Clinical Pharmacy is a unique service provided by the leading pharmacy departments in the United States. The concept of Clinical Pharmacy evolved after the significant increase in number of ...pharmaceuticals in the market and the increasing potential of drug interactions. However, the Clinical Pharmacist is not merely an individual who advises on drug interactions. There are a number of functions which include but are not limited to; the design of appropriate drug therapy, such as Pharmacokinetic assessment and evaluation to optimize drug therapy, drug information dissemination to the physicians and other healthcare providers and participation as a toxicology consultant in Poison management.
At the King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH) the first Clinical Pharmacy services program began in 1983. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of our Clinical Pharmacy program on the patients’ care as well as its perception by the Medical staff that came from different parts of the world.
Our Clinical Pharmacists were asked to record any suggestions or interventions in the form. The forms were all collected at the end of each day and entered into a database for analysis. Each intervention was analyzed in order to assess the merit of the action in terms of the therapeutic, financial and direct cost impact.
The study showed a positive impact on the patients’ care as well as on the economy of the drugs prescribed. Meanwhile, the service was very much appreciated by the Medical staff as well as other healthcare providers.
Heat stress has emerged as a chief problem impeding wheat crop productivity. In several crops, specific HSP90A genes have intensively managed induced fluctuations in temperature. A wheat plant with ...TaHSP90A transcripts had the potential to cope with temperature stress. It enables plants to survive in transient extremes of temperature and under heat stress. The presented study design enhanced temperature tolerance plasticity with high yield in wheat through a line × tester mating design containing lines (12) and testers (4) having a differential expression of TaHSP90A transcripts (TraesCS2A02G033700.1, TraesCS5B02G258900.3, and TraesCS5D02G268000.2), then hybridized to get the F1 (48) wheat hybrids. For heat treatment, temperature raising was only in the daytime, through the tunnel at anthesis (for two weeks). Data recording for several morphological and physiological parameters went along with the relative expression of TaHSP90A transcripts for hybrid evaluation. After one hour of heat treatment, the relative expression of TaHSP90A transcripts’ determination in the flag leaf followed. The manifestation of TaHSP90A transcripts’ upregulation was two folds in several hybrids after heat treatment. Best lines, testers, and selected crosses having TaHSP90A transcripts with high yield and heat tolerance compared with parents can further benefit breeding programs aiming toward tolerance against heat stress in changing climate scenarios.
In the wake of the recent global pandemic of COVID-19, there has been increasing concern among the general public to improve their immune system. The causative agent of COVID-19 is SARS CoV-2, ...similar to its relative viruses SARS Cov-1 and MERS. Although vaccines have been developed now and are in public use, still the role of a healthy immune system is crucial as new strains of the virus are being discovered and along with emergence of new strains, short and long term side effects of vaccine cannot be excluded. Plants have been used in herbal medicines and many chemicals since ancient times and extracts in them are found to boost the immune system. Therefore, a consciously maintained diet consisting of plant-based immunity boosters is the need of the hour. Plants are known to provide many chemicals, natural therapeutics and vitamins which naturally enhance our immune system. Recently, vaccination research is also being carried out in transgenic plants. In this review, main focus has been put on highlighting some of the key players within the Kingdom Plantae, which, when taken up in regular diet, can significantly boost our immune system capacity and thus helps the human body to combat this deadly virus more efficiently.
The ideal temperature range for the optimal growth and development of cotton is 25 °C–32 °C and high temperature adversely affects the metabolic activities of plant cells. This study was aimed to ...screen heat-tolerant cotton genotypes based on physiological and molecular parameters. Experiments were carried out during 2019–2020 at the MNS-University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan. The research comprised two parts. In the first experiment, 30 cotton genotypes were sown in a completely randomized design with three replications under laboratory conditions for the determination of cell membrane thermostability. Principal component analysis was performed, and four genotypes, i.e., two heat-tolerant (‘CRIS-5A’ and ‘VH-338’) and two heat-sensitive (‘FH-242’ and ‘VH-281’) genotypes, were selected. In the second experiment, the screened cotton genotypes were sown in pots in a factorial complete randomized design with three replications and two treatments (normal and heat treatment). Heat stress was applied at the seedling stage, and eight leaf samples (one from each experimental unit) were collected. Two genes were used for molecular analysis and were amplified in all eight cDNA samples. Molecular analysis indicated the presence of HSP70 and HSP26 genes in the cotton genotypes, and the expression of these genes was measured by using ImageJ software. The gene expression level of HSP70 was very high (16.41%) in ‘VH-281’, which is a heat-sensitive genotype under heat stress. The sensitive genotype ‘FH-242’ exhibited the highest gene expression level of HSP26 (20.32%) under normal conditions. A similar sequence of HSP70 gene of Agave sisalana was amplified for the first time in cotton. It is a good indicator for screening heat tolerant cotton genotypes at the molecular level.
Dantrolene (2.45 mg/kg body weight, range 2 to 4) was administered iv in eight heat stroke (HS) patients and compared with a control group of 12 patients of similar age, weight, and temperature range ...(41.9 degrees to 44 degrees C). Body surface cooling was conducted in air conditioned rooms at temperatures of 18 degrees to 23 degrees C. Mean cooling time in the dantrolene group was 49.7 +/- 4.4 (SEM) min, whereas cooling time in the control group was 69.2 +/- 4.8 min. The decrease in temperature was significantly greater in the dantrolene group, for whom the cooling time was decreased by about 19.5 min (p less than .01). Although cooling time was significantly shorter in the dantrolene group, there was no difference in the recovery of both groups. Dantrolene is an expensive drug and justification for its routine use in HS remains to be evaluated.
The combination of conventional logs, such as density, neutron and resistivity logs, is proven to be very effective in the evaluation of normal reservoirs. For low-resistivity reservoirs, however, an ...accurate determination of the petrophysical parameters with the conventional log reservoirs is very difficult. This paper presents two cases of low-resistivity reservoirs and low-contrast resistivity reservoirs, where conventional logs fail to determine the petrophysical properties of reservoirs, mainly, low-resistivity and low-contrast resistivity reservoirs. The problems of these reservoirs are that conventional logging interpretation shows high water saturation zones, but water-free hydrocarbon would be produced. In the case of low-resistivity contrast reservoirs, it is very hard to determine water hydrocarbon contact with resistivity logs. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has only been available as a supplementary tool to provide additional information on the producibility of the reservoir. The main limitations of NMR have been the cost and time of acquiring data.
This paper shows that in the case of low-resistivity reservoirs, NMR is a very cost-effective tool and is of help in accurately determining the reservoir rock petrophysical properties. In the analysis of NMR data, several aspects of NMR technique have been used: (1) T1/T2 ratio for fluid identification, (2) the difference between NMR-derived porosity and total porosity to determine the types of clay minerals, (3) NMR relaxation properties to identify fluids composition and rock properties. This paper presents four examples of low-resistivity reservoirs. Analysis of the NMR data of low-resistivity reservoirs has helped identify the producibility of these zones, determine lithology-independent porosity and distinguish between bound and free water. For the case of low-contrast resistivity reservoir, where there was little resistivity contrast between water-bearing formation and oil-bearing formation, NMR has been able to identify the fluid composition of the two formations, as well as the height of the oil column. This was based mainly on the high contrast of NMR relaxation parameters.
Sera obtained during the Hajj seasons of 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988 from 125 heat stroke patients were collected and subjected to chemical analysis which included determination of glucose, lactate, ...cholesterol, and triglycerides, as well as assay of T3, T4, TSH and cortisol. Hyperglycaemia and lactic acidaemia were found to be the most frequent metabolic abnormalities. The changes in cholesterol did not exhibit a specific pattern. Triglycerides were significantly elevated in only 6% of patients. Cortisol levels were very significantly elevated in precooled patients. Although the mean T3 levels remained within the normal range, the mean concentration on admission was significantly higher than the post-cooling mean. TSH and T4 levels did not show significant changes.
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