Bryophyllum pinnatum inhibits detrusor contractility in porcine bladder strips--a pharmacological study towards a new treatment option of overactive bladder

A broad spectrum of synthetic agents is available for the treatment of overactive bladder. Anti-cholinergic drugs show a poor compliance due to side effects. There is an increasing use of plant extracts in medicine. We have therefore investigated the inhibitory effects of leaf press juice from Bryophyllum pinnatum (Lam.) Oken (Kalanchoe pinnata L.) on bladder strips and compared the effects to that of oxybutynin.

The Gandhi Story: An Official Indian Comic Book History of the Mahatma

In 1966, the Publications Division of the Government of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting released a 47-page hardbound comic book entitled The Gandhi Story. Written and illustrated by S.D. Sawant and S.D. Badalkar, it opens with a foreword by independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and presents a state sanctioned narrative of Gandhi’s life and role in the Indian struggle for independence. This articles examines how the creators of The Gandhi Story drew upon both textual and visual sources as reference material during its creation, and investigates the relationship between "official" and "unofficial" nationalisms of twentieth-century Indian history.

Quickbird satellite imagery for riparian management : characterizing riparian filter strips and detecting concentrated flow in an agricultural watershed

Riparian ecology plays an important part in the filtration of sediments from upland agricultural lands. The focus of this work makes use of multispectral high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery (Quickbird by Digital Globe) and geographic information systems (GIS) to characterize significant riparian attributes in the USDA’s experimental watershed, Goodwin Creek, located in northern Mississippi. Significant riparian filter characteristics include the width of the strip, vegetation properties, soil properties, topography, and upland land use practices. The land use and vegetation classes are extracted from the remotely sensed image with a supervised maximum likelihood classification algorithm. Accuracy assessments resulted in an acceptable overall accuracy of 84 percent. In addition to sensing riparian vegetation characteristics, this work addresses the issue of concentrated flow bypassing a riparian filter. Results indicate that Quickbird multispectral remote sensing and GIS data are capable of determining riparian impact on filtering sediment. Quickbird imagery is a practical solution for land managers to monitor the effectiveness of riparian filtration in an agricultural watershed.

[Urinary specific gravity--comparative measurements using reagent strips and refractometer in 340 morning urine samples]

The specific gravity of urine (SG) indicates the number and weight of solute particles in urine; its measurement is helpful in interpreting proteinuria detected by dipstick tests and in monitoring adequate hydration in patients with nephrolithiasis. Four methods for measuring SG or osmolality of urine are currently available (depression of the freezing-point, urometry, refractometry, cation exchange on a reagent strip). Using a recently developed reagent strip, we have measured SG in morning urines of 340 non-selected outpatients and compared the results with SG measurements by refractometry of the same urines. In 86.2% of all urines, a good positive correlation between SG measured by reagent strip and refractometry was noted (r = 0.913, p = 0.0001). In 13.8% of the urines, however, the SG measured by reagent strip deviated by more than +/- 5 from the value obtained by refractometry; in 90% of these urines, glucosuria (reagent strip values too low or too high), proteinuria (values too high), or bacteriuria/leukocyturia (values too low or too high) could be found. In alkaline urine (pH > 7.0), SG values obtained by reagent strip have to be corrected by +5.

Formative Evaluation of the "Time Twisters": A Comic Book Based Obesity Prevention Curriculum for Elementary School Students

Introduction: Obesity is a public health problem, particularly in Hispanic children. Alternative media channels may offer the potential to motivate children to engage in health promoting behaviors. A comic book, “Time Twisters”, was developed to impact screen time use, physical activity, and dietary behavior for elementary school children and evaluated for acceptability and feasibility prior to implementation in a multi-component physical activity intervention. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Ralf Köning, el comic queer y otros ejemplos : De la identidad gay en la cultura de la diversidad sexual

A partir de los años ochenta se produce en las narrativas alemanas y españolas una tematización creciente de la identidad gay surgida durante los años setenta, en lo que se denomina el período post-Stonewall. Esta tematización confronta y, al mismo tiempo, explora las raíces de los grandes escritores homoeróticos de la primera mitad del siglo XX. A su vez, este tema gay que se consolida durante los ochenta y noventa, paulatinamente, se va proyectando a otros géneros diferentes como el comic. El caso del historietista alemán Ralph König presenta un ejemplo de la interrelación entre las comunidades alemanas y españolas respecto a la identidad gay y la cultura, con casos como la temprana traducción del mencionado creador al mundo hispánico. En el género comic se proyecta, a nivel mundial, el fenómeno creciente de masificación de lo gay en la cultura global, con ejemplos en España, Alemania, Argentina o Estados Unidos. De modo tal que, la proyección de fenómenos sociales en el ámbito literario y en la producción de artistas como Ralph König generó la construcción de una cultura de la diversidad sexual que se asentó a nivel mundial en géneros y espacios muy diferentes de la industria cultural. En ese sentido, el caso de los superhéroes queer surgidos en Estados Unidos, la presencia del tema del matrimonio gay en la narrativa española o las referencias a los "hombres del triángulo rosa" en la industria cultural alemana actual, nos ejemplifican diferentes proyecciones de la identidad tematizada durante los años ochenta y noventa en el espacio literario. De forma tal que la temática gay en sí genera un entramado de relaciones que deriva en una suerte de literatura transcultural, cuyo eje vinculante sería la diversidad sexual