Background:Anxiety and depressive disorders constitute a substantial proportion of the global burden of disease and are projected to form the second most common cause of disability by 2020.Objective:To assess the level of depression and anxiety among middle age women and the possible factors behind it.Materials and Methods:A total of 180 women aged 40–60 years were selected by proportionate sampling technique. Age, education, marital status, socioeconomic status, age at marriage, age at menopause, weight and height were noted. Zung-self-rating scales were used for calculating levels of depression and anxiety in these women. The data were analyzed by using statistical software SPSS.Results:The level of syndromal depression and anxiety was found to be 86.7% and 88.9%, respectively. Most of the subjects had the moderate type of depression (49.5%) followed by mild (29.4%) and severe depression (7.8%). While in case of anxiety, most of the subjects (69.4%) had a mild form of anxiety and 17.8% had moderate anxiety level. A significant difference was observed in the level of depression with respect to marital status (P = 0.009) and in the level of anxiety with respect to age (P = 0.021) in the study subjects. On applying logistic regression, none of the factors studied were found to be significant variables for anxiety or depression in the study population.Conclusion:Depression and anxiety are prevalent among the middle-aged women in rural Punjab. Provision of mental health services in this group is essential.

BackgroundIncreased nerve activity causes hypertension and kidney disease. Recent studies suggest that renal denervation reduces BP in patients with hypertension. Renal NE release is regulated by prejunctional α2A-adrenoceptors on sympathetic nerves, and α2A-adrenoceptors act as autoreceptors by binding endogenous NE to inhibit its own release. However, the role of α2A-adrenoceptors in the pathogenesis of hypertensive kidney disease is unknown.MethodsWe investigated effects of α2A-adrenoceptor–regulated renal NE release on the development of angiotensin II–dependent hypertension and kidney disease. In uninephrectomized wild-type and α2A-adrenoceptor–knockout mice, we induced hypertensive kidney disease by infusing AngII for 28 days.ResultsUrinary NE excretion and BP did not differ between normotensive α2A-adrenoceptor–knockout mice and wild-type mice at baseline. However, NE excretion increased during AngII treatment, with the knockout mice displaying NE levels that were significantly higher than those of wild-type mice. Accordingly, the α2A-adrenoceptor–knockout mice exhibited a systolic BP increase, which was about 40 mm Hg higher than that found in wild-type mice, and more extensive kidney damage. In isolated kidneys, AngII-enhanced renal nerve stimulation induced NE release and pressor responses to a greater extent in kidneys from α2A-adrenoceptor–knockout mice. Activation of specific sodium transporters accompanied the exaggerated hypertensive BP response in α2A-adrenoceptor–deficient kidneys. These effects depend on renal nerves, as demonstrated by reduced severity of AngII-mediated hypertension and improved kidney function observed in α2A-adrenoceptor–knockout mice after renal denervation.ConclusionsOur findings reveal a protective role of prejunctional inhibitory α2A-adrenoceptors in pathophysiologic conditions with an activated renin-angiotensin system, such as hypertensive kidney disease, and support the concept of sympatholytic therapy as a treatment.

Constitutive models for SnAgCu solder alloys are of great interest at the present. Commonly, constitutive models that have been successfully used in the past for Sn-Pb solders are used to describe the behavior of SnAgCu solder alloys. Two issues in the modeling of lead-free solders demand careful attention: (i) Lead-free solders show significantly different creep strain evolution with time, stress and temperature, and the assumption of evolution to steady state creep nearly instantaneously may not be valid in SnAgCu alloys and (ii) Models derived from bulk sample test data may not be reliable when predicting deformation behavior at the solder interconnection level for lead-free solders due to the differences in the inherent microstructures at these different scales. In addition, the building of valid constitutive models from test data derived from tests on solder joints must deconvolute the effects of joint geometry and its influence on stress heterogeneity. Such issues have often received insufficient attention in prior constitutive modeling efforts. In this study all of the above issues are addressed in developing constitutive models of Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu and Sn1.0Ag0.5Cu solder alloys, which represent the extremes of Ag composition that have been mooted at the present time. The results of monotonic testing are reported for strain rates ranging from 4.02E-6 to 2.40E-3 s−1. The creep behavior at stress levels ranging from 7.8 to 52 MPa are also described. Both types of tests were performed at temperatures of 25°C, 75°C and 125°C. The popular Anand model and the classical time-hardening creep model are fit to the data and the experimentally obtained model parameters are reported. The test data are compared against other reported data in the literature and conclusions are drawn on the plausible sources of error in the data reported in the prior literature.

Background: Worldwide, approximately 830 women died every single day due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth in 2015. Most maternal deaths are preventable as the necessary medical interventions are well known. So the present study was conducted to find the knowledge and practices regarding antenatal care among the mothers of infants.Methods: The mothers having less than one year child according to the annual report of year 2017 were included in the study. A pre-designed questionnaire, which was pre tested was used to collect the information. Out of 332 mothers 327 were willing to participate in the study. House to house survey was done to collect the information. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS 20.0.Results: Regarding the knowledge about the antenatal care 22.0% mothers had poor knowledge while 45.6% and 32.4% had average and good knowledge respectively. Age and education status of the mother had significant relation with the knowledge regarding ANC (p=0.00). 96% of mothers started ANC in first trimester. 79.5% of mothers had regular ANC visits during pregnancy. Regarding post natal visits 86.5% of the mothers visited for the same.Conclusions: Considerable gaps were found in the knowledge and practices regarding ANC. Health care workers play an important role in motivating the woman and her family to utilize the ANC services. The health workers should be trained adequately about the available ANC services. Community IEC activities should be increased to create awareness about the ANC services which are available free of cost in our country.

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