Family, society and the individual: determinants of entrepreneurial attitudes among youth in Chennai, South India

High rates of youth unemployment across the world have captured the attention of many world organizations and other policy makers. One policy solution that has been proposed to curb these high rates is encouraging youth entrepreneurship. In this paper, we examine the formation of attitudes that are favorable to entrepreneurship using data from 185 business students in South India. We adopt an approach that tests the relative efficacy of two principal factors in the formation of entrepreneurial attitude, i.e., stocks of youth human/social capital and a series of personality traits. Results from a probit model suggest that the youth’s prior labor market experience, the social capital that youth have accumulated through volunteering, and the social connections that parents have made are all highly predictive of pro-entrepreneurial attitudes; personality traits exert less importance. Implications for these findings are discussed for the creation of strategies that can stimulate entrepreneurship among youth as one way to combat high rates of youth unemployment

[Transitional strength under plasma] Precise estimations of astrophysically relevant electromagnetic transitions of Ar7+^{7+}, Kr7+^{7+}, Xe7+^{7+}, and Rn7+^{7+} under plasma atmosphere

The growing interest in atomic structures of moderately-stripped alkali-like ions in diagnostic study and modeling of astrophysical and laboratory plasma makes an accurate many-body study of atomic properties inevitable. This work presents transition line parameters in the absence or presence of plasma atmosphere for astrophysically important candidates, Ar$^{7+}$, Kr$^{7+}$, Xe$^{7+}$, and Rn$^{7+}$. We employ relativistic coupled-cluster (RCC) theory, a well-known correlation exhaustive method. In the case of a plasma environment, we use Debye Model. Our calculations agree with experiments available in the literature for ionization potentials, transition strengths of allowed and forbidden selections, and lifetimes of several low-lying states. The unit ratios of length and velocity forms of transition matrix elements are the critical estimation of the accuracy of the transition data presented here, especially for a few presented first time in the literature. We do compare our findings with the available recent theoretical results. Our reported data can be helpful to the astronomer in estimating the density of the plasma environment around the astronomical objects or in the discovery of observational spectra corrected by that environment. The present results should be advantageous in the modeling and diagnostics laboratory plasma, whereas the calculated ionisation potential depression parameters reveal important characteristics of atomic structure

Ribonucleic acid polymerase from eukaryotic cells: effects of factors and rifampicin on the activity of RNA polymerase from chromatin of coconut nuclei

The role of protein factor B and C on RNA synthesis by RNA polymerase CI isolated from chromosomal non-histone proteins of coconut nuclei has been studied further. Factor B has been implicated as the initiation factor on the experimental evidences that (a) in its absence, RNA polymerase CI shows only minimal activity; (b) it can bind with RNA polymerase and the enzyme . factor B complex then binds to DNA, but factor B alone can not bind to DNA; (c) it promotes the incorporation of [β,-32P2]ATP into RNA and this stimulation reaches a plateau rather quickly while the incorporation of [14C]ATP in the interior of RNA chain continues; (d) it is active with native homologous DNA as template, but not with denatured or λ DNA; (e) RNA molecules synthesized in its presence are of higher sedimentation value (10-20 S) than that synthesized in its absence (4 S); (f) it can completely counteract the inhibitory effect of rifampicin, which is known to inhibit RNA synthesis at the initiation step. Factor C seems to facilitate the release of synthesized RNA from the DNA template since (a) it stimulates RNA synthesis by polymerase CI when added on top of factor B, but in absence of factor B, C alone is inactive; (b) it can reinitiate RNA synthesis after the reaction has reached a plateau in a system where DNA is limiting, an affect similar to that obtained at higher ionic strength. Factor C, however, does not influence the molecular size of RNA synthesized. Furthermore, the RNA polymerase CI is sensitive to α-amanitin whereas the RNA polymerase CII is comparatively resistant. The former appears to synthesize the non-ribosomal RNA whereas the latter synthesizes ribosomal RNA

Journey of the tuberculosis patients in India from onset of symptom till one-year post-treatment.

Historically, economic studies on tuberculosis estimated out-of-pocket expenses related to tuberculosis treatment and catastrophic cost, however, no study has yet been conducted to understand the post-treatment economic conditions of the tuberculosis patients in India. In this paper, we add to this body of knowledge by examining the experiences of the tuberculosis patients from the onset of symptoms till one-year post-treatment. 829 adult drug-susceptible tuberculosis patients from general population and from two high risk groups: urban slum dwellers and tea garden families were interviewed during February 2019 to February 2021 at their intensive and continuation phases of treatment and about one-year post-treatment using adapted World Health Organization tuberculosis patient cost survey instrument. Interviews covered socio-economic conditions, employment status, income, out-of-pocket expenses and time spent for outpatient visits, hospitalization, drug-pick up, medical follow-ups, additional food, coping strategies, treatment outcome, identification of post-treatment symptoms and treatment for post-treatment sequalae/recurrent cases. All costs were calculated in 2020 Indian rupee (INR) and converted into US dollar (US$) (1 US$ = INR 74.132). Total cost of tuberculosis treatment since the onset of symptom till one-year post-treatment ranged from US$359 (Standard Deviation (SD) 744) to US$413 (SD 500) of which 32%-44% of costs incurred in pre-treatment phase and 7% in post-treatment phase. 29%-43% study participants reported having outstanding loan with average amount ranged from US $103 to US$261 during the post-treatment period. 20%-28% participants borrowed during post-treatment period and 7%-16% sold/mortgaged personal belongings. Therefore, economic impact of tuberculosis persists way beyond treatment completion. Major reasons of continued hardship were costs associated with initial tuberculosis treatment, unemployment, and reduced income. Therefore, policy priorities to reduce treatment cost and to protect patients from the economic consequences of the disease by ensuring job security, additional food support, better management of direct benefit transfer and improving coverage through medical insurances need consideration

Pattern self-medication use of analgesics in Pune, Maharashtra, India

Background: Objective of current study was to find out self-medication pattern and to study awareness of ADRs to analgesics self-medication.Methods: II MBBS students collected the information of names of analgesics self-medication, dose, frequency of administration, health related problem for use of self-medication, source of information for the use of self-medication and information about ADRs. Students also educated the population about ADRs to analgesics with the help of ADR checklist.Results: Paracetamol was most commonly taken as self-medication and 39% persons reported ADRs with paracetamol.  Ibuprofen, diclofenac, paracetamol and aspirin were taken less than WHO DDD for joint pain. 79% study population was ignorant about ADRs to analgesics. Headache (37%) was common health related problem for self-medication of analgesics.   Conclusion: Information about problems with repeated use of analgesics like liver damage, analgesic nephropathy, gastric ulceration/bleeding should be provided by pharmacists either orally or with the help of leaflets or display board. Headache is common health related problem for the use of analgesics as self-medication. Pharmacists should take help of assistance tool to diagnosis headache like screener for migraine and guidelines for chronic headache for timely visit of self-medicating person to physician.

Large-scale STI services in Avahan improve utilization and treatment seeking behaviour amongst high-risk groups in India: an analysis of clinical records from six states

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, implemented a large HIV prevention programme across six high HIV prevalence states amongst high risk groups consisting of female sex workers, high risk men who have sex with men, transgenders and injecting drug users in India. Utilization of the clinical services, health seeking behaviour and trends in syndromic diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections amongst these populations were measured using the individual tracking data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Avahan clinical monitoring system included individual tracking data pertaining to clinical services amongst high risk groups. All clinic visits were recorded in the routine clinical monitoring system using unique identification numbers at the NGO-level. Visits by individual clinic attendees were tracked from January 2005 to December 2009. An analysis examining the limited variables over time, stratified by risk group, was performed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 431,434 individuals including 331,533 female sex workers, 10,280 injecting drug users, 82,293 men who have sex with men, and 7,328 transgenders visited the clinics with a total of 2,700,192 visits. Individuals made an average of 6.2 visits to the clinics during the study period. The number of visits per person increased annually from 1.2 in 2005 to 8.3 in 2009. The proportion of attendees visiting clinics more than four times a year increased from 4% in 2005 to 26% in 2009 (p<0.001). The proportion of STI syndromes diagnosed amongst female sex workers decreased from 39% in 2005 to 11% in 2009 (p<0.001) while the proportion of STI syndromes diagnosed amongst high risk men who have sex with men decreased from 12% to 3 % (p<0.001). The proportion of attendees seeking regular STI check-ups increased from 12% to 48% (p<0.001). The proportion of high risk groups accessing clinics within two days of onset of STI-related symptoms and acceptability of speculum and proctoscope examination increased significantly during the programme implementation period.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The programme demonstrated that acceptable and accessible services with marginalised and often difficult–to-reach populations can be brought to a very large scale using standardized approaches. Utilization of these services can dramatically improve health seeking behaviour and reduce STI prevalence.</p

Targeting dendritic cells to accelerate T-cell activation overcomes a bottleneck in tuberculosis vaccine efficacy

The development of a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine that induces sterilizing immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection has been elusive. Absence of sterilizing immunity induced by TB vaccines may be due to delayed activation of mucosal dendritic cells (DCs), and subsequent delay in antigen presentation and activation of vaccine-induced CD4[superscript +] T-cell responses. Here we show that pulmonary delivery of activated M. tuberculosis antigen-primed DCs into vaccinated mice, at the time of M. tuberculosis exposure, can overcome the delay in accumulation of vaccine-induced CD4[superscript +] T-cell responses. In addition, activating endogenous host CD103[superscript +] DCs and the CD40–CD40L pathway can similarly induce rapid accumulation of vaccine-induced lung CD4[superscript +] T-cell responses and limit early M. tuberculosis growth. Thus, our study provides proof of concept that targeting mucosal DCs can accelerate vaccine-induced T-cell responses on M. tuberculosis infection, and provide insights to overcome bottlenecks in TB vaccine efficacy.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (grant HL105427)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (grant AI127172)United States. Army Research Office. Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (contract W911NF-13-D-0001)Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Investigator

An Improved Method for High Quality Metagenomics DNA Extraction from Human and Environmental Samples

To explore the natural microbial community of any ecosystems by high-resolution molecular approaches including next generation sequencing, it is extremely important to develop a sensitive and reproducible DNA extraction method that facilitate isolation of microbial DNA of sufficient purity and quantity from culturable and uncultured microbial species living in that environment. Proper lysis of heterogeneous community microbial cells without damaging their genomes is a major challenge. In this study, we have developed an improved method for extraction of community DNA from different environmental and human origin samples. We introduced a combination of physical, chemical and mechanical lysis methods for proper lysis of microbial inhabitants. The community microbial DNA was precipitated by using salt and organic solvent. Both the quality and quantity of isolated DNA was compared with the existing methodologies and the supremacy of our method was confirmed. Maximum recovery of genomic DNA in the absence of substantial amount of impurities made the method convenient for nucleic acid extraction. The nucleic acids obtained using this method are suitable for different downstream applications. This improved method has been named as the THSTI method to depict the Institute where the method was developed