BackgroundGallstones have been regarded as one of the most expensive diseases in Gastroenterology, posing a great economic burden on developing nations. The majority of Pakistani people live in rural areas where healthcare facilities are not available or are very primitive. We aim to assess the characteristics among cholelithiasis patients from rural Karachi so that a prevention campaign can be launched in rural underprivileged settings to reduce the economic burden of this preventable disease.MethodA total of 410 patients were included in the study after giving verbal consent as well as written consent. Variables such as age, weight, height, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, waist circumference, number of children, monthly family income, number of siblings, and number of family members, were considered in this questionnaire. All data was analysed by SPSS ver. 16.0. Mean and standard deviation (SD) were calculated for continuous variables. Frequency and percentages were calculated for categorical variables.ResultsNearly 85.4% of the participants were female. The mean ± S.D. for age was 43.8 ± 9.59. Nearly 61% of the patients were illiterate. All of our patients were from low socioeconomic status and their mean salary ± S.D. was 6915 ± 1992 PKR (1 US $ = 90.37PKR). 75% of them were smokers with mean consumption ± S.D. of 7.5 ± 10 cigarettes per day. Fibre in diet was not used by 83.65% of patients. 40.2% were living in combined families. 61% were living in purchased homes. A positive history of diabetes mellitus was given by 45.1%, family history of cholelithiasis by 61% and history of hypertension by 31.7% of subjects. Soft drink consumption was given by 45.1% of patients; while only 8.5% used snacked daily. Tea was consumed by 95.1% of the subjects. Daily physical activity for 30 minutes was reported by only 13.4% of participants.ConclusionIn conclusion, rural dwellers from low socioeconomic strata are neglected patients and illiteracy further adds fuel to the fire by decreasing the contact with the health professionals. Assessment of the characteristics are very important because considering the great socio-economic burden, an intervention strategy in the form of mass media campaign as well as small group discussions in such rural areas can be formulated and applied to high risk populations to reduce the burden and complications of gallstone disease.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful disease, characterized by progressive surface erosion of articular cartilage. The use of human articular chondrocytes (hACs) sourced from OA patients has been proposed as a potential therapy for cartilage repair, but this approach is limited by the lack of scalable methods to produce clinically relevant quantities of cartilage-generating cells. Previous studies in static culture have shown that hACs co-cultured with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) as 3D pellets can upregulate proliferation and generate neocartilage with enhanced functional matrix formation relative to that produced from either cell type alone. However, because static culture flasks are not readily amenable to scale up, scalable suspension bioreactors were investigated to determine if they could support the co-culture of hMSCs and OA hACs under serum-free conditions to facilitate clinical translation of this approach. When hACs and hMSCs (1:3 ratio) were inoculated at 20,000 cells/ml into 125-ml suspension bioreactors and fed weekly, they spontaneously formed 3D aggregates and proliferated, resulting in a 4.75-fold increase over 16 days. Whereas the apparent growth rate was lower than that achieved during co-culture as a 2D monolayer in static culture flasks, bioreactor co-culture as 3D aggregates resulted in a significantly lower collagen I to II mRNA expression ratio and more than double the glycosaminoglycan/DNA content (5.8 vs. 2.5 μg/μg). The proliferation of hMSCs and hACs as 3D aggregates in serum-free suspension culture demonstrates that scalable bioreactors represent an accessible platform capable of supporting the generation of clinical quantities of cells for use in cell-based cartilage repair.

Objective: To compare depression, anxiety and stress between consultant and post-graduate trainee (PG-trainee) surgeons and to find the difference of different factors i.e. gender, marital status, physical activity, BMI, comorbidity and Income per month between the two. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study of eight months duration from March 2018 to August 2018 was conducted in Military Hospital and Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Convenient sampling technique was used. DASS 21 questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were entered and analysed by SPSS 22. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of participants was 37.44±10.512 years. Out of 68 participants, 54 (79.4%) were males and 14 (20.6%) were females. There was a significant difference between the consultants and PG trainees in terms of gender, marital status and income per month (p= <0.005) PG-trainees were more depressed and anxious but not stressed as compared to consultants (p= 0.014, 0.012 and 0.280 respectively). Conclusions: There was a significant association in terms of gender, marital status and income per month between consultants and PG trainees. A statistically significant association was found between consultants and PG trainees concerning depression and anxiety showing PG trainees were more depressed and anxious. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.7.1415 How to cite this:Khurshied S, Hisam A, Khurshid N, Khurshid M. Burnout among surgeons; depression, anxiety and stress between consultant versus post-graduate trainee. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(7):1745-1748. doi: https://doi.org/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background and objectives Barley is rich in bioactive compounds and can prevent some chronic diseases. With the increasing health awareness of the consumers, Qingke barley has been widely consumed in China in the Qingke barley fresh noodles (QBFN), Qingke barley dried noodles (QBDN), Qingke barley bread (QBB), and Qingke barley Chinese steamed bread (QBSB) forms. Preparation methods affect the phenolic profiles, content, and antioxidant capacity of these products. In this work, phenolic profiles and antioxidant activities of the above products were evaluated, and the effects of different preparation methods on the release of phenolic compounds were explained from the perspective of the destruction of the protein–phenol interaction by molecular docking method. Findings The main free phenols in these products were gallic acid, ferulic acid, and phloroglucinol, while the main bound phenols were syringic acid, epicatechin, and quercetin. The different preparation methods altered the free and bound phenolic compounds’ contents in different degrees. Compared with the mixed flour, the finished products showed fairly higher DPPH. Scavenging and reduction capacity, and QBB, QBSB showed a higher antioxidant capacity than the QBFN and QBDN. Molecular docking results predicted that phenols and proteins in these products form phenol–protein complexes bounded by hydrogen and hydrophobic bonds. Different preparation methods would breakdown these bonds, resulting in the release of phenolic compounds. Conclusion Different preparation methods changed the phenolic compounds content and antioxidant capacity in different degrees, QBB and QBSB have higher level of phenolic content and better antioxidant capacity than QBFN and QBDN. Different preparation methods may breakdown hydrogen and hydrophobic bonds between protein and phenolic compounds by different degrees, resulting in the release of phenolic compounds.

M. Khurshid is a second year biomedical student.© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Page 14.27.1 A First Year Engineering Affordable Housing Design Project AbstractA second year biomedical engineering student, instructors, agencies and members of the community worked together to design a first year engineering design curriculum for seven hundred and fifty entry level engineering students for the 2008/2009 academic year. The goals of the curriculum are threefold: to make students aware of our city's 10-year Plan to End Homelessness, to introduce a workshop on the root causes of homelessness, and to design sustainable, inclusive, affordable housing ( Fig. 1). This presentation will focus on a hands-on design project for all first-year engineering students. In 24 teams of 28 students, they will design affordable housing that is structurally sound, sustainable, cost-effective, aesthetically pleasing, functional, meets the client's needs and has community input. The 30-student team will be subdivided into 4-person groups. Each group will cover one of the following aspects: project management, urban planning, sustainability, interior design, building, costing, and architecture. Effective communication will be key to the success of each 28-person group.As part of this project, community members will be surveyed to consider their needs for potential future affordable housing developments. The surveys will be used to identify specific concerns the community has about affordable housing projects and how these homes/buildings can be better designed to minimize those concerns. Including a community voice in the affordable housing project may help to reduce NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard).This design project hopes to educate engineering students about the local issue of homelessness. At the same time, it will give students the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge towards a solution to an open-ended, real-world problem. This paper will describe the project details and will have examples of student design work.