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Background: The ongoing global pandemic has become the world's leading health problem, causing massive public fear and concern. Reports suggest that athletes are seeking mental health support, showing the pressures of boredom, and tension associated with their anticipated social isolation. The current study seeks to evaluate the evidence regarding the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on occupational stress in professional athletes.Method: A scoping review was conducted. A comprehensive search involving Embase and PubMed databases was conducted using a combination of the following key words: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, and athletes. In this study, articles were retained if they were original studies reporting on the impact of the pandemic on professional athletes.Results: Nine studies were identified as they investigated the impact of the pandemic on athletes. Most were observational and cross-sectional, and one was longitudinal. Outcome measures mainly investigated were level of depression, anxiety, and stress. Dependent variables were physical activity, nutrition, mental state, sleep quality, individual well-being, social identity, exclusivity, negative affectivity, alcohol consumption, psychological distress, and gambling habits.Conclusions: This review highlights the need for proactive engagement with professional athletes, coaches, trainers, and sports councils to facilitate understanding and awareness-raising, process optimization, and delivery of consistent training and psychosocial aid and occupational therapy programs that maintain the health and well-being of athletes while minimizing occupational stress during a pandemic. more...

This study aimed to measure and compare the shear bond strength (SBS) of a self-adhering flowable resin composite to dentin with a conventional flowable composite, and evaluate the various modes of failure. Thirty human premolar teeth (n = 30) were randomly allocated to two groups (Group I: Vertise™ Flow, Group II: Filtek Ultimate + Single Bond Universal) of 15 specimens each, and SBS was measured for specimens from each group by applying a shear load using a universal testing machine (UTM). Modes of failure were observed with an optical microscope. An independent-samples T-test was performed to test Levene’s assumption of homogeneity of variance across both groups, with the critical value set at 0.05. The results revealed, that the self-adhering flowable composite (Group I: Vertise™ Flow) resulted in a lower shear bond strength compared with the conventional adhesive system composite (Group II: Filtek Ultimate + Single Bond Universal). Moreover, group I predominantly exhibited non-cohesive failure, which reflects poor bonding to dentin. On the other hand, Group II showed mixed failure for most of the samples, which demonstrated strong adhesive bonding. Therefore, it could be concluded that the self-adhering flowable resin composite (Group I) results in lower SBS to dentin compared with a conventional adhesive system. more...

Aim: Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of dental caries and periodontal status among Down’s syndrome population in Riyadh City. Materials and Methods: A total of 81 male Down’s syndrome subjects were examined in this study. All subjects were recruited from the Saudi Center for Down Syndrome, Riyadh. Clinical examination was carried out by a single precalibrated examiner. Dental caries experience was counted according to the DMFT (decayed, missing, and filled teeth) indexes. Periodontal status was evaluated by using plaque and gingival indexes. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 19 version. Consequently, Pearson chi-square test and Fisher exact test was used to calculate p-value for parametric variables. Results: In this study 11.1% of the subjects were not having any decayed teeth, 39.5% were not having any missing teeth, and 55.6% were not having any filled teeth. In plaque index, maximum number of subjects in all the age group were in the fair group, and there was a highly significant (P value more...

The well-known detrimental effects of cadmium (Cd) on plants are chloroplast destruction, photosynthetic pigment inhibition, imbalance of essential plant nutrients, and membrane damage. Jasmonic acid (JA) is an alleviator against different stresses such as salinity and drought. However, the functional attributes of JA in plants such as the interactive effects of JA application and Cd on rapeseed in response to heavy metal stress remain unclear. JA at 50 μmol/L was observed in literature to have senescence effects in plants. In the present study, 25 μmol/L JA is observed to be a “stress ameliorating molecule” by improving the tolerance of rapeseed plants to Cd toxicity. JA reduces the Cd uptake in the leaves, thereby reducing membrane damage and malondialdehyde content and increasing the essential nutrient uptake. Furthermore, JA shields the chloroplast against the damaging effects of Cd, thereby increasing gas exchange and photosynthetic pigments. Moreover, JA modulates the antioxidant enzyme activity to strengthen the internal defense system. Our results demonstrate the function of JA in alleviating Cd toxicity and its underlying mechanism. Moreover, JA attenuates the damage of Cd to plants. This study enriches our knowledge regarding the use of and protection provided by JA in Cd stress. more...

Antimicrobial agents are the gift of science against pathogenic microorganisms causing infectious diseases. Antibacterial drugs are specifically used against bacteria and are of two types, i.e., bacteriostatic that can inhibit bacterial growth and bactericidal that can cause death of bacteria. Antibacterial mainly target either cell wall synthesis (like beta-lactams, vancomycin), bacterial protein synthesis (like tetracycline, clindamycin, streptogramins, chloramphenicol, aminoglycosides, and linezolid), or nucleic acid metabolism of bacteria (like sulfonamides, trimethoprim, quinolones). Infectious diseases are the major reason of premature deaths. Mortality rate due to these ailments raised up to 50,000/day deaths in last decades. Over the past few years, optimization of the use of antibiotics has gained much concern owing to the alarming increase in bacterial resistance and lack of new antibiotic classes under development. For the optimum effect and low toxicity we prefer those antimicrobials having high oral bioavailability. Bioavailability is the portion of dose after administration by route that is bioavailable in systemic circulation without any change in characteristics for its therapeutic effect. It is one of the basic pharmacokinetic properties of drugs. Bioavailability is an important factor because it defines the dose of drug to be administered for its desired therapeutic effect. The more bioavailable a drug is, the less of its amount will be required to attain therapeutic effect and so lower will be the body exposure for high dose. more...

Introduction The obesity has been found to be associated with many gastrointestinal disease conditions like GERD, Hiatus hernia and Helicobacter pylori. The choice between performing routine and selective upper endoscopy in the preoperative preparation of all obese patients presenting for bariatric surgery remains controversial. Methods We conducted a retrospective record based study on 184 patients with obesity, who were undergone endoscopy before bariatric surgery over a period of 2015–2020 at Gastroenterology clinic, Aseer Central Hospital, Abha, Saudi Arabia. Results The highest proportion was aged between 35 and 44 years (36.4%) where most of them had morbid obesity (84.8%). The most common abnormal endoscopic findings were Hiatus hernia (23.4%), Gastritis (59.2%); 14.1% had duodenitis and 4.3% had ulcers. Conclusion In conclusion, according to the higher percentage of a large range of disorders in upper-GI tract in obese patients, we suggest that routine preoperative endoscopy prior in bariatric surgery patients may help in the discovery of GI pathologies that may affect not only the surgery procedure but also the bariatric follow-up. more...

Oral microbiota is a vital part of human microbiota, including bacterial, protozoa, viral and fungal species. Beneficial microbes form biofilms to form a first-line defense against harmful microorganisms. Tobacco smoking is considered a major environmental factor affecting the orodental microbiota. Smokers harbor more pathogenic microbes than non-smokers. In fact, cigarette smoking exposes the oral cavity to a large number of toxicants, perturbing the oral microbial ecology through various mechanisms. In Saudi Arabia, research on the impact of tobacco smoking on oral microbiota is still lacking. Therefore, this case-control study is an important addition to the literature in terms of tobacco use and its effects on oral microbiota and oral hygiene. 130 men were recruited for this study, including 65 smokers and 65 non-smokers. The following parameters were recorded for all 130 participants – age, weight, height and education. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the effect of tobacco smoking on the oral microbiome of smokers and non-smokers. The majority of the smokers were young adults between the ages of 21 and 30 inclusive (n=27). The results show that excessive microorganism growth was seen in smokers to a greater degree than non-smokers (38.5% of smokers vs. 8.8% of non-smokers). Not surprisingly, a significant majority (85.3%) of non-smokers had moderate microorganism growth compared to only 53.8% of smokers. cigarette smoking facilitates excessive growth of oral microorganisms, predisposing smokers to various periodontal diseases. In fact, smoking perturbs the balance of oral microbiota, producing a viable environment for microbes to cause diseases. Further large scale prospective studies are required to determine the exact mechanism that causes tobacco to affect oral microbiota. more...

Application of advanced oxidation process for wastewater treatment has gained more attention recently. In this study, the efficiency of coagulation–flocculation pretreatment coupled with sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation process (SR-AOP) in the removal and mineralization of organic matter of sugarcane vinasse was evaluated. For coagulation–flocculation, jar-test experiment was carried out with ferric chloride as coagulant and the removal of TOC, color and UV254 was determined. The results revealed that by using 15 g/L of coagulant, 70 % of TOC removal and nearly 100 % of UV254 and color removal were achieved. The pretreated vinasse was then subjected to SR-AOP. In this study, sulfate radical was generated using persulfate (PS) and peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activated by Fe(II). The effect of reaction time, oxidants to Fe(II) ratio and pH on the TOC removal efficiency were investigated. For the effect of reaction time, the TOC removal was found to increase significantly for the first 5 min. TOC removal was found to increase with increasing concentration of Fe(II) for PMS. However, for Fe(II)/PS, the TOC removal efficiency was decreased with increasing Fe(II) concentration. Both Fe(II)/PMS and Fe(II)/PS showed the highest TOC removal efficiency when the oxidation was carried out at pH 7. By using the selected optimum condition, nearly 70 and 49 % of TOC removal were achieved for PMS/Fe(II) and PS/Fe(II), respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that SR-AOP can be a promising alternative method for TOC removal from sugarcane vinasse. more...

To assess the potential role of salicylic acid (SA) in plants under cadmium (Cd) stress, a study was conducted on three different oilseed rape (Brassica napus) genotypes. Gas exchange parameters, photosynthetic pigments, antioxidant enzymes activities, mineral nutrients concentration, and ultrastructural analysis were carried out for assessment. Interestingly, cadmium treatment reduced gas exchange parameters, photosynthetic pigments, mineral elements [calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and iron] and the activity of catalase (CAT) enzyme. Whereas, a pronounced increase was observed in malondialdehyde content and antioxidant enzymes, cadmium and zinc accumulation. Impressively, SA played its role as an alleviatory agent by reducing the damage to all parameters caused by Cd except internal CO2 concentration which was further decreased by SA. Even more, Cd and SA showed synergistic effects by increasing superoxide dismutase, peroxidases, ascorbate peroxidase, guaiacol peroxidase, glutathione reductase and decreasing CAT. Apart from affecting the enzyme activities of oilseed rape, both Cd and SA had the same inhibitory effects on Ca and Mg concentrations. Damage caused by Cd to chloroplast and other internal organelles were almost rectified by SA. Effective role of SA, in alleviating Cd toxicity, could be attributed to the SA-induced improvement of photosynthetic activities, enhancement of antioxidant enzymes activities, reduction in lipid peroxidation and Cd uptake. These findings reflect the possible role of SA as a potential inhibitor of cadmium toxicity by strengthening the internal immunity in oilseed rape. more...

Signal pathways accountable for the sensing and transduction of the metal stress signal in the cell, eventually leads to the induction of signaling molecules especially transcription factors and enzymes, followed by the expression of genes involved in the neutralization of metal stress. In order to respond to stress signals, plant cells are equipped to perceive these signals and switch them into appropriate responses, which in turn confer on plants the competence to tolerate, avoid or escape unfavorable conditions. Generally, Plant signaling pathways can be classified on the bases of their response to internal and external stimuli. Tolerance to unfavorable conditions entails harmonization of complex physiological, biochemical and molecular processes such as changes in global gene expression, protein modification and metabolite compositions. The aim of this chapter is to present: (1) the nature of chemicals which are produced following perception of metal stress and carry the message in the cell to respond either directly or indirectly by regulating the expression of genes leading to altered functions or enhance the capacity of the already existing defense metabolites; (2) to dissect the pathways in order to find the function of each component in metal stress signal. Thus, stress signaling is a vital spot in order to boost crops yield under sub-optimal conditions. more...

We report a case of primary intracranial leiomyoma in 29-year-old woman presented with severe headache. The radiology diagnosis was consistent with meningioma. However, histologically, the tumor had the characteristic appearance of benign smooth muscle. This was confirmed by immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy. Benign metastasizing leiomyoma was excluded by thorough imaging. Although rare, leiomyoma should be considered in the differential diagnosis of well-circumscribed intracranial lesion. more...