31 research outputs found
Elucidation of physico-chemical characteristics and mycoflora of bovine milk available in selected area of Karachi, Pakistan.
ISO 14000 has opened the field for enhancing the awareness towards
healthy environment and gives the ideology of regular assessment of
threshold values not only of nutrients but contaminants as well. Under
this statement microbiological studies in terms of mycoflora followed
by physical characteristics and level of some essential elements Mg,
Fe, Cu and Zn, and deleterious metal Cd were analyzed in fresh milk
samples (FMS) and tetra pack milk or UHT processed milk samples (PMS)
available in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town, Karachi for the residents. Samples
were collected in the morning time during winter season. Physical
parameters like pH, conductivity, density, viscosity, surface tension
and refractive index were observed very soon after sample collection.
Percentage of ash and total dissolved solids (TDS) were also measured.
For fungal flora studies PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) and Sabourouds Agar
were used for the fungal growth. The concentrations of metals
considered were estimated after wet digestion of samples using atomic
absorption spectroscopy. The ranges of average concentration of Mg, Fe,
Cu and Zn were found to be 77.120 \u2013 141.915mg/l, 0.580 \u2013
7.320mg/l, 0.004 \u2013 0.070mg/l and 2.574 \u2013 4.872mg/l. The
level of Cd was estimated in the samples between 0.0050 \u2013
0.053mg/l, but was not observed in most of the samples. Among the
fungi, the highest diversity was that of Aspergillus spp. that
produces aflatoxins. \ua9JASE
Relationship among Fatness, Blood Lipids, and Insulin Resistance in Pakistani Children
Observations on associations between fatness and metabolic risks among
South-East Asian adults have resulted in devising lower thresholds of
body mass index (BMI) for them. Metabolic abnormalities, including type
2 diabetes, are now also appearing in children and are associated with
obesity. There has not been much work done to identify indicators of
metabolic risks among South Asian children. This study was undertaken
to observe the relationship among fatness, blood lipids, and insulin
resistance in Pakistani children. Fatness, lipids, and insulin
resistance were assessed in 92 middle-class Pakistani school children
aged 8-10 years. Height, weight, waist, hips, mid-arm circumference,
and triceps skin-fold, measured in school, were used for calculating
various indicators of fatness, i.e. BMI, waist hip ratio (WHR), and
arm-fat percentage. Fasting blood samples were analyzed for total
lipids, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high density
lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), glucose and insulin
levels. Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) index was calculated to
assess insulin resistance. Two separate multiple regression models of
various risk indicators (family history, sex, BMI, WHR, arm-fat
percentage) showed that only arm-fat percentage had a significant
positive association both with insulin levels (b=2.04, p= 0.044) andLDL
(b= 2.11, p= 0.037). Only five children were
overweight(BMI-for-age>85th percentile according to National Center
for Health Statistics 2000 reference). Neither overweight children nor
those who were in the uppermost tercile of BMI-for-age differed
significantly from other children in terms of presence of
higher-than-desirable values of lipids or insulin. However, compared to
those in the lowest tercile, children who were in the uppermost tercile
of arm-fat percentage had a significantly higher frequency of high
blood cholesterol (40% vs 67%, p=0.027), high LDL (33.3% vs 61.3%,
p=0.026), and markedly higher proportion above average insulin levels
(16.7% vs 35.5%, p=0.083). Arm-fat percentage could be developed as a
practical tool for determining the risk status of children. However,
further cross-sectional assessments are needed to ascertain accurate
relationships among arm-fat percentage, lipid profiles, and insulin
resistance in larger and varied groups of children
Prevalence and clinical burden of NDM-1 positive infections in pediatric and neonatal patients in pakistan
In a neonatal/pediatric Gram-negative infection study from Islamabad, 71/82 strains were carbapenem resistant with 12/82 positive for New Delhi Metallo-[beta]-lactamase and many being extensively antibiotic resistant. Burden and outcome analysis on 9 patients showed that 4/9 died after inadequate therapy regardless of organism type
Relationship among Fatness, Blood Lipids, and Insulin Resistance in Pakistani Children
Observations on associations between fatness and metabolic risks among
South-East Asian adults have resulted in devising lower thresholds of
body mass index (BMI) for them. Metabolic abnormalities, including type
2 diabetes, are now also appearing in children and are associated with
obesity. There has not been much work done to identify indicators of
metabolic risks among South Asian children. This study was undertaken
to observe the relationship among fatness, blood lipids, and insulin
resistance in Pakistani children. Fatness, lipids, and insulin
resistance were assessed in 92 middle-class Pakistani school children
aged 8-10 years. Height, weight, waist, hips, mid-arm circumference,
and triceps skin-fold, measured in school, were used for calculating
various indicators of fatness, i.e. BMI, waist hip ratio (WHR), and
arm-fat percentage. Fasting blood samples were analyzed for total
lipids, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high density
lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), glucose and insulin
levels. Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) index was calculated to
assess insulin resistance. Two separate multiple regression models of
various risk indicators (family history, sex, BMI, WHR, arm-fat
percentage) showed that only arm-fat percentage had a significant
positive association both with insulin levels (b=2.04, p= 0.044) andLDL
(b= 2.11, p= 0.037). Only five children were
overweight(BMI-for-age>85th percentile according to National Center
for Health Statistics 2000 reference). Neither overweight children nor
those who were in the uppermost tercile of BMI-for-age differed
significantly from other children in terms of presence of
higher-than-desirable values of lipids or insulin. However, compared to
those in the lowest tercile, children who were in the uppermost tercile
of arm-fat percentage had a significantly higher frequency of high
blood cholesterol (40% vs 67%, p=0.027), high LDL (33.3% vs 61.3%,
p=0.026), and markedly higher proportion above average insulin levels
(16.7% vs 35.5%, p=0.083). Arm-fat percentage could be developed as a
practical tool for determining the risk status of children. However,
further cross-sectional assessments are needed to ascertain accurate
relationships among arm-fat percentage, lipid profiles, and insulin
resistance in larger and varied groups of children
Agent-Based Semantic Role Mining for Intelligent Access Control in Multi-Domain Collaborative Applications of Smart Cities
Significance and popularity of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is inevitable; however, its application is highly challenging in multi-domain collaborative smart city environments. The reason is its limitations in adapting the dynamically changing information of users, tasks, access policies and resources in such applications. It also does not incorporate semantically meaningful business roles, which could have a diverse impact upon access decisions in such multi-domain collaborative business environments. We propose an Intelligent Role-based Access Control (I-RBAC) model that uses intelligent software agents for achieving intelligent access control in such highly dynamic multi-domain environments. The novelty of this model lies in using a core I-RBAC ontology that is developed using real-world semantic business roles as occupational roles provided by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), USA. It contains around 1400 business roles, from nearly all domains, along with their detailed task descriptions as well as hierarchical relationships among them. The semantic role mining process is performed through intelligent agents that use word embedding and a bidirectional LSTM deep neural network for automated population of organizational ontology from its unstructured text policy and, subsequently, matching this ontology with core I-RBAC ontology to extract unified business roles. The experimentation was performed on a large number of collaboration case scenarios of five multi-domain organizations and promising results were obtained regarding the accuracy of automatically derived RDF triples (Subject, Predicate, Object) from organizational text policies as well as the accuracy of extracted semantically meaningful roles
Multimodality Imaging in Cardiooncology
Cardiotoxicity represents a rising problem influencing prognosis and quality of life of chemotherapy-treated patients. Anthracyclines and trastuzumab are the drugs most commonly associated with development of a cardiotoxic effect. Heart failure, myocardial ischemia, hypertension, myocarditis, and thrombosis are typical manifestation of cardiotoxicity by chemotherapeutic agents. Diagnosis and monitoring of cardiac side-effects of cancer treatment is of paramount importance. Echocardiography and nuclear medicine methods are widely used in clinical practice and left ventricular ejection fraction is the most important parameter to asses myocardial damage secondary to chemotherapy. However, left ventricular ejection decrease is a delayed phenomenon, occurring after a long stage of silent myocardial damage that classic imaging methods are not able to detect. New imaging techniques including three-dimensional echocardiography, speckle tracking echocardiography, and cardiac magnetic resonance have demonstrated high sensitivity in detecting the earliest alteration of left ventricular function associated with future development of chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy. Early diagnosis of cardiac involvement in cancer patients can allow for timely and adequate treatment management and the introduction of cardioprotective strategies
Diagnosis of Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity
Cardiotoxicity is a rising issue connected to use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the treatment of neoplastic diseases. Early diagnosis during follow-up is of paramount importance, and careful surveillance is recommended. Evaluation of left ventricular ejection fraction by echocardiography and nuclear medicine techniques is widely used in clinical practice; however, their sensitivity in detecting early cardiac damage is low. New instruments like speckle-tracking imaging, cardiac magnetic resonance and cardiac circulating biomarkers are available to clinicians to best evaluate the onset and progression of cardiotoxic effects, improving the therapeutic management and final outcome for the patient
Diagnosis of Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity
Cardiotoxicity is a rising issue connected to use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the treatment of neoplastic diseases. Early diagnosis during follow-up is of paramount importance, and careful surveillance is recommended. Evaluation of left ventricular ejection fraction by echocardiography and nuclear medicine techniques is widely used in clinical practice; however, their sensitivity in detecting early cardiac damage is low. New instruments like speckle-tracking imaging, cardiac magnetic resonance and cardiac circulating biomarkers are available to clinicians to best evaluate the onset and progression of cardiotoxic effects, improving the therapeutic management and final outcome for the patient
Multimodality imaging in cardiooncology
Cardiotoxicity represents a rising problem influencing prognosis and quality of life of chemotherapy-treated patients. Anthracyclines and trastuzumab are the drugs most commonly associated with development of a cardiotoxic effect. Heart failure, myocardial ischemia, hypertension, myocarditis, and thrombosis are typical manifestation of cardiotoxicity by chemotherapeutic agents. Diagnosis and monitoring of cardiac side-effects of cancer treatment is of paramount importance. Echocardiography and nuclear medicine methods are widely used in clinical practice and left ventricular ejection fraction is the most important parameter to asses myocardial damage secondary to chemotherapy. However, left ventricular ejection decrease is a delayed phenomenon, occurring after a long stage of silent myocardial damage that classic imaging methods are not able to detect. New imaging techniques including three-dimensional echocardiography, speckle tracking echocardiography, and cardiac magnetic resonance have demonstrated high sensitivity in detecting the earliest alteration of left ventricular function associated with future development of chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy. Early diagnosis of cardiac involvement in cancer patients can allow for timely and adequate treatment management and the introduction of cardioprotective strategies