Circulating peptide and steroid hormone levels in patients with breast cancer

Circulating levels of gonadotropins (FSH,LH), prolactin (PRL), estradiol and progesterone were measured by radioimmunoassay in the sera of 60 patients with histopathologically proven breast cancer. 30 patients belonged to the post and 30 to the premenopausal group. 30 healthy women, 15 each in the pre and post menopausal groups served as controls for the study. Prolactin was elevated in 33% and 26% of pre and post menopausal breast cancer patients respectively. Lower levels of estradiol and progesterone were observed during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle in premenopausal breast cancer patients. Among postmenopausal patients with breast cancer, LH was elevated in 32%, FSH in 15% and estradiol in 30% of the patients studied.     

Association of Oxidative Stress with Disease Activity and Damage in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross Sectional Study from a Tertiary Care Centre in Southern India

To study oxidative stress in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by estimating serum oxidised LDL (OxLDL), 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), malondialdehyde (MDA), and total anti-oxidant status and to correlate with SLE disease activity and disease damage. Eighty SLE patients satisfying the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology (SLICC/ACR) 2012 criteria and 80 healthy controls were studied. Exclusion criteria were infections, renal insufficiency, other connective tissue diseases, drug-induced lupus, smoking, alcohol consumption. Disease activity was measured by SLE disease activity index-2 K (SLEDAI), disease damage was quantified by SLICC-Damage Index (SDI). Sera was tested for OxLDL, 8-OHdG, and total antioxidant status (TAS) by double-antibody sandwich ELISA; MDA measured by Colorimetric assay. Oxidative stress markers were compared between group1- controls, group 2-mildly active SLE (SLEDAI ≤ 5), group 3- moderate to highly active SLE (SLEDAI ≥ 6). SLE patients had significantly higher MDA, 8-OHdG and lower TAS when compared to healthy controls, while OxLDL was similar in the three groups. MDA, 8-OHdG were significantly higher, TAS lower in group 3 compared to group 2. MDA had positive correlation with SLEDAI, TAS negatively correlated with SLEDAI. SLE with neuropsychiatric manifestations, vasculitis, anti-sdDNA antibodies had higher MDA, MDA/TAS ratio. SLE patients with thrombocytopenia, and vasculitis had higher OxLDL. Only OxLDL was significantly higher in those patients who have SDI > 1. SLE patients have increased oxidative stress measured by increases in MDA, 8-OHdG, and lower total antioxidant status that was associated with disease activity and some disease manifestations. However only OxLDL was associated with damage.     

Gandhi and Mao on manual labour in the school: A retrospective analysis

Mahatma Gandhi's views on relating the world of formal education to the world of work were developed first in his experimental ‘Tolstoy Farm’ in South Africa. On his return to India, Gandhi insisted that a required manual labour component in the curriculum would help regenerate India's village economy, develop in India's children a deeper understanding of India's cultural roots, motivate children to relate ‘book learning’ to life in society, and destroy invidious caste distinctions. The major proposals and suggestions in Gandhi's writing will be discussed in the context of his hopes for using schooling as an agent of progress in India. Mao Ze-Dong's views, on the other hand, were developed in the context of his Yenan experience in the 1930s, i.e. the decision to consolidate a power base in the interior of China before waging a class war against the landlords and capitalists of China. Mao's views were also, to some extent, rooted in the Chinese reality of stagnant, poverty-stricken rural areas. But, Mao's writings indicate that Marxist hopes to relate theory and practice (as understood in dialectical materialism) and to ensure that everyone participated in mental as well as manual labour in a socialist society had led him to formulate his proposals. Both Gandhi's and Mao's views and proposals have been more or less abandoned in India and China respectively. The similar and dissimilar reasons which led to such a fate are examined in this retrospective analysis.     

Examination reform in traditional universities: a few steps forward,many steps back

After a brief discussion of the historical background, this article examines national attempts to reform the examination system in India. Reform attempts are discussed under eight categories: syllabus review and revision; increased frequency of public examinations; introduction of internal assessment; development of question banks; changeover to a grading system; semesterisation; improving the efficiency of the public examination bureaucracy, and, creation of autonomous colleges. Most of the impetus for reforming the examination system came from the availability of Western experts at very little cost to India and admiration for American and British practices among Indian higher education authorities. The failure of most of the reforms provide salutary lessons regarding educational borrowing for reform. The concluding pages discuss the theoretical issues related to the reform effort.First published inHigher Education Reform in India, eds. Philip G. Altbach and Suma Chitnis (New Delhi: Sage Publications India P.T. Ltd.).     

Continuity between school curriculum and vocation: Manual labour's ineffective role

The author's thesis is that, in the foreseeable future, the school is incapable of successfully promoting favourable changes in values, attitudes and behaviour towards manual labour among the majority of pupils in any society, but particularly in low-income countries or areas of the world.The focus of this article is on the integration of manual productive work into the teaching-learning processes of school education. The relationship of formal education to other institutions in pre-literate, minimally literate and mostly literate societies is very briefly sketched. Attempts to introduce manual labour in the school curriculum in Canada, India and China are discussed. The reasons, internal to the educational system, for the failure of these attempts are listed. The article concludes by discussing the reasons external to the educational system which determine the fate of reforms if the reforms do not take account of political, cultural and international economic forces.

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Zusammenfassung Der Verfasser vertritt die These, daß die Schule in absehbarer Zeit nicht in der Lage sein wird, bei der Mehrheit der Schüler in jeder Gesellschaft, aber besonders in den Niedriglohnländern und-gebieten, begünstigende Veränderungen der Wertvorstellungen, Haltungen und Verhaltensweisen gegenüber manueller Arbeit zu fördern.Schwerpunktmäßig behandelt der Verfasser die Integration manueller produktiver Arbeit in die Lehr- und Lernprozesse der Schulerziehung. Die Beziehung von formalen Bildungseinrichtungen zu anderen Institutionen in prä-alphabetisierten und vorwiegend alphabetisierten Gesellschaften wird kurz umrissen. Ansätze zur Einführung manueller Arbeit in das Schulcurriculum in Kanada, Indien und China werden angeführt und die dem Erziehungssystem inhärenten Gründe für das Scheitern dieser Ansätze aufgezählt. Abschließend werden die außerhalb des Erziehungs-systems zu suchenden Gründe besprochen, die den Verlauf der Reformen bestimmen, wenn diese die politischen, kulturellen und internationalen Wirtschaftsfaktoren nicht berücksichtigen.

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Résumé L'auteur de cet article pense que, dans un futur proche, l'école sera incapable de promouvoir avec succès des changements favorables de valeurs, d'attitudes et de comportement à l'égard du travail manuel chez la plupart des élèves de toute société, mais en particulier des pays ou des régions du monde à bas revenus.Cet article place un accent sur l'intégration du travail manuel productif dans les processus d'enseignement-apprentissage de l'éducation scolaire. On expose très brièvement le rapport entre l'éducation formelle et les autres institutions des sociétés en situation de préalphabétisation, d'alphabétisation rudimentaire ou d'alphabétisation presque complète. On analyse les tentatives qui ont été faites pour introduire le travail manuel dans le curriculum scolaire au Canada, en Inde et en Chine. On énumère les raisons, inhérentes au système éducatif, de l'échec de ces tentatives. L'auteur conclut en examinant les raisons externes au système éducatif qui déterminent l'échec des réformes, si ces réformes ne prennent pas en compte les forces politiques, culturelles et économiques internationales.