Effectiveness of a community based physical activity programme in changing the physical activity profile of the community: A feasibility study of an intervention

OBJECTIVES: To measure the change in level of physical activity among women in the age group 30-40 years of the selected villages in Kaniyambadi block, Vellore following community based physical activity intervention. To measure the level of physical activity among women in the age group 30-40 years of the selected villages in Kaniyambadi block, Vellore. To study the determinants of physical activity among women in the age group 30-40 years of the selected villages in Kaniyambadi block, Vellore. METHODS: The study was conducted in 2 geographical areas each containing many villages in Kaniyambadi block of Vellore district, Tamil Nadu. The participants for both the pre and post-Intervention studies were non-pregnant women between 30-40 years of age who are Permanent residents of the chosen villages and were selected by separate Simple random sampling from a list generated by Census of Kaniyambadi block maintained by CHAD Health Information system. 160 participants from Intervention-A area and 149 from Intervention-B area were administered GPAQ structured questionnaire to assess physical activity. Socio-demographic characteristics, medical and family history of NCDs, 24 hour diet recall and food frequency were also asked. Height, weight, waist hip circumferences, blood pressure were measured. Biochemical parameters like FBS, PPBS, Lipid profile were studied. Intervention-A and B consisted of a planned health education module to address issues of adequate physical activity and a healthy diet in the community. In addition to this, Intervention-A consisted of setting up an open air Community gymnasium and identifying few walking paths in the villages. Change in physical activity profile was studied post-intervention. RESULTS: Proportion of study participants who were physically active was found to be 46.92%. Among 30-40 year old women in the study areas, prevalence of Diabetes mellitus was 9.93%, Hypertension was 25.56%, Dyslipidaemia was 42%, Overweight and obesity was 56.65%, Central obesity was 73.14% and Metabolic syndrome was 42.7%. Following physical activity intervention, proportion of participants doing moderate intensity recreational activity in Intervention-A area increased from 20% to 38.3% (p = 0.002), the total MET-minutes score in both areas increased post-intervention from 809.18 to 823.95 in Intervention-A area and from 827.60 to 1186.03 in Intervention-B area (p=0.009). Physical inactivity was significantly associated with Dyslipidemia (p=0.034) and being Overweight (p=0.036). CONCLUSION: The community based physical activity programme brought about a positive change in the physical activity pattern in the community. Reinforcement and motivation on a larger scale is needed to sustain the healthy lifestyle habit inculcated

Data driven consistency (working title)

We are motivated by applications that need rich model classes to represent them. Examples of rich model classes include distributions over large, countably infinite supports, slow mixing Markov processes, etc. But such rich classes may be too complex to admit estimators that converge to the truth with convergence rates that can be uniformly bounded over the entire model class as the sample size increases (uniform consistency). However, these rich classes may still allow for estimators with pointwise guarantees whose performance can be bounded in a model dependent way. The pointwise angle of course has the drawback that the estimator performance is a function of the very unknown model that is being estimated, and is therefore unknown. Therefore, even if the estimator is consistent, how well it is doing may not be clear no matter what the sample size is. Departing from the dichotomy of uniform and pointwise consistency, a new analysis framework is explored by characterizing rich model classes that may only admit pointwise guarantees, yet all the information about the model needed to guage estimator accuracy can be inferred from the sample at hand. To retain focus, we analyze the universal compression problem in this data driven pointwise consistency framework.Comment: Working paper. Please email authors for the current versio

Molecular docking analysis on 16 therapeutic ligands of Ocimum tenuiflorum L. (Tulasi) and their prospects in drug design for COVID-19

The PyRx software and Discovery studio were used in the present molecular docking studies of the 16 ligands of Ocimum tenuiflorum L., selected based on their high therapeutic potentials, viz., (E)-6-hydroxy-4,6-dimethylhept-3-en-2-one, Apigenin, Bieugenol, Cirsilineol, Cirsimaritin, β-Caryophyllene epoxide, Dehydrodieugenol B, Eugenol, Ferulaldehyde, Isothymonin, Isothymusin, Linalool, Luteolin, Ocimarin, Rosmarinic acid, and Thymol. Saquinavir was used as a positive control. The binding affinities of the 16 ligands to the main proteases of COVID-19 6LU7 and 6Y2E (critical for viral replication) and their ability to arrest the virus replication were recorded. The binding affinities of the ligands to 6LU7 and 6Y2E ranged from -4.3 and -4.7 kcal/mol (for (E)-6-hydroxy-4,6-dimethylhept-3-en-2-one) to -7.6 (for Rosmarinic acid to both target proteins). While the corresponding values for the control drug Saquinavir were -7.8 and -7.6 respectively. The Rosmarinic acid, in binding with both the proteases (-7.6 and -7.6 kcal/mol) showed six conventional hydrogen bonds, one carbon hydrogen bond (ASP 153 had one conventional hydrogen bond and one carbon hydrogen bond), one Pi-alkyl bond, one Pi-Pi stacked bond, eight van der waals bonds for 6LU7 protease; it formed three conventional hydrogen bonds, two Pi-alkyl bonds, one unfavourable donor – donor bond and 14 van der waals bonds with 6Y2E protease. The control drug – Saquinavir in binding with 6LU7 protease showed 12 van der waals, one alkyl, one Pi-alkyl, one Pi-cation, one Pi-stacked and four conventional hydrogen bonds, which indicates that it has less affinity when compared with Rosmarinic acid. Similarly, the control drug on binding with 6Y2E protease exhibited ten van der waals, four Pi-alkyl, one cation and three hydrogen bonds. The results are in conformity to similar other studies, and herald a promising scope for Rosmarinic acid as lead molecule in the drug discovery for COVID-19

Cell fueling and metabolic energy conservation in synthetic cells

We aim for a blue print for synthesizing complex subcellular systems from molecular components and ultimately for constructing life. Without comprehensive instructions and design principles we rely on simple reaction routes to operate the essential functions of life. The first forms of synthetic life will not make every building block for polymers de novo via complex pathways, rather they will be fed with amino acids, fatty acids and nucleotides. Controlled energy supply is crucial for any synthetic cell, no matter how complex. Here, we describe the simplest pathways for efficient generation of ATP and electrochemical ion gradients. We estimated the demand for ATP by polymer synthesis and maintenance processes in small cell-like systems, and we describe circuits to control the needs for ATP. We also present fluorescence-based sensors for pH, ionic strength, excluded volume, ATP/ADP, and viscosity, which allow monitoring and tuning of the major physicochemical conditions inside cells

Antibody-Mediated Rejection in Heart Transplantation: Case Presentation with a Review of Current International Guidelines

Antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) (humoral rejection) of cardiac allografts remains difficult to diagnose and treat. Interest in AMR of cardiac allografts has increased over the last decade as it has become apparent that untreated humoral rejection threatens graft and patient survival. An international and multidisciplinary consensus group has formulated guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of AMR and established that identification of circulating or donor-specific antibodies is not required and that asymptomatic AMR, that is, biopsy-proven AMR without cardiac dysfunction is a real entity with worsened prognosis. Strict criteria for the diagnosis of cardiac AMR have not been firmly established, although the diagnosis relies heavily on tissue pathological findings. Therapy remains largely empirical. We review an unfortunate experience with one of our patients and summarize recommended criteria for the diagnosis of AMR and potential treatment schemes with a focus on current limitations and the need for future research and innovation

Topological Price of Anarchy bounds for clustering games on networks

We consider clustering games in which the players are embedded in a network and want to coordinate (or anti-coordinate) their choices with their neighbors. Recent studies show that even very basic variants of these games exhibit a large Price of Anarchy. Our main goal is to understand how structural properties of the network topology impact the inefficiency of these games. We derive topological bounds on the Price of Anarchy for different classes of clustering games. These topological bounds provide a more informative assessment of the inefficiency of these games than the corresponding (worst-case) Price of Anarchy bounds. As one of our main results, we derive (tight) bounds on the Price of Anarchy for clustering games on Erdős-Rényi random graphs, which, depending on the graph density, stand in stark contrast to the known Price of Anarchy bounds