Search

Coracias benghalensis, a seasonally breeding bird native to Prayagraj, U.P., India, exhibits a distinct rolling behaviour to attract the female for courtship as well as nesting and territoriality performances. We hypothesised that the appearance of the seasonal rolling behaviour of C. benghalensis would coincide with seasonal plasticity in neuronal characteristics and spine density changes in dorsolateral hippocampus (DLH) of the hippocampal complex (HCC). To test this hypothesis, the current research aimed to reveal qualitative and quantitative changes in neuronal population and neuronal plasticity in various neuronal classes of DLH during the non-breeding (quiescent and regression) and breeding (pre-breeding and breeding) phases of reproductive cycle of C. benghalensis. Cresyl-violet staining was used for cytoarchitectural distinction of the different brain's regions. Plasticity in the morphology of unipolar, bipolar, pyramidal, and multipolar neurons in DLH during breeding and non-breeding phases was characterised by using Golgi-Colonnier staining. Compared to quiescent sub-phase, a significant increase in various neuromorphometric parameters and spine density all four classes of neurons was observed during breeding. This study concludes during breeding sub-phase a significant alteration of neuron morphology and spine density in DLH suggests an enhanced capability for neuronal plasticity, possibly underlying rolling behaviour and involvement of DLH for cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypertension is a medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries increases. Hypertension is characterized by an increase in systolic pressure or a rise in diastolic pressure above the normal values. Aim: The aim of the study is to assess the effect of deep breathing exercises on blood pressure values among hypertensive persons in selected areas in district Mohali, Punjab. Subject and method: A quantitative research approach design has been adopted for the study. 80 hypertensive persons were selected through convenient sampling technique. Results: Results revealed that the mean score of systolic blood pressure values in pre-test and post-test among hypertensive persons in experimental group was 140 ± 8.929 and 123 ± 7.663 respectively whereas the mean score of systolic blood pressure values in pre-test and post-test among hypertensive persons in control group was 139.37 ± 8.101 and 137.50 ± 6.097 respectively. Findings depicted that the mean score of diastolic blood pressure values in pre-test and post-test among hypertensive persons in experimental group was 88.50 ± 5.089 and 77.13 ± 4.921 respectively. Whereas, the mean score of diastolic blood pressure values in pre-test and post-test among hypertensive persons in control group was 88.625 ± 5.062 and 87.50 ± 3.755 respectively. Conclusion: It has been concluded that deep breathing exercises are effective to reduce the blood pressure values among hypertensive persons in experimental group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ayushman Bharat -- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana has been launched to provide financial protection expenditure to nearly 500 million vulnerable Indians. For expanding the coverage under the scheme, it is necessary to understand the perspective of health care service providers involved in the scheme. Aim & Objective: To find out the bottlenecks in implementation of PMJAY scheme using empanelled hospitals' perspective Settings and Design: Cross sectional study Methods and Material: 8 Public and 23 Private hospitals were selected through Simple Random Sampling from the list of PMJAY empanelled hospitals. The PMJAY Medical Officer co-ordinators in the empanelled hospitals were interviewed using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire. Statistical analysis used: Data was analysed using descriptive statistics in Epiinfo software. Results: Among the 31 empanelled hospitals studied, 93.5% were satisfied with the process for empanelment under PMJAY. 64.5% hospitals were not satisfied with the Health Benefit Packages. 77.4% hospitals perceived the PMJAY to be poorer as compared to private health insurance with reasons being poor grievance reprisal, poor claim processing and settlement, denial of reimbursement of health packages, poor rates of health packages and little information about the scheme. Conclusions: Various hurdles are being faced in the implementation of the scheme. There definitely remains a huge scope for further improvements so as to enhance the insurance coverage in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma is a unique phase of matter constituting positively or negatively charged atoms, excited atoms, neutral atoms, electrons, radicals, etcetera displaying a unique role in the nuclear fusion research besides studying electrical discharges in the domain of switching devices and biomedical applications lately. We discuss in this extensive proposition the fundamental plasma characteristics such as Debye length, plasma oscillations, plasma sheath and condition for sustainability and confinement of plasmas, besides examining the elementary waves in plasmas namely zero waves, electron plasma wave and ion plasma wave. The inherent electron plasma wave and ion plasma wave is associated with the driving of plasma currents which in turn depends upon the density perturbation and thermal velocities of the electrons and ions. The application of external electromagnetic radiation such as laser (pump wave) into the plasma modifies the dispersion relations of electron and ion plasma wave, respectively. The laser stimulates a plethora of waves in the plasma and undergoes remarkable physical phenomena such as self-focusing and filamentation of laser beams. The excitation of sideband waves of the laser beams into the plasma plays a key role in imparting ponderomotive force on the electron plasma waves leading to turbulence in the plasmas due to coupling of the waves. The oscillatory velocity of the electron due to pump wave, plasma density perturbation, ponderomotive force and current densities are associated with the excitation of instabilities in the plasma. Conclusively, such waves and instabilities in unmagnetized and magnetized plasma is comprehensively studied and concluded by proposing the investigation of unexplored twisted electromagnetic wave-plasma interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replacement of current organic chemical processes with more environmentally benign alternatives is an important goal from an ecological point of view. The study is aimed with the goal of promoting water as a solvent in organic synthesis. In recent years, extensive industrial and scholarly research has been promoted for the development of organic reactions in aqueous media. Using water as a solvent often promotes considerable rate enhancements and operational simplicity. Environmental benefits of using water are additionally highlighted in relation to the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: - COVID-19 is the most important public health problem of recent time. Many people require hospitalization after infection. COVID vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the disease. Due to extensive negative publicity through social media channels/platforms,significant number of individuals are not coming forward for vaccination. Therefore, study is needed to evaluate adverse effects associated with different vaccines available in India. Objectives: - To assess the adverse effects associated with COVID-19 vaccination and compare the side effect of two most commonly used COVID vaccines in India. Methods:- In the current report, a cross sectional study was conducted among beneficiaries of COVID-19 vaccines at the vaccination center of the LLRM Medical college, India. After institutional ethical clearance and informed consent, patients were asked about the symptoms they experienced after vaccination. A very simple random sampling approach was used to select beneficiaries. Information was collected on predesigned Google form and total 391 patients submitted the responses. Results:- Out of total respondents 77 % individuals reported one or more symptoms. Fever was reported to be most common problem (59.3%) followed by body ache (57.5%). Out of total beneficiaries, 68.3% experienced mild symptoms while 23% remain asymptomatic. Only few subjects reported moderate adverse effects (8.7%). None of the respondent reported severe and serious adverse effect. Conclusions:- Vaccine associated adverse effects were found less than 3 days and of mild variety in most of the beneficiaries. There was no difference in adverse effect profile of two commonly used vaccines in India. People must come forward for vaccination in mass without fearing of adverse effects of vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Early-Onset Psychosis (EOP) both experience substantial difficulties with social cognition (Spek et al. 2012; Lanillos et al. 2020); however, the impact of therapy and medication use on their social cognition has not yet been examined (Lai et al. 2014; Schiffman et al. 2018). This project will explore the effects of the history of therapy and medication use as moderating variables between neural architecture and social cognition performance. Participants and Methods: T1-weighted imaging data were acquired on a 3T Siemens scanner for 51 ASD and EOP participants (Mean Age = 16.33), with 41 individuals endorsing history of therapy and 23 endorsing history of medication use across groups. Cortical thickness was calculated using FreeSurfer imaging analysis software (v5.3; Fischel et al., 2002) for social brain regions including inferior parietal lobe (IPL), middle temporal lobe (MPL), caudal anterior cingulate cortex (cACC), rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), fusiform gyrus, precuneus cortex, and insular cortex. The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT; McDonald et al., 2006) was administered to assess social cognition performance. After controlling for individuals that had a history of both therapy and medication use, Pearson's correlations were utilized to examine the relationship between cortical thickness and social cognition performance in ASD and EOP patients. The PROCESS Procedure moderation analysis in SPSS was utilized to determine if history of therapy or medication use moderated the relationship between cortical thickness and social cognition performance (Hayes, 2018). Results: Across groups, there was a negative association between an individual's cACC thickness and TASIT Do score (r = -.415, p =.005) as well as the total TASIT score (r = -.325, p =.031). Additionally, there was a positive association between an individual's precuneus cortical thickness and their TASIT Say score (r =.440, p =.003). Results of the moderation analyses revealed that lack of medication use was associated with greater rACC thickness and higher TASIT Say score (R 2 Change =.1281 mm, p =.0191). Additionally, lack of past therapy experience was associated with greater insular thickness and higher TASIT Think scores (R2 Change =.1957 mm, p =.0033). Conversely, past therapy history was associated with greater fusiform gyrus thickness and higher TASIT Say score (R2 Change =.1115 mm, p =.0262). Conclusions: Our results suggest that for individuals without a history of therapy or medication use, higher cortical thickness of the rACC and insula support better social cognition performance; whereas for individuals with past therapy experience, higher cortical thickness of the fusiform cortex underlies better social cognition performance. Collectively, these findings suggest that an individual's history of therapy or medication use may be relevant variables to consider when examining the relationship between neural cortical thickness and social cognition performance in these neuropsychiatric conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Previous research has found that trauma is a risk factor for developing early-onset psychosis (EOP), both exhibiting widespread structural abnormalities and social cognitive dysfunction (Hoy et al., 2012; Nair et al., 2020; Rotiker et al., 2018). However, few studies have investigated the association between trauma, neural architecture, and social behaviors. The current study examines whether trauma exposure moderates the association between cortical volume and thickness and social cognition in EOP. Participants and Methods: T1-weighted whole-brain magnetic resonance data were acquired on a 3T Siemens scanner for 23 adolescents with EOP aged 12-21 years (M = 16.12), and 20 age-matched controls (M = 17.22). Cortical volume and thickness were calculated using the Freesurfer software suite (v5.3; Reuter et al., 2012). Based on prior research, bilateral structures of interest included the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), insula, precuneus, and superior frontal cortex. Social measures included the WebCNP Emotion Recognition (KER40) and Emotion Differentiation Test (MED36) accuracy score (Gur et al., 2010), The Awareness of Social Inference Test Total Score (TASIT; McDonald et al., 2003), and Social Responsiveness Scale, 2nd Edition (SRS-2; Constantino & Gruber, 2012). Trauma exposure was assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview Diagnostic (controls n = 5; EOP n = 9; First et al., 2015). Pearson's correlations and independent t-tests were used to examine the relationship between cortical measurements and social cognition. Additionally, PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) was used to examine if trauma history statistically moderated the relationship between cortical measurements and social cognition performance. Results: Significant group differences in SRS-2 scores were observed, as EOP participants scored 24.272 points higher than controls (t = 20.724, p <.001). Across both groups, there was a negative correlation between the SRS-2 score and precuneus volume (r = -.438, p =.011) and thickness (r = -.383, p =.028), TASIT total and superior frontal volume (r = -.349, p =.023), and KER40 and insular volume (r = -.437, p =.20). Further, the moderation analysis revealed that the relationships between precuneus volume and SRS-2 scores, precuneus thickness and MED36 scores, and rACC thickness and KER40 scores depended on experiencing trauma across both groups. Participants with trauma across groups had increased precuneus volume associated with higher SRS-2 scores (p =.0442). Experiencing trauma was also associated with lower precuneus cortical thickness and lower MED36 scores (p =.0172). Conversely, lack of trauma experience was associated with greater rACC thickness and higher KER40 scores (p =.0119). Conclusions: Our findings indicate that past traumatic experiences may be a moderating factor in the relationship between atypical volume and thickness of social brain regions and social cognition. Overall, the significant interactions between trauma exposure and increased volume and thickness in both EOP and control participants were associated with increased impairment on social cognition measures. These findings emphasize the importance of accounting for the impact of early life adversities on brain development and how it may be relevant to social impairments, especially in individuals experiencing psychosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical discharges are the key mechanism to the generation of atmospheric pressure plasmas which are further classified as equilibrium and non-equilibrium plasmas, also referred to as thermal and non-thermal plasmas. The technological advancement of non-thermal plasma has extended its potential clinical non-invasive applications in a multitude of disciplines such as dermatology, ophthalmology and oncology, etc. to bolster tissue generation, refraction error correction and necrosis of the cancerous cells in the domain of plasma medicine, respectively. A fundamental on the various types of discharges and their mechanism is investigated. A perspective on the application of non-thermal plasmas in the domains such as sterilization and disinfection is presented in this review. We have focused on the plasma therapeutics and its significance as a clean and dry therapy to treat superficial skin diseases via the mechanism of proliferation of basal skin cells and prothrombin stimulation to cauterize the blood through Argon Plasma generated by Argon Plasma Coagulator. We propose to fabricate atmospheric pressure plasma devices and understanding of the associated plasma radicals that aids in the activation of biochemical and biomolecular reactions to treat the cutaneous and sub-cutaneous diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]