Study of Personality Traits and Its Association with Drinking Motives in Alcohol Dependence: A Cross Sectional study

BACKGROUND: According to WHO alcoholism is the 3rd important risk factor for early (premature) demise in many developing countries including India. The risk of becoming alcohol dependent in men during their life time is around 10% and this is considered as a significant public health problem. personality traits plays a reasonable role in forming a relationship between biological, social, environmental and psychological factors and future alcohol consumption. The patterns of drinking continue to be the same despite advertisement and campaigns exposing the alcohol related complications. The campaigns are proved to be futile in the presence of enhanced motivation for drinking. So it becomes mandatory to know about drinking motives. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To assess the socio demographic profile and to establish the personality traits and its association with drinking motives in alcohol dependence patients. METHODOLOGY: 100 consecutive patients’ from op/ de addiction were selected fulfilling the ICD criteria for dependence. After obtaining the informed consent socio demographic profile was assessed by modified kuppuswamy scale. Personality traits and drinking motives were assessed using NEO five factor inventory and drinking motive questionnaire revised. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Analysing the socio-demographic profile, it is evident that low education and unemployed is associated with problem drinking. Scores are significantly higher on neuroticism, extraversion and openness of experience domains and remarkably lower on agreeableness. Neuroticism domain is relatively more associated with coping than enhancement domain and openness to experience domain, coping and enhancement motives are more related with alcohol. CONCLUSION: Alcohol dependent individuals score higher on neuroticism and coping motivesis significantly associated with neuroticism

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data