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The aim of the study was to explore the effect of age, shoulder height and feed force on the muscle activity, productivity and heart rate for a simulated drilling task. Five healthy, right-handed male subjects were selected from the age group 20–30 years and five from the age group 30–40 years. The experiment was carried out at two levels of shoulder posture namely at shoulder level (shoulder flexion angle 90°, H1), and, 15 cm above shoulder level (i.e., approximately equal to shoulder flexion angle 120°, H2), two feed force conditions namely 4.5 kg (44 N), 7.5 kg (73 N), and a drilling speed of 2800 rpm. Muscle activity, productivity and an increase in heart rate were taken as dependent measures. ANOVA showed that age had statistically significant effect on muscle activity of flexor pollicis brevis and productivity. Feed force had statistically significant effect on productivity and increase in heart rate. The interaction of feed force and age had statistically significant effect on productivity. Grey relation analysis suggested that 30–40 age group, H2 shoulder height and 4.5 kg feed force gave optimum results. The knowledge of muscle activation pattern in response to age, shoulder posture and hand feed force will help us in, better designing of workplaces, enhancing worker’s productivity, endurance time and reducing the risk of musculoskeletal disorder development.

The higher consumption of fruit, herbs, spices, and vegetables is well known and practical strategy to cure human cancers owing to their presence of bioactive compounds. Among these, Nigella sativa is a promising source of bioactive compounds including thymoquinone, monoterpenes, p-cymene and α-piene etc. Thymoquinone has been found effective to inhibit the different cancer stages such as proliferation, migration and invasion. It also acts as anticancer agent against different human cancers such as breast, pancreatic, prostate, blood, oral, bone, head and neck, cervical, liver and lung. It significantly mediated miR-34a up-regulation, enhanced the levels of miR-34a through p53, and down controlled Rac1 expression. Thymoquinone induces apoptosis, regulates the levels of pro- and anti- apoptotic genes. It also has been known to lower the phosphorylation of NF-κB and IKKα/β and reduces the metastasis as well as also lowered the ERK1/2 and PI3K activities. Thymoquinone inhibits the metastasis through activation of JNK and p38. The present review article highlights the anticancer perspectives of thymoquinone in human by various pathways and use of this compound as diet based therapy has proven new pharmacological agent against several types of cancers.

Diet plays a key role to maintaining healthy life. Many natural products present in our diet, such as flavonoids, can prevent the progression of cancer. Quercetin, a distinctive bioactive flavonoid, is a dietary component that has attracted the attention of dietitians and medicinal chemists due to its numerous health-promoting effects. It is an outstanding antioxidant that has a well-documented role in reducing different human cancers. Quercetin exhibits direct proapoptotic effects on tumor cells and thus can inhibit the progress of numerous human cancers. The anticancer effect of quercetin has been documented in numerous in vitro and in vivo studies that involved several cell lines and animal models. On the other hand, the high toxic effect of quercetin against cancer cells is accompanied with little or no side effects or harm to normal cells. Accordingly, this review presents an overview of recent developments on the use of quercetin against different types of cancer along with mechanisms of action. In addition, the present review summarizes the literature pertaining to quercetin as an anticancer agent and provides an assessment of the potential utilization of this natural compound as a complimentary or alternative medicine for preventing and treating cancer.

The enhancement in both frequency and intensity of high temperature, besides its large variability will result in up to 40% yield reduction in rice by the end of 21st century. Vegetative growth in ...

Objective To understand the impact of platelet associated immunoglobulin G (PAIgG)/platelet associated immunoglobulin M (PAIgM) on severity of dengue virus infection leading to thrombocytopenia. Methods In this study we examined a total of 52 patients who were having secondary infection of dengue in acute phase by using competitive ELISA. Results A decrease in the platelet count was observed at the acute phase of infection while all along the recovery stage the count of platelet was significantly increased. A significant decrease was observed in PAIgG and PAIgM in these subjects. Inverse correlation was found between platelets count and PAIgG/PAIgM among the subjects studied. In the platelets elution from ten subjects, anti-dengue virus immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M were observed. PAIgG and PAIgM with inclined levels were higher in dengue hemorrhagic fever than the classical dengue fever. In the development of dengue hemorrhagic fever PAIgM inclined level was independently associated with high specificity, showing a possible indication of dengue hemorrhagic fever. Conclusions This study suggests that in secondary dengue virus infection, the PAIgG and PAIgM levels, and the activity of anti-dengue virus play key roles, both in the development and severity of the disease.

A rapid, simple, and accurate Modified Counter Current Immuno-electrophoresis (MCCIE) technique was developed and compared with the Reverse Passive Heamagglutination Assay (RPHA) for the titration of HPS virus. The MCCIE test had 100% correlation with the conventional RPHA and correctly titrated 116 samples which were already titrated with RPHA. Instead of horizontal electrophoresis chamber used in counter current Immuno-electrophoresis test, a modification in Counter Current Immuno-Electrophoresis (CCIE) test was made by using 1% melted agarose gel filled in 8 cm long and 3 mm narrow U-shaped glass tubing for the detection as well as quantification & titration of HPS virus. Results of Liver samples of 116 poultry birds including 16 broilers (6 livers were from clinically positive), 50 Desi and 50 commercial layers (adult) obtained through modified counter current Immuno-electrophoresis (MCCIE) were found similar to those found though CCIE and titres obtained through MCCIE were found similar to RPHA tests. The titres in MCCIE test were expressed as appearance of hazy colored precipitation band in the twelve U-shaped tubes. All of the six clinically positive liver samples gave positive results with titres ranging from 1:32 to 1:128. Of these 6 positive, 3 samples had 1:32, 2 samples had 1:64 and 1 sample had 1:128 titres. While none of desi and commercial layer was found to be positive. The results indicated that MCCIE is simple and inexpensive test as compared to CCIE & RPHA to detect and titrate HPS virus in the infected poultry liver samples. All the HPS virus isolates from HPS infected broiler livers and adenovirus group-I obtained from NARC, Islamabad and VRI, Lahore showed MCCIE & RPHA titre (1:64) with specific HPS antibodies.

Injection drug users (IDUs) are considered as a high risk group to develop hepatitis C due to needle sharing. In this study we have examined 200 injection drug users from various regions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for the prevalence of active HCV infection and HCV genotypes by Immunochromatographic assays, RT-PCR and Type-specific PCR. Our results indicated that 24% of the IDUs were actively infected with HCV while anti HCV was detected among 31.5% cases. Prevalent HCV genotypes were HCV 2a, 3a, 4 and 1a. Majority of the IDUs were married and had attained primary or middle school education. 95% of the IDUs had a previous history of needle sharing. Our study indicates that the rate of active HCV infection among the IDUs is higher with comparatively more prevalence of the rarely found HCV types in KPK. The predominant mode of HCV transmission turned out to be needle sharing among the IDUs.