Knowledge Attitude and Practice of Dental Professionals Towards Diabetes Mellitus in Islamabad Dental Hospital

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to determine general dentists and dental students knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding diabetes mellitus, a major public health issue with oral complications. METHODOLOGY This cross-sectional study design was conducted in Islamabad dental hospital for three months on House officers and final year BDS students. A convenience sampling technique was used for the sample. A pretested questionnaire was selected from the previous study. After approval of the IRB, the questionnaires were distributed among participants of the research. The descriptive analysis of the collected data was done by using SPSS software version 20. RESULTS The overall results of knowledge of dentists towards diabetes scored high (90%), 80% of the respondents had a positive attitude towards diabetes mellitus. Less than half (20%) of the dentists scored poor in the practice of diabetes mellitus, while about three fourth of the respondents had a good score (80%). CONCLUSION Dentists in Islamabad dental hospital have good knowledge and practice skills regarding diabetes. The attitude of the dental practitioners in Islamabad dental hospital regarding diabetes is also positive

Developments Made for Mechanised Extraction of Locked-Up Coal Pillars in Indian Geomining Conditions

Bord and Pillar method of underground mining has been used extensively to develop Indian coal seams into pillars and galleries. This results in only 20–30% recovery of coal and rest coal remain locked up in developed pillars. Indian coalfields are famous in the world for its uniqueness and complexity of the geomining conditions which makes the extraction of the locked-up coal pillars a difficult and hazardous activity using different underground mining methods. Indian mining industry has introduced mechanisation since last 10 years to deal with the various underground rock mechanics issues in order to improve the efficiency and safety during recovery of locked-up coal pillars. But mere introduction of mechanisation did not solve all the rock mechanics problems due to requirement of indigenous design of different involved geotechnical elements for Indian geomining conditions. CSIR-CIMFR is a national research organisation engaged in improving conditions of underground coal mines. It has developed rock mechanics advances, namely, design of irregular shaped heightened rib/snook, roof bolt-based breaker-line support, warning limit of roof sagging, and cut-out distance for continuous miner-based mechanised depillaring. This chapter presents the developments made and highlights challenges to pursue future research studies for mechanised depillaring-based mass coal production from Indian underground mines

Community Based Assessment of Behavior and Awareness of Risk Factors of Cystic Echinococcosis in Major Cities of Pakistan: A One Health Perspective.

Background: The parasitic disease, cystic echinococcosis (CE), is a serious health problem in Pakistan. Risk of disease transmission is increased by economic and political instability, poor living conditions, and limited awareness of hygienic practices. The current study aimed to investigate the community perception and awareness regarding the risk factors of CE in Pakistan, from a One Health perspective. Methods: We conducted a community-based survey involving 454 participants in the major cities of Pakistan. Quantitative data based on knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP), the One Health concept, risk factors, and community perception of CE among the general population of the major cities of Pakistan were collected. The questions included those related to knowledge, attitude, practices, One Health concept, risk factors, and community perception. The Chi-squared test was applied to determine the associations regarding KAPs across socio-demographic parameters. Results: KAPs had no significant associations with sociodemographic aspects such as age, sex, religion, ethnicity, education, marital status, occupation, or financial status of the participants. The findings indicated a lack of awareness about CE among the participants. Respondents were unaware of the risk factors and the One Health concept of CE. However, the community attitude and perception were positive toward the control of CE. Conclusion: Illiteracy, deficient sanitation systems and lack of awareness are the contributing factors to CE in Pakistan. It is necessary to make the community aware regarding CE and its importance. Increasing this awareness represents an important step toward the eradication and control of CE

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Design of rock bolt-based goaf edge support for conventional depillaring with stowing

Rock bolts have replaced the conventional cog/chock as roof support from underground coal mines working with continuous miner (CM) technology in Bord and Pillar mining method with caving system. Rock bolts installed in the gallery at the goaf edge by aligning the adjacent stable rib during the CM-based mechanised depillaring have proven its potential by restricting goaf encroachment towards the working area. However, conventional depillaring with stowing and caving system still uses skin-to-skincog/chock as goaf edge support in Indian coalfields which poses threat to the safety of miners during its erection and withdrawal. Further, bearing capacity of such goaf edge support also reduces with increase in height of working. Field study found that the adjacent in-bye rib of the working slice remains intact and stable due to less span of hanging roof inside the goaf during conventional depillaring with stowing compared to caving. These field outcomes are also validated during the numerical simulation and observed that the goaf edges are over-supported in a stowing panel as it adopted the similar goaf edge support pattern as that of caving. Further, a parametric study is conducted on numerical models by varying the nature of roof, gallery width, and depth of cover to estimate the rock load height (considering 1.5 safety factor contour) around the goaf edges in stowing panels. Multivariate regression analysis was carried out to establish a relationship among influencing parameters for estimation of rock load height at the goaf edges in stowing panels for a given geo-mining condition. This paper presents a novel design of rock bolts as goaf edge support on the basis of roof-rib interaction in conventional depillaring with stowing panel

Proteomics, physiological, and biochemical analysis of cross tolerance mechanisms in response to heat and water stresses in soybean.

Water stress (WS) and heat stress (HS) have a negative effect on soybean plant growth and crop productivity. Changes in the physiological characteristics, proteome, and specific metabolites investigated on molecular and cellular functions were studied in two soybean cultivars exposed to different heat and water stress conditions independently and in combination. Leaf protein composition was studied using 2-DE and complemented with MALDI TOF mass spectrometry. While the two cultivars displayed genetic variation in response to water and heat stress, thirty-nine proteins were significantly altered in their relative abundance in response to WS, HS and combined WS+HS in both cultivars. A majority of these proteins were involved in metabolism, response to heat and photosynthesis showing significant cross-tolerance mechanisms. This study revealed that MED37C, a probable mediator of RNA polymerase transcription II protein, has potential interacting partners in Arabidopsis and signified the marked impact of this on the PI-471938 cultivar. Elevated activities in antioxidant enzymes indicate that the PI-471938 cultivar can restore the oxidation levels and sustain the plant during the stress. The discovery of this plant's development of cross-stress tolerance could be used as a guide to foster ongoing genetic modifications in stress tolerance

First report on implementation of response surface methodology for the biodegradation of textile industrial effluents by Coniophora puteana IEBL-1

The current study was aimed to evaluate the industrial effluents biodegradation potential of an indigenous microorganism which reduced water pollution caused by these effluents. In the present study biodegradation of three textile industrial effluents was performed with locally isolated brown rot fungi named Coniophora puteana IEBL-1. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was employed under Box Bhenken Design (BBD) for the optimization of physical and nutritional parameters for maximum biodegradation. Quality of treated effluents was checked by study of BOD, COD and analysis through HPLC. Three ligninolytic enzymes named lignin peroxidase, manganese peroxidase and laccase were also studied during the biodegradation process. The results showed that there was more than 85% biodegradation achieved for all three effluents with decrease in Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) below the recommended values for industrial effluent i.e. 80 mg/L for BOD and 220 mg/L for COD after optimization of nutritional parameters in the second stage. Analysis of samples through HPLC revealed the formation of less toxic diphenylamine, 3-methyldiphenylamine and N-methylaniline after treatment. The ligninolytic enzymes assays confirmed the role of lignin peroxidase (LiP), manganese peroxidase (MnP) and laccase in biodegradation process. Lignin peroxidase with higher activity has more contribution in biodegradation of effluents under study. It can be concluded through the results that Coniophora buteana IEBL-1 is a potential fungus for the treatment of industrial effluents