A case report of microscopic polyangiitis presenting as diffuse pulmonary symptoms with no renal involvement

Microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) is a small blood vascular disorder, but with presence of no granulomas. This is a pauci- immune disorder vessels which lead to vascular inflammation and then later, it can lead to organ microscopic polyangiitis. This disorder affects multiple organs as it is a systemic disease, but usually presents with renal dysfunction - rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis. There is a possible association of p- ANCA (antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies) and can help with the diagnosis of the disorder. This case report is of a 70-year-old female, who presented with symptoms of diffuse pulmonary hemorrhage. After routine blood examination, radiological examination- X ray (chest) and HRCT- thorax, routine urine examination, ANA and ANCA test, the final diagnosis of microscopic polyangiitis with no renal involvement was made. The case was given immunosuppressant therapy and the patient reported of mitigation of symptoms. This case report is unique as MPA usually presents with renal dysfunction, but in this case, the patient had particularly pulmonary involvement with completely normal renal function. This case report will help future physicians for quick diagnosis of similar cases and treatment for the same

A rare case of hydatid cyst of the interventricular septum

A Hydatid disease or Echinococcosis is a zoonotic disease caused by the larvae (metacestode) of the cestode species of the genus Echinococcus. Humans are the accidental hosts of the diseases; they usually acquire it from canines; which are the definite host. It can present with systemic cyst, while cardiac manifestation of the disease is rare, due to contractile property of the heart’s muscle fiber which provide resistance. In this case report, the patient is diagnosed with hydatid cyst in the inter ventricular septum; it’s diagnosis and its successful treatment with surgery and albendazole. As, inter ventricular septum hydatid cyst occurs in only 0.5-2% cases, it’s a unique case and its successful treatment and diagnosis can help the physicians in the future to treat a similar case as this

Intraperitoneal drain placement and outcomes after elective colorectal surgery: international matched, prospective, cohort study

Despite current guidelines, intraperitoneal drain placement after elective colorectal surgery remains widespread. Drains were not associated with earlier detection of intraperitoneal collections, but were associated with prolonged hospital stay and increased risk of surgical-site infections.Background Many surgeons routinely place intraperitoneal drains after elective colorectal surgery. However, enhanced recovery after surgery guidelines recommend against their routine use owing to a lack of clear clinical benefit. This study aimed to describe international variation in intraperitoneal drain placement and the safety of this practice. Methods COMPASS (COMPlicAted intra-abdominal collectionS after colorectal Surgery) was a prospective, international, cohort study which enrolled consecutive adults undergoing elective colorectal surgery (February to March 2020). The primary outcome was the rate of intraperitoneal drain placement. Secondary outcomes included: rate and time to diagnosis of postoperative intraperitoneal collections; rate of surgical site infections (SSIs); time to discharge; and 30-day major postoperative complications (Clavien-Dindo grade at least III). After propensity score matching, multivariable logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to estimate the independent association of the secondary outcomes with drain placement. Results Overall, 1805 patients from 22 countries were included (798 women, 44.2 per cent; median age 67.0 years). The drain insertion rate was 51.9 per cent (937 patients). After matching, drains were not associated with reduced rates (odds ratio (OR) 1.33, 95 per cent c.i. 0.79 to 2.23; P = 0.287) or earlier detection (hazard ratio (HR) 0.87, 0.33 to 2.31; P = 0.780) of collections. Although not associated with worse major postoperative complications (OR 1.09, 0.68 to 1.75; P = 0.709), drains were associated with delayed hospital discharge (HR 0.58, 0.52 to 0.66; P < 0.001) and an increased risk of SSIs (OR 2.47, 1.50 to 4.05; P < 0.001). Conclusion Intraperitoneal drain placement after elective colorectal surgery is not associated with earlier detection of postoperative collections, but prolongs hospital stay and increases SSI risk

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Adsorption Studies of Arsenic(V) by CuO Nanoparticles Synthesized by <i>Phyllanthus emblica</i> Leaf-Extract-Fueled Solution Combustion Synthesis

In the present study, a simple and eco-friendly route for the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) using leaf extract of Phyllanthus emblica as fuel has been demonstrated, as P. emblica is a locally available abundant plant. The formation of the as-prepared CuO NPs was confirmed by using various techniques, such as UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy, cold field scanning electron microscopy (CF–SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and X-ray photoelectron (XPS). The hydrodynamic size of the CuO NPs was found to be 80 nm, while the zeta potential of −28.6 mV was obtained. The elemental composition was confirmed by EDX analysis accompanied with elemental mapping, while the crystalline nature was substantiated by the XRD diffractogram. The as-synthesized CuO NPs were studied for their use as an adsorbent material for the removal of As(V) from water. It was confirmed that the CuO NPs effectively removed As(V) via adsorption, and the adsorption efficiency was found to be best at a higher pH. The maximum adsorption capacity of CuO for As(V) was found to be 1.17 mg/g calculated using the Langmuir equation

Graphene/inorganic nanocomposites: Evolving photocatalysts for solar energy conversion for environmental remediation

Current energy crisis and environmental issues, including depletion of fossil fuels, rapid industrialization, and undesired CO2 emission resulting in global warming has created havoc for the global population and significantly affected the quality of life. In this scenario the environmental problems in the forefront of research priorities. Development of renewable energy resources particularly the efficient conversion of solar light to sustainable energy is crucial in addressing environmental problems. In this regard, the synthesis of semiconductors-based photocatalysts has emerged as an effective tool for different photocatalytic applications and environmental remediation. Among different photocatalyst options available, graphene and graphene derivatives such as, graphene oxide (GO), highly reduced graphene oxide (HRG), and doped graphene (N, S, P, B-HRG) have become rising stars on the horizon of semiconductors-based photocatalytic applications. Graphene is a single layer of graphite consisting of a unique planar structure, high conductivity, greater electron mobility, and significantly very high specific surface area. Besides, the recent advancements in synthetic approaches have led to the cost-effective production of graphene-based materials on a large-scale. Therefore, graphene-based materials have gained considerable recognition for the production of semiconducting photocatalysts involving other semiconducting materials. The graphene-based semiconductors photocatalysts surpasses electron-holes pairs recombination rate and lowers the energy band gap by tailoring the valence band (VB) and conduction band (CB) leading to the enhanced photocatalytic performance of hybrid photocatalysts. Herein, we have summarized the latest developments in designing and fabrication of graphene-based semiconducting photocatalysts using a variety of commonly applied methods such as, post-deposition methods, in-situ binding methods, hydrothermal and/or solvothermal approaches. In addition, we will discuss the photocatalytic properties of the resulting graphene-based hybrid materials for various environmental remediation processes such as; (i) clean H2 fuel production, photocatalytic (ii) pollutants degradation, (iii) photo-redox organic transformation and (iv) photo-induced CO2 reduction. On the whole, by the inclusion of more than 300 references, this review possibly covered in detail the aspects of graphene-based semiconductor photocatalysts for environmental remediation processes. Finally, the review will conclude a short summary and discussion about future perspectives, challenges and new directions in these emerging areas of research

The ‘Real’ Wolf of Wall Street- COVID-19’s Impact on Global Economies &amp; Healthcare Systems

Globally, over 3.3 million people have contracted COVID-19 and &gt; 230,000 have died. The outbreak has strangled the world economy and has tested the resilience of all health systems —robust or fragile. While all categories of the economy have been affected, pandemic has directly affected people and possession processing services the most. For all countries analyzed, an average economic impact of -4.5% of GDP is expected. We assessed the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by healthcare systems in terms of testing capability, surge capacity, and collaboration; focusing on United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, China, and Pakistan. Despite its success, the China model cannot be the go-to paradigm everywhere as level of compliance to local authorities, harsh lockdown measures, and ability to quickly complete labor-intensive projects may not be replicable in other countries. Therefore, a context-specific strategy is necessary to deal with pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic has exposed multiple fault lines in health systems in term of accessibility, adaptability, and preparedness. It has also become clear that a global economy centered on the principle of capital accumulation and not societal uplift is not sustainable through times of crises

Bi3+/Ce3+ doped ZnO nanoparticles with enhanced photocatalytic and dielectric properties

In this study, varying % Bi-doped on 1% Ce-doped ZnO (1CZ) nanoparticles (X% B-1CZ) were synthesized via a facile, simple, low-cost, sol–gel process. Various characterization techniques were employed to characterize the synthesized compound, while the dielectric properties i.e. dielectric constant, dielectric loss and AC conductivity against frequency were studied with the help of a precision impedance analyzer. It was observed that by increasing bismuth content in the nanoparticles, the dielectric constant also increased in the range (1.47 × 106 – 4.02 × 106) at 20 Hz, and vice versa for dielectric loss decreased from 1.05 × 106 to 0.39 × 106. The role of prepared compounds as photocatalysts was also investigated against methylene blue under ultraviolet irradiation. The degradation efficiency, as well as the dielectric properties of 7% Bi-doped on 1% Ce-doped ZnO (7%B-1CZ), were found to be the best. Overall, it was found that the synthesized compounds proved promising candidates with enhanced photocatalytic &amp; dielectric properties and hence could safely be employed for environmental remediation purposes and energy storage devices

Green Biosynthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Vaccinium oxycoccos (Cranberry) Extract and Evaluation of Their Biomedical Potential

Eco-friendly preparation of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) is a greatly evolving field of scientific research. These types of NPs have gained substantial recognition from scientists, including chemists, chemical biologists and technologists, who have successfully exploited them for the fabrication of a variety of advanced nanodevices. Herein, silver (Ag) NPs were synthesized by a green approach using the aqueous extract of Vaccinium oxycoccos (cranberry), which not only reduced the silver ions but also stabilized the surface of the resultant Ag NPs. The formation of Ag NPs is confirmed by different analytical techniques, including powder X-ray diffraction, UV analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The UV analysis of the aqueous solution of the reaction mixture demonstrated an absorption band at ~450 nm, which is the typical peak of Ag NPs, leading to the confirmation of product formation. While the XRD confirmed the crystallinity of the sample and the formation of a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, on the other hand, TEM revealed the presence of spherical NPs with an approximate size range between 5&ndash;30 nm. Furthermore, the as-obtained Ag NPs were subjected to thorough investigations to explore the biomedical potential of the sample. In this case, the Ag NPs demonstrated considerable antioxidant and antifungal properties towards various pathogens. In addition, Ag NPs also showed substantial inhibition of spore germination