Stroke in Pakistan

Stroke is the most common cause of disability and a leading cause of mortality world wide. Though the incidence is falling in West but probably is rising in Asia. The burden of stroke risk factors in Pakistan is enormous e.g. by 2020 Pakistan will be 4th most populous country in terms of diabetic patients. Similarly every 3rd person above age of 45 years has hypertension. Ironically a great majority of these patients are unaware of their diagnosis. This is further complicated by the fact that most of diagnosed patients have uncontrolled hypertension, as a result of poor compliance on patients part and poor updated knowledge on physicians part. Data on stroke incidence and prevalence from Pakistan is scarce, however, there are several reported case series in literature highlighting significant differences in terms of stroke epidemiology, risk factors and stroke subtypes/patterns. Considering a high population, absolute number of stroke in our country would be in millions. Its consequences are myriad ranging form physical disability to death, to psychologic, social and economic consequences. These consequences do not only affect the individual or his/her family but also society as a whole. We reviewed available literature on stroke and its risk factors from Pakistan

Water‐soluble red pigments from Isaria farinosa and structural characterization of the main colored component

International audienceThe present study describes the red pigment synthesized by the filamentous fungi Isaria farinosa under submerged culture conditions. The pigment production was optimal under the following conditions: pH 5, agitation speed 150 rpm, temperature 27 °C, incubation time 192 h, light source total darkness, sucrose and glucose as carbon source, yeast extract, meat peptone and monosodium glutamate at a fixed concentration of 3% as nitrogen source. The addition of 10 mM CaCl2 to the culture medium increased the biomass and pigment production. Structural elucidation of the pigment using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed that the red pigment contains an anthraquinone-related compound. In addition, the isolated pigment was water soluble, and was stable when exposed to salt solution (96.1% of stability after treatment with sodium chloride), acid (72.1% with citric acid), heat (86.2% at 60 °C), and sunlight (99.4%). These results are promising to further exploit the fungal culture of Isaria farinosa for producing the red pigment and, subsequently, to considerably increase its yield. The study has commercial importance in the production of Isaria farinosa pigment for industrial application after considerable toxicological examination. (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Antibiotic Molecular Design Using Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Research is acutely needed to develop novel therapies to treat resistant infections. This project aims to design a drug molecule via a computer aided molecular design approach to provide lead candidates for the treatment of bacterial infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus. In a recently published WHO report, a list of bacteria which pose the greatest threat to human health was given. The purpose of this report was to identify the most important resistant bacteria at global level for which immediate treatment is required. Staphylococcus aureus, which is on this list, is a pathogen causing infections such as pneumonia and bone disorders. A methodology which determines the structures of candidate antibiotic molecules is described. The Artificial Bee Colony algorithm has been used for the first time for molecular design in this work. It is necessary to predict physical and/or biological properties of compounds in order to design them. The prediction of properties is performed using Quantitative Structure Property Relationships (QSPRs). QSPRs are equations, which are developed using reported data for properties of interest by the method of regression analysis. This work applies connectivity indices and 3D MoRSE descriptors to develop QSPRs. The properties used in this work are minimum inhibitory concentration and Log P values. 3D MoRSE descriptors have been used for the first time for molecular design in this work. The QSPRs are combined with structural feasibility and connectivity constraints to formulate an optimization problem, which is a mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP). Because of the large number of potential chemical structures and the uncertainty in the structure-property correlations, stochastic algorithms are preferred to solve the resulting MINLP. One stochastic algorithm which has shown promise to solve these problems is the Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, which relies on principles of swarm intelligence to find near-optimal solutions efficiently. The Artificial Bee Colony algorithm described in this work is used to derive solutions which serve as lead compounds for a narrowed search for novel antibiotics. Results show that the ABC algorithm is very effective in finding near optimal solutions to the MINLP, which is a combinatorial optimization problem. Molecular structures were obtained by optimizing objective function for individual property values and simultaneously for both the properties

Smart Waste Segregation Management System Using Three Sensors

The way waste containers are managed has made waste accumulation and disposal into a major issue for populous cities. The undesired, dangerous, and wasted material left over from regular community events is known as solid garbage. Solid waste management is the control of solid waste generation, storage, collection, transport, treatment, and disposal. Waste containers placed in a wide range of places, including open areas like healing centers, educational institutions, and businesses, have been seen to be overflowing recently. The dustbin overflow creates an unhygienic condition that might transmit disease. Waste is most effectively utilized economically when it is separated. Waste segregation at disposal facilities requires extra manpower and time. With an increasing number of smart cities worldwide, IoT (Internet of Things)-based technological solutions for solid waste management are becoming more essential. These solutions will help in the advancement of a sustainable and clean environment. To ensure the least amount of risk to the environment and public health, it must be taken into consideration when sorting and transporting waste. Economic value of waste can be brought to the limelight by the segregation of waste in proper way. Rag pickers are the traditional way of garbage segregation utilized in India; this approach is time-consuming and harmful to the health of those exposed to the waste. Therefore they propose an idea of Automated Waste Segregator which can be used at household level to segregate the waste in easy way which is also cheap and affordable. In order to fulfill this, smart waste segregation management system using three sensors is presented. In this system, Arduino Uno is used which will monitor the waste segregation and segregates the waste. After the collection of dustbin, the waste segregated as Dry waste, wet waste and Metal waste. In addition, wet waste is composed metal and dry waste is recycled

Obstetric cerebral venous thrombosis

Pregnancy and puerperium are most prevalent prothrombotic states leading to cerebral venous thrombosis. Likelihood of stroke to be of venous origin is greater in stroke associated with pregnancy compared to stroke unrelated to pregnancy. Pregnancy induces several changes in coagulation system, which persists at least during early puerperium, rendering it a prothrombotic state. Hypercoaguability worsens further after delivery as a result of volume depletion and trauma. During puerperium additional risk factors include infection and instrumental delivery or Caesarean section. The management follows general rules as for the venous thrombosis unrelated to pregnancy, however the prognosis is different

Talaromyces atroroseus, a new species efficiently producing industrially relevant red pigments

Some species of Talaromyces secrete large amounts of red pigments. Literature has linked this character to species such as Talaromyces purpurogenus, T. albobiverticillius, T. marneffei, and T. minioluteus often under earlier Penicillium names. Isolates identified as T. purpurogenus have been reported to be interesting industrially and they can produce extracellular enzymes and red pigments, but they can also produce mycotoxins such as rubratoxin A and B and luteoskyrin. Production of mycotoxins limits the use of isolates of a particular species in biotechnology. Talaromyces atroroseus sp. nov., described in this study, produces the azaphilone biosynthetic families mitorubrins and Monascus pigments without any production of mycotoxins. Within the red pigment producing clade, T. atroroseus resolved in a distinct clade separate from all the other species in multigene phylogenies (ITS, β-tubulin and RPB1), which confirm its unique nature. Talaromyces atroroseus resembles T. purpurogenus and T. albobiverticillius in producing red diffusible pigments, but differs from the latter two species by the production of glauconic acid, purpuride and ZG-1494α and by the dull to dark green, thick walled ellipsoidal conidia produced. The type strain of Talaromyces atroroseus is CBS 133442

Comparison of dual isolated converters with flyback converters for bidirectional energy transfer

This article demonstrates a proposed technique for improving single-stage rectifiers' power factor (PF) and controlling the load voltage in response to grid voltage and load changes. To alleviate the above problem, this article offers a novel bi-directional continuous switching pulse width modulation (CSPWM) and sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) based converter that can improve PF and reduce harmonics. This converter is evaluated based on two cases, Case I: CSPWM-based rectification and SPWM-based inversion scheme, and Case II: Rectification and inversion, both operations using the SPWM scheme. The proposed control scheme uses two Bi-directional IGBTs and two diodes, which are bridgeless, do not need a transformer, and are free from the output current sensor. The suggested scheme is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and implemented on DSPic33FJ64mc802 platforms to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach using two cases for a 1 KW system. The suggested control scheme provides improved PF, good voltage regulation, and depreciation in harmonics and total harmonic distortions (THD) compared to existing systems that enhance converter performance