Trauma-Informed Practices for Test-Taking Anxiety at the Elementary Grade Level

Test -Taking Anxiety (TTA) is a challenging experience for children of all ages. Childhood exposure to trauma and adverse experience has been increasing. Fortunately, trauma-informed practices, such as mindfulness activities have become more widespread in schools throughout the last few years. Existing school counseling literature offers limited perspectives on how school counselors can support elementary students for TTA. This conceptual article explores the effects of trauma-informed practices on elementary-age students\u27 test anxiety and overall academic success in schools and offers implications for practice

Creativity in the printing industry: The Context of organizational change

The printing industry is undergoing numerous changes. The advancement of digital technologies has profoundly impacted the ways in which information is conveyed to consumers and has given people the ability to produce documents on their own, thereby limiting reliance on traditional print companies. As an example of this phenomenon, Freeman and Rothenberg (2006) report on decreasing demand for traditional print products, citing statistics from the Newspaper Association of America that mark a decrease in newsprint consumption of 14%

EVALUATION OF DIURETIC AND ANTIUROLITHIATIC PROPERTIES OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF SIDA ACUTA BURM. F. IN WISTAR ALBINO RATS

Objective: To evaluate the diuretic and antiurolithiatic properties of ethanolic extract of Sida acuta Burm. f. in albino rats.Methods: Three different doses of Sida acuta (100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg, 400 mg/kg) were tested for diuretic activity and compared with furosemide (25 mg/kg) and control group. 24 hr urine output and urinary concentrations of sodium (Na+), potassium (K+) and chloride (Cl-) ions were the parameters measured. Prophylactic and curative antiurolithiatic activity was tested for three doses (100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg & 400 mg/kg) of Sida acuta and compared with control group and animals treated with standard herbal preparation Cystone (750 mg/kg) using zinc disc implantation model.Results: Sida acuta (400 mg/kg) significantly increased the urine output (p<0.001), which was almost equivalent to furosemide. Sida acuta also caused a significant increase in the excretion of K+ and Cl-at higher doses (200 mg/kg, 400 mg/kg). Effects on Na+excretion were not significant for all three doses of the test drug. Sida acuta (200 mg/kg, 400 mg/kg) showed statistically significant (p<0.05) reduction in depositions around zinc discs as compared to control when tested in prophylactically treated rats, but not in rats treated post-urolithiasis induction.Conclusion: Sida acuta produced a dose-dependent increase in urine output, with no effect on sodium excretion. This probably indicates that the diuresis produced could be due to its aquarectic action. It also showed significant prophylactic antiurolithiatic activity, but further studies are necessary to evaluate fully its therapeutic potential.Keywords: Zinc disc implantation, Calculi, Diuretic index, Cyston

A Dynamic, User-centric Big Data Analytics Framework for Genome Data

poster abstractThe cost to sequence DNA today has reduced from $100million to mere over$1000 and this has significantly increased the generation of genomic data multifold. However, analysis of such large data requires meeting user needs and computational challenges. There are different tools that exist to process the sequenced DNA information for alignment and research. These tools are made adaptive to work in a big data processing environment like Hadoop. However, the analysis of such sequence data is dependent on user specific needs, and hence, a unique data analysis pipeline is needed for each user. We propose a barcode driven technology to instruct a Hadoop-based big data analytics system that would allow the user to select the necessary tools to process the input genome data file. The proposed framework can dynamically generate customized barcodes for each user based on the user’s data analysis need and a pipeline is created and driven by the barcode. This approach will revolutionize the way NGS data analytics pipelines are being setup by the user. This new method will provide the user with a seamless way to analyze the data. The time taken to process a genomic file was significantly reduced from 2 hours on a traditional Linux server to just 3.81 minutes on Hadoop. Our results indicate that a barcode-based approach will enable the user to customize NGS data analysis in a very efficient manner

Generation and characterization of human osteoarthritis cartilage-derived mesenchymal stem cells by modified sample processing and culture method

Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be isolated from different tissue sources, and show a high differentiation capacity towards osteogenic, adipogenic, chondrogenic, neurogenic and myogenic lineages upon a specific induction. Although the retrieval of MSCs from normal tissues is very straightforward, yet it could be challenging in degenerative conditions that limit the expansion of stem cells such as osteoarthritis. Thus, this study aimed to establish human MSCs culture from osteoarthritic cartilage (OA hC-MSCs) by optimising the sample processing and culture techniques. Methods: Human osteoarthritis knee cartilage samples were obtained (2-4 g) from 8 patients with a mean age of 62.75 years old during the joint replacement surgery. A conventional culture method carried along with the modified method where the period of enzyme digestion and serial plating culture procedure were incorporated. Results: The modified culture method has significantly increased the number of single cells twice after the sample processing. The time taken to form colonies and achieve confluence was also reduced when samples subjected to the modified method. The number of cell yields after passage 0 for the conventional and modified methods were 3.05±0.31 and 6.10±0.42 million cells, respectively. The adherent cells generated under these two conditions comply with criteria for MSCs in term of immunophenotyping and mesodermal differentiation. Conclusions: The current modified method enhances the production of MSCs and could be opted for samples that known to have reduced or defective stem cell pool which may impede the in vitro cell expansion

Antidepressant and skeletal muscle relaxant effects of the aqueous extract of the Prosopis cineraria

The aqueous leaves extract of Prosopis cineraria (AEPC) is used traditionally for the treatment of various CNS disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extract for antidepressant and skeletal muscle relaxant activity. The antidepressant effect of the extract was evaluated using Forced swim test (FST). The immobility periods of control and treated mice were recorded. The antidepressant-like effect of tested compound was compared to that of imipramine (15 mg/kg. p.o). Muscle relaxant property was studied using rotarod apparatus and total fall off time for standard and control group was recorded. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, glycosides, tannins and phenolic compounds. The leaf extract at doses of 200 mg/kg significantly decreased the duration of immobility time in FST. The efficacy of tested extract was found to be comparable to that of imipramine. Our results suggested that the aqueous extract of Prosopis cineraria leaves exerts antidepressant-like effect.O extrato aquoso de folhas de Prosopis cineraria (AEPC) é utilizado, tradicionalmente, para o tratamento de várias disfunções do SNC. O propósito desse estudo foi avaliar o extrato quanto às atividades antidepressiva e relaxante muscular esquelética. O efeito antidepressivo do extrato foi avaliado usando o teste do nado forçado (FST). Registraram-se os períodos de imobilidade dos camundongos controle e dos tratados. O efeito antidepressivo do composto testado foi comparado com a imipramina ((15 mg/kg. p.o). A propriedade relaxante muscular foi estudada usando o cilindro giratório e o tempo total de queda para os grupos padrão e controle foram registrados. A triagem fitoquímica revelou a presença de saponinas, flavonoides, alcaloides, glicosídeos, taninos e compostos fenólicos. O extrato da folha em doses de 200 mg/kg diminui significativamente a duração do tempo de imobilidade no FST. A eficácia do extrato testado foi comparável àquela da imipramina. Nossos resultados sugeriram que o extrato aquoso das folhas da Prosopis cineraria exerce efeito semelhante ao antidepressivo

Challenges and opportunities in mixed method data collection on mental health issues of health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Background: The present paper describes the key challenges and opportunities of mixed method telephonic data collection for mental health research using field notes and the experiences of the investigators in a multicenter study in ten sites of India. The study was conducted in public and private hospitals to understand the mental health status, social stigma and coping strategies of different healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative interviews were conducted telephonically. The experiences of data collection were noted as a field notes/diary by the data collectors and principal investigators.Results: The interviewers reported challenges such as network issues, lack of transfer of visual cues and sensitive content of data. Although the telephonic interviews present various challenges in mixed method data collection, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face data collection using available technology.Conclusions: It is important that the investigators are well trained keeping these challenges in mind so that their capacity is built to deal with these challenges and good quality data is obtained

Human protein reference database—2006 update

Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD) () was developed to serve as a comprehensive collection of protein features, post-translational modifications (PTMs) and protein–protein interactions. Since the original report, this database has increased to >20 000 proteins entries and has become the largest database for literature-derived protein–protein interactions (>30 000) and PTMs (>8000) for human proteins. We have also introduced several new features in HPRD including: (i) protein isoforms, (ii) enhanced search options, (iii) linking of pathway annotations and (iv) integration of a novel browser, GenProt Viewer (), developed by us that allows integration of genomic and proteomic information. With the continued support and active participation by the biomedical community, we expect HPRD to become a unique source of curated information for the human proteome and spur biomedical discoveries based on integration of genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic data

Caspase involvement in autophagy

Caspases are a family of cysteine proteases widely known as the principal mediators of the apoptotic cell death response, but considerably less so as the contributors to the regulation of pathways outside cellular demise. In regards to autophagy, the modulatory roles of caspases have only recently begun to be adequately described. In contrast to apoptosis, autophagy promotes cell survival by providing energy and nutrients through the lysosomal degradation of cytoplasmic constituents. Under basal conditions autophagy and apoptosis cross-regulate each other through an elaborate network of interconnections which also includes the interplay between autophagyrelated proteins (ATGs) and caspases. In this review we focus on the effects of this crosstalk at the cellular level, as we aim to concentrate the main observations from research conducted so far on the fine-tuning of autophagy by caspases. Several members of this protease-family have been found to directly interact with key ATGs involved in different tiers across the autophagic cascade. Therefore, we firstly outline the core mechanism of macroautophagy in brief. In an effort to emphasize the importance of the intricate cross-regulation of ATGs and caspases, we also present examples drawn from Drosophila and plant models regarding the contribution of autophagy to apoptotic cell death during normal development