‘Urbanisation of Everybody’, Institutional Imperatives, and Social Transformation in Pakistan

Cultural change and social transformation are essential elements of the process of development. They complement and sustain economic growth. Economic historians acknowledge that the rise of the West from poverty to wealth was as much the result of improvements in trade, savings, investment and productivity as of emerging norms of thrift, trust, specialisation, rationality and contractual relations [Rosenberg and Birdzell (1986)]. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that economic development is essentially a phenomenon of cultural change. The recognition of the role of cultural and social factors in economic growth has led to a subtle revision of the terminology from ‘economic development’ to the adjectiveless term ‘development’ or the fully spelled out title of economic and social development. Yet this acknowledgement has remained largely on the conceptual plane. It has not been translated into policies and programmes to deliberately set the direction of cultural change and define the alignment of social organisation. Development strategies have, by and large, treated social and cultural factors as exogenous variables. This is true of development planning in general and in particular of its practice in Pakistan. In fifty years of economic planning in Pakistan, little attention has been paid to the social and cultural aspects of development

Intestinal parasitic infection associated with risk factors among school aged children in Girei, Adamawa state, Nigeria

Infections with Intestinal helminths have long been recognized as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. School-aged children are known to be particularly susceptible to illness caused by these pathogens. The goal of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of Intestinal helminthes among school-aged children in Girei Local Government Area. From January to February 2021, 384 randomly selected primary school children within the ages of 5 to 14 years from six primary schools participated in a cross-sectional survey primary school children within the ages of 5 to 14 years from six primary schools participated in a cross-sectional survey, A systematic questionnaire was designed and used to collect data on risk factors related to Intestinal parasitic infections from the children's caregivers. The Smear Method was used to analyse the stool samples. SPSS was used to analyze the data. Of the total 384 samples examined, helminths were found in 47.7% (183/384) of the cases. Others include: Ascaris lumbricoides 39.3%, hookworm in 30.6 %, Trichuris trichiura in 20.2% and coinfection 9.8 %. The severity of the infection ranged from mild to moderate. Failing to wash hands before eating (0.035, P<0.05), failure to wash fruits and vegetables before eating (0.04329; P<0.005), type of toilets used (0.00328; P<0.005), and the presence of faeces around home environment (0.00419; P<0.005) and not wearing of footwear (0.01529; P>0.005) were all significant risk factors for the infections. To eliminate Intestinal helminths in the area, preventive chemotherapy and adequate sanitation measures should be promoted

Potential application of nanotechnology in the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of schistosomiasis

Schistosomiasis is one of the neglected tropical diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. Globally, it affects economically poor countries, typically due to a lack of proper sanitation systems, and poor hygiene conditions. Currently, no vaccine is available against schistosomiasis, and the preferred treatment is chemotherapy with the use of praziquantel. It is a common anti-schistosomal drug used against all known species of Schistosoma. To date, current treatment primarily the drug praziquantel has not been effective in treating Schistosoma species in their early stages. The drug of choice offers low bioavailability, water solubility, and fast metabolism. Globally drug resistance has been documented due to overuse of praziquantel, Parasite mutations, poor treatment compliance, co-infection with other strains of parasites, and overall parasitic load. The existing diagnostic methods have very little acceptability and are not readily applied for quick diagnosis. This review aims to summarize the use of nanotechnology in the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention. It also explored safe and effective substitute approaches against parasitosis. At this stage, various nanomaterials are being used in drug delivery systems, diagnostic kits, and vaccine production. Nanotechnology is one of the modern and innovative methods to treat and diagnose several human diseases, particularly those caused by parasite infections. Herein we highlight the current advancement and application of nanotechnological approaches regarding the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of schistosomiasis

Antiplasmodial activities of crude Moringa oleifera leaves extracts on chloroquine sensitive Plasmodium falciparum (3D7)

The antimalarial efficacy of crude hexane, methanol and lyophilized aqueous Moringa oleifera leaf extract was evaluated on chloroquine sensitive (CQS) strain of Plasmodium falciparum (3D7) in vitro, with a view to validate traditional use of M. oleifera as antimalarial. A dose dependent suppression of parasite growth was observed for all extracts, at microgram per mills (µg/mL) concentrations. At the lowest concentration of extract (6.25 µg/mL), the hexane, methanol and lyophilized aqueous extracts showed 63.52%, 71.42% and 60.65% suppression of plasmodium growth respectively. The extracts showed potent biological activity at the highest concentration of extract, with a strong inhibition of plasmodium growth (71.31%, 83.06% and 80.36%) observed for the hexane, methanol and lyophilized aqueous extracts. Although some extracts are observed to be more potent than others, all extracts are observed to be biologically active against the 3D7 strain of P. falciparum (Hexane extract IC50 = 3.36 µg/mL; methanol IC50 = 3.44 µg/mL and aqueous IC50 = 4.09 µg/mL respectively). The antiplasmodial activities observed may well be attributed to the presence of phenols, tannins, alkaloids and flavonoids in all solvent extracts. Key words: Antiplasmodial, Moringa oleifera, Phytochemical screening, Plasmodium falciparu

Biogas to liquefied biomethane: Assessment of 3P's–Production, processing, and prospects

Sustainable scale-up of biomethane to overcome the dependency on fossil energy sources is still not matured, fundamentally owing to its production and availability at a lower pressure (i.e., atmospheric) compared with the conventional natural gas. This is a fundamental assessment that specifically aims to overview the biogas production, cleaning technologies, upgrading technologies, and possible biomethane liquefaction technologies. The digestion technologies for biogas production are analyzed in terms of their important operating and performance parameters corresponding to optimum digester operation. The cleaning and upgrading technologies are assessed corresponding to their competitive factors, merits, and associated challenges. Cryogenic separation relies on different technologies that are based on different mechanisms (anti-sublimation, distillation, etc.). These technologies have been recently studied for CO2 removal from high CO2-content natural gas, showing promising results for application to biogas upgrading, in particular if the final goal is liquefaction. Since liquefaction itself is an energy- and cost-intensive process, cryogenic separation is synergistic in obtaining upgraded and liquefied biomethane in a single process unit, instead of integrating liquefaction with other upgrading technologies. Among all available liquefaction technologies, the nitrogen expander-based liquefaction processes are most promising candidates to produce liquified biomethane (LBM), mainly due to small investment costs, simple operation, and compact design. This study suggests that there is a need to design energy-efficient small-scale biomethane liquefaction processes following biogas upgrading. Thus, incorporating biogas in the energy mix would result in economic, environmental, and climate benefits, globally

Cranial reconstruction after decompressive craniectomy: Prediction of complications using fuzzy logic

Introduction: Cranial reconstruction after decompressive craniectomy (DC) has been shown to be associated with a relatively high complication rate (16.4%-34%) compared with standard neurosurgical procedures (2%-5%). Most studies that have previously attempted to formulate a multivariate model for identifying factors predictive of postoperative complications of cranioplasty either were unsuccessful or yielded conflicting results. Therefore, fuzzy logic-based fuzzy inference system (FIS), which has proven to be a useful tool for risk prediction in medical and surgical conditions, was used in this study to identify predictors of complications of cranioplasty. Methods: A retrospective chart review of all the patients who underwent DC followed by elective cranioplasty at Aga Khan University Hospital, during a 10-year period (2000-2010), was carried out to collect data on 24 carefully selected preoperative variables or inputs. The proposed FIS had 24 inputs, 3 outputs, and a set of 7 fuzzy-based rules. All inputs were assigned degrees of membership, and complications were further divided into "severe," "minor," and "least" output classes with each of them representing 2 membership functions: "less" and "more." For each set of inputs, a specific portion of the hypersurface was masked out. The centroid of this subsurface represented the defuzzified output corresponding to 1 percentage value for each output. The maximum of these outputs for each of the 3 output classes was selected to be the final output class. Each output class was compared to the actual outcome of patients, and positive predictive value, negative predictive value, sensitivity, and specificity of FIS for predicting complications were calculated. Results: A total of 89 patients (mean [SD] age, 33.1 [15.0] y; male-to-female ratio, 3:1) were included in the study. The common postoperative complications included seizures (14.6%), cerebrospinal fluid leak (4.5%), neurologic deficits (3.4%), hydrocephalus (3.4%), superficial wound infection (3.4%), and osteomyelitis (2.2%). The FIS correctly identified all 7 patients who developed severe complications after cranioplasty (true positives) and all 82 patients who did not develop severe complications (true negatives). Thus, the FIS has a sensitivity and specificity of 100% in predicting severe complications. Conclusions: Our study shows that the procedure of cranioplasty is associated with a high complication rate and that FIS has a 100% sensitivity and specificity in predicting severe complications after cranioplasty. It will prove to be an invaluable tool for clinicians once the results are validated by a similar prospective study with a larger sample size.Scopu