Mental Health Resources for Low Income Individuals

There are many barriers that low income individuals and populations face in accessing mental healthcare, including lack of health insurance that makes it hard to afford care, distance from clinics especially for people who live rurally, lack of transportation, inability to take time off work, and the stigma of mental illness coupled with poverty. Systemic racism in medical settings also plays a significant role in low income minority groups’ lack of access to quality care, as doctors prioritize those with insurance. Unfortunately, poverty itself can cause major stressors which puts families at higher risk for mental illness and substance abuse, all of which can lead to long term consequences for this population’s physical health as well. Since mental health services are most sparse in low income urban and rural areas, it is important for these individuals and families to have resources available to them in times they need access to mental healthcare. In researching recent advancements in facilitating access to care, organizations that provide mental health services and assistance, and advocacy that can bring about changes in the medical system, there are quite a few options to help more vulnerable populations get the care they need. These are resources along with some actionables for advocacy to address challenges that still remain. The first solution that was frequently mentioned in the research was Telehealth, which can help people who are constrained by distance, lack of transportation, or inability to take time from work. Patient education on telehealth can increase interest in usage among older minority adults, and advocating for internet access can bring about change in communities where many do not have access to broadband. Mental health apps have also been proven to be an low-effort way to prevent and treat multiple mental health conditions using treatments that are not as widely available due to cost and availability. There are several nonprofit organizations, including HRSA, SAMHSA, Mental Health America and NAMI that have health clinics that serve patients regardless of ability to pay or socioeconomic background as well as offer screening, mental health services, education, and also partake in advocacy to spread awareness around mental health for different groups. With government assistance there are also Medical plans that may cover certain mental health services, although services covered vary by state and region. Lastly, we explored the benefits of integrating mental health care into primary care, and what changes patients could advocate for in the primary care setting to facilitate the delivery of mental healthcare

A Wavelet Collocation Method for some Fractional Models

This article presents an effective numerical approach based on the operational matrix of fractional order integration of Haar wavelets for dealing with the fractional models of the mixing and the Newton law of cooling problems. A general procedure of obtaining the fractional integration operational matrix of Haar wavelets which converts the fractional models into a system of algebraic equations is derived so that the computation is very simple and it is much effective than the conventional numerical methods. The reliability and the applicability of the current numerical technique for fractional models are examined by comparing the achieved results with the precise solutions

Procedural Montage: A Design Trace of Reflection and Refraction

Narrative media may vary the adjacency of fixed textual passages to drive rhizomatic readings through a montage procedure. We present the design of “exul mater”, a hypertext fiction which locates perlocutionary acts in virtual spaces and resonant gaps. We reflect on sculptural fiction, the (de)formance of complex systems, and tarot reading as methods of layering metaphorical blends into polysemous juxtapositional elements. exul mater consists of one set of such elements and their pairwise juxtapositions, as presented through an interface which supports higher-order ‘gap-filling’ reading(s). We draw on peer feedback to address challenges to readability arising from the narrative application of procedural montage

Recently published papers: Acute kidney injury – diagnosis and treatment

When faced with the management of the patient on intensive care with acute kidney injury, the clinician has various choices to consider. The conventional therapy, where appropriate, is renal replacement therapy. This technique used to be relatively straightforward but now a relative feast of alternatives is available, not least in choice of buffer and anticoagulant. Two recent studies add to the growing body of literature concerning alternative anticoagulant regimes, and one in particular should lead to a change in practice for many of us. We also review some new studies on biomarkers in the diagnosis of acute kidney injury as well as add yet another nail in the coffin for loop diuretics in the therapy of acute kidney injury

Alteration in Zeta Potential of Erythrocytes in Preeclampsia Patients

Erythrocyte is one of the earliest and extensively analyzed blood cells in blood physiological and clinical studies. The erythrocyte membrane is negatively charged and sialic acid residues are responsible for most of the negative charge at the cell surface. This negative charge on the red blood cells (RBC) surface is believed to prevent RBC aggregation. This charge varies in different disease condition which can be determined by zeta potential (ZP) values. The present study deals with alteration in zeta potential of erythrocytes in preeclampsia patients. The mean erythrocytic ZP of control pregnant women taken during third trimester was found to be 21.64 ± 0.3122 mV whereas; when erythrocytic ZP of preeclampsia patients was measured it was found to be 15.13 ± 0.1393 mV which was significantly less than that of control pregnant volunteers. Alteration in zeta potential value was accompanied by endothelial damage which is able to mechanically deform and hemolyze erythrocytes as they pass through the capillaries. It was also observed from determination of lipid peroxidation of erythrocytes, that there is formation of higher concentration of malondialdehyde within the erythrocytes of preeclampsia patients. The data suggest that, in preeclampsia there is excessive accumulation of oxidative stress which causes injury to vascular endothelial cells by generation of lipid peroxides and detachment of sialic acid residues. As a result there is alteration in the net negative surface charge on RBCs extracellular membrane which leads to alteration in zeta potential value. Thus it can be concluded that zeta potential value of erythrocytes can act as a screening test to anticipate pregnancies at high risk for this complication

Breeding and larval rearing of the clownfish Amphiprion chrysogaster

A technology for breeding and rearing of the clownfish Amphiprion chrysogaster was developed at Vizhinjam Research Centre of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. The major technological aspects of clownfish rearing programme are the successful development of broodstock, methods of hatching the eggs, development of a biological detoxifying filtration system for larval rearing and appropriate larval feeding schedule. The fishes along with the anemones were collected and kept in one tonne tanks fitted with biological filter. In all the tanks one pair grew ahead of others and became the spawning pair. The fish spawned several times in the broodstock tanks. The eggs were attached to small earthern pots, granite stones, on the sides of the broodstock tanks. The freshly laid fertilised egg was orange in colour and it started swelling within a few hours. The eggs were stalked, capsule shaped and the length ranged from 1.7 to 2.9 mm. The eggs required continuous aeration which was created by the fanning of the eggs by the parents. The eggs started darkening from the second day and the developing larvae were clearly visible through the egg capsule from the third to fourth day. The larval hatching period was between six and seven days. On the day of hatching the egg capsules became very thin and transparent. Glowing of the larval eyes was prominent. The larvae broke the capsules and came out. Darkness accelerated hatching. Mass hatching of the eggs occurred during night with the peak during 1900 to 2200 hrs. The larva was fed rotifer. The larval survival during the critical period (from the day of hatching to the fifth day) ranged from 50 to 60%

Further Diversification of Nano Binary Open Sets

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and study the nano binary exterior, nano binary border and nano binary derivedin nano binary topological spaces. Also studied their characterization

Microcalcification and Macrocalcification Detection in Mammograms Based on GLCM and ODCM Texture Features Using SVM Classifier

Breast cancer is a common cancer in women and the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Photographing the changes in internal breast structure due to formation of masses and microcalcification for detection of Breast Cancer is known as Mammogram, which are low dose x-ray images. These images play a very significant role in early detection of breast cancer. Usually in pattern recognition texture analysis is used for classification based on content of image or in image segmentation based on variation of intensities of gray scale levels or colours. Similarly texture analysis can also be used to identify masses and microcalcification in mammograms. However Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrices (GLCM) technique introduced by Haralick was initially used in study of remote sensing images. Radiologists f i n d i t d i f f i c u l t to identify the mass in a mammogram, since the masses are surrounded by pectoral muscle and blood vessels. In breast cancer screening, radiologists usually miss approximately 10% - 30% of tumors because of the ambiguous margins of tumors resulting from long-time diagnosis. Computer-aided detection system is developed to aid radiologists in detecting ma mammographic masses which indicate the presence of breast cancer. In this paper the input image is pre-processed initially that includes noise removal, pectoral muscle removal, thresholding, contrast enhancement and suspicious mass is detected and the features are extracted based on the mass detected. A feature extraction method based on grey level co- occurrence matrix and optical density features called GLCM -OD features is used to describe local texture characteristics and the discrete photometric distribution of each ROI. Finally, a support vector machine is used to classify abnormal regions by selecting the individual performance of each feature. The results prove that the proposed system achieves an excellent detection performance using SVM classifier