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Abstract Background Regardless of attaining adequate knowledge regarding oral hygiene, physical activity, and healthy eating habits, dental students still face oral health problems. This study was aimed to assess the association of oral hygiene habits, physical activity, and eating habits with the BMI in the dental students. Method This multi centric cross-sectional study was conducted from January to May 2021 in Pakistan. Three hundred and eighty-six study participants enrolled as undergraduate dental students, both males and females, were included in the study. A questionnaire used to gather data, was modified from a study conducted by Jouhar et al. Chi-square testing was used in order to assess the relationship between two categorical variables. Linear regression was performed to assess the association with putative confounders. Statistical significance was considered for p value

By and large, authentication systems employed for web-based applications primarily utilize conventional username and password-based schemes, which can be compromised easily. Currently, there is an evolution of various complex user authentication schemes based on the sophisticated encryption methodology. However, many of these schemes suffer from either low impact full consequences or offer security at higher resource dependence. Furthermore, most of these schemes don’t consider dynamic threat and attack strategies when the clients are exposed to unidentified attack environments. Hence, this paper proposes a secure user authentication mechanism for web applications with a frictionless experience. An automated authentication scheme is designed based on user behavior login events. The uniqueness of user identity is validated in the proposed system at the login interface, followed by implying an appropriate user authentication process. The authentication process is executed under four different login mechanisms, which depend on the profiler and the authenticator function. The profiler uses user behavioral data, including login session time, device location, browser, and details of accessed web services. The system processes these data and generates a user profile via a profiler using the authenticator function. The authenticator provides a login mechanism to the user to perform the authentication process. After successful login attempts, the proposed system updates database for future evaluation in the authentication process. The study outcome shows that the proposed system excels to other authentication schemes for an existing web-based application. The proposed method, when comparatively examined, is found to offer approximately a 10% reduction in delay, 7% faster response time, and 11% minimized memory usage compared with existing authentication schemes for premium web-based applications.

Objective: To deteremine the incidence, nature and management of extra-biliary complications of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Materials and Methods: This study presents a retrospective analysis of extra-biliary complications occuring during 1046 laparoscopic cholecystectomies performed from August 2003 to December 2006. The study population included all the patients with symptomatic gallstone disease in whom laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed. The extra-biliary complications were divided into two distinct categories: (i) Procedure related and (ii) Access related. Results: The incidence of access-related complications was 3.77% and that of procedure-related complications was 6.02%. Port-site bleeding was troublesome at times and demanded a re-do laparoscopy or conversion. Small bowel laceration occurred in two patients where access was achieved by closed technique. Five cases of duodenal and two of colonic perforations were the major complications encountered during dissection in the area of Calot′s triangle. In 21 (2%) patients the procedure was converted to open surgery due to different complications. Biliary complications occurred in 2.6% patients in the current series. Conclusion: Major extra-biliary complications are as frequent as the biliary complications and can be life-threatening. An early diagnosis is critical to their management.

Objective: To find out the safety profile of laparoscopic cholecystectomy in empyema of gallbladder. Background: Empyema of gall bladder is a severe form of acute cholecystitis with superadded suppuration. It has been considered a contraindication for the laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) because of fear of life-threatening complications. This study aimed to determine the safety and feasibility of LC in empyema of gallbladder. Materials and Methods: LC was attempted in 67 patients of empyema of gallbladder within 24h. However in few cases there was a delay because of reluctance for surgery or delay in giving consent etc. The procedure was performed by standard four-port technique with few changes made to facilitate dissection according to situation. Results: Between April 2003 to June 2006, 970 LC performed for gallstone disease at surgical unit-1 of LUMHS by the same surgical team. Among these, 67 (6.90%) patients were diagnosed to have empyema gall bladder. LC successfully completed in 54 (80.59%) patients. In 13 (19.40%) patients the procedure was converted to open cholecystectomy (OC) due to various operative difficulties of which the most serious injuries included bleeding from cystic artery (four cases), common bile duct injury (two cases) and duodenal injury in one case. Maximum operating time was up to 160 minutes (one case). Postoperative complications occurred in 10 (18.51%) successfully operated patients. Maximum patients (n=45, 83.33%) were discharged in 48-96 hours while three patients were discharged after two weeks. Conclusion : Laparoscopic cholecystectomy can be performed in empyema of gallbladder keeping in mind a slightly increased risk of complications even in the best hands. However, the experience of the surgeon plays a key role in the overall outcome.

Background/Aim: To study the changing pattern of acute intestinal obstruction at a teaching institute. Patients and Methods: It is a prospective descriptive study conducted at a teaching hospital during the period from June 2004 to June 2009. All patients with clinical or radiological evidence of acute intestinal obstruction were included in this study regardless of the gender of the patient. Patients below the age of 10 years were excluded from the study. The treatment strategy was planned ranging from conservative treatment to emergency laparotomy after resuscitation and rehydration of the patient. Details of individual patients were recorded on a pro forma sheet and data analyzed statistically on SPSS version 14. Results: A total of 229 patients with acute intestinal obstruction were admitted and treated. The mean age of the study population was 43.08 ± 13.07 years. Postoperative adhesions accounted for 41% (n= 95) of the total cases, followed by abdominal tuberculosis (25%, n= 58), obstructed/ strangulated hernias of different types (18%, n= 42). There was an obvious change in the pattern of etiology of acute intestinal obstruction as the common causes were postoperative adhesions and abdominal tuberculosis instead of obstructed inguinal hernias. Conclusion: An increase in the adhesive obstruction and a concomitant decrease in the incidence of obstructed hernias indicate a changing trend towards early operation before it gets complicated. Abdominal tuberculosis is emerging as another common cause of acute bowel obstruction.

A 60-year-old male, laborer by occupation, presented with an ulcerative lesion of medial canthus in the left eye along with infiltration and adhesion of lids to globe. He had decreased vision and restricted extraocular movements. Exenteration with skin grafting was done. Histopathologically it was diagnosed as periocular metatypical cell carcinoma with scleral infiltration. Any suspicious lesion should be diagnosed and treated early so as to prevent such extensive damage.

A 58-year-old-man presented with painful rapidly progressive bilateral proptosis with restricted ocular movements of 15 days duration. There was history of significant weight loss in the recent past. Computed tomography scan of the head and orbit revealed bilateral multiple, well-defined, round, soft tissue masses, isointense with muscles in intraconal and extraconal space. Fine needle aspiration cytology and incision biopsy from the lesion, urine for Bence-Jones proteins and immunofixation clinched the diagnosis of multiple myeloma. Skeletal survey did not reveal any bony involvement. The diagnosis of multiple myeloma should be kept in mind in cases of bilateral proptosis. Bony involvement is not universal in cases of orbital myeloma. Early diagnosis can be established with extensive biochemical and histopathological investigations and timely treatment is life saving for these patients.

Abstract Background To report a case of spontaneous corneal melting in pregnancy. We reviewed the literature on corneal melting and the effect of pregnancy on cornea and collagen containing tissues. Case presentation A 29-year-old woman who underwent radial keratotomy in both eyes followed by trabeculectomy in her left eye developed corneal melting in the same eye, in her seventh month of pregnancy. Despite screening, no infectious or immune mediated condition could be identified. She was managed conservatively with cyanoacrylate glue, bandage contact lens, lubricants and antibiotics. Conclusion It may not always be possible to find the underlying cause of corneal melting but the more common underlying causes should be ruled out by proper investigations. Pregnancy with its host of hormonal changes could potentially have some effect on corneal collagen leading to corneal melting in compromised corneas.

ABSTRACT Salt stress is the most significant constraint for agricultural production in arid and semi-arid regions. Thus, genetically improved stress-tolerant varieties are needed for the future. The identification of salt-tolerant genotypes is the starting point for such breeding studies. This study was conducted to determine and assess the tolerance of different watermelon genotypes under saline conditions. Twenty-two watermelon genotypes and accessions were grown in pots with 3 kg of soil in four saline stress conditions (0 mmol kg-1 as the control, 25, 50 and 100 mmol kg-1 NaCl). The detrimental effects of salt stress on the plants were evident with increasing doses of NaCl. Stress indices calculated over the plant dry weights under the 100 mmol kg-1 salinity level were used to assess the salt tolerance of the genotypes. Stress intensity was calculated as 0.76. Such a value indicated that the highest dose of salt exerted severe stress on the plants. The G04, G14 and G21 genotypes were considered to be salt tolerant, since these genotypes showed the highest values of K/Na and Ca/Na ratios in the plant tissue. The losses in dry mass at severe salt stress reached 75.48%. In principal component analyses, the genotypes had positive correlations with stress tolerance indices of MP (mean productivity), GMP (geometric mean productivity) and STI (stress tolerance index). The GMP and STI indices indicated that G04 (a member of Citrullus colocynthis), G14 and G21 could be prominent sources to develop salt tolerance.