Presenting signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer at a tertiary care hospital

Objective: To identify early warning signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer to create awareness for early diagnosis and management of the disease.Methods: This study was conducted at the department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi from 2003 to 2007, having 75 patients. The information collected included age, education, and self perceived state of socio-economic class, presenting clinical signs and symptoms, basic and specific laboratory investigations. The disease was staged from I to IV upon surgical staging and the type of cancer was determined by histopathological examination.Results: Mean age of the patients was 51 +/- 12.3 years. Twenty (52%) patients were uneducated, 17 (22.6%) were below and remaining 19 (25.3%) were above higher secondary level. Most of the patients belonged to the middle socioeconomic class. Abdominal pain (57.3%) was the most common presenting symptom followed by abdominal distension (22.6%), urinary complaints (5.3%), vaginal discharge (2.6%) and postmenopausal bleeding (12%). More than half (56%) of the patients had stage III-IV disease. On histology, papillary serous cystic adenocarcinoma was the most common (54%) type followed by mucinious (22%), endometroid (10.6%), yolk sac (2.6%), dysgerminoma (4%), and adult granulose cell tumour (5.3%).Conclusion: There are no specific ovarian carcinoma symptoms either in early or late stages to ensure early diagnosis, but in the age group above 40 years persistent clinical symptoms should always be further investigated

SYNTHESIS AND ESTIMATION OF TOTAL EXTRACELLULAR PROTEIN CONTENT IN BACILLUS SUBTILIS UNDER MILD STRESS CONDITION OF CERTAIN ANTIMICROBIALS

Objective: The present study was investigated to determine the impact of certain antimicrobials on a novel bacterial isolate for the estimation of totalextracellular protein.Methods: In this regard, isolation and molecular characterization of the isolate from poultry farm feces soil sample was done by serial dilution,followed by morphological characteristics and biochemical tests of pure isolated culture. Further, the identification of bacterium as Bacillus subtilisstrain KPA was confirmed by subjecting its amplicon (483 bp) to 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and pairwise alignment through basic localalignment search tool. Different volumes of antimicrobial agents such as Allium sativum, ampicillin and mercuric chloride at their sub-minimalinhibitory concentration (MIC) values were added to the lag phase culture of strain KPA. Total extracellular protein estimation was done throughBradford test. Partially purified extracellular proteins were observed as spots through thin layer chromatography (TLC).Results: The total extracellular protein content in strain KPA was found to be enhanced after 48 hrs of incubation in presence of antimicrobials testedhere. Mercuric chloride was able to enhance total protein in the bacteria even after 24 hrs of incubation. Separation of partially purified extracellularproteins of treated samples by TLC was observed as different spots with different retention factor values, compared with non-treated or controlsample.Conclusion: The stress response is a metabolic program activated due to unfavorable conditions. Hence, B. subtilis strain KPA in the presence of sub-MIC of A. sativum, ampicillin and mercuric chloride could regulate bioactive proteins production.Keywords: Antimicrobials, Bacillus subtilis, Sub-minimal inhibitory concentration, Total protein, Thin layer chromatography

Fulfilling the needs of a metadata creator and analyst : An investigation of RDF browsing and visualization tools

The realization of Semantic Web vision is based on the creation and use of semantic web content which needs software tools both for semantic web developers and end users. Over the past few years, semantic web software tools like ontology editors and triple storage systems have emerged and are growing in maturity with time. While working on a large triple dataset during the course of a research aiming at a life-long “semantic” repository of personal information, besides other semantic web tools, we used several RDF browsing and visualization tools for analyzing our data. This analysis included ensuring the correctness of the data, conformance of instance data to the ontology, finding patterns and trails in the data, cross-checking and evaluating inferred data, etc. We found that many of the features needed by a metadata creator and analyst are missing from these tools. This paper presents an investigation of the tools that are used for browsing and visualizing RDF datasets. It first identifies the browsing and visualization features required by a semantic web developer and a metadata creator and analyst and then based on those features evaluates the most common RDF browsing and visualization tools available till date. We conclude this paper with recommendations for requirements to be fulfilled for future semantic web browsing and visualizationThe past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Outbreak of Zika virus pathogenesis and quest of its vaccine development: Where do we stand now?

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection is a life-threatening tropical infection, mainly caused by mosquito bite. After a very long period of quietness, ZIKV infections have become a problematic issue again. Previously, the virus was limited to Africa and Asia only but later it emerged in Brazil, South America, and other parts of the world in 2015. In 2016, there are emerging new cases of sexually transmitted ZIKV infection as well. At present, there is no proper treatment and available pronounced vaccines for the treatment of ZIKV infection. The prime focal point of this review is not only to provide imperative epidemiological information on ZIKV infection in brief but also the current situation of vaccines testing on animal model as well as in clinical trial phases. Currently there is no human vaccine for this pestiferous viral infection. Therefore, prevention, proper management, and up-to-date recommendation are crucial to mitigate the possible risk of vector and non-vector transmission of ZIKV

Reconstructing the Three-Dimensional Model of CSR

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to examine the CSR activities in various economies and evaluate CSR-related publications at different times and propose a revised three-dimensional model of CSR integrating the four responsibilities of businesses, stakeholder theory, with voluntary and coordinated CSR approaches. Design/methodology/approach: To identify various responsibilities of businesses this conceptual paper is based on an extensive review of literature that traces the historical evolution of CSR. Moreover, it analyses explicit and implicit CSR in different economic–legal environments. This paper analyses several CSR theories and other models that could be integrated to develop a new three-dimensional model of CSR. The search engine was used to retrieve references. Articles and publications referred were selected based on their contribution and the number of citations from the decade 2012 – 2022.  Findings: It was confirmed that the businesses perform activities – four expectations that society places on businesses to satisfy their stakeholders including employees, investors, customers, suppliers, the community, and the environment. This research proposes that businesses can perform their responsibilities either voluntarily or in coordination with the government schemes, and provisions. Firms may choose an approach suitable to their political, financial, educational, cultural, and labor systems. Based on the literature review a reconstructed three-dimensional CSR model was proposed in which four responsibilities of business were put in one dimension, stakeholders in another dimension, and a voluntary or coordinated CSR approach in the third dimeson. Research limitations/implications: The proposed three-dimensional CSR model can help managers to plan for their CSR initiatives that could satisfy their stakeholders. This model can be used for identifying the strong or weak areas in a firm’s CSR performance. Future researchers can examine this model with empirical data.    Social Implications: The present research can benefit society by fine-tuning the CSR initiatives with stakeholders’ expectations. This research can be used to identify the unserved segments of society on which the CSR programs can be targeted. Originality / Value: This paper proposes a unique comprehensive model that covers three important dimensions of CSR. None of the existing models of CSR cover such dimensions and approaches

BERT-Embedding and Citation Network Analysis based Query Expansion Technique for Scholarly Search

The enormous growth of research publications has made it challenging for academic search engines to bring the most relevant papers against the given search query. Numerous solutions have been proposed over the years to improve the effectiveness of academic search, including exploiting query expansion and citation analysis. Query expansion techniques mitigate the mismatch between the language used in a query and indexed documents. However, these techniques can suffer from introducing non-relevant information while expanding the original query. Recently, contextualized model BERT to document retrieval has been quite successful in query expansion. Motivated by such issues and inspired by the success of BERT, this paper proposes a novel approach called QeBERT. QeBERT exploits BERT-based embedding and Citation Network Analysis (CNA) in query expansion for improving scholarly search. Specifically, we use the context-aware BERT-embedding and CNA for query expansion in Pseudo-Relevance Feedback (PRF) fash-ion. Initial experimental results on the ACL dataset show that BERT-embedding can provide a valuable augmentation to query expansion and improve search relevance when combined with CNA.Comment: 1

Haptic Feedback to Assist Blind People in Indoor Environment Using Vibration Patterns

Feedback is one of the significant factors for the mental mapping of an environment. It is the communication of spatial information to blind people to perceive the surroundings. The assistive smartphone technologies deliver feedback for different activities using several feedback mediums, including voice, sonification and vibration. Researchers 0have proposed various solutions for conveying feedback messages to blind people using these mediums. Voice and sonification feedback are effective solutions to convey information. However, these solutions are not applicable in a noisy environment and may occupy the most important auditory sense. The privacy of a blind user can also be compromised with speech feedback. The vibration feedback could effectively be used as an alternative approach to these mediums. This paper proposes a real-time feedback system specifically designed for blind people to convey information to them based on vibration patterns. The proposed solution has been evaluated through an empirical study by collecting data from 24 blind people through a mixed-mode survey using a questionnaire. Results show the average recognition accuracy for 10 different vibration patterns are 90%, 82%, 75%, 87%, 65%, and 70%

ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF TABERNAEMONTANA DIVARICATA (APOCYNACEAE) SECONDARY METABOLITES CAPPED SILVER AND GOLD NANOPARTICLES

Objective: To study the antibacterial activity of Tabernaemontana divaricata (Apocynaceae) secondary metabolites capped silver nanoparticles(SNPs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs).Methods: In the present investigation, SNPs and AuNPs were synthesized using an aqueous extract of T. divaricata leaves. Leaf aqueous extractwas mixed with 1 mM silver nitrate and chloroauric acid for the biosynthesis of nanoparticles, and the same was analyzed using ultraviolet-visible(UV-Vis) spectrophotometer and particle size analyzer. The antibacterial activity of SNPs and AuNPs was determined against various bacterial culturesincluding laboratory isolates using the agar well diffusion method.Results: The results recorded from UV-Vis spectrum supported the biosynthesis and characterization of SNPs and AuNPs. The SNPs when comparedto AuNPs, showed the highest antibacterial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.Conclusion: The present study envisions on the biosynthesis of SNPs from T. divaricata plant which are emerging as antibacterial therapy in modernmedical applications.Keywords: Antibacterial activity, Gold nanoparticles, Silver nanoparticles, Tabernaemontana divaricata

Neoteric advancement in TB drugs and an overview on the anti-tubercular role of peptides through computational approaches

Peptides of varied origins such as human immune cells and non-immune cells, bacteria, fungi, and venoms have been widely investigated as anti-tubercular agents for the replacement of existing anti-tubercular drugs in future. In the present review, we spotlighted not only on the mechanisms of action and mode of administration of currently available anti-tubercular drugs but also the recent comprehensive report of World Health Organization (WHO) on TB epidemic, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. The major excerpt of the study also inspects the direct contribution of different computational tools during drug designing strategies against M. tuberculosis in order to grasp the interplay between anti-tubercular peptides and targeted bacterial protein. The potentiality of some of these anti-tubercular peptides as therapeutic agents unlocks a new portal for achieving the goal of end TB strategy.Tuberculosis (TB) is a devastating threat to human health whose treatment without the emergence of drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is the million-dollar question at present. The pathogenesis of M. tuberculosis has been extensively studied which represents unique defence strategies by infecting macrophages. Several anti-tubercular drugs with varied mode of action and administration from diversified sources have been used for the treatment of TB that later contributed to the emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). However, few of potent anti-tubercular drugs are scheduled for clinical trials status in 2017–2018

Diabetes related knowledge among residents and nurses: a multicenter study in Karachi, Pakistan.

Background: Assessment of knowledge among resident trainees and nurses is very important since majority of patients admitted in hospital have underlying diabetes which could lead to adverse clinical outcomes if not managed efficiently. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the knowledge related to the management of diabetes among registered nurses (RN) and trainee residents of internal medicine (IMR), family medicine (FMR) and surgery (SR) at tertiary care hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: A validated questionnaire consisting of 21 open ended questions related to diabetes awareness was acquired through a study done at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia with the permission of primary author. Results: 169 IMR, 27 FMR, 86 SR and 99 RN completed a questionnaire that assessed the knowledge related to different aspects of management of diabetes. The results were further stratified by participant\u27s specialty and level of training. The percentage of knowledge based questions answered correctly was found to be low. The overall mean correct percentage among all the participants was 50% +/- 21. There was no statistical difference in terms of knowledge between IMR & FMR residents (64% +/- 14 vs. 60% +/- 16, p = 0.47) respectively. The total scores of SR and RN were quite low (40% +/- 16 & 31% +/- 15 respectively).SR and RN were found to have profound deficit in both inpatient and outpatient knowledge of diabetes. We did not observe any improvement in level of knowledge of FMR & SR with increase in duration of their training (p = 0.47 & 0.80 respectively). In contrast, improvement in the level of knowledge of IMR was observed from first to second year of their training (p = 0.03) with no further improvement thereafter. RN\u27s didn\u27t respond correctly on most of the items related to in-patient management of diabetes (Mean score 40% +/- 20). Conclusion: As there are no prior studies in our setting evaluating knowledge related to diabetes management among residents and nurses, this study is of paramount importance. Based on these results, considerable knowledge gaps were found among trainee residents and nurses pointing towards need of providing additional education to improve the delivery of diabetes care