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Objective: To assess whether applying betamethasone-gel to an endotracheal tube is more effective than using an unlubricated endotracheal tube in minimizing the occurrence of postoperative sore throat, hoarseness, and cough. Methods: 144 patients of the American Society of anaesthesiologists-physical status (ASA-PS) I and II, aged 18–65 years of either gender planned for elective surgery under general anaesthesia with endotracheal intubation were included. Patients undergoing ENT /oral cavity / oropharyngeal surgeries and upper respiratory tract infections were excluded. Patients were divided into two groups. In group X, patients were intubated with an endotracheal tube lubricated with 0.05% betamethasone-gel. In group Y patients were intubated with the unlubricated endotracheal tube. All patients were evaluated for the frequency of POST, HOV and PEC at 24 h after extubation. Results: Post-operative sore throat was present in 25 (34.7%) patients in group X and 29 (40.3%) patients in group Y. Post-extubation cough was present in 06 (8.3%) patients in group X and 9 (12.5%) patients in group Y. Hoarseness of voice was present in 04 (5.6%) patients in group X and 6 (8.3%) patients in group Y. A comparison of both groups showed a p-value of 0.0001 which is statistically significant. Conclusion: Using betamethasone-gel to lubricate the endotracheal tube markedly diminishes the frequency and intensity of postoperative airway symptoms. Keywords: Endotracheal intubation, betamethasone, sore throat, cough, hoarseness, anesthesia. more...

In recent years, Microgrid has become more attractive. A combination of renewable energy resources with load at the distribution level appears preferable. However, such a combination is challenging to work correctly. Power system indices such as voltage and frequency appear difficult to be within an allowable limit. This research will use a STATCOM compensator to increase the voltage stability of the power system containing wind and solar energy generation systems. The STATCOM based modular multi-level converter is designed to increase the output voltage quality and reduce filter requirements. The proportional and integral (PI) and integral sliding mode (ISM) controller is designed in a MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the STATCOM compensator in this hybrid system with both PI and ISM controllers. more...

The disease Leishmaniasis is a neglected illness with two major forms clinically including cutaneous leishmaniasis and visceral leishmaniasis. From almost 100 endemic countries, an estimated one million additional records of leishmaniasis each year are documented. In the past decade, the number of confirmed cases of visceral leishmaniasis has decreased dramatically as a consequence of an improved approach to diagnosis and care and more intensive, though usual cycles may play a role in the severity of disease transmission. In the cutaneous form of leishmania disease (CL), the lesion is located in some parts like the face and arms. Whereas a visceral form of leishmania (VL) disease the parasite infects internal organs such as the liver and pancreas. Reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) record leishmaniasis as one of the ignored temperate disorders for which the improvement of novel therapies is required. Significant evidence gaps remain, and new methods are required before leishmaniasis can be definitively managed. Recent advances in our understanding of leishmaniasis and its clinical manifestations, as well as the immunological aspects of leishmaniasis, are the key objectives of this study. more...

Organizational performance significantly depends on business intelligence. Business intelligence (BI) converts raw data into meaningful and useful information that managers use to make quick and improved assessments. Before implementing business intelligence in their firms, the manager must thoroughly evaluate it. Absorptive capacity (ACAP) and BI systems are closely related. We assessed the impact of the subdimensions of ACAP “acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation” on BI, Impact of BI on firm performance, and the moderating role of organizational learning. We adopted the quantitative method that comprises gathering secondary data from middle managers in Karachi’s banking industry and analyzing the data using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study found the dimensions of ACAP “acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation” positively affect the BI system. The BI system promotes firm performance. We also found organizational learning insignificantly moderates BI and firm performance. Managers can use the model to determine which areas of their company need more development before making the major financial commitment toward the BI system and to determine whether their company is ready to adopt it. more...

Introduction: Over 2 billion people worldwide, and 14.6% of India’s population consumes alcohol, 18.5% of whom are dependent.95% of alcohol users are males, with 74% falling in the age bracket of 18-49 years. Stressful life events and personality may act as important determinants in persistence of alcohol use, hence influencing long term treatment of alcohol dependent individuals. This study focuses on these aspects to fill in the dearth of research on this concept over the past decade.Methodology: A case control study was done at a tertiary care hospital with 80 literate male participants; 40 cases meeting the criteria for alcohol dependence as per ICD 10, and 40 age matched controls with no history of alcohol consumption. Participants were screened with General Health Questionnaire-12 to exclude other illnesses. All participants were administered sociodemographic proformas, Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire - Revised,. Results: Sociodemographic profiles of cases and controls were similar. Mean number of life events and undesirable life events were higher among cases, and mean number of desirable life events were higher among controls. Cases displayed higher scores in the domains of psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion. Conclusion: Alcohol dependent individuals differ significantly from life time abstinent individuals on personality variables and had experienced more subjective distress. A holistic approach addressing coping strategies, personality development, and education about substance use among adolescents would aid in individual and social well being.Received: 17 January 2023Accepted: 18 March 2023Published: 11 April 2023 more...

With an increasing need for enormous amount of computing power, different approaches for building inexpensive supercomputers have emerged. Decreasing costs and continuous technology scaling has led to the emergence of computers with ARM processors which are considered as a possible alternative to traditional x86 processors for creating High Performance Computing (HPC) systems. The aim of this research is to carry out a detailed performance evaluation of a cluster of ARM-based computers against a comparable low-cost cluster of x86-based computers and investigates whether these ARM processors are capable to substitute x86 processors for creating HPC clusters. Our methodology is based on experimental evaluation by setting up two cluster architectures. To compare the performances of both clusters, two complex applications were implemented: approximation of mathematical constant PI (3.14), a matrix multiplication program. Our analysis focused on execution time and speedup as performance metrics. From the results we observed that maximum performance achieved by both clusters is when the number of MPI processes are equal to the number of processing nodes on the cluster thereby allowing a one-to-one mapping of the tasks with minimal overhead. If we compare the maximum performances of both clusters in terms of execution time, the x86-Cluster performed 1.16× and 2.42× faster than the ARM-Cluster for pi_calculation and matrix_mul benchmarks. However, we noted that the ARM-based cluster exhibited superior speedup compared to the x86-based cluster, potentially attributed to the greater number of cores per node used in the ARM cluster. From the comparative performance evaluation, we conclude that ARM processors substantially lag behind x86 processors not only because of their limited resources but due to major difference between their instruction sets and architecture especially when it comes to memory-bound operations. This research underscores the challenges and opportunities associated with ARM processors in the context of HPC clusters, offering valuable insights to the scientific community looking for cost-effective computing solutions. more...

Physical layer security (PLS) has grown in popularity as it guarantees secure and reliable communication between wireless devices without restricting the ability of data analysts to eavesdrop. PLS benefits from the randomization property of the wireless channel, which improves immunity and protects against many dangers of information breaches from eavesdroppers. MIMO and Massive MIMO, which use numerous antennas at the transmitter and receiver ends, are fundamental technologies for improving efficiency in 5G and future network systems. The PLS still requires a significant amount of work before it can be employed in practical systems. The interception of eavesdroppers can be made difficult by adding artificial noise. This paper focuses on the physical layer security considering maximal ratio combining, and artificial noise with beamforming techniques to further enhance the secrecy rate. The proposed work demonstrates that the use of transmitter beamforming with artificial noise can significantly improve the degree of confidentiality of information being transmitted between a transmitter and an intended receiver while making it more difficult for eavesdroppers to intercept. The simulation results in terms of bit error rate show that the proposed method has a significant impact on the error rate performance of the eavesdropper. more...

The demand for construction materials in Pakistan has experienced a significant increase, particularly due to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which necessitates substantial amounts of resilient resources for infrastructure development. Parameters of rock strength, including uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), Young's modulus (E), and Poisson's ratio (ν), are critical attributes of rock materials vital for applications such as rock slope stability assessment, tunnel construction, and foundation design. Conventionally, the measurement of UCS, E, and ν in laboratory settings resource-intensive, requiring considerable time and financial investment. This study proposes to provide a comprehensive assessment framework using an adaptive boosting machine (AdaBoost), extreme gradient boosting machine (XGBoost), and category gradient boosting machine (CatBoost), to indirectly estimate UCS, E, and ν through streamlined mineralogical analyses. The performance of the boosting trees was analyzed using Taylor diagrams and a suite of five regression metrics: coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), variance accounted for (VAF), and the A-20 index. The results indicate that the proposed boosting trees robust predictive capabilities for the constructed database. Notably, AdaBoost demonstrated the highest efficacy in predicting the strength of carbonate rock, achieving R2 values of 0.98, 0.99, and 0.97, with the lowest RMSE values of 0.3164, 0.63, and 0.18, for UCS, E, and ν, respectively. Moreover, variable importance analysis highlighted that the presence of micrite and calcite has a significant impact on predicting UCS, E, and ν of carbonate rock. Furthermore, the AdaBoost model was validated using an independent dataset, which corroborated its predictive reliability. In conclusion, the proposed models present a highly effective methodology for the indirect prediction of essential mechanical properties of carbonate rocks, offering substantial time and cost efficiencies compared to traditional laboratory techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine the association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of interleukin-6 (IL-6) gene with the survival and disease status of patients after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It was a prospective cohort study of total 102 participants, 51 patients along with their donors who had human leukocyte antigen-identical-matched allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT). Their pretransplant and posttransplant blood samples were collected for extraction of DNA for genotyping by sequence-specific primers polymerase chain reaction and gel electrophoresis followed by sequencing. The pre- and posttransplant levels of IL-6 were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique. RESULTS: The mean age of our patients was 19.83 ± 12.5 years having males 65 (63.7%) and females 37 (36.3%). The frequency of −174G/C SNP among acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) group was GG = 53.8%, GC = 34.6%, and CC = 11.5%, and for −597G/A SNP, it was GG = 69.2%, GA = 15.4%, and AA = 15.4%. Our results showed that the presence of G allele in both homozygous and heterozygous forms was associated with increased aGVHD incidence, while the homozygous CC and AA mutant genotypes correlated with the lowest number of cases of aGVHD. The polymorphism −597G/A was significantly associated with the incidence of aGVHD with P = 0.04. The GG genotype in −174G/C and −597G/A was found to be significantly associated with aGVHD with P < 0.0001. High serum levels of IL-6 pre- and posttransplant were found to be significantly associated with the incidence of aGVHD with P < 0.0001. CONCLUSION: We concluded that the two SNPs − 174G/C and − 597G/A in the promoter region of IL-6 gene present either in donors or recipients predisposed to increase the risk of development of aGVHD following aHSCT. Their evaluation in our transplant setting may help in the risk stratification of transplant recipients early in time and predict the onset of aGVHD and mortality. more...

Objective: To determine the frequency of Blood Group A2 genotype among Group A Pakistani whole blood donors. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT), Rawalpindi Pakistan, from Jan 2019 to Jan 2020. Methodology: One thousand (1000) healthy and unrelated blood donors were selected. The blood samples were typed for ABO, and those of Blood Groups-A and AB were further subtyped with the help of anti-A1 lectin to categorize them as A1,non-A1, A1B and non-A1B Groups. Next, DNA of non-A1 samples was extracted, and a Polymerase Chain Reaction using sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) for type A2 was performed, followed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). Results: Among one thousand blood donors, 247(24.7%) were typed as Blood Group-A, 94(9.4%) as AB-Group, 339(33.9%) BGroup and 320(32%) O Group with variable strength of reaction with ABO antisera. A and AB Blood Groups were further subgrouped as A1 202(20.2%), A1B 77(7.7%), non-A1 45(4.5%) and non-A1B 17(1.7%). Anti-A1 antibodies were detected in 6(13.3%) of non-A1 samples. PCR of non-A1 samples showed 32(12.9%) to be genotypically A2, and the remaining 13(5.2%) were not A2 and were not further resolved. Conclusion: Blood Group A2 is not a rare Subgroup in our population. PCR-SSP is a more specific technique than anti-A1 lectin for establishing the Blood Group status of an individual. more...

Objective: To assess the relationship between obesity and insulin resistance in polycystic ovary syndrome affected women. Study Design: Cross sectional comparative study. Place and Duration of Study: Multidisciplinary Lab-I of Department of Biochemistry, Army Medical College, Rawalpindi, in collaboration with Pakistan Naval Ship Hafeez Hospital, Islamabad from Feb 2018 to Jan 2019. Methodology: One hundred and five selected females (puberty till 25 years of age) were divided into three groups of 35 each. Blood samples were collected an overnight fast (from 8-11 AM). Serum level of insulin was measured and insulin resistance was calculated based on HOMA-IR. Results: HOMA-IR concentrations correlated directly with Basal Metabolic Index, fasting plasma glucose and serum insulin levels. Mean serum insulin level was also elevated in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (normal weight & overweight) as compared to control subjects (7.4 ± 1.2 mIU/L & 9.1 ± 0.8 mIU/L vs 6.3 ± 1.1 mIU/L; p as 0.003). The insulin resistance was slightly higher in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome as compared to the control subjects (1.4 ± 0.3 & 1.7 ± 0.2 vs. 1.1 ± 0.3; p more...

Objective: To determine the genotypic frequency of RHC antigen in females of reproductive age. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT) and Pak Emirates Military Hospital, (PEMH) in collaboration with NUMS Pakistan, from Dec 2020 to Dec 2021. Methodology: Females aged 16 to 45 years were recruited in the study. Demographic data, including age, parity, ethnicity etc.,was recorded on a proforma. Venous blood samples were collected in EDTA tubes, and DNA was extracted using 5% Chelex TM. A conventional Polymerase chain reaction and amplified products were subjected to Polyacrylamide Gel electrophoresis. Results: Amongst 200 females, 172(86%) had the expression of RHC antigen, while 28(14%) were negative for the respective antigen. These results were valuable in predicting the risk of hemolytic disease in fetuses and newborns and alloimmunization in our population. Conclusion: Females in the reproductive age group had RHC positivity of 86%. This data will help predict the risk of HDFN in future pregnancies and individuals at risk of alloimmunization in RHC-negative women. more...

To determine the fears and myths related to blood donation in future health care workers. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out from October to December 2022 at the National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS), Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Donors were selected according to the, WHO recommended, Safe Blood Transfusion Program of Pakistan criteria. Results: In total, 411 participants were included in the study. The individuals were 21– 24 years of age, with a mean age of 21 years. In our study, females dominated (232/411); the remaining 179 were males. Out of the total 411, 145 participants had previously donated blood while the other 266 had never donated blood. Our study analyzed both of these groups. The most common symptoms experienced by blood donors were dizziness, post-donation weakness, and bodily aches and pains. Most non-donors feared problems related to their general health (42.3%) and developing infections (12.7%). P-value was 0.002, which reveals a significant association between fears and intention to donate blood. Conclusion: These results suggest that fears and concerns related to blood donation play a leading role in forecasting donors' attitudes and intentions. Motivation leads to inspiration and potential donors can be motivated by addressing their fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study numerically involves the performance of thermal insulation of different types of composite walls and roofs to demonstrate the best model that can be used for energy-efficient building construction in Iraq. The mathematical model is solved by building its code using the Transmission Matrix Method in MATLAB software. The weather data of 21st July 2022 in Baghdad City/Iraq is selected as a test day. The wall types are selected: the first type consists of cement mortar, brick, and gypsum, the second type consists of cement mortar, brick, gypsum, and plaster and the third type consists of cement mortar, brick, gypsum, air cavity, and sheathing timber. The roof types are chosen: the first type consists of reinforced concrete, gypsum, and plaster, and the second type consists of the precast concrete flag, river sand, tar, reinforced concrete, gypsum, and plaster. The obtained solutions are compared with previous studies for the same city but with different types of walls and roofs. The findings display that the second and third types of walls reduce the entry heat flux by 4% and 10% as compared to the first type of wall. Also, the results indicate that the second type of roof reduces the entry heat flux by 21% as compared to the first type of roof. The results confirm that the best models of walls and roofs in Iraq are the third and second types, respectively, as compared to other models and hence, the performance of insulation material strongly depends on the materials used while building them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Background: Learning is an ongoing process. To achieve desired learning outcomes of the academic journey, students must possess motivation, resilience, and effective communication skills. The positive motivation regarding the academic journey increase students' motivation for learning. This will benefit students to achieve desired results without major obstacles. Objective: To identify the nursing students’ motivation towards their academic journey. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Nursing students of first & second year were invited to participate voluntarily. Informed consent was employed before data collection. Two Nursing Colleges affiliated with Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women Nawabshah were selected as a study site and the duration was from 16th February to 28th February 2021. The convenience sampling technique was used to collect data through a structured, 28-item Academic Motivational Scale. Results: The response rate was of the survey was 100% as all the approached participants responded and completed the survey. The results showed that nursing students were extrinsically motivated (mean=3.78 & SD =1.19) than internally motivated (mean=3.41 & SD=1.13). The main reasons for their extrinsic motivation were to seek a good salary job and live a good life. Conclusion: Students were extrinsically motivated therefore the intrinsic motivation needs to be enhanced through improving the image of the profession among students, making them autonomous, self-directed, and listening to them for understanding their life situations. more...

Objective: To assess the outcome and complications of plasmapharesis in treatment of myasthenia gravis and factors linked to poor outcome at hematology unit of a tertiary care teaching hospital of Pakistan Study Design: Prospective comparative study. Place and Duration of Study: Pak Emirates Military Hospital/Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi, from Jan 2018 to Jul 2019. Methodology: A prospective study was conducted on patients of myasthenia gravis presented at our neurology department. All the complications of the procedure were recorded. Outcomes included recovery, shifting to intensive care unit and death. Pearson chi-square was applied to relate the factors with presence of complications or poor outcome. Results: Hypotension 3 (6%) was the commonest complication faced by the patients followed by chest discomfort 2 (4%) during or after the plasmapharesis. Out of 50 patients, 47 (94%) recovered, 8 (16%) had minor complications, 2 (4%) were shifted to the intensive care unit and 1 (2%) died. Long duration of time between onset of symptoms and first session of plasmapharesis had a significant relationship (p-value more...

The suggested process enhances the low contrast of the finger-vein image using dual contrast adaptive histogram equalization (DCLAHE) for visual attributes. The finger-vein histogram intensity is split out all over the image when dual CLAHE is used. For preprocessing, the finger-vein image dataset is obtained from the SDUMLA-HMT finger-vein database. Following the deployment of DCLAHE, the updated dataset is used to recognize objects using an improved 2D-CNN model. The 2D CNN model learns features by optimizing values of a preprocessed dataset. The accuracy of this model stands at 91.114%. more...

Objective: To assess diagnostic adequacy and histological outcome in pipelle endometrial biopsies of the patients presenting with abnormal uterine bleeding. Study Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Histopathology department, Army Medical College Rawalpindi, from Jan to Dec 2018. Methodology: A total of 220 cases, which presented with abnormal uterine bleeding and underwent endometrial pipelle biopsy were included in the study. The biopsies were evaluated in terms of material adequacy and histopathological outcome. Cases with bleeding due to complications of pregnancy, cervical pathologies and lower genital tract infections were excluded. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 22. Results: Out of 220 pipelle biopsies, 65 (29.54%) were inadequate for assessment while 155 (70.45%) were adequate to make a definitive diagnosis on histological examination. Among the diagnostic samples, chronic endometritis was the most common pattern observed, seen in 70 cases (45.16%). Other histological patterns included proliferative endometrium (29.03%), secretory endometrium (9.03%), exogenous hormone effect (7.10%), endometrial hyperplasia (3.87%), atrophic endometrium (4.51%) and endometrial carcinoma (1.29%). Conclusion: Pipelle biopsy is not as successful in our setup as it is in the developed countries. This technique can be used as an initial procedure in patients with abnormal uterine bleeding, however, in patients with high risk of malignancy where pipelle biopsy is inadequate, dilation and curettage is recommended instead of repeating pipelle biopsy to get adequate material for a definite diagnosis. more...

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of recombinant factor VIII FC fusion protein in haemophilia A patient receiving on demand treatment only. Study Design: Comparative cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Hematology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and Pakistan Hemophilia Welfare Society, Rawalpindi, from Jun to Dec 2017. Methodology: Eighty-nine male patients of Hemophilia A already receiving recombinant factor VIII (20-30 Units/kg) on demand, with no history of inhibitors were included in study. Patients were divided as per age into paediatric and adult group and also on the basis of their basal factor VIII levels into severe, moderate and mild groups. Same patients were switched to recombinant factor VIII FC fusion protein (20-30 Units/kg) and its efficacy was measured and compared with recombinant Factor VIII in terms of dose requirement, injections, bleeds in six month period, presence of inhibitors and side effects. Results: Eighty nine male patients were studied. There was significant reduction in dose from median value of 5750 units for group I to 4000 units for group II. Number of bleed in six month period were reduced from 5.3 in group I to 4.5 in group II. Number of injections were reduced on average to 1-2 injection per bleed in group II. No inhibitors were detected in group II. Conclusion: rFVIII Fc fusion protein has prolong activity and results in reduction of total dose, number of bleed, dose per bleed and has reduced antigenecity. more...

Objective: To observe thrombocytopenia in cases of Helicobacter pylori infection. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Hematology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from Feb to Aug 2016. Methodology: A total of 150 patients who were all tested positive for H. pylori antigen were enrolled in the study. The patients were taken from the outdoor of medical OPD who came with the symptoms of gastritis, heart burn, pain and indigestion. But none of them were bleeding. Sample size was calculated by WHO calculator. Non probability consequetive sampling technique was used. They were from either gender and their age varies from eighteen to seventy years. Exclusion criteria was strictly followed. None of these patients were suffering from HCV, HIV which can lead to thrombocytopenia. They were enrolled in my study before the beginning of any treatment for their H. pylori. Previously they were also not on any type of drugs that are known for causing thrombocytopenia. Their H. pylori infection was diagnosed by antigen testing in stool and platelet count was measured in blood by automated haematological sysmex analyzer in all patients. Platelet count was also confirmed by manual count on peripheral blood film examination. Data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 17 and presented as percentages and frequencies. Post stratification chi-square test was applied. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Out of 150, thrombocytopenia was found in 17 (11.3%) patients. Frequency of thrombocytopenia was significantly higher in older age groups. Twelve out of seventeen patients having thrombocytopenia were having ages between fifty sixth to seven teeth year. The lowest platelet count observed is 60 in this group. The range of platelet count varies between 60-95 in these seventeen patients. Their p-value was equal to 0.001, which was statistically significant. No significant difference was observed in male and female groups. Conclusions: Patients with H. pylori infection show thrombocytopenia. Most of these patients are in their older age group. more...

Abstract Modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) and hydroxyapatite nanorods (n-HA) were reinforced into polypropylene (PP) with the support of a melt compounding approach. Varying composition of f-MWCNTs (0.1–0.3 wt.%) and nHA (15–20 wt.%) were reinforced into PP, to obtain biocomposites of different compositions. The morphology, thermal and mechanical characteristics of PP/n-HA/f-MWCNTs were observed. Tensile studies reflected that the addition of f-MWCNTs is advantageous in improving the tensile strength of PP/n-HA nanocomposites but decreases its Young’s modulus significantly. Based on the thermal study, the f-MWCNTs and n-HA were known to be adequate to enhance PP’s thermal and dimensional stability. Furthermore, MTT studies proved that PP/n-HA/f-MWCNTs are biocompatible. Consequently, f-MWCNTs and n-HA reinforced into PP may be a promising nanocomposite in orthopedics industry applications such as the human subchondral bone i.e. patella and cartilage and fabricating certain light-loaded implants. more...

Objective: To determine the frequency of clinical features and cytogenetic abnormalities in patients of down syndrome and correlation of cytogenetic abnormalities with clinical features. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Haematology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rawalpindi, from Feb 2017 to Feb 2018. Methodology: Total 163 patients with clinical suspicion of Down syndrome were selected by non-probability convenient sampling and diagnosis was confirmed by conventional cytogenetic analysis using Giemsa trypsin banding technique. Clinical features were assessed and frequency of different cytogenetic abnormalities were noted. Results: Out of total 163 patients, 96 (59%) were male and 67 (41%) were female. Median age of the patients was 11 months. Trisomy 21 was detected in 158 (96.9%), Robertsonian translocation in 4 (2.4%) and mosaicism in 01 (0.6%) patient. The predominant clinical features observed were slaunted with eyes, epicanthic folds, depressed nasal bridge and protruding tongue. Conclusion: Trisomy 21 is the most common cytogenetic abnormality observed in patients of down syndrome. more...