Black people’s experiences of therapy

There are many health inequalities experienced by Black African-Caribbean communities within the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America (USA). Individual, interpersonal and structural factors associated with these inequalities, may impact access to therapy, and the experience and outcomes of psychological therapy. Studies looking at Black people’s experiences of therapy have been helpful in identifying helpful and unhelpful processes however, there have been no prior reviews collating these experiences. This review explores and synthesises data from qualitative studies focusing on Black people’s experiences of different models of psychological therapy in the UK and USA. Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. A thematic synthesis was conducted, creating six overall themes; impact of racism and stereotypes, socio-cultural perceptions of mental health, therapeutic alliance, positive change within therapy, helpful and unhelpful structures of therapy and cultural adaptation. Generally, Black people who participated in the studies reported positive experiences of therapy, which was facilitated by a positive therapeutic alliance, acquiring specific skills, and appropriate cultural adaptation. Further research is required in examining Black people’s experience of therapy within different settings within the UK, as most of the studies identified were based in the USA

Novel topological beam-splitting in photonic crystals

We create a passive wave splitter, created purely by geometry, to engineer three-way beam splitting in electromagnetism in transverse electric polarisation. We do so by considering arrangements of Indium Phosphide dielectric pillars in air, in particular we place several inclusions within a cell that is then extended periodically upon a square lattice. Hexagonal lattice structures more commonly used in topological valleytronics but, as we discuss, three-way splitting is only possible using a square, or rectangular, lattice. To achieve splitting and transport around a sharp bend we use accidental, and not symmetry-induced, Dirac cones. Within each cell pillars are either arranged around a triangle or square; we demonstrate the mechanism of splitting and why it does not occur for one of the cases. The theory is developed and full scattering simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed designs

Comparative evaluation of nutritional status of elderly dentulous and completely edentulous patients wearing complete dentures

Introduction: The scientific progress has reached a level where nutritional interventions may play a part in the prevention of degenerative conditions of age, improvement of quality of life and impact on health care burden and resources. Moreover a timely intervention can stop weight loss in elderly at risk of malnutrition or undernourished. Evaluation of nutritional status is important for any nutrition or dietary modification. We therefore did a comparative study of evaluation of nutritional status of elderly dentulous and completely edentulous patients wearing complete dentures. Rationale: To evaluate nutritional status in dentulous and edentulous denture wearing elderly patient. To evaluate any relationship between edentulous denture wearer patient and malnutrition. To determine if the recommended dietary allowance is met by elderly dentulous and completely edentulous patients wearing complete dentures. To find out the need of nutritional supplement for edentulous complete denture wearer patients. Objectives: The objectives were to evaluate nutritional status in dentulous and edentulous denture wearing elderly patients and to find out any relationship between edentulous denture wearer patients and malnutrition. We also tried to find out the need of nutritional supplement for edentulous denture wearer patients. Material & Method: A total of 100  healthy Male and Female  patients  between the age of 60  to 80 years attending the OPD of Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Dental Sciences, Dharmsinh Desai University, Nadiad, Gujarat were selected and divided into two sample groups dentulous and edentulous. Subjects with no natural teeth who reported wearing complete maxillary and   mandibular dentures for at least 6 months were taken as the edentulous sample and subjects with at least 24 teeth who did not wear dentures were taken as dentulous sample. Mini Nutrition Assesment Tool, 24 Hour Diet Recall & Food Frequency Form were used to evaluate the nutritional status of the subjects. The data on food consumption was converted to the calorie content of the diet and the percentage of recommended dietary allowance (RDA) was calculated for the subject according to the age, gender and activity level. Statistical analysis was done using the Chi square P value test. No investigation or intervention was conducted on patients, humans or other animals hence, ethical consideration was not applicable in this study. Null hypothesis: “There is no difference in the nutritional intake of the dentulous patients and edentulous patients wearing complete dentures”. Result: It was observed in this study that only 62% of the edentulous subjects were taking fruits frequently against 88% of dentulous subjects. In the same way, while 54% of dentulous subjects were consuming nuts and oil seeds, only 36% of edentulous subjects consumed them & the result is statistically significant. There was a direct relationship between edentulousness and malnutrition. 94% of the dentulous subjects in our study were well nourished according to MNA having score from 24 to 30 against 62% of edentulous subjects. The risk of malnutrition was eight times higher in edentulous as compared to dentulous subjects, 34% & 4% respectively which is highly significant statistically. Only negligible portion was malnourished that was 2% for dentulous and 4% for edentulous subjects. Further, there was a positive correlation between the MNA score and calorie intake per day in percentage of RDA. All the subjects detected to be malnourished were taking less than 75% of RDA calorie intake. Amongst 17 edentulous subjects (34%) at risk of malnutrition, more than half (n=10) were consuming less than 75% of RDA. Even though statistically insignificant, maximum subjects in both the categories belonged to >25kg/m2 (over weight) that is total 60% of dentulous and 44% of edentulous subjects. On further division, 38% of dentulous and 28% of edentulous subjects were preobese while those belonging to obese category were 22% and 16% respectively. Conclusion: Undernutrition as well as obesity were common health hazards in our geriatric population. Early management by nutritional intervention, combined with oral health care, is of great importance for the improvement of nutritional parameters and the prognosis of prosthetic treatmen

High frequency homogenisation for elastic lattices

A complete methodology, based on a two-scale asymptotic approach, that enables the homogenisation of elastic lattices at non-zero frequencies is developed. Elastic lattices are distinguished from scalar lattices in that two or more types of coupled waves exist, even at low frequencies. Such a theory enables the determination of effective material properties at both low and high frequencies. The theoretical framework is developed for the propagation of waves through lattices of arbitrary geometry and dimension. The asymptotic approach provides a method through which the dispersive properties of lattices at frequencies near standing waves can be described; the theory accurately describes both the dispersion curves and the response of the lattice near the edges of the Brillouin zone. The leading order solution is expressed as a product between the standing wave solution and long-scale envelope functions that are eigensolutions of the homogenised partial differential equation. The general theory is supplemented by a pair of illustrative examples for two archetypal classes of two-dimensional elastic lattices. The efficiency of the asymptotic approach in accurately describing several interesting phenomena is demonstrated, including dynamic anisotropy and Dirac cones.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Development of Novel Antitumour Therapeutics Based on DNA Aptamers Against the MUC1/Y Protein

Alterations in the expression of vital proteins of the cellular signalling pathways are at the forefront of molecular abnormalities established in cancer. Therefore, to understand the fundamental mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, characterisation of tumour markers, such as key proteins like MUC1/Y that are highly expressed in malignant cells, is crucially important. Rapid drug discovery is a pressing need in the pharmaceutical industry. Agents that are able to bind tightly and selectively to the surface of diseased cells would greatly benefit both disease diagnosis and treatment. An aptamer is a functional oligonucleotide that has the appropriate sequence and structure to form a complex, possessing great affinity and selectivity for its target. Aptamers of high affinity and specificity have been successfully generated against the MUC1/Y splice variant from a non-conventional single round SELEX system termed SimpLex. The 72 base long aptamers were truncated to an ideal therapeutic length of 25 bases long via two different means. The first entails eliminating the primers and leaving only the central variable region and the second involves truncation of the aptamers based on their predicted secondary structure. Thus, three aptamer versions were taken for further investigation, the complete and two truncated ones. However, as is it often the case, aptamers lack in vivo stability and are prone to rapid renal filtration and therefore require modification to achieve their full potential in vivo as therapeutic agents. Thus, the MUC1/Y selected aptamers were conjugated with a 32 kDa polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer to increase their molecular weight to ca. 40 kDa, an appropriate size to avoid rapid renal clearance. The truncated aptamers, the pegylated aptamers and the full length aptamers were characterised employing qualitative techniques which include EMSA, affinity column chromatography and DNA thermal denaturation studies. The aptamers were further assessed for their binding, specificity and internalisation by FACs and fluorescence microscopy. The characterisation studies have shown that the anti-MUC1/Y aptamers possess affinity and specificity for the MUC1/Y protein and the conjugation of the aptamers to PEG has further enhanced their binding and internalisation potential. These encouraging results display potential future prospects as therapeutic agents for the pegylated aptamers and warrants their further future evaluation in in vivo studies

Comparison of Different Algorithm for Face Recognition

This paper is about the different algorithms which are used for face recognition. There are so many algorithms which are available for face recognition .There are two approaches by which the face can be recognize i.e. face Geometry based and face appearance based. The appearance based technique is also sub divided into two technique i.e. local feature and global feature based. The technique of local feature based are Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT).In this paper we study the two global features (holistic) appearance based algorithm i.e. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) in which every face image is converted into 1D, we are using 1D for all the calculation and then compare these two algorithm with the help of FAR (False Acceptance Rate),FRR (False Rejection Rate),Time, Memory and checks which algorithm gives the better result

Hilbert Transform Based Adaptive ECG R-Peak Detection Technique

In this paper we introduce a R-peak detection algorithm using the Hilbert transform for electrocardiogram processing. This algorithm uses the envelope obtained from Hilbert transform to detect the R-peaks in the ECG signal. The algorithm adaptively determines the threshold for peak determination. This technique minimizes the unwanted effects of large peaked T and P waves. Main advantage of this algorithm is that it performs extremely well in the pragmatic presence of noise.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i5.143