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Protein nitrotyrosine is an essential post-translational modification that results from the nitration of tyrosine amino acid residues. This modification is known to be associated with the regulation and characterization of several biological functions and diseases. Therefore, accurate identification of nitrotyrosine sites plays a significant role in the elucidating progress of associated biological signs. In this regard, we reported an accurate computational tool known as iNTyro-Stack for the identification of protein nitrotyrosine sites. iNTyro-Stack is a machine-learning model based on a stacking algorithm. The base classifiers in stacking are selected based on the highest performance. The feature map employed is a linear combination of the amino composition encoding schemes, including the composition of k-spaced amino acid pairs and tri-peptide composition. The recursive feature elimination technique is used for significant feature selection. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated using k-fold cross-validation and independent testing approaches. iNTyro-Stack achieved an accuracy of 86.3% and a Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) of 72.6% in cross-validation. Its generalization capability was further validated on an imbalanced independent test set, where it attained an accuracy of 69.32%. iNTyro-Stack outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across both evaluation techniques. The github repository is create to reproduce the method and results of iNTyro-Stack, accessible on: https://github.com/waleed551/iNTyro-Stack/., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this research., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Anaemia is a major public health concern in developing countries, particularly among children, adolescents, and women of reproductive age. The study aimed to assess the anaemia status among adolescent girls, pregnant, and lactating women with their contributing factors in the southern rural regions of Bangladesh. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 adolescent girls, 375 pregnant, and 375 lactating women using a multistage cluster-random sampling technique. Anaemia was measured through haemoglobin concentration in blood capillaries collected with a Hemocue 301 machine. Multinomial logistic regression was used to determine the factors associated with anaemia. The average age of pregnant and lactating women was 24 years and 15.2 years for girls. Overall, the prevalence of anaemia was 50% among pregnant women, 46% among lactating women, and 38% among adolescent girls. The risk of anaemia among adolescent girls was higher among non-Muslim (aOR = 2.13, 95%CI:1.05-4.31), belonged to families having >5 members (aOR = 2.24, 95%CI:1.16-4.31) while exposure to media reduced their risk (aOR = 0.33, 95%CI:0.15-0.74). Pregnant women who consumed a diversified diet, washed their hands after toilet, and received ≥4 ANC visits had a lower likelihood of developing anaemia. Lactating women who were employed, consumed a diversified diet, washed their hands before preparing food, and after toilet, had been exposed to media, received ≥4 ANC visits, and consumed ≥90 IFA, had a lower risk of developing anaemia. However, anaemia was more likely to be associated with lactating women who were non-Muslim (aOR = 3.75; 95%CI:1.26-11.22). The high prevalence of anaemia emphasizes the need to reconsider the existing strategy for the prevention and control of micronutrient deficiencies in Bangladesh., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Ara et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is widely used as a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) tool for predicting wood properties. When deploying NIR models, one faces challenges in ensuring representative training data, which large datasets can mitigate but often at a significant cost. Machine learning and deep learning NIR models are at an even greater disadvantage because they typically require higher sample sizes for training. In this study, NIR spectra were collected to predict the modulus of elasticity (MOE) of southern pine lumber (training set = 573 samples, testing set = 145 samples). To account for the limited size of the training data, this study employed a generative adversarial network (GAN) to generate synthetic NIR spectra. The training dataset was fed into a GAN to generate 313, 573, and 1000 synthetic spectra. The original and enhanced datasets were used to train artificial neural networks (ANNs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and light gradient boosting machines (LGBMs) for MOE prediction. Overall, results showed that data augmentation using GAN improved the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) by up to 7.02% and reduced the error of predictions by up to 4.29%. ANNs and CNNs benefited more from synthetic spectra than LGBMs, which only yielded slight improvement. All models showed optimal performance when 313 synthetic spectra were added to the original training data; further additions did not improve model performance because the quality of the datapoints generated by GAN beyond a certain threshold is poor, and one of the main reasons for this can be the size of the initial training data fed into the GAN. LGBMs showed superior performances than ANNs and CNNs on both the original and enhanced training datasets, which highlights the significance of selecting an appropriate machine learning or deep learning model for NIR spectral-data analysis. The results highlighted the positive impact of GAN on the predictive performance of models utilizing NIR spectroscopy as an NDE technique and monitoring tool for wood mechanical-property evaluation. Further studies should investigate the impact of the initial size of training data, the optimal number of generated synthetic spectra, and machine learning or deep learning models that could benefit more from data augmentation using GANs.

Inadequate intake of both macro and micronutrients is the major determinant of micronutrient deficiencies in adolescent girls. This study assessed multiple micronutrient status including vitamin D, iron, vitamin A, and urinary iodine concentration among adolescent girls through two seasonal cross-sectional surveys conducted during dry and wet seasons. Mixed-effects linear and logistic regression analysis were conducted to assess associations between micronutrient status, salinity and seasonality. The mean age of the girls was 14 years. Vitamin (OH)D insufficiency was significantly higher in freshwater areas in wet season compared to dry season (wet season: 58% and dry season: 30%, P < 0.001). In wet season, risk of vitamin (OH)D insufficiency was three times higher compared to dry season (AOR: 3.03, 95% CI 1.71, 5.37, P < 0.001). The odds of vitamin (OH)D insufficiency was 11 times higher in fresh water areas compared to high saline areas (AOR: 11.51, 95% CI 3.40, 38.93, P < 0.001). The girls had higher risk of iron deficiency in wet season. Despite the environment being enriched with micronutrient-contained aquatic food, adolescent girls in coastal areas experience different micronutrient deficiencies. The high prevalence of vitamin (OH)D insufficiency in freshwater locations and seasonal iron deficiency in high saline areas needs attention., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Protein methylation is one of the most prominent posttranslation modifications that essentially regulates several biological processes in eukaryotes. Therefore, identification of the arginine methylation site is crucial in deciphering its characteristics and functions in cell biology, disease mechanisms, and guided drug development. The computation methods address the long-term bottleneck together with the cost, time, and labor required in experimental methods for large-scale identification of protein arginine methylation sites. In this study, we proposed a robust machine learning-based computational tool known as iIRMethyl, employing the primary sequence and physicochemical properties of protein along with a two-step feature selection method for optimal selection of feature descriptors. Moreover, the performance of iIRMethyl was comprehensively evaluated via k-fold cross-validation on a benchmark dataset and independent test dataset. iIRMethyl demonstrated a remarkably greater performance than the state-of-the-art method and achieved an average area under the curve value of 0.99 for both k-fold cross-validation and an independent test set in the identification of protein arginine methylation sites. Furthermore, the outcomes reveal that iIRMethyl is a robust and accurate computational tool for large-scale identification of arginine methylation sites and would facilitate the understanding of their functional mechanisms and accelerating their application in drug development and clinical therapy. Additionally, the prediction mechanism of the proposed model iIRMethyl is interpreted using the SHapley Additive exPlanation algorithm., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are a distinct sub-class of small non-coding RNAs that are mainly responsible for germline stem cell maintenance, gene stability, and maintaining genome integrity by repression of transposable elements. piRNAs are also expressed aberrantly and associated with various kinds of cancers. To identify piRNAs and their role in guiding target mRNA deadenylation, the currently available computational methods require urgent improvements in performance. To facilitate this, we propose a robust predictor based on a lightweight and simplified deep learning architecture using a convolutional neural network (CNN) to extract significant features from raw RNA sequences without the need for more customized features. The proposed model's performance is comprehensively evaluated using k-fold cross-validation on a benchmark dataset. The proposed model significantly outperforms existing computational methods in the prediction of piRNAs and their role in target mRNA deadenylation. In addition, a user-friendly and publicly-accessible web server is available at http://nsclbio.jbnu.ac.kr/tools/2S-piRCNN/.

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) play a pivotal role in maintaining genome integrity by repression of transposable elements, gene stability, and association with various disease progressions. Cost-efficient computational methods for the identification of piRNA disease associations promote the efficacy of disease-specific drug development. In this regard, we developed a simple, robust, and efficient deep learning method for identifying the piRNA disease associations known as piRDA. The proposed architecture extracts the most significant and abstract information from raw sequences represented in a simplicated piRNA disease pair without any involvement of features engineering. Two-step positive unlabeled learning and bootstrapping technique are utilized to abstain from the false-negative and biased predictions dealing with positive unlabeled data. The performance of proposed method piRDA is evaluated using k-fold cross-validation. The piRDA is significantly improved in all the performance evaluation measures for the identification of piRNA disease associations in comparison to state-of-the-art method. Moreover, it is thus projected conclusively that the proposed computational method could play a significant role as a supportive and practical tool for primitive disease mechanisms and pharmaceutical research such as in academia and drug design. Eventually, the proposed model can be accessed using publicly available and user-friendly web tool athttp://nsclbio.jbnu.ac.kr/tools/piRDA/., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Research Network of Computational and Structural Biotechnology.)

The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) is witnessing an increase in chronic disorders, including mental illness. With ongoing unrest, this is expected to rise. This is the first study to quantify the burden of mental disorders in the EMR. We used data from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) 2013. DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) allow assessment of both premature mortality (years of life lost-YLLs) and nonfatal outcomes (years lived with disability-YLDs). DALYs are computed by adding YLLs and YLDs for each age-sex-country group. In 2013, mental disorders contributed to 5.6% of the total disease burden in the EMR (1894 DALYS/100,000 population): 2519 DALYS/100,000 (2590/100,000 males, 2426/100,000 females) in high-income countries, 1884 DALYS/100,000 (1618/100,000 males, 2157/100,000 females) in middle-income countries, 1607 DALYS/100,000 (1500/100,000 males, 1717/100,000 females) in low-income countries. Females had a greater proportion of burden due to mental disorders than did males of equivalent ages, except for those under 15 years of age. The highest proportion of DALYs occurred in the 25-49 age group, with a peak in the 35-39 years age group (5344 DALYs/100,000). The burden of mental disorders in EMR increased from 1726 DALYs/100,000 in 1990 to 1912 DALYs/100,000 in 2013 (10.8% increase). Within the mental disorders group in EMR, depressive disorders accounted for most DALYs, followed by anxiety disorders. Among EMR countries, Palestine had the largest burden of mental disorders. Nearly all EMR countries had a higher mental disorder burden compared to the global level. Our findings call for EMR ministries of health to increase provision of mental health services and to address the stigma of mental illness. Moreover, our results showing the accelerating burden of mental health are alarming as the region is seeing an increased level of instability. Indeed, mental health problems, if not properly addressed, will lead to an increased burden of diseases in the region., Competing Interests: We would like to declare the following commercial affiliations: Dr. Anwar Rafay is employed by Contech International health consultants. Syed Danish Ali is employed by SIR Consultants. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Background: The eastern Mediterranean region is comprised of 22 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Since our Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), the region has faced unrest as a result of revolutions, wars, and the so-called Arab uprisings. The objective of this study was to present the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in the eastern Mediterranean region as of 2013., Methods: GBD 2013 includes an annual assessment covering 188 countries from 1990 to 2013. The study covers 306 diseases and injuries, 1233 sequelae, and 79 risk factors. Our GBD 2013 analyses included the addition of new data through updated systematic reviews and through the contribution of unpublished data sources from collaborators, an updated version of modelling software, and several improvements in our methods. In this systematic analysis, we use data from GBD 2013 to analyse the burden of disease and injuries in the eastern Mediterranean region specifically., Findings: The leading cause of death in the region in 2013 was ischaemic heart disease (90·3 deaths per 100 000 people), which increased by 17·2% since 1990. However, diarrhoeal diseases were the leading cause of death in Somalia (186·7 deaths per 100 000 people) in 2013, which decreased by 26·9% since 1990. The leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) was ischaemic heart disease for males and lower respiratory infection for females. High blood pressure was the leading risk factor for DALYs in 2013, with an increase of 83·3% since 1990. Risk factors for DALYs varied by country. In low-income countries, childhood wasting was the leading cause of DALYs in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, whereas unsafe sex was the leading cause in Djibouti. Non-communicable risk factors were the leading cause of DALYs in high-income and middle-income countries in the region. DALY risk factors varied by age, with child and maternal malnutrition affecting the younger age groups (aged 28 days to 4 years), whereas high bodyweight and systolic blood pressure affected older people (aged 60-80 years). The proportion of DALYs attributed to high body-mass index increased from 3·7% to 7·5% between 1990 and 2013. Burden of mental health problems and drug use increased. Most increases in DALYs, especially from non-communicable diseases, were due to population growth. The crises in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria have resulted in a reduction in life expectancy; life expectancy in Syria would have been 5 years higher than that recorded for females and 6 years higher for males had the crisis not occurred., Interpretation: Our study shows that the eastern Mediterranean region is going through a crucial health phase. The Arab uprisings and the wars that followed, coupled with ageing and population growth, will have a major impact on the region's health and resources. The region has historically seen improvements in life expectancy and other health indicators, even under stress. However, the current situation will cause deteriorating health conditions for many countries and for many years and will have an impact on the region and the rest of the world. Based on our findings, we call for increased investment in health in the region in addition to reducing the conflicts., Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation., (Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To explore if vitamin D deficiency had a direct correlation with bone pain or if it contributes in any way to the onset of osteoporosis., Methods: The cross sectional Study was conducted from February to May 2014, presented at Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, and comprised Orthopaedic outpatients. Who were questioned, examined and counselled, before a questionnaire was filled that included questions about their complaint, and its severity. Several blood test reports were incorporated including serum Vitamin D, to evaluate kidney and liver functions. Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry scans of the lumber and hip regions were also included. Data was collected manually and analysed using SPSS version 16., Results: The mean age of the 65 subjects, was 52.±16 SD years, and 54(83.1%) were overweight with body mass index of 29.7kg/m2. Besides, 61(93.8%) had a positive association of low vitamin D levels as a causative agent for bone pain with mean pain severity index 6±1 SD. On the other hand 25(38.5%) were diagnosed as cases of osteoporosis, and, of them, 21(84%) had low vitamin D levels., Conclusions: Deficiency of vitamin D was directly related to the intensity of bone pain. Some patients had vitamin D deficiency along with osteoporosis, which may have aggravating effect in this context.

Purpose: To evaluate the mid-term functional outcome using Lysholm score of anterior cruciate ligamentreconstruction using bone patella-tendon bone graft., Methods: The retrospective study of prospectively collected data was conducted at Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, from June 2010to June 2013, and comprised patients with complete anterior cruciate ligamenttear who were treated with diagnostic arthroscopy and open reconstruction using bone patella-tendon bone graft. All patients were operated under tourniquet control and knee immobiliser was applied. Straight leg raise procedure was started on 2nd postoperative day. One year after surgery, functional outcome was assessed using Lysholm score., Results: All the 36(100%) patients in the study were males. Four (11%) patients were lost to follow-up and were excluded, while 32(89%) completed the study. Right knee was involved in 16(50%) patients while left knee was involved in 16(50%) patients. Overall, 31(97%) patients had history of contact sports injury. The average age of patients was 28.25±8.32 years. All patients were operated at an average of 17.5±10.3 weeks. The ligament tear was associated with medial meniscal tear in 16(50%) patients, while lateral meniscal tear was noted in 10(31.25%). The mean Lysholm score was 83.06±4.17at 1 year (fair to good outcome). The average range of motion 1 year after surgery was 127.5±11.25. Loss of extension <3o was noted in 20(62.5%) patients, while >3o was noted in 12(37.5%). The average loss of extension was 3.5±2.3 degrees. Two (6.25%) patients developed superficial infection which subsided with oral antibiotics. Anterior knee pain was reported by 8(25%) patients., Conclusions: Patellar bone tendon bone graft was a reliable method for reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligament.

Objective: Functional outcome of Intraarticular Tibial Plateau Fractures fixed with precontoured anatomical plates using Knee Society Score., Methods: Observational study with retrospective review of collected data. Patient's demography, mechanism of injury, schatzker's classification includingtype IV, V and VI. All patients underwent screw and plate fixation using two incision technique with pre-contoured anatomical plates and intercondylar lag screws where indicated. Passive range of motion exercises started at 2 weeks. Postoperative knee pain, range of motion and stiffness were recorded at followup 3 and 4 months. Mean±SD were calculated for quantitative variables and qualitative variables were presented with frequency and percentages. The association of outcome (Knee Society Score) with gender, age and Schatzker's type was evaluated by applying Fisher's Exact test considering p-value <0.05 as significant., Results: Twenty-five patients were included in study. 20 patients were available and 05 lost to follow up. 16 were males and 4 females out of 20 patients. Average age is 36.2±12.89 years. All patients sustained injuries after RTA. 5 patients had postoperative knee pain while remaining were pain free. Average flexion was 123.8 with (SD 8.88)range of 105 to 135 degree. Average extension was 3.15 with (SD 2.41) range of 0 to 8 degress. 4 patients developed stiffness of knee. 2 patients symptomatic implant. All fractures healed at follow up at 4 months. According to Knee Society score (SD 7.65) 14 cases scored as good, 4 cases scored fair and 2 cases scored poor. There was no association of knee score was found with gender (p=0.493) but significant association of knee score was found with age (p=0.007) and Schatzker's type (p=0.028)., Conclusions: Tibial plateau fractures can be effectively treated by anatomical reduction and absolute fixation using pre-contoured anatomical plates. Functional outcome calculated by Knee Society score is better in young patients. With appropriate surgical techniques and early post-operative rehabilitation, good functional results can be achieved.

Primary omental torsion is a rare cause of acute abdomen and mimics common acute abdominal condition like appendicitis. Torsion of the greater omentum may be primary or secondary. Here we present 2 cases admitted through emergency with the pain in right iliac fossa with this unusual diagnosis.

Camel lens zeta-crystallin/NADPH:quinone oxidoreductase activity was inhibited by chloranilic acid (2,5-dichloro-3,6-dihydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone) with NADPH as an electron donor and 9,10-phenanthrenequinone (PQ) as an electron acceptor in a time-independent but concentration dependent manner. The IC50 of chloranilic acid was 1 microM. The inhibition was noncompetitive with respect to both NADPH and PQ as deduced by Lineweaver-Burk plots. The estimated inhibition constant (Ki) was 0.8 microM for both NADPH and PQ. Examination of other benzoquinones suggested that the presence of -OH and -Cl on benzoquinone was essential for the inhibition.

Hidradenitis suppurativa is a suppurative inflammatory disease of the apocrine sweat glands. It affects the apocrine gland bearing regions, the axillae being the most common site. It causes considerable morbidity and has several complications. The etiology is unknown and there is no standard method of treatment. A comprehensive review of the literature is presented demonstrating a paucity of information about this disease. The authors' experience and the management of the axillary lesion is outlined. Radical excision of the apocrine gland bearing area with split thickness skin graft (STSG) after one week is the method of choice. A reinforced sling is used for arm immobilization after grafting. The predictability of this technique makes it the preferred method of treatment. Also, more effort is urged towards better understanding of this neglected but serious health problem.

Forty-three patients who underwent intraperitoneal closure of colostomy are reported on. Complication rates of 4.6 per cent for wound infection and 4.6 per cent for fecal fistulas appear significantly lower than the 10 to 21 per cent complication rates reported for colostomy closure using other technics.