The Roles of Coenzyme Q in Disease: Direct and Indirect Involvement in Cellular Functions

Coenzyme Q (CoQ) is a key component of the respiratory chain of all eukaryotic cells. Its function is closely related to mitochondrial respiration, where it acts as an electron transporter. However, the cellular functions of coenzyme Q are multiple: it is present in all cell membranes, limiting the toxic effect of free radicals, it is a component of LDL, it is involved in the aging process, and its deficiency is linked to several diseases. Recently, it has been proposed that coenzyme Q contributes to suppressing ferroptosis, a type of iron-dependent programmed cell death characterized by lipid peroxidation. In this review, we report the latest hypotheses and theories analyzing the multiple functions of coenzyme Q. The complete knowledge of the various cellular CoQ functions is essential to provide a rational basis for its possible therapeutic use, not only in diseases characterized by primary CoQ deficiency, but also in large number of diseases in which its secondary deficiency has been found.

Assessing the knowledge and skill of vaccination staff at Adult Vaccination Counters for COVID-19 vaccines: Simulated client method

The Government of Pakistan has established Adult Vaccination Counters (AVCs) to immunize general population with COVID-19 vaccine. Different brands of COVID-19 vaccines have different protocols. It is important that the knowledge and skills of the vaccination staff at AVCs should be accurate. To assess this, a cross-sectional study was conducted in all 15 AVCs at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial capital in May 2021, using the simulated client approach. Structured open-ended and simulated scenario-based questions were used to collect data from the vaccination staff of AVCs. This study showed that 53.3% of the AVCs had at most three out of four brands of COVID-19 vaccines. 60% of the AVCs did not have the mechanism to track client’s vaccine first dose, date, and brand. Only 66.7% of the AVCs had a complete knowledge of all the available vaccines. 86.7% and 80% of the AVCs knew the correct duration and administration of the same brand of COVID-19 vaccine’s second dose respectively. At the client’s end, 6.7% were aware about the brand of administered COVID-19 vaccine. 46.7% were advised about the date of the second shot of vaccination. Only 13.3% of the clients were informed about the procedure of getting an official vaccination certificate. It was concluded that the knowledge and skill of the vaccination staff at AVCs is inadequate. Every vaccine has a different protocol in terms of number of doses and duration. AVCs must have a tracking system to inoculate the second dose with the same brand as the first dose. There is a need for rigorous monitoring and training of the COVID-19 vaccination staff on various protocols of vaccine to prevent losing public’s trust.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF UPADHATU AND ITS CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS W. S. R. TO SNAYU

Updhatus are important physiological units and are derived from Dhatus and resemble Dhatus in terms of structure, function and nature. Dhatus are the seven basic fundamental principles that support the basic structure which hold the bodily elements together and the functioning of the body. Meda dhatu is fourth among seven dhatus. During the process of metabolism and formation of Meda Dhatu, ligaments (snayu) are formed as metabolic byproducts (upadhatu). Snayu is the most important structure of the human body which helps to maintain the weight carrying capacity of the joint and plays a crucial role during the movement of the joint. The Snayu is much similar to the ligament. Any injury to the ligament is known as a sprain. Sprain is most common in sportsmen and hard workers. Common ligamental injuries are to the knee, ankle, wrist, thumb, neck or back ligament with ankle injury being the most commonly occurring injury. So, the complete knowledge of snayu very essential to prevent such injuries and certain disease conditions. Keywords: Updhatu, Meda Dhatu, Snayu

INSIGHTS INTO THE CONCEPT OF TRIVIDHA BODHYA SANGRAHA: A CONCEPTUAL REVIEW

Ayurveda being the Shashwatha Vijnana deals with many concepts which are applicable at all times. As the Pray- ojana of the Science is maintaining the health of healthy and curing the diseases of diseased person; in order to understand the disease, many concepts have been described among which Trividha Bodhya Sangraha is the prime one. This particular concept has been dealt under Rogachatushka of Charaka Samhita while explaining about Asan- khyeyatva of Vyadhi. It includes Vikara Prakruthi, Adhishtana and Samutthana Vishesha. In classical texts there is an elaborative description of many diseases; but as time passes a new variety of pathological presentations are manifesting which are not exactly similar to those mentioned in classics. There might be different Nidanas, different dosha involvement, different Adhisthana in the body and different Lakshanas. In such cases, a proper understanding of the entire condition is necessary to plan management protocol. Prior to that, there is the necessity of complete knowledge about Trividha Bodhya Sangraha i.e. their scope, application and limitations. Therefore, the present work is attempting for the same which will be helpful in understanding the concept and application of the same in practice. Keywords: Trividha Bodhya Sangraha, Vikara Prakruthi, Adhishtana, Samutthana Vishesha, Anukta Vyadhi, Aparisankhya Vyadhi.

Scalable and distributed strategies for socially distanced human mobility

COVID-19 is a global health crisis that has caused ripples in every aspect of human life. Amid widespread vaccinations testing, manufacture and distribution efforts, nations still rely on human mobility restrictions to mitigate infection and death tolls. New waves of infection in many nations, indecisiveness on the efficacy of existing vaccinations, and emerging strains of the virus call for intelligent mobility policies that utilize contact pattern and epidemiological data to check contagion. Our earlier work leveraged network science principles to design social distancing optimization approaches that show promise in slowing infection spread however, they prove to be computationally prohibitive and require complete knowledge of the social network. In this work, we present scalable and distributed versions of the optimization approaches based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo Gibbs sampling and grid-based spatial parallelization that tackle both the challenges faced by the optimization strategies. We perform extensive simulation experiments to show the ability of the proposed strategies to meet necessary network science measures and yield performance comparable to the optimal counterpart, while exhibiting significant speed-up. We study the scalability of the proposed strategies as well as their performance in realistic scenarios when a fraction of the population temporarily flouts the location recommendations.

Empirical Analysis of Re-Factoring Techniques

The process or technique of Code Re-factoring is restructuring the existing source code by making changes in factoring without any changes in external behaviour. The main intention of re-factoring is to improve non-functional attributes of the software. The advantages include improving the code readability and reducing the complexity of any given source code, and these can overall enhance code maintainability and produce a much more elaborated internal architecture or objectoriented model to boost the extensibility of the code. The effect that re-factoring has on any software project is analysable and customisable. But, before customising the factoring techniques, it is essential to have a complete knowledge of all possible refactoring techniques, and all its possible effects. Our main focus will be on few main re-factoring techniques like Red-Green refactoring, preparatory re-factoring, Abstraction re-factoring, composing methods re-factoring etc. Every software project has both internal and external attributes, that highly influence the software’s maintainability, reusability, understandability, flexibility, testability, extensibility, reliability, efficiency, modularity, complexity and composition. The research mainly focuses on the effect of re-factoring on them. Study of researched data will give us comparative analysis, pointing out both the positive and negative impacts, re-factoring can have. Overall, the project aims to perform an empirical study to find out the impacts of refactoring techniques. The research aims to explore the change in the quality of the code after re-factoring. Improvement, decrement and stability are analysed. Study is also done to find the possibilities of applying more than one re-factoring techniques, independently or in an aggregation. Keywords: maintainability; extensibility; reliability; modularity

Contribution to the knowledge of the genus Takobia Novikova & Kluge, 1987 (Ephemeroptera, Baetidae) in Central Asia

Based on the original type material, the nymphal stage of the mayfly Takobia maxillare is redescribed; in parallel, a lectotype is designated. Takobia maxillare is the type species of the genus Takobia, and an accurate and complete knowledge of its morphology is crucial to the delimitation of this problematic genus and clarification of its phylogenetic affinities. Ambiguous characters, previously reported for this species in the literature are clarified. Furthermore, two new species in the same genus are described, namely Takobia sinusopalpatasp. nov. and Takobia shughnonicasp. nov. based on the morphology of nymphs from Central Asia, supplemented with COI sequences. Implications for the systematics of Takobia and related taxa are discussed and the need for an extensive phylogenetic study of this group is stressed.

CONCEPTUAL REVIEW OF DASHVIDHA PARIKSHA AND ITS CLINICAL IMPORTANCE

Pariksha is the tool used to explore knowledge regarding the span of life, potency and strength of the disease. Pariksha is also used as Pramana in Ayurveda. The concept of Dashvidha Pariskha is described in Ayurveda which is very much scientific in terms of understanding the duration of life, strength of person and disease. Treatment principles may vary from patient to patient depending on strength of the patient and morbidity of the disease. Many scattered references are found in Ayurvedic literature which lay stress on research namely “Pareeksha karino hi Kushal Bhavanti" and many synonyms of research are available viz. Eshana and Anveshana. Hence patient is to be examined in respect of Prakruti, Vikriti, Sara, Samhanana, Pramana, Satmya, Satva, Aahara shakti, Vyayama shakti and Vaya is Dashvidha Pariskha. Tenfold examinations should be done to understand the overview of patient condition in relation to disease Pariksha must be carried out scientifically in a systemic and planned way to get a successful result. It is very much essential that before any treatment one should have complete knowledge of Roga and Rogi Bala. Keywords: Roga Bala, Rogi Bala, Dashavidha Pariksha, Vyadhi, Swasta.

Omniscience and ignorance

God’s omniscience generates certain puzzles, not least regarding how such omniscience is compatible with human free will. One option in this regard is to impose limitations on the scope of God’s knowledge, but that then poses the further question of how such limitations can be compatible with God’s nature as a perfect being. I offer a novel way of approaching these questions, which appeals to what I claim is an independently motivated distinction between lacking knowledge and being ignorant. In particular, it is contended that God’s omniscience is best understood not as a complete knowledge of all truths, but rather as a kind of deliberate non-knowing (such that the non-knowing does not indicate any cognitive lack on God’s part) that excludes ignorance. God might not know all truths, but that’s not because of any cognitive lack, and there is certainly no truth about which he is ignorant.

Clustering Application for Condition-based Maintenance in Time-varying Processes: A Review

In the field of industrial process monitoring, more and more interest is being shown in specific process categories. These include time-varying processes, that is, those processes whereby the response one receives as output from the system depends on when the input signal is sent into it. There are many reasons for this process variability and such contexts are not always analyzed with this operational characteristic at their core. At the same time, interest in certain categories of techniques is also becoming more prominent, to meet certain application needs. Among these, clustering and unsupervised techniques in general are gaining ground. This is largely due to the difficulty of finding fault data with which to train, for example, supervised models. On the other hand, the clustering technique, on which this contribution focuses, also makes it possible to compensate for the lack of complete knowledge of the structure of the process itself. With these two considerations in mind, this contribution proposes a literature review on the topic of clustering applied in time-varying contexts, in the maintenance field. The aim is to present an overview of the main fields of study, the role of clustering in this context and the main clustering techniques used.