Literary Orientalism: Main Contours Up to the British Romantic Period

Literary Orientalism assumed the status of a new, fascinating subfield of English literary studies in 1980s, after the publication of Edward Said’s influential work, Orientalism (1978). However, earlier critical studies too, pointed to the varied perception of the other, including the Orient/ Orientals in English literary works down the millennia. The paper under study traces out the genesis of this tradition from 1

Elevated protein kinase C alpha expression may be predictive of tamoxifen treatment failure

We previously reported that stable transfection of protein kinase C alpha (PKCα) into T47D human breast cancer cells results in tamoxifen (TAM)-resistant tumour growth. Relevance of PKCα expression in clinical specimens was determined by comparing PKCα expression in tumours from patients exhibiting disease recurrence with patients remaining disease-free following TAM treatment. Our results suggest that PKCα expression may predict TAM treatment failure

Restless legs syndrome in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Objective: To determine the frequency of restless legs syndrome (RLS) and its associated factors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Design and Methods: It was single centered, cross-sectional study done with convenient sampling. The study population comprised 174 subjects (120 diabetics and 54 non-diabetics). Participants were recruited from the Diabetes clinic of Jinnah Medical College Hospital, Karachi. The relevant clinical and laboratory parameters were obtained by clinical history and chart review. Multivariable logistic regression was done to identify the factors of RLS among diabetics. Results: Using the International RLS Study Group (IRLSSG) criteria, RLS was identified only in 67(55.8%) subjects from the diabetic group. The mean age of RLS subjects was 56±8 years as compared to 46±8 years in the non-RLS subjects. Forty percent (26/67) of the diabetic/RLS+ subjects had diabetes for \u3e10 years and had significantly deranged glycemic indices. Periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) as reported by the bed partner or close family member were reported by 32(26.7%) of the diabetic subjects only; of which 21(65.6%) subjects had RLS. Sleep disturbances were more frequent among patients with RLS as compared to non-RLS (61.2% versus 21.5%). According to Semmes-Weinstein filament test, 61% of diabetics and 67% of diabetic/RLS subjects had peripheral neuropathy. Interestingly, none of our subjects who were diagnosed as RLS was ever asked by their physician for symptoms of RLS prior to this study. Conclusion: RLS is a common problem among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and is associated with increasing age, peripheral neuropathy and impaired day time functioning. Poor recognition by physicians result in delayed diagnosis

A rapid method for preparation of sarcolemma from frog skeletal muscle

A rapid method for the preparation of sarcolema from frog skeletal muscle has been described. The purified cell segments were transparent and devoid of contractile material. The Na+, K+ -ATPase and 5'-nucleotidase activities in sarcolemma purified by this method were comparable to those reported for sarcolemmal preparations purified by density gradient centrifugation. The preparation also possessed acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase and K+ -activated, ouabain-sensitive p-nitrophenyl phosphatase activities. The cholesterol to phospholipid ratio of the sarcolemma was 0.33, indicating its high purity; further, the preparation was free from mitochondria and contractile proteins

Sources of cholesterol during development of the rat fetus and fetal organs

Female rats at various stages of pregnancy were injected intraperitoneally with [3H]water; 4 h later, they were killed, the uterus was removed, and the fetuses were dissected. Lipids were isolated and fractionated by HPLC and the total amount of cholesterol in each organ, as well as radioactivity incorporated into cholesterol and cholesterol precursors, were determined. From the data for cholesterol content at each age we calculated the rate of accumulation of cholesterol during fetal development. As incorporation of label from [3H]water takes place with a stoichiometry defined by a known biosynthetic pathway, we were also able to determine the fraction of cholesterol accumulating in each organ that had been newly synthesized. For the fetus as a whole, more than 93% of the cholesterol accumulating during development was newly synthesized. As the specific radioactivity of cholesterol in the maternal circulation was negligible (because synthesis of cholesterol by maternal liver was suppressed by inclusion of cholesterol in the diet), we conclude that the fetus synthesizes nearly all of its own cholesterol; neither the maternal circulation nor the placenta/yolk sac contribute significant amounts of cholesterol to the fetus. We were also able to quantitate trafficking of cholesterol between fetal organs. Fetal brain is responsible for the synthesis of all of its own cholesterol. In contrast, fetal liver exports cholesterol into the fetal circulation and supplies about half of the cholesterol for development of heart, lung, and kidney

Microwave assisted synthesis and pharmacological screening of 3-(substituted phenyl)-5-methylquinolino [3,2-e]-1,2,4- triazines

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Pharmacogenomics driven decision support prototype with machine learning: A framework for improving patient care

Introduction: A growing number of healthcare providers make complex treatment decisions guided by electronic health record (EHR) software interfaces. Many interfaces integrate multiple sources of data (e.g., labs, pharmacy, diagnoses) successfully, though relatively few have incorporated genetic data. Method: This study utilizes informatics methods with predictive modeling to create and validate algorithms to enable informed pharmacogenomic decision-making at the point of care in near real-time. The proposed framework integrates EHR and genetic data relevant to the patient's current medications including decision support mechanisms based on predictive modeling. We created a prototype with EHR and linked genetic data from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the largest integrated healthcare system in the US. The EHR data included diagnoses, medication fills, and outpatient clinic visits for 2,600 people with HIV and matched uninfected controls linked to prototypic genetic data (variations in single or multiple positions in the DNA sequence). We then mapped the medications that patients were prescribed to medications defined in the drug-gene interaction mapping of the Clinical Pharmacogenomics Implementation Consortium's (CPIC) level A (i.e., sufficient evidence for at least one prescribing action) guidelines that predict adverse events. CPIC is a National Institute of Health funded group of experts who develop evidence based pharmacogenomic guidelines. Preventable adverse events (PAE) can be defined as a harmful outcome from an intervention that could have been prevented. For this study, we focused on potential PAEs resulting from a medication-gene interaction. Results: The final model showed AUC scores of 0.972 with an F1 score of 0.97 with genetic data as compared to 0.766 and 0.73 respectively, without genetic data integration. Discussion: Over 98% of people in the cohort were on at least one medication with CPIC level a guideline in their lifetime. We compared predictive power of machine learning models to detect a PAE between five modeling methods: Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), K Nearest neighbors (KNN), and Decision Tree. We found that XGBoost performed best for the prototype when genetic data was added to the framework and improved prediction of PAE. We compared area under the curve (AUC) between the models in the testing dataset

Solvent free hydroxylation of the methyl esters of Blighia unijugata seed oil in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium permanganate

Extraction of oil from the seed of Blighia unijugata gave a yield of 50.82 ± 1.20% using hexane in a soxhlet extractor. The iodine and saponification values were 67.60 ± 0.80 g iodine/100 g and 239.20 ± 1.00 mg KOH/g respectively with C18:1 being the dominant fatty acid. Unsaturated methyl esters of Blighia unijugata which had been previously subjected to urea adduct complexation was used to synthesize methyl 9, 10-dihydroxyoctadecanoate via hydroxylation in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium permanganate (CTAP). The reaction was monitored and confirmed using FTIR and GC-MS. This study has revealed that oxidation reaction of mono unsaturated bonds using CTAP could be achieved under solvent free condition

Simultaneous Comparison of Many Triphasic Defibrillation Waveforms

Biphasic defibrillation waveforms are now accepted as being more effective at terminating ventricular fibrillation (VF) than monophasic waveforms. If two phases are better than one, this naturally leads to the hypothesis that additional phases improve efficacy. This study tests the hypothesis by adding one additional phase. We examined the efficacy of 18 different triphasic waveforms simultaneously