Objective: To determine association of ABO and Rh blood groups with COVID-19 RT-PCR positive status.
Study Design: Case control study.
Place and Duration of the Study: Department of Pathology, ...Margalla Hospital Taxila, from Apr 2020 to Dec 2020.
Methodology: The sample comprised of 436 cases and 500 controls. Out of 3936 RT-PCR done during the study duration, 436 RT-PCR positives were enrolled in study as cases. 500 age and gender matched controls were selected from same population. Study variables (age, gender, blood groups, RT-PCR result) were obtained from Hospital data (HIMS). Data was analyzed using SPSS version 25. Mean and SD was calculated for age. Frequencies were calculated for categorical variables. p-value calculated applying chi square test. Odds ratios calculated to determine association.
Results: The mean age of cases was 37.3 ± 16.3. Statistically significant association was observed between age, gender and COVID-19 RT-PCR positive status. B+ blood group was most frequent both among cases (35.4%) and controls (36.2%), followed by O+ and A+. However, no significant association was observed between blood groups and COVID-19 RTPCR positivity. Odds ratios calculated for blood group O and non - O (OR=0.95), A antigen (OR=0.97) and Rh factor (OR 0.93) among cases and controls showed week negative association. Whereas a weak positive association of B antigen + and B antigen - with PCR positivity (1.07) was observed between cases and controls.
Conclusion: Susceptibility to acquire COVID-19 infection is not associated with ABO and Rh blood groups according to this study.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background: COVID-19 pandemic has become a big medical problem worldwide. In this era, COVID-19 patients’ along with diabetes mellitus are at an increased risk of developing opportunistic infections. ...This study demonstrate association of COVID-19 infection in patients having uncontrolled diabetes with the fungal osteomyelitis.
Subjects and methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was done at a Nishter Institute of Dentistry, Multan. Patients diagnosed with fungal osteomyelitis of jaw bones presented during April to December 2021 were included in this study. Data was collected from the patients regarding history of the disease, clinical diagnosis, imaging findings by plain radiographs and CT scans, histopathology. Association of disease process with diabetes and COVID-19 was analyzed in SPSS.
Results: Between the period April 2021 to December 2021, 23 cases presented in Nishter Institute of Dentistry Multan with fungal osteomylitus were diagnosed clinically and fungal organism was identified by immunohistochemical studies by PAS and GMA stains. 22/23 (95.6%) patients were with uncontrolled diabetes mellitus and 18/23(78.2%) gave the history of Covid 19 infection 2 to 3 months before with moderate to severe symptoms.11/23 (47.8%) gave the history of treatment with systemic steroid. Age range was 38-72 years of age with mean age 53.26. 12/23(52.1%) were males and 11/23 (47.8%) were females. 17/23 (73.9%) patients presented with pain in jaws with exposed bone and 6/23(23%) complained of pain and loose teeth in arch. In 22/23 (95.6%) involved jaw was maxilla. In one patient associated medical condition was hepatitis C virus infection also with diabetes. 2 patients were cardiac and 3 were hypertensive along with diabetes. One patient was previously treated with radiotherapy of mandible due to alveolar cancer. Only one (0.04%) patient was non diabetic.
Conclusion: There is increased incidence of fungal osteomyelitis of jaws mostly maxilla in diabetic and COVID-19 infected patients.
Evidence on performance of Rapid Antigen Detection Tests to recognize SARS-CoV-2 symptomatic patients in our context is limited. This study was aimed to evaluate Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device ...(Abbott Diagnostics, Jena, Germany) in identifying SARS-CoV-2 infection in comparison with RT-PCR test.
This cross-sectional validation study was carried out at Margalla Hospital, Taxila from October, 2020 to March, 2021. Three hundred and eighty-two participants of both gender and all ages, symptomatic for 3-4 days were included in this study. For each participant, two nasopharyngeal swabs were collected by trained lab technicians according to SOPs, one for Rapid Antigen Test and other for RT-PCR.Covid-19 antibodies were checked 4-6 weeks after symptoms among 77 randomly selected participants to further evaluate the performance of Rapid Antigen Test. Data was analyzed using SPSS-26.
The mean age of the participants was 43.1 years (SD=15.9). More than half of participants were males (n=213%=55.8) and 169 (44.2%) were females. Sensitivity of Rapid Antigen Test was calculated to be 94.3%, whereas the specificity was 39.7%. Out of 34 RT-PCR negatives that were initially detected positive on Rapid Antigen Test, 33 demonstrated presence of COVID-19 antibodies.
Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test was found to have 93.4% overall sensitivity and relatively low overall specificity (37.9%). Rapid antigen testing using Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device can be effectively used to scale up mass testing to interrupt transmissibility of COVID-19 infection by generating quick result.
The integration of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) and cooperative relay (CoR) techniques has evolved as a new phenomenon for the next-generation wireless communication ...system. CoR is used to get energy and spectral efficient network and to solve the issues of fading, path loss, shadowing, and smaller coverage area. Relay nodes are battery-constrained or battery-less devices. They need some charging systems externally as replacing or recharging of their batteries sometimes which are not feasible and convenient. Energy harvesting (EH) is the most cost-effective, suitable, and safer solutions to power up these relays. Among various types of the EH, SWIPT is the most prominent technique as it provides spectral efficiency by delivering energy and information to the relays at the same time. This paper reviews the combination of CoR and SWIPT. From basic to advanced architectures, applications and taxonomies of CoR and SWIPT are presented, various forms of resource allocation and relay selection algorithms are covered. The usage of CoR and SWIPT in the fifth-generation wireless networks is discussed. This paper focuses on the integral aspects of the CoR and SWIPT to other next-generation wireless communication systems and techniques such as multiple-input-multiple-output, wireless sensor network, cognitive radio, vehicular ad hoc network, non-orthogonal multiple access, beamforming technique, and the Internet of Things. Some open issues and future directions and challenges are given in this paper.
L. acidophilus is a homofermentative, microaerophilic, short chain gram positive microorganism with rod morphology having its bacteriocins belonging to class II a. Several bacteriocins of L. ...acidophilus have been isolated and characterized. These are structurally similar, but their molecular weight varies as well as their spectrum of antimicrobial activity. They exhibit important technical properties, i.e., thermostability and retaining of activity at a wide pH range along with strong inhibitory actions against food spoilage and pathogenic bacteria make them an important class of biopreservatives. L. acidophilus can be added as an adjunct in many food fermentation processes contributing to unique taste, flavor, and texture. It also preserves the products by producing lactic acid and bacteriocins. A lot of new information regarding the bacteriocins of L. acidophilus has emerged during the last few years. In this review, an attempt has been made to summarize and discuss all the available information regarding the sources of bacteriocins production, their characteristics, and their antimicrobial action along with their application.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
Nanotechnology encompasses a wide range of devices derived from biology, engineering, chemistry, and physics, and this scientific field is composed of great collaboration among researchers from ...several fields. It has diverse implications notably smart sensing technologies, effective disease diagnosis, and sometimes used in treatment. In medical science, the implications of nanotechnology include the development of elements and devices that interact with the body at subcellular (i.e., molecular) levels exhibiting high sensitivity and specificity. There is a plethora of new chances for medical science and disease treatment to be discovered and exploited in the rapidly developing field of nanotechnology. In different sectors, nanomaterials are used just because of their special characteristics. Their large surface area of them enables higher reactivity with greater efficiency. Furthermore, special surface chemistry is displayed by nanomaterials which compare to conventional materials and facilitate the nanomaterials to decrease pollutants efficiently. Recently, nanomaterials are used in some countries to reduce the levels of contaminants in water, air, and soil. Moreover, nanomaterials are used in the cosmetics and medical industry, and it develops the drug discovery (DD) system. Among a huge number of nanomaterials, Cu, Ag, TiO2, ZnO, Fe3O4, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are extensively used in different industries for various purposes. This extensive review study has introduced the major scientific and technical features of nanotechnology, as well as some possible clinical applications and positive feedback in environmental waste management and drug delivery systems.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The dynamic network topology of Flying Ad hoc Networks (FANETs) leads to challenges during communications. This becomes complicated when dealing with multiple transmission paths and relays. ...Conventional routing protocols proposed fail to address the dynamic issues inherent in FANETs. This work addresses it by diversifying the selection of relay in order to establish the significance of cooperative diversity technique. Inspiration is taken from bio inspired computing which assists in finding solutions to several challenging tasks. The natural behavior of the different species leads to elevated design concepts of protocols. This paper proposes GW-COOP (Gray Wolf Algorithm using Cooperative Diversity Technique) routing protocol for FANETs. This protocol consists of Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO) that drives gray wolves' social hierarchy and collaboration technique. First, we opt the design implementation of gray wolves natural posture GWO to handle flying node requirements. Second, we envision the idea of cooperative diversity using two relays to sustain either of the source-to-destination links. The design of protocol is novel in that previously such cooperation techniques are not employed in FANETs. Moreover, the concept of two relays with bio inspired algorithm is first time proposed here. In order to establish the performance of the GW-COOP protocol, this paper compares GW-COOP with two different protocols BAT-COOP (Bat Algorithm using Cooperative Diversity Technique) and BAT-FANETs protocols. The simulation results show that the GW-COOP protocol outperforms BAT-COOP protocol in terms of transmission loss, energy consumption, link delay and packet loss ratio. The results indicate improved GW-COOP performance over BAT-FANET and BAT-COOP. Approximately 67% and 52% reduction is observed in transmission losses compared to BAT-FANET and BAT-COOP respectively. Moreover, a decrease of 61% and 54% in terms of energy consumption, 24% and 9% in terms of link delay, and 58% and 48% reduction in terms of packet loss ratio, is also observed.
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic hormonal and metabolic disorder in which our body cannot generate necessary insulin or does not act in response to it, accordingly, ensuing in discordantly high blood ...sugar (glucose) levels. Diabetes mellitus can lead to systemic dysfunction in the multiorgan system, including cardiac dysfunction, severe kidney disease, lowered quality of life, and increased mortality risk from diabetic complications. To uncover possible therapeutic targets to treat diabetes mellitus, the in silico drug design technique is widely used, which connects the ligand molecules with target proteins to construct a protein-ligand network. To identify new therapeutic targets for type 2 diabetes mellitus, Azadirachta indica is subjected to phytochemical screening using in silico molecular docking, pharmacokinetic behavior analysis, and simulation-based molecular dynamic analysis. This study has analyzed around 63 phytochemical compounds, and the initial selection of the compounds was made by analyzing their pharmacokinetic properties by comparing them with Lipinski’s rule of 5. The selected compounds were subjected to molecular docking. The top four ligand compounds were reported along with the control drug nateglinide based on their highest negative molecular binding affinity. The protein-ligand interaction of selected compounds has been analyzed to understand better how compounds interact with the targeted protein structure. The results of the in silico analysis revealed that 7-Deacetyl-7-oxogedunin had the highest negative docking score of −8.9 Kcal/mol and also demonstrated standard stability in a 100 ns molecular dynamic simulation performed with insulin receptor ectodomain. It has been found that these substances may rank among the essential supplementary antidiabetic drugs for treating type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is suggested that more in vivo and in vitro research studies be carried out to support the conclusions drawn from this in silico research strategy.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Herein, we evaluated the in vivo effects of meloxicam and curcumin co-encapsulated PLGA nanoparticles in experimental acute models of pyrexia, nociception, and inflammation. Seven groups (n = 6) were ...designed for each investigation and pretreated intraperitoneally (i.p.): the control group, meloxicam (4 mg/kg b.w.), curcumin (15 mg/kg b.w.), and equivalent content containing PLGA capped nanoparticles of meloxicam (Mlx-NP) and curcumin (Cur-NP) alone and in combination (Mlx-Cur-NP; at two doses). The results showed that PLGA encapsulation significantly (p ≤ 0.05) improved the in vivo activities of each compound. Furthermore, co-encapsulation of meloxicam and curcumin potentiated the anti-pyretic effect on yeast-induced pyretic rats, anti-nociceptive effect on nociception induced in rats by formalin and heat, and anti-edematogenic activity in xylene-induced ear edema in rats in a dose-dependent manner. In carrageenan-induced paw inflammation in rats, meloxicam and curcumin co-loading (Mlx-Cur-NP) resulted in significant (p ≤ 0.05) inhibition of paw inflammation, reduction in TNF-α and PGE2 levels, downregulation of expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6), as well as a decrease in histopathological changes and TNF-α immunoexpression in paw tissues. Moreover, Mlx-Cur-NP demonstrated noteworthy potentiation in pharmacological effects compared to free compounds and mono-compound-loaded nanoparticles. Thus, the association of meloxicam with curcumin in a biodegradable nanocarrier system could provide a promising anti-pyretic, anti-nociceptive, and anti-inflammatory therapeutic approach for acute conditions.
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