Awareness of breast cancer in women of an urban resettlement colony

Background: Breast cancer accounts for 19-34% of all cancer cases among women in India. There is a high mortality due to late stage diagnosis as patients usually present at an advanced stage because of lack of awareness and non-existent breast cancer screening programs. Aim : To determine the awareness about breast cancer among women in an urban resettlement colony in Delhi. Settings and Design: A community based, cross-sectional study carried out in a resettlement colony in South Delhi. Materials and Methods: Semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect information regarding breast cancer. Modified Kuppuswamy scale was used for assessing the socio-economic status. Results and Conclusions: A total of 333 women were included. The mean age was 36 years\ub115.1 and 46% were illiterate. Only 185 (56%) women were aware of breast cancer; among them, 51% knew about at least one of the signs /symptoms, 53% were aware that breast cancer can be detected early, and only 35% mentioned about risk factors. Thus, awareness about breast cancer is low amongst women in this community. There is a need for awareness generation programs to educate women about breast cancer, propagation of correct messages and promote early detection of breast cancer

Forkhead Transcription Factor Fd3F Cooperates with Rfx to Regulate a Gene Expression Program for Mechanosensory Cilia Specialization

Cilia have evolved hugely diverse structures and functions to participate in a wide variety of developmental and physiological processes. Ciliary specialization requires differences in gene expression, but few transcription factors are known to regulate this, and their molecular function is unclear. Here, we show that the Drosophila Forkhead box (Fox) gene, fd3F, is required for specialization of the mechanosensory cilium of chordotonal (Ch) neurons. fd3F regulates genes for Ch-specific axonemal dyneins and TRPV ion channels, which are required for sensory transduction, and retrograde transport genes, which are required to differentiate their distinct motile and sensory ciliary zones. fd3F is reminiscent of vertebrate Foxj1, a motile cilia regulator, but fd3F regulates motility genes as part of a broader sensory regulation program. Fd3F cooperates with the pan-ciliary transcription factor, Rfx, to regulate its targets directly. This illuminates pathways involved in ciliary specialization and the molecular mechanism of transcription factors that regulate them

Brane Dynamics in the Randall-Sundrum model, Inflation and Graceful Exit

We study the averaged action of the Randall-Sundrum model with a time dependent metric ansatz. It can be reformulated in terms of a Brans-Dicke action with time dependent Newton's constant. We show that the physics of early universe, particularly inflation, is governed by the Brans-Dicke theory. The Brans-Dicke scalar, however, quickly settles to its equilibrium value and decouples from the post-inflationary cosmology. The deceleration parameter is negative to start with but changes sign before the Brans-Dicke scalar settles to its equilibrium value. Consequently, the brane metric smoothly exits inflation. We have also studied the slow-roll inflation in our model and investigated the spectra of the density perturbation generated by the radion field and find them consistent with the current observations.Comment: Revised version, Accepted in Class. Quant. Gravit

Elecromagnetic Duality on the Light-Front in the Presence of External Sources

We investigate the issue of electromagnetic duality on the light front. We work with Zwanziger's theory of electric and magnetic sources which is appropriate for treating duality. When quantized on the light-front in the light front gauge, this theory yields two independent phase space degrees of freedom, namely the two transverse field components, the right number to describe the gauge field sector of normal light-front QED and also the appropriate commutator between them. The electromagnetic duality transformation formulated in terms of them is similar in form to the Susskind transformation proposed for the free theory, provided one identifies them as the dynamical field components of the photon on the light-front in the presence of magnetic sources. The Hamiltonian density written in terms of these components is invariant under the duality transformation.Comment: 13 pages, revtex, Title and presentation slightly changed, main results unchange

Delay-Induced Transient Increase and Heterogeneity in Gene Expression in Negatively Auto-Regulated Gene Circuits

A generic feature in all intracellular biochemical processes is the time required to complete the whole sequence of reactions to yield any observable quantity-from gene expression to circadian rhythms. This widespread phenomenon points towards the importance of time delay in biological functions. Theoretically time delay is known to be the source of instability, and has been attributed to lead to oscillations or transient dynamics in several biological functions. Negative feedback loops, common in biochemical pathways, have been shown to provide stability and withstand considerable variations and random perturbations of biochemical parameters. The interaction of these two opposing factors-of instability and homeostasis-are features that are widespread in intracellular processes. To test the effect of these divergent forces in the dynamics of gene expression, we have designed and constructed simple negatively auto-regulated gene circuits consisting of a basic regulator and transcriptional repressor module, and compared it with one, which has delayed repression. We show, both theoretically and experimentally, that delayed repression induces transient increase and heterogeneity in gene expression before the gain of stability effected by the negative feedback. This design, therefore, seems to be suitable for conferring both stability and variability in cells required for adaptive response to a noisy environment

A net scale invariance behaviour in fractal scattering

954-956The scattering of a structure less particle from a cantor set type model fractal lattice has been studied. A partially integrated scattering cross-section has shown scale invariance property when plotted against the scattering angle for different initial kinetic energy values of the projectile

Using a functional enzyme model to understand the chemistry behind hydrogen sulfide induced hibernation

The toxic gas H2S is produced by enzymes in the body. At moderate concentrations, H2S elicits physiological effects similar to hibernation. Herein, we describe experiments that imply that the phenomenon probably results from reversible inhibition of the enzyme cytochrome c oxidase (CcO), which reduces oxygen during respiration. A functional model of the oxygen-reducing site in CcO was used to explore the effects of H2S during respiration. Spectroscopic analyses showed that the model binds two molecules of H2S. The electro-catalytic reduction of oxygen is reversibly inhibited by H2S concentrations similar to those that induce hibernation. This phenomenon derives from a weak, reversible binding of H2S to the FeII porphyrin, which mimics heme a3 in CcO's active site. No inhibition of CcO is detected at lower H2S concentrations. Nevertheless, at lower concentrations, H2S could have other biological effects on CcO. For example, H2S rapidly reduces FeIII and CuII in both the oxidized form of this functional model and in CcO itself. H2S also reduces CcO's biological reductant, cytochrome c, which normally derives its reducing equivalents from food metabolism. Consequently, it is speculated that H2S might also serve as a source of electrons during periods of hibernation when food supplies are low