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Astrocytes are a major category of glial support cell in the central nervous system and play a variety of essential roles in both health and disease. As our understanding of the diverse functions of these cells improves, the extent of heterogeneity between astrocyte populations has emerged as a key area of research. Retinal astrocytes, which form the direct cellular environment of retinal ganglion cells somas and axons, undergo a reactive response in both human glaucoma and animal models of the disease, yet their contributions to its pathology and progression remain relatively unknown. This gap in knowledge is largely a function of inadequate isolation techniques, driven in part by the sparseness of these cells and their similarities with the more abundant retinal Müller cells. Here, we present a novel method of isolating retinal astrocytes and enriching their RNA, tested in both normal and ocular hypertensive mice, a common model of experimental glaucoma. Our approach combines a novel enzyme assisted microdissection of retinal astrocytes with selective ribosome immunoprecipitation using the Ribotag method. Our microdissection method is rapid and preserves astrocyte morphology, resulting in a brief post-mortem interval and minimizing loss of RNA from distal regions of these cells. Both microdissection and Ribotag immunoprecipitation require a minimum of specialized equipment or reagents, and by using them in conjunction we are able to achieve > 100-fold enrichment of astrocyte RNA.

Deaths by ligation around the neck are in practice from the time immemorial and before adventure of civilization. Hanging is that form of asphyxia, which is caused by suspension of the body by a ligature which encircles the neck, the constricting force being the weight of the body or a part of the body weight. Due to population explosion, poverty and increasing stress and strain in our daily life, we frequently come across cases of suicides, homicides and accidents. The present study aims towards analyzing socio-demographic pattern, causes& precipitating factors for committing suicide by hanging in this region. Due to population explosion, poverty and increasing stress and strain in our daily life, we frequently come across cases of suicides, homicides and accidents22. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over eight hundred thousand people commit suicide every year all over the world. In India, every year >1 lakh people commit suicide, and it accounts for 17.5% of all suicidal deaths in the world. Hanging is the most common method of committing suicide as it is believed to offer a rapid and relatively painless death, and there is no cost involvement other than that of the ligature material2. According to NCRB reports the incidence of suicides by hanging increasing every year by India, 31.5% in 2010, 32.2% in 2011, 37.0% in 20122. The present study aims towards analyzing socio-demographic pattern, causes precipitating factors for committing suicide by hanging in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suicide is defined as a fatal self-injurious act with some evidence of intent to die.1 Suicide occurs more often in older than in younger people, but is still one of the leading causes of death in the late childhood and adolescence. Every year, more than 1,00,000 people commit suicide in our country.1 Suicide accounts for 1.4% of all deaths, and is the 15th leading cause of death globally.2,3 Suicide is associated with an impulsive nature. Several risk factors concerning family structure and interactions have been linked to a suicidal behaviour. Direct conflicts with parents and siblings, Occupational status and social acceptance have a great impact, but so do the absence of communication and a lack of empathy.12 Interpersonal losses are also strongly associated with suicide cases. But in developing countries one of the major reason always remains unemployment and poverty. There are different rates of suicides and suicidal behaviour between males and females (among both adults and adolescents). While females more often have suicidal thoughts, males die by suicide more frequently.5 Hence, this study was planned with a purpose to know the magnitude and the socio-cultural factors of the problem of suicides, so that a sound prevention program could be suggested, planned and implemented for reducing the incidence of suicides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assembly of privately owned land parcels, having no clear titles, for comprehensive urban redevelopment is a vastly unexplored area with immense knowledge gaps. To a large extent, cities in India reflect this knowledge deficit, with most parts of the cities growing without conforming to the statutory plans. Many states have made efforts in strengthening the private property regime through land/property records modernisation, conferring land rights through land titling projects/programmes. However, these initiatives remain agnostic to the land use planning processes. Mechanisms for assembling land remain limited, especially in settlements with ambiguous or no land titles. In recent times, with the increased contestations over land, it has been near impossible to acquire land through voluntary exchange or using the instrument of 'eminent domain'. Taking the lead from countries like Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, explorations have been made to implement spatial tools like Land Pooling (LP)/Land Readjustment (LR) for assembling land in India. Public institutions mostly deploy these tools to execute large infrastructure projects. However, in its present state, LP/LR is not relevant in informal settlements having ambiguous/no legal titles. Further, these tools need to be implemented in close coordination with the revenue administration, which oversees the ownership aspects of the land parcels. At present, these two regimes-land use planning steered by the urban development authorities/urban local bodies, and land management under the revenue administration operate in silos. This paper argues that, with adequate adjustments, the current LP/LR tools have the potential to be used in consolidating land, even for neighbourhoods with ambiguous land titles. Taking the case of Berhampur city in Odisha, India, this paper highlights the need to make better coordination between urban planning institutions and the revenue administration. It explores the gaps that limit the implementation of such tools in informal settlements, followed by a set of recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Image-based early detection for diabetic retinopathy (DR) needs value addition due to lack of well-defined disease-specific quantitative imaging biomarkers (QIBs) for neuroretinal degeneration and spectropathological information at the systemic level. Retinal neurodegeneration is an early event in the pathogenesis of DR. Therefore, development of an integrated assessment method for detecting neuroretinal degeneration using spectropathology and QIBs is necessary for the early diagnosis of DR. Methods: The present work explored the efficacy of intensity and textural features extracted from optical coherence tomography (OCT) images after selecting a specific subset of features for the precise classification of retinal layers using variants of support vector machine (SVM). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were also performed to confirm the spectropathological attributes of serum for further value addition to the OCT, fundoscopy, and fluorescein angiography (FA) findings. The serum metabolomic findings were also incorporated for characterizing retinal layer thickness alterations and vascular asymmetries. Results: Results suggested that OCT features could differentiate the retinal lesions indicating retinal neurodegeneration with high sensitivity and specificity. OCT, fundoscopy, and FA provided geometrical as well as optical features. NMR revealed elevated levels of ribitol, glycerophosphocholine, and uridine diphosphate N-acetyl glucosamine, while the FTIR of serum samples confirmed the higher expressions of lipids and ß-sheet-containing proteins responsible for neoangiogenesis, vascular fragility, vascular asymmetry, and subsequent neuroretinal degeneration in DR. Conclusion: Our data indicated that disease-specific spectropathological alterations could be the major phenomena behind the vascular attenuations observed through fundoscopy and FA, as well as the variations in the intensity and textural features observed in OCT images. Finally, we propose a model that uses spectropathology corroborated with specific QIBs for detecting neuroretinal degeneration in early diagnosis of DR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]