Application Of Design Of Experiment In Printed Cuircuit Board Assembly Industry.

Printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) is a process of mounting and inserting components to printed circuit board (PCB) by means of several principle processes such as Manual Insertion, Auto Insertion (Axial & Radial), Wave Soldering, Surface Mount Technology and Box Build. Manufacturers of PCBA are forced to produce better quality with less cost in order to stay in the business as globalization taking shape. To achieve such a goal, manufacturers are forced to strive to attain and maintain high first pass-yield

Plasmodium falciparum metacaspase PfMCA-1 triggers a z-VAD-fmk inhibitable protease to promote cell death.

Activation of proteolytic cell death pathways may circumvent drug resistance in deadly protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania. To this end, it is important to define the cell death pathway(s) in parasites and thus characterize proteases such as metacaspases (MCA), which have been reported to induce cell death in plants and Leishmania parasites. We, therefore, investigated whether the cell death function of MCA is conserved in different protozoan parasite species such as Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania major, focusing on the substrate specificity and functional role in cell survival as compared to Saccharomyces cerevisae. Our results show that, similarly to Leishmania, Plasmodium MCA exhibits a calcium-dependent, arginine-specific protease activity and its expression in yeast induced growth inhibition as well as an 82% increase in cell death under oxidative stress, a situation encountered by parasites during the host or when exposed to drugs such as artemisins. Furthermore, we show that MCA cell death pathways in both Plasmodium and Leishmania, involve a z-VAD-fmk inhibitable protease. Our data provide evidence that MCA from both Leishmania and Plasmodium falciparum is able to induce cell death in stress conditions, where it specifically activates a downstream enzyme as part of a cell death pathway. This enzymatic activity is also induced by the antimalarial drug chloroquine in erythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum. Interestingly, we found that blocking parasite cell death influences their drug sensitivity, a result which could be used to create therapeutic strategies that by-pass drug resistance mechanisms by acting directly on the innate pathways of protozoan cell death

Tuberculosis lymphadenitis in a south-eastern region in Tunisia: Epidemiology, clinical features, diagnosis and treatment

Aim: To evaluate patients’ profiles, demographics, clinical and therapeutic approaches and strategies in patients with tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBG). Patients and methods: A retrospective study of all TBG-confirmed cases admitted in a tuberculosis specific health care facility between 1 January 2009 and 16 June 2013. Results: A total of 181 clinical files were examined. Mean age was 32 years old; the female/male ratio was 1.78 to 1. Raw milk consumption was noted in 1/3 of patients. Most cases involved the head and neck region (83.4%), nodes involvement, including axillary (12 cases), and mediastinal (9 cases). Clinical symptoms were present in only 55.2%. TST was conducted with 82.6% positive responses. Diagnostics confirmation was done with anatomical pathology in most of the patients; only 56 of them had any microbiology analysis done. Demonstration of acid-fast bacilli in microscopy from either fine-needle aspirates or biopsies was done in 17.5%, and cultures yielded positive results in 27%. Treatment duration was varied. Paradoxical reactions were noted in 12% and persistent lymphadenopathy after treatment completion was noted in 10% of cases. Conclusions: TBG remains a disease of interest. Today, its diagnosis and management is still a problem despite its increasing worldwide incidence, and especially in this study area. Disease control should be strengthened in this country