Role of intra-operative ultrasound in brain tumour surgeries

The use of intra-operative ultrasound remains a largely underutilized option in brain tumour surgeries. The widespread availability of neuronavigation may be the reason why such a useful modality has become less popular even though recent advances in ultrasound technology have greatly improved its utility. The available literature also clearly shows that it offers additional advantages especially when used with neuronavigation. Herein the authors have briefly touched upon the available literature on the role of intraoperative ultrasound in brain tumour surgeries

Role of multidisciplinary neuro-oncology tumour boards in cancer management

Multidisciplinary care, including a tumour board discussion for all patients with oncological problems is now considered a standard. However, this is not uniformly implemented within many centres, especially in developing countries. The structure of these tumour boards allows for comprehensive discussion and debate regarding various treatment pathways, with inputs from all specialties. This creates a consensus regarding management for each patient that is unique and holistic. Despite its widespread implementation, published data on neuro-oncology tumour boards is quite limited. The presented literature review briefly discusses the structure, goals, outcomes achieved by multidisciplinary tumour boards within the field of neuro-oncology

Association patterns of volatile metabolites in urinary excretions among Type-2 Non-Insulin dependent diabetes patients

Background: Patterns of volatile metabolites in urine are important to detect abnormalities associated with diabetes. Present study was conducted to find out the excretion patterns of endogenously produced alcohols in urine for type 2 (Non-Insulin Dependent) diabetes mellitus. A cross sectional analytical study was conducted with duration extended from Jan to Mar 2015.Methods: The current study included 40 patients with chronic type 2 diabetes mellitus. In total, 10 sex and age matched subjects with no history of any disease were considered as controls. Blood sugar was estimated by autoanalyzer using standard kit of Merck following manufacturer`s instructions. Urine sugar was quantitatively detected by biuret reagent using titration technique. Urinary alcohol was identified and estimated by gas chromatography.  Urinary ketone bodies were estimated by urinary strip.Results: It was observed that level of fasting blood sugar was significantly increased (P<0.001) in patients as compared to their controls. The blood sugar and urinary alcohol in patients were 3.0% and 6.0% respectively. Urinary ketone bodies were found to be 2+. On the other hand urine sugar, alcohol and ketone bodies were not detected in the negative control subjects.Conclusions: It is concluded that urinary alcohol is endogenously produced in patients with type 2 diabetes due to uncontrolled hyperglycemia. However further work is needed to find out the ratio of urinary and blood alcohol which may confirm the present findings

Detection and comparison of light metals in hair among workers of different industries using Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) for forensic casework

Background: The study was planned to evaluate the deposition of some metals in the scalp hair of the people working in the particular environment. Scalp hair samples were collected from different industry workers including pharmaceutical, textile and paint industry and analyzed for the determination of aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), potassium (K) and sulfur (S). Hair analysis provides a better assessment of light metals present in the surroundings, as well as monitoring of variation of metals from place to place.Methods: The hair samples were collected from 21-55 years old employees working in industry for more than four years. Workers of the age less than 20 years and less than 4 years working experience were not including in this study. Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) system was used to detect the light metals from hair and probable matches were searched through National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library.Results: The metals Al, S, K and Ca concentration was found maximum in the pharmaceutical industry workers. i.e., 575.1 µg/g, 190.7 µg/g, 11.1 µg/g and 9.1 µg/g respectively. The minimum concentration so these metals was found in paint industry workers i.e. 103.7 µg/g, 8.87 µg/g, 2.3 µg/g, and 1.7µg/g respectively.Conclusion: Light metal concentrations in hair samples showed a significant positive correlation. Our findings can play vital role for health departments and industrial environmental management system (EMS) authorities in policy making and implementation. Taken all together, the workers were facing minor health implications in these industries and need immediate protective measures to remediate the current situation. Keywords: Forensic, Scalp Hair Analysis, Particle Induced X-ray Emissio

Biosafety assessment of transgenic Bt cotton on model animals

Background: To know the effects of transgenic crops on soil microorganisms, animals and other expected hazards due to the introduction of GM crops into the environment is critical both scientifically and environmentally. The work was conducted to study the effect of insecticidal Bt protein on Rats and Earthworms.  Methods: For this purpose, animals like rat and soil organisms like Earthworm were selected. Rats were selected on the basis of its 95% homology on genomic, cellular and enzymatic level with human while earthworm were preferred on the basis of their direct contact with soil to evaluate the impact of Bt (Cry1AC) crop field soil on earthworm, secreted by root exudates of Bt cotton. Several physical, molecular, biochemical and histological analyses were performed on both Rats/Earthworms fed on standard diet (control group) as well containing Bt protein (experimental group).Results: Molecular analyses such as immune Dot blot, SDS-PAGE, ELISA and PCR, confirmed the absence of Cry1Ac protein in blood and urine samples of rats, which were fed with Bt protein in their diet. Furthermore, histological studies showed that there was no difference in cellular architecture in liver, heart, kidney and intestine of Bt and non-Bt diet fed rats. To see the effect of Bt on earthworm two different groups were studied, one with transgenic plant field soil supplemented with grinded leaves of cotton and second group with non-Bt field soil.Conclusions: No lethal effects of transgenic Bt protein on the survival of earthworm and rats were observed. Bradford assay, Dipstick assay ELISA demonstrated the absence of Cry1Ac protein in the mid-gut epithelial tissue of earthworm. The results of present study will be helpful in successful deployment and commercial release of genetically modified crop in Pakistan

True prevalence of twin HDV-HBV infection in Pakistan: a molecular approach

Hepatitis Delta Virus (HDV) infects only patients that are already infected by hepatitis B virus (HBV) because this is sub satellite virus which depends on and propagate only in the presence of HBV. HDV causes co-infection or super infection with sever complication as compared to only HBV infection. No study on molecular level on HDV is available from this region; therefore, the aim of this study was to found out the molecular epidemiology of HDV (as a co-infection with HBV) in different geographical regions of Pakistan

Unpacking the relationship between high-performance work systems and innovation performance in SMEs

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the black box between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and innovation performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Through application of the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework, the study examines the mediating roles of innovation-specific ability, motivation and voice behaviors between HPWS and SMEs’ innovation performance. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses are tested on data collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 237 SMEs in Pakistan. Findings Findings indicate that human capital, motivation and employee voice fully mediate the relationship between HPWS and innovation performance in SMEs. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional research design and self-reported measures warrant caution for the interpretation of findings. Future research may consider a longitudinal research design and objective measures. Practical implications SMEs need to invest in the adoption and implementation of HPWS that will develop innovation-specific abilities, motivation and voice behaviors simultaneously among employees that will lead to higher innovation performance. Originality/value This is the first study of its kind utilizing an AMO framework to investigate the underlying mechanism through which HPWS affect innovation performance in SMEs

Science Behind Cotton Transformation

The introduction of foreign genes into plant has made possible to bring out desired traits into crop of our own interest. With the advancement in cell biology, regeneration of plants from single cell and advent of different procedures for gene transformation to the plants have opened new avenues for the efficient and applicable implementation of biotechnology for the modifications of desired crop characteristics. Identifications and isolation of different genes for various traits from different organisms have made possible to get the crop plants with modified characters. Over time improvement has been made in transformation technology depending upon the crop of interest. The efficiency of plant transformation has been increased with advances in plant transformation vectors and methodologies, which resulted in the improvement of crops. A detailed discussion on advanced techniques for genetic modification of plants with their handy use and limitation has been focused in this chapter

Trackable CEMB-Klean Cotton Transgenic Technology: Affordable Climate Neutral Agri-biotech Industrialization for Developing Countries

Background: Transgenic technology reflects the incorporation of novel useful traits in crop plants like cotton for economic benefits by overcoming the problems including insects’ pests and weeds in special. The present study is the success story of the continuous effort of CEMB team started back in the 1990s.Methods: This study includes characterization of a large number of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) strains taken from local soil and subjected to direct transformation of isolated BT genes into local cotton cultivars. Protocols for transformation into cotton plants were optimized and validated by the development of double gene codon optimized (Cry1Ac and Cry2A) transgenic cotton varieties.Results: The resulting GMOs in the form of CEMB-33, CA-12, CEMB-66 have been approved by Punjab Seed Council in 2013 and 2016 respectively. Double Bt and weedicide resistant cotton harboring CEMB-Modified and codon optimized cp4EPSPS (GTGene). These varieties can tolerate glyphosate spray @ 1900ml per acre without the appearance of necrotic spots/shedding and complete removal of all surrounding weeds in the cotton field is a significant advance to boost cotton production without spending much on insecticides and herbicides.Conclusion: In the current report, two unique sets of primers which amplify 1.1 Kb for CEMB-double Bt genes and 660 bp product for CEMB-Modified cp4EPSPS (GTGene) were tested. CEMB cotton variety CKC-01 is specially designed as low cost and easy to use by local farmer’s technology has the potential to revolutionize the cotton growing culture of the country.Keywords: Event detection; Bt Cotton; CEMB transgenic technology; GTGen

Experimental Implementation of Robust ANFSI-PI based Hybrid Controller for DC Motor Driver System

This paper presents experimental implementation of a robust Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System-Proportional Integral (ANFIS-PI) based Hybrid Controller (HC) for dc motor drive system. Conventionally, PI controllers are extensively used for control of dc motor drive system. However, because of inherent working mechanism of PI controllers they suffer from significant overshoot and settling time. Some industrial applications require accurate, fast and stable response of the dc motor drive system. To completely eliminate the overshoot, concurrently, to improve settling time the HC (combination of ANFIS and PI) is presented in this paper. The proposed control scheme is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink. Also, it is experimentally implemented using DS1104 R&D Controller Board from dSPACE. For fair comparison, PI controllers are properly tuned using ControlSystem Designer tool available in MATLAB to get best possible response. Obtained experimental results show that, PI controllers have significant overshoot, i.e., 25.5% and settling time 1.80 sec. Whereas, proposed ANFIS-PI based HC outperforms PI controllers by giving 0% overshoot with 0.08 sec settling time, with identical operating conditions, thus making it suitable for industrial applications