An Investigation on Effectiveness of Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test in Diagnosis of Visual-Spatial Disorganizations among Selected Psychotic Patients

Screening patients for psychotic features can pose a problem when using verbal based tests. Establishment of validity of non-verbal psychotic screening scale can enhance diagnostic specificity and address challenges associated with verbal based tests. The goal of this study is to check whether Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test-II will serve as a diagnostic specific tool for distinguishing between psychotic patients and healthy population. A total of 40 participants 22 males and 18 females were employed in the study. They were made of 10 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, another 10 with depressions associated with psychotic features, 10 with substance/medication induced disorders and 10 healthy adults as the control. Their ages ranged from 20 - 65 with a mean age of 35.70 and standard deviation of 6.04. The healthy control group was staff of the hospital that was comparable to the patients in terms of age, gender and studies. All participants available who met the inclusive criteria who were willing to participate were selected. The instruments were (BVMGT-II) and (WHODAS 2.0). The design of the study was between group designs and One Way ANOVA was employed for data analysis. The findings of the study showed that BVMGT-II discriminated between patients with psychotic disorder and healthy population. It is recommended that BVMGT-II should be employed as screening instrument by the clinical/neuropsychologists in clinical psychological assessment for distinguishing psychotic patients from healthy population.

Histopathological studies of acute and chronic effects of Calliandra portoricensis leaf extract on the stomach and pancreas of adult Swiss albino mice

Objective:To evaluate the consequence of oral administration of Calliandra portoricensis(C. portoricensis) leaf extract on the stomach and pancreas in Swiss albino mice.Methods:Three, groups of mice(B,C and D) were treated with 4 mg/kg of C.portoricensis extract.Croup A was the control and received an equivalent volume of distilled water.Group B received C.portoricensis leaf extract for 7 days.Croup C received C.portoricensis leaf extract for 14 days,and Croup D received C.portoricensis leaf extract for 28 days.At different stages in the study,the mice were sacrificed and the stomach and pancreas were excised and fixed in 10%formol saline for histological analysis.Results:The result showed a normal microstructural outline in groups B and C as compared with the control.However,animals in group D showed disorganization of the mucosa and discontinuation of epithelial lining of the stomach while the islets of Langerans in the pancreas were at various degree of degeneration as compared with the control mice. Conclusions:The present finding suggests that chronic administration(28 days as seen in this study) of C.portoricensis leaf extract may inhibit the proper function of the stomach and pancreas.

Effect of short- and long-term immunization of recombinant disorganized muscle protein-1(rDIM-1) against human filarial parasite Brugia malayi in rodents

Objective: To evaluate the effect of short-term and long-term immunization of recombinant disorganized muscle protein-1(r DIM-1) in rodents against human filarial parasite Brugia malayi.Methods: Recombinant Brugia malayi DIM-1(rDIM-1 bm) protein was cloned, expressed and purified using a Ni-NTA affinity column. Mastomys coucha were immunized with rDIM-1 bm in three immunization schedules: short-term(3-dose of rDIM-1 bm), and long-term(booster doses till 3-and 6-week) and subsequently challenged with infective third-stage larvae of filarial parasite Brugia malayi(L3). Microfilaraemia was monitored in L3 exposed groups on day 90 post larval inoculation(p.l.i.) and continued till day 205 p.l.i. On day 205 p.l.i. all the infected animals were killed and total worm burden was estimated. Cellular proliferative response, macrophage activity, nitric oxide(NO) release, specific IgG and its subtypes, IgE, IgA and Th1(IFN-γ, TNF-ααand IL-2) and Th2(IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-13) cytokine release were determined. Results: Of the 3 different immunization schedules, shortterm immunization(3-dose schedule) showed better reduction in microfilarial burden(36%-63%) in the peripheral circulation, adult worm load(52%), whereas long-term immunization(3-and 6-week schedule) exerted less effect on peripheral microfilariae count(9%-58%), and adult worm burden(9%-12.5%). Short-term immunization resulted in upregulation of cellular proliferation, macrophages activity, NO release, specific IgG, IgG1, IgG2 a, Ig G2 b, IgE and IgA levels and both Th1(IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-2) and Th2(IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-13) cytokine release whereas long-term immunization(3-and 6-week schedule) exerted less effect on parasite burden and showed mixed immunological responses. None of the rDIM-1 bm administration schedules induced any pathology in lymphoid tissues, or alteration in mast cell number and granularity. Conclusions: The short-term immunization with rDIM-1 bm(3-dose schedule) induces robust immune responses and protects the host from filarial parasite infection.

Could social media reflect acquisitive crime patterns in London?

Embraced within the framework of crime opportunities integrated with Social Disorganization theory and Broken Windows theory,this paper intends to explore the patterns of four types of acquisitive crimes,using social media data,i.e.,Twitter,Foursquare and cross-sectional data acquired through text analysis technique.With Greater London as the study area,models like negative binominal regression(NBR)and geographically weighted regression(GWR)are performed to illustrate the aggregated relationships between acquisitive crimes and crime opportunities at London-wide and sub-regional MSOAs levels respectively.The results work towards to hypotheses that:the tweets sentiment could reflect property-related crime rates positively in light of Broken Windows Theory;more tweets with negative sentiment may incur increases in acquisitive crimes.It contributed to existing studies in(1)providing empirical evidence for integrating these three theories;(2)complementing current research on local discrepancies of acquisitive crimes by utilising both GWR and NBR models;(3)challenging the traditional stereotypes about racial disparities with the finding that ethnic heterogeneity and instrumental crimes have counterintuitive association,especially taking education factor into consideration;(4)implicating some localised acquisitive crime prevention strategies to policy makers in light of the reality that the relationship between local variations and different crime types may vary by place.