Abstract Nanosized dioscin‐loaded zein‐CMC (DZC) complex comprising dioscin (glycoside saponin), zein (corn protein), and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is fabricated through anti‐solvent coprecipitation. The optimized ratio of zein to CMC for the homogenous complexation is 5:1, and DZC maintains its stability in a wide range of pH (3.0–8.0) and ionic strength (0–50 m m NaCl). No biological toxicity of DZC is found in Caenorhabditis elegans with a normal lifespan and body size. Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the loss of dopamine (DA) and dopaminergic neurons. In cat‐2 mutant with defective biosynthesis of DA, DZC‐fed animals show intact DA behaviors including basal slowing response (≈60%) and alcohol avoidance (≈80%). Such DA promotional effects are a result of the enhanced expression/activation of DA transporter, DAT‐1 in DA neurons. Taken together, DZC has a potential for preventing PD as an oral‐administered drugs and supplements.
Introduction: Autoimmune disease has got tendency to co-exist with another autoimmune disease. SLE and hypothyroidism are common autoimmune diseases. They may be associated with each other. Objectives: To find the association of SLE and Autoimmune Hypothyroidism.
Materials and Methods: This prospective case control study was conducted in the department of Rheumatology, CMH Dhaka from January 2017 to June 2019. Total 100 cases of SLE (Group A) were included in the study to see the presence of co-existing autoimmune hypothyroidism. Another 100 age and sex matched healthy controls without SLE (Group B) were screened for hypothyroidism. Verbal consent was taken and ethical issue was addressed. Data were collected in a pre-planned and pre-designed form after face to face interview, clinical history, physical examination and relevant laboratory investigations and plotted in tables and charts. Data were analyzed in computer SPSS Version 16. Chi-square test was done to see the level of significance.
Results: Total 100 SLE patients were enrolled in this study (Group A). Age range was from 14-65. Amongst them 96 were females and only 4 were males. Majority of them belonged to 20-30 and 31-40 years age group and frequency were 40 (40%) and 35 (35%) respectively. Out of 100 SLE cases 8 patients had coexisting autoimmune hypothyroidism, 6 patients had subclinical hypothyroidism and another 4 had thyroid autoantibody with biochemically euthyroid state. Amongst the control group only 1 had hypothyroidism, 2 had subclinical hypothyroidism and 1 had thyroid autoantibody with biochemically euthyroid state. The differences in two groups were statistically significant.
Conclusion: There is a strong positive association between SLE and autoimmune hypothyroidism. There are also overlapping clinical manifestations in these conditions. Therefore, thyroid screening test may be done in every case of SLE for early detection of autoimmune hypothyroidism to effectively manage both diseases.
Journal of Armed Forces Medical College Bangladesh Vol.15 (1) 2019: 10-12
Thyroid cancers account for 0.5-3.0% of all childhood malignancy. But these cancers are extremely rare in paediatric age group before the age of 6 years. Although the disease is biologically more aggressive in children when compared with adults, the prognosis is better in several series. We report and discuss a case of 6 years old child with papillary thyroid carcinoma, which is the youngest reported case in Bangladesh. Bangladesh J Otorhinolaryngol; April 2019; 25(1): 60-63
Nowadays, mobile health applications are developed to raise awareness and facilitate screening and treatment of cervical cancer, while a very few studies have been conducted focusing on the measurement and assurance of usability and exploring the acceptable user experience of such applications. Usability issues become a crucial concern for such cervical-cancer-related applications because users with diverse backgrounds in terms of education, information technology literacy, and geographic reasons are required to access those applications. The objective of this research is to evaluate the usability of mobile health applications developed for cervical cancer patients.Two evaluation studies were conducted following the expert evaluation and a questionnaire-based user study. A total of four cervical-cancer-related applications that are focusing on the Awareness and Diagnosis theme were selected and each of the applications was evaluated by four usability experts. Then, a user study (n = 80) based on the Goal Question Metric was conducted to reveal the usability problems of four selected applications. Finally, findings of both evaluations were aggregated and analyzed.Both approaches showed that all applications suffer from several usability problems while "Cervical Cancer Guide" performs better and "Cervical Cancer Tracker" showed the least in performance from the usability perspective. Again, the Goal Question Metric performs noticeably better in assessing the learnability of the applications, while the analytical heuristic evaluation performs better in identifying the issues that cause user annoyance.The methodology adopted and the usability problems revealed through this study can be well utilized by the information technology professionals or user interface designers for designing, evaluating, and developing the cervical-cancer-related applications with enhanced usability and user experience.
Lessons from the recent COVID-19 pandemic underscore the importance of rapidly developing an efficacious vaccine and its immediate administration for prophylaxis. Oral vaccines are of particular interest, as the presence of healthcare professionals is not needed for this stress-free vaccination approach. In this study, we designed a chitosan (CH)-alginate (AL) complex carrier system encapsulating an inactivated influenza virus vaccine (A/PR/8/34, H1N1), and the efficacy of these orally administered nanocomposite vaccines was evaluated in mice. Interestingly, CH-AL complexes were able to load large doses of vaccine (≥90%) with a stable dispersion. The encapsulated vaccine was protected from gastric acid and successfully released from the nanocomposite upon exposure to conditions resembling those of the small intestines. Scanning electron microscopy of the CH-virus-AL complexes revealed that the connections between the lumps became loose and widened pores were visible on the nanocomposite's surface at pH 7.4, thereby increasing the chance of virus release into the surroundings. Orally inoculating CH-virus-AL into mice elicited higher virus-specific IgG compared to the unimmunized controls. CH-virus-AL immunization also enhanced CD4 and CD8 T cell responses while diminishing lung virus titer, inflammatory cytokine production, and body weight loss compared to the infection control group. These results suggest that chitosan-alginate polymeric nanocomposites could be promising delivery complexes for oral influenza vaccines.
Software systems and applications developed in the modern era are created using various design techniques. These designs are specially created on specific themes and purposes. Present day military applications demand effective, efficient and satisfactory outputs in a highly portable package. Designing an efficient application exclusively for military use demands a professionally applicable design technique. In the existing literature, no specific design technique is proposed to implement a multi-channel (web and mobile version) military application. However, Interactive Dialogue Model (IDM) is a design technique specifically tailored for multi-channel (web, mobile) applications. As military applications need versatile use in multiple platforms, therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess the applicability of IDM to develop a multi-channel military application. As outcome, we developed a military software system for battlefield communication using IDM. An evaluation was carried out with eleven participants. As outcome, we found that the proposed system was effective, flexible, easy to use and supports multichannel features.
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