PCT as a Prognostic Marker in Cardiac Patients with Neutropenic Sepsis: Two Case Reports

Procalcitonin (PCT) is an innovative and highly specific marker for diagnosis of clinically relevant bacterial infection and sepsis. PCT supports early diagnosis and Clinical decision making. A retrospective study of two classical cases of neutropenic sepsis with elevated PCT levels in cardiac ICU was done. PCT was analyzed using Elecsys Brahms PCT kit. Serum PCT levels <0.5 ng/ml and ANC <1,000/mm³ was taken as cutoff. The first patient had initial high levels of PCT 100 ng/ml, TLC 13,600/mm³ and ANC 12,250/mm³. It was followed by drop with subsequent rise in PCT levels and drop in TLC 1,000/mm³ and ANC 70/mm³. The second patient had normal PCT 0.116 ng/ml, TLC 5,600/mm³ and ANC 4,420/mm³ levels followed with sharp increase in all the values with subsequent drop in TLC 2,000/mm³ and ANC 880 cells/mm³. Both the patients died of neutropenic sepsis with multiorgan failure. The case reports showed the correlation of PCT with TLC and ANC levels in predicting the mortality of patients with neutropenic sepsis in cardiac ICU.     

Therapeutic uses ofCurcuma longa (turmeric)

Curcuma longa commonly known as tumeric is traditionally used as a spice in Indian food. A wide range of biological activities e.g. anticancer, antimicrobial, antiinflammatory and free radical scavenging activity of the plant suggests a logical basis for its traditional use in foodstuff. Various phytothreapeutic uses ofCurcuma longa have been reviewed.     

Creating Cultural Competence: An Outreach Immersion Experience in Southern Africa

With disasters on the rise, counselors need to increase their cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills to work with affected communities. This study reports outcomes of a four-week immersion experience in southern Africa with six counselor-trainees. Data sources for this qualitative study were: daily journals and demographic forms. Outcomes suggest that sustained contact with community residents and daily supervision experiences served to improve cultural awareness. Recommendations include pushing through students?? resistance using a non-linear dynamic model of transformation.     

Levels of cerebrospinal fluid and serum acetylcholinesterase in Tuberculous and pyogenic meningitis in children

Total acetylcholinesterase activity (AChE) was estimated in CSF and serum of 163 cases, comprising of 64 cases of Tuberculous meningitis (TBM), 60 cases of pyogenic meningitis (PM) and 30 control in the paediatric age group. Mean CSF-AChE levels were 7.94±0.38, 9.06±0.16 and 9.80±0.30 unit/ml (Mean±S.E.) in Control, TBM and PM respectively. The respective serum AChE levels were 2.65±0.13, 3.18±0.07 and 3.93±0 0.035 units/ml. The ratio of CSF/serum-AChE in three groups were 3.09±0.137 (Mean±S.E.), 2.88±0.087, 2.98±0.092 in control, TBM and PM respectively. The values in both CSF as well as in serum in patient with TBM and in PM were significantly higher as compared to controls. However, the differences between the mean CSF-AChE and serum-AChE levels and CSF-AChE/serum-AChE were insignificant. Thus, though AChE levels are raised in meningitis, they are not helpful in differentiating TBM from PM.     

Parenting Practices Among Low-income Parents/Guardians of Academically Successful Fifth Grade African American Children

Research investigating the relationship between parenting and academic achievement has provided conflicting results, particularly for low-income, culturally-diverse parents. Using resilience theory, the researchers conducted a case study with five low-income African American mothers. Findings suggest that educators can benefit from partnering with African American parents.     

Overeducation in developing economies: How can we test for it, and what does it mean?

A worker is said to be overeducated if he/she has acquired more education than is required to perform his/her job. In the absence of data measuring the number of years of schooling required to perform particular jobs, we propose a new approach to testing for overeducation. Overeducation is confirmed if we observe that education levels rose in jobs that offer very low returns to education and that underwent little technological change. Using labor force surveys from four developing countries, we find evidence of overeducation in unskilled jobs in the Philippines, mild evidence in Mexico, and little evidence in India and Thailand. We show that a job's mean and modal years of schooling are poor proxies for required education. We also show that overeducation sometimes increases within unskilled jobs, even while a growing share of educated workers enter skilled jobs. This may be because the quality of education segments the labor market.     

Immunomonitoring followed by optimal dec therapy for successful management of clinical filariasis in an endemic area

Lymphatic filariasis continues to be the major cause of clinical morbidity in India and other developing tropical countries. One of the major lacunae in the effective management of clinical filarial cases is the non-availability of a suitable diagnostic test for confirming filaria aetiology in acute, chronic and occult clinical cases where microfilariae (mf) are not usually seen in peripheral circulation. Studies in our laboratory have shown the usefulness of filarial antibody and antigen assays using microfilarial excretory-secretory (mf ES) antigen in detecting microfilaraemic, acute and chronic filarial cases and in confirming filarial aetiology in occult infections. Diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC) is the drug of choice for lymphatic filariasis. Different regimens of DEC have been explored in the treatment of microfilaraemic cases. Immunomonitoring has shown that the seroconversion of antigen and antibody positivity was found to be very helpful in determining appropriate period of DEC treatment for clinical relief and cure in clinical filarial patients and further they did not have recurrence in most of the cases. Optimal DEC (6mg/kg body wt/day for 21 days each month for 3–12 months) therapy was found to be very effective in acute and atypical clinical manifestations such as asthmatic bronchitis, pulmonary eosinophilia, monoarthritis, recurrent upper respiratory tract infections (URI), pneumonia (super imposed infections) in children and minimal hydrocele, epididymoorchitis, lymphangitis, lymphadenitis, acute abdomen, central serous retinopathy, tenosynovitis, pain and swelling in limbs and joints in adults living in filaria endemic areas.     

Should educators and parents encourage other-gender interactions? Gender segregation and sexism

We investigated gender differences in the association between gender-segregated peer preferences and sexism in adolescents (15–17 years, 60 boys and 85 girls). To assess gender-segregated peer preferences, adolescents nominated peers for interaction in two contexts: ‘hanging out’ at home and working on a school project. The Modern Sexism Scale [Swim, J. K., K. J. Aikin, W. S. Hall, and B. A. Hunter. 1995. “Sexism and Racism: Old-Fashioned and Modern Prejudices.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (2): 199–214] measured two dimensions of sexism: Antagonism towards Women's Demands (believing feminist issues are unimportant) and denial of continuing discrimination (believing gender discrimination no longer exists). For boys, Antagonism towards Women's Demands was associated with gender-segregated peer preferences in the school and home context. For girls, Denial of Continuing Discrimination was associated with gender-segregated peer preferences in the home context. Results are informative for educators and for other professionals interested in reducing inequality and sexism among adolescents.     

Self‐Compassion: A Mentorship Framework for Counselor Educator Mothers

Counselor educators experience high levels of stress. Mothers in academia face an additional set of emotional stressors. The authors offer a self‐compassion framework for mentors to increase emotional resilience of mothers in counselor education.