Level of Psychological Adjustment and Intolerance Uncertainty among Heart Surgery Patients

To perceive the association among psychological adjustment and intolerance uncertainty among heart surgery patients, the present research was conducted. On the basis of purposive sampling method, a sample of 100 was chosen. These patients of BVH, completed the questionnaire forms. From BVH, the sample was purposively selected. By enumerating the percentages, the gathered data was examined and the interpretation was obtained on the base of findings of each type of questionnaire. For examining the data, descriptive statistics, correlation; SPSS was used. On the basis of findings and conclusion, the endorsement was drawn. Among researchers, psychological adjustment is increasingly getting popular as for analyzing behavior, conflicts, obstacles and misrepresenting varied social involvements that pupil go through as executive at workplaces and intolerance uncertainty investigation cogitative, profundity of future uncertainty as intimidating about their disease. Furthermore, there was a pessimistic association among psychological adjustment and intolerance uncertainty

Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in children under 5 years of age before introduction of pneumococcal vaccine (PCV10) in urban and rural districts in Pakistan

Background: Benefits of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine programs have been linked to the vaccine’s ability to disrupt nasopharyngeal carriage and transmission. The 10-valent pneumococcal vaccine (PCV10) was included in the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) in Sindh, Pakistan in February 2013. This study was carried out immediately before PCV10 introduction to establish baseline pneumococcal carriage and prevalent serotypes in young children and to determine if carriage differed in urban and rural communities.Methods: Nasopharyngeal specimens were collected from a random sample of children 3-11 and 12-59 months of age in an urban community (Karachi) and children 3-11 months of age in a rural community (Matiari). Samples were processed in a research laboratory in Karachi. Samples were transported in STGG media, enriched in Todd Hewitt broth, rabbit serum and yeast extract, cultured on 5% sheep blood agar, and serotyped using the CDC standardized sequential multiplex PCR assay. Serotypes were categorized into PCV10-type and non-vaccine types.Results: We enrolled 670 children. Pneumococci were detected in 73.6% and 79.5 % of children in the infant group in Karachi and Matiari, respectively, and 78.2% of children 12 to 59 months of age in Karachi. In infants, 38. 9% and 33.5% of those carrying pneumococci in Karachi and Matiari, respectively, had PCV10 types. In the older age group in Karachi, the proportion was 30.7%, not significantly different from infants. The most common serotypes were 6A, 23F, 19A, 6B and 19F.Conclusion: We found that about 3 of 4 children carried pneumococci, and this figure did not vary with age group or urban or rural residence. Planned annual surveys in the same communities will inform change in carriage of PCV10 serotype pneumococci after the introduction and uptake of PCV10 in these communitie

A Novel Defocus-Blur Region Detection Approach Based on DCT Feature and PCNN Structure

The motion or out-of-focus effect in digital images is the main reason for the blurred regions in defocused-blurred images. It may adversely affect various image features such as texture, pixel, and region. Therefore, it is important to detect in-focused objects in defocused-blurred images after the segmentation of blurred and non-blurred regions. The state-of-the-art techniques are prone to noisy pixels, and their local descriptors for developing segmentation metrics are also complex. To address these issues, this research, therefore, proposed a novel and hybrid-focused detection approach based on Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficients and PC Neural Net (PCNN) structure. The proposed approach partially resolves the limitations of the existing contrast schemes to detect in-focused smooth objects from the out-of-focused smooth regions in the defocus dataset. The visual and quantitative evaluation illustrates that the proposed approach outperformed in terms of accuracy and efficiency to referenced algorithms. The highest ${ \mathcal {F} _{\alpha }}$ -score of the proposed approach on Zhao’s dataset is 0.7940 whereas on Shi’s dataset is 0.9178

Diagnostic Accuracy of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) in Salivary Gland Tumors.

Professor Oral Pathology, Islamabad Dental Hospital, Islamabad 6Demonstrator Oral Pathology Margalla Institute of Health Sciences, Islamabad   Author`s Contribution 1Conception and idea acquisition of data, 2Data Analysis, 3Results interpretation, 4Editing and drafting, 5Critical Revision, 6Final approval of the study to be published Funding Source: None Conflict of Interest: None Received: February 02, 2024 Accepted: May 27, 2024 Address of Correspondent Dr. Zainab Niazi Associate Professor Oral Pathology, Islamabad Dental Hospital, Islamabad [email protected]                       ABSTRACT Objectives: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) by comparing its findings with the gold standard histological features of salivary gland lesions. Methodology: This retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Histopathology, Islamabad Medical and Dental Hospital (IMDC), from January 2023 to December 2023, patients presenting with salivary gland swellings. Fifty-seven patients having salivary gland swelling were included on which both histological and cytological evaluation had been done. Twenty cases were excluded because either they had lack of correlation between FNAC and histology or on view of inadequate material. All the patients were clinically evaluated clinically and FNAC was done using 10ml disposable syringe and 23/24-gauge needle without using local anesthesia. The histopathology of the surgical specimens and cytology of the FNAC specimens were compared, and the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were evaluated. Results: On FNAC, 37 cases were diagnosed cytologically, as 9 cases identified malignant and 28 as benign. Histopathological examination confirmed 9 malignant cases and 25 benign cases, whereas 3 cases were classified as false positive. The specificity and sensitivity of FNAC were 75% and 94%, respectively. Overlapping cytological features, heterogeneity, and unsampled areas were the primary factors contributing to false-positive. Conclusion: This study showed that salivary gland FNA cytology is a valuable diagnostic technique for salivary gland lesions, however due to great variation in pleomorphic adenoma, the samples must be confirmed by histopathological features

Epidemiology, Zoonotic and Reverse Zoonotic Potential of COVID-19

The demographic patterns of COVID-19 spread can provide clues to develop roadmaps for devising better prevention and control. It is high time to analyze and re-evaluate the zoonotic/reverse zoonotic spread of SARS-CoV-2 globally. To this end, lessons from epidemiology and associated determinants from previous outbreaks of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS need to be cultured and re-visited. Ways to minimize the rates of infection and promote the well-being of the masses need urgent attention owing to the subsequent waves of the global pandemic in most countries. Efforts are being directed for the provision of efficient and cost-effective diagnostics, prophylaxis and therapeutic options for COVID-19. The chapter provides insights, suggesting a potential roadmap for efficiently preventing the future outbreaks of COVID-19, based on the tools of epidemiology, transmission probabilities and public health safety concerns

Deciphering the Potential of Probiotics in Vaccines

The demand for vaccines, particularly those prepared from non-conventional sources, is rising due to the emergence of drug resistance around the globe. Probiotic-based vaccines are a wise example of such vaccines which represent new horizons in the field of vaccinology in providing an enhanced and diversified immune response. The justification for incorporating probiotics into vaccines lies in the fact that that they hold the capacity to regulate immune function directly or indirectly by influencing the gastrointestinal microbiota and related pathways. Several animal-model-based studies have also highlighted the efficacy of these vaccines. The aim of this review is to collect and summarize the trends in the recent scientific literature regarding the role of probiotics in vaccines and vaccinology, along with their impact on target populations

Experience with the quantitative lytA gene real-time polymerase chain reaction for the detection of Streptococcus pneumoniae from pediatric whole blood in Pakistan

Background: We present our experience with optimization and diagnostic use of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the lytA gene of Streptococcus pneumoniae for the detection of S. pneumoniae in whole blood of children <5 years of age. The assay was optimized to detect ≥5 CFU/10 μl or 1 copy of DNA/2 μl of blood. Methods: This assay was applied on 1912 whole blood specimens collected from children <5 years of age with pneumonia, of which 35 specimens were lytA positive. The bacterial loads were determined through categorization of load into five different categories, i.e., very high load, high load, moderate load, low load, and very low load. Results: Of the 35 lytA-positive samples, 9 (25.71%), 4 (11.42%), 1 (2.85%), 13 (37.14%), and 8 (22.85%) were categorized as very high load, high load, moderate load, low load, and very low load, respectively. Extracted samples were also subjected to serotyping by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention PCR scheme. Positive samples with very high load and high load category were serotyped successfully in all instances. A high proportion of samples with low and very low load (61.53% and 75%, respectively) remained untypeable by the currently proposed schemes. Conclusions: LytA PCR assay in whole blood provides rapid and sensitive results for the diagnosis of invasive S. pneumoniae disease in a resource-limited setting, while also being amenable to quantitation and serotyping