A Review of the Role of Melatonin in Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a troubling disease experienced worldwide. The presentation of symptoms varies from patient to patient, and current prescription treatments can be inadequate in resolving symptoms. This article explores the available scientific literature supporting the use of melatonin in alleviating IBS symptoms

Drug-Drug Interactions Among Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Medications

One-fourth of individuals diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus concomitantly have the hepatitis C virus infection. Since the discovery of highly active antiretroviral therapy, liver complications have become the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-HCV coinfected individuals. Optimal treatment in this patient population is critical, as coinfection has been linked to deterioration of both disease states. The objective of this review article is to highlight the current literature on drug-drug interactions between HIV and HCV treatments. The management of the treatment of coinfection patients has been covered extensively in numerous other publications

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FOOD ASSISTANCE CHOICES OF FOOD NEEDY FAMILIES

A bivariate probit model was used to determine public and private food assistance participation among the population below 125 percent poverty level, using the Current Population Survey data. Food stamp use and food pantry use were complements. Household income, food insecurity status, household structure, and rural residence affected participation decisions.Food Security and Poverty,

Evidence that indirect inhibition of saccade initiation improves saccade accuracy

Saccadic eye-movements to a visual target are less accurate if there are distracters close to its location (local distracters). The addition of more distracters, remote from the target location (remote distracters), invokes an involuntary increase in the response latency of the saccade and attenuates the effect of local distracters on accuracy. This may be due to the target and distracters directly competing (direct route) or to the remote distracters acting to impair the ability to disengage from fixation (indirect route). To distinguish between these we examined the development of saccade competition by recording saccade latency and accuracy responses made to a target and local distracter compared with those made with an addition of a remote distracter. The direct route would predict that the remote distracter impacts on the developing competition between target and local distracter, while the indirect route would predict no change as the accuracy benefit here derives from accessing the same competitive process but at a later stage. We found that the presence of the remote distracter did not change the pattern of accuracy improvement. This suggests that the remote distracter was acting along an indirect route that inhibits disengagement from fixation, slows saccade initiation, and enables more accurate saccades to be made

VLT near-infrared spectra of hard serendipitous Chandra sources

We present near-infrared long-slit spectra of eight optically-dim X-ray sources obtained with ISAAC on the Very Large Telescope. Six of the sources have hard X-ray emission with a significant fraction of the counts emerging above 2 keV. All were discovered serendipitously in the fields of three nearby galaxy clusters observed with Chandra, and identified through near-infrared imaging. The X-ray fluxes lie close to the break in the source counts. Two of the sources show narrow emission lines, and a third has a broad line. One of the narrow line-emitting sources has a clear redshift identification at z=2.18, while the other has a tentative determination based on the highest redshift detection of He I 10830 at z=1.26. The remainder have featureless spectra to deep limiting equivalent widths of 20--60 angstroms and line flux approx= 5 x 10^{-17} erg/s/cm^2 in the K-band. High-quality J, H and Ks--band images of the sources were combined with archival optical detections or limits to estimate a photometric redshift for six. Two sources show complex double morphology. The hard sources have spectral count ratios consistent with heavily obscured AGN, while the host galaxy emits much of the optical and near-infrared flux. The most likely explanation for the featureless continua is that the line photons are being scattered or destroyed by optically-thick gas and associated dust with large covering fractions.Comment: Replaced in response to problems with the PDF version of Fig 4 at arxiv.org, but not at the mirror sites (lanl.gov, soton.ac.uk). No content change

Humpback dolphin, Sousa chinensis washed ashore at Rameswaram landing Centre along Palk Bay

A dead dolphin was washed ashore at Rameswaram landing centre along Palk Bay on 18-1-2005

Fraught transactions: The ethics of monetary exchange in India

Since the 1950s, public discourse in India has been replete with references to ‘black money’. This generally denotes undeclared or illicit income, sometimes in foreign accounts. Under post-independence socialist rule – so as to circumvent taxes, controls, and regulations – black money pervaded ordinary exchange and political financing. Today, important purchases have white and black ratios, and public figures vow to retrieve black money in Swiss accounts. Black money is, at once, a means to transact business, a barometer of value, an elusive spectre, and a moral outrage. It suggests how money can be differentiated, converted, corrupted, and disguised. Based on an ethnographic study of a popular neighbourhood in central Mumbai, I focus on a ration shop operator’s generation of black money from the diversion of publicly subsidized goods, the surrounding community’s moral critiques, and the owner’s conduits for his income. Black money can be understood in equivocal terms. As a moral critique rooted in notions of injustice and corruption, it acquires a spectral and pernicious character. Yet seen from the perspective of exchange and circulation, black money serves as a hinge between transactional orders, and thus as a tangible expression of relational ties and long-term outcomes