Kinetic and equilibrium modeling of Cu(II) and Ni(II) sorption onto physically pretreated Rosa centifolia distillation waste biomass

The removal of Cu(II) and Ni(II) from aqueous solution by physically pretreated (boiled, heated and autoclaved) Rosa centifolia distillation waste biomass was conducted in batch conditions. The obtained results revealed that initial metal ion concentration, kinetics, and temperature affected the adsorption capacity of the physically pretreated R. centifolia distillation waste biomass. The Cu(II) and Ni(II) equilibrium sorption data agreed well to Langmuir isotherm model and the sorption kinetics were accurately described by pseudo second order kinetic model. The Cu(II) and Ni(II) uptake capacities (mg g-1) of physical pretreated R. centifolia distillation waste biomass were in following order: boiled (66.91) > heated (52.51) > autoclaved (49.82) > native (42.68) and boiled (67.55) > heated (65.19) > autoclaved (58.09) > native (45.19), respectively. The nature of R. centifolia distillation waste biomass surface functionalities was analyzed by FTIR spectroscopy.Keywords: Cu(II), Ni(II), isotherms, kinetics, pretreatment, Rosa centifolia

Evaluation of the Perception of Community Pharmacists Regarding their Role in Pakistan's Healthcare System: A Qualitative Approach

Purpose: To explore the perception of community pharmacists regarding their role in Pakistan's healthcare system.Methods: A qualitative study design was adopted. A semi-structured interview guide was developed and face to face interviews were conducted. The participants were community pharmacists and were recruited through one of the researcher’s personal contacts in two cities of Pakistan (Islamabad and Lahore) from April to June 2008. The interviews were conducted at the pharmacists’ work-place. Arrangements for the time and place of interview were made during initial contacts. Written consent was obtained from the participants prior to the interview.Results: Among the respondents interviewed, seven were male and three female community pharmacists aged between 25 and 50 years. All the participants regularly dispensed > 50 prescriptions daily. Thematic content analysis yielded 5 major themes: (a) provision of pharmacy services to consumers, (b) counseling at pharmacy, (c) application of Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP), (d) Pakistan Pharmacy Association (PPA) contribution towards pharmacy profession, and (e) strategies to improve community pharmacies.Conclusion: Community pharmacies in Pakistan currently face shortage of pharmacists. This has resulted in non-provision of patient counseling; rather services are more focused more on the management of pharmacies than clients. As a result, there is little public awareness of the pharmacist’s role in health care.Keywords: Perception, Community pharmacist, Patient care, Pakistan, Qualitative methodology

Jaceosidin Induces Apoptosis in U87 Glioblastoma Cells through G2/M Phase Arrest

Artemisia argyi is a widely used medicinal plant in China. The present study was designed to identify the bioactive constituents with antiglioma activity from leaves of Artemesia argyi. A bioactivity guided approach based on MTT assay for cells growth inhibition led to the isolation of a flavonoid, “jaceosidin” from ethanol extract of leaves of Artemesia argyi. The growth inhibitory effect of jaceosidin was explored using flow cytometry and Western blot studies. Our results showed that jaceosidin exerts growth inhibitory effect by arresting the cells at G2/M phase and induction of apoptosis. Furthermore, our study revealed that induction of apoptosis was associated with cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase, upregulation of p53 and Bax, decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential, release of cytochrome c, and activation of caspase 3. This mitochondrial-caspase-3-dependent apoptosis pathway was confirmed by pretreatment with caspase 3 inhibitor, Ac-DEVD-CHO. Our findings suggested that jaceosidin induces mitochondrial-caspase-3-dependent apoptosis in U87 cells by arresting the cell cycle at G2/M phase

Glioblastoma stem cells induce quiescence in surrounding neural stem cells via Notch signalling.

There is increasing evidence demonstrating that adult neural stem cells (NSCs) are a cell of origin of glioblastoma. Here we analyzed the interaction between transformed and wild-type NSCs isolated from the adult mouse subventricular zone niche. We found that transformed NSCs are refractory to quiescence-inducing signals. Unexpectedly, we also demonstrated that these cells induce quiescence in surrounding wild-type NSCs in a cell–cell contact and Notch signaling-dependent manner. Our findings therefore suggest that oncogenic mutations are propagated in the stem cell niche not just through cell-intrinsic advantages, but also by outcompeting neighboring stem cells through repression of their proliferation

Forecasting User Interests Through Topic Tag Predictions in Online Health Communities

The increasing reliance on online communities for healthcare information by patients and caregivers has led to the increase in the spread of misinformation, or subjective, anecdotal and inaccurate or non-specific recommendations, which, if acted on, could cause serious harm to the patients. Hence, there is an urgent need to connect users with accurate and tailored health information in a timely manner to prevent such harm. This paper proposes an innovative approach to suggesting reliable information to participants in online communities as they move through different stages in their disease or treatment. We hypothesize that patients with similar histories of disease progression or course of treatment would have similar information needs at comparable stages. Specifically, we pose the problem of predicting topic tags or keywords that describe the future information needs of users based on their profiles, traces of their online interactions within the community (past posts, replies) and the profiles and traces of online interactions of other users with similar profiles and similar traces of past interaction with the target users. The result is a variant of the collaborative information filtering or recommendation system tailored to the needs of users of online health communities. We report results of our experiments on an expert curated data set which demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach over the state of the art baselines with respect to accurate and timely prediction of topic tags (and hence information sources of interest).Comment: Healthcare Informatics and NL

Qualitative Assessment of the Pharmacist’s Role in Punjab, Pakistan: Medical Practitioners’ Views

Purpose: To assess the perception of Pakistani doctors regarding pharmacist’s role in Punjab Pakistan.Methods: A qualitative approach was used to assess the perception of doctors regarding pharmacist’s role in the study setting. A total of 12 doctors were interviewed using a semi- structured interview guide. The study was conducted for a period of 3 months in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad and Lahore, from July to September 2011. Doctors were informed regarding the aim, objective and nature of the study.Results: All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed for their content. Thematic content analysis yielded four major themes: 1) Availability of pharmacist in Pakistan’s healthcare setting. 2) Willingness to collaborate with pharmacist. 3) Separation of prescribing from dispensing. 4) Difference in academic levels of doctors and pharmacist.Conclusion: Doctors are receptive to an expanded role for pharmacists, also regard them as drug information experts, but their expectations fall short of the quality of clinically-focused pharmacy services that pharmacists are actually rendering.Keywords: Doctors’ expectation, Pharmacist, Clinical pharmacy services, Qualitative study, Prescribin

(2,4-Dimethoxy­benzyl­idene)-2-hydroxy­benzohydrazide ethanol solvate

In the planar title mol­ecule, C16H16N2O4·C2H6O, the planar Schiff base molecule is linked to the ethanol solvent mol­ecule by a hydr­oxy–amide hydrogen bond. The hydr­oxy group of the ethanol mol­ecule is a hydrogen-bond donor to the double-bonded N atom of an adjacent Sciff base, pairs of interactions taking place across a center of symmetry and giving rise to a hydrogen-bonded dimer