Increased platelet reactivity in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is mediated by a plasma factor

Introduction Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive, incurable fibrotic interstitial lung disease with a prognosis worse than many cancers. Its pathogenesis is poorly understood. Activated platelets can release pro-fibrotic mediators that have the potential to contribute to lung fibrosis. We determine platelet reactivity in subjects with IPF compared to age-matched controls. Methods Whole blood flow cytometry was used to measure platelet-monocyte aggregate formation, platelet P-selectin expression and platelet fibrinogen binding at basal levels and following stimulation with platelet agonists. A plasma swap approach was used to assess the effect of IPF plasma on control platelets. Results Subjects with IPF showed greater platelet reactivity than controls. Platelet P-selectin expression was significantly greater in IPF patients than controls following stimulation with 0.1 µM ADP (1.9% positive ±0.5 (mean ± SEM) versus 0.7%±0.1; p = 0.03), 1 µM ADP (9.8%±1.3 versus 3.3%±0.8; p<0.01) and 10 µM ADP (41.3%±4.2 versus 22.5%±2.6; p<0.01). Platelet fibrinogen binding was also increased, and platelet activation resulted in increased platelet-monocyte aggregate formation in IPF patients. Re-suspension of control platelets in plasma taken from subjects with IPF resulted in increased platelet activation compared to control plasma. Conclusions IPF patients exhibit increased platelet reactivity compared with controls. This hyperactivity may result from the plasma environment since control platelets exhibit increased activation when exposed to IPF plasma

Labour Market Dynamics in Pakistan: Evidence from the Longitudinal Data

The bulk of research on labour market conditions in Pakistan has concentrated on the economic activity rate, the number of employed persons, or the unemployment rate at a particular point in time. These stock measures of labour market situation are useful from a policy viewpoint as they give a broad indication of the dimension of the problem. For example, the recent labour force surveys show an increase in the level of open unemployment from 5.9 percent in 1997-98 to 7.8 percent in 1999-2000 [Pakistan (2001)]. There is also an emerging consensus that during the 1990s poverty has increased at the national as well as for rural and urban areas of the country [Qureshi and Arif (2001)]. Labour market is considered as the main route for establishing the link between macro policies, the resulting GDP growth and poverty alleviation [Rahman (2002)]. Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP) and other development plans have suggested various targets of employment creation for poverty reduction. The stock measures of labour market conditions, such as unemployment rate, are considered to be inadequate from the viewpoint of developing appropriate policy responses. There is a need to gain further insights by examining the structure of labour market in terms of its dynamic components: these being the turnover of persons into and out of the labour force and turnover into and out of employment and unemployment pools

Analytical modelling of the effect of noise on the terahertz in-vivo communication channel for body-centric nano-networks

The paper presents an analytical model of the terahertz (THz) communication channel (0.1 - 10 THz) for in-vivo nano-networks by considering the effect of noise on link quality and information rate. The molecular absorption noise model for in-vivo nano-networks is developed based on the physical mechanisms of the noise present in the medium, which takes into account both the radiation of the medium and the molecular absorption from the transmitted signal. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the communication channel is investigated for different power allocation schemes and the maximum achievable information rate is studied to explore the potential of THz communication inside the human body. The obtained results show that the information rate is inversely proportional to the transmission distance. Based on the studies on channel performance, it can be concluded that the achievable transmission distance of in-vivo THz nano-networks should be restrained to approximately 2 mm maximum, while the operation band of in-vivo THz nano-networks should be limited to the lower band of the THz band. This motivates the utilisation of hierarchical/cooperative networking concepts and hybrid communication techniques using molecular and electromagnetic methods for future body-centric nano-networks

The potential impacts of digital transformation on organizations

Digital Transformation is the new trend in all industries. Although, the term’s usage in the industries is still vague and ambiguous, many organizations have claimed that they have begun their digital transformation journey or have a plan to do so. For those reasons there is an urgent necessity to understand what digital transformation is? and how to evaluate its impact on an organization. Thus, this paper seeks to investigate the potential impact of digital transformation on organizations. This study utilized a qualitative research method of investigation, semi-structured interviews with different participants from different organizations were performed. Two major areas were identified to be the most susceptible organizations’ functional areas that impacted by the transformation, and they synthesized into a cohesive model. The model includes Organization Business Processes Optimization, Organizational Information Technology which led to organization innovation. The model can help organizations to identify and consider the impact digital transformation

Family quality of life for families of children with intellectual disability in Saudi Arabia

This thesis was primarily concerned with the quality of life of Saudi Arabian families who are caring for children of primary school age with intellectual disability. The four research aims were as follows. (1) Construct and verify the validity of the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale, augmented to include variables assumed to be relevant to Saudi Arabian families of children with intellectual disability, including the new measures of religiosity and other religio-cultural factors related to caring for a child with an intellectual disability. (2) Examine whether the identified factors of the Saudi Arabian Family Quality of Life questionnaire, the measure of religiosity, and the measure of other religio-cultural factors related to caring for a child with intellectual disability are reliable. (3) Determine whether caring for children with intellectual disability, compared to caring for children without intellectual disability, is associated with family quality of life among Saudi Arabian families. And whether demographic factors, religiosity, and other religio-cultural factors were associated with family quality of life for Saudi Arabian families were the same for families with and without children with intellectual disability. (4) To explore the possible phenomenological reasons behind the observed quantitative results for examining family quality of life of Saudi Arabian families, and to discern what kinds of support parents feel they need. In order to achieve these aims, quantitative and qualitative data were collected about family quality of life of Saudi Arabian families with and without children with intellectual disability. A questionnaire based on the Beach Center Family Quality of Life Scale, modified for Saudi Arabia, was administered to 201 families, and interviews were conducted with eight Saudi families. Of the 201 participant families, 82 per cent of the respondents/participants were male and 28 per cent of them were the primary carer; 88 per cent had at least a college level of education and 41 per cent were engaged in further study, with 28 per cent being unemployed; 93 per cent of them were married; 58 percent lived in a city; 36 per cent earned less than SAR60,000 p.a. while 54 per cent earned between SAR60,000 and SAR120,000 p.a. All families had at least one child (between 2-17 years of age), and 86 families (43% of the sample) had one child with intellectual disability. Of them, 52 children had a mild intellectual disability and 31 had a moderate intellectual disability. The major findings of the current study were as follows. First, the Family Quality of Life scale developed for the current study was found to be valid and reliable for Saudi Arabian families. Second, it was found that families who were caring for a child with an intellectual disability reported a significantly lower quality of life than those who did not. Third, it was found that socio-economic status and marital status were the major factors impacting on family quality of life for families with and without children with intellectual disability; and further, that higher socio-economic status and being married (as opposed to divorced) mitigated the negative impact on family quality of life of caring for a child with an intellectual disability. Fourth, the qualitative results of interviews with selected families largely cohered with the quantitative results of the questionnaire. However, although the quantitative analysis showed that the subscales of family religiosity and social and religious perspectives on intellectual disability were not reliable, the interviews revealed that the functional role of religion varied and played important, albeit different roles, in how families dealt with the fact that they had children with intellectual disability. Finally, the request for special assistance on the part of families of children with intellectual disability was largely dependent on their socio-economic status. The main research implication of this thesis is that the augmented Saudi Arabian Family Quality of Life can be used in future family quality of life studies for the Saudi Arabian population, and may be extended to other Gulf countries to see whether the scale has validity in culturally similar societies beyond Saudi Arabia. The current study also found that social acceptance/stigmatisation of children with intellectual disability had an impact on family quality of life, but the precise sources of social stigmatisation were not explored. This could be an important area for future research. Another important implication of the current study is that attempting to capture the impact of religion on family quality of life requires qualitative analysis in the form of interviews because subjective interpretations of the role of religion in people‟s lives are sometimes only revealed via discussion (as opposed to questionnaires). Another finding with important practical/policy implications is that families who have a relatively lower family quality of life are also those who have low incomes, meaning that they are already vulnerable and potentially „marginalized‟ groups. Government programs providing real income and employment support is a possible albeit partial solution in such cases. Furthermore, there are other forms of support, not currently available in Saudi Arabia, that can also be provided to families of children with intellectual disability. These include (1) assistance with parenting skills, (2) better tailored education services for children, (3) assistance with marital stability, and (4) combating stigmatisation

Experimentally estimated dead space for GaAs and InP based planar Gunn diodes

The authors would like to thank the staff of the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Glasgow for help in fabricating the devices which is reported in this paper. ‘Part of this work was supported by ESPRC through EP/H011862/ 1, and EP/H012966/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Amanita mansehraensis, a new species in section Vaginatae from Pakistan

A new species of Amanita subgenus Amanita sect. Vaginatae is described and illustrated based on material collected in pine forests in district Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw, Pakistan. Amanita mansehraensis is recognized by the presence of a light brown or light greyish olive pileus with strong brown or deep brown pileus center; non-appendiculate, rimose, sulcate or plicate striate pileus margin; subglobose to ellipsoid basidiospores; and a saccate volva. The internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) and large subunit of the nuclear ribosomal RNA gene (nrLSU) were used for the delimitation of this species based on sequence data. The evolutionary relationships of A. mansehraensis with other species of Amanita were inferred by means of Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian inferences of the nrLSU dataset and concatenated ITS+nrLSU dataset. Amanita mansehraensis is most closely related to A. brunneofuliginea, A. pseudovaginata, and the recently described A. glarea

A welder with pneumosiderosis: a case report

Pneumosiderosis or Welder's lung is an occupational lung disease which is usually seen after chronic exposure to iron dust. We present a case of a 64-year-old welder in whom the diagnosis of pneumosiderosis was made by lung biopsies. We also briefly review the literature regarding the disease, its prognosis and association with development of lung cancer. Avoidance of iron dust exposure and implementing prevention strategies in people at risk are the mainstay of therapy

Analytical characterisation of the terahertz in-vivo nano-network in the presence of interference based on TS-OOK communication scheme

The envisioned dense nano-network inside the human body at terahertz (THz) frequency suffers a communication performance degradation among nano-devices. The reason for this performance limitation is not only the path loss and molecular absorption noise, but also the presence of multi-user interference and the interference caused by utilising any communication scheme, such as time spread ON—OFF keying (TS-OOK). In this paper, an interference model utilising TS-OOK as a communication scheme of the THz communication channel inside the human body has been developed and the probability distribution of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for THz communication within different human tissues, such as blood, skin, and fat, has been analyzed and presented. In addition, this paper evaluates the performance degradation by investigating the mean values of SINR under different node densities in the area and the probabilities of transmitting pulses. It results in the conclusion that the interference restrains the achievable communication distance to approximate 1 mm, and more specific range depends on the particular transmission circumstance. Results presented in this paper also show that by controlling the pulse transmission probability and node density, the system performance can be ameliorated. In particular, SINR of in vivo THz communication between the deterministic targeted transmitter and the receiver with random interfering nodes in the medium improves about 10 dB, when the node density decreases one order. The SINR increases approximate 5 and 2 dB, when the pulse transmitting probability drops from 0.5 to 0.1 and 0.9 to 0.5

Multiple Antenna Techniques for Terahertz Nano-Bio Communication

Using higher frequency bands becomes an essential demand resulting from the explosive wireless traffic needs and the spectrum shortage of the currently used bands. This paper presents an overview on the terahertz technology and its application in the area of multi-input multi-output antenna system and in-vivo nano-communication. In addition, it presents a preliminary study on applying multiple input-single output (MISO) antenna technique to investigate the signal propagation and antenna diversity techniques inside the human skin tissues, which is represented by three layers: stratum corneum (SC), epidermis, and dermis layers, in the terahertz (THz) frequency range (0.8-1.2) THz. The spatial antenna diversity is investigated in this study to understand MISO system performance for two different in-vivo channels resulting from the signal propagation between two transmitting antennas, located at the dermis layer, and one receiving antenna, located at epidermis layer. Three techniques are investigated: selection combining (SC), equal-gain combing (EGC), and maximum-ratio combining (MRC). The initial study indicates that using multiple antenna technique with THz might be not useful for in-vivo nano-communication