Ethical and human rights dimensions in prenatal HIV/AIDS testing: Botswana in global perspective

Objectives: To evaluate the conflicts between the rights of society and those of mothers-to-be and the unborn, which raise difficult ethical and legal questions regarding decision-making, respect for autonomy, confidentiality, public health and individual rights in an ‘opt-out’ approach to HIV testing in antenatal care, which Botswana introduced in 2004.Methods: An empirical study with critical analysis of research studies since 2004, and documentary data/reports relating to opt-out HIV testing policy in prenatal cases in Botswana.Conclusions: The Government of Botswana’s capacity to deal effectively with HIV/AIDS is inherently connected with larger societal, legal, policy and contextual issues. These issues appear to be insufficiently appreciated in Botswana, even though their consideration is essential if the country is to align its practices with existing national laws, as well as international conventions to which it is a signatory

Another Side of the Antidiuretic Hormone, Vasopressin: Its Role in Stress Regulation

Vasopressin (AVP) is an ancient molecule of the salt-water homeostasis. On the other hand, in the brain AVP can be found in many regions, where it has a prominent role in the regulation of stress and stress related diseases, too. During acute stress AVP regulates the adrenocorticotropin secretion in a time and stressor specific manner. Its role seems to be especially critical during the perinatal period. Despite earlier theories, during chronic stress the role of AVP has never been highlighted. AVP seems to be also responsible for our mood. Its high level is accompanied by higher level of anxiety and depression. Pharmacological intervention of the AVP secretion could influence not only the salt-water homeostasis, but might have strong impact on our stress state and behaviour

Falls in older adults

Falls are very common in older people, and for some the consequences are devastating. The clinical assessment, management and investigation of patients who present with falls can be challenging for non-specialists, and multiple guidelines and algorithms have been published to aid this. This article has been prepared as a concise reference that reviews the most recent evidence and covers the medical competencies on falls outlined in the $\textit{Curriculum for General Internal Medicine (Acute)}$ of the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK. As in the curriculum, the emphasis is on the acute setting. Important topics covered include the epidemiology of falls, definition and classification, causes and risk factors, cumulative effect of risk factors and concept of individual falling threshold, physical and psychosocial consequences of falling, medical falls assessment in acute settings, differentiation between falls and syncope, principles of multifactorial falls assessment and intervention, teamwork and communication skills, and evidence-based strategies for prevention, including the latest developments in falls prevention research

Sentimental Analysis of Twitter Data using Classifier Algorithms

Microblogging has become a daily routine for most of the people in this world. With the help of Microblogging people get opinions about several things going on, not only around the nation but also worldwide. Twitter is one such online social networking website where people can post their views regarding something. It is a huge platform having over 316 Million users registered from all over the world. It enables users to send and read short messages with over 140 characters for compatibility with SMS messaging. A good sentimental analysis of data of this huge platform can lead to achieve many new applications like – Movie reviews, Product reviews, Spam detection, Knowing consumer needs, etc. In this paper, we have devised a new algorithm with which the above needs can be achieved. Our algorithm uses three specific techniques for sentimental analysis and can be called a hybrid algorithm – (1) Hash Tag Classification for topic modeling; (2) Naïve Bayes Classifier Algorithm for polarity classification; (3) Emoticon Analysis for Neutral polar data. These techniques individually have some limitations for sentimental analysis

Changes in Body Temperature and Sleep-Wakefulness After Intrapreoptic Injection of Methoxamine in Rats

Several pieces of evidence suggest that the noradrenergic afferents in the medial preoptic area produce sleep and hypothermia by acting on α1 adrenergic receptors. On the other hand, in a few studies monitoring body temperature with a rectal probe, preoptic injection of the α1 adrenergic agonist methoxamine produced contradictory changes in body temperature and sleep-wakefulness. Such contradictions call for the re-examination of methoxamine induced body temperature changes using a better technique like telemetric recording. In the present study, we monitored body temperature and sleep-wakefulness simultaneously after the micro-injection of 0.5, 1, and 2 μmol methoxamine, into the medial preoptic area of adult male Wistar rats. Methoxamine injection produced hypothermia but no major change in sleep-wakefulness during the 3 hours after drug injection, except for a short period (15 min) of sleep after 120 min of injection. A short period of wakefulness, coinciding with the maximum fall in body temperature (30 min after injection) occurred when methoxamine was administered at higher doses. The results of this study indicate that 1 adrenergic receptors participate in preoptically mediated thermoregulatory measures that reduce body temperature. Hypothermia induced by methoxamine might have masked the hypnogenic action of this drug

Crystal structure and molecular docking studies of octahydrocycloocta[b]pyridine-3-carbonitriles as potential inhibitors against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The compounds 1-benzyl-2-imino-4-p-tolyl-1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10-octahydrocycloocta[b]pyridine-3-carbonitrile (Ia) and 1-benzyl-2-imino-(4-methoxyphenyl-1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10-octahydrocycloocta {b]pyridine-3-carbonitrile (Ib) were synthesized. The crystal structures of the compounds were determined by single crystal X ray diffraction. The compounds C26 H27 N3 (Ia)  and  C26 H27 N3O  (Ib)  crystallize in the triclinic system (a = 10.2304(4) Å, b = 10.5655(4) Å, c = 11.8271(4) Å, α = 101.755(2) °, β = 106.934(2) °, γ = 114.071(2) ° and Z = 2  for I(a) and a = 10.2738(4) Å, b = 11.1654(5) Å, c = 11.4162(4) Å α = 98.549(2) °, β = 106.183(2) °, γ = 117.070(2) ° and Z = 2 for I(b)). In both compounds (Ia) and (Ib) the pyridine ring adopts a planar conformation and the cyclooctane ring adopts a twisted boat chair conformation. The synthesized compounds were screened for  their  antibacterial activities against the enzyme enoyl acyl carrier protein reductase, which is involved in the fatty acid biosynthesis of the mycobacterial cell wall. Both compounds showed good antibacterial activities. The synthesis of the compounds, their structure determination, their conformation, their intra- and intermolecular interactions and docking study results are given.  

Designing primers for loop-mediated isothermal amplifi cation (LAMP) for detection of Ganoderma boninense

Basal Stem Rot (BSR) caused by Ganoderma boninense is one of the most serious diseases of South East Asia’s oil palm industry. The losses due to this disease were reported up to RM 1.5 billion a year in Malaysia. Typical methodologies currently used for detection of BSR infection, usually involved visual observation followed by detection of the pathogen using invasive and/or time consuming and expensive instruments. This includes the use of molecular DNA based technique, Ganoderma Selective Media (GSM), molecular techniques. However, most of these methods cannot be performed in situ. Samples need to be sent to the laboratory for testing. In this paper, a diagnostic tool using loop-mediated isothermal reaction (LAMP) is presented for detection of G. boninense. LAMP reaction which consist of a set of four primers, two outer and two inner, was designed specifi cally to recognize the manganese superoxide gene (MnSOD) obtained from NCBI Genbank (Accession no: U56128) of G. boninense, the causal pathogen of BSR. The assay was conducted in the thermal block with temperature 65°C for 50 min and the LAMP products were viewed on agarose gel electrophoresis. This technique removes the need to perform the reaction in thermal cycler as it can be done in a heat block. Results show the ladder-like pattern of bands sizes from 683 bp specifi cally to the gene MnSOD was amplifi ed. Thus, the chosen set of primers can be used for detection of G. boninense in oil palm estates subjected to sensitivity and specifi city

Crystal structure and molecular docking studies of benzo[8]annulenes as potential inhibitors against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacterial cell wall has a characteristic low permeability, which essentially makes antibiotics ineffective. The cell wall material must be regulated so that its deposition does not compromise its structure. In this study, two new inhibitors, 2-amino-4-(4-cholorophenyl)-5,6,7,8,9,10-hexahydrobenzo[8] annulene-1,3,3(4H)-tricarbonitrile(Ia) and 2-amino-4-(4-bromophenyl)-5,6,7,8,9,10-hexahydrobenzo[8]annulene-1,3,3(4H)-tricarbonitrile(Ib) were synthesized. The crystal structures of the above compounds were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The compounds C21 H19 Cl N3 (Ia) and C21 H19 Br N3 (Ib) were crystallized in the monoclinic and triclinic system. In both compounds, the cyclohexane ring was found to adopt a boat conformation. The cyclooctane ring of both compounds adopted a twisted chair-chair conformation.  In silico analyses revealed that both compounds showed good anti-mycobacterial activities against the enoyl-acyl carrier enzyme and the N-acetyl-gamma protein, both of which are critical for bacterial survival. Synthesis, structure determination, conformation, intra, inter-molecular interactions and docking studies of both compounds are presented herein

The influence of vegetation on the ITCZ and South Asian monsoon in HadCM3

The role of global vegetation on the large-scale tropical circulation is examined in the version 3 Hadley Centre climate model (HadCM3). Alternative representations of global vegetation cover from observations and a dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) were used as the landcover component for a number of HadCM3 experiments under a nominal present day climate state, and compared to the simulations using the standard land cover map of HadCM3. The alternative vegetation covers result in a large scale cooling of the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics relative to the HadCM3 standard, resulting in a southward shift in the location of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ). A significant reduction in Indian monsoon precipitation is also found, which is related to a weakening of the South Asian monsoon circulation, broadly consistent with documented mechanisms relating to temperature and snow perturbations in the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics in winter and spring, delaying the onset of the monsoon. The role of the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics on tropical climate is demonstrated, with an additional representation of vegetation cover based on DGVM simulated changes in Northern Hemisphere vegetation from the end of the 21st Century. This experiment shows that through similar processes the simulated extra-tropical vegetation changes in the future contribute to a strengthening of the South Asian monsoon in this model. These findings provide renewed motivation to give careful consideration to the role of global scale vegetation feedbacks when looking at climate change, and its impact on the tropical circulation and South Asian monsoon in the latest generation of Earth System models

Minimizing the postoperative complications of severe hypospadias using a simple technique

Background The aim of this study was to decrease complication rates in proximal hypospadias surgery.Methods A simple method of stenting using a polypropylene stent has been developed for the most severe form of hypospadias during the period from January 2008 to January 2011 in the Department of Pediatric Surgery. The total number of patients was 46. The patients were classified into group 1 (n= 23), in which a polypropylene stent was used, and group 2 (n= 23), in which a polypropylene stent was not used.Results In group 1, complications occurred in three patients (13.04%), whereas in group 2 it occurred in 12 patients (52.2%). The difference in the total number of complications between groups was highly significant (P < 0.001). In group 1, no patient needed redo surgery, and in group 2 four patients (17.39%) needed redo surgery (P < 0.05). All other patients responded to repeated dilatation in the follow-up.Conclusion Although the sample size was small, this simple modification can decrease the complication rate significantly in the most severe form of hypospadias. Keywords: polypropylene stent, proximal hypospadias, surgical complications, urethroplast