This study documented the levels of microplastics in three commercially important small pelagic fish species in South African waters, namely European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus), West Coast ...round herring (Etrumeus whiteheadi) and South African sardine (Sardinops sagax). Data suggested variation between species with a higher concentration of microplastics for S. sagax (mean of 1.58 items individual-1) compared to Et. whiteheadi (1.38 items individual-1) and En. encrasicolus (1.13 items individual-1). The occurrence of microplastics was also higher for S. sagax (72%) and Et. whiteheadi (72%) compared to En. encrasicolus (57%). Microfibres accounted for 80% of ingested microplastics (the remainder were plastic fragments) with the main ingested polymers being poly(ethylene:propylene:diene) (33% occurrence), polyethylene (20%), polyamide (20%), polyester (20%) and polypropylene (7%). The abundance of ingested items was not significantly correlated with fish caudal length or body weight, and spatial investigation indicated an increase in the abundance of ingested items from the West to the South coast. Etrumeus whiteheadi is proposed as a bio-indicator for microplastics for South Africa.
Although well studied the association between chronic typhoid carrier state and carcinoma of the gallbladder (CaGB) remains unproven.
The study was performed at a tertiary care medical center in ...North India and involved 52 patients with CaGB, 223 patients with benign gallbladder diseases, 508 healthy individuals and, 424 corpses. For the detection of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, hepatobiliary specimens were subjected to DNA extraction for specific nested- PCR amplification of the S. Typhi flagellin gene. Anti-Vi S. Typhi antibodies were detected in serum samples from patients by indirect haemagglutination.
Thirty five of the 52 (67.3%) CaGB patients were PCR-positive for the S. Typhi flagellin gene; significantly higher than for patients with benign gallbladder diseases (95/223, 42.6%; p<0.01) and corpses (35/424, 8.2%; p<0.001). The numbers of individuals that had significant anti-Vi antibody titres (> or = 160) in their serum were 20/52 (38.5%) for CaGB patients, 31/223 (13.9%) for patients with benign gallbladder diseases, and 47/508 (9.2%) for healthy individuals.
Specific nested-PCR amplification of the S. Typhi flagellin gene in hepato-biliary specimens was more sensitive for detection of S. Typhi carriage than anti-Vi antibody titres in serum. The results demonstrate an association between typhoid carriage and gallbladder diseases, both CaGB and benign. S. Typhi specific immunosuppression is also suggested in patients with gallbladder diseases.
Abstract Renal stone formation inside the kidney is one of the major causes of renal failure all over the world. To create preventative measures, it is crucial to examine renal stone's composition ...and identify the minerals that are responsible for their pathogenesis. Various concerns regarding the pathophysiology of renal stones remain unresolved and have been put forward. However, till date, the complete information is still unclear. In recent years, spectroscopic studies have gained much attention in identifying the chemical compositions that lead to the formation and growth of renal stones. This work employed wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to study renal stones. WDXRF results of renal stone samples give the presence of numerous heavy and trace elements. Different elemental constituents like zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), strontium (Sr), chromium (Cr), zirconium (Zr), palladium (Pd), bromine (Br), ruthenium (Ru), lead (Pb), and arsenic (As) were detected and quantified in the renal stones. Vibrational spectroscopic studies were carried out to know the chemical compositions of renal stones such as calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM), uric acid (UA), and carbonate apatite (CA). Quantitative results of WDXRF have been compared with the results from atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) of these stone samples. The available clinical details of the patients were correlated with the spectroscopic results obtained using WDXRF and FTIR spectroscopy.
In the recent years, vehicular adhoc networks (VANETs) can be an attractive choice for collecting and transferring the healthcare data of the passengers to the remote healthcare centers. In VANETs, ...some of the intermediate nodes may act as relay nodes in which case, these networks are called as vehicular relay networks (VRNs). However, the transmitted information in VRNs can be captured by intruders during transmission. Moreover, an attacker can launch selective forwarding, blackhole, and sinkhole attacks in the network, which may in turn degrade the network performance parameters like high end-to-end delay, low packet delivery ratio (PDR) and network throughput. Hence, to address these issues, a secure data dissemination scheme using VRNs is proposed. In the proposed scheme, first, a secure vehicular medical relay network system is designed for the users belonging to disconnected rural areas. The collected information is filtered at zonal levels before transmission to a nearby road side units, which further pass it to the incoming vehicles. Second, a secure passenger health monitoring network is designed which continuously monitors health services of the passengers traveling in different vehicles. The information collected through small body sensors installed in the vehicles act as data sets that is forwarded to the on-board monitoring unit within the vehicle. This collected data is then transmitted to centralized healthcare centers for processing by using VRNs. Lastly, a strong elliptic curve cryptography-based cryptographic solution is designed for secure communication among different vehicles. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in various network scenarios with respect to different selected parameters, such as throughput, network delay, PDR, jitter, transmission and computation overheads, and key distribution overhead. The obtained results indicate that the proposed scheme provides improvement of 52% in average delay and 5% in PDR. This further indicates effective message delivery even with high mobility of the vehicles.
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is characterized by presence of ulcer in colon and bloody diarrhea. The present study explores the possibility of association between Salmonella and ulcerative colitis. The ...present study comprised 59 cases of UC, 28 of colon cancer (CC), 127 of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and 190 of healthy control. The serological study was done by Widal and Indirect Haemagglutination Assay (IHA) for ViAb. Nested PCR was performed targeting fliC, staA, and stkG gene for Typhi and Paratyphi A, respectively. A total of 15.3% patients were positive for Salmonella “O” antigen among them 18.6% UC, 35.5% CC, 12.6% IBS, and 15.3% healthy control. A total of 36.9% patients were positive for “H” antigen including 39.0%, 57.1%, and 67.7% UC, CC, and IBS, respectively. About 1.73% show positive agglutination for AH antigen including 3.4%, 3.6%, and 1.6%, UC, CC, and IBS. A total of 10.89% were positive for ViAb. While 6.8% of UC, 10.7% of CC, 11.0% of IBS, and 12.1% of healthy subjects were positive for the antibody, the PCR positivity rates for Salmonella specific sequences were 79.7% in UC, 53.6% in CC, 66.1% in IBS, and 16.3% in healthy controls. The present study suggested that higher prevalence of Salmonella might play important role in etiopathogenesis of UC, IBS, and CC.
Background: Product information leaflets are available for most prescription medicines and many non-prescription medicines.
Materials and Method: A prospective and observational study was conducted ...at Basaveshwara teaching and general hospital with an aim to determine how many patients see, read and retain the PIL.
Results: A total of About 216 patients visiting the out-patient departments were enrolled in the study. The study results showed that among 216 patients, 195(90.28%) patients completed the study. More number of patients 79(40.15%) belonged to old age, followed by Public servant& housewife 46(23.58%) followed by agricultre 12(6.15%) followed by student, business& others 4(2.05%). 142(72.82%) of patients were counseled in Kannada, 35(17.94%) patients in Hindi & 18(9.23%) patients in English. As Kalburgi is a multilingual city majority of the people speak Kannada and Hindi. The 195 patients were dispensed a total of 341 Medicines. For 26 items (7.63 per cent), there was no manufacturer's leaflet available for the pharmacist to supply with the medicine. 195 patients received at least one medicine with a leaflet. The leaflet was said to have been just noticed by 134 patients (68%). About 42 patients (21%) said they had read some part of the leaflet and 19 (9%) patients reported that they had read the leaflet completely.
Conclusion: This study concluded that there is a need to improve the format, content and language of the package inserts in India. Pharmacist intervention is needed to improve patients reading habits for pils.Tighter monitoring of the inserts by regulatory bodies can help to enforce ideal labeling practices.
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