Intracranial Low Grade Glioma: a Clinical Study of 35 Cases in a Teaching Institute

Objective: To determine the clinical manifestation and surgical outcome of patients with low grade Glioma.Material and Methods: This descriptive (cross sectional) study was done at the Neurosurgery Department, Mardan Medical Complex Mardan. The study period was March 2017 to February 2018. Patient of any age and gender presented to outpatient department or referred from some other medical facility and diagnosed as low grade Glioma on clinical and radiological grounds and later confirmed by histopathology were included. Results: Out of 35 patients, 20 (57%) were male and 15 (42%) were female. 20 to 80 years was the age range and mean age was 46.36 ± 17.11 years. Frontal lobe was the most frequent area of location, followed by parietal 9 (25%) and temporal 8 (22%) lobe. Pre-operativeKarnofsky score was 90 in 16 (45%), 80 in 8 (22%), 70 in 6 (17%) and 60 in 5 (14%) of patients. Gross total resection was achieved in 13 (37%), radical subtotal resection in 10 (28%), subtotal resection in 10 (28%) and biopsy taken in 02 (5%) patients. histopathology revealed Astrocytoma in 15 (42%), mixed Oligoastrocytoma in 12 (34%) and Oligodendroglioma in 8 (22%) number of patients. Post operatively surgical outcome was measured by improvement in symptomatology, Karnofsky score and seizure control. Conclusion: Conscious level, Karnofsky Performance score, seizure control are important parameters for surgical outcome in patients with low grade Gliomas. Gross total resection of the tumor is a better option for good surgical outcome

MinION as a Teaching tool in a Graduate course in Pakistan

Genomics is a rapidly evolving field of study that is increasingly being utilized as a tool to detect ethnic and tribal-specific mutations that may be the key to rare and common diseases with higher prevalence in the population under study [1]. However, researchers and science educators in remote areas can often find it difficult to access the latest genetic technologies, probably due to its high costs and lack of suitable infrastructure. Recent technological innovations are resulting in portable, low-cost instruments that enable next-generation sequencing in remote environments, offering new opportunities to generate a more widespread network of trained geneticists [2]. We need to formalize educational efforts to teach students and young researchers with hands-on training to excel in molecular and bioinformatics knowledge. Here, we report our experience of using the MinION pocket size sequencer in a graduate course. The graduate course had some theoretical lectures that explained the basic principles of genomics followed be practical sessions. We hope that the training material developed during this course will provide the community with useful tools to help educate future generations of genome scientists in Pakistan.

Study of erythrocytes as a novel drug carrier for the delivery of artemether

Resealed erythrocytes have been explored in various dimensions of drug delivery, owing to their high biocompatibility and inability to initiate immune response. The present research was designed to evaluate the drug delivery potential of erythrocytes by loading a hydrophobic anti-malarial drug, Artemether. Three different loading techniques were applied to achieve maximum optimized drug loading. A HPLC method was validated for drug quantification in erythrocytes. The relatively high loading was achieved using hypotonic treatment was 31.39% as compared to other two methods. These, drug loaded erythrocytes were characterized for membrane integrity via ESR showing higher ESR values for drug loaded cells as compared to normal cells. Moreover, microscopic evaluation was done to observe morphological changes in erythrocytes after successful loading which showed swollen cells with slight rough surface as compared to smooth surface of normal cells. Drug release was studied for 8 h which showed more than 80% release within 3-7 h from erythrocytes treated with different hypotonic methods. Overall, the study revealed a potential application of erythrocytes in delivery of hydrophobic drugs using hypotonic treatment as compared to other methods

Impact Toughness of Hybrid Carbon Fiber-PLA/ABS Laminar Composite Produced through Fused Filament Fabrication

Nowadays, the components of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composites (an important material) are directly produced with 3D printing technology, especially Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). However, such components suffer from poor toughness. The main aim of this research is to overcome this drawback by introducing an idea of laying down a high toughness material on the 3D-printed carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite sheet, thereby making a hybrid composite of laminar structure. To ascertain this idea, in the present study, a carbon-reinforced Polylactic Acid (C-PLA) composite sheet was initially 3D printed through FFF technology, which was then laid upon with the Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), named as C-PLA/ABS hybrid laminar composite, in an attempt to increase its impact toughness. The hybrid composite was fabricated by varying different 3D printing parameters and was then subjected to impact testing. The results revealed that toughness increased by employing higher layer thickness and clad ratio, while it decreased by increasing the fill density, but remained unaffected due to any change in the raster angle. The highest impact toughness (23,465.6 kJ/m2) was achieved when fabrication was performed employing layer thickness of 0.5 mm, clad ratio of 1, fill density of 40%. As a result of laying up ABS sheet on C-PLA sheet, the toughness of resulting structure increased greatly (280 to 365%) as compared to the equivalent C-PLA structure, as expected. Two different types of distinct failures were observed during impact testing. In type A, both laminates fractured simultaneously without any delamination as a hammer hit the sample. In type B, the failure initiated with fracturing of C-PLA sheet followed by interfacial delamination at the boundary walls. The SEM analysis of fractured surfaces revealed two types of pores in the C-PLA lamina, while only one type in the ABS lamina. Further, there was no interlayer cracking in the C-PLA lamina contrary to the ABS lamina, thereby indicating greater interlayer adhesion in the C-PLA lamina

E-MCDA: Extended-Multilayer Cluster Designing Algorithm for Network Lifetime Improvement of Homogenous Wireless Sensor Networks

The proposed idea in this paper is the constructive ramification of cluster designing mechanism floated in recently published work, multilayer cluster designing algorithm (MCDA) to ameliorate the performance in network lifetime. Novel algorithms for time slot allocation, minimizing the cluster head completion candidates, and cluster member selection∖node affiliation to cluster head play underpinning roles to achieve the target. These incorporations in MCDA result in minimizing transmissions, suppressing unfavorable response of transmissions and near-equal size and equal load clusters. We have done extensive simulations in NS2 and evaluate the performance of E-MCDA in energy consumption at various aspects of energy, packets transmission, number of designed clusters, number of nodes per cluster, and unclustered nodes. It is found that the proposed mechanism optimistically outperforms the competition with MCD and EADUC

Distributed Mobility Management in 6LoWPAN-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

In 6LoWPAN networks, several mobility management schemes have been proposed based on Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) and Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6). However, the existing schemes are centralized, and thus they have many serious drawbacks such as nonoptimal data route, injection of unwanted data traffics into core networks, increased cost of network engineering, and large registration and handover delays. To overcome these limitations, we propose new distributed mobility management schemes for 6LoWPAN networks. In the proposed schemes, Home Agent (HA), Local Mobility Anchor (LMA), and Mobile Access Gateway (MAG) functions are implemented in 6LoWPAN gateways, and the handover operations are performed directly between two neighboring 6LoWPAN gateways. By numerical analysis, we show that the proposed distributed schemes can significantly reduce the registration and handover delays, compared to the existing centralized mobility schemes

Context-aware low power intelligent SmartHome based on the internet of things

Constructing a smart home is not a task without intricate challenges due to involvement of various tools and technologies. Therefore, this research work presents a concept of context-aware low power intelligent SmartHome (CLPiSmartHome). For CLPiSmartHome, we propose a communication model, which provides a common medium for communication, i.e., same communication language. Moreover, an architecture is also proposed that welcomes all the electronic devices to communicate with each other using a single platform service. The proposed architecture describes the application, analysis and visualization aspects of the CLPiSmartHome. Furthermore, the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed system are implemented on Hadoop single node setup on UBUNTU 14.04 LTS core™i5 machine with 3.2 GHz processor and 4 GB memory. Sample medical sensory data sets and fire detection datasets are tested on the proposed system. Finally, the results show that the proposed system architecture efficiently processes, analyzes, and integrates different datasets and triggers actions to provide safety measurements for elderly age people, patients, and others.15 page(s

The Effect of Cinnamon Extract on Spermatogenesis and

The livestock sector in Pakistan occupies a unique position in the national agenda of economic development. The current study was conducted to evaluate a heat stress mitigation strategy through different feeding times on the performance i.e. milk yield, milk composition and physiochemical properties of milk in dairy cattle during the summer season. Twenty Holstein Friesian cows (HF) were randomly divided into four groups (G1. 20/80, G2. 50/50, G3. 0/100, G4. 100/0 feeding at day/night %). Milk yield, milk composition, physiochemical properties and malondialdehyde (MDA) in blood serum were determined. In the first week morning time milk yield was significantly highest in group G1 followed by G2, G3 and G4, respectively. During the 2 nd to 8 th weeks in the morning time it was highest in G2 followed by groups G1, G3 and G4 followed. It was highest in G1 followed by G4, G3 and G2 in the evening time during 1to 8 th weeks. In 5 th week milk yield was more in G4, G3, G2 and G1 in the evening time. In all weeks (1 to 8) pH of milk was higher in groups G1, G2 and G4 followed by G3. In weeks 1 and 2, protein and lactose contents were similar among the four groups, while the fat percentage was higher in G4 followed by G3, G2 and group G1. In weeks 3 and 4 fat was more in the G4 and G3 groups respectively. In the third week pH, acidity and specific gravity of milk was not changed significantly in all the groups. In the fourth week pH was slightly reduced in G3, while acidity and specific gravity remained the same in all the groups. In group G5 pH and specific gravity of milk was comparatively high in group G1 followed by G2 and G3, while acidity was more in G1 as compared to other groups. Similarly pH and specific gravity of milk in the sixth week was slightly more in G1 followed by other three groups. In the seventh week fat was more in G4 followed by G3, G2 and G1. In week 1 levels of MDA were high in G4 followed by G3, G2 and G1. Similar results were found in weeks 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8. In the sixth and seventh weeks the level of MDA was high in G4 followed by G2, G3 and G1. It was concluded that changes in feeding time significantly increased milk yield in those groups which were fed in the cooler part of the day. Milk composition and its physiochemical properties were also affected due to variation in milk yield in the morning and evening times. Hence change in feeding time during the summer season in tropical areas is a good husbandry practice to mitigate heat stress effects on the production performance of dairy cattle

Is perioperative COVID-19 really associated with worse surgical outcomes? A nationwide COVIDSurg propensity-matched analysis

BACKGROUND: Patients undergoing surgery with perioperative COVID-19 are suggested to have worse outcomes, but whether this is COVID-related or due to selection bias remains unclear. We aimed to compare the postoperative outcomes of patients with and without perioperative COVID-19. METHODS: Patients with perioperative COVID-19 diagnosed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery between February and July 2020 from 68 US hospitals in COVIDSurg, an international multicenter database, were 1:1 propensity score matched to patients without COVID-19 undergoing similar procedures in the 2012 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. The matching criteria included demographics (e.g., age, sex), comorbidities (e.g., diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease), and operation characteristics (e.g., type, urgency, complexity). The primary outcome was 30-day hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes included hospital length of stay and 13 postoperative complications (e.g., pneumonia, renal failure, surgical site infection). RESULTS: A total of 97,936 patients were included, 1,054 with and 96,882 without COVID-19. Prematching, COVID-19 patients more often underwent emergency surgery (76.1% vs. 10.3%, p < 0.001). A total of 843 COVID-19 and 843 non-COVID-19 patients were successfully matched based on demographics, comorbidities, and operative characteristics. Postmatching, COVID-19 patients had a higher mortality (12.0% vs. 8.1%, p = 0.007), longer length of stay (6 [2-15] vs. 5 [1-12] days), and higher rates of acute renal failure (19.3% vs. 3.0%, p < 0.001), sepsis (13.5% vs. 9.0%, p = 0.003), and septic shock (11.8% vs. 6.0%, p < 0.001). They also had higher rates of thromboembolic complications such as deep vein thrombosis (4.4% vs. 1.5%, p < 0.001) and pulmonary embolism (2.5% vs. 0.4%, p < 0.001) but lower rates of bleeding (11.6% vs. 26.1%, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Patients undergoing surgery with perioperative COVID-19 have higher rates of 30-day mortality and postoperative complications, especially thromboembolic, compared with similar patients without COVID-19 undergoing similar surgeries. Such information is crucial for the complex surgical decision making and counseling of these patients. (J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2023;94: 513-524. Copyright (C) 2023 American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.)LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic and Epidemiologic; Level IV