Plasma homocysteine, folate and vitamin B(12) compared between rural Gambian and UK adults.

The disease risk indicator plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) is influenced by genetic and environmental factors, including folate and vitamin B(12) status. Little is known about the determinants of tHcy in rural West Africa. We explored the hypothesis that tHcy in rural Gambian adults might vary between the sexes and physiological groups, and/or with folate and vitamin B(12) status. Comparisons were made with a British national survey. Non-pregnant Gambian women (n 158) had tHcy concentrations (geometric mean 9.0 micromol/l) similar to those of non-pregnant UK women (n 449; 9.4 micromol/l), whereas pregnant Gambian women (n 12) had significantly lower values (6.2 micromol/l). Gambian men (n 22) had significantly higher values (14.7 micromol/l) than British men (n 354; 10.8 micromol/l). Gambian lactating women and British men and women exhibited significant inverse relationships between log(e)(tHcy) and folate status; however, only the British subjects exhibited significant inverse relationships between loge(tHcy) and vitamin B(12) status. In the British sample, and in Gambian lactating women, folate and vitamin B(12) status variations together accounted for 20-25 % of the variation in log(e)(tHcy). Within the UK, black-skinned adults had folate and tHcy levels similar to those of their white-skinned counterparts, but significantly higher vitamin B(12) values. We conclude that, whereas folate and vitamin B(12) status are similar between British and rural Gambian populations, tHcy is higher in Gambian men and lower in pregnant Gambian women, and that serum vitamin B(12) values appear to be higher in black-skinned than white-skinned British subjects. Possible reasons are discussed

A New Weibull-G Family of Distributions

Statistical analysis of lifetime data is an important topic in reliability engineering, biomedical and social sciences and others. We introduce a new generator based on the Weibull random variable called the new Weibull-G family. We study some of its mathematical properties. Its density function can be symmetrical, left-skewed, right-skewed, bathtub and reversed-J shaped, and has increasing, decreasing, bathtub, upside-down bathtub, J, reversed-J and S shaped hazard rates. Some special models are presented. We obtain explicit expressions for the ordinary and incomplete moments, quantile and generating functions, Renyi entropy, order statistics and reliability. Three useful characterizations based on truncated moments are also proposed for the new family. The method of maximum likelihood is used to estimate the model parameters. We illustrate the importance of the family by means of two applications to real data sets

Vannan Livelihood Carried in " Koveru Kazhuthaigal" (Mules)

Narratives are a literary form that records contemporary events. From time to time, authors record the realities of life through stories in Tamil literature. Especially in the lives of the people of the lower classes, they express external attitudes such as beliefs, customs, rituals, food habits, occupations, and internal attitudes such as love, anger, mercy, happiness, suffering, and poverty through stories. In this regard, writer Imaiyam has written novels like Sedal, Arumugam, En Kathe and short stories like Manbaram, Video Mariyamman, Kolacheval, Saavuu Soru, Narumanam, etc. Another of his novels, "Mules", chronicles the lives of Vannan (Washermen) people. This article presents some of its parts. The daily events, problems, speech patterns, diet, occupations, marriage events, death rituals, festivals, proverbs they follow in practice, and omens spoken in front of them are explored in this article based on this novel

Nanotechnology applications in medical diagnosis, imaging, and therapy

Tremendous advances in molecular and personalized medicine also present challenges for translation of innovative experimental approaches into clinically relevant strategies. To overcome some of these challenges, nanotechnology offers interesting solutions for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. For many systemic diseases, overcoming biological barriers and target specific delivery are the key challenges. Additionally, newer generation of molecular therapies, such as gene therapy, oligonucleotides, and RNA interference (RNAi) require robust and highly specific intracellular delivery strategies for effective and clinically meaningful therapeutic outcomes. In this presentation, I will cover several of our approaches for development of multifunctional engineered nano-systems for targeted therapies in the treatment of cancer, pain, and inflammatory diseases. Specific examples will include: (1) use of combinatorial-designed engineered nano-systems for RNA interference therapy in treatment of tumor multidrug resistance and genetic modulation of macrophage phenotype to promote anti-inflammatory effect in the treatment of autoimmune disorders. In each of the above examples, we focus on challenging medical problems with innovative solutions that use safe materials and scalable fabrication methods in order to facilitate clinical translation and improve patient outcomes

The Kumaraswamy Marshal-Olkin Family of Distributions

We introduce a new family of continuous distributions called the Kumaraswamy Marshal-Olkin generalized family of distributions. We study some mathematical properties of this family. Its density function is symmetrical, left-skewed, right-skewed and reversed-J shaped, and has constant, increasing, decreasing, upside-down bathtub, bathtub and S-shaped hazard rate. We present some special models and investigate the asymptotics and shapes of the family. We derive a power series for the quantile function and obtain explicit expressions for the moments, generating function, mean deviations, two types of entropies and order statistics. Some useful characterizations of the family are also proposed. The method of maximum likelihood is used to estimate the model parameters. We illustrate the importance of the family by means of two applications to real data sets

Language learning strategies : a narrative literature review

Language Learning Strategies (LLS) are the steps or actions that a learner consciously takes to improve and regulate his or her language learning (Cohen & Macaro, 2009; Griffiths, 2013; Oxford, 2011). This chapter focuses on a narrative review of the use and effectiveness of LLS in second language learning (L2) contexts. This investigation provides teachers and researchers with a thorough understanding of LLS besides highlighting research gaps

Test Center Location Problem: A bi-objective Model and Algorithms

The optimal placement of healthcare facilities, including the placement of diagnostic test centers, plays a pivotal role in ensuring efficient and equitable access to healthcare services. However, the emergence of unique complexities in the context of a pandemic, exemplified by the COVID-19 crisis, has necessitated the development of customized solutions. This paper introduces a bi-objective integer linear programming model designed to achieve two key objectives: minimizing average travel time for individuals visiting testing centers and maximizing an equitable workload distribution among testing centers. To address this problem, we propose a customized local search algorithm based on the Voronoi diagram. Additionally, we employ an $\epsilon$-constraint approach, which leverages the Gurobi solver. We rigorously examine the effectiveness of the model and the algorithms through numerical experiments and demonstrate their capability to identify Pareto-optimal solutions. We show that while the Gurobi performs efficiently in small-size instances, our proposed algorithm outperforms it in large-size instances of the problem

Linguistic Deviation in Literary Style

This paper is an attempt to shed light on linguistic deviation in literary style. Literary language, with its three main genres; poetry, drama and prose, is a situational variety of English that has specific features which belong to the literary and elevated language of the past. Literary language has been assigned a special status since antiquity, and is still used nowadays by some speakers and writers in certain situations and contexts. It has been considered as sublime and distinctive from all other types of language; one which is deviant from ordinary use of language in that it breaks the common norms or standards of language. A basic characteristic of literary style is linguistic deviation which occurs at different levels; lexical, semantic, syntactic, phonological, morphological, graphological, historical, dialectal and register. All these types of deviations are thoroughly investigated and stylistically analyzed in this paper so as to acquaint readers, students of English, researchers, and those interested in the field, with this type of linguistic phenomenon whose data is based on selected samples from major classical works in English literatur