Diagnostic tool for Glanzmann\u27s thrombasthenia clinicopathologic spectrum

OBJECTIVE: To platelet aggregometry and describe the clinical spectrum of Glanzmann\u27s thrombasthenia diagnosed by platelet aggregometry. STUDY DESIGN: A case-series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: This study was carried out at the clinical laboratories at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi from January 2003 to January 2006. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients irrespective of age and gender presenting with bleeding symptoms and having normal platelet count were evaluated. Demographic details, relevant clinical history along with results of complete blood count, bleeding time and platelet aggregation studies were retrieved through computerized data base and evaluated for the diagnosis of Glanzmann\u27s thrombasthenia. RESULTS: During the study period, 50 out of 2317 patients (2.2%) were diagnosed as Glanzmann\u27s thrombasthenia by platelet aggregometry with male to female ratio of 0.85:1 and median age of 10.2 years (ranging from 3 months to 27 years). Common symptoms were epistaxis, oral and gingival bleed, bleeding from minor cuts and trauma that were observed in 46% of the patients; while 18%, 8% and 10% of them also complained of bruising, hematuria and bleeding per rectum respectively. Majority i.e. 86% had a bleeding time greater than 10 minutes. All patients had received blood or blood products for their bleeding episodes. CONCLUSION: Platelet aggregometry is a useful diagnostic modality for the assessment of Glanzmann\u27s thrombasthenia. The disorder presents with muco-cutaneous bleeding and was found to be a common cause of bleeding in our setup

Peripheral Nerve Injuries Presenting to a Tertiary Care Hospital an Experience with 40 Patients

Objective: To study the different aspects of peripheral nerve injury presenting to a tertiary care hospital.Material and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in Neurosurgery Department of PGMI, Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar from June 2009 to June 2011. A total number of 40 patients were studied through randomized sampling technique. The study included patients of all age groups and both gender. All patients who presented at the time of injury and up to duration of 9 months since time of injury were included in the study. Patients with injection injury and traction injury were excluded. All the data was collected by using a Proforma. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 17.Results: Majority of the patients were male, 36 (90%) and 4 (10%) were female. Gunshot injury was the commonest cause 23 (57.5%). The commonest affected age group was 20 – 30 years (37.5%). Children below 10 years and people above 60 years of age were least affected. Peripheral nerve injuries due to Bomb blasts were 4 (10%) followed by Glass injuries. Iatrogenic nerve injury in orthopaedic and general surgical procedures was in 3(7.5%) patients. Injuries with sharp weapons such as knife and stabs were seen in 4 (10%) patients. Two patients were having concomitant vascular injury. Patients with sharp injuries had excellent results while patients in whome the cause was fire arm injury the results were not much promising. All the patients were followed up for maximum period of more than 1.5 years.Conclusion: Majority of our patients were male. Major etiological factor was firearm and bomb blast injuries in our study. Furthermore, patients with sharp injuries had excellent results

Experimental investigation of engine valve train friction considering effects of operating conditions and WPC surface treatment

Reduction in friction ensures fuel economy, control on emissions and durability of components in internal combustion engines. A modern gasoline internal combustion engine was instrumented to determine the friction values at the cam–roller interface considering the effects of surface treatment and engine operating state. A series of tests under different operating speeds and lubricant inlet temperatures were undertaken using both an original surface roller and a Wonder Process Craft (WPC) surface-treated engine roller. The results clearly revealed a substantial reduction in friction magnitude for the WPC surface-treated engine roller in comparison to the original roller while operating under similar conditions, indicating their strong potential for employment in engines. An increase in friction with the rise in temperature was also observed for both types of rollers, whereas increased lubricant entraining velocity due to higher operating speed had the opposite impact. A considerable reduction in frictional drive torque ranging from 8% to 28% was observed by employing the WPC-treated roller in comparison to original/untreated roller at various operating conditions, which signifies the strong potential for employment of WPC surface treatment in the roller/follower valve train engines

Green finance and foreign direct investment–environmental sustainability nexuses in emerging countries: new insights from the environmental Kuznets curve

The primary objective of the present study is to identify the asymmetric relationship between green finance, trade openness, and foreign direct investment with environmental sustainability. The existing research utilizes the asymmetric approach to evaluate annual data from 1980 to 2021. The findings of this study show heterogeneous results. Therefore, the outcomes of the study confirm the nonlinear (NARDL) association between the variables in Pakistan. Moreover, the study describes the positive shock of foreign direct investment (FDI) as a significant and positive relationship with environmental degradation, while the negative shock of FDI shows a negative and significant relationship with the environment. Furthermore, the study scrutinizes the positive shock of green finance as a significant and negative relationship with environmental degradation; the negative shocks also show a negative relationship with environmental degradation in Pakistan. In addition, the consequences of the study suggest that the government should implement taxes on foreign investment and that investors should use renewable energy to produce goods. Furthermore, the results suggest that the government should utilize fiscal policy and fiscal funds to enhance carbon-free projects. Moreover, green securities should be used for green technologies. However, Pakistan can control its carbon emissions and achieve the target of a sustainable environment. Therefore, Pakistan’s government should stabilize its financial markets and introduce carbon-free projects. Furthermore, the main quantitative achievement according to the outcomes suggests that policymakers make policies in which they suggest to the government to control foreign investment that causes carbon emissions because of trade openness and also invest the funds in renewable energy, which helps to control the carbon emissions

Advances and Challenges in Conventional and Modern Techniques for Halal Food Authentication: A Review

Food is one of the most necessary needs since human civilization. For Muslims, it is mandatory to consume halal food. From a halal authentication perspective, adulteration of food products is an emerging challenge worldwide. The demand for halal food consumption has resulted in an ever-increasing need for halal product validity. In the market, there are several food products in which actual ingredients and their source are not mentioned on the label and cannot be observed by the naked eye. Commonly nonhalal items include pig derivatives like lard, pork, and gelatin derivatives, dead meats, alcohol, blood, and prohibited animals. Purposely, various conventional and modern methods offer precise approaches to ensure the halalness and wholesomeness of food products. Conventional methods are physiochemical (dielectric) and electrophoresis. At the same time, modern techniques include high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), electronic nose (E-Nose), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. This review intends to give an extensive and updated overview of conventional and modern analytical methods for ensuring food halal authenticity

Variations in physico-chemical and antioxidant attributes of grape seed oil as function of extraction techniques

The aim of the current research work was to assess and compare the impact of two extraction techniques on the physico-chemical, and antioxidant parameters of grape seed oil (GSO). The GSO extracted by Soxhlet and Folch methods indicated a notable variation in the oil yield (8.58 % and 10.19%) and saponification value (196.35 and 189.33 mg of KOH g-1), respectively. However, no significant (p<0.05) variation was detected for density, acid value, refractive index, iodine no, unsaponifiable matter, and free fatty acids between the tested two oils. Meanwhile, the oil produced by Soxhlet method exhibited relatively a higher extent of unsaturated dienes, trienes, peroxide value, p-anisidine value, and thus poor oxidation state. A notable variation in the content of principal fatty acid (linoleic acid) was recorded between Folch extracted oil (70.11%) and Soxhlet extracted oil (66.57%). The contents of total tocopherols were noted to be considerably higher for Folch extracted oil (105.55 mg kg-1) than the Soxhlet extracted oil (73.70 mg kg-1). Among the individual phenolics analyzed by HPLC, gallic acid (14.02 mg kg-1) and caffeic acid (5.20 mg kg-1) were detected as major component in Folch extracted oil and Soxhlet extracted oil, respectively. The results of the present comparative study support that Folch method is relatively a good choice for the extraction of GSO with promising nutritive quality in terms of oxidation parameters, contents of linoleic acid and antioxidant phenolics

Pollution flashover characteristics of coated insulators under different profiles of coating damage

Based on experiments and numerical analysis techniques, this paper aims to investigate the influence of the four different coating damage profiles on the performance of coated 33 kV porcelain insulator strings under polluted and clean surface conditions. The performance of the insulators coated with room temperature vulcanizing (RTV) under partial coating damage and undamaged coating was evaluated. The influence of humidity on pollution flashover was taken into consideration. The ring-shaped, fan-shaped, and random-shaped coating was applied following coating damage. The results showed that the flashover characteristic of the RTV-coated insulators had a significant difference as compared to the normal insulators. Electrical characteristics such as the flashover voltage, critical current, and surface resistance were significantly affected by coating damage distribution and humidity level on the insulators’ surface. The electric field and potential difference were analyzed as well using the finite element method (FEM). The initiation of the arc was observed to appear at the area of insulators where the electric field was the highest. It was also observed that different coating distributions of pollution and humidity levels resulted in a change in the surface pollution layer resistance and an uneven distribution of the electric field. This indicates that the coated insulators’ parameters are directly related to the coating damage distribution on the insulator surface, particularly in the presence of humidity

Hawking Radiation of Schwarzschild-de Sitter Black Hole by Hamilton-Jacobi method

We investigate the Hawking radiation of Schwarzschild-de Sitter (SdS) black hole by massive particles tunneling method. We consider the spacetime background to be dynamical, incorporate the self-gravitation effect of the emitted particles and show that the tunneling rate is related to the change of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and the derived emission spectrum deviates from the pure thermal spectrum when energy and angular momentum are conserved. Our result is also in accordance with Parikh and Wilczek\rq s opinion and gives a correction to the Hawking radiation of SdS black hole.Comment: 9 page. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1205.139

Spatiotemporal investigations of multi-sensor air pollution data over Bangladesh during COVID-19 lockdown

This study investigates spatio-temporal changes in air pollution (particulate as well as gases) during the COVID-19 lockdown period over major cities of Bangladesh. The study investigated the aerosol optical depth (AOD) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra and Aqua satellites, PM2.5 and PM10 from Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), and NO2 and O3 from Tropomi-5P, from March to June 2019–2020. Additionally, aerosol sub-types from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder (CALIPSO) were used to explore the aerosol types. The strict lockdown (26 March–30 May 2020) led to a significant re-duction in AOD (up to 47%) in all major cities, while the partial-lockdown (June 2020) led to in-creased and decreased AOD over the study area. Significant reductions in PM2.5 (37–77%) and PM10 (33–70%) were also observed throughout the country during the strict lockdown- and par-tial-lockdown. The NO2 levels decreased by 3–25% in March 2020 in the cities of Rajshahi, Chat-togram, Sylhet, Khulna, Barisal, and Mymensingh, in April by 3–43% in Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna, Barisal, Bhola and Mymensingh, and May by 12−42% in Rajshahi, Sylhet, Mymensingh, and Rangpur. During the partial-lockdown in June, NO2 decreased (9−35%) in Dhaka, Chatto-gram, Sylhet, Khulna, Barisal, and Rangpur compared to 2019. On the other hand, increases were observed in ozone (O3) levels, with an average increase of 3–12% throughout the country during the strict lockdown and only a slight reduction of 1–3% in O3 during the partial-lockdown. In terms of aerosol types, CALIPSO observed high levels of polluted dust followed by dust, smoke, polluted continental, and clean marine type aerosols over the country in 2019, but all types were decreased during the lockdown. The study concludes that the strict lockdown measures were able to significantly improve air quality conditions over Bangladesh due to the shutdown of industries, vehicles, and movement of people

Fabrication and Characterization of S-Benzyldithiocarbazate Schiff Base Microcrystals by a Reprecipitation Method for Enhanced Antibacterial Activity

In this study, the microcrystallization of the 2-thiophenecarboxaldehyde Schiff base of S-benzyldithiocarbazate (i.e. benzyl (2E)-2-[(thiophen-2-yl)methylidene]hydrazine-1-carbodithioate [TASBnDTC]) was fabricated by a reprecipitation method in an organic solvent-water system using different crystallization parameters, including temperature and the concentration of the target compound. The size, anisotropy, crystalline phase, and surface morphology of the TASBnDTC microcrystals were characterized by dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy. The stability of the Schiff base microcrystals was also evaluated. Different sizes of surfactant-dispersed TASBnDTC microcrystals (1505, 2194, and 2447 nm) were fabricated from three different concentrations of the Schiff base (0.001 M, 0.002 M, and 0.003 M, respectively) in an acetone-water system. The TASBnDTC microcrystals were also evaluated by X-ray powder diffraction and were found to differ slightly in molecular form but were otherwise similar, irrespective of the different TASBnDTC concentrations. The synthesized Schiff bases and their microcrystals were also screened for their antibacterial activities against four different gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial strains (Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus) using the agar well diffusion method. The growth inhibition was enhanced by 8.0 to 10.75 mm against the four bacteria by TASBnDTC microcrystals compared to the bulk molecular form, which showed no inhibitory activity at all. However, the inhibition was less that that achieved with the standard streptomycin antibiotic, which gave zones of inhibition of 18.0 to 23.0 mm against the four bacterial strains. Overall, the Schiff base microcrystals show potential for use in various biological applications. They also have potential physical and optical applications due to their high surface-to-volume ratio and the molecular alignment on the surface of the microcrystals