CONSUMER PANACEA OVER INTERNET USAGE IN PAKISTAN

The present age is the era of information technology and everywhere microwaves are scattered. Everybody wants to explore itself with this information technology and happenings taking place of Internet for the purpose of education, awareness, entertainment and especially interaction with strangers. In Pakistan, the awareness of internet usage is increasing and people are gaining knowledge about online buying and selling. Although the Internet may well empower consumers, there is a paucity of systematic conceptual, analytical, or empirical research indicating that the Internet will in fact lead to more and better information, which in turn will lead to better consumer decision making. The Internet is not, in and of itself, a monolithic entity subject to broad generalizations. It is a complex phenomenon, unlike anything else in history and not completely understood. This research finds that consumers who have more positive beliefs about Internet apparel shopping have more positive attitude toward Internet apparel shopping than do consumers who have less positive beliefs about Internet apparel shopping and consumers who have more social support for Internet apparel shopping perceive more social acceptance of Internet apparel shopping than do consumers who have less social support for Internet apparel shopping.e-Marketing, internet usage.

Protein surface representation and analysis by dimension reduction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein structures are better conserved than protein sequences, and consequently more functional information is available in structures than in sequences. However, proteins generally interact with other proteins and molecules via their surface regions and a backbone-only analysis of protein structures may miss many of the functional and evolutionary features. Surface information can help better elucidate proteins' functions and their interactions with other proteins. Computational analysis and comparison of protein surfaces is an important challenge to overcome to enable efficient and accurate functional characterization of proteins.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this study we present a new method for representation and comparison of protein surface features. Our method is based on mapping the 3-D protein surfaces onto 2-D maps using various dimension reduction methods. We have proposed area and neighbor based metrics in order to evaluate the accuracy of this surface representation. In order to capture functionally relevant information, we encode geometric and biochemical features of the protein, such as hydrophobicity, electrostatic potential, and curvature, into separate color channels in the 2-D map. The resulting images can then be compared using efficient 2-D image registration methods to identify surface regions and features shared by proteins.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We demonstrate the utility of our method and characterize its performance using both synthetic and real data. Among the dimension reduction methods investigated, SNE, LandmarkIsomap, Isomap, and Sammon's mapping provide the best performance in preserving the area and neighborhood properties of the original 3-D surface. The enriched 2-D representation is shown to be useful in characterizing the functional site of chymotrypsin and able to detect structural similarities in heat shock proteins. A texture mapping using the 2-D representation is also proposed as an interesting application to structure visualization.</p

Carcinosarcoma of the esophagus

Carcinosarcoma of the esophagus is a rare neoplasm characterized histologically by presence of carcinomatous and sarcomatous elements. Case report of carcinosarcoma of the esophagogastric junction whose morphological and immunohistochemical features makes it quite distinctive from other tumours is presented. It was an ulcerated lesion diagnosed in an elderly Afghan lady located 34 cms from the incisor teeth. The patient was a smoker

An evaluation of topical and local anesthesia in phacoemulsification

Objective: To assess the comparative efficacy of topical and local anesthesia in phacoemulsification.MATERIAL AND Methods: The medical records of 186 men and women between the ages of 45-85 years, who underwent elective cataract surgery by phacoemulsification technique, under the care of one surgeon, over a period of one year, from March 1999-March 2000 were reviewed.Results: Of 186 patients who underwent small incision, self-healing phacoemulsification cataract surgery, 124 received topical and 62 local anesthesia. The most common cataract types were nuclear sclerosis. The duration of surgery with topical anesthesia was shorter. Sutures and eye padding were more frequently applied for procedures done under local anesthesia. Uncorrected visual acuity in the first post-op week was between 20/20-20/50 for 53.6% of the cases done under topical compared to 30.9% in local anesthesia. A similar trend was noted in the visual acuity one month post operatively.CONCLUSION: The uncorrected visual acuity improves faster and the duration of surgery is shorter when topical anesthesia is used

Morphometric analysis of soldier cast of Odontotermes obesus (Rambur) and Microtermes obesi (Holmgren) (Blattodea: Termitidae; Macrotermitinae) from three localities of Potohar region, Pakistan

A great diversity of termite species is found all over the world, among these 53 species are identified from Pakistan. The knowledge about morphological features in soldier cast of termites is proved to be a technical tool for taxonomy and identification. In the present studies, the morphometric variations of external morphology in soldier caste of Odontotermes obesus (Rambur) and Microtermes obesi (Holmgren) from three different areas i.e. Gujar Khan (A), Rawalpindi (B) and Islamabad (C) were studied. About 36 characters like body, thorax, abdomen, from head to mandible tip, head, pronotum, postmentum, mandible, antenna (scape, pedicle, flagellum), and legs parts were used for morphometric measurements. The data were statistically analyzed for significant differences in their mean, standard deviation, standard error, 95% confidence interval, coefficient of variability and analysis of variance. “Student t-test” was used for the comparison of mean values using Minitab version 16. The results of the present study revealed no significant differences among the population samples collected from various localities. However little variations were observed in a few characters like antennal segments (pedicle, scape) and legs (trochanter, tibia) among the soldier cast which are adaptive in nature to survive in the environment

Thrombolytic therapy in acute myocardial infarction in Pakistan.

To characterize features of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in a Pakistani population, and assess the role of thrombolysis in our country, we studied 194 consecutive admitted patients with enzyme positive AMI. Males were affected three times more frequently; women, although affected less, had a higher incidence of complications than men. Premature coronary artery disease (CAD) was present in 50% patients presenting with AMI. An unusually high incidence of anterior wall myocardial infarction (39%) was seen. Complications were frequent with a predominance of LV failure symptoms. Cardiogenic shock was associated with a very high mortality, in excess of 93%. Streptokinase (SK) was administered in 60% patients with suspected transmural AMI. A statistically significant reduction in mortality was seen in the group that received SK (15.2%) compared to those who did not receive SK (24.7%), (p = \u3c 0.05)

In vitro Maturation and Fertilization of Riverine Buffalo Follicular Oocytes in Media Supplemented with Oestrus Buffalo Serum and Hormones

Effects of two maturation media (TCM-199 and Ham's F-12) with and without the addition of oestrus buffalo serum (OBS) and hormones (FSH, LH, E2) on the maturation rate of buffalo follicular oocytes were evaluated. The results revealed a significant (P P 2+ free Tyrode's medium (63.72%) than in TALP (10.9%) and IVF-TL (32.18%). Thus, TCM-199 containing hormones and OBS appeared better for in vitro maturation, whereas modified Ca2+ free tyrode's medium was found to be more suitable for in vitro fertilization of buffalo follicular oocytes

Effect of Somatic Cell Types and Culture Medium on in vitro Maturation, Fertilization and Early Development Capability of Buffalo Oocytes

This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of different somatic cell types and media in supporting in vitro maturation (IVM), in vitro fertilization (IVF) and early embryonic development competence of buffalo follicular oocytes. Cumulus oocyte complexes were collected for maturation from follicles (>6mm) of buffalo ovaries collected at the local abattoir. Oocytes were co-cultured in tissue culture medium (TCM-199) with either granulosa cells, cumulus cells, or buffalo oviductal epithelial cells (BOEC) @ 3x106 cells/ml or in TCM-199 without helper cells (control) at 39°C and 5%CO2 in humidified air. Fresh semen was prepared in modified Ca++ free Tyrode medium. Fertilization was carried out in four types of media: i) Tyrode lactate albumin pyruvate (TALP), ii) TALP+BOEC, iii) modified Ca++ free Tyrode and iv) modified Ca++ free Tyrode+BOEC. Fertilized oocytes were cultured for early embryonic development in TCM-199 with and without BOEC. Higher maturation rates were observed in the granulosa (84.24%) and cumulus cells (83.44%) than BOEC co culture system (73.37%). Highest fertilization rate was obtained in modified Ca++ free Tyrode with BOEC co culture (70.42%), followed by modified Ca++ free Tyrode alone (63.77%), TALP with BOEC (36.92%) and TALP alone (10.94%). Development of early embryos (8-cell stage) improved in TCM-199 with BOEC co culture than TCM-199 alone. From the results of this study, it can be concluded that addition of somatic cells (granulosa cells, cumulus cells) results in higher maturation rates of buffalo follicular oocytes than BOEC co culture system, while fertilization rate improved in modified Ca++ free Tyrode with and without BOEC. Addition of BOEC to TCM-199 improved the developmental capacity of early embryo