Accurate At-Home Blood Pressure Readings

Blood pressure follow-ups are some of the most common reasons for clinic visits. Patients are told to monitor their blood pressures at home and medication dosages are adjusted in clinic to reflect their blood pressure readings at home. However, many patients are not aware of proper blood pressure measurement techniques, which could lead to inaccurate readings and therefore, inaccurate treatment. This project will provide a simple infographic to increase compliance with accurate blood pressure measurements.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1859/thumbnail.jp

The Missing Link: Use of Renewable Energy Codification in U.S. Cities

Cities of the world today house more than half the world’s population, contribute to 80 percent of the global GDP, consume approximately 70 percent of the global energy and produce 70 percent of the greenhouse gases produced worldwide (Floater et al., 2014; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). City governments are critical players in reducing the global energy footprint. As a leading example, cities in the United States are passing legislation and taking actions to improve the sustainability of their jurisdictions and increasingly addressing renewable energy concerns. Local government programs and plans along with municipal codes have a considerable impact on city energy use. Codification is a process of organizing and arranging all legislation of a general and permanent nature into a Code. This paper addresses the key question: Is codification used by municipal governments to promote renewable energy development? If yes, then how? The paper documents and forms a policy baseline of existing renewable energy references in municipal codes of U.S. cities. It further analyzes trends of renewable energy codification as of December 2015 across different regions, states, and cities of different populations. Codes addressing renewable energy in sample jurisdictions were collected and analyzed. From this research and findings, the conclusion argues that cities frequently use codification to promote renewable energy development. Population and location of a city are key factors that influence renewable energy codification. Zoning, permitting and development codes often address renewable energy in municipal codes. Codes referencing wind energy are more standardized than codes referencing solar energy

Ethical Issues in Modern Day Dental Practice

In modern dentistry, like other branches of medicine, a set of principles contribute in establishing codes of ethics. These codes which are based on ethical principles, religious beliefs and the social and cultural considerations guide the dental practitioners in their everyday practice and also establish expectations for dentists in fulfilling their ethical and professional duties to the patients, public and the profession itself. Ethical principles are the moral rules and foundations of justification source to be applied in order to exercise an ethical practice. The four principles of medical ethics; Respect for autonomy, Beneficence, non-maleficence and justice form the base of the modern dentistry that needs to be followed. The article gives an overview of how these principles form the backbone of modern day dental practice and thus, are indispensable to its working

Parents’ Attitude toward Inclusion of their Children with Autism in Mainstream Classrooms

Despite the growth of inclusive education programs adopted by many schools across India, children with special needs rarely find themselves included in them. Autism being a pervasive disorder, it becomes hard for autistic children to communicate and express themselves in a socially appropriate manner. Hence, the objective of this study was to explore the perceptions of parents about inclusion of children with autism in mainstream classrooms. A sample of 20 parents whose children were already enrolled in a mainstream school was selected from a school in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Participants were assessed on Parent’s Attitudes to Inclusion (PATI, 1998). The result of the study showed the attitude of parents towards the quality of educational services in mainstream education is negative; whereas, when it comes to child acceptance and treatment in mainstream education the parents have a positive attitude. It was also found that parents of children with autism have a neutral attitude towards the mutual benefits of inclusive education. The findings also revealed that regardless of their positive outlook, parents had certain conjectures about such inclusivity. These pertained primarily to childcare responsibilities, children’s transition tasks and teachers’ challenges of managing everything effectively while teaching both students with and without diagnosis of autism in the same classroom. This study can be used by special educators, school authorities and teachers teaching in an inclusive classroom to better understand the concerns of parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ADS)

The Diversity Analysis of the Microbial Community in Wastewater by Amplified rDNA Restriction Analysis (ARDRA)ï€

AbstractActivated sludge, a common biological treatment method for both municipal and industrial waste water, represents a complex microbial community.  Due to intricate interactions within the microbial community, process control of waste water treatment plants can be difficult.  Population shifts within the microbial community may results from the changes in the plant operating conditions and cause sludge quality problems such as poor sludge settling, compaction and dewatering.  Monitoring of the microbial populations may help in the diagnosis and correction of such sludge problems. This study employed a PCR-based 16S rDNA, amplified rDNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) approach to characterize the microbial community structure in wastewater. Samples were collected from two wastewater treatment plants, in Jaipur City, India. Each PCR product was obtained by PCR with eubacteria 16S rDNA. After amplification, the 16S rDNA PCR products were digested with 4-base site specific restriction endonucleases. Restriction pattern was analyzed with four endonucleases (AluI, MspI, HhaI, and HaeIII). The result of the bacterial community analysis, by ARDRA revealed that the two wastewater treatment plants carry significantly different microbial population, whereas the diversity among the samples of same plant is not much. These results suggests that Amplified rDNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) is an extremely valuable tool for assessing the diversity from waste water treatment plants. Key words: ARDRA, Microbial community, Wastewater1Birla Inst of Scientific Research, Statue Circle, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India2Deptt of  Botany, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India---Please Cite This Article As: Shivani Chandra, Sivaramaiah Nalapeta, Sampat Nehra, Alok Kumar Varshney, Nupur Mathur, P C. Trivedi, Krishna Mohan Medicherla. 2010. The Diversity Analysis of the Microbial Community in Wastewater by Amplified rDNA Restriction Analysis (ARDRA). J. Ecobiotechnol. 2(4):51-55.Â

Global treatment costs of breast cancer by stage: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Published evidence on treatment costs of breast cancer varies widely in methodology and a global systematic review is lacking. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to conduct a systematic review to compare treatment costs of breast cancer by stage at diagnosis across countries at different levels of socio-economic development, and to identify key methodological differences in costing approaches. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) before April 2018. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Studies were eligible if they reported treatment costs of breast cancer by stage at diagnosis using patient level data, in any language. STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS: Study characteristics and treatment costs by stage were summarised. Study quality was assessed using the Drummond Checklist, and detailed methodological differences were further compared. RESULTS: Twenty studies were included, 15 from high-income countries and five from low- and middle-income countries. Eleven studies used the FIGO staging system, and the mean treatment costs of breast cancer at Stage II, III and IV were 32%, 95%, and 109% higher than Stage I. Five studies categorised stage as in situ, local, regional and distant. The mean treatment costs of regional and distant breast cancer were 41% and 165% higher than local breast cancer. Overall, the quality of studies ranged from 50% (lowest quality) to 84% (highest). Most studies used regression frameworks but the choice of regression model was rarely justified. Few studies described key methodological issues including skewness, zero values, censored data, missing data, and the inclusion of control groups to estimate disease-attributable costs. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment costs of breast cancer generally increased with the advancement of the disease stage at diagnosis. Methodological issues should be better handled and properly described in future costing studies

Effectiveness of arts interventions to reduce mental-health-related stigma among youth: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Educational interventions engage youth using visual, literary and performing arts to combat stigma associated with mental health problems. However, it remains unknown whether arts interventions are effective in reducing mental-health-related stigma among youth and if so, then which specific art forms, duration and stigma-related components in content are successful. METHODS: We searched 13 databases, including PubMed, Medline, Global Health, EMBASE, ADOLEC, Social Policy and Practice, Database of Promoting Health Effectiveness Reviews (DoPHER), Trials Register of Promoting Health Interventions (TRoPHI), EPPI-Centre database of health promotion research (Bibliomap), Web of Science, PsycINFO, Cochrane and Scopus for studies involving arts interventions aimed at reducing any or all components of mental-health-related stigma among youth (10-24-year-olds). Risk of bias was assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. Data were extracted into tables and analysed using RevMan 5.3.5. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies met our inclusion criteria (n = 41,621). Interventions using multiple art forms are effective in improving behaviour towards people with mental health problems to a small effect (effect size = 0.28, 95%CI 0.08-0.48; p = 0.007) No studies reported negative outcomes or unintended harms. Among studies using specific art forms, we observed high heterogeneity among intervention studies using theatre, multiple art forms, film and role play. Data in this review are inconclusive about the use of single versus multiple sessions and whether including all stigma components of knowledge, attitude and behaviour as intervention content are more effective relative to studies focused on these stigma components, individually. Common challenges faced by school-based arts interventions included lack of buy-in from school administrators and low engagement. No studies were reported from low- and middle-income countries. CONCLUSION: Arts interventions are effective in reducing mental-health-related stigma to a small effect. Interventions that employ multiple art forms together compared to studies employing film, theatre or role play are likely more effective in reducing mental-health-related stigma

The Uli Dataset: An Exercise in Experience Led Annotation of oGBV

Online gender based violence has grown concomitantly with adoption of the internet and social media. Its effects are worse in the Global majority where many users use social media in languages other than English. The scale and volume of conversations on the internet has necessitated the need for automated detection of hate speech, and more specifically gendered abuse. There is, however, a lack of language specific and contextual data to build such automated tools. In this paper we present a dataset on gendered abuse in three languages- Hindi, Tamil and Indian English. The dataset comprises of tweets annotated along three questions pertaining to the experience of gender abuse, by experts who identify as women or a member of the LGBTQIA community in South Asia. Through this dataset we demonstrate a participatory approach to creating datasets that drive AI systems

The unintended obturation: Thrusting bizarre in the root canals!

A wide array of habits is found in children; of these inserting foreign objects in the oral cavity is a common practice among children. Children often tend to insert sharp objects mainly in the open carious lesions to relieve pain caused due to food lodgment. The objects sometimes break and get embedded in the root canals. Sometimes, the patients do not reveal this to parent out of fear and ultimately are diagnosed accidently by the dentists when the symptoms appear or while diagnosing some other lesion. These foreign objects may act as a possible cause of infection. Early diagnosis and treatment are mandatory in such cases to avoid further complications. Thorough case history, clinical, and radiographic examinations are essential to determine the nature, size, location of the foreign body, and the difficulty involved in its retrieval. This paper discusses series of three such case reports where the foreign objects were diagnosed, retrieved, and treatment was followed

Probiotics in dentistry: A boon or sham

Probiotics are dietary supplements, which have been advocated for the prevention and the treatment of a wide range of diseases. These products consist of beneficial micro-organisms, which stimulate health promoting flora thus, suppressing the pathologic colonization and disease spread. Since, probiotics are now widely used in both medical (such as cancer risk reduction, gastrointestinal tract health, and urinary tract health) and dental specialties (reduction in caries development, in achieving periodontal health, reducing oral malodor, etc.), a thorough understanding of their risks and benefits are essential. This review focuses on the recent trends in use of probiotics in dentistry as well as the potential risks associated with them