Effect of Smoking on Pharmacokinetics of Clopidogrel, an Antiplatelet Drug

Purpose: To assess the influence of smoking cigarettes on the pharmacokinetics of the antiplatelet drug, clopidogrel.Methods: Thirty four male patients, mean age and weight of 59.3 years and 81.1 kg, respectively, who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), took part in the study. Each subject received an oral loading dose of 600 mg clopidogrel eight tablets, each 75 mg). Clopidogrel carboxylate plasma level was measured and non-compartmental analysis was used to determine peak plasma concentration (Cmax), time to achieve peak plasma concentration (Tmax), elimination half-life (t1/2e), and area under the curve (AUC0-∞). Other parameters measured include gamma-glutamyltransferase enzyme (GGT), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and platelet count.Results: Nineteen patients were smokers (55.9 %). Smokers had higher levels of GGT compared to non-smokers (31.73 ± 14.42 vs. 21.63 ± 11.41 IU/L, p = 0.08) as well as higher levels of LDL-cholesterol (116.79 ± 42.08 vs. 87.07 ± 27.34 mg/dl, p = 0.041, respectively). Smokers had shorter half-life (smokers: 3.47 ± 1.9 h vs. non-smokers: 5.83 ± 4.09 h, p = 0.012). Smoking behavior had no influence on Cmax (p = 0.16), AUC0-∞ (p = 0.65) or Tmax (p = 0.91). In general, the pharmacokinetic parameters were characterized by considerable inter-individual variation (Cmax = 23.2 ± 8.79 μg/ml, coefficient of variation (CV) = 37.9 %), (Tmax = 1.71 ± 1.15 h, CV = 67.2 %), (AUC0-∞ = 120.97 ± 44.4 μg.h/ml, CV = 36.7 %) and (t1/2e = 4.57 ± 3.15 h, CV = 68.9 %).Conclusion: Smoking behavior may not be a significant determinant of the pharmacokinetics of clopidogrel following oral administration of 600 mg dose in patients undergoing PCI.Keywords: Antiplatelet, Clopidogrel, Pharmacokinetics, Smoking, Cigarett

Advanced Pavement Materials for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure

Many road managers and stakeholders are looking for more and better options for the construction and maintenance of flexible and rigid pavements. Well-designed strategies for pavement construction and maintenance have attracted the interests of researchers since a large number of existing pavements are facing deterioration all over the world. The selection and engineering properties of paving materials are crucial factors affecting the durability and therefore demanding standards of sustainability of the constructed pavement. Researchers worldwide are putting extensive efforts to develop and promote advanced pavement materials and structures for constructing and maintaining sustainable pavements. Pavement materials that can improve durability, cut costs, reduce depletion of raw materials, and lower environmental impacts are desirable for such purposes. Meanwhile, some new design ideas that differ from traditional pavement structures have shown noticeable benefits in terms of pavement durability or cost. In this regard, exploring the benefits of using advanced materials in flexible and rigid pavements is continuously investigated and has currently gained increasing attention. The articles of this issue cover original research papers that will contribute to the development and implementation of advanced pavement materials for sustainable transportation infrastructure

Five-Year Experience In Surgical Treatment Of Temporal Bone Paragangliomas

The article describes our five-year experience in the surgical treatment of temporal bone paragangliomas. Considering our experience, the surgical treatment of patients with different types of paragangliomas based on a detailed study of the CT scan and MRI data using the preoperative selective embolization of tumor-feeding vessels and the navigation system intraoperatively as well as the endoscopy assistance allows total removing of the tumor with minimal damaging of the vital structures of the lateral skull base

pH Assist for Highly selective determination of Xipamide by the enhancement of the green emission of Tb3+ optical sensor

The highly selective, accurate method for determination of Xipamide was maintained. The method depends on the enhancement of the green emission band of Tb3+ at 545 nm in the presence of different concentration of  Xipamide at pH 4.1 and λex = 320 nm in acetonitrile. The photophysical properties of the green  emissive Tb3+  complex have been elucidated, the terbium was used as optical sensor for the assessment of  Xipamide in the pharmaceutical tablets and body fluids with a concentration range 5.0 ×10−9 – 2.3 ×10−6 mol L−1 of xipamide, correlation coefficient of 0.995 and  detection limit of 8.5 ×10−10 mol L−1

IMPACT OF POTASSIUM SILICATE AND SALICYLIC ACID ON GROWTH, FLOWERING AND QUALITY CHARACTERS OF DENDRANTHEMA GRANDIFLORUM PLANTS UNDER GREENHOUSE CONDITIONS

The impacts of foliar spraying with different potassium silicate concentrations (0.0, 300, 600 and 900 ppm) and salicylic acid (0.0, 100, 200 and 300 ppm) on growth, flowering aspects and some chemical constituents of Dendranthema grandiflorum (Ramat.) Kitamura plant cv. White Rivor were evaluated. Under plastic house conditions, this experiment was carried out at Ornamental Nursery of Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Egypt, during the consecutive summer seasons of 2019 and 2020. The treatments were laid out in a factorial randomized block design (4 × 4) with three replicates per treatment. The plant height, number of branches and leaves, root length and total fresh and dry weights per plant were significantly greater with 900 ppm potassium silicate treatment compared to the other ones; likewise, the number of inflorescences and flower heads per plant, as well as flower stalk length, were significantly higher. Early flowering and the largest flower heads were achieved in the foliar spray plot with 600 ppm potassium silicate. Using 900 ppm potassium silicate concentration significantly increased total carbohydrates percentage and total chlorophyll content compared to control. In the same trend, using 300 ppm of salicylic acid as foliar spray significantly increased all growth parameters, flowering traits and chemical constituents compared to the other ones under study.  From these results, it can be concluded that the interaction treatment application of potassium silicate at 900 ppm plus salicylic acid at 300 ppm proved to have beneficial effects on the growth, flowering and quality of Dendranthema grandiflorum cv. White Rivor plan

Foot burns: A comparative analysis of diabetic and non-diabetic patients

Introduction: Foot burns represent a small part of the body with many challenges. The impact of diabetes on clinical outcomes adds further issues in management that clinicians must consider in their management. These factors have serious implications on morbidity and long term sequelae. Our aim is to analyse epidemiological trends of foot burns and examine the differences between diabetic and non-diabetics at Concord hospital from 2014 to 2019. Methods: A retrospective audit from 2014–19 at Concord General Repatriation Hospital Burns Unit summarised patient demographics, burn injury, diabetic status, operations and length of stay. All foot burn injuries from 2014–19 of all ages and gender that attended Concord burns hospital were included in this study. Results: We treated 797 patients who presented with foot burns, of which 16.2% were diabetic. The average age was higher in diabetics (60.72 years) than non-diabetics (39.72 years) and more males suffered burns compared to females in both groups (p \u3c 0.001). There was a larger portion of elderly patients (greater than 65 years old, 15.1% of total) who sustained foot burns in the diabetic group compared to the non-diabetic group (p \u3c 0.001). The most affected season was summer (27.0%), but diabetic patients were 1.7 times more likely to sustain injury in winter than non-diabetics. Diabetics were 3.8 times more likely to have contact burns compared to non-diabetic patients (p \u3c 0.001). In a multivariable linear regression analysis, factors that contributed to increased length of stay included elderly status, place of event, diabetic status, number of operations, ICU admission, wound infection, amputation, and admission [F (16, 757 = 41.149, p \u3c 0.001, R2 = 0.465]. Conclusions: With the increase of diabetes, our multidisciplinary approach to diabetic foot care should include nursing, medical and surgical disciplines to identify patients at risk. The data highlights that a focus on prevention and education for diabetes is central to optimize glycaemic control and burn management, whilst providing a multidisciplinary network on discharge

Identifying Elderly Patients at Risk of Falling using Time-Domain and Cyclostationarity Related Features

Falls are a prevalent and severe health problem in the elderly community, leading to unfortunate and devastating consequences. Some falls can be prevented through interventions, proper management, and extra care. Therefore, studying and identifying elderly people with risk of falls is essential to minimize the falling risk and to minimize the severity of injuries that can occur from these falls. Besides, identifying at-risk patients can profoundly affect public health in a positive way. In this paper, we use classification techniques to identify at-risk patients using pressure signals of the innersoles of 520 elderly people. These people reported whether they had experienced previous falls or not. Two different types of feature sets were used as inputs to the classification models and were compared: The first feature set includes time-domain, physiological, and cyclostationary features, whereas the second includes a subset of those features chosen by Relief-F as the most important features. Our study showed that the use of features from different walking conditions and using Relief-F as a feature selection method significantly improved the model prediction accuracy, i.e. by 5.24% from the best previously existing model. The results also point out that the mean and standard deviation of the stride time, gender, the degree of cyclostationarity were the most important features to include in classification models for the identification of elderly people at risk of falling

NEW HIDING TECHNIQUE IN DIGITAL SIGNATURE BASED ON ZIGZAG TRANSFORM AND CHAOTIC MAPS

Abstract This paper presents a novel approach to digital signature by integrating the ElGamal or Schnorr digital signature algorithms, chaotic systems, and scanning techniques. Briefly, ZZBCRP is a zigzag transformation that is used firstly to construct a permuted transaction, which technique starts from any random position and intersects in both directions, which is more complex than zigzag transform techniques. Then using ElGamal or Schnorr signature schemes based on chaotic maps. This modification aims to make private key and random number dependent on discrete chaotic maps. Even if the private key chosen is small, it is easy by using the huge amount of points in chaotic maps 2-D or 3-D to extract strong and unique key. This change complicates the relationship between the private key, public key and the transaction signature. A two-dimensional trigonometric discrete chaotic map is used that integrated Logistic-sine-cosine maps, and a three-dimensional hyperchaotic map (3-D SCC) which are based on a sine map. Our performance analysis shows that compared to schemes; this scheme not only improves the level of efficiency but also assures safety. The performance analysis shows that our scheme is not only more efficient compared to other related systems, but also safer

Genotype and Haplotype Analysis of ABCB1 at 1236, 2677 and 3435 among Jordanian Population

Purpose: To determine the frequencies of important allelic variants and their haplotype frequencies of the gene among Jordanian population and to compare findings with those reported for other ethnic groups.Methods: Genotyping of ABCB1 (C1236T, G2677T/A and C3435T) was carried out on unrelated healthy Jordanian subjects. Different allelic variants were determined using polymerase chain reactionrestriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The haplotype frequencies of these three SNPs were analyzed and compared them with those of other reported populations. Haplotype frequencies were calculated using Golden Helix Tree software and Linkage disequilibrium was represented by D”.Results: ABCB1 C3435T allele frequencies for C allele and T allele were 0.57 and 0.43, respectively. For ABCB1 G2677T/A the allele frequencies for G allele, T allele, and A allele were 0.65, 0.32 and 0.0, respectively. As for ABCB C1236T, its allele frequencies were 0.65 for C allele and 0.35 for T allele. C1236T, G2677T/A, and C3435T SNPs were expected to be structured in 8 different haplotypes with GC- C (37.6.0 %), T-T-T (18.6 %), G-C-T (14.3 %) and T-T-C (12 %) that were most prominent. The haplotype frequency distribution of our study group was found to be significantly different from those of Chinese, Indian, Japanese, African and Caucasian (p < 0.0001) and resemble Ashkenazi Jewish and Slovenian populations (p > 0.05).Conclusion: In addition to earlier studies, the findings of the current study provide evidence that suggest the use of genetic polymorphisms of ABCB1 SNPs as markers for ethnicity and ancestral origin. The analysis of haplotype and genotype can be useful in identifying the relation between ABCB1 polymorphism, disease susceptibility and drug disposition.Keywords: Genotype, Allele, MDR1, ABCB1, Polymorphism, Haplotype frequencie

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