An Approach for Actions to Prevent Suicides on Commuter and Metro Rail Systems in the United States, MTI Report 12-33

The primary goals of this report are to discuss measures to prevent suicides on commuter and metro rail systems, and to outline an approach for suicide prevention on rail systems. Based on existing literature and analysis of data obtained from the Metrolink system in Southern California, it was found that most suicides occur near station platforms and near access points to the track. Suicides occurred most frequently when relatively more trains were in operation and in areas of high population density. There do not appear to be suicide “hot spots” (e.g., linked to mental hospitals in the proximity, etc.), based on data analyzed for U.S. systems. The suicide prevention measures range from relatively inexpensive signs posting call-for-help suicide hotline information to costly platform barriers that physically prevent people from jumping onto tracks in front of trains. Other prevention measures fall within this range, such as hotlines available at high frequency suicide locations, or surveillance systems that can report possible suicide attempts and provide the opportunity for intervention tactics. Because of the relatively low number of suicides on rail systems, as compared to the overall number of suicides in general, a cost-effective strategy for preventing suicides on rail systems should be approached in a very focused manner. The prevention measures executed by the rail authorities should be focused on the suicides occurring on the rail systems themselves, while the broader problem of suicides should be left to community-based prevention efforts. Moreover, prevention measures, such as surveillance and response, could “piggyback” on surveillance and response systems used for other purposes on the rail systems to make such projects economically feasible

Near-infrared counterparts of three transient very faint neutron star X-ray binaries

We present near-infrared (NIR) imaging observations of three transient neutron star X-ray binaries, SAX J1753.5-2349, SAX J1806.5-2215 and AX J1754.2-2754. All three sources are members of the class of `very faint' X-ray transients which exhibit X-ray luminosities $L_X\lesssim10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The nature of this class of sources is still poorly understood. We detect NIR counterparts for all three systems and perform multi-band photometry for both SAX J1753.5-2349 and SAX J1806.5-2215, including narrow-band Br$_{\gamma}$ photometry for SAX J1806.5-2215. We find that SAX J1753.5-2349 is significantly redder than the field population, indicating that there may be absorption intrinsic to the system, or perhaps a jet is contributing to the infrared emission. SAX J1806.5-2215 appears to exhibit absorption in Br$_{\gamma}$, providing evidence for hydrogen in the system. Our observations of AX J1754.2--2754 represent the first detection of a NIR counterpart for this system. We find that none of the measured magnitudes are consistent with the expected quiescent magnitudes of these systems. Assuming that the infrared radiation is dominated by either the disc or the companion star, the observed magnitudes argue against an ultracompact nature for all three systems.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Monitoring of Blood Pressure using Invasive or Non-invasive Method in Critically Ill Patients: A Review

Blood pressure is a core vital sign used as a basis for diagnosis and management of patients in critical care setting. Blood pressure (BP) can be monitored by both invasive and non-invasive methods. Invasive blood measurement using arterial access is considered the “gold” standard in critically ill patients. However, invasive methods put patient at risk of bleeding and infection as compared to non-invasive methods. Non-invasive blood pressure monitoring can be obtained through oscillometric or manual auscultatory sphygmomanometer. The objective of this review is to provide a global perspective of health care providers towards use of invasive or non-invasive method of measuring blood pressure. Both theoretical and existing clinical studies have suggested that non-invasive measurements may differ from invasive intra-arterial estimates of blood pressure

Growth parameters and yield attributing characters of PR-118 (V1) and PR-116 (V2) varieties of rice (Oryza sativa L.) as influenced by different planting methods

Field experiments were conducted at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (Punjab) to study the effect of different agronomic aspects of bed planting on growth and yield of rice during Kharif seasons of 2012 and 2013. The 30 days old seedlings of both rice varieties PR-118 (V1) and PR-116 (V2) were transplanted on 15th June (D1), 30th June (D2) and 15th July (D3). The two rice varieties were transplanted under bed planting (M1) and conventional planting (M2) methods respectively. The results showed that growth parameters like number of tillers per plant, dry weight per plant leaf area index (LAI) and plant height were significantly higher in bed planting than conventional method. In bed planting method, grain yield of rice (48.82q/h) was found to be more than the conventional method (35.74 q/h) during 2012.Varieties PR-118 yielded 47.61q/h more than PR-116 (39.97 q/h) in bed planting. Yield contributing characters like number of effective tillers, number of grains per plant and 1000-grain weight of rice were more in bed planting than conventional method. Harvest index and biological yield was also found to be more in bed planting method than conventional planting. Rice transplanted on 15th June yielded (50.15q/h) more than 30th June (41.45q/h) and 15th July (35.27q/h). Similar results were found in Kharif 2013. Interaction between dates of transplanting and varieties and between varieties and planting methods were found significant

Role of agronomic manipulations in modification of wheat microclimate under central Punjab

Wheat crop is influenced by different microclimatic parameters like solar radiation, canopy temperature etc. Agronomic manipulation like change in row spacing and row direction can be used as a strategy to modify the microclimate of crop. Keeping these facts in view, field trials were conducted during rabi 2012-13 and 2013-14 under two experiments in first experiment wheat varieties HD 2967, PBW 550 and PBW 343 were sown under three row spacing viz. 15 cm, 22.5 cm and 30 cm. In second experiment, wheat varieties HD 2967, PBW 550 and PBW 343 were sown under two row direction viz. North-South (N-S) and East-West (E-W). Short wave radiation interception and canopy temperature was recorded under different treatments at 15 days interval. Among different row spacing, short wave radiation interception and canopy temperature was maximum at 30 cm row spacing (77.7% and 25.1oC) followed by 22.5 cm (75.7% and 24.2oC) and 15 cm row spacing (73.9% and 23.2oC), whereas under row directions short wave radiation interception and canopy temperature was more (76.5% and 23.9oC) in E-W row direction as compared to N-S row direction (75% and 23.2oC). Relationships were developed between dry matter accumulation and canopy temperature. Polynomial relationships gave significant R2 value (0.66 & 0.69) under different treatments. This two year study indicated that agronomic manipulations play an important role in microclimate modification and canopy temperature significantly influence dry matter accumulation under different crop geometry

Developing as assay to screen inhibitors for various ATP-dependent ligases

DNA ligases (EC.6.5.1.1) are key enzymes that catalyze the formation of phosphodiester bonds at single-stranded or double-stranded breaks between adjacent 5’-PO4 and 3’-OH groups of DNA. These enzymes are essential guardians of genomic integrity and have recently been drawing a lot of attention as novel therapeutic targets in anti-bacterial and anticancer therapies. A novel, non-electrophoretic assay method, based on the strength of interaction of the oligonucleotides with Q-sepharose (a strong anion exchanger), was developed to screen inhibitors of DNA ligases from natural product pools as well as chemical libraries. The binding affinities to Q-sepharose resin of a nicked DNA substrate (created from a 30-mer hairpin oligonucleotide and complementary 32P-labelled 6-mer oligonucleotide) and its sealed, ligated product (36-mer) were determined. Initial optimisation studies were performed with T4 DNA ligase, PBCV-1 DNA ligase and a catalytically active form of human DNA ligase I in the presence of doxorubicin (inhibitor of ATP-dependent ligases). These results when analysed in parallel between the conventional electrophoretic assay and the labelled nick-sealing assay showed that the newly developed assay is a reliable non-electrophoretic method in identifying potent DNA ligase inhibitors. The feasibility of the assay was tested in screening a collection of whole cell mass extracts, obtained from a natural product library from Basidiomycetes, in 96-well format. A novel single DNA ligase was identified, expressed and characterised from Trichomonas vaginalis (TV), a pathogenic protozoan parasite. Protein sequence analysis of TV DNA ligase indicates a strong sequence similarity to DNA ligase I homologues. The activity of recombinant TV DNA ligase I (TVlig) was investigated using protein expressed in E.coli cells. The TVlig gene product is 76 kDa and showed optimal ligation activity on a nicked DNA substrate at pH 7-8 in the presence of 1 mM ATP and (8- 20) mM MgCl2 at 30-38oC. The inhibition of the only DNA ligase present in T. vaginalis might suggest for a rational approach to stop replication and hence propagation of the parasite during infection

Clinico-radiological variability of pulmonary tuberculosis in young patients as compared to elder patients prior to RNTCP and after 18 years RNTCP

Background: Tuberculosis, a chronic disease causing high morbidity and mortality with multiple host related and socio-demographic risk factors. Incidence is 3-4 times among in diabetics. HIV is considered to be a most powerful risk factor other being malnutrition, Tubercular contacts, smoking habits and alcoholism. Many ecological and societal threats increase a vulnerability to infection and succession of the disease. Objective was to study and compare various clinico-radiological presentations and clinical risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis in the young (50yrs) patients.Methods: Total 300 pulmonary tuberculosis patients each admitted in hospital during 1999 (group ‘A’) and 2016 (group ‘B’) respectively were included in our study. Socio-demographic risk factors and presence of any existing co morbidities and clinical as well radiological presentation data were evaluated.Results: Majority patients in both group ‘A’ and ‘B’ were males (67% and 61.3%), younger (71.3% and 63.3%) patients. Elder patients had more smokers in both groups (48.8% and 33.6%). COPD trends seems to be receding in group ‘B’ as compared to group ‘A’ in younger (6.3% vs. 8.9%) as well elder (13.6% vs. 29.1%) but on the contrary lifestyle disease trends like DM increased in group ‘B’ than group ‘A’ patients more in elder subgroup (30% vs. 9.3%). HIV infected was more in younger 2.1 % (elder 0.9%) group ‘B’ patients. Haemoptysis (17.8% and 18.6% vs. 13.7% and 9.1%) and cough (~87% vs. ~85%) were almost similar but fever (~90% vs. ~65%) was seen significantly higher in the young patients. Radiologically bilateral upper lobe cavitations (15%-30%) was a higher in group A patients as compared to negligible less than ~3% cavitations in group B, on the contrary infiltrations (15%-32%) was more in group B.Conclusions: Young adults are more likely to have fever while haemoptysis cough and advanced lung field involvement is more common in elderly. Elderly patients had a higher number of co-morbidities like COPD and DM. The present study reveals that various demographic, socioeconomic and clinical risk factors have a potential role in causation/augmentation of pulmonary tuberculosis hence life style modification, prevention and timely management of these risk factors could be helpful to reduce the burden of disease

Six heads of origin of sternocleidomastoid muscle: a rare case

A morphological variation in the origin of the right sternocleidomastoid muscle was encountered during routine dissection of the neck for undergraduate students. We found six heads of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, two sternal and four clavicular heads. The two sternal heads were lying side by side, while two clavicular heads were lying superficially and another two clavicular head lying in a deep plane. These variations must be kept in mind while approaching the region for any surgical intervention to avoid complications.Keywords: Sternocleidomastoid; Anatomical variation; Sternal heads; Clavicular head

Salt tolerant wheat landraces and Gly II transformed lines show distinct biochemical mechanisms of stress tolerance

The present investigation was carried out to study the distinct salt tolerance mechanism in two sets of material, Gly II transgenics and Kharchia landraces. The Gly II transgenics were developed for glyoxalase II (osglyII) gene (GenBank accession no. AY054407) from Oryza sativa through Agrobacterium mediated method in the background of wheat cultivar PBW 621. Kharchia 65 is a salt tolerant landrace derivative developed from Kharchia local which is native to saline soils of Rajasthan. The six wheat genotypes, viz. Kharchia local, Kharchia 65, PBW 621, G-2-2, G-3-4 and G-1-13 were evaluated for growth parameters, antioxidant enzymes and contents of glutathione, ascorbic acid, malondialdehyde (MDA), H2O2, sugars, chlorophyll, carotenoid, electrolyte leakage (EL) and Na+, K+ under control and two salt treatments (150 mM and 250 mM NaCl). The activities of antioxidant enzymes, glutathione, sugar content increased in both GlyII and Kharchia genotypes as compared to PBW 621. The GlyII activity increased (77–84%) in GlyII genotypes alongwith content of reduced glutathione (GSH) to maintain redox homeostasis. Apparently, GlyII and Kharchia genotypes exhibited minimum oxidative stress due to low content of MDA, H2O2, diminished EL and thereby causing less growth reduction and maintaining high chlorophyll and carotenoid level as compared to PBW 621. In addition, Gly II transgenic material and Kharchia lines showed less Na+ accumulation, greater seedling biomass and sugar content due to its salt tolerance mechanism. We infer that GlyII activity enhances GSH which play significant role in detoxifying ROS to establish stress homeostasis. The route for generation of GSH is via ascorbate-glutathione pathway mediated by glutathione reductase. Hence, GlyII transgenics and Kharchia genotypes can diminish salt stress following above mechanism