Evaluation of growth and production of the threatened giant river catfish, Sperata seenghala (Sykes) in polyculture with indigenous major carps

The giant river catfish locally named guizza, Sperata seenghala has significant cultural and economic importance but the fish is now considered as critically endangered due to environmental and manmade interventions in aquatic ecosystem. In order to conserve and rehabilitate this species, an experiment on polyculture of guizza with indigenous major carps was conducted in earthen ponds. Three treatments differing in species ratios and combinations of fish were employed with two replicates each. Treatment-1 (T1) was stocked with catla (Catla catla), rohu (Labeo rohita) and mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala), treatment-2 (T2) with catla, rohu and guizza (S. seenghala), while treatment-3 (T3) with catla, rohu, mrigal and guizza. Guizza of T2 was introduced instead of mrigal in T1 and 50% of mrigal was replaced with guizza in T3. The stocking density of fish fingerlings in all the treatments was 7500 individual/ha. Fishes in the experimental ponds were fed with supplementary diet comprising of rice bran (50%), mustard oil cake (30%), fish meal (19%) and vitamin-mineral premix (1%). Physicochemical parameters and plankton populations were within the appropriate levels for aquaculture. Mean growth and survival of catla and rohu were significantly higher in T2 than in T3 and T1. Guizza in T2 showed higher performances than in T3, while those for mrigal were higher in T3 than T1 (p < 0.05). The total gross and net productions of fishes were higher in T3 than in T2 and T1 (p < 0.05). This trial is a successful attempt to culture the threatened guizza with major carps in earthen ponds, the findings of which would immensely be helpful towards the development of aquaculture and conservation of this important fish in captive condition.Key words: Riverine catfish, Sperata seenghala, polyculture, earthen ponds

Stab Injury with Tailoring Scissor Causing Inferior Gluteal Artery Pseudo Aneurysm: a Rare Case Report

Background: Gluteal artery pseudo aneurysm (GAP) is a rare entity, as gluteal arteries are well protected under muscles and fat of gluteal region. Gluteal artery aneurysms constitute less than 1% of all aneurysms and most of them are pseudo aneurysms.  The common etiologies of GAP  areblunt or penetrating trauma to gluteal region, infection, fractures of the pelvis or iatrogenic injury during surgical procedures on the pelvis or hips to intramuscular injection. The usual presentation is a pulsatile gluteal mass often confused with a gluteal abscess presenting 1-2 months after injury. However, at times it can cause symptoms due to compression of pelvic structures.Case Report: Our patient was a young boy who had injury to his right gluteal region with a tailoring scissor during a scuffle. He presented to casualty in shock with packing of wound done outside. After resuscitation his Computed tomographic angiography (CT angiography) revealed a psuedoanuerysm of inferior gluteal artery. He was immediately taken up for surgery a transperitoneal ligation of internal iliac artery of the involved side was done along with exploration of the gluteal wound.Conclusion: These patients of Gluteal artery aneurysms can be managed with both open and endovascular techniques. Our patient was unique in the respect that no GAP has been reported after stab injury with a tailoring scissor and ours is first case report in English literature .We want that the surgeons should keep in mind the possibility of GAP while dealing with even trivial injuries of gluteal region

DNA ploidy analyses in 218 consecutive Pakistani breast cancer patients: does it add anything?

An analysis was made to evaluate the significance of DNA ploidy in the biology and prognosis of breast carcinoma. This was done by estimating the correlation of DNA ploidy with other established prognostic markers of breast cancer, namely tumor size, tumor grade, lymph node metastasis and S-phase fraction. From 1995 up to year 2000 ploidy analysis was performed on 218 consecutive cases of infiltrating breast carcinoma by flow cytometry using formalin fixed paraffin embedded material. From the laboratory record, data regarding other pathological variables was retrieved. No correlation could be found between DNA ploidy and tumor grade, nor could there be found a correlation with tumor size. For lymph node metastasis there was a significant difference between the proportion of aneuploids and diploids having metastasis in more than 4 lymph nodes. However, no significant difference was found in axillary lymph node positive and negative groups when number of positive lymph nodes was not taken into account. The mean value of S-phase fraction for the aneuploids and the diploids was also insignificantly different. In conclusion DNA ploidy alone did not add much to predict tumor behaviour in terms of known pathologic variables

Polymerization Kinetics Stability, Volumetric Changes, Apatite Precipitation, Strontium Release and Fatigue of Novel Bone Composites for Vertebroplasty

Purpose: The aim was to determine effects of diluent monomer and monocalcium phosphate monohydrate (MCPM) on polymerization kinetics and volumetric stability, apatite precipitation, strontium release and fatigue of novel dual-paste composites for vertebroplasty. / Materials and methods: Polypropylene (PPGDMA) or triethylene (TEGDMA) glycol dimethacrylates (25 wt%) diluents were combined with urethane dimethacrylate (70 wt%) and hydroxyethyl methacrylate (5 wt%). 70 wt% filler containing glass particles, glass fibers (20 wt%) and polylysine (5 wt%) was added. Benzoyl peroxide and MCPM (10 or 20 wt%) or N-tolyglycine glycidyl methacrylate and tristrontium phosphate (15 wt%) were included to give initiator or activator pastes. Commercial PMMA (Simplex) and bone composite (Cortoss) were used for comparison. ATR-FTIR was used to determine thermal activated polymerization kinetics of initiator pastes at 50-80 °C. Paste stability, following storage at 4-37 °C, was assessed visually or through mixed paste polymerization kinetics at 25 °C. Polymerization shrinkage and heat generation were calculated from final monomer conversions. Subsequent expansion and surface apatite precipitation in simulated body fluid (SBF) were assessed gravimetrically and via SEM. Strontium release into water was assessed using ICP-MS. Biaxial flexural strength (BFS) and fatigue properties were determined at 37 °C after 4 weeks in SBF. / Results: Polymerization profiles all exhibited an inhibition time before polymerization as predicted by free radical polymerization mechanisms. Initiator paste inhibition times and maximum reaction rates were described well by Arrhenius plots. Plot extrapolation, however, underestimated lower temperature paste stability. Replacement of TEGDMA by PPGDMA, enhanced paste stability, final monomer conversion, water-sorption induced expansion and strontium release but reduced polymerisation shrinkage and heat generation. Increasing MCPM level enhanced volume expansion, surface apatite precipitation and strontium release. Although the experimental composite flexural strengths were lower compared to those of commercially available Simplex, the extrapolated low load fatigue lives of all materials were comparable. / Conclusions: Increased inhibition times at high temperature give longer predicted shelf-life whilst stability of mixed paste inhibition times is important for consistent clinical application. Increased volumetric stability, strontium release and apatite formation should encourage bone integration. Replacing TEGDMA by PPGDMA and increasing MCPM could therefore increase suitability of the above novel bone composites for vertebroplasty. Long fatigue lives of the composites may also ensure long-term durability of the materials

Molecular basis of arsenite (As+3)-induced acute cytotoxicity in human cervical epithelial carcinoma cells

Background: Rapid industrialization is discharging toxic heavy metals into the environment, disturbing human health in many ways and causing various neurologic, cardiovascular, and dermatologic abnormalities and certain types of cancer. The presence of arsenic in drinking water from different urban and rural areas of the major cities of Pakistan, for example, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Kasur, was found to be beyond the permissible limit of 10 parts per billion set by the World Health Organization. Therefore the present study was initiated to examine the effects of arsenite (As+3) on DNA biosynthesis and cell death.Methods: After performing cytotoxic assays on a human epithelial carcinoma cell line, expression analysis was done by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blotting, and flow cytometry.Results: We show that As+3 ions have a dose- and time-dependent cytotoxic effect through the activation of the caspase-dependent apoptotic pathway. In contrast to previous research, the present study was designed to explore the early cytotoxic effects produced in human cells during exposure to heavy dosage of As+3 (7.5 μg/ml). Even treatment for 1 h significantly increased the mRNA levels of p21 and p27 and caspases 3, 7, and 9. It was interesting that there was no change in the expression levels of p53, which plays an important role in G2/M phase cell cycle arrest.Conclusion: Our results indicate that sudden exposure of cells to arsenite (As+3) resulted in cytotoxicity and mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis resulting from up-regulation of caspases.Keywords: apoptosis; epithelial carcinoma; cytotoxicity; arsenite; caspases; Pakistan Responsible Editor: Amin Bredan, VIB Inflammation Research Center & Ghent University, Belgium

Base catalyzed transesterification of sunflower oil biodiesel

In this study, sunflower oil was investigated for biodiesel production. Sunflower is one of the leading oil seed crop, cultivated for the production of oil in the world. It has also been considered as an important crop for biodiesel production. Seeds for biodiesel production were procured from local farmers of Attock and Rawalpidni divisions. Electric oil expeller was used for the extraction of crude oil. Base catalyzed transesterifiction process is applied for optimum yield (80%) of biodiesel. Fuel properties of sunflower oil biodiesel were compared with American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Engine efficiency of biodiesel with reference to power, efficiency and consumption of biodiesel blends (B100, B20 and B5) were determined. It was concluded that sunflower oil is one of the option for biodiesel production at a large scale depending on its mass cultivation.Keywords: Sunflower oil, transesterification, biodiesel, energ

A multilevel paradigm for deep convolutional neural network features selection with an application to human gait recognition

Human gait recognition (HGR) shows high importance in the area of video surveillance due to remote access and security threats. HGR is a technique commonly used for the identification of human style in daily life. However, many typical situations like change of clothes condition and variation in view angles degrade the system performance. Lately, different machine learning (ML) techniques have been introduced for video surveillance which gives promising results among which deep learning (DL) shows best performance in complex scenarios. In this article, an integrated framework is proposed for HGR using deep neural network and fuzzy entropy controlled skewness (FEcS) approach. The proposed technique works in two phases: In the first phase, deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) features are extracted by pre-trained CNN models (VGG19 and AlexNet) and their information is mixed by parallel fusion approach. In the second phase, entropy and skewness vectors are calculated from fused feature vector (FV) to select best subsets of features by suggested FEcS approach. The best subsets of picked features are finally fed to multiple classifiers and finest one is chosen on the basis of accuracy value. The experiments were carried out on four well-known datasets, namely, AVAMVG gait, CASIA A, B and C. The achieved accuracy of each dataset was 99.8, 99.7, 93.3 and 92.2%, respectively. Therefore, the obtained overall recognition results lead to conclude that the proposed system is very promising

A simple method to assess the oxidative susceptibility of low density lipoproteins

BACKGROUND: Oxidative modification of low density lipoproteins (LDL) is recognized as one of the major processes involved in atherogenesis. The in vitro standardized measurement of LDL oxidative susceptibility could thus be of clinical significance. The aim of the present study was to establish a method which would allow the evaluation of oxidative susceptibility of LDL in the general clinical laboratory. RESULTS: LDL was isolated from human plasma by selective precipitation with amphipathic polymers. The ability of LDL to form peroxides was assessed by measuring thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) after incubation with Cu(2+) and H(2)O(2). Reaction kinetics showed a three-phase pattern (latency, propagation and decomposition phases) which allowed us to select 150 min as the time point to stop the incubation by cooling and EDTA addition. The mixture Cu(2+)/H(2)O(2) yielded more lipoperoxides than each one on its own at the same time end-point. Induced peroxidation was measured in normal subjects and in type 2 diabetic patients. In the control group, results were 21.7 ± 1.5 nmol MDA/mg LDL protein, while in the diabetic group results were significantly increased (39.0 ± 3.0 nmol MDA/mg LDL protein; p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: a simple and useful method is presented for the routine determination of LDL susceptibility to peroxidation in a clinical laboratory

A Review on the Role of Nano-Communication in Future Healthcare Systems: A Big Data Analytics Perspective

This paper presents a first-time review of the open literature focused on the significance of big data generated within nano-sensors and nano-communication networks intended for future healthcare and biomedical applications. It is aimed towards the development of modern smart healthcare systems enabled with P4, i.e. predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory capabilities to perform diagnostics, monitoring, and treatment. The analytical capabilities that can be produced from the substantial amount of data gathered in such networks will aid in exploiting the practical intelligence and learning capabilities that could be further integrated with conventional medical and health data leading to more efficient decision making. We have also proposed a big data analytics framework for gathering intelligence, form the healthcare big data, required by futuristic smart healthcare to address relevant problems and exploit possible opportunities in future applications. Finally, the open challenges, future directions for researchers in the evolving healthcare domain, are presented

Development of Web-Based Real-time Energy Monitoring System for Campus University

This study presents development of real time energy monitoring system installed in Level 17, Tower 2, Engineering Complex, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. The device and programming uses microcontroller board Arduino, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, sensors and Emoncms.org web server to record and display the real time power and energy consumption, energy cost, energy index and CO2 emissions. The device allows 3 phase measurement of energy use in the building level where the main power source has been divided into several loads such as lighting, power plug, and Air Conditioning (AC) fan. The device is capable to transmit the data at set time interval using Wi-Fi communication and logging directly to local SD card for further analysis. The device was calibrated using FLUKE 485 power meter concurrently to meet a good reliable result with lower tolerance. The device was installed and tested during testing period including weekdays and weekend to see hourly energy performance in the particular building level. It is found that the device provides reading with average error of 2.04% as compared to commercial meter during one week testing period