Socioeconomic indicators of health inequalities and female mortality: a nested cohort study within the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS)

Evidence is mounting that area-level socioeconomic indicators are important tools for predicting health outcomes. However, few studies have examined these alongside individual-level education. This nested cohort study within the control arm of the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) assesses the association of mutually adjusted individual (education) and area-level (Index of Multiple Deprivation-IMD 2007) socioeconomic status indicators and all-cause female mortality

Using museum objects to improve wellbeing in mental health service users and neurological rehabilitation clients

Background: This study sought to determine the effects of a heritage-in-health intervention on well-being. Benefits of arts-in-health interventions are relatively well-documented yet little robust research has been conducted using heritage-in-health interventions, such as those involving museum objects. Method: Hospital patients (n = 57) participated in semi-structured, 30–40 minute facilitated interview sessions, discussing and handling museum objects comprising selections of six artefacts and specimens loaned from archaeology, art, geology and natural history collections. Well-being measures (Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale, Visual Analogue Scales) evaluated the sessions while inductive and deductive thematic analysis investigated psycho-educational features accounting for changes. Results: Comparison of pre- and post-session quantitative measures showed significant increases in well-being and happiness. Qualitative investigation revealed thinking and meaning-making opportunities for participants engaged with objects. Conclusion: Heritage-in-health sessions enhanced positive mood and social interaction, endorsing the need for provision of well-being-related museum and gallery activities for socially excluded or vulnerable healthcare audiences

Marine catfish resources of India

The marine catfish production showed a continuously declining trend all along the Indian Coast, from 67,666 t (1982) to 37,518 t (1995), while the situation is alarming along the SW and SE coast. This group is one of the most vulnerable resources for irrational harvest during their migratory and breeding phase. With the advent of mass harvesting gear like purse seine and trawlers, there has been a continuous onslaught on this resource during the periods of south bound or north bound migrations parallel to the coast. The damage is further aggravated when their spawning shoals are exploited from the surface often causing large scale destruction of parents and egg / embryos, leading to overfishing affecting the recruitment to the population. The paper gives the possible migratory route, seasons of vulnerability and impact of fishing gear on the resources. It is attempted to corelate the surface drift with the seasonal migrations. Various management practices are proposed to conserve the threatened species and suggested possible lines of exploitation preferably on the non-migratory species from distant waters in the middle shelf

Catfish resource in the Indian shelf waters

At attempt is made to analyse the bottom trawl fishing data collected by 91 cmises of FORV Sagar Sampada (1985 - '91). The vessel trawled in 544 stations spread over both the coasts up to a depth of 100 m and catfishes appeared in 54 stations with catch 3 -2401 kg/hr. The dominant species occurred beyond 50 m depth belt was invariably Tachysurus thalassinus whereas shoaling species like T. tenuispinis and T.dussumieri are reported from grounds less than 50 m. The resource has better abundance in 51 -100 m depth belt along northwest and northeast region

Muons as Local Probes of Three-body Correlations in the Mixed State of Type-II Superconductors

The vortex glass state formed by magnetic flux lines in a type-II superconductor is shown to possess non-trivial three-body correlations. While such correlations are usually difficult to measure in glassy systems, the magnetic fields associated with the flux vortices allow us to probe these via muon-spin rotation measurements of the local field distribution. We show via numerical simulations and analytic calculations that these observations provide detailed microscopic insight into the local order of the vortex glass and more generally validate a theoretical framework for correlations in glassy systems.Comment: 4+ pages, high-quality figures available on reques

Threadfin breams and lizard fish resources in the shelf waters of the Indian EEZ

The regional and seasonal distribution and abundance of threadfin breams and lizard fish are presented as revealed by the bottom trawling operations of FORV Sagar Sampada during cruises 56-91 (1989 and 1992). The threadfin breams occurred in 49 and lizard fish in 25% of the total number of bottom trawhng stations surveyed. The most productive grounds for threadfin breams were located in the southwest coast between 8° and 15° N latitudinal zones, with the area 11775° yielding the highest average catch rate of 1794 kg/hr. Very high congregation and concentration of threadfin breams, composed mainly of Nemipterus mesoprion and N. japonicus, was observed in the southwest in 41- 80 m depth zones during southwest monsoon period. Lizard fish resources, composed mainly of Saurida tumbil and S. undosquamis were also relatively more dominant in the southwest coast than along the east coast and in the EEZ of Andaman-Nicobar islands. The size distribution of N. japonicus and A', mesoprion showed that smaller modal groups were dominant in shallower depth zones. The potential yield of threadfin breams in the southwest zone was estimated to be 2.05 x 10

Management of Scombroid Fisheries

Scombroids, an economically important fishery resource consisting of 15 genera and 49 species of tunas, billfishes, seerfishes and mackerel; are a dominant exploitable resource in the coastal as well as oceanic pelagic realm. Although the annual catchable potential of scombroids in the Indian EEZ is estimated to be around 758,000 t, the present yield is only about 300,000 t, worth more than Rs. 10 billion, and their demand in the domestic and export markets Is on the increase

Recommendations of the National Workshop on Scombroids

Recommendations of the National Workshop on Scombroid

Forty years of temporal analysis of products

A detailed understanding of reaction mechanisms and kinetics is required in order to develop and optimize catalysts and catalytic processes. While steady-state investigations are known to give a global view of the catalytic system, transient studies are invaluable since they can provide more comprehensive insight into elementary steps. For almost forty years temporal analysis of products (TAP) has been successfully utilized for transient studies of gas phase heterogeneous reactions, and there have been a number of advances in instrumentation and numerical modeling methods in that time. Since TAP is a complex methodology it is often viewed as a niche specialty. With the purpose to make TAP more relevant and approachable to a wider segment of the catalytic research community, part of the intention of this work is to highlight the significant contributions TAP has made to elucidating mechanistic and kinetic aspects of complex, multi-step heterogeneous reactions. With this in mind, an outlook is also disclosed for the technique in terms of what is needed to revitalize the field and make it more applicable to the recent advances in catalyst characterization (e.g. operando modes)

Epigenetic reprogramming of fallopian tube fimbriae in BRCA mutation carriers defines early ovarian cancer evolution

The exact timing and contribution of epigenetic reprogramming to carcinogenesis are unclear. Women harbouring BRCA1/2 mutations demonstrate a 30–40-fold increased risk of high-grade serous extra-uterine Müllerian cancers (HGSEMC), otherwise referred to as ‘ovarian carcinomas’, which frequently develop from fimbrial cells but not from the proximal portion of the fallopian tube. Here we compare the DNA methylome of the fimbrial and proximal ends of the fallopian tube in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers and non-carriers. We show that the number of CpGs displaying significant differences in methylation levels between fimbrial and proximal fallopian tube segments are threefold higher in BRCA mutation carriers than in controls, correlating with overexpression of activation-induced deaminase in their fimbrial epithelium. The differentially methylated CpGs accurately discriminate HGSEMCs from non-serous subtypes. Epigenetic reprogramming is an early pre-malignant event integral to BRCA1/2 mutation-driven carcinogenesis. Our findings may provide a basis for cancer-preventative strategies