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BackgroundSouth Asians represent the largest non-white ethnic group in Canada. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA), home to a high proportion of South Asians, emerged as a COVID-19 hot spot. Early in the pandemic, the South Asian community was identified as having risk factors for exposure and specific barriers to accessing testing and reliable health information, rendering them uniquely vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection.ObjectivesTo investigate the burden of SARS-CoV-2 infection among South Asians in the GTA, and to determine which demographic characteristics were most closely aligned with seropositivity, in this cross-sectional analysis of a prospective cohort study.MethodsParticipants from the GTA were enrolled between April and July 2021. Seropositivity for anti-spike and anti-nucleocapsid antibodies was determined from dried blood spots, and age and sex standardized to the Ontario South Asian population. Demographics, risk perceptions, and sources of COVID-19 information were collected via questionnaire in a subset.ResultsAmong the 916 South Asians enrolled, mean age 41 years, the age and sex standardized seropositivity was 23.6% (95% CI: 20.8%-26.4%). Approximately one-third identified as essential workers, and 19% reported living in a multi-generational household. Over half perceived high COVID-19 risk due to their geographic location, and 36% due to their type of employment. The top three most trusted sources of COVID-related information included healthcare providers/public health, traditional media sources, and social media.ConclusionBy the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately one-quarter of a sample of South Asians in Ontario had serologic evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Insight into factors that render certain populations at risk can help future pandemic planning and disease control efforts.

BackgroundInappropriate force in laparoscopic surgery can lead to inadvertent tissue injury. It is currently unknown however at what magnitude of compressive stress trauma occurs in gastrointestinal tissues.MethodsThis study included 10 small bowel and 10 colon samples. Each was compressed with pressures ranging from 100 kPa to 600 kPa by a novel device to induce compressive “grasps” to simulate those of a laparoscopic grasper. Experimentation was performed ex-vivo, in-vitro. Grasp conditions of 0 to 600 kPa for a duration of 10 seconds were utilized. Two pathologists who were blinded to all study conditions, performed a histological analysis of the tissues. Patients were eligible if their surgery procured healthy tissue margins for experimentation (a convenience sample). 26 patient samples were procured; six samples were unusable. 10 colon and 10 small bowel samples were tested for a total of 120 experimental cases. No patients withdrew their consent. Two metrics of damage were quantified: an intestinal layer thickness calculation where the serosa layer was measured in the area of compression and compared to a local control and a histological scoring scale for tissue trauma.ResultsSmall bowel (10), M:F was 7:3, average age was 54.3 years. Colon (10), M:F was 1:1, average age was 65.2 years. All 20 patients experienced a significant difference (pConclusionA threshold was discovered that corresponded to both significant serosal thickness change and a positive histological trauma score rating. This “force limit” could be used in novel sensorized laparoscopic tools to avoid intraoperative tissue injury.

BackgroundIndigenous knowledge of medicinal flora is a baseline for the production of plant based commercial drugs. Current study was planned to explore the ethnomedicinal uses of shrubs in traditional health-care system of District Lahore. This study also aimed to represent the conservation status of these natural resources which are decreasing day by day due to their overexploitation and deforestation.MethodsThe key informants were identified by employing the snowball technique. Data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 103 informants from different localities (herbal markets, nurseries, gardens) of district Lahore. Collected data about medicinal shrubs were analysed on different data analyses parameters such as relative frequency of citation (RFC), use value (UV), informant consensus factor (ICF), fidelity level (FL) and relative importance (RI). In addition, SPSS 22 software was used for statistics analysis and interpretation of associations among different studied parameters.ResultsA total of 115 ethnomedicinal shrubs belonging to 50 families were reported to be used against different diseases. The study area was dominated by Fabaceae family (n=10). The RFC ranged from 0.02 (Deutzia scabra and Euonymus japonicus) to 0.85 (Rosa indica) while UV ranged from 0.01 (Cestrum diurnum and Garcinia aristata) to 0.23 (Jasminum grandiflorum and Hamelia patens) and RI ranged from 0.16 (Garcinia aristata) to 43.73 (Tabernaemontana divaricata). Moreover Lawsonia inermis, Piper nigrum, Punica granatum, Rosa indica and Vitis vinifera reported with 100% FL whereas maximum ICF were calculated by gastrointestinal diseases i.e., 0.45. On the basis of cluster analysis ethnomedicinal shrubs were categorized into two groups i.e., high valued and low valued. It was also found that most of the species in high valued group (n=29) were rare in study area due to their over exploitation. This study also documented 104 new use reports for ethnomedicinal shrubs.ConclusionsThis study documented significant indigenous knowledge about ethnomedicinal shrubs used by the local people of District Lahore. This knowledge could be worthwhile in discovering and developing new plant-based drugs. Apart from this, current study also revealed that most valuable medicinal species are declining in their number due to over usage and mismanagement. Conservation strategies for medicinal plants of District Lahore are highly recommended.

Salinity has a significant negative impact on the production of rice yield which will become severe due to recent climate changes. To cope with this increased soil salinity, we need to develop salt tolerant rice varieties that can maintaining higher yield. Rice landraces indigenous to the coastal region of Bangladesh can be a great resource to study the genetic basis of salt adaptation. In this study, we developed a reciprocal mapping population between a salt tolerant landrace Horkuch and a high yielding rice variety IR29 . We applied a QTL analysis framework to identify genetic loci that contributes to salt adaptive responses for two different developmental stages of salinity treatment. We identified 14 QTL for 9 traits and found most QTL are unique to the specific developmental stage. Moreover, we discovered a significant effect of the cytoplasmic genome on the QTL model for some important traits such as leaf total potassium and filled grain number. This underscores the importance of considering cytoplasm-nuclear interaction for breeding programs. Along with that, we detected QTL co-localization for multiple traits that highlights the constraint of multiple QTL selection for breeding program. Overall, in this study we identified multiple QTL for different physiological and yield related traits for salinity treatment for two different developmental stages of the rice plant. We detected a significant contribution of cytoplasm-nuclear genome interaction for many traits. This study also suggests the selection constraint of donor alleles due to the presence of QTL co-localization. Highlights We identified QTL for salt tolerance response for two different developmental stages of rice plant and detected a significant contribution of cytoplasm-nuclear genome interaction for few traits.