality-based approach shows some inconsistencies and is not suitable for comparing the algorithms. I

Estimation of irrigation water requirement and irrigation scheduling for major crops using the CROPWAT model and climatic data

The world is facing an acute water shortage. The present irrigation techniques used in the Hyderabad district, Pakistan, are not demand-driven. The present study was carried out to determine the crop water requirement (CWR), irrigation water requirement (IWR), and irrigation scheduling for major crops grown in the Hyderabad district using the CROPWAT model based on climatic, soil, and crop data. The analysis revealed that the total CWR for the entire growing season for sugarcane, banana, cotton, and wheat were 3,127.0; 2,012.3; 1,073.5; and 418.9 mm, respectively. However, the IWR for sugarcane, banana, cotton, and wheat for the entire growing season was found to be 2,964.0; 1,966.7; 1,052.7; and 407.6 mm, respectively. However, the contribution of rainfall was 163.0, 45.6, 20.8, and 11.3 mm during sugarcane, banana, cotton, and wheat, respectively. The CWR and IWR were higher during the dry season due to high temperatures and low relative humidity. However, the IWR of each crop was low in the initial stage which increased with the growing stage until the peak at the full growth stage. The study recommends the use of CROPWAT to investigate the irrigation water requirements with accuracy. HIGHLIGHTS Investigation for crop water requirement (CWR) for wheat, cotton, banana, and sugarcane.; Investigation for irrigation water requirement (IWR).; Investigation for irrigation scheduling.; Use of climatic, soil, and crop data.; Use of scientific tools, i.e., CROPWAT and CLIMAT models.

Natural Plant Extracts: An Update about Novel Spraying as an Alternative of Chemical Pesticides to Extend the Postharvest Shelf Life of Fruits and Vegetables

Fresh fruits and vegetables, being the source of important vitamins, minerals, and other plant chemicals, are of boundless importance these days. Although in agriculture, the green revolution was a milestone, it was accompanied by the intensive utilization of chemical pesticides. However, chemical pesticides have hazardous effects on human health and the environment. Therefore, increasingly stimulating toward more eco-friendly and safer alternatives to prevent postharvest losses and lead to improving the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables. Proposed alternatives, natural plant extracts, are very promising due to their high efficacy. The plant-based extract is from a natural source and has no or few health concerns. Many researchers have elaborated on the harmful effects of synthetic chemicals on human life. People are now much more aware of safety and health concerns than ever before. In the present review, we discussed the latest research on natural alternatives for chemical synthetic pesticides. Considering that the use of plant-based extracts from aloe vera, lemongrass, or neem is non-chemical by-products of the fruits and vegetable industry, they are proved safe for human health and may be integrated with economic strategies. Such natural plant extracts can be a good alternative to chemical pesticides and preservatives

High-Pressure Processing for Sustainable Food Supply

Sustainable food supply has gained considerable consumer concern due to the high percentage of spoilage microorganisms. Food industries need to expand advanced technologies that can maintain the nutritive content of foods, enhance the bio-availability of bioactive compounds, provide environmental and economic sustainability, and fulfill consumers’ requirements of sensory characteristics. Heat treatment negatively affects food samples’ nutritional and sensory properties as bioactives are sensitive to high-temperature processing. The need arises for non-thermal processes to reduce food losses, and sustainable developments in preservation, nutritional security, and food safety are crucial parameters for the upcoming era. Non-thermal processes have been successfully approved because they increase food quality, reduce water utilization, decrease emissions, improve energy efficiency, assure clean labeling, and utilize by-products from waste food. These processes include pulsed electric field (PEF), sonication, high-pressure processing (HPP), cold plasma, and pulsed light. This review describes the use of HPP in various processes for sustainable food processing. The influence of this technique on microbial, physicochemical, and nutritional properties of foods for sustainable food supply is discussed. This approach also emphasizes the limitations of this emerging technique. HPP has been successfully analyzed to meet the global requirements. A limited global food source must have a balanced approach to the raw content, water, energy, and nutrient content. HPP showed positive results in reducing microbial spoilage and, at the same time, retains the nutritional value. HPP technology meets the essential requirements for sustainable and clean labeled food production. It requires limited resources to produce nutritionally suitable foods for consumers’ health