Depression, Anxiety and Stress Reduction in Medical Education: Humor as an Intervention

Background: In recent years there has been a growing appreciation of the issues of quality of life and stresses involved in medical training as this may affect their learning and academic performance. Objective of the study was to explore the effectiveness of humor when used as intervention in large group teaching over negative emotions amongst students. Method: The present Interventional, Randomized control trial study was carried out on medical students of 4th Semester of RMCH, Bareilly, which has total 90 students. Using simple random sampling lottery method the whole class was divided in two groups-A and B consisting of 45 students each. Group A as control group and Group B experimental group. In first and last lecture of both groups Dass-21 was used as measuring scale, for depression, anxiety and stress and results were compared to see the effect of humor on these three negative emotions. Result: Comparison of Severe and Extremely severe Stress: In Group A 40.54% in class -1 increased to 47.54% in class- 4, while in group B initial 13.15 % was reduced to 0 % (highly significant). Anxiety: In group A, after Class 1 -57.45% increased to 61.11% after class 4, while in group B, after class 1- 23.68% reduced to 2.27% only (highly significant). Depression: In group A, after Class 1 - 40.53% & 41.66 % after class 4 (not significant), while in group B, after class 1- 18.41% reduced to 0% (highly significant). Conclusion: In present study humor was found to be very effective intervention in relieving students on their negative emotions of depression, anxiety and stress to a larger extent. Further research would justify the use of humor as an effective teaching aid in medical education

Estimating the Population Mean in Two-Stage Sampling with Equal Size Clusters under Non-Response Using Auxiliary Characteristic

The present paper has been devoted to the study of estimating the population means in two-stage sampling with equal size clusters under non-response using an auxiliary variable. This paper focuses on the study of general families of factor-type estimators of population mean considering two different cases in which non-response is observed on study variable only and on both study and auxiliary variables respectively. The optimum properties of the proposed families in both cases are discussed. The empirical study is also carried out in support of the theoretical results

Fabrication of Light Weight Farms Yoke With The Use of Composite Material

Natural fibers are subdivided based on their origins, coming from plants, animals or minerals. All plant fibers are composed of cellulose while animal fibers consist of proteins (hair, silk, and wool). Plant fibers include bask (or stem or soft sclerenchyma) fibers, leaf or hard fibers, seed, fruit, wood, cereal straw, and other grass fibers. Over the last few years, a number of researchers have been involved in investigating the exploitation of natural fibers as load bearing constituents in composite materials. The use of such materials in composites has increased due to their relative cheapness, ability to recycle and for the fact that they can compete well in terms of strength per weight of material. Natural fibers can be considered as naturally occurring composites consisting mainly of cellulose fibrils embedded in lignin matrix. The cellulose fibrils are aligned along the length of the fiber, which render maximum tensile and flexural strengths, in addition to providing rigidity. The reinforcing efficiency of natural fiber is related to the nature of cellulose and its crystallinity. The existing traditional yoke is made up of the wood of trees like Tun and Haldu which are not easily available in different parts of India. The life of a yoke is about 3 to 5 years, due to this 628 tons of wood is required at every 3-5 years in India that would create a burden to the presently available forests. To overcome these problems, there is a need to develop yoke from waste bio-materials. Keeping this in view, a yoke from composite material was designed and developed and relative comparison between traditional wooden and developed yoke has been done

Anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40, a single chain antibody Pseudomonas fusion protein directed at interleukin 2 receptor bearing cells

Anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40 is a chimeric single chain immunotoxin in which anti-Tac variable heavy and light chains held together by a peptide linker are attached to PE40, a truncated form of Pseudomonas exotoxin. This molecule was shown to be extremely cytotoxic for interleukin 2 (IL2) receptor bearing cells in tissue culture (Chaudhary, V. K., Queen, C., Junghans, R. P., Waldmann, T. A., FitzGerald, D. J., and Pastan, I. (1989) Nature 339, 394-397). Here we describe various forms of anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40 protein in which the order of the variable domains of anti-Tac has been switched and also three different types of peptide linkers have been used. All these proteins were purified to near homogeneity and were found to have similar cytotoxic activities against various human cells expressing the p55 subunit of the IL2 receptor. Anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40 was also found to have a very potent suppressive activity against phytohemagglutinin-activated human lymphoblasts and in a human mixed lymphocyte reaction. Anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40 appeared in the blood rapidly in mice after intraperitoneal administration and could be detected in the blood for up to 8 h. Anti-Tac(Fv)-PE40 warrants evaluation as an anti-tumor and immunosuppressive agent in humans

Evaluation of stress intensity factor of multiple inclined cracks under biaxial loading

A finite rectangular plate of unit thickness with two inclined cracks (parallel and non parallel) under biaxial mixed mode condition are modelled using finite element method. The finite element method is used for determination of stress intensity factors by ANYSIS software. Effects of crack inclination angle on stress intensity factors for two parallel and non parallel cracks are investigated. The significant effects of different crack inclination parameters on stress intensity factors are seen for lower and upper crack in two inclined crack.The present method is validated by comparing the results from available experimental data obtained by photo elastic method in same condition

An induced detenninate mutant in fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.)

A determinate mutant was isolated from a population of 400 plants of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) in the M2 generation raised from 200 seeds of Rmt 1 (indeterminate variety) treated with ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) 0.10% for 4 h. Random samples from all M2 populations (except the mutant) were advanced to M3 generation. The appearance of one determinate type in a sample of 798 plants indicated that the trait is monogenic. This mutant was grown along with Rmt 1 and UM 305 (spontaneous mutant for similar growth habit). There were significant differences among genotypes for plant height, number of pods per plant, seed yield per plant and aphid infestation. The study indicated that the performance of the mutant could be brought on par with the checks following selection for desired economic traits. &nbsp

An induced detenninate mutant in fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.)

A determinate mutant was isolated from a population of 400 plants of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) in the M2 generation raised from 200 seeds of Rmt 1 (indeterminate variety) treated with ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) 0.10% for 4 h. Random samples from all M2 populations (except the mutant) were advanced to M3 generation. The appearance of one determinate type in a sample of 798 plants indicated that the trait is monogenic. This mutant was grown along with Rmt 1 and UM 305 (spontaneous mutant for similar growth habit). There were significant differences among genotypes for plant height, number of pods per plant, seed yield per plant and aphid infestation. The study indicated that the performance of the mutant could be brought on par with the checks following selection for desired economic traits. &nbsp