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Editor’s Choice : To Assess the Quality of Life in Patients Suffering from Allergic Rhinitis
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Abstract:Background: Allergic Rhinitis (AR) associated with impairments in patients day-to-day functioning at home and work is a global health problem. It’s associated with sleep disorders, emotional problems, impairment in activities, and social functioning. However, it’s not known to what extent quality of life (QOL) scores, work impairment, or sleep is altered in Indian setup hence, this study was designed to assess the quality of life of patients suffering from allergic rhinitis. Methodology: This prospective, observational, cross sectional study was conducted on patients suffering from allergic rhinitis visiting the out patients department. The patients who gave written informed consent were divided into two groups based on gender, Group 1 was males and Group 2 was females. A detailed history was taken and participants underwent thorough medical examination, followed by assessment on Rhino conjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire (RQLQ) and WHOQOL – Bref scores. Results: A total of 87 patients were screened of which 40 patients were enrolled in study. The average age of patients in the study was 28.08±10.01, a total of 26 males and 14 females completed the study. There were significantly worse non nose/eyes symptoms scores, practical problems, and emotional scores in patients in Group 2 as compared to Group 1. Group 1 had better aspect of sleep, nasal symptoms, and eyes symptoms as compared to Group 2. Whereas, Group2 had better aspect of activities score as compared to Group 1. Conclusion: To conclude both groups had compromised quality of life, with females being more affected as compared to males Keywords: Allergic rhinitis, quality of life, social, emotional, psychological. Download Full Article |
Microwave Assisted Reduction for Screening Banned Aromatic Amines in Azo Dyes
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Abstract: The study proposes a simple, novel and green alternative for the efficient reduction of azo dyes by the standard method, EN 14362-1:2012 (Annex. F) for detection of harmful aromatic amines in colorants, by incorporating microwave heating in place of convective heating. Basic dye response to reduction methods was explored by UV-visible spectroscopy and the results were confirmed through GC-MS and HPLC-DAD. Four azo dyes namely Acid red 1 (AR-1), Direct blue 15 (DB-15), Direct red 28 (DR-28) and Direct red 7 (DR-7) were reduced with sodium dithionite at 70 °C for 30 min in a buffered solution at pH 6.0, serving as a reference method. The decline in dye absorbance after their reduction was explored by UV-visible spectroscopy with carefully chosen bands of maximum absorbance from 300 to 700 nm. The alternative method exposed dye solutions to short microwave heating (10 s) and immediate cooling, in cycles till the desired duration of microwave heating was achieved. Results obtained from reference method were used for comparison with MAR (experimental method 1). Most prominent results of MAR were observed in the case of DR-28 dye. Hence DR-28 was further subjected to the conditions of experimental method 2, which was simply EN 14362-1:2012 (F) method modified with MAR. For standard method and experimental method 2, amines were analysed by GC-MS and HPLC-DAD. MAR methods were compared with reference and standard reduction methods for efficiencies. The total saving with MAR in terms of time and energy was ~70% and ~92% respectively. Keywords: Green Chemistry, Azo dyes, Microwave assisted reduction (MAR), Flash microwave, Banned aromatic amines. Download Full Article |
Exploratory Assessment of the Factors of Personality Trait of Mathematics Teacher’s that Effects on the Academic Achievements: A Statistical Surveyed Approach
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Abstract: The interaction between teachers and students is one of the aspect that helps the students in their career grooming because teacher's personality and their behavior is responsible for his/her effectiveness in the teaching and plays an important role in learning process in terms of achievement and success in the classroom as well as in their entire life. It has been proved that the personality factors such as extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, neuroticism and agreeableness are the key characteristics of teachers’ personality and behavior. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of teachers’ personality on students’ academic achievement particularly in mathematics subject. In order to pursue the objectives of the study, researcher used quantitative paradigm. Researcher adopted the survey research design for collection of quantitative data. In this way, Big Five Inventory (BFI) is used to identify the teacher’s personality type. This inventory comprised of forty statements about big five personality traits (eight statements about each personality trait). Moreover, the quantitative data is also collected from students’ midterm examination results from the chosen schools. A total of fifty seven public schools and forty five private schools were selected through stratified random sampling technique. The participants of the study comprised of public and private sector elementary 6th -8thgrade school teachers of Karachi, Pakistan. The reliability of the data is found to be around 0.7 of each construct in both sets of data. An independent t test was used to analyze the difference in responses of public and private school teachers. The significance value (P-value) of this indicates that there is statistically significant difference among responses of public and private school teacher’s responses regarding their personality styles that affect the academic achievement of the students. Furthermore, for an inside study a multivariate statistical tool “Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)” was used to explore and identify the most important factor in the data. Finally, four factors emerged in the data. The factors emerged in both of sets of data indicates that combination of Agreeable and Conscientious are the most important personality style of teachers that may affect the academic achievement of students. Keywords: Extraversion, Agreeable Conscientious, Factor analysis, Independent t-test. Download Full Article |
Editor’s Choice : Continuous Ethanol Fermentation in Immersed, Cross-Flow Microfiltration Membrane Bioreactor with Cell Retention
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Abstract: The key objective of this study was to devise a continuous ZeeWeed® membrane-based, immersed, microfiltration (MF) laboratory scale fermentation system for ethanol production with cell retention to achieve effective ethanol productivity, flux rates and sugar utilization. The new bioreactor was compared to the fermentation kinetics’ of the ultrafiltration unit.A synthetic glucose based medium was fermented by fresh, baker’s yeast to produce ethanol. The cells were not recycled; the medium was continuously withdrawn by filtration through an internal, immersed hollow-fiber cartridge. In this way, the inside of the membrane was exposed to the ethanolic solution, while broth with viable yeast cells remained outside the membrane. This design, with a cell retention system, provided much less membrane fouling (loss of about 76% of the original water flux after 96 hours of filtration) than while using the ultrafiltration (UF) external hollow-fiber membrane with cell recycling (loss of 97% of the original water flux after 2-3 hours of operation). Both modules converted at least 95% of glucose with biomass concentration of 30 g/L, and the final ethanol concentration of 62 g/L. However, the UF membrane became plugged after only 2 hrs of operation. The ZeeWeed® membrane operated successfully for 96 hrs with a final flux of 4 L/h m2 with ethanol concentration of 62.4 g/l, biomass yield 0.34 g/g and cell viability of 95.3%. This concept could be successfully used for biofuel production. A very strong positive correlation was observed between the biomass and EtOH concentration (R=0.98; at p<0.05). Keywords: Continuous ethanol fermentation, hollow fiber, cross-flow microfiltration, membrane bioreactor, cell retention, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Download Full Article |
Editor’s Choice : Effect of Biofertilizer Addition on Nitrous Oxide Emission
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Abstract: Application of nitrogen fixing biofertilizer, such as Azotobacter, has a potential for reducing nitrous oxide (N2O) emission. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of nitrogen fixing biofertilizer addition to common practices of urea and fresh cattle manure usages for maize (Zea mays L.) growing on N2O emission. The field experiment was conducted at GunungKidul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The treatments were addition of fresh cattle manure (M), fresh cattle manure added with nitrogen fixing biofertilizer (MB), urea (U), urea added with nitrogen fixing biofertilizer (UB), and control (no N fertilizer added). Nitrogen contents of the added urea and fresh cattle manure were adjusted to be equal. Urea and fresh cattle manure were given three times throughout the experiment period, i.e. 12, 30, and 48 days after planting (DAP). Urea was given at a rate of 44, 29, and 15 kg.ha-1, respectively while fresh cattle manure was given at a rate of 6000, 4000, and 2000 kg.ha-1, respectively. The emitted N2O was collected using a closed-chamber method at 24, 42, 60, and 72 DAP and were determined using Gas Chromatograph. Soil properties including available N (NH4+-N and NO3--N) and organic C contents were also analyzed. On the harvesting time, the harvest index and the grain yield were determined. Biofertilizer addition influence decomposition process of cattle manure and urea that led to mineralization and nitrification of residual organic matterand hence to cause soil NH4+N in the order concentration of M treatment > MB > U > UB>C, and soil NO3--N of MB treatment > M > U > UB>C. Reduction of NO3-N was resulted in the highest N2O emission of M >U>MB>UB>C(P < 0.01). The grain yield, and harvest index of maize wereresulted in the order value of MB> UB > U > M>C treatments.Available mineral N and soil organic C contents strongly affected N2O emission (P < 0.01).The results suggested that biofertilizer addition to common agricultural practices reduce N2O emission and simultaneusly increased grain yield, and harvest index of maize. Keywords: Azotobacter, urea, cattle manure, nitrous oxide.Download Full Article |