An overview on snake venom anti-cancer activity

Abstract: Snake venom instead of causing mortality and morbidity in human, is also therapeutically very crucial in treating various forms of cancer such as, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, leukemia etc. Different types of snake have different types of venom, inducing apoptosis, cytotoxicity, anti-proliferative activity, activating platelets by targeting platelet CLEC-2 and inhibiting the production of DNA and RNA. This review focuses on different types of snake venom having anti-cancer property

Impact of Graphic Warning Labels on Cigarette Packs in Changing Smokers' Views and Habits: An Opinion Survey

Background: Smoking has become a major issue worldwide. With the advancement in technology, morevulnerable populations, such as teenagers, are also being harmed. One deterrent is the presence of graphiclabels on cigarette packs. With this rationale in mind, the objective of our study is to assess the impact ofthese warning labels on the habits and opinions of smokers.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by distributing a validated paper-based questionnaire.The sample size was calculated to be 200 using statistical software. The study targeted students ofIslamabad, Pakistan, who were studying in twelfth grade and were smokers. The sampling method usedwas ‘snowball sampling’.Findings: 128 (64%) males and 72 (36%) females participated in the study. The mean age of the participantswas 17.59 ± 0.51 years. 40 participants reported choosing local brands for cigarettes due to cigarette‘freshness’, regardless of presence or absence of a graphic label, which was a new concept. 94% ofparticipants believed that presence of a visual label helped with understanding the harm and 78% believedthat the side effects were accurately portrayed. Participants who were more than 17 years of age believed thatthe graphic label provided a clear description of the consequences of smoking. Similar results were seen inthe female participants of the study.Conclusion: There is a general consensus on graphic labels altering the opinions of smokers. The presenceof these labels is, however, targeting only a specific type of audience and hence, should be expanded for alarger audienc

Robust Synchronization of Ambient Vibration Time Histories Based on Phase Angle Compensations and Kernel Density Function

The output-only modal analysis is ubiquitously used for structural health monitoring of civil engineering systems. The measurements for such applications require the use of multiple data acquisition systems (DAS) to avoid complicated meshes of cables in high-rise buildings, avoid traffic constriction on a bridge during measurements, or to avoid having limited channels in a single DAS. Nevertheless, such requirements introduce time synchronization problems which potentially lead to erroneous structural dynamic characterization and hence misleading or inconclusive structural health monitoring results. This research aims at proposing a system-identification-based time synchronization algorithm for output-only modal analysis using multiple DAS. A new procedure based on the compensation of the phase angle shifts is proposed to identify and address the time synchronization issue in ambient vibration data measured through multiple DAS. To increase the robustness of the proposed algorithm to the inherent inconsistencies in these datasets, the kernel density function is applied to rank multiple time-shift estimates that are sometimes detected by the algorithm when inaccuracies exist in the data arising from low signal-to-noise ratio and/or presence of colored noise in the ambient excitations. First, the synchronized ambient vibration dataset of a full-scale bridge is artificially de-synchronized and used to present a proof of concept for the proposed algorithm. Next, the algorithm is applied to ambient vibration data of a 30-story, reinforced concrete building, where the synchronization of the data could not be achieved using two DAS despite best efforts. The application of the proposed time synchronization algorithm is shown to both detect and correct the time synchronization discrepancies in the output-only modal analysis

Surgical intervention in aggressive ulcerative pyoderma gangrenosum

Pyoderma Gangrenosum (PG) is a rare, debilitating, and painful disease of the skin. Its aetiology and pathophysiology are not well understood. However, it is known that PG is not bacterial in origin, as previously believed. A significant number of cases of PG report a phenomenon called pathergy, which is characterized by the appearance of new lesions after the application of trauma to the skin. This represents a unique challenge for surgeons in cases that are refractory to medical therapy. The objective of this study is to review past literature and report a case of PG in a 19-year old woman, who presented with recurrence, after undergoing skin grafting one year back. The patient was referred for split thickness skin grafting (STSG) to reduce the psychological and physical morbidity as a result of this disease. Continuous..

Evaluation of anti-microbial potential of some medicinal plants

The ethanolic extracts of the eight medicinal plants were tested to determine antibacterial activities against fourteen gram positive and twenty two gram negative bacteria. Five out of eight extracts revealed prominent antibacterial activity. Ampicillin was used as a standard for anti-bacterial activity. The significant zone of inhibition was exhibited by Digitalis purpurae (23±2) against Corynebacterium hofmanii. Sambucus nigra and Urtica urens exhibited minimum inhibitory concentration (12 mg/ml) against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Streptococcus fecalis. Saprophytes, dermatophytes and yeasts were used to screen antifungal activities of these selected medicinal plants. Griseofulvin was used as a standard anti-fungal drug. Four out of eight of the tested plant extracts had significant antifungal activity. Urtica uren produced the most significant zone of inhibition (32±1) against Rhizopus specie. Whereas the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration was exhibited by Urtica urens (20mg/ml) against Aspergillus flavus. The above results justify the use of medicinal plants and its extracts in the formulation of anti-microbial medicaments

دور الفقه والفقهاء في التنمية المستدامة

نظرا للتقدم الهائل في التكنولوجيا الحديثة، والتنوع المتسارع في مستجدات الحياة، أدى إلى إحداث تغير كبير في المرتكزات الأساسية للحياة، منه ما زال في حدود السيطرة، ومنه ما خرج عن السيطرة ويحتاج لإعادة تنظيم، أو تبني استراتيجيات جديدة لتفادي الأخطار المتوقعة في المستقبل القريب، فأصبحت الشعوب (حكاما ومحكومين) يتطلعون إلى الخلاص من هذه الأزمات سواء كانت بيئية أو اقتصادية أو اجتماعية، وظهر مصطلح يتنادى به العلماء والمثقفون وأصحاب القرار، وهو ما يسمى ب "التنمية المستدامة". وبما أن الإسلام هو نظام حياة، صالح لكل وقت ومكان، فأين العلماء والفقهاء من هذه الأزمات المتتالية، وهل يهمش الإسلام بعيدا عن هذه الأحداث المتسارعة، والتي تتطلب بإلحاح إيجاد حلول شافية ومصيرية لإنقاذ الشعوب من هذه الأخطار المحدقة. فالبحث يؤصل لهذه المرتكزات الأساسية في التنمية المستدامة، من الناحية الفقهية، ويلقي الضوء على الدور الفاعل الذي لابد أن ينتهجه العلماء والفقهاء في الفترة الحالية، والنظرة الاستشرافية لهذه التنمية من منظور فقهي، بناء على مرتكزات فقهية مؤصلة، توجد حلولا مستعجلة ومناسبة ومتوقعة لما هو آتي. المنهج في الدراسة سيعتمد على استقراء النصوص الشرعية وتحليلها في تاصيل مرتكزات التنمية المستدامة، واستنتاج المهام المنوطة بالعلماء والفقهاء في إيجاد الحلول

The Pakistani Embassy in Ankara in the late 1990 's

Ankara : İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent Üniversitesi İktisadi, İdari ve Sosyal Bilimler Fakültesi, Tarih Bölümü, 2017.This work is a student project of the The Department of History, Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University.by Feyzullahoğlu, Burcu

SS-Drop: A Novel Message Drop Policy to Enhance Buffer Management in Delay Tolerant Networks

A challenged network is one where traditional hypotheses such as reduced data transfer error rates, end-to-end connectivity, or short transmissions have not gained much significance. A wide range of application scenarios are associated with such networks. Delay tolerant networking (DTN) is an approach that pursues to report the problems which reduce communication in disrupted networks. DTN works on store-carry and forward mechanism in such a way that a message may be stored by a node for a comparatively large amount of time and carry it until a proper forwarding opportunity appears. To store a message for long delays, a proper buffer management scheme is required to select a message for dropping upon buffer overflow. Every time dropping messages lead towards the wastage of valuable resources which the message has already consumed. The proposed solution is a size-based policy which determines an inception size for the selection of message for deletion as buffer becomes overflow. The basic theme behind this scheme is that by determining the exact buffer space requirement, one can easily select a message of an appropriate size to be discarded. By doing so, it can overcome unnecessary message drop and ignores biasness just before selection of specific sized message. The proposed scheme Spontaneous Size Drop (SS-Drop) implies a simple but intelligent mechanism to determine the inception size to drop a message upon overflow of the buffer. After simulation in ONE (Opportunistic Network Environment) simulator, the SS-Drop outperforms the opponent drop policies in terms of high delivery ratio by giving 66.3% delivery probability value and minimizes the overhead ratio up to 41.25%. SS-Drop also showed a prominent reduction in dropping of messages and buffer time average

COST AND PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION OF PRECAST POST TENSIONED PRE-STRESSED GIRDER BRIDGE SUPERSTRUCTURES

Bridges are the most costly components of a road transportation network. Pre-stressed concrete girders with cast in place concrete decks are widely used for short to medium span bridges. The design and subsequent cost of a bridge depends on key geometric variables such as bridge width, number of lanes, number and length of spans, slab thickness, number and spacing of girders. Some of these variables are dictated by trafc demands and highway geometry, while others are related to structural demands. Typically, designing a bridge usually involves experience and expert judgement of the bridge engineer. This study is aimed at cost and performance optimization of pre-stressed concrete girder bridges using a parametric study of the design variables and their effects on cost and performance of the bridge. A spreadsheet is developed for analysis and design of deck slab and girders using one dimensional beam line analysis and AASHTO LRFD distribution factors. The spread sheet also calculates the overall cost of the bridge superstructure. This spreadsheet is then used to perform a parametric study by iterating through all design parameters. It is shown that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the cost and performance of bridge superstructure are not necessarily competing factors. Relationships for slab thickness and girder spacing are presented that result in optimal performance and cost of the bridge superstructure