THEMATIC STUDY OF TONI MORRISON'S A MERCY-

Toni Morrison's ninth novel, A Mercy, distributed in 2008, is an invite re-visitation of the amazing rhythms of her best work after her disillusioning last novel, Love. It is set during the 1690s, in the slave time, when it was risky to be without the "security" of a man, free ladies were as yet associated with being witches and paternalistic relations among people were as yet the standard. In this novel, Morrison brings together agents of all the major racial classes in the New World—African, Native American, Anglo and mulatto

Interference of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with macrophage responses

Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has become an important health and economic burden, with more than four thousand people succumbing to the disease every day. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand the molecular basis of this pathogen's success in causing disease in humans, in order to develop new drugs superior to conventional drugs available at present. One reason why M. tuberculosis is such a dangerous microbe lies within its ability to survive within infected hosts, thereby efficiently circumventing host immune responses. Over the past few years, a number of mechanisms have been unravelled that are utilized by M. tuberculosis to survive within hosts and to avoid immune defence mechanisms. Several of these mechanisms have been described in this communication that may be useful for the development of novel compounds to treat tuberculosis

INFORMATIONAL EFFECTS OF NUTRIENT INTAKE DETERMINANTS ON CHOLESTEROL CONSUMPTION

Nutrient information and dietary data for a sample of U.S. household meal planners are used to estimate the direct and indirect effects of various dietary determinants on cholesterol intake. Holding sociodemographic and household characteristics constant, greater nutrition information translates to significantly lower intake of dietary cholesterol. Evidence supports the hypothesis that schooling promotes better health behavior through greater acquisition and use of health information. Blacks and Hispanics stand to benefit from nutrition education programs to increase their awareness of diet-health relationship. A low-calorie diet decreases the intake of cholesterol more than a low-fat diet.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Drought Classifications and Crop Plans Developed for Tamilnadu

Drought is defined as inadequate soil moisture to support crop growth and normal yield. The degree of drought for a given location depends on the crop, rainfall and its distribution, soil type, and various management practices. Drought occurs frequently in Tamilnadu—some part of the state experiences drought every year. The state of Tamilnadu is located in the southernmost tip of peninsular India. It lies between 8°5 and 13°35 latitude north and 76°15 and 80°20 longitude east, covering an area of 0.13 million km2 and including a long coastline (about 1,000 km). The mean annual rainfall is 945 mm, with 45 rainy days. The state benefits from northeast monsoon rains (October– December), unlike other parts of India, where southwest monsoons (June– September) bring more rain. In Tamilnadu, 85% of the total area benefits from the northeast monsoon; only 15% benefits from the southwest monsoon. Potential evaporation always exceeds rainfall in most (8-10) months each year. The severity of drought depends on the type of soil prevalent in a region. It was once thought that farmers, through generations of experience, could learn to live with the limitations of their local climatic conditions through trial and error. That is no longer true. Modern agriculture requires precise information on rainfall and on flood- and drought-prone areas. It is now clear that to obtain maximum yields, a proper knowledge of agroclimatic conditions is necessary to plan the most effective cropping system for different areas. With this idea in mind, the state of Tamilnadu has been classified into drought-prone areas, based on precipitation, potential evaporation, and soil type, so that a suitable crop plan may be developed for each area

Exploring prospects of novel drugs for tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains a disease with an enormous impact on public health worldwide. With the continuously increasing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis, new drugs are desperately needed. However, even for the treatment of drug-sensitive tuberculosis, new drugs are required to shorten the treatment duration and thereby prevent development of drug resistance. Within the past ten years, major advances in tuberculosis drug research have been made, leading to a considerable number of antimycobacterial compounds which are now in the pipeline. Here we discuss a number of these novel promising tuberculosis drugs, as well as the discovery of two new potential drug targets for the development of novel effective drugs to curb the tuberculosis pandemic, ie, the coronin 1 and protein kinase G pathways. Protein kinase G is secreted by mycobacteria and is responsible for blocking lysosomal delivery within the macrophage. Coronin 1 is responsible for activating the phosphatase, calcineurin, and thereby preventing phagosome-lysosome fusion within the macrophage. Blocking these two pathways may lead to rapid killing of mycobacteri

USDA's Healthy Eating Index and Nutrition Information

A comprehensive model is developed to measure the extent that nutrition knowledge and diet-health awareness, among other factors, influence an individual's Healthy Eating Index (HEI), USDA's measure of overall diet quality. This is the first study that rigorously attempts to examine variation in the index across population groups by controlling for personal and household characteristics and nutrition information levels, as well as test for the endogeneity of nutrition information. Results indicate that one's level of nutrition information has an important influence on one's HEI and that nutrition information and the HEI are simultaneously determined. Other factors explaining variations in HEI's across individuals are income and education levels, race, ethnicity, and age. Evidence supports the hypothesis that higher education promotes more healthful food choices through better acquisition and use of health information.diet quality, Healthy Eating Index, nutrient demand, nutrition knowledge, health inputs, health production, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Fuzzy Logic based Modelling and Simulation Approach for the estimation of Tire Forces

AbstractTire modeling is an important aspect of vehicle dynamics as the forces and moments required to control the vehicle's motion are eventually transmitted through the tire and the tire road interface is also an important source for the dynamic excitation of the vehicle. This paper presents a fuzzy logic based approach for estimating tire forces, aligning moment of tire for the different slip ratio and slip angles. Proposed fuzzy logic approach requires slip angle and slip ratio, as the input variables, and estimates the longitudinal force, lateral force, aligning moment as the output variables. Membership functions of input, output variables and fuzzy rules are formulated based on the values obtained using the widely adopted Magic formula for tire model. Simulation values for longitudinal, lateral forces and aligning moment of the tire using the proposed fuzzy model is found to provide good correlation with the magic model. Proposed fuzzy logic frame work does not require the estimation of model parameters used in the Magic formula and it will be useful in developing vehicle control system

Evaluation of Nutritional Status in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

CONCLUSIONS: 1. A significant number of outpatients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease were found to be undernourished. 2. The anthropometric measures of nutrition (Body Mass Index, Body muscle mass, Body fat stores) were related inversely with the degree of airway obstruction. 3. Measures of visceral protein stores (Serum prealbumin and Serum albumin) correlated inversely with severity of airway obstruction

ADAPTATION OF LITTLEARS AUDITORY QUESTIONNAIRE IN TAMIL

Objectives: To adapt the LittlEARS Questionnaire in Tamil language and evaluate it in Tamil speaking cochlear implant children. Methods: LEAQ was translated to the Tamil language by a back-translation method following the guidelines of the World Health Organisation. The translated version was later administered to 100 randomly selected parents of cochlear implantees, scoring was done out of 35 for each child. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 20.0 were descriptive statistics were carried out extracting the mean, standard deviation and range. Results: The results got did not significantly deviate from the normative, thus being able to quantify hierarchical auditory development skills and performance of children. Conclusion: LEAQ is a good subjective tool that can measure the outcome of cochlear implant/hearing aids, it must be translated and validated based on cultural and linguistic background.  Article visualizations