Socio-demographic and physical factors associated with disability in adults with non-specific chronic neck pain

While socio-demographic, physical and other factors are associated with neck pain, there is scanty literature about how these factors are associated with disability in adults suffering from this condition. We aimed to determine the socio-demographic and physical (strength and range of motions) related factors of disability in adults with non-specific chronic neck pain. A total of 34 adults with neck pain, with mean age 55 (10.80) years from a physiotherapy clinic in a teaching hospital participated in this study. Socio-demographic details such as body mass index (BMI), current employment status, hours of exercise done a week were obtained. Severity of pain was evaluated using the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). Disability level was assessed using Neck Disability Index. Cervical range of motion was measured using the Cervical Range of Motion device. A hand dynamometer was used to measure the dominant hand grip muscle strength. The data was analyzed using descriptive and stepwise linear regression analysis. More than half the participants were females, above 50 years, in the overweight group (BMI>25 kg/m2 ), currently unemployed and had severe neck pain (NRS >7). Handgrip strength was the only factor found to be significantly (p<0.05) related to neck disability. The results from our study suggest that improving general muscle conditioning and strength are important in preventing neck disability among adults with non-specific neck pain

Socio-economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dairy farm households in West Bengal state

India is one of the leading economies that have been stuck hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and the stringent measures were put in place to combat it. Among several sectors, dairy sector is the most affected as dairy products are highly perishable and rely on time-sensitive supply chains. Though studies are available on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on dairy sector, there are no studies on COVID-infected dairy farm households. The present study was an attempt to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on infected and uninfected dairy farm households in West Bengal. The study covered pre-lockdown, lockdown (both 1st and 2nd wave) and post-lockdown phases of COVID-19 pandemic. The primary data was collected from 150 dairy farm households (COVID-19 infected-75 and uninfected-75) in Murshidabad and Nadia districts of West Bengal. Dairy Economic Performance Index consisting of number of milch animals, milk yield, marketed milk, milk procurement price, concentrate price and veterinary cost was developed using principal component analysis. In order to make infected and uninfected groups statistically comparable, propensity score matching technique was employed. The index values were compared between matched infected and uninfected groups over different phases of COVID-19 pandemic. Dairy households incurred significant economic losses during the lockdown and post-lockdown periods due to increase in cost of concentrates, decline in the number of milch animals and drop in milk procurement prices. Dairy households faced constraints in procuring dry fodder, concentrate feed and in accessing veterinary care. COVID-19 infected dairy farm households had a greater socio-economic hurdle than that of uninfected households

G2677T polymorphism can predict treatment outcome of Malaysians with complex partial seizures being treated with Carbamazepine

ABSTRACT. Carbamazepine (CBZ) is used as the first line of treatment of complex partial seizures (CPS) in Malaysia. While this drug is known to be effective for the treatment of CPS, more than 30% of patients remain drug resistant to CBZ mono-therapy. We examined a possible relationship between patients&apos; response to CBZ mono-therapy and the G2677T SNP of the ABCB1 gene. Three hundred and fourteen patients with CPS were recruited from the Neurology Department of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, of whom 152 were responders and the other 162 were non-responders to CBZ mono-therapy. DNA was extracted from blood samples and real-time PCR was performed to detect the G2677T SNP of the ABCB1 gene. Results were described as genotype frequencies and compared by logistic regression analysis. Among the 152 responders, 74% had the GG genotype. However, among the 162 non-responders, 26.5% had the GT genotype and 39% had the TT genotype. There was a significant difference in genotype frequency (TT vs GG; odds ratio 4.70; 95% confidence interval,) between responders and nonresponders. The presence of the T allele of the G2677T SNP appears to be a useful screening marker to determine if a patient is going to be resistant to CBZ as a single drug therapy in the treatment of CPS

The Risk of Recurrence in Breast Cancer Patients Treated with Tamoxifen: Polymorphisms of CYP2D6 and ABCB1

CYP2D6 plays a major role in the metabolism of tamoxifen, and polymorphism of Pglycoprotein has been associated with resistance of many drug therapies. This study investigates the clinical impact of genetic variants of CYP2D6 and ABCB1 in breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen. Blood samples from 95 breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen were collected and genotyped for CYP2D6 and ABCB1 variants using allele-specific PCR method. Recurrence risks were calculated using Kaplan–Meier analysis and compared using the log-rank test. Patients carrying CYP2D6*10/*10 and heterozygous null allele (IM) showed higher risks of developing recurrence and metastasis (OR 13.14; 95% CI 1.57–109.94; P=0.004) than patients with CYP2D6*1/*1 and *1/*10 genotypes. Patients with homozygous CC genotypes of ABCB1 C3435T showed a shorter time to recurrence. Patients who were CYP2D6 IM and homozygous CC genotype of C3435T have statistically significant higher risks of recurrence (P=0.002). Similarly, median time to recurrence in these patients was only 12 months (95% CI=0.79–23.2) compared to those without this combination which was 48 months (95% CI=14.7–81.2). Patients with CYP2D6 IM and homozygous CC genotype of ABCB1 C3435T have shorter times to recurrence. The results confirmed the findings of previous studies and support FDA recommendation to perform pre-genotyping in patients before the choice of therapy is determined in breast cancer patients

Effects of processing parameters on the yield of cellulose isolated from sawdust

Over past the decades there has been a growing interest in the isolation of cellulose due to its high demand in paper industries, food industries, pharmaceutical and textiles. In this project, cellulose from sawdust will be isolated and characterized using FTIR and SEM. The cellulose from sawdust was isolated through chemical pretreatment and under different conditions. The effect of processing parameter such as concentrations of acid used in chemical pretreatment, treatment time and temperature on the yield of cellulose was studied. Treatment of sample with 2 wt % of acidified sodium chlorite (NaCI02) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for 4 hours at 70 °C is the optimum condition to produce highest yield of cellulose which is 45.3 ± 0. l4 %. Furthermore, the pure cellulose isolated from sawdust was further synthesized into nanoparticles with different concentration of cellulose solution. The increase in cellulose solution from 0.0 1 w/v % to 0.10 w/v % increases the average diameter of nanoparticles formed, where 0.0 I w/v % formed nanoparticles diameter of 122 ± 24 nm and 0.10 w/v % formed nanoparticles diameter of 379 ± 75 nm

Double anti-roll bar hardware-in-loop experiment for active anti-roll control system

Active anti-roll bar (AARB) is a cheaper alternative for a fully active suspension system, which can be adapted into passenger cars, made possible by today’s technology. AARB minimizes body roll and improve ride comfort. In this paper, the design of a Hardware-in-loop (HIL) test bench is presented. The HIL test bench is able to test dual AARB system, each for front and rear of a car respectively. HIL testing will allow designer to analyze and validate the performance of the proposed AARB system before it could be implemented in a real car. This paper focuses on the practicality and adaptability of implementing Fuzzy based PID controllers into the AARB system. HIL experiment compares the performance of proposed Self-Tuning Fuzzy PI-PD (STF PI-PD) controller against the PI-PD Type Fuzzy Logic Controller (PI-PD Type FLC) and Self-Tuning Fuzzy PID (STF PID) controllers. STF PID controller was proposed by previous researchers for an AARB system. Experimental results suggest that the proposed AARB system, which incorporates STF PI-PD controller is able to reduce 87.68% of roll angle and 50.04% in roll rate in average, thus improving the vehicle dynamics. STF PI-PD controller significantly outperforms both STF PID and PI-PD Type FLC controllers in various handling tests

Towards describing multi-fractality of traffic using local hurst function

Long-range dependence and self-similarity are two basic properties of network traffic time series. Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) and its increment process fractional Gaussian noise (fGn) are commonly used to model network traffic with the Hurst index H that determines both the regularity of the sample paths and the long memory property of traffic. However, it appears too restrictive for traffic modeling since it can only model sample paths with the same smoothness for all time parameterized by a constant H. A natural extension of fBm is multifractional Brownian motion (mBm), which is indexed by a time-dependent Hurst index H(t). The main objective of this paper is to model multi-fractality of traffic using H(t), i.e., mBm, on a point-by-point basis instead of an interval-by-interval basis as traditionally done in computer networks. The numerical results for H(t) of real traffic, which are demonstrated in this paper, show that H(t) of traffic is time-dependent, which not only provide an alternative evidence of the multifractal phenomena of traffic but also reveal an challenging issue in traffic modeling: multi-fractality modeling of traffic