Multiple Biomarkers to Assess the Pathophysiological State in Critically Ill Patients with Sepsis     

Prashanth Ashok Kumar  Usha Anand 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2016,31(3):310-314

Sepsis is associated with various metabolic derangements as a consequence of inflammatory response, ischemia and oxidative stress. Four parameters of relevance are procalcitonin (PCT), ischemia modified albumin (IMA) pH and lactate. The study was carried out to highlight the concomitant occurrence of sepsis, ischemia and lactic acidosis, all of which could have deleterious effects on organ function. 26 critically ill patients with a provisional diagnosis of sepsis were the test subjects. The control group had 25 apparently healthy volunteers. PCT, lactate and IMA were assayed. PCT was estimated on an automated analyser using electro-chemiluminescence. Lactate and pH were estimated on a blood gas analyzer. Serum IMA was estimated spectrophotometrically by Albumin Cobalt Binding Test. Statistical tools like students ‘t’ test and Venn diagram were employed to depict the outcome of the study. All critically ill patients had significantly higher IMA levels (0.96746 ± 0.73407) as compared to the control group (0.00728 ± 0.00895) with a p value of <0.0001. The Venn diagram was used to depict the finding that all 26 test subjects had elevated levels of IMA, of which PCT was elevated in 22 and lactate in 20. Both PCT and lactate were abnormal in 17 patients. The most significant observation was that all critically ill patients, irrespective of the presence of sepsis or lactic acidosis had elevated levels of IMA which is clearly indicative of the ubiquitous presence of oxidative stress. The Venn diagram is an elegant representation of the concurrent multiple pathophysiological processes which occur in critically ill patients.  相似文献   

Special Lectures     

L. Hema Bindu  P. Usha Rani  P. P. Reddy 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2007,22(2):32-35

Calcineurin, a Ca²⁺—Calmodulin dependent protein phosphatase, is important for Ca²⁺ mediated signal transduction. The main objective of this study was to examine the potential role of calcineurin in idiopathic mental handicap. Calcineurin levels were estimated in 20 children in the age group of 5–16 years with idiopathic mental handicap attending the Special. Education Centre for the Mentally Handicapped in Hyderabad. The results of the present study showed decreased activity of serum calcineurin in children with idiopathic mental handicap compared to those of normal subjects in the same age group. The observations thus suggest impaired calcineurin activity in children with mental handicap. Calcineurin that is involved in biosynthesis and release of neurotransmitters at the synaptic terminal brain is affected thereby causing brain damage and leading to mental handicap. Impaired calcineurin activity was already indicated in many human diseases such as Down's syndrome, Alzheimers, Brain ischemia, cardiac hypertrophy etc. It is therefore necessary to check the calcineurin levels in children with mental handicap to understand the role of calcineurin in the causation of Mental handicap.  相似文献   

Effect of Certain Antibiotics Against Filarial Parasite <Emphasis Type="Italic">Brugia malayi</Emphasis> In Vitro: Possible Role of Oxidative Stress     

Mahajan RS  Veerpathran A  Dakshinamoorthy G  Sharma RD  Goswami K  Reddy MV 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2010,25(4):362-366

WHO-Tropical Disease Research scheme highlighted the need for development of new anti-filarial drugs. Certain antibiotics have recently been found effective against Wolbachia, co-existing symbiotically with filarial parasites. Inflammatory response entails oxidative mechanism to educe direct anti-microbial effect. In the present study microfilariae were maintained in vitro in medium supplemented with varying concentrations of tetracycline, doxycycline (20–100 μg/ml) or ciprofloxacin (50–250 μg/ml) separately to find out any involvement of oxidative mechanism in the anti-filarial effect of these antibiotics. Loss of motility of the microfilariae was measured after 48 h and correlated with the levels of MDA, nitric oxide and protein-carbonylation. Significant loss of microfilarial motility was recorded with increasing concentration of tetracycline and doxycycline but with ciprofloxacin the effect was not marked. Agents with high antifilarial activity revealed significant association with oxidative parameters in a dose dependent manner. The result suggests that oxidative effect might be exploited to design novel antifilarial drug candidate.  相似文献   

Fascinating Potential of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aspergilli</Emphasis>     

Usha Sarma P 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2010,25(4):331-334

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Biochemical characterization of an immunodominant allergen/antigen ofAspergillus fumigatus     

Nivedita Bir  Anubha Paliwal  K. Muralidhar  P. Usha Sarma 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》1999,14(2):149-158

An 18kDa protein was identified as a major immunodominant allergen/antigen secreted by a wild type isolate and various clinical isolates ofA. fumigatus. The protein was purified to homogeneity and the N-terminal amino acid was found to be alanine. The N-terminal 20 amino acid sequence of 18kDa was found to be similar to restrictocin, a cytotoxin secreted byAspergillus restrictus. Mass spectroscopic analysis of the purified allergen revealed a molecular size of 17.01 kDa. Immunoreactivity of the purified allergen with monoclonal antibodies and specific IgG and IgE antibodies of the patients of aspergillosis confirmed that this protein is Asp fl.  相似文献   

#metoo 2.0 to #meNOmore: Analysing Western Reporting About Sexual Violence in the Music Industry     

Andrea Baker  Katrina Williams  Usha M. Rodrigues 《Journalism Practice》2020,14(2):191-207

ABSTRACT

In October 2017, #metoo 2.0 reinforces the gendered sexual violence in the creative sector [Marghitu, 2018 Marghitu, Stefania. 2018. “It’s Just art: Auteur Apologism in the Post-Weinstein era.” Feminist Media Studies 18 (93): 491–494. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1456158[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]. “It’s Just art: Auteur Apologism in the Post-Weinstein era”, Feminist Media Studies, 18(93): 491–494] Building on this movement, on 11 November that year, 2912 women “testified about the situation in the Swedish music industry”, signing an open letter condemning sexual violence [Nyheter, 2017. “2192 Women in the Swedish Music Industry Behind Appeal Against Sexism.” Dagens Nyheter, November 17. https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/2192-women-in-the-swedish-music-industry-behind-appeal-against-sexism/]. After the Swedish initiative, on 12 December 2017, the #meNOmore hashtag was established by 1000 women who signed an open letter to the Australian music industry speaking out against similar behaviour [Whyte, 2017a Whyte, Sarah. 2017a. “Artists Speak Out Against Sexual Harassment in the Music Industry.” AM – ABC Radio, December 13. https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/sexual-harassment-in-the-music-industry/9253956. [Google Scholar]. “Artists Speak Out Against Sexual Harassment in the Music Industry.” AM – ABC Radio, December 13. https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/sexual-harassment-in-the-music-industry/9253956]. Using a content analysis framework, this study examines the media framing of 26 stories about #meNOmore by the Western press from 22 November 2017 (height of the Swedish campaign) to 21 December 2017 (a week after the hashtag surfaced in Australia). Research from journalism studies and musicology highlights that sexual violence is historically engrained in the media and music industries. However, findings from our study of the first month’s coverage of the #meNOmore content analysis in 2017 reveal that media reports about women and sexual violence were framed around addressing gender inequality and systemic structural issues in the music industry. This raises the question, has the media has turned a corner when covering sexual violence in the post #metoo era?  相似文献   

Auditory Processing of Amplitude Envelope Rise Time in Adults Diagnosed With Developmental Dyslexia     

Elisabeth S. Pasquini  Kathleen H. Corriveau  Usha Goswami 《Scientific Studies of Reading》2013,17(3):259-286

Studies of basic (nonspeech) auditory processing in adults thought to have developmental dyslexia have yielded a variety of data. Yet there has been little consensus regarding the explanatory value of auditory processing in accounting for reading difficulties. Recently, however, a number of studies of basic auditory processing in children with developmental dyslexia have suggested that a reduced ability to discriminate the rate of change in amplitude envelope onsets (rise time) may be linked to phonological processing difficulties and thereby to reading difficulties. Here, we select a range of different rise-time tasks used with children, and give them to adults with developmental dyslexia, along with 2 other auditory tasks (intensity discrimination and temporal order judgment). Deficits in both rise-time perception and temporal order judgment were found to predict literacy attainment in adults with developmental dyslexia, but the data were suggestive of different causal pathways.  相似文献   

Building Digital Resources: Creating Facilities at INSA     

Usha Mujoo-Munshi 《International Information and Library Review》2013,45(2-4):281-309

Today libraries are at a transition phase where twin processes of paper-based environment and changing information-seeking patterns in the electronic/digital environment go hand-in-hand. Hence, all components of the information chain are in a state of flux. The rapid growth in computer and communication technologies have greatly benefited the advanced countries, while the developing countries have not adequately reaped the benefits of such facilities to the desired extent. The application of information technology (IT) in India started on a very modest scale. During the past decade or so several Indian libraries have initiated activities to create, acquire, and provide access to electronic resources. The establishment of networks has had a great impact on libraries and information centers (LICs) in the country, and have further buttressed the IT applications in the LICs to a certain extent. The emergence of the Internet, especially the World Wide Web (www), added a new dimension to information creation and delivery, which also globally triggered digitization programs. Buying access or acquiring digital resources started taking root. The digitization of records (document management) crept in, which attracted librarians and people from other professional backgrounds into records management. This was followed by content management, (currently a popular phrase in this part of the world), also known as digitization. The digitization of documents is now becoming a major activity in libraries and archives. The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a premier scientific body engaged in the dissemination of information to the scientific community at large, publishing and promoting scientific endeavors, besides having other multifaceted human welfare-oriented activities. The growing acceptance of digital media has resulted in libraries buying and providing access to Internet resources, acquiring CD-ROM-based data-sets, and providing services for stand alone or networked CD-ROM environments, and digitizing documents. The Academy library facilitates all three. The Academy has initiated several digitization initiatives for content development and management by way of the scanning of publications, image management, and conversion from digital documents to web-enabled resources. The Academy has adopted a three-pronged approach of providing access to digital resources, and acquiring and creating digital resources, for which INSA suitably augments with IT infrastructures and takes initiatives to provide links to requisite data sets for the benefit of its users. INSA developed and provided IT facilities at a modest scale to its users at a time when only a limited few had developed such facilities in the country. The facilities developed at INSA augur well with the initiation of pilot and sponsored projects pertaining to digitization of records and making provision for creating digital resource bases, thereby contributing to the national digital repository on the one hand and providing access and visibility to national resources on the other. The article dwells upon various elements that have contributed to providing services in the changing information seeking patterns of users in the electronic environment, and the building of digital resource bases, while facilitating others to get involved in digital content creation activities. It is hoped that such endeavors shall help in the building up of a national digital knowledge resource base for the country, and INSA would in the process act as a facilitator.  相似文献   

Seed pathology literature     

B. S. Maheswarappa  G. N. Usha 《International Information and Library Review》2013,45(1):99-114

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AN INTERGENERATIONAL CURRICULAR MODULE FOR TEACHING AGING APPRECIATION TO SEVENTH-GRADERS     

Usha Chowdhary 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(7):553-560

The research reported in this paper examines the influence of a one-week curriculum module on aging appreciation of the seventh-graders. Ninety-seven students completed the introductory questionnaire, and 98 students filled out the final questionnaire. A majority of the students were 13 years of age, boys, white, and had living maternal and paternal grandparents who lived in their own homes. T-test analyses revealed that the intervention curricular module showed significant improvement with regard to age perception, number of older people known, personal attributes of older people, and involvement in activities with older people. However, scores dropped significantly for the facts on aging. Several implications for extending this work are discussed.  相似文献