Hyperinsulinemia predisposes to NAFLD

Metabolic syndrome contributes to pathogenesis of Type-2 diabetes and CAD. Insulin Resistance is the key factor of metabolic syndrome implicated in development of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). In present study we have investigated the prevalence of NAFLD in metabolic syndrome and contribution of metabolic risk factors in causation of NAFLD in non-diabetic North Indian male population. The study was conducted on 495 non-diabetic, nonalcoholic subjects (age 30–65 years). Metabolic Syndrome was assessed by using ATP III and ADA (2005) criteria. Anthropometric factors-Waist circumference and blood pressure were measured. Fasting serum samples were analyzed for Glucose, Triglycerides, Cholesterol and its fractions, Insulin, Alanine transaminase, Aspartate transaminase, Gamma glutamyl transferase and free fatty acids. Insulin resistance was estimated by Homeostasis Model and Insulin sensitivity by QUICKI Index. Liver ultrasonographic scanning was used for assessing fatty liver. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome and NAFLD was 24% and 14.8% respectively in non-alcoholic population and 27% of metabolic syndrome had NAFLD which was associated with hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, insulin insensitivity along with elevated levels of waist circumference, blood pressure, triglyceride, FFA and decreased HDL-Cholesterol. The prevalence of NAFLD increased with insulin resistance and clustering of metabolic risk factors.     

The Media Buying Process: Perceptions of Media Sales Representatives

This three-wave e-mail/Web-based survey examined current perceptions of media sales representatives. Media departments from small, medium, and large advertising agencies across the United States answered questions related to the general perception, influence, and role of media sales representatives across media types. Overall, the findings suggested a favorable opinion about media sales representatives with magazine representatives rated as most influential. Trust emerged as a critical component in the buyer–seller relationship. In addition, providers of reliable knowledge and information were found to be critical roles of media sales representatives. The findings are noteworthy and emphasize the importance of educating industry sales representatives regarding the value of relationship building in the media sales process.     

Effects of Transparency and At-Stakeness on Students' Perceptions of Their Ability to Work Collaboratively in Effective Classroom Teams: A Partial Test of the Jassawalla and Sashittal Model

While teams are common in business school classrooms, scholars note that few instructors provide teamwork-related instruction. The consequent negative experiences may explain the reported cynicism about teamwork among students. This article reports findings from a study that examined the link between a teaching strategy designed to help students function more effectively in teams and its impact on student perceptions of their ability to work collaboratively with others and on their perceptions of their team's effectiveness. The study found evidence to suggest that a teaching strategy designed to help students reach the multiple stages of team development such as high levels of at-stakeness and transparency positively impacts their perceptions and that these stages effectively mediate the link between the strategy and key outcomes.     

Predisposition of genetic polymorphism with the risk of urolithiasis

Urolithiasis is a relevant clinical problem with a subsequent burden for health system. The aim of this review is to provide recent progress made using genetic polymorphisms to define pathophysiology, to identify persons at risk for kidney stone disease and to predict treatment response. Population case-control studies are useful both as an alternative and an adjunct as compared to family studies. These involve either whole genome scanning or candidate gene approaches. While whole genome scanning is likely to be widely used in future, at present, candidate gene studies are more feasible. When performing candidate gene case-control studies factors such as study design, methods for recruitment of case and controls, selection of candidate genes, functional significance of polymorphisms chosen for study and statistical analysis require close attention to ensure that only genuine associations are detected. Some of the significant genes that play role in stone formation include calcitonin receptor gene (CTR), vitamin D receptor (VDR), Urokinase, Interleukin, (IL-1β, IL-Ra), E-Cadherin, Androgen & oestrogen receptor gene, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Arginine p21. In our case-control study we studied CTR, VDR, Urokinase, IL-1β(−511 and +3954), IL-Ra from north India and predict that VDR, IL-β (-511) and IL-1Ra gene may be used as a possible genetic marker for earlier detection in patients who are at risk for calcium oxalate stone disease. Further, linkage disequilibrium and haplotype structure of a certain candidate gene is important for association analysis. When a certain polymorphic allele has been found to be associated with disease, it is further explained on basis of LD and haplotype structure by one or more other alleles. Once it is determined which haplotype carries the risk allele, by means of molecular biological functional analyses, the variants on that haplotype allele truly causing the effect can be determined.     

Text segmentation: A topic modeling perspective

In this paper, the task of text segmentation is approached from a topic modeling perspective. We investigate the use of two unsupervised topic models, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and multinomial mixture (MM), to segment a text into semantically coherent parts. The proposed topic model based approaches consistently outperform a standard baseline method on several datasets. A major benefit of the proposed LDA based approach is that along with the segment boundaries, it outputs the topic distribution associated with each segment. This information is of potential use in applications such as segment retrieval and discourse analysis. However, the proposed approaches, especially the LDA based method, have high computational requirements. Based on an analysis of the dynamic programming (DP) algorithm typically used for segmentation, we suggest a modification to DP that dramatically speeds up the process with no loss in performance. The proposed modification to the DP algorithm is not specific to the topic models only; it is applicable to all the algorithms that use DP for the task of text segmentation.     

The spiral of silence and journalists' outspokenness on Twitter

This study examined views on the practice of account planning among advertising professionals in India. Three research questions were proposed to investigate perceptions of planning's growth in this emerging global hotspot, practitioner beliefs about planning, as well as opinions of coercive, mimetic and normative pressures in its development. A cross-sectional survey (n=154) across all key agency areas was conducted. Results indicate that (1) planning is seen as a growing practice in Indian advertising, (2) overall beliefs about account planning are highly positive, and (3) environmental (external) pressures impact planning in India though not all are considered equally important. Future research directions are proposed.