EFFECT OF YOGA ON DEPRESSION AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN DRUG ABUSERS

Background: Drug abuse including alcohol may lead to health problems, social problems, morbidity, injuries, unprotected sex, violence, deaths, motor vehicle accidents, homicides, suicides, physical dependence or psychological addiction. Objectives: To study the efficacy of yoga on Quality of life of drug abusers and to study the efficacy of Yoga on measures of depression of drug abusers. Methods and Materials: 66 drug abused males with the mean age of 32.50±9.86 years participated in the randomized control trial pre and post study. BDI-II and WHOQOL-BREF were used to assess depression score and quality of life before and after. Statistical analysis: Shapiro - Wilk, Wilcoxon signed rank test and Mann Whitney test were used for analyzing the data with the help of SPSS 16. Results: There was significant reduction after yoga intervention in depression scores (BDI-II) (p=0.000) and significant increase in Quality of life Domain 1, 2 and 3 (p=0.000, p=0.043, p=0.015). There was no significant increase in QOL Domain 4 (p=0.089). Regarding wait list control group, after the intervention programme, there was significant reduction in depression score, (p=0.040) and no significant increase in QOLBREF score in all four domains. Conclusion: Thus this study has shown that Yoga practice can help in reducing depression symptoms and increased quality of life in drug abuser

Level of awareness of pregnant women on prenatal care in Barangay Paliparan 1 – III Dasmarinas City, Cavite

Demographic variables used were age, age of gestation, educational attainment and monthly family income. This study utilized descriptive research design employing the survey technique. The survey was accomplished using a self-made questionnaire validated by two (2) registered nurses, two (2) doctors and one (1) faculty member. Using quota sampling technique, there were 300 respondents included in the study. The gathered data was treated using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, f-ratio, p-value and analysis of variance. Based on the results, (1) majority of the pregnant women in Barangay Paliparan I-III Dasmarinas City, Cavite in terms of demographic data were 29 to 39 years old, were in their second and last trimesters of pregnancy, had reached secondary level of education and have a monthly family income of Php 10,000 and below; (2) the pregnant women in Barangay Paliparan I-III Dasmarinas City, Cavite were fully aware on prenatal care; (3) there were no significant differences in the level of awareness of pregnant women when they were grouped according to age and age of gestation. However, there existed significant difference in the level of awareness of the pregnant women when they were grouped according to educational attainment and monthly family income. Pregnant women who had reached college level education and with monthly family income of Php 10,000 – 39,999 and Php 40,000 and above had the highest level of awareness on prenatal care

Multiple innate antibacterial immune defense elements are correlated in diverse ungulate species.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate to what extent different assays of innate immunity reveal similar patterns of variation across ungulate species. We compared several measures of innate antibacterial immune function across seven different ungulate species using blood samples obtained from captive animals maintained in a zoological park. We measured mRNA expression of two receptors involved in innate pathogen detection, toll-like receptors 2 and 5 (TLR2 and 5), the bactericidal capacity of plasma, as well as the number of neutrophils and lymphocytes. Species examined included aoudad (Ammotragus lervia), American bison (Bison bison bison), yak (Bos grunniens), Roosevelt elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti), fallow deer (Dama dama), sika deer (Cervus nippon), and Damara zebra (Equus quagga burchellii). Innate immunity varied among ungulate species. However, we detected strong, positive correlations between the different measures of innate immunity-specifically, TLR2 and TLR5 were correlated, and the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio was positively associated with TLR2, TLR5, and bacterial killing ability. Our results suggest that ecoimmunological study results may be quite robust to the choice of assays, at least for antibacterial innate immunity; and that, despite the complexity of the immune system, important sources of variation in immunity in natural populations may be discoverable with comparatively simple tools

Correction: Multiple innate antibacterial immune defense elements are correlated in diverse ungulate species.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225579.]

Toward quantitative super-resolution methods for cryo-CLEM

Cryogenic ultrastructural imaging techniques such as cryo-electron tomography have produced a revolution in how the structure of biological systems is investigated by enabling the determination of structures of protein complexes immersed in a complex biological matrix within vitrified cell and model organisms. However, so far, the portfolio of successes has been mostly limited to highly abundant complexes or to structures that are relatively unambiguous and easy to identify through electron microscopy. In order to realize the full potential of this revolution, researchers would have to be able to pinpoint lower abundance species and obtain functional annotations on the state of objects of interest which would then be correlated to ultrastructural information to build a complete picture of the structure-function relationships underpinning biological processes. Fluorescence imaging at cryogenic conditions has the potential to be able to meet these demands. However, wide-field images acquired at low numeric aperture (NA) using air immersion objective have a low resolving power and cannot provide accurate enough three-dimensional (3D) localization to enable the assignment of functional annotations to individual objects of interest or target sample debulking to ensure the preservation of the structures of interest. It is therefore necessary to develop super-resolved cryo-fluorescence workflows capable of fulfilling this role and enabling new biological discoveries. In this chapter, we present the current state of development of two super-resolution cryogenic fluorescence techniques, superSIL-STORM and astigmatism-based 3D STORM, show their application to a variety of biological systems and discuss their advantages and limitations. We further discuss the future applicability to cryo-CLEM workflows though examples of practical application to the study of membrane protein complexes both in mammalian cells and in Escherichia coli

Pulsed-Laser Deposited Transition-Metal Carbides for Field-Emission Cathode Coatings

Thin films of transition-metal carbides ZrC, HfC, and TiC were deposited by pulsed-laser deposition under vacuum. The surface chemistry of the films was characterized with ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Auger electron spectroscopy in situ. X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the film structure. TiC was shown to be nearly stoichiometric and polycrystalline. The TiC was applied to a vertically aligned carbon nanotube sample and characterized by field emission. Field-emission results showed enhanced current and current density at a film thickness, 5 nm, not previously reported in the literature. Emission from TiC films was also shown to be less affected by adsorbates during field emission. Pulsed-laser deposition of TiC offers a distinct advantage over other techniques in that high-quality films can be obtained under ultrahigh vacuum conditions without the use of a reactive background gas or excessively high annealing temperatures. The application of TiC by pulsed-laser deposition as a cathode coating shows potential for integration into a fabrication process