ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SHORT SLEEP DURATION AND OBESITY IN MEDICAL STUDENTS

Objective: Adequate sleep has been considered important for the adolescent's health and well-being. On the other hand, self-imposed sleep curtailment is now recognized as a potentially important and novel risk factor for obesity. The objective of the study is to find the association between short sleep duration and obesity (by calculating the body mass index [BMI]) among medical students.Methods: The study was conducted on 100 medical students. A brief history of sleep duration was taken. The height and weight were taken and the body mass index (BMI) was calculated by formula weight in kg / height in m2. Based on the BMI criteria the students were classified into six groups: Underweight, normal, overweight, obese class I, obese class II and obese III. The waist circumference (WC)  was also taken.  The data obtained were statistically analysed by ANOVA test and the p < 0.5 was considered significant.Results: The present cross-sectional study showed that there is an association between short sleep duration and obesity which was highly significant (p<0.001). This study also shows that there is an association between short sleep duration and waist circumference which was also highly significant (p<0.001).Conclusion: The present study observed a high association of short sleep duration among medical students of IMS and SUM Hospital and that short sleep duration was significantly associated with increased risk of overweight and obesity. We should further investigate whether adults adopting a healthy lifestyle with short sleep duration would improve their sleeping habits or not.Keywords: Sleep duration, Body mass index, Waist circumference, Obesity

Foundation experience: redefining reading and writing: experiences from language resource generation workshops

A group of 17 government school teachers entered our beautifully done up training hall. They were from three Hence in today's scenario, language teaching is states Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry - and it hampered by: showed clearly. They walked in groups, sat in groups, l ate in groups, and even talked in groups! We realized for teaching languages are generally stories or that our first assignment was to break the language barrier, in order to initiate our work descriptive essays. The other functions of language on language are mostly focused on in the higher classes. teachin

A STUDY OF RELATION BETWEEN BODY MASS INDEX AND DYSMENORRHEA AND ITS IMPACT ON DAILY ACTIVITIES OF MEDICAL STUDENTS

ABSTRACTObjective: Dysmenorrhea is a condition, in which there is a severe, painful, cramping sensation in the lower abdomen which occurs just before orduring the menses. It has a major impact on the quality of life and social and occupational roles of females in the society. It also results in insignificantwork, school, and college absences in girls. As previous studies have failed to show a definite relation between dysmenorrhea and body massindex (BMI), the aim of our study was to find out an association between BMI and dysmenorrhea among medical students.Methods: The study was conducted on 200 medical students. Each one was supplied with a questionnaire with detailed menstrual history, familyhistory of dysmenorrhea, and detailed H/O of physical exercise and dietary habits. BMI was calculated by the formula weight in kg/height2 in meter,and based on the BMI criteria by the World Health Organization, the students were classified into four groups: Underweight, normal, overweight, andobese groups. The data obtained were statistically analyzed by Pearson Chi-square test, and p<0.5 was considered significant.Result: From our study, we found out that there is a positive correlation between dysmenorrhea and low BMI.Conclusion: As there is a positive correlation between BMI and dysmenorrhea, our aim was to educate people about dysmenorrhea and createawareness on diet and dysmenorrhea to assist in improving the quality of life in females.Keywords: Dysmenorrhea, Body mass index, Quality of life

Awareness regarding emergency contraception among married women attending urban health centre, Berhampur, Odisha, India

Background: In India unplanned pregnancy and illegal abortions still remains a problem. Unintended early pregnancy and frequent childbearing contribute to high pregnancy related morbidity and mortality which can be prevented by use of suitable contraceptives. In circumstances where women are unable to exercise sexual and reproductive decision making, introduction of emergency contraceptive pills may provide important back up option to enable women to control their fertility.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between August- October 2016 among 215 married women of reproductive age group attending the Urban Health Center, Berhampur, to study the awareness about most common methods of contraception, decision-making regarding contraceptive and knowledge and practice of emergency contraceptive pills.Results: This study concludes that most commonly used method was Oral contraceptive pills (28.3%) and major source of information regarding different methods of contraception were through friends and relatives (44.6%). Awareness about emergency contraception mostly came through television. Of those aware of ECPs (14.4%) only 16.1% had used it in their lifetime.Conclusions: Although there is awareness about contraceptives methods, knowledge and practice of emergency contraception is low

Breeding Rice for Sustainable Bioenergy Production

Bioenergy including biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass has immense potential to meet growing energy demand of the ever-growing world population. Bioenergy will help to mitigate the environmental problems arising due to burning of fossil fuels. Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world population and is grown in more than 100 countries. Rice straw is rich in lignocellulose and several technologies are available for efficient extraction and conversion of cellulose to ethanol. Thus, the surplus rice straw can be utilised to produce biofuel, so as to replace conventional fossil fuel sources. But it is reported that the present-day rice varieties showing high lignocellulosic straw biomass have low grain yield potential. Hence, it is important to re orient the breeding strategies for developing dual purpose rice varieties that are bioenergy efficient without compromising grain yield

Structural Insights Into Key Plasmodium Proteases as Therapeutic Drug Targets

Malaria, caused by protozoan of genus Plasmodium, remains one of the highest mortality infectious diseases. Malaria parasites have a complex life cycle, easily adapt to their host’s immune system and have evolved with an arsenal of unique proteases which play crucial roles in proliferation and survival within the host cells. Owing to the existing knowledge of enzymatic mechanisms, 3D structures and active sites of proteases, they have been proven to be opportune for target based drug development. Here, we discuss in depth the crucial roles of essential proteases in Plasmodium life cycle and particularly focus on highlighting the atypical “structural signatures” of key parasite proteases which have been exploited for drug development. These features, on one hand aid parasites pathogenicity while on the other hand could be effective in designing targeted and very specific inhibitors for counteracting them. We conclude that Plasmodium proteases are suitable as multistage targets for designing novel drugs with new modes of action to combat malaria

Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence of <em>Escherichia coli</em> in the Purview of Public Health Monitoring

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major threat to human, animal, and environment health in the developed as well as the developing nations. The usage of antibiotics outside of the prescribed parameters in both the healthcare and livestock sectors is directly tied to this resistance event. Additionally, several Escherichia coli strains harbor the AMR genes, which can be transferred to humans leading to public health problems. Depending on the type of antibiotics used, E. coli has evolved to prowess several resistance mechanisms. Resistance genes that are horizontally transmissible also encode this resistance mechanism. Different resistance genes for each class of antibiotics are encoded by resistant E. coli. In conclusion, the current chapter ushers light on the molecular evolution of resistance and the regulatory genes contributing to the development of MDR in E. coli. Moreover, we have also discussed about the inappropriate practices of prescribing the antibiotics leading to intensifying the MDR in bacteria envisaging the implementation of rigorous guidelines for proper use of antibiotics in human beings

Foundation experience: redefining reading and writing: experiences from language resource generation workshops

A group of 17 government school teachers entered our beautifully done up training hall. They were from three Hence in today's scenario, language teaching is states Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry - and it hampered by: showed clearly. They walked in groups, sat in groups, l ate in groups, and even talked in groups! We realized for teaching languages are generally stories or that our first assignment was to break the language barrier, in order to initiate our work descriptive essays. The other functions of language on language are mostly focused on in the higher classes. teachin

Disseminated non-Hodgkin′s lymphoma presenting as unilateral parotid gland enlargement with facial nerve palsy

The head and neck is the most common area for the presentation of lymphoproliferative disorders. Primary involvement of salivary glands is uncommon. Non-Hodgkin′s lymphoma constitutes a group of malignancies those arises from cellular components of lymphoid or extra nodal tissues. Here we report a case of a 70-year-old male patient who presented with left parotid gland enlargement with left facial nerve palsy and involvement of other nodal sites, which is rarely reported in the literature