We evaluated the effects of the exposure to radio-frequency radiation emanating from the base transceiver station (BTS) on the characteristics of circadian rest-activity rhythm and behavioral sleep ...variables in humans. We performed this exploratory field study in a sample of 89 healthy subjects randomly chosen out of 1434 individuals surveyed for the purpose. We divided 89 subjects into five groups, including the control, as a function of distance from the BTS. The E-field strength was higher in the groups of the inter-tower region and between 0 and 150 m away from the BTS. The E-field (distance) did not significantly affect the circadian rhythm parameters and behavioral sleep variables, except a marginal delay in the peak timings of the rest-activity rhythm of subjects in the inter-tower and 300-500 m groups. Notable secondary effects of the factor gender were noticed on circadian amplitude, sleep efficiency, dichotomy index, and wake after sleep onset. We concluded that exposure to radiation from the BTS did not modulate actigraphy-based behavioral sleep variables of people residing around BTS installations. We recommend more extensive field-based studies with rigorous longitudinal designs to validate the effects of radiation from the BTS in humans.
From ancient times, natural products have been continuously used as therapeutic agents in the treatment of various ailments. Many drugs from the natural origin are available in the market as potent ...medicines. Over expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme is associated with various physical disorders like various types of inflammations associated with cardiovascular diseases or malignancies. The COX-2 inhibitory activity of many active constituents derived from plants is well established in the literature. These include coumarins, alkaloids, flavonoids, cinnamates, stilbenes and xanthines. In the present review, an attempt has been made to summarize applications of compounds since 2000 obtained from natural sources as COX-2 inhibitors. A brief synthetic methodology to access these natural product derivatives has been highlighted along with the Structure Activity Relationship (SAR).
Concerns about the veracity of psychological research have been growing. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, ...or may otherwise be limited to specific, ungeneralizable settings or populations. Crowdsourced research, a type of large-scale collaboration in which one or more research projects are conducted across multiple lab sites, offers a pragmatic solution to these and other current methodological challenges. The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) is a distributed network of laboratories designed to enable and support crowdsourced research projects. These projects can focus on novel research questions or replicate prior research in large, diverse samples. The PSA’s mission is to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and generalizable evidence in psychological science. Here, we describe the background, structure, principles, procedures, benefits, and challenges of the PSA. In contrast to other crowdsourced research networks, the PSA is ongoing (as opposed to time limited), efficient (in that structures and principles are reused for different projects), decentralized, diverse (in both subjects and researchers), and inclusive (of proposals, contributions, and other relevant input from anyone inside or outside the network). The PSA and other approaches to crowdsourced psychological science will advance understanding of mental processes and behaviors by enabling rigorous research and systematic examination of its generalizability.
In the present work, coumarin based pyrazolines (
7a-g
) have been synthesized and investigated for their
in vitro
and
in vivo
anti-inflammatory potential. Amongst the synthesized compounds, ...compounds
7a
,
7d
and
7f
exhibited significant
in vitro
anti-inflammatory activity as compared to the standard etoricoxib. Keeping this in mind,
in vivo
investigations were carried out
via
carrageenan induced inflammation and acetic acid induced writhing models in male Wistar rats and compound
7a
was found to possess appreciable anti-inflammatory and analgesic potential. The mode of action of compound
7a
was also investigated by using substance P as the biomarker, which shows promising results. Further, the selectivity of the most active compound
7a
against the cyclooxygenase enzyme was supported by molecular docking studies which reveal that compound
7a
has greater binding affinity towards COX-2 over COX-1 and 5-LOX enzymes.
In silico
ADME analysis of compound
7a
confirms the drug-like characteristics and the
in vivo
acute toxicity study showed the safety of the compound even up to a 2000 mg kg
−1
dose. Thus, compound
7a
was identified as an effective anti-inflammatory agent, and can be explored for further analgesic/anti-inflammatory drug design and development.
In the present work, coumarin based pyrazolines (
7a-g
) have been synthesized and investigated for their
in vitro
and
in vivo
anti-inflammatory potential.
Occupational exposure to microwave radiation (MWR) has become an inevi-table part of life. Therefore, it is essential to assess the MWR effect on hu-man health. In this study, we examined the ...non-thermal effect of MWR from base transceiver station (BTS) on humans' sleep quality. Total 1150 partici-pants of different zones based on distance from BTS (145 from inter-tower/zone A; 256 from 0-150m/zone B; 241 from 150-300m/zone C, 381 from 300-500m/zone D), and 127 controls from the area without BTS installations were included. We recorded the electric field strength at the subject’s resi-dence using NBM-550 equipped with probe EF0-391. We assessed the sub-jects' sleep quality by administering the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Ques-tionnaire. ANOVA revealed statistically significantly higher electric-field strength in zone B and zone A. Participants of all the groups exhibited a glob-al PSQI score less than the accepted median score of <5. This implies that subjects of all groups had good sleep quality. However, a more detailed anal-ysis using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the participants of exposed zones (except zone D), females, and residents of the 1-5y group had decreased sleep quality compared to control, males, and subjects of >5y group, respectively. From the above findings, it can be con-cluded that the MWR had little effect on the sleep quality, but it does modu-late sleep parameters within the accepted range of good sleep quality as a function of the zone, gender, and year of residence. However, extensive studies involving more BTS are desirable to validate the above conclusion.
Radio-frequency electromagnetic radiations (RF-EMRs) are ubiquitous at present. Therefore, it is essential to assess the impact of RF-EMRs on human health. In this study, we examined the non-thermal ...effects of RF-EMR expo-sure on behavioral sleep patterns in humans. A total of 1072 randomly se-lected individuals living in the proximity of base transceiver stations (BTS) participated in the study. The sample consisted of 122 subjects from zone A (Inter-tower region), 310 from zone B (0-150 m), 316 from zone C (150-300 m), 197 from zone D (300-500 m), and 127 from the control zone (without BTS installations). We classified the zones as a function of distance from the BTS. We measured electric-field strength at each participant’s house using Narda Broadband Field Meter-550 equipped with EF0-391 probe. We used Munich-Chronotype Questionnaire to determine each subject’s behavioral sleep patterns. ANOVA results revealed the highest E-field strength in zone-A than the other zones and control. Results from ANCOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, and Mann-Whitney U tests showed that the participants from zone A had shorter sleep duration, and longer sleep latency and inertia than those living in other zones. Further, a significant effect of co-factors ‘gender’ and ‘year of resi-dence’ was validated on mid-sleep (work and free days). Compared to wom-en and > 5-year residents, men and 1-5-year residents had delayed mid-sleep. We concluded that RF-EMR might alter the behavioral sleep patterns of subjects living in the vicinity of BTS. However, further confirmatory and extensive studies are necessary, involving a large sample living near many more BTS installations.
Eyewitness identifications play a key role in the justice system, but eyewitnesses can make errors, often with profound consequences. We used findings from basic science and innovative technologies ...to develop and test whether a novel interactive lineup procedure, wherein witnesses can rotate and dynamically view the lineup faces from different angles, improves witness discrimination accuracy compared with a widely used procedure in laboratories and police forces around the world-the static frontal-pose photo lineup. No novel procedure has previously been shown to improve witness discrimination accuracy. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 220) identified culprits from sequentially presented interactive lineups or static frontal-pose photo lineups. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 8,507) identified culprits from interactive lineups that were either presented sequentially, simultaneously wherein the faces could be moved independently, or simultaneously wherein the faces moved jointly into the same angle. Sequential interactive lineups enhanced witness discrimination accuracy compared with static photo lineups, and simultaneous interactive lineups enhanced witness discrimination accuracy compared with sequential interactive lineups. These finding were true both when participants viewed suspects who were of the same or different ethnicity/race as themselves. Our findings exemplify how basic science can be used to address the important applied policy issue on how best to conduct a police lineup and reduce eyewitness errors.
Public Significance StatementCompared with the photographic identification parade procedure used routinely by police forces worldwide, this article suggests that a novel interactive procedure can increase witness identifications of guilty suspects, while simultaneously minimizing witness identifications of innocent suspects, for both own-race and other-race identifications. This highlights that an interactive procedure, developed using psychological theory and technology, could reduce the significant societal, economic, and psychological costs associated with eyewitness misidentifications.
Objective
The present study was designed to validate the Hindi version of the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20 (MFI-20) in Indian oncology population.
Methods
The original English version of the ...MFI-20 was translated into Hindi (hMFI-20) using the translation and back translation processes. The hMFI-20 was administered to 200 cancer patients. The item analysis for hMFI-20 was carried out using the corrected item-total correlation. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to test whether the original factor structure of MFI-20 is confirmed for the hMFI-20. Further, convergent and discriminant validities were also tested. The reliability of the hMFI-20 was evaluated by computing composite reliability and Cronbach’s α coefficient.
Results
Corrected item-total correlation value for each of the items of hMFI-20 was greater than 0.6. Results of the CFA (comparative fit indices (CFI) = 0.91, root mean squared residual (RMR) = 0.04, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.028, and
χ
2
= 45.68,
p
> 0.05) indicated that the five-factor model provided a good fit to the data. The findings indicated that hMFI-20 has a good convergent (composite reliability (CR) >0.7; average variance extracted value (AVE) >0.5) and discriminant (maximum shared variance (MSV) < AVE; average shared variance (ASV) < AVE; square root of AVE > inter-factor correlations) validities. The Cronbach’s α coefficient for the total hMFI-20 was 0.8 and was more than 0.7 for each of the five factors.
Conclusions
We conclude that the hMFI-20 has a high internal consistency and reasonable construct validity. Therefore, the hMFI-20 is a reliable and valid tool to assess the multidimensional fatigue in Indian oncology population. However, we recommend further validation of hMFI-20 in population of cancer patients of different linguistic settings and regions of India.
Rest-activity rhythm and quality of life (QoL) in three cohorts, namely (1) cancer in-patients, (2) out-patients, and (3) control subjects were studied. The patients of the former two groups were ...chosen randomly from the Regional Cancer Center, Raipur, India. All patients received chemotherapy for 3-4 consecutive days. The in-patients remained hospitalized for the entire period of chemotherapy plus one day post treatment. The out-patients, unlike the in-patients, went to their homes daily after treatment. Rest-activity rhythm of the patients was monitored using Actical. Quality of life (QoL) and psychological status of patients were assessed using EORTC QLQ-C30 and Hospital Anxiety & Depression Scale, respectively. Each subject exhibited significant circadian rhythm in rest-activity. The average values for Mesor, amplitude, peak activity, autocorrelation coefficient and dichotomy index of all three groups varied significantly between one group to the other in the following order: in-patient < out-patient < control. Further, quality of life, measured from responses on functional and symptom scales, was better off in cancer out-patients compared to the in-patients. It is concluded that hospitalization alters rest-activity rhythm parameters markedly and deteriorates QoL in cancer patients. Nevertheless, further extensive investigation is desirable to support the above speculation and to ascertain if hospitalization produces similar effects on patients suffering from diseases other than cancer.
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