Impact of Neighborhood Quality and Recent Life Stressors on Sleep Problems: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescents at Risk for Maltreatment

It is estimated that around 70% of adolescents are not getting sufficient sleep. The impact of poor sleep during adolescence is related to both increased psychopathology and poorer academic and social functioning. While studies have established a link at the community level between earlier school start times and poorer sleep, there remain open questions about other aspects of community such as neighborhood factors and stressful life events. In this study, we investigated the impact of three neighborhood factors (chaos, stability, and efficacy) and recent life stressors on adolescent (n = 1354) sleep habits at ages 12, 14, and 16 in a sample of children at who were either maltreated or at a high risk for maltreatment via the Longitudinal Survey on Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Overall, greater life stressors before age 12, led to greater sleep difficulties. Additionally, while neighborhood stability did not seem to predict more sleep problems, increased neighborhood chaos and lower collective efficacy predicted more sleep problems. These findings suggest it is important to assess the impact of various neighborhood factors separately, as the granular approach provided more nuance in understanding risk factors to poor sleep in adolescents. On a policy level, one implication is to intervene in reducing factors that lead to increased neighborhood chaos (e.g., vandalism, open drug activities) and promote collective neighborhood efficacy (e.g., developing neighborhood programs to increase interactions and trust between neighbors)

Perception and satisfaction regarding breast feeding among breast feeding mothers: a hospital based study

Background: World Health organization (WHO) states that to ensure child health and survival, Breast feeding can be best tool. It also mentions that nearly 2 out of 3 are not exclusively breast fed and a special note that only 41 % are exclusively breast fed for 6 months. Breastfeeding satisfaction is defined as, “the satisfying feeling obtained during breastfeeding resulting from cooperation between the mother and the infant to fulfill desires or needs”.Methods: This was a hospital based cross sectional study carried at Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sri Devaraj Urs Medical College, SDUAHER, Kolar from December 2019 to August 2020 for a period of 10 months. Sample size was calculated based on previous study.Results: The present study was a cross sectional study carried out for a period of 9 months at SDUMC tertiary care center. 270 mothers were part of study among which 82 (30.3%) had completed high school, 110 (40.7%) belonged to 21-25 years, 184 (68.07%) were Hindus, 125 (46.2%) belonged to Upper middle class of Modified BG Prasad’s classification 2019, 199 (73.6%) had delivered through normal delivery and 142 (52.7%) had more than one child. Out of 270 breast feeding mothers, 214 (79.3%) has satisfactory knowledge, 148 (54.8%) had satisfactory attitude and only 47 (17.4%) had satisfactory practice. Mothers having  higher education status, having more than one child, home makers and those delivered by Normal delivery had higher scores were statistically significant.Conclusions: Perceptions regarding breast feedings were not satisfactory at various segments and breast feeding satisfaction were influenced by education, working status, number of children and family members were significant factors influencing breast feeding satisfaction

Moisture management finish on woven fabrics

486-491Moisture management behaviour of four different woven fabrics, such as cotton, polyester/cotton blend, microdenier polyester and nylon, has been studied. A wetting agent of ethoxylated alcohol blend and moisture management finishing agents, such as amino silicone polyether copolymer and hydrophilic polymer, have been prepared and used. Moisture management finishes with wetting agent and without wetting agent are imparted onto woven fabrics. The effect of moisture management finishing process parameters on the comfort properties of woven fabrics has been studied. The optimization of comfort level by varying the moisture management finishing process parameters in order to achieve suitability for making sports wear is done. It is found that the type of fibre and linear density of yarn affect the comfort properties of woven fabrics which include wicking, wetting, water absorbency and moisture vapour transmission characteristics. Based on the test results, microdenier polyester fabrics and cotton fabrics exhibit good wicking, wetting and water absorbency characteristics than the polyester/cotton blend and nylon. It is found that the combination of ethoxylated alcohol (wetting agent) and the recipe containing amino silicone polyether copolymer and hydrophilic polymer in the ratio of 1:2 with pH of 5.5 at 600-700 C temperature is the optimum finishing process than the other two combinations so as to attain better comfort properties for sportswear

Moisture management finish on woven fabrics

Moisture management behaviour of four different woven fabrics, such as cotton, polyester/cotton blend, microdenierpolyester and nylon, has been studied. A wetting agent of ethoxylated alcohol blend and moisture management finishingagents, such as amino silicone polyether copolymer and hydrophilic polymer, have been prepared and used. Moisturemanagement finishes with wetting agent and without wetting agent are imparted onto woven fabrics. The effect of moisturemanagement finishing process parameters on the comfort properties of woven fabrics has been studied. The optimization ofcomfort level by varying the moisture management finishing process parameters in order to achieve suitability for makingsports wear is done. It is found that the type of fibre and linear density of yarn affect the comfort properties of woven fabricswhich include wicking, wetting, water absorbency and moisture vapour transmission characteristics. Based on the testresults, microdenier polyester fabrics and cotton fabrics exhibit good wicking, wetting and water absorbency characteristicsthan the polyester/cotton blend and nylon. It is found that the combination of ethoxylated alcohol (wetting agent) and therecipe containing amino silicone polyether copolymer and hydrophilic polymer in the ratio of 1:2 with pH of 5.5 at 600-700 Ctemperature is the optimum finishing process than the other two combinations so as to attain better comfort propertiesfor sportswear

Intrinsically disordered proteins and conformational noise: Implications in cancer

Intrinsically disordered proteins, IDPs, are proteins that lack a rigid 3D structure under physiological conditions, at least in vitro. Despite the lack of structure, IDPs play important roles in biological processes and transition from disorder to order upon binding to their targets. With multiple conformational states and rapid conformational dynamics, they engage in myriad and often “promiscuous” interactions. These stochastic interactions between IDPs and their partners, defined here as conformational noise, is an inherent characteristic of IDP interactions. The collective effect of conformational noise is an ensemble of protein network configurations, from which the most suitable can be explored in response to perturbations, conferring protein networks with remarkable flexibility and resilience. Moreover, the ubiquitous presence of IDPs as transcriptional factors and, more generally, as hubs in protein networks, is indicative of their role in propagation of transcriptional (genetic) noise. As effectors of transcriptional and conformational noise, IDPs rewire protein networks and unmask latent interactions in response to perturbations. Thus, noise-driven activation of latent pathways could underlie state-switching events such as cellular transformation in cancer. To test this hypothesis, we created a model of a protein network with the topological characteristics of a cancer protein network and tested its response to a perturbation in presence of IDP hubs and conformational noise. Because numerous IDPs are found to be epigenetic modifiers and chromatin remodelers, we hypothesize that they could further channel noise into stable, heritable genotypic changes

Comfort properties of moisture management finished bi-layer knitted fabrics: Part II - Moisture Management

Moisture management properties of six samples of bi-layer fabrics have been determined after optimised finish and their statistical analysis is done. It is found that the finished fabrics show better properties than those of unfinished fabrics. The bi-layer fabric structure along with the application of optimized moisture management finish makes the fabric more suitable for sportswear, exhibiting excellent moisture management properties in terms of wetting radius, absorption rate, wetting time and spreading speed of sweat. The results indicate that, the inner and outer microdenier polyester fabrics show better moisture management property, offering high levels of comfort, and hence are preferred during summer for active and sportswear due to the appreciable wetting radius, as well as good absorption rate, wetting time and well spreading speed of sweat.

CETN1 is a cancer testis antigen with expression in prostate and pancreatic cancers

Background: The Cancer Testis Antigens (CTAs) are a group of genes that are highly expressed in the normal testis and several types of cancer. Due to their restricted expression in normal adult tissues, CTAs have been attractive targets for immunotherapy and biomarker development. In this work, we discovered that Centrin 1 (CETN1) which is found in the centrosome of all eukaryotes, may be a member of this group and is highly expressed in prostate and pancreatic cancer. Three members of the centrin family of calcium binding proteins (CETN) are localized to the centrosome in all eukaryotes with CDC31 being the sole yeast homolog. CETN1 is a retrogene that probably arose from a retrotransposition of CETN2, an X-linked gene. A previous mouse study shows that CETN1 is expressed solely in the testis, while CETN2 is expressed in all organs. Results: In this work, we show that CETN1 is a new member of the growing group of CTAs. Through the mining of publicly available microarray data, we discovered that human CETN1 expression but not CETN2 or CETN3 is restricted to the testis. In fact, CETN1 is actually down-regulated in testicular malignancies compared to normal testis. Using q-PCR, CETN1 expression is shown to be highly up-regulated in cancer of the prostate and in pancreatic xenografts. Unexpectedly however, CETN1 expression was virtually absent in various cell lines until they were treated with the DNA demethylation agent 5’AZA-2’Deoxycytidine (AZA) but showed no increased expression upon incubation with Histone deacetylase inhibitor Trichostatin-A (TSA) alone. Additionally, like most CTAs, CETN1 appears to be an intrinsically disordered protein which implies that it may occupy a hub position in key protein interaction networks in cancer. Neither CETN1 nor CETN2 could compensate for loss of CDC31 expression in yeast which is analogous to published data for CETN3. Conclusions: This work suggests that CETN1 is a novel CTA with expression in cancer of the prostate and pancreas. In cell lines, the expression is probably regulated by promoter methylation, while the method of regulation in normal adult tissues remains unknown

Mechanistic Insights into a Novel Exporter-Importer System of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Unravel Its Role in Trafficking of Iron

Elucidation of the basic mechanistic and biochemical principles underlying siderophore mediated iron uptake in mycobacteria is crucial for targeting this principal survival strategy vis-à-vis virulence determinants of the pathogen. Although, an understanding of siderophore biosynthesis is known, the mechanism of their secretion and uptake still remains elusive.Here, we demonstrate an interplay among three iron regulated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) proteins, namely, Rv1348 (IrtA), Rv1349 (IrtB) and Rv2895c in export and import of M.tb siderophores across the membrane and the consequent iron uptake. IrtA, interestingly, has a fused N-terminal substrate binding domain (SBD), representing an atypical subset of ABC transporters, unlike IrtB that harbors only the permease and ATPase domain. SBD selectively binds to non-ferrated siderophores whereas Rv2895c exhibits relatively higher affinity towards ferrated siderophores. An interaction between the permease domain of IrtB and Rv2895c is evident from GST pull-down assay. In vitro liposome reconstitution experiments further demonstrate that IrtA is indeed a siderophore exporter and the two-component IrtB-Rv2895c system is an importer of ferrated siderophores. Knockout of msmeg_6554, the irtA homologue in Mycobacterium smegmatis, resulted in an impaired M.tb siderophore export that is restored upon complementation with M.tb irtA.Our data suggest the interplay of three proteins, namely IrtA, IrtB and Rv2895c in synergizing the balance of siderophores and thus iron inside the mycobacterial cell