Serum and tissue levels of zinc,copper, magnesium and retinol in prostatic neoplasms

Zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg) and retinol levels were studied in serum and tissue of the patients with prostatic carcinoma (Ca), benign hyperplasia (BHP) and control subjects. Zinc and retinol levels were low in both serum and tissues of patients with carcinoma, while in BHP, both zinc and retinol level were decreased. Copper levels were high in serum and tissues of both BHP as well as carcinoma patients. Magnesium levels were elevated in both serum and tissues of cancerous patients. The results indicate that Zn, Cu, and Mg metabolism is disturbed in malignancy.     

Effect of yoga training on plasma lipid profile,R.B.C. membrane lipid peroxidation and Na+K+ ATPase activity in patients of essential hypertension

We conducted a controlled study on effect of selected yoga practive in the control and management of 50 cases of essential hypertension and equal number of healthy (nonhypertensive) controls. Free radical cellular damage is considered to be the underlying common biological factor in essential hypertension. We, therefore, investigated lipid profile lipid peroxidation and Na⁺K⁺ ATPase activities of plasma membrane of subjects with essential hypertension. It was found that hypertensive subjects had an elevated lipid peroxidation and decreased Na⁺K⁺ ATPase activity in plasma membrane as compared to normotensive healthy controls, the specific yoga training protocol which was administered not only helped to decrease blood pressure but also retard the progression of ceellular damage due to free radicals.     

Crossing a nonlinear resonance

The idea of adiabatic invariance is presented in the context of simple classical mechanical models. The adiabatic invariant jumps across the separatrix — an attempt has been made to bring out the basic ideas underlying the Melnikov-Arnold integral. This becomes important as soon as a perturbation to a regular, stable system makes it dynamically unstable.     

Landmark discoveries in neurosciences

The study of the basis of mental phenomena or the mind has always intrigued humans. Our current understanding of the functioning of the brain is the result of insightful research by many scientists, which has led to a detailed knowledge of brain structure and how this structure makes it possible for the mind to emerge from it.     

Counseling and Family Therapy in India: Evolving Professions in a Rapidly Developing Nation

Outpatient counseling is a relatively new concept and form of clinical practice in India. This article provides an overview of the need for and current status of counseling and family therapy in India. Examples of training programs are presented, and future prospects for the counseling and family therapy professions are highlighted. The authors discuss therapeutic issues that clinicians may need to consider when working with Indian clients, as well as some of the potential barriers to counseling individuals, couples, and families in or from the Indian subcontinent. The future of these professions looks bright and parallels India’s rapid development as a nation.     

Stabilization of collective formations with speed and controller gain heterogeneity and saturation

This paper studies collective formations of multi-agent systems, modeled with unicycle dynamics, while admitting heterogeneity in both controller gains and speeds of the agents along with saturation on the controller outputs. This addresses a practical scenario where the speeds are usually nonidentical and the controller gains may vary due to imperfect implementation. The paper analyzes the effect of both heterogeneous controller gains and speeds simultaneously on the collective formations obtained by optimizing the average linear momentum of the group of agents. A detailed analysis of the two-agent system is given in the paper and some results on the locus of the collective centroid with varying controller gains are obtained. Effect of saturation is also studied for two cases when the controller gains are bounded and when the control efforts are bounded. Simulation examples are given to illustrate the theoretical findings.     

Effect of short term vitamin E supplementation on lipid peroxidation in acute myocardial infarction

In view of sufficient body of evidence to substantiate the role of free radical mediated oxidative injury in myocardial infarction (M.I.), the utility of exogenous supplementation with antioxidant substance, vitamin E was studied. Forty patients of acute myocardial infarction were divided into two equal groups, one who received vitamin E and the other who did not. Plasma MDA levels showed a reduction in patients of M.I. who received vitamin E as well as in those who did not, however, the decrease was significantly more in the vitamin E treated subgroup.     

Novel index for micromixing characterization and comparative analysis

The most basic micromixer is a T- or Y-mixer, where two confluent streams mix due to transverse diffusion. To enhance micromixing, various modifications of T-mixers are reported such as heterogeneously charged walls, grooves on the channel base, geometric variations by introducing physical constrictions, etc. The performance of these reported designs is evaluated against the T-mixer in terms of the deviation from perfectly mixed state and mixing length (device length required to achieve perfect mixing). Although many studies have noticed the reduced flow rates for improved mixer designs, the residence time is not taken into consideration for micromixing performance evaluation. In this work, we propose a novel index, based on residence time, for micromixing characterization and comparative analysis. For any given mixer, the proposed index identifies the nondiffusive mixing enhancement with respect to the T-mixer. Various micromixers are evaluated using the proposed index to demonstrate the usefulness of the index. It is also shown that physical constriction mixer types are equivalent to T-mixers. The proposed index is found to be insightful and could be used as a benchmark for comparing different mixing strategies.