THE RELATION OF MUSIC PREFERENCE AND PERSONALITY TYPE

The study attempts to examine the relationship betweenmusic preferences and personality types. Sample was drawnconveniently from the universities of Karachi (N = 70, respondentswere between the ages of 18 to 35 years). Music preferences wereassessed through the administration of The Short Test of MusicPreferences by Rentfrow & Gosling, (2003) and Big Five Inventoryby John & Srivastava, (1999) was used for assessing the personalitytypes. To find out the relation between these two variables Pearsonproduct moment correlation was calculated through SPSS 18.0

Pathological Mechanism of Atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial, smoldering, focal (intima of bifurcated blood arteries), chronic, progressive asymptotically, immune-inflammatory, disorder driven by lipid imbalance, in the large to medium sized (upto3mm external diameter) arteries with many cardiovascular clinical manifestations. Atherosclerosis developmentinvolves many cells, organs and even disturbed blood flow. The progression of atherosclerotic disease depends on the presence, degree, and persistence of risk factors like high-fat diet, smoking, hypertension, history of heart diseases, or diabetes. Endothelial dysfunction, ROS, accumulation of LDL, recruitment of Monocytes and T cells, differentiation of monocytes into macrophages and foam cells, formation of plaque and rupturing of plaque are key steps behind the clinical manifestation of atherosclerosis in cardiovascular diseases. This article describes the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, possibility of therapeutically targeting mechanism and interventions which can be helpful to reverse or slower the atherosclerosis.

User interest driven semantic query expansion for effective web search

Retrieving user-relevant content from a large volume of data available on the Web via an input query is a difficult task. A user query may not be able to specify user information needs due to the ambiguous and limited number of query terms. The semantic query expansion (QE) strategy offers a solution to this problem by expanding the query with additional terms, which are semantically similar to the original query. However, this strategy does not consider individual user interest in the generation of expansion terms. In this article, semantic QE is improved by combining the notion of ontology knowledge and user interest. The proposed semantic QE technique involves a computing domain of the input query via ontology, generates expansion terms from the user browsing history, and finally selects expansion terms that represent user preferences on the basis of the semantic similarity between expansion terms and query and user feedback. The experimental evaluation indicates that expanded queries produced by the proposed technique retrieve more personalized contents over Web search than initial user queries. The obtained results achieve 86.4% average precision, which proves a positive impact of incorporating user preferences in semantic QE

Association between Diabetes Mellitus and Pancreatic Cancer: A Comprehensive Narrative Review

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is extremely aggressive, with symptoms occurring only in the advanced stage. The relationship between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and PC is complex. However, it is unclear whether long-standing diabetes causes cancer or whether cancer proceeds the development of impaired glucose metabolism. PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and Cochrane library were consulted to look for relevant literature. We narrowed down 20 articles after implementing inclusion and exclusion criteria. The database was searched using the keywords “Pancreatic Cancer” AND “Diabetes Mellitus.” This narrative literature review aims to analyze the literature on the analysis of the metabolic association of T2DM, the risk of carcinogenesis of the pancreas and their association, and the current understanding of metabolic pathways involved in cellular growth and metabolism. About 80% of patients with pancreatic disease have a previous diagnosis of diabetes within five years. We explored the literature to find metabolic associations between PC and T2DM due to insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, low-grade chronic inflammation, and insulin-like growth factor axis alteration

Biological Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles by Amaryllis vittata (L.) Herit: From Antimicrobial to Biomedical Applications

The current study sought to synthesize silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from Amaryllis vittata (L.) leaf and bulb extracts in order to determine their biological significance and use the toxic plants for human health benefits. The formation of silver nanoparticles was detected by a change in color from whitish to brown for bulb-AgNPs and from light green to dark brown for leaf-AgNPs. For the optimization of silver nanoparticles, various experimental physicochemical parameters such as pH, temperature, and salt were determined. UV-vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray dispersion spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersion spectroscopy analysis were used to characterize nanoparticles. Despite the fact that flavonoids in plant extracts were implicated in the reduction and capping procedure, the prepared nanoparticles demonstrated maximum absorbency between 400 and 500 nm. SEM analysis confirmed the preparation of monodispersed spherical crystalline particles with fcc structure. The bioinspired nanoparticles were found to show effective insecticidal activity against Tribolium castaneum and phytotoxic activity against Lemna aequincotialis. In comparison to plant extracts alone, the tested fabricated nanoparticles showed significant potential to scavenge free radicals and relieve pain. Antibacterial testing against human pathogenic strains, i.e., Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aureginosa, and antifungal testing against Aspergillus niger revealed the significant potential for microbe resistance using AgNPs. As a result of the findings, the tested silver nanoparticles demonstrated promising potential for developing new and effective pharmacological and agricultural medications. Furthermore, the effects of biogenic AgNPs on an in vitro culture of Solanum tuberosum L. plants were investigated, and the findings indicated that bulb-AgNPs and leaf-AgNPs produced biomass and induced antioxidants via their active constituents. As a result, bulb-AgNPs and leaf-AgNPs may be recommended for use in Solanum tuberosum L. tissue culture for biomass fabrication and metabolic induction

Density functional theory, molecular docking, In vitro and In vivo anti-inflammatory investigation of lapachol isolated from Fernandoa adenophylla

Medicinal plants are the main source of active chemical constituents responsible for curing or mitigating various ailments. To discover new, safe, and effective drug candidates the isolation and screening of natural products are essential. In the current research work, lapachol was isolated from Fernandoa adenophylla, which was evaluated for anti-inflammatory effect followed by molecular docking. The isolated compound was tested for anti-inflammatory effects using in vitro (HRBC assay) and in vivo (xylene-induced ear edema) experimental models. Various concentrations of lapachol demonstrated anti-inflammatory effects with a percent potential of 77.96 at 100 μM. Different concentrations of Lapachol demonstrated a dose-dependent anti-edematous effect with a maximum percent effect of 77.9 % at a higher dose. The histopathological study revealed that the application of xylene led to a significant increase in ear thickness, along with clear signs of ear edema and infiltration of inflammatory cells, as well as epidermal hyperplasia of the dermis when compared to the control group. However, treatment with the investigated compound showed a significant reduction in ear thickness and pathological differences comparable to those observed in the group treated with diclofenac. Density functional theory calculations are accomplished to gain insight into structural and spectroscopic properties. Geometry optimization, FMO, and MEP analyses are performed. Overall, the molecular docking results indicate that lapachol has potential as a COX inhibitor by binding to the active sites of both COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes