Synthesis, Characterization and Antimicrobial Properties of Silver Nanocomposites

Nanoparticles and polymers in their respective fields have contributed greatly in the form of science and hence in daily life application products. But due to lack in emerging technologies for developing silver nanocomposites with polymers and other materials, the nanoparticle-based products have conquered little less attention. Hereby, an effort is made to put a light on already developed functional materials containing silver nanoparticles and also to look forward their scope in daily life applications. A little more insight into antimicrobial properties of such materials will also be elaborated. Finally, the optimal amounts of silver that cannot be health hazardous to living being especially human and overall environmental impacts of Nanocomposites are presented

Hypermucoviscous Klebsiella syndrome it\u27s in the community!

Hypermucoviscous Klebsiella syndrome is a unique syndrome caused by a new variant of Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP), characterized by abscess formation at distant body sites. This emerging KP strain is different from the usual classic strains in having the rmp gene which increases capsule formation making this strain resistant to phagocytosis and helping in its dissemination to distant organs. A 50 years old diabetic man presented with facial swelling after dental procedure which progressively increased despite being on antibiotics. On examination he was febrile, had neck swelling with signs of inflammation and tender hepatomegaly. Ultrasonography showed submental and liver abscesses which were subsequently drained and both cultures isolated KP with hypermucoid colonies on agar plate and a positive string test indicating the presence of this new hypervirulent strain of KP. Therefore, a diagnosis of Hypermucoviscous Klebsiella syndrome should be considered in all patients who present with KP infection with multiple organ abscesses.

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Identifying potential barriers to sperm cryopreservation among Pakistani male cancer patients

Background: Cancer survivor rates have increased over the past few decades leading to a growing interest in research related to quality of life. The American society of clinical oncology’s updated guidelines of 2013 recommend that health care providers discuss the possibility of infertility with patients and present fertility preservation options to those who express interest. We attempted to explore the unique barriers that might prevent adult male cancer patients from accessing sperm cryopreservation in Pakistan.Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews of male cancer patients aged 18-45 years, diagnosed with cancer of any stage or type. The interviews were audio-recorded in Urdu and translated to English, following which they were transcribed ad verbatim. The topics included quality of information received regarding the risk of infertility following chemotherapy, future reproductive choices and barriers to sperm cryopreservation.Results: Out of the 25 patients interviewed, there were n = 10 cases of Leukemia, n = 3 of Lymphoma, n = 2 cases each of colorectal carcinoma and Multiple Myeloma, n = 1 case each of Neuroblastoma and Osteosarcoma, and solitary cases involving the lung, breast, thymus, brain, jaw and testis. Only n = 4 patients knew about the potential for infertility due to cancer chemotherapy, all of whom were also aware of the option of sperm cryopreservation. Two patients had their sperm preserved prior to the initiation of chemotherapy. Perceived treatment related expenses appeared to be the biggest barrier to sperm cryopreservation for n = 9 patients (36%). This was followed by lack of information which was cited by n = 8 patients (32%) and religious reasons (n = 2 patients, 8.3%). Other barriers were identified as family wishes, female gender of the doctor and patient’s preferences. Four patients stated there are no barriers.Conclusions: There is a significant lack of awareness among male cancer patients regarding threat to fertility following cancer treatment. It is imperative that physicians inform them of this and discuss treatment options, along with addressing potential barriers

Using interpersonal movement coordination to investigate gender differences inadults with autism

When individuals engage in social interactions, they coordinate their nonverbal movements. Atypical movement coordi-nation may contribute to social difficulties in autism. Further, distinct gender differences have been found in autism: malesshow reduced socio-communicative behaviours relative to females. Here, we explored whether interpersonal movementcoordination differs between males and females with autism, compared to neurotypical (NT) adults. Thirteen adults withautism participated. Twenty-six NT controls are currently being tested. Participants complete a semi-structured interviewwhile being video-recorded. Coordination between participant and examiner is measured using a video-based movementanalysis. Females with autism demonstrated significantly greater movement coordination with their conversational partner,within a smaller range, than males. Given past findings, we expect that coordination differences between autistic and NTmales will be greater than between autistic and NT females. These preliminary results suggest that investigating movementcoordination during interaction may provide a tool for better understanding gender differences in ASD

Effect of lavender leaf extract on chemical and physical sensory of minced fish muscles (Scomber japonicus) during refrigerated storage

European Biotechnology Congress -- SEP 28-OCT 01, 2011 -- Istanbul, TURKEYWOS: 000295310800279European Biotechnol Themat Network Asso

Effect of pea protein isolate on quality of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum, 1792) Mince

European Biotechnology Congress -- SEP 28-OCT 01, 2011 -- Istanbul, TURKEYWOS: 000295310800304European Biotechnol Themat Network Asso

Looking, seeing and believing in autism: eye movements reveal how subtle cognitive processing differences impact in the social domain

Adults with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) viewed scenes with people in them, while having their eye movements recorded. The task was to indicate, using a button press, whether the pictures were normal, or in some way weird or odd. Oddities in the pictures were categorized as violations of either perceptual or social norms. Compared to a Typically Developed (TD) control group, the ASD participants were equally able to categorize the scenes as odd or normal, but they took longer to respond. The eye movement patterns showed that the ASD group made more fixations and revisits to the target areas in the odd scenes compared with the TD group. Additionally, when the ASD group first fixated the target areas in the scenes, they failed to initially detect the social oddities. These two findings have clear implications for processing difficulties in ASD for the social domain, where it is important to detect social cues on-line, and where there is little opportunity to go back and recheck possible cues in fast dynamic interactions