Sleeping Mindfully

Insomnia is a disorder of hyperarousal that affects up to 30% of adults. Insomnia is based on cognitive dysfunction that causes us to worry and neuroendocrine factors that upregulate our autonomic nervous system. Studies have shown that just 10 minutes of daily mindfulness practice can improve sleep. Mindfulness is able to work at the root of both causes of insomnia. It improves our ability to relax through increasing attentional factors that impart control over stress hormones and helps reduce ruminative thoughts.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1520/thumbnail.jp

Lived Experiences of Adult Asian Indian Immigrants in Central Ohio with Type Two Diabetes

Research shows that prevalence of Type Two Diabetes Mellitus in Asian Indians is the highest amongst various ethnicities. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of adult Asian Indian immigrants living in central Ohio who have Type Two Diabetes. The perceptions of this ethnic subgroup were studied through formal interviews with nine participants, the sample size. Data saturation, when no new themes were emerging from data, had been reached with the ninth participant. Interviews were audio taped and later transcribed and translated for analysis. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed for themes. Follow-up interviews were conducted for four participants to further clarify and verify points of interest in data. To summarize, two major themes were observed in the data: A majority of the study participants experienced transitions or changes in their lives due to Diabetes. Also, they had to control their diet to manage Diabetes. Amongst these themes, participants’ stated the importance of restricting diet, exercising more, taking medication. They also stated feeling tiredness, pain, or less energy than before. Furthermore, the participants experienced various other feelings associated with lifestyle changes such as feeling good with more exercise or feeling like they did not have enough time to exercise in some cases. Overall, the participants expressed many thoughts and feelings regarding their lived experiences with Diabetes. This can help health care professionals better understand the perceptions of an ethnic group that is greatly affected by Diabetes. By better understanding the perceptions and lived experiences, the provider is able to design more efficient culturally competent interventions that can help lead to better health outcomes for this ethnic group.Ohio State University College Of NursingNo embarg

Mothers Who Donate and Mothers Who Sell: False Dichotomies in the Regulation of Living Organ Transplant

Statistics suggest that a disproportionate number of all living organ donors in the world are women. Similarly, sociological accounts of the black market for human organs indicate that many more women sell their organs for money than men. An analysis of both these trends demonstrates that the reasons which persuade women to give away their bodily organs are similar, regardless of whether their organs are sold or donated. Indian law, however, categorizes these similar experiences into two distinct categories. In this respect, the law appears to be going against the natural grain of society. In this paper, I use a systems theory perspective to analyze this apparent incompatibility between law and society. I argue that the legal system communicates in a code that is not perfectly translatable to social codes; and highlight this as a possible reason for the law’s failure to prevent commercial trade in human organs. Considering this, I argue in favour of legal interventions to correct the commodification of the female body in the larger social sphere, and for a need to reorient the Indian regulatory approach towards living organ transplantation

Medical need and medicalisation in funding assisted reproduction: A right to health analysis

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) promise childbirth to those who are involuntarily childless. Despite an increase in their availability, they remain inaccessible because they are expensive. Some jurisdictions fund or subsidise ARTs. Central to ART funding decisions is the question of whether they are medically needed. This arises first at the stage of whether ARTs are funded at all, and second, in determining who, among those that are involuntarily childless, should access funded ARTs. I compare four representative models to demonstrate that centring medical need at these two stages raises problems of (a) undermining the welfare of ART seekers; (b) discrimination against same-sex couples and single women; (c) prioritising the medical needs of some groups over others; (d) budgetary competition with other medical services; and (e) inconsistent practices across jurisdictions. This has the effect of intensifying the stratified pressure to have children faced by women across the world. Drawing on this, I argue that centring medical need in ART funding is inconsistent with the international human right to health. I further claim that an alternative reproductive health approach to funding has the potential to undo the exclusionary nature of the social pressure to have children

Oxidative Dusulfurization of Dibenzothiophene from Model Oil (dodecane) using [bmim][Cl] as an Extracting Agent

The oxidative desulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) from model oil (in dodecane) was carried out using ionic liquid as the extractant and catalyst, and hydrogen peroxide in combustion as an oxidant. The ionic liquid used were 1-Butyl-3-Methylimidazolium Chlorine [bmim]Cl. The effect of the amount of hydrogen peroxide on oxidative desulfurization was first investigated without usage of ionic liquid at room temperature. The result indicate that greater amount of hydrogen peroxide yield higher desulfurization and the maximum desulfurization in this study were 17.32% removal at the molar ratio of hydrogen peroxide to S-content was 10:1. With the usage of ionic liquid and the molar ratio 10:1(hydrogen peroxide to S-content), the efficiency of sulfur removal from model oil was enhanced to 21.02% removal, it was increase significantly in term of sulfur removal and removal time. The mixing time was 300 minutes at room temperature. The result indicates the potential of ionic liquids as the extractant and catalyst for oxidative desulfurization of hydrocarbon fuels

Defining virus-antibody interplay during the development of HIV-1 neutralization breadth to inform vaccine design

A thesis submitted to the School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2016Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infects approximately two million people annually, highlighting the need for a preventative vaccine. An effective HIV-1 vaccine will likely need to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which arise naturally in some infected individuals and recognize the envelopes (Env) of multiple HIV-1 strains. Understanding the molecular events that contribute to bNAb development during infection may provide a blueprint for vaccine strategies. Here we investigated the development of a V1V2-directed bNAb lineage in the context of viral co-evolution in an HIV-1 superinfected participant (CAP256). For this, clonally-related monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), with a range of neutralization breadth, were isolated. We determined their developmental pathway from strain-specificity towards neutralization breadth and identified viral variants responsible for initiating and maturing this bNAb lineage. MAbs were isolated by memory B cell culture or trimer-specific single B cell sorting and extensively characterized by Env-pseudotyped neutralization, cell surface-expressed Env binding, electron microscopy and epitope-predictive algorithms. Antibody next-generation sequencing (NGS) at multiple time-points enabled the inference of the unmutated common ancestor (UCA) of this lineage. Viral co-evolution was investigated using Env single genome amplification and V1V2 NGS. A family of 33 clonally-related mAbs, CAP256-VRC26.01-33, was isolated from samples spanning four years of infection. The UCA of this lineage possessed an unusually long heavy chain complementarity determining region 3 (CDRH3), which resulted from a unique recombination event. Surprisingly, this UCA potently neutralized later viral variants that had evolved from the superinfecting virus, which we termed bNAb-initiating Envs. Viral diversification, which peaked prior to the development of neutralization breadth, created multiple immunotypes at key residues in the V1V2 epitope. Exposure to these immunotypes allowed adaptation of some mAbs to tolerate this variation and thus mature towards neutralization breadth. Based on these data, we proposed a four-step immunization strategy which includes priming with bNAb-initiating Envs to engage rare B cells with a long CDRH3; followed by three sequential boosts (including select V1V2 immunotypes) to drive antibody maturation. In conclusion, this study has generated a testable HIV-1 vaccine immunization strategy through the delineation of mAb-virus co-evolution during the development of neutralization breadth.MT201

A Deep Learning Approach towards Cold Start Problem in Movie Recommendation System

Recommendation systems play an important role for e-commerce websites to make profits. It has a variety of applications in different domains. There are three types of categories in which recommendation systems are classified i.e. content based, collaborative and hybrid systems. These systems suffer when a redundant amount of information is not available to provide recommendations. This problem is known as the cold start problem. In this digital era, it is possible to collect meta information about a user and provide rich recommendations. Various approaches such as social media analysis, graph networks have been proposed to solve this problem. But they lack personalization and generate irrelevant recommendations affecting the system performance. The objective of this work is to resolve new user cold start problem in movie recommendation systems using a deep learning approach that utilizes demographic attributes to cluster similar users. This embedding is given to the deep neural network to generate the recommendations. From the analysis done, we verify the effectiveness of our approach.

A STUDY ON THE MECHANICAL EFFECTS OF GAS NITRIDING ON ALUMINIUM ALLOY 6061 FOR THE USE IN MOBILE PHONE CASING

The constant demands for low weight and high strength mobile phone casing lead manufacturers to utilize aluminium for the material selection. In this study, heat treatment process will be conducted on Aluminium Alloy 6061 by means of gas nitriding process. In this process, the aluminium sample was heat treated at temperature 550℃ while at the same time nitrogen gas diffused into the surface material after being introduced into the tube furnace. The samples were then tested for its improved properties using Rockwell hardness testing machine and Revetest Scratch Tester for its hardness and scratch resistance. The microstructure test was carried out to examine the formation of nitride layer using Optical Microscope (OM) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) built in with Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS). The experimental results comprised data comparing with both nitrided and unnitrided samples

Subcutaneous cysticercosis mimicking tenosynovitis: a rare case with radiological revelation

Subcutaneous cysticercosis is a rare manifestation of cysticercosis, caused by the larval stage of Taenia solium. It presents as a swelling or a palpable cystic mass. We describe a 43-year-old female who presented with subcutaneous swelling over her right hand, gradually increasing in size over ten days. Initially, tenosynovitis was suspected clinically. However, an ultrasound of the hand revealed a well-defined, cystic lesion with eccentric echogenic foci and peripheral oedema suggestive of cysticercosis. She was treated with oral albendazole, leading to significant improvement. This case report emphasizes the importance of considering parasitic infections as a potential cause of subcutaneous swelling. It also highlights the significance of utilizing diagnostic imaging for definitive diagnosis and timely treatment

Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies as Treatment: Effects on Virus and Immune System

Purpose of Review The purpose of this study is to summarize recent advances in the use of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) as therapeutics in human clinical trials and in non-human primate (NHP) models. We seek to highlight lessons from these studies with an emphasis on consequences to the virus and immune system. Recent Findings In the past 10 years, advances in HIV-1 trimer structure and B cell isolation methods have precipitated the identification of “new-generation” anti-HIV antibodies with broad and potent neutralization. In the past 2 years, the concept of using these bNAbs as therapeutic tools has moved from NHP models into human clinical trials. These trials have investigated the effects of bNAb infusions into patients chronically infected with HIV-1, while the NHP model has investigated treatment during acute infection. Summary Through this work, the relationship between in vitro breadth and potency and in vivo clinical effect, although unresolved, is gradually being elucidated. These results emphasize the need for combination antibody therapy