Work Life Imbalance and Psychosocial Tribulations among Working Women

With the changing scenario, there is vast increase in the number of working women.Women are competent enough to contribute for the betterment of any of the organisation. They are sharp, intelligent, empathetic, flexible and with energy to work hard for the both fronts i. e. office as well the home. They are with dual responsibility to manage multiple tasks at home and at the work. The increasing expectations at both ends make the situation difficult for women , as a result they face difficulty in maintaining a required balance between work and life. This lack of balance results in further problems for working women. Because of work overload, career aspirations, competition, peer pressure at workplace and child care, elder care, relationship maintenance, other household responsibilities at home, it becomes very difficult for females to contribute to the maximum at both ends. And because of this imbalance, females remain with some guilt and stress, as a result came across with many psychosocial tribulations, that may affect their performance as well as health also. This paper examined the concept of work life balance and how women juggle for multiple tasks and as a result face work life imbalance. And paper also revealed that working women with dual roles suffer from psychosocial problems and different strategies have also been discussed which can be of help to working women in maintaining a balance between work and life

MR imaging of anterio cruciate ligament injuries

Background: Of all the ligaments of the knee joint the Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is the most commonly injured. It is an important pillar of the ligament stabilization of knee joint preventing anterior translation of Tibia over Fibula. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an excellent modality providing fine-resolution and multiplanar imaging without any radiation, for detection and evaluation of ACL injury with the associated injuries to other ligaments of the knee join. The purpose of the work was to study the role of MRI in classifying the ACL injuries.Methods: MRI Knee of 162 patients with ACL injuries was studied. All the MR imaging scans were performed on 1.5-T MR system (Siemens magnetom Essenza).Results: A total of 162 patients were studied in which majority of them i.e. 43 patients had interstitial sprain, 38 patients had complete tear, 33 patients had mucoid degeneration, 27 had partial tear and 14 had high grade partial tear, however 7 patients had normal ACL. There were associated injuries to the other ligaments of the knee joint along with ACL injury, medial meniscus tear being the most common and was seen in 39.50% followed by lateral meniscus tear in 9.87%, MCL tear in 6.79%, LCL tear in 1.85% and PCL tear in 2.46 %.Conclusions: MRI is a good modality for classifying ACL injury and evaluation of injuries to the associated ligaments

Protective Effect of Bombyx mori L Cocoon (Abresham) and its Formulations against Isoproterenol-Induced Cardiac Damage

Purpose: To investigate the potential activity of Bombyx mori and its formulations against isoproterenol (ISO) induced cardiotoxicity.Methods: Wistar rats were orally pretreated with the ethanol extract of Bombyx mori cocoons in two doses (250 and 500 mg/kg) for 30 days; rats were similarly pretreated with its polyherbal formulations incorporating Khamira Abresham sada (KAS) and Khamira Abresham Hakim Arshadwala (KAHAW) (800 mg/kg), standard drug metoprolol (10 mg/kg) and normal saline for 30 days. Cardiotoxicity was induced by administration of isoproterenol (ISO, 85 mg/kg, subcutaneous) given twice on days 29 and 30 in all six pre-treated groups (n = 6) except the normal control. Cardiotoxicity was assessed by morphological and biochemical evaluation and further confirmed by histopathological studies.Results: Pretreatment with Bombyx mori (500 mg/kg), KAHAW and KAS significantly decreased (p < 0.01) the heart weight:body weight (HW:BW) ratio; significantly decreases the elevated activities of the cardiac marker enzymes, namely, asparate transaminase (AST) (p < 0.01), alanine transaminase (ALT) (p < 0.01), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (p < 0.01) ,creatinine kinase (CK-MB) (p < 0.01) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) (p < 0.01) similar to the standard drug metoprolol (p < 0.01) in ISO-injected rats. Pre-treatment of rats with Bombyx mori (500 mg/kg), KAS, KAHAW and metoprolol challenged with ISO also showed absence of troponin. Pretreatment with B. mori (500 mg/kg), KAHAW and KAS significantly increased the activities of Superoxide dismutase (SOD) (p < 0.01), Tissue glutathione (GSH) (p < 0.01) and catalase (p < 0.01) similar to the standard drug metoprolol (p < 0.01).Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that Bombyx mori as well as its polyherbal formulations exerts potent cardioprotection against isoproterenol-induced cardiotoxicity. This effect is comparable with that of metoprolol.Keywords: Bombyx mori, Myocardial necrosis, Oxidative stress, Cardiotoxicity, Khamira Abresham, Metoprolol, Isoprotereno

Gene structure and expression of serotonin receptor HTR2C in hypothalamic samples from infanticidal and control sows.

BACKGROUND: The serotonin pathways have been implicated in behavioural phenotypes in a number of species, including human, rat, mouse, dog and chicken. Components of the pathways, including the receptors, are major targets for drugs used to treat a variety of physiological and psychiatric conditions in humans. In our previous studies we have identified genetic loci potentially contributing to maternal infanticide in pigs, which includes a locus on the porcine X chromosome long arm. The serotonin receptor HTR2C maps to this region, and is therefore an attractive candidate for further study based on its function and its position in the genome. RESULTS: In this paper we describe the structure of the major transcripts produced from the porcine HTR2C locus using cDNA prepared from porcine hypothalamic and pooled total brain samples. We have confirmed conservation of sites altered by RNA editing in other mammalian species, and identified polymorphisms in the gene sequence. Finally, we have analysed expression and editing of HTR2C in hypothalamus samples from infanticidal and control animals. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm that although the expression of the long transcriptional variant of HTR2C is raised in infanticidal animals, the overall patterns of editing in the hypothalamus are similar between the two states.Sequences associated with the cDNA and genomic structures of HTR2C reported in this paper are deposited in GenBank under accession numbers FR720593, FR720594 and FR744452.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Sugar alcohol provides imaging contrast in cancer detection

Clinical imaging is widely used to detect, characterize and stage cancers in addition to monitoring the therapeutic progress. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) aided by contrast agents utilizes the differential relaxivity property of water to distinguish between tumorous and normal tissue. Here, we describe an MRI contrast method for the detection of cancer using a sugar alcohol, maltitol, a common low caloric sugar substitute that exploits the chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) property of the labile hydroxyl group protons on maltitol (malCEST). In vitro studies pointed toward concentration and pH-dependent CEST effect peaking at 1?ppm downfield to the water resonance. Studies with control rats showed that intravenously injected maltitol does not cross the intact blood-brain barrier (BBB). In glioma carrying rats, administration of maltitol resulted in the elevation of CEST contrast in the tumor region only owing to permeable BBB. These preliminary results show that this method may lead to the development of maltitol and other sugar alcohol derivatives as MRI contrast agents for a variety of preclinical imaging applications

MR imaging of meniscal tears

Background: Menisci transmit the forces across the joint and cushion the mechanical loading of the joint. Thus, it is important to identify meniscal tear. A thorough understanding of normal meniscal anatomy and surrounding structure is critical for diagnosis. Magnetic resonance imaging is the current modality of choice providing fine resolution and multi-planar imaging for identifying the meniscal injuries and the various pattern of tear, helping to plan the subsequent management. The purpose of the work was to study the role of MRI in classifying the meniscal injuries.Methods: MRI Knee of 136 patients with meniscal injuries was studied. All the MR imaging scans were performed on 1.5-T MR system (Siemens magnetom Essenza).Results: A total of 136 patients were studied in which majority of the patient’s i.e.  90.44 % had medial meniscal tear while 18.38 % patients had lateral meniscal tear. Both medial and lateral meniscal tears were found in 8.82 % patients. Among the different types of tears, horizontal tear was the most common tear in both medial and lateral meniscus comprising 52.8 % and 52 % respectively. The tears being most common in the age group 41-50years. There were associated injuries to the other ligaments of the knee joint along with meniscal tear, ACL tear being the most common and was seen in 50% of patients.Conclusions: MRI is a good modality for classifying meniscal injury and evaluation of injuries to the associated ligaments. Secondary signs are good predictors of underlying meniscal tear in equivocal cases

A Fully Differential Digital CMOS Pulse UWB Generator

A new fully-digital CMOS pulse generator for impulse-radio Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) systems is presented. First, the shape of the pulse which best fits the FCC regulation in the 3.1-5 GHz sub-band of the entire 3.1-10.6 GHz UWB bandwidth is derived and approximated using rectangular digital pulses. In particular, the number and width of pulses that approximate an ideal template is found through an ad-hoc optimization methodology. Then a fully differential digital CMOS circuit that synthesizes the pulse sequence is conceived and its functionality demonstrated through post-layout simulations. The results show a very good agreement with the FCC requirements and a low power consumptio

Laser synthesis of ligand-free bimetallic nanoparticles for plasmonic applications.

A picosecond laser ablation approach has been developed for the synthesis of ligand-free AuAg bimetallic NPs where the relative amount of Ag is controlled in situ through a laser shielding effect. Various measurements, such as optical spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, revealed the generation of homogenous 15 nm average size bimetallic NPs with different compositions and tunable localized surface plasmon resonance. Furthermore, ligand-free metallic nanoparticles with respect to chemically synthesized nanoparticles display outstanding properties, i.e. featureless Raman background spectrum, which is a basic requirement in many plasmonic applications such as Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. Various molecules were chemisorbed on the nanoparticle and SERS investigations were carried out, by varying the laser wavelength. The SERS enhancement factor for AuAg bimetallic NPs shows an enhancement factor of about 5.7 × 105 with respect to the flat AuAg surface

Understanding prehospital blood transfusion decision-making for injured patients : an interview study

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.Peer reviewe