A VALIDATED UPLC-UV METHOD FOR BISPHENOLA (BP-A) LEVELS DETECTION IN IMPORTEDPLASTIC TOYS AND DRINKING BOTTLED WATER IN KUWAIT

Objectives: Bisphenol A (BP-A) is an essential component of polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, phthalates and polycarbonate plastics linked by ester bonds, and it can leach out of plastics at high temperature, acid and basic medium. BP-A is known to have an endocrine disrupting effect and recent studies have started to link its levels as causative factors in many diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and other endocrine diseases. Kuwait is considered one of the hottest countries in the world, and measurements of BP-A levels due to leakage from plastics have never been reported from this Middle-Eastern country. This study measures the levels of BP-A in four randomly selected plastic toys and two plastic water bottles from two different companies after storage at 45 °C for four days.Methods: An ultra-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with an ultraviolet detector (UPLC-UV) analytical method was established to investigate BP-A levels in four of randomly chosen plastic toys (plastic tiger-plastic Lego blocks-plastic doll-small dolls) stored at 45 °C for 4 days. BP-A was extracted with 1 L of water and samples were analyzed by UPLC-UV.Results: The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) of the established analytical method were equal to 0.4 ppb and 1 ppb, respectively. The analytical method was able to measure accurately and precisely traces of BP-A in all randomly selected toys. BP-A levels was239 ppb in plastic tiger, 30 ppb in plastic Lego, 4 ppb in plastic doll, 3 ppb in small dolls and 59 ppb in drinking bottled water.Conclusion: The importance of BP-A level in plastics analysis raised due to its health concerns. Heat is a major factor for bisphenol leakage from plastics. However, Kuwait is considered one of the hottest countries, where high level leakage of BP-A from plastic toys and plastic water bottles for drinking water could pose significant health risks. Surprisingly, BP-A was detected in all randomly selected plastic toys and one out of two randomly selected polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinking bottled water. Therefore, imported mineral water should be filled in a glass container rather than plastics due to high climate temperature. Moreover, Toys manufacturers should use BP-A free plastics or clearly specify storage conditions of their plastic products in order to prevent potential health risks resulting from BP-A leakage.Â

Applying the 'You're Welcome' youth-friendly service criteria to community pharmacy in the UK

OBJECTIVES: The Department of Health in England developed the 'You're Welcome' framework, comprising criteria for all health services seeing 11- to 19-year olds, to improve their quality and coverage and reduce access inequities. To date, however, the 'You're Welcome' criteria have not been considered within community pharmacy service development policy. The aim of this article was to assess the relevance of the 'You're Welcome' criteria to community pharmacy, and examine ways in which they are currently met, or not met, to guide future service development. METHODS: The project employed three methods. Checklist-guided observations and face-to-face semistructured interviews with staff members were undertaken in eight community pharmacies across England and Scotland, purposively selected because of their known focus on provision of young people's services. This was complemented by a cross-sectional online survey for completion by pharmacy staff across a wider range of pharmacies recruited through targeted Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPC). Study instruments were designed to gather information relevant to each of the 'You're Welcome' criteria. KEY FINDINGS: Eight pharmacies took part in observations and interviews. Six LPCs posted the online survey link on their website, which was returned by 56 respondents. The results demonstrate applicability of the 'You're Welcome' criteria to community pharmacy services, highlighting particular strengths of community pharmacy services for young people (e.g. accessibility) as well as opportunities and priorities for service development to meet their specific needs (e.g. staff training, engagement and integration with local service provision). CONCLUSIONS: The 'You're Welcome' criteria can be applied to community pharmacy services without adaptation providing an appropriate framework to guide service development to promote young people friendly pharmacy services. JPHS

"Licit Magic": The Touch And Sight Of Islamic Talismanic Scrolls

The following study traces the production and history of the talismanic scroll as a medium through a Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk historical periods. My dissertation understands the protocol of manufacturing and utilizing talismanic scrolls. The dissertation is a study of the Qur'an, prayers and illustrations of these talismanic works. I begin by investigating a theory of the occult the medieval primary sources of the Neo-platonic tenth century Ikhwān al-Safa and al-Bunī (d.1225). I establish that talismans are generally categorized as science (`ilm). Next, a dynastic spotlight of talismanic scrolls creates a chronological framework for the dissertation. The Fatimid talismanic scrolls and the Ayyubid pilgrimage scrolls are both block-printed and are placed within the larger conceptual framework of pilgrimage and devotion. The two unpublished Mamluk scrolls from Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah are long beautiful handwritten scrolls that provide a perspective on how the occult is part of the daily life of the practitioner in the medieval Islamic culture. Through an in depth analysis of the written word and images, I establish that textually and visually there is a template for the creation of these sophisticated scrolls. Lastly, I discuss the efficacy of these scrolls, I use theories of linguistic anthropology and return to the Islamic primary sources to establish that there is a language of the occult and there are people that practiced the occult. The word of God and the Qur'ān empower the scrolls I studied. As for the people who practiced the occult, I turn to the tenth century Ibn al-Nadim and Ibn al-Khaldun (d.1406), the people of the occult are understood. Yet, keeping in mind, that there is always a tension with the theologians that condoned practices of Islamic magic.History of Art and Architectur

Modeling the behavior of radially pinned brick triplets

The continued use of many UK highway and railway masonry arch bridges is dependent upon maintaining robustness as the materials deteriorate over time. A common failure in multi-ring brickwork arches subject to fatigue, is ring separation. This paper offers some early results from an investigation of a ring separation repair technique involving radial pinning. Triplet testing is used to establish and compare the structural behavior of two types of shear reinforcement, which are validated by finite element modelling. Conclusions are drawn which are potentially of significant practical interest to masonry arch bridge owners and assessors

Validation of the Arabic version of the Social Communication Questionnaire

Validated screening and diagnostic tools for autism spectrum disorder for use in Arabic-speaking individuals are scarce. This study validated the Arabic version of the Social Communication Questionnaire. The total study sample included 206 children with autism spectrum disorder and 206 typically developing children (73.8% male; mean age: 8.5 (standard deviation = 2.6) years). The mean Social Communication Questionnaire total score was significantly higher in autism spectrum disorder children than in typically developing children (p < 0.0001). Scores on the three Social Communication Questionnaire subscales also differed significantly between the groups (p < 0.001). Of the 39 items, 37 were endorsed significantly more often in the autism spectrum disorder group. The total Social Communication Questionnaire score did not vary by age or gender. Internal consistency was excellent (alpha = 0.92). In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve for the total score showed excellent discrimination between autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children (area under the curve = 0.95; 95% confidence interval: 0.93–0.97). The areas under the curve for the scale subscores were 0.923 (95% confidence interval: 0.898–0.949) for the social interaction score, 0.872 (95% confidence interval: 0.838–0.905) for the communication score, and 0.856 (95% confidence interval: 0.819–0.893) for the repetitive behaviors score. The findings support the use of the Arabic Social Communication Questionnaire to successfully differentiate children with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder using the established cutoff value for the English version.The authors would like to thank all the staff of the autism centers and schools who contributed in distributing and collecting the SCQ forms. They also would like to thank Western Psychological Services (WPS) staff for their help during the process of translating and reviewing the Arabic SCQ. They acknowledge Jennifer Holmes, ELS, for medical editing. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP 6-093-3-024)

Breast-cancer detection using blood-based infrared molecular fingerprints

BACKGROUND Breast cancer screening is currently predominantly based on mammography, tainted with the occurrence of both false positivity and false negativity, urging for innovative strategies, as effective detection of early-stage breast cancer bears the potential to reduce mortality. Here we report the results of a prospective pilot study on breast cancer detection using blood plasma analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy - a rapid, cost-effective technique with minimal sample volume requirements and potential to aid biomedical diagnostics. FTIR has the capacity to probe health phenotypes via the investigation of the full repertoire of molecular species within a sample at once, within a single measurement in a high-throughput manner. In this study, we take advantage of cross-molecular fingerprinting to probe for breast cancer detection. METHODS We compare two groups: 26 patients diagnosed with breast cancer to a same-sized group of age-matched healthy, asymptomatic female participants. Training with support-vector machines (SVM), we derive classification models that we test in a repeated 10-fold cross-validation over 10 times. In addition, we investigate spectral information responsible for BC identification using statistical significance testing. RESULTS Our models to detect breast cancer achieve an average overall performance of 0.79 in terms of area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC). In addition, we uncover a relationship between the effect size of the measured infrared fingerprints and the tumor progression. CONCLUSION This pilot study provides the foundation for further extending and evaluating blood-based infrared probing approach as a possible cross-molecular fingerprinting modality to tackle breast cancer detection and thus possibly contribute to the future of cancer screening

Bidirectional lipid droplet velocities are controlled by differential binding strengths of HCV Core DII protein

Host cell lipid droplets (LD) are essential in the hepatitis C virus (HCV) life cycle and are targeted by the viral capsid core protein. Core-coated LDs accumulate in the perinuclear region and facilitate viral particle assembly, but it is unclear how mobility of these LDs is directed by core. Herein we used two-photon fluorescence, differential interference contrast imaging, and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopies, to reveal novel core-mediated changes to LD dynamics. Expression of core protein’s lipid binding domain II (DII-core) induced slower LD speeds, but did not affect directionality of movement on microtubules. Modulating the LD binding strength of DII-core further impacted LD mobility, revealing the temporal effects of LD-bound DII-core. These results for DII-core coated LDs support a model for core-mediated LD localization that involves core slowing down the rate of movement of LDs until localization at the perinuclear region is accomplished where LD movement ceases. The guided localization of LDs by HCV core protein not only is essential to the viral life cycle but also poses an interesting target for the development of antiviral strategies against HCV

Homozygous missense WIPI2 variants cause a congenital disorder of autophagy with neurodevelopmental impairments of variable clinical severity and disease course.

WIPI2 is a member of the human WIPI protein family (seven-bladed b-propeller proteins binding phosphatidylinositols, PROPPINs), which play a pivotal role in autophagy and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurological conditions. The homozygous WIPI2 variant c.745G>A; p.(Val249Met) (NM_015610.4) has recently been associated with a neurodevelopmental disorder in a single family. Using exome sequencing and Sanger segregation analysis, here, two novel homozygous WIPI2 variants [c.551T>G; p.(Val184Gly) and c.724C>T; p.(Arg242Trp) (NM_015610.4)] were identified in four individuals of two consanguineous families. Additionally, follow-up clinical data were sought from the previously reported family. Three non-ambulant affected siblings of the first family harbouring the p.(Val184Gly) missense variant presented with microcephaly, profound global developmental delay/intellectual disability, refractory infantile/childhood-onset epilepsy, progressive tetraplegia with joint contractures and dyskinesia. In contrast, the proband of the second family carrying the p.(Arg242Trp) missense variant, similar to the initially reported WIPI2 cases, presented with a milder phenotype, encompassing moderate intellectual disability, speech and visual impairment, autistic features, and an ataxic gait. Brain MR imaging in five patients showed prominent white matter involvement with a global reduction in volume, posterior corpus callosum hypoplasia, abnormal dentate nuclei and hypoplasia of the inferior cerebellar vermis. To investigate the functional impact of these novel WIPI2 variants, we overexpressed both in WIPI2-knockout HEK293A cells. In comparison to wildtype, expression of the Val166Gly WIPI2b mutant resulted in a deficient rescue of LC3 lipidation whereas Arg224Trp mutant increased LC3 lipidation, in line with the previously reported Val231Met variant. These findings support a dysregulation of the early steps of the autophagy pathway. Collectively, our findings provide evidence that biallelic WIPI2 variants cause a neurodevelopmental disorder of variable severity and disease course. Our report expands the clinical spectrum and establishes WIPI2-related disorder as a congenital disorders of autophagy

Circulating Human Eosinophils Share a Similar Transcriptional Profile in Asthma and Other Hypereosinophilic Disorders

Eosinophils are leukocytes that are released into the peripheral blood in a phenotypically mature state and are capable of being recruited into tissues in response to appropriate stimuli. Eosinophils, traditionally considered cytotoxic effector cells, are leukocytes recruited into the airways of asthma patients where they are believed to contribute to the development of many features of the disease. This perception, however, has been challenged by recent findings suggesting that eosinophils have also immunomodulatory functions and may be involved in tissue homeostasis and wound healing. Here we describe a transcriptome-based approach-in a limited number of patients and controls-to investigate the activation state of circulating human eosinophils isolated by flow cytometry. We provide an overview of the global expression pattern in eosinophils in various relevant conditions, e.g., eosinophilic asthma, hypereosinophilic dermatological diseases, parasitosis and pulmonary aspergillosis. Compared to healthy subjects, circulating eosinophils isolated from asthma patients differed in their gene expression profile which is marked by downregulation of transcripts involved in antigen presentation, pathogen recognition and mucosal innate immunity, whereas up-regulated genes were involved in response to non-specific stimulation, wounding and maintenance of homeostasis. Eosinophils from other hypereosinophilic disorders displayed a very similar transcriptional profile. Taken together, these observations seem to indicate that eosinophils exhibit non-specific immunomodulatory functions important for tissue repair and homeostasis and suggest new roles for these cells in asthma immunobiology