Western Cultural Beliefs in Wole Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman

Wole Soyinka\u27s play Death and King\u27s Horseman reflects the cultural conflict between the African and Western worlds. The play is based on an actual event that took place in 1946 when British colonial authorities prevented the customary ritual suicide from taking place. In Yoruba society the community is more important than the individual. It was also their tradition for the first horseman to commit suicide after the king\u27s death. When the realization of this tradition is prevented by the white authorities, the horseman\u27s son, who had received a European education commits suicide in place of his father. Building on Frantz Fanon\u27s theories, my aim in this article is to challenge universal assumptions concerning right and wrong which may have different connotations for black and white culture

Analysis of efficacy of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy in the management of lower ureteric Calculus.

INTRODUCTION : The indications for intervention in the management of patients with ureteric calculi have clearly been affected by the increased efficiency and lower morbidity of minimally invasive treatment modalities. Although the traditional indications for intervention (intolerable or intractable symptoms, infection, obstruction, and a stone that is unlikely to pass spontaneously) have not changed, the array of technologies currently available allows almost any symptomatic patient to be considered a candidate for stone removal. Lingeman and associates reported that when a patient requires hospitalization, it is less costly to remove the patient's stone with either SWL or ureteroscopy than to attempt to control the patient's symptoms with pharmacotherapy only. However, many patients will pass the stone spontaneously. A thorough knowledge, then, of the natural history of ureteric stones permits a well-informed judgment of when conservative measures (e.g., observation), rather than intervention, are indicated. Furthermore, such data help the patient consider the spectrum of options and decide whether to try to endure further symptoms or to elect immediate stone removal. Continued studies are warranted to better define the roles of ESWL and ureteroscopy in the management of patients with distal ureteric calculi because both are highly effective. AIM AND OBJECTIVES : The aim of this study is to 1) To analyze the efficacy of Extra corporeal lithotripsy in the management of lower ureteric calculus. 2) To find out ideal patients for extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy in the management of lower ureteric calculus. 3) To find out complications of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy during the management of lower ureteric calculus. MATERIALS AND METHODS : Informed consent obtained from all the patients after explaining all available modalities of treatments–medical expulsion therapy, ureteroscopy & intracorporeal lithotripsy and extracorporeal lithotripsy, their complications in the management of lower ureteric calculus. CONCLUSION : 1. Insitu ESWL for lower ureteric calculus is an effective, non invasive and a viable treatment option with no major complications. 2. Patients with lower ureteric calculus size ≤ 10 mm and CT – H.U10mm and CT-H.U >1000. 4. Patients with lower ureteric calculus size > 10 mm and CT – H.U <1000, ESWL can be tried with reasonable success

Genetic variability among _Coleus sp_ studied by RAPD banding pattern analysis

Genetic improvement of the medicinal plants depends upon the existence, nature and extent of the genetic variability available for manipulation. Genetic analysis with RAPD markers has been extensively used to determine genetic diversity among _Coleus sp_ and to identify the best quality for human consumption for its medicinal purpose. The objectives of the present study were to assess molecular variation among _C.amboinicus_, _C.aromaticus_ and _C.forskohlii_. and to determine the level of genetic similarity among them. We performed random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis on three strains of _Coleus sp_. Random primers were used for the PCR. Electrophoresis on denaturing acrylamide gels improved RAPD reproducibility and increased the band number. The primer OPW 6 and OPW 7 gave reproducible results and the band profiles

Digital carbon footprint awareness among digital natives: an exploratory study

Changes in use practices due to COVID-19 have illustrated&nbsp;the potential of digital technology as a catalyst of more sustainable and&nbsp;pro-environmental behavior. At the same time, the energy consumption&nbsp;and environmental impact of digital applications and services has been&nbsp;put more firmly on the agenda. In this paper, we adopt a bottom-up&nbsp;approach to explore digital natives’ awareness of their digital carbon&nbsp;footprint, i.e., related to their use of digital services and applications.&nbsp;We present findings from 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews that&nbsp;were conducted to explore (1) to which extent digital natives are aware&nbsp;of and reflect on their digital carbon footprint, (2) what could motivate&nbsp;efforts to reduce this footprint and (3) which compromises they might be&nbsp;willing to make in this respect. The findings point to low awareness of the&nbsp;carbon footprint of digital applications and services. The lack of technological&nbsp;understanding, public information and social awareness about the&nbsp;topic were identified as important factors. In terms of the motivation for&nbsp;adopting pro-environmental digital habits, we found that several factors&nbsp;indirectly contribute to this goal, including the striving for personal wellbeing.&nbsp;Finally, the results indicate some willingness to change and make&nbsp;compromises, albeit not an unconditional one: the alignment with other&nbsp;goals (e.g., personal well-being) and nature of the perceived sacrifice and&nbsp;its impact play a key role. With this work, we aim to strengthen ongoing&nbsp;efforts to increase users’ awareness and to stimulate more sustainable&nbsp;and well-being supporting digital consumption

The MNI data-sharing and processing ecosystem

AbstractNeuroimaging has been facing a data deluge characterized by the exponential growth of both raw and processed data. As a result, mining the massive quantities of digital data collected in these studies offers unprecedented opportunities and has become paramount for today's research. As the neuroimaging community enters the world of “Big Data”, there has been a concerted push for enhanced sharing initiatives, whether within a multisite study, across studies, or federated and shared publicly. This article will focus on the database and processing ecosystem developed at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) to support multicenter data acquisition both nationally and internationally, create database repositories, facilitate data-sharing initiatives, and leverage existing software toolkits for large-scale data processing

MicroRNA interactome analysis predicts post-transcriptional regulation of ADRB2 and PPP3R1 in the hypercholesterolemic myocardium

Little is known about the molecular mechanism including microRNAs (miRNA) in hypercholesterolemia-induced cardiac dysfunction. We aimed to explore novel hypercholesterolemia-induced pathway alterations in the heart by an unbiased approach based on miRNA omics, target prediction and validation. With miRNA microarray we identified forty-seven upregulated and ten downregulated miRNAs in hypercholesterolemic rat hearts compared to the normocholesterolemic group. Eleven mRNAs with at least 4 interacting upregulated miRNAs were selected by a network theoretical approach, out of which 3 mRNAs (beta-2 adrenergic receptor [Adrb2], calcineurin B type 1 [Ppp3r1] and calcium/calmodulin-dependent serine protein kinase [Cask]) were validated with qRT-PCR and Western blot. In hypercholesterolemic hearts, the expression of Adrb2 mRNA was significantly decreased. ADRB2 and PPP3R1 protein were significantly downregulated in hypercholesterolemic hearts. The direct interaction of Adrb2 with upregulated miRNAs was demonstrated by luciferase reporter assay. Gene ontology analysis revealed that the majority of the predicted mRNA changes may contribute to the hypercholesterolemia-induced cardiac dysfunction. In summary, the present unbiased target prediction approach based on global cardiac miRNA expression profiling revealed for the first time in the literature that both the mRNA and protein product of Adrb2 and PPP3R1 protein are decreased in the hypercholesterolemic heart

The first HyDRA challenge for computational vibrational spectroscopy

Vibrational spectroscopy in supersonic jet expansions is a powerful tool to assess molecular aggregates in close to ideal conditions for the benchmarking of quantum chemical approaches. The low temperatures achieved as well as the absence of environment effects allow for a direct comparison between computed and experimental spectra. This provides potential benchmarking data which can be revisited to hone different computational techniques, and it allows for the critical analysis of procedures under the setting of a blind challenge. In the latter case, the final result is unknown to modellers, providing an unbiased testing opportunity for quantum chemical models. In this work, we present the spectroscopic and computational results for the first HyDRA blind challenge. The latter deals with the prediction of water donor stretching vibrations in monohydrates of organic molecules. This edition features a test set of 10 systems. Experimental water donor OH vibrational wavenumbers for the vacuum-isolated monohydrates of formaldehyde, tetrahydrofuran, pyridine, tetrahydrothiophene, trifluoroethanol, methyl lactate, dimethylimidazolidinone, cyclooctanone, trifluoroacetophenone and 1-phenylcyclohexane-cis-1,2-diol are provided. The results of the challenge show promising predictive properties in both purely quantum mechanical approaches as well as regression and other machine learning strategies

Effects of molecular structure on the physical, chemical, and electrical properties of ester‐based transformer insulating liquids

This article presents the experimental studies carried out on the environmental friendly polyol ester insulating liquids to investigate the effect of molecular structure on the physical, chemical, and electrical properties. Six different polyol esters that can be produced from the transesterification of various methyl esters with neopentylglycol/trimethylolpropane alcohols were synthesized and compared with those of refined, bleached, and deodorized palm oil (RBDPO) and mineral transformer oil. The finding suggests that the physical properties like fire point, pour point, and viscosity are very much affected by the molecular weight and molecular composition of the polyol esters. The electrical properties are also highly influenced by the molecular structure‐related characteristics, such as the polarity, dipole polarization, carbon chain length, and degree of branching. The results confirm the findings of previous studies that the polyol esters and RBDPO have more polarity and dipole polarization compared to mineral oil. The experimental evidence showed that the newly synthesized insulating liquids have favorable thermal and electrical properties, thus suggesting that the insulating liquids have the potential to replace conventional insulating liquids to provide a more sustainable power system in the future