Dental age table for a sample of Pakistani children

The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of Demirjian\u27s dental age assessment table in a sample of Southern Pakistani population and, if not applicable, to formulate a separate dental age table for Pakistani males and females. The study was conducted on the dental pantomographs of a sample size of 882 subjects (427 males and 455 females) ranging in age from 7 to 14 years. A paired t-test was used to assess any difference between chronological age and dental age assessed according to Demirjian\u27s method. Logit function was used to make the relationship between dental maturity and chronological age and linear regression analysis with the equation X = [Ln {y/100 - y} - a]/b was used to generate dental age tables for Pakistani males and females. Dental age assessed according to Demirjian\u27s method for this male sample was over-predicted in the 7 year and 11-15 year age group (P \u3c 0.05). In the female sample, there was an over-prediction in all the age groups (P \u3c 0.05). Statistically significant differences were found in chronological and dental age assessed by Demirjian\u27s method for Pakistani males and females and thus, a new table was generated to convert dental maturity calculated according to Demirjian\u27s method into dental age for the population

Thermal Performance Evaluation of Seawater Cooling Towers

Seawater has been used for long time as a cooling fluid in heat exchangers to reduce fresh water usage in industry and power plants. The thermophysical properties of seawater are different from those of fresh water due to the salt content or salinity. This difference is sufficient to affect the heat and mass transfer processes which in turn change the thermal performance. Thermal design of fresh water cooling towers is described in detail in many textbooks and handbooks. However, only a rule of thumb is frequently used for designing of seawater cooling towers. This rule recommends degrading the tower performance by approximately 1% for every 10,000 ppm of salts in the feed water. In this paper, the thermal performance of seawater cooling towers is presented using a detailed model of counterflow wet cooling towers which takes into consideration the coupled simultaneous heat and mass transfer processes and uses state-of-the-art seawater properties from the literature. The model governing equations are solved numerically and the validity of this model is checked using new experimental data that has been measured using a bench top counterflow seawater cooling tower. The effect of the variation of seawater salinity as well as other operating conditions on the effectiveness and Merkel number is investigated.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUP

Patterns of Admission in Intensive Care Unit of Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: It is well known that early appropriate referrals of critically ill patients to an ICU can significantly reduce the mortality. At the same time, improper admissions to ICU limits bed availability that adversely affects ICU functioning. Objective: To determine the patterns of admissions and outcome in Medical and Surgical Intensive care Units.Material & Methods: A retrospective review of all patients admitted in medical and surgical ICU of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad from 2014 to 2016 was done. Data was collected from admission registers and patients’ files. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 20.0. Chi-square test was applied and P-value < 0.05 was considered significant.Results: Study recruited data of 1652 patients admitted to intensive care unit of PIMS hospital. There were 769(46.5%) males and 883(53.5%) females. Among all the patients, 503(30.4%) were admitted to medical intensive care unit while 1149(69.6%) were admitted to surgical intensive care Unit. 684(41.4%) had undergone mortality while 968(58.6%) remained alive. Overall mean length of hospital stay was 7.4±4.1SD, mean length of mechanical ventilation 4.1±2.1SD and mean length of supplemental ventilation was 1.5±0.11SD. Acute abdomen (13.1%) and head injuries (12%) were most common causes for admission in ICU. Statistically significant association between years (2014, 2015 & 2016) and disease (p=0.000), years and mortality (p=0.000), years and age (p=0.000), intensive care unit and gender (p=0.01), intensive care unit and age (p=0.02) was reported.Conclusion: Acute abdomen and Head injuries had highest number of admissions in Medical and Surgical intensive care unit of PIMS hospital. Developing a well-equipped trauma ICU with adequately trained staff will help improve the outcome of patients

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ASTHMA SEVERITY & CONTROL AMONG PATIENTS PRESENTING WITH & WITHOUT CO-MORBID RHINITIS

Objective: This study hopes to compare the severity and control of asthma among patients presenting with and without co-morbid rhinitis. Methodology:This retrospective, comparative analysis was conducted upon a total of 377 asthmatic patients, presenting at the medical out-patient department with and without co-morbid rhinitis. The data was collected using a structured interview based questionnaire (after taking written informed consent) which included in-depth inquiries regarding the asthma severity and control for the past 4 week. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS v. 21. 0. Results: Among the 377 subjects, 200 were males while 177 were females. Mean age of the subjects was 36 years. 172 asthmatic patients in the sample suffered from the co-morbid rhinitis, while the remaining did not have the said comorbidity. Asthmatic patients with co-morbid rhinitis experienced more frequent asthmatic attacks. The incidence of visits to the emergency room and frequency of hospital admissions too was high among asthmatic patients with co-morbid rhinitis. Conclusion: The results reveal that, all attempts to draw a comparison of asthma severity and control among patients with and without comorbid rhinitis yield clear and unidirectional results, leading to a transparent conclusion i.e. the asthma severity and control is considerably poorer in asthmatics with co-morbid rhinitis. Keywords: Asthma, Severity, Control, Rhinitis and Co-morbidity

CASUAL COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INCIDENCE & EXTENT OF ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION AMONG SMOKERS & NON-SMOKERS PRESENTING AT A MALE SEXUAL HEALTH CLINIC IN HYDERABAD

Background: The term ‘‘erectile dysfunction’’ (ED) is defined as the inability to achieve and maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance. ED affects millions of men throughout the world, with a strong negative effect on the quality of life and well-being of men and couples. The etiology of ED once was considered to be mainly psychogenic. However, because of advances in the understanding of the physiology of erection and the development of modern diagnostic techniques, it is now generally agreed that the etiology of ED is often multifactorial, with psychological, neurological, endocrine, vascular, traumatic or iatrogenic causes.Objective: Smoking, among many other causes, is believed to be associated with smoking. This study hopes to compare the incidence and extent of erectile dysfunction (ED) among smokers and non-smokers presenting at a male sexual health clinic in an attempt to further understand the association. Methodology: This casual-comparative analysis was conducted upon a total of 64 male patients presenting with erectile dysfunction at a sexual health clinic. Inquiries regarding the habit of smoking were made using a structured interview based questionnaire and extent of erectile dysfunction was investigated using the “International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) Questionnaire”. The data obtained was analyzed using MS. Excel 2017 and SPSS v. 21.0. Results: Smokers showed a markedly high incidence when compared to non-smokers. The extent of erectile dysfunction too was observed to be significantly high among smokers in comparison to non-smokers. Ex-smokers too showed a more worrisome IIEF-5 score, when compared to non-smokers. Conclusion: The results obtained, make it abundantly clear that, the association between the incidence and extent of erectile dysfunction and smoking is strong. Although, the research does not attempt to control co-founding variables, the results can be regarded as reliable due to the sheer difference in incidence and extent of erectile dysfunction between smokers and non-smokers. Keywords: Erectile Dysfunction, Smoking, The International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) Questionnaire, Sexual Health & Sex Related Quality of Life

A novel histological index for evaluation of environmental enteric dysfunction identifies geographic-specific features of enteropathy among children with suboptimal growth

Background: A major limitation to understanding the etiopathogenesis of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is the lack of a comprehensive, reproducible histologic framework for characterizing the small bowel lesions. We hypothesized that the development of such a system will identify unique histology features for EED, and that some features might correlate with clinical severity.Methods: Duodenal endoscopic biopsies from two cohorts where EED is prevalent (Pakistan, Zambia) and North American children with and without gluten sensitive enteropathy (GSE) were processed for routine hematoxylin & eosin (H&E) staining, and scanned to produce whole slide images (WSIs) which we shared among study pathologists via a secure web browser-based platform. A semi-quantitative scoring index composed of 11 parameters encompassing tissue injury and response patterns commonly observed in routine clinical practice was constructed by three gastrointestinal pathologists, with input from EED experts. The pathologists then read the WSIs using the EED histology index, and inter-observer reliability was assessed. The histology index was further used to identify within- and between-child variations as well as features common across and unique to each cohort, and those that correlated with host phenotype.Results: Eight of the 11 histologic scoring parameters showed useful degrees of variation. The overall concordance across all parameters was 96% weighted agreement, kappa 0.70, and Gwet\u27s AC 0.93. Zambian and Pakistani tissues shared some histologic features with GSE, but most features were distinct, particularly abundance of intraepithelial lymphocytes in the Pakistani cohort, and marked villous destruction and loss of secretory cell lineages in the Zambian cohort.Conclusions: We propose the first EED histology index for interpreting duodenal biopsies. This index should be useful in future clinical and translational studies of this widespread, poorly understood, and highly consequential disorder, which might be caused by multiple contributing processes, in different regions of the world

A fast feature extraction algorithm for image and video processing

Medical images and videos are utilized to discover, diagnose and treat diseases. Managing, storing, and retrieving stored images effectively are considered important topics. The rapid growth of multimedia data, including medical images and videos, has caused a swift rise in data transmission volume and repository size. Multimedia data contains useful information; however, it consumes an enormous storage space. Therefore, high processing time for that sheer volume of data will be required. Image and video applications demand for reduction in computational cost (processing time) when extracting features. This paper introduces a novel method to compute transform coefficients (features) from images or video frames. These features are used to represent the local visual content of images and video frames. We compared the proposed method with the traditional approach of feature extraction using a standard image technique. Furthermore, the proposed method is employed for shot boundary detection (SBD) applications to detect transitions in video frames. The standard TRECVID 2005, 2006, and 2007 video datasets are used to evaluate the performance of the SBD applications. The achieved results show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the computational cost in comparison to the traditional method

CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF INTER-RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INSULIN RESISTANCE AND HYPERTENSION AMONG PATIENTS AT LIAQUAT UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Background: Insulin resistance and hypertension often stem from the same genotypic and phenotypic phenomenon. It is well established that a sedentary lifestyle, and a plentiful diet rich in sodium and energy are the likely culprits that over the years have contributed to the rise of both ailments. However, the inter-relationship too is worthy of exploration. Objective: This research hopes to study the inter-relationship between insulin resistance and hypertension among patients by eyeing the co-presentation of both diseases in patients and by evaluating the time elapsed in diagnosis of each disease to assess which disease preceded the other. Methods: This observational was carried out on patients presenting at the medicine outpatient department of Liaquat University Hospital with a joint complaint of insulin resistance and hypertension from 1st Dec 2015 to 10th February 2016. Data was collected using an interview based structured questionnaire administered to the patients after taking written informed consent. The data was analyzed in SPSS v. 16.0. Results: During the course of the study, a total of 248 patients presented with the complaint of insulin resistance, 356 patients presented with the complaint of hypertension. While 136 patients presented with a joint complaint of insulin resistance and hypertension. Majority (70.588%) of the patients reportedly developed insulin resistance prior to developing hypertension. The chief complaint of 120 (88.24%) of the patients was insulin resistance. 42 (30.88%) of the patients, despite suffering from hypertension, were not taking treatment. Conclusion: The inter-relationship of both diseases is marked. For every 10 patients suffering from insulin resistance, 3.7 suffered from hypertension as well. While for every 10 patients suffering from hypertension, 2.8 suffered from insulin resistance as well. Thus patients suffering from insulin resistance are more likely to be hypertensives. Keywords: Insulin resistance, Hypertension, Cardiac comorbidities, Diabetes and Insulin

Concentrations of lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, manganese, and aluminum in the blood of Pakistani children with and without autism spectrum disorder and their associated factors

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with early onset in utero or childhood. Environmental exposure to six metals (Pb, Hg, As, Cd, Mn, Al) is believed to be associated with ASD directly or interactively with genes. Objective: To assess the association of ASD among Pakistani children with the six metals and genotype frequencies of three GST genes (GSTP1, GSTM1, GSTT1).Methods: We enrolled 30 ASD cases, age 2-12 years old, and 30 age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) controls in Karachi, Pakistan. We assessed associations of ASD status with various factors using Conditional Logistic Regression models. We also used General Linear Models to assess possible interaction of blood Mn and Pb concentrations with the three GST genes in relation to ASD status.Results: The unadjusted difference between ASD and TD groups in terms of geometric mean blood Pb concentrations was marginally significant (p = 0.05), but for Al concentrations, the adjusted difference was marginally significant (p = 0.06).Conclusions: This is the first study reporting six blood metal concentrations of Pakistani children with ASD. Estimates provided for possible interactions of GST genes with Mn and Pb in relation to ASD status are valuable for designing future similar studies

Eco-friendly dyeing of wool and pashmina fabric using Quercus robur L. (fruit cups) dye and Salix alba L. (wood extract) mordant

Study was conducted to investigate the dyeing potential of Quercus robur L. (fruit cups) dye and Salix alba L. (wood extract) mordant on wool and pashmina fabrics. The experiment was conducted keeping in view the environmental safety by using unutilized plant materials and excluding the usage of chemical agents. The dyeing was carried out individually including and excluding mordant adopting different mordanting methods. The parameters like percent absorption, colour coordinates, colour strength (K/S), relative colour strength and colour fastness with regard to washing, light and rubbing were investigated. The results revealed higher percent absorption of mordanted samples than unmordanted samples. Colour coordinates (L*a*b*, Chroma, hue and ?E) of dyed wool and pashmina fabric exhibited satisfactory results. The colour strength (K/S) and relative colour strength of pashmina fabric recorded higher than wool fabric. The fastness properties to washing, light and rubbing showed satisfactory grades including and excluding natural mordant. However, the grades of mordanted samples were found better than unmordanted samples. The dye and mordant in isolation and in combination showed beautiful colours and shades on selected fabrics with satisfactory retention properties, hence can be utilized commercially for coloration of wool and pashmina fabrics