Determination of pesticide residues in blood samples of villagers involved in pesticide application at District Vehari (Punjab), Pakistan

Blood samples were collected from field workers involved in pesticide spraying activities at three different farms in Tahsil Mailsi, District Vehari (Punjab), Pakistan. Twenty seven villagers (including three controls), ranging from 16 to 50 years of age and one to nine years of pesticide application experience were tested. The blood samples were analyzed for 383 different pesticides using Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) multi residue analytical technique. Only chlorpyrifos (0.009 mg/l) and pyributicarb (0.001 mg/l) were detected in the blood samples.Key words: Multi-pesticide residues, blood sample, GC-MS

Trehalose, an mTOR Independent Autophagy Inducer, Alleviates Human Podocyte Injury after Puromycin Aminonucleoside Treatment

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Cultural Adaptation and Linguistic Validation of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire in Malaysia

BACKGROUND: Low rate of adherence was found strongly associated with patients' beliefs across the studies about chronic diseases with hypertension. A crucial move is needed to bridge the gap between appropriate assessment tools and local hypertensive patients' medication adherence. OBJECTIVE: To produce a translated version in Malay language of Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) that was "conceptually equivalent" to the original English version for use in local clinical practice and research. METHODS: The forward translation process was conducted by two independent professional translators and back translation was done by two other independent translators. A reliability analysis was conducted on 238 conveniently selected hypertensive patients. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess test-retest reliability for the randomly selected 40 patients in a period of 2 weeks. Discriminant validity was tested through Necessity-Concerns differential, BMQ subscales, and other parameters. RESULTS: The overall Cronbach alpha for the internal consistency was good (0.860). The subscales of the BMQ demonstrated adequate internal consistency, with Cronbach alpha value of 0.759 for Specific-Necessity, 0.762 for Specific Concern, 0.624 for General-Overuse, and 0.756 for General-Harm. The ICC was excellent (0.922). Discriminant validity revealed that BMQ Specific-Necessity score was significantly inversely correlated with the systolic blood pressure level. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels (P = 0.038; P = 0.05) were reported to be significantly correlated with the Necessity-Concerns differential, with Necessity score equal or exceeding Concerns score. CONCLUSIONS: The Malay-translated version of BMQ is a reliable and valid tool to assess patient belief about medication, especially medication adherence among the hypertensive patients in Malaysia

Association between Knowledge and Drug Adherence in Patients with Hypertension in Quetta, Pakistan

Purpose: To evaluate the association between patient’s knowledge of hypertension management and medication adherence.Methods: A cross-sectional study was undertaken with 385 hypertensive patients who visited outpatient departments in two public hospitals in Quetta City, Pakistan. Besides demographic and disease-relatedquestions, two validated questionnaires (Hypertension Fact Questionnaire and Drug Attitude Inventory) were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics were to determine the demographic and diseasecharacteristics of the patients while Spearman rank correlation was employed to measure the association between knowledge and drug adherence.Results: Out of 385 patients, 236 (61.3 %) of the patients had average knowledge about hypertension while 249 (64.7 %) were categorized as poor adherent. No patient was considered as good adherent in the study. Correlation coefficient between total score of knowledge and total adherence was – 0.170 (p < 0.001), indicating an inverse association between knowledge scores and adherence level.Conclusion: Although the level of knowledge was average, patients were unsure of the benefits of continuous medication use which resulted in non-adherence to regimens. Educating patients about the benefits of medications and clarifying doubts regarding medication use should result in better control of hypertension

Uso de fontes em aulas de História e conciência histórica: encaminhamentos e discussões teóricas

Anais do XVII Congresso Internacional das Jornadas de Educaão História - teoria, pesquisa e prática - I Encontro da AIPEDH - Associação Iber-Americana de Pesquisadores em Educação História, realizado pela Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana, entre 02, 03 e 04 de agosto de 2017.Este trabalho apresenta os encaminhamentos de uma pesquisa iniciada no curso de graduação em História na Universidade Estadual de Londrina, e prossegue como parte das discussões que estão sendo realizadas no Mestrado do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da mesma universidade, sob orientação da Professora Dra. Marlene Rosa Cainelli. A investigação realizada tem como objetivo principal o estudo do uso de fontes no ensino de história, mais especificamente sobre a literatura em aulas de história na perspectiva da Educação Histórica, tendo como tema adaptações do clássico “Os Miseráveis”, de Victor Hugo. A pesquisa atual trata do uso de uma versão em História em Quadrinhos (HQ) da obra, buscando verificar como HQs podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento da consciência histórica dos alunos. Para tanto, utilizamo-nos, entre outros, dos escritos de Rüsen (2011) sobre a consciência histórica e Fronza (2007, 2012) sobre o uso de quadrinhos relacionados a temáticas históricasCAPE

Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in Co-Morbid Tuberculosis Relapse Patient: A Case Report from Malaysia

Purpose: To describe changes in HRQoL of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patient and illustrate impact of malnutrition and Type II diabetes on relapse of PTB. Case: A Chinese male patient with complaints of productive cough, and loss of weight and appetite was registered; sputum smear confirmed that patient had PTB. Diagnosis was also supported by routine investigations. Patient had past history of PTB and Type II diabetes mellitus. For management of secondary tuberculosis, he was prescribed WHO recommended therapy. Elevated HbA1c levels and history of drop-off serum albumin concentration at the start of treatment demonstrated inappropriate glycaemic control and malnutrition over the past months. SF-36v2 was used to estimate HRQoL scores at start, after two months and at the end of TB therapy. Although patient&#8217;s perception of mental and physical health improved with progress of treatment, vitality (VT), social functioning (SF) and role emotion (RE) scores were still lower than Malaysian norms. Patient was declared &#8216;cured&#8217; but state of &#8216;health&#8217; as defined by WHO was not achieved. Conclusion: Relapse of PTB might be a consequence of inappropriate glycaemic control and malnutrition. This case report demonstrates the need for more comprehensive efforts at TB programs to improve HRQoL of TB patients.Keywords: Health-Related Quality of Life, Pulmonary tuberculosis, Malnutrition, Type II diabetes, SF 36v

Comparison of various oxidative treatments for removal of reactive black CNN

Decolorization of reactive black CNN by chemical oxidation and reduction using KMnO4, H2O2 and Ferrioxalate as oxidizing agents and Na2SO3 as reducing agent individually as well as in combination was studied on batch scale using UV-visible spectroscopy. Degradation of dye occurred in acidic medium with KMnO4 and in alkaline medium with H2O2 and ferrioxalate. The most efficient methods for decolorization of reactive black CNN is oxidation using KMnO4 as an oxidizing agent which removed 97.64% of dye. Maximum decolorization was obtained at 60 min of treatment under static conditions. H2O2 and ferrioxalate could remove only 50.71 and 44.21% dye, respectively. Sequential treatment was more successful with H2O2 and ferrioxalate when compared with KMnO4. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) contents of treated wastewater decreased appreciably from 83.6 to 63.7 mg/L and 86.8 to 72.8 mg/L, respectively. Additionally, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) study revealed the degradation of reactive black CNN after treatment into non toxic products.Keywords: Reactive black CNN, KMnO4, ferrioxalate, sodium sulphite, chemical oxygen demand (COD)

In Vitro Evaluation of Eudragit Matrices for Oral Delivery of BCG Vaccine to Animals

Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine is the only licensed vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) in humans and animals. It is most commonly administered parenterally, but oral delivery is highly advantageous for the immunisation of cattle and wildlife hosts of TB in particular. Since BCG is susceptible to inactivation in the gut, vaccine formulations were prepared from suspensions of Eudragit L100 copolymer powder and BCG in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), containing Tween® 80, with and without the addition of mannitol or trehalose. Samples were frozen at −20 °C, freeze-dried and the lyophilised powders were compressed to produce BCG–Eudragit matrices. Production of the dried powders resulted in a reduction in BCG viability. Substantial losses in viability occurred at the initial formulation stage and at the stage of powder compaction. Data indicated that the Eudragit matrix protected BCG against simulated gastric fluid (SGF). The matrices remained intact in SGF and dissolved completely in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) within three hours. The inclusion of mannitol or trehalose in the matrix provided additional protection to BCG during freeze-drying. Control needs to be exercised over BCG aggregation, freeze-drying and powder compaction conditions to minimise physical damage of the bacterial cell wall and maximise the viability of oral BCG vaccines prepared by dry powder compaction

Community pharmacists’ perceptions towards online health information in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Objective: The current study was carried out to assess community pharmacists’ perceptions towards online health information, to examine the type of information seek from Internet and to identify the barriers when they retrieved online health information. Methods: The study was designed as a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey whereby all (300) community pharmacists practicing in Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were targeted for data collection. A 35-itemed questionnaire was posted out along with a stamped addressed envelope, invitation letter and support letter. Responses were also accepted via online response. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. All statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v. 20.0. Results: A total of 67 responses were received with a response rate of 22.3%. The top three frequently health information searched by respondents were medicine information, general healthcare information and disease-related information. High number of respondents agreed that Internet had too much health information to scan through. Gender (p=0.018) showed significant association with visiting established health websites. Meanwhile, statistical significant was observed between age and searching medicine information (p=0.037), undertaking online continuing professional development (p=0.023), as well as searching clinical guidelines (p=0.047). Respondents’ education level showed significant association with uncertainty about the reliability of online health information (p=0.023) and unsure about filtering the information (p=0.007). Conclusions: Majority of the respondents expressed positive perception with the use of Internet for health information. The findings of the current study showed the widely use of Internet for health information among community pharmacists. Hence, this study provides opportunity for future works to further examine community pharmacist’s retrieval and appraisal skills for online health information, as well as application of this information into their daily pharmacy practice