Book Review: Ben Golder, Foucault and the politics of rights

A review of Ben Golder's book, 'Foucault and the politics of rights' (2015 Stanford University Press)

Development and quality evaluation of antioxidant rich and high protein biscuits

This research was undertaken with a view to develop antioxidant rich high protein biscuits with health promoting benefits. The flour used for this purpose was procured from Manildra Group of Pty Ltd Company. In order to enhance the antioxidant properties of the biscuits, four traditionally well-known underutilized plants with several health benefits have been chosen. These are Moringa leaves, Gotu kola leaves, Schisandra berries, and Goji berries that are known to exhibit antioxidant, antidiabetic, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, immunostimulatory, and cardioprotective properties. The dried form of leaves and berries were used in this research. The research was designed to prepare biscuit samples with different substitutions of the selected plant’s material. Sample 1 was substituted with 1% of all the four plants in equal proportion Sample 2 was substituted with 2% of all the four plants in equal proportion; Sample 3 was substituted with 3% of all the four plants in equal proportion; Sample 4 was substituted with 4% of all the four plants in equal proportion; Sample 5 was substituted with 1% of Moringa and Gotu kola leaves in equal proportion; and Sample 6 was substituted with 1% of Schisandra and Goji berries in equal proportion. A control sample without any plant material was also prepared as a reference. Amongst the different biscuit samples developed in this research, sample 4 had the highest proportion of plant’s material.Nutritional and chemical analysis of the four plants used in this study revealed that all of them exhibited highly significant radical scavenging activities that are superior to many well-known anticancer traditional herbs

The Epistemic Violence of Transitional Justice: A View from Sri Lanka

In this article I explore the failures of transitional justice in post-war Sri Lanka. For most commentators this is simply explained in terms of a lack of political will. However, I argue that beyond this transitional justice in Sri Lanka is a story of epistemic violence. This is a result of its over-reliance on abstract, universalist liberal democratic theory that fails to properly grasp the historical, cultural and socio-political specificity not just of the locations where transitional justice is proposed but of the conceptual foundation of transitional justice itself. As a result, transitional justice simultaneously discounts colonial legacies while reproducing colonial categories. In the case of Sri Lanka this has resulted in a failure to fully understand and address the root causes of conflict and an inability to see and draw upon resources for reconciliation, reparation and redress

Book Review: Tuba Inal, Looting and Rape in War Time: Law and Change in International Relations

A review of Tuba Inal's book, 'Looting and Rape in War Time: Law and Change in International Relations' (2013 University of Pennsylvania Press)

Understanding How Patients Perceive Their Medical Providers’ Communication in a Hospital Based Emergency Department Setting

Background: In recent years, a chief patient complaint has been that there is a breakdown in communication with their healthcare provider. This is concerning because poor provider-patient communication can lead to reduced medication adherence, misdiagnosis, increased healthcare costs, and even death. Furthermore, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has availed healthcare insurance to more individuals, which will increase the insured patient population. This will lead to a rise in patient visits, but also means that there are not enough physicians to support this new volume of patients. Other healthcare providers, like nurse practitioners and physicians assistants are more likely to be engaged with patients, because of these increased demands. Therefore, understanding how patients perceive communication in all of these groups is essential because, as aforementioned, a lack of good communication can have grave consequences. The purpose of this study was to understand the patient’s perception of the medical doctor-patient communication encounter, the patient’s perceptions of the midlevel-patient communication encounter, and to identify the patient’s perceptions of difference between the two groups. Methods: The research design for this study was descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional. The study engaged a convenience sample of 137 treat and release patients at the emergency department (ED) of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC). Results: The survey utilized in this study consisted of two parts: the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) (Makoul, 2007, Appendix A) and the Demographic Questionnaire. The CAT consisted of fourteen items where each item addressed a different aspect of the patient-provider communication encounter. Each item employed the following five-point Likert type scale: 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent. The Demographic Questionnaire (Appendix B) was developed by the researcher and asked the patient to self-identify in the following five areas: age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, and employment status. The following shows the results of each research question. Findings 1: The fact that both the mean and median CAT Composite scores for this segment of the sample were very high (M = 65.13 and Mdn = 67 on a 14-70 scale) showed that patients were extremely satisfied with their doctors’ communication skills. Findings 2: While both the mean and median scores for this segment (M = 54.34 and Mdn = 56) suggested that patients were quite satisfied with their midlevel providers’ communication skills, their degree of satisfaction was not quite as high as those who dealt with physicians. Findings 3: The perception of the physicians is better than their midlevel counterparts; reject null hypothesis. Findings 4: The perception of the physicians is better in each of the fourteen areas versus their midlevel counterparts; reject null hypothesis. Demographic Questionnaire Findings: While not considered as a formal research question, the final component of this study focused on whether demographics have an influence on patients’ overall perceptions of their healthcare providers’ communication skills as measured by the CAT composite score; none of the five demographics examined – age, gender, ethnicity, education, and employment status – had any significant influence. Conclusion: Although past research shows that midlevel providers perform better than their physician counterparts, this study indicates differently. This is explained by the uniqueness of the hospital setting, where this study was conducted. In addition, further evidence-based research and longitudinal studies are recommended to compare with the results of this study. Future research may include hospitals in different geographic areas, further variation in practitioner groups, and a comparison of teaching versus non-teaching hospitals

Understanding How Patients Perceive Their Medical Providers’ Communication in a Hospital Based Emergency Department Setting

Background: In recent years, a chief patient complaint has been that there is a breakdown in communication with their healthcare provider. This is concerning because poor provider-patient communication can lead to reduced medication adherence, misdiagnosis, increased healthcare costs, and even death. Furthermore, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has availed healthcare insurance to more individuals, which will increase the insured patient population. This will lead to a rise in patient visits, but also means that there are not enough physicians to support this new volume of patients. Other healthcare providers, like nurse practitioners and physicians assistants are more likely to be engaged with patients, because of these increased demands. Therefore, understanding how patients perceive communication in all of these groups is essential because, as aforementioned, a lack of good communication can have grave consequences. The purpose of this study was to understand the patient’s perception of the medical doctor-patient communication encounter, the patient’s perceptions of the midlevel-patient communication encounter, and to identify the patient’s perceptions of difference between the two groups. Methods: The research design for this study was descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional. The study engaged a convenience sample of 137 treat and release patients at the emergency department (ED) of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC). Results: The survey utilized in this study consisted of two parts: the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) (Makoul, 2007, Appendix A) and the Demographic Questionnaire. The CAT consisted of fourteen items where each item addressed a different aspect of the patient-provider communication encounter. Each item employed the following five-point Likert type scale: 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent. The Demographic Questionnaire (Appendix B) was developed by the researcher and asked the patient to self-identify in the following five areas: age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, and employment status. The following shows the results of each research question. Findings 1: The fact that both the mean and median CAT Composite scores for this segment of the sample were very high (M = 65.13 and Mdn = 67 on a 14-70 scale) showed that patients were extremely satisfied with their doctors’ communication skills. Findings 2: While both the mean and median scores for this segment (M = 54.34 and Mdn = 56) suggested that patients were quite satisfied with their midlevel providers’ communication skills, their degree of satisfaction was not quite as high as those who dealt with physicians. Findings 3: The perception of the physicians is better than their midlevel counterparts; reject null hypothesis. Findings 4: The perception of the physicians is better in each of the fourteen areas versus their midlevel counterparts; reject null hypothesis. Demographic Questionnaire Findings: While not considered as a formal research question, the final component of this study focused on whether demographics have an influence on patients’ overall perceptions of their healthcare providers’ communication skills as measured by the CAT composite score; none of the five demographics examined – age, gender, ethnicity, education, and employment status – had any significant influence. Conclusion: Although past research shows that midlevel providers perform better than their physician counterparts, this study indicates differently. This is explained by the uniqueness of the hospital setting, where this study was conducted. In addition, further evidence-based research and longitudinal studies are recommended to compare with the results of this study. Future research may include hospitals in different geographic areas, further variation in practitioner groups, and a comparison of teaching versus non-teaching hospitals

Effect of oxidative stress on ABC transporters: contribution to epilepsy pharmacoresistance

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder affecting around 1%-2% of population worldwide and its treatment includes use of antiepileptic drugs to control seizures. Failure to respond to antiepileptic drug therapy is a major clinical problem and over expression of ATP-binding cassette transporters is considered one of the major reasons for pharmacoresistance. In this review, we have summarized the regulation of ABC transporters in response to oxidative stress due to disease and antiepileptic drugs. Further, ketogenic diet and antioxidants were examined for their role in pharmacoresistance. The understanding of signalling pathways and mechanism involved may help in identifying potential therapeutic targets and improving drug response

Lateral Dispersal and Foraging Behavior of Entomopathogenic Nematodes in the Absence and Presence of Mobile and Non-Mobile Hosts

Entomopathogenic nematodes have been classified into cruisers (active searchers) and ambushers (sit and wait foragers). However, little is known about their dispersal and foraging behavior at population level in soil. We studied lateral dispersal of the ambush foraging Steinernema carpocapsae (ALL strain) and cruise foraging Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (GPS11 strain) from infected host cadavers in microcosms (0.05 m2) containing Wooster silt-loam soil (Oxyaquic fragiudalf) and vegetation in the presence or absence of non-mobile and mobile hosts. Results showed that the presence of a non-mobile host (Galleria mellonella larva in a wire mesh cage) enhanced H. bacteriophora dispersal for up to 24 hr compared with no-host treatment, but had no impact on S. carpocapsae dispersal. In contrast, presence of a mobile host (G. mellonella larvae) increased dispersal of S. carpocapsae compared with no host treatment, but had no effect on H. bacteriophora dispersal. Also H. bacteriophora was better at infecting non-mobile than mobile hosts released into the microcosms and S. carpocapsae was better at infecting mobile than non-mobile hosts, thus affirming the established cruiser-ambusher theory. However, results also revealed that a large proportion of infective juveniles (IJs) of both species stayed near (≤ 3.8 cm) the source cadaver (88-96% S. carpocapsae; 67–79% H. bacteriophora), and the proportion of IJs reaching the farthest distance (11.4 cm) was significantly higher for S. carpocapsae (1.4%) than H. bacteriophora (0.4%) in the presence of mobile hosts. S. carpocapsae also had higher average population displacement than H. bacteriophora in the presence of both the non-mobile (5.07 vs. 3.6 cm/day) and mobile (8.06 vs. 5.3 cm/day) hosts. We conclude that the two species differ in their dispersal and foraging behavior at the population level and this behavior is affected by both the presence and absence of hosts and by their mobility

On Investigations of Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques for MIMO Detection

This paper reviews in detail the various types of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) detector algorithms. The current MIMO detectors are not suitable for massive MIMO (mMIMO) scenarios where there are a large number of antennas. Their performance degrades with the increase in number of antennas in the MIMO system. For combatting the issues, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) based detection algorithms are being researched and developed. An extensive survey of these detectors is provided in this paper, alongwith their advantages and challenges. The issues discussed have to be resolved before using them for final deployment