An Ancient Practice but a New Paradigm: Personal Choice for the Age to Spay or Neuter a Dog

Extensive practice and knowledge of the methods and effects of castration of male livestock and even humans has been widespread since ancient times, but only a few decades ago did neutering (including spaying) become a routine part of canine husbandry. In the US, the 6-month neuter became standard practice. Only recently, however, have some of the consequences of this major physiological alteration become evident. As the data-based study on 35 breeds reveals, there are major breed differences associated with effects of neutering, especially with early neutering, including increased risks of joint disorders and some cancers. The study of mixed-breed dogs reveals that the risk of joint disorders is increased in the large dogs. Implications of breed-specific and sex-specific effects for age of neutering have prompted the consideration of a new paradigm with regard to this practice. This involves focusing on each individual dog when deciding upon the appropriate age of neutering to avoid increasing the risk of a joint disorder or cancer above that inherent for the breed. For many breeds, particularly the smaller dogs, no effects were found for the age of neutering on joint disorders and the cancers followed. In these cases, the caregiver has a wide range of choice for neutering without increasing the dog's risk for these diseases. In the future, additional research may reveal more about other increased risks for age-related cognitive dysfunction or elevated levels of luteinizing hormone caused by gonad removal, and lead to revised guidelines.

Physiological alteration and anaesthetic drugs effects on intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring procedures

Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IOM) and especially motor evoked potentials represents an important tool in the evaluation of the nervous system integrity and particularly of the motor tracts. A real and correct registration of the potentials with a proper interpretation of the modification is mandatory for an optimal outcome in eloquent areas, tumours, brainstem and medullary lesions. For all this to happen a suitable anaesthetic protocol must be used. Even though there is a large spectrum of anaesthetic agents at our disposal it is imperative to know their effect on the IOM signals recordings and the fact that some of them are dose-dependent. Drugs effects and physiological changes produced intraoperatively must be corrected before a shift in the direction of the surgical lesion resection it is taken. We present an overview of the action of the anaesthetic agents, most used protocols and the physiological alteration encountered in the operative theatre.

The Lever, or How to Act at a Distance: A Backdrop to Theophrastus’ De sensibus

It is well known that when it comes to perception in the De anima, Aristotle uses affection-related vocabulary with extreme caution. This has given rise to a debate between interpreters who hold that in Aristotle’s account, the act of sense-perception nevertheless involves the physiological alteration of the sense organ (Richard Sorabji), and those think, with Myles Burnyeat, that for Aristotle, perception does not involve any material process, so that an Aristotelian physics of sense-perception is a “physics of forms alone”. The present article suggests that the dematerialisation of Aristotle’s theory of perception, which has a long story from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Brentano, may be in fact traced back to Theophrastus’ exegesis of Aristotle’s relevant passages in the De anima in his Physics, as we can reconstruct it on the basis of Priscian’s Metaphrasis in Theophrastum and Simplicius’ commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima. The reconstruction also provides a scholastic-theoretical frame to Theophrastus’ critical exposition of ancient theories about sense perception in his De sensibus, whether or not the discussion originally belonged to Theophrastus’ Physics.

ASSESSMENT OF STRESS AND ITS COPING MECHANISM AMONG LADY HEALTH WORKERS' OF JACOBABAD, SINDH

Background: LHWs' are the backbone of community interventions related to health. our objectives were to assess association of work stress with demographic variables and to explore the coping mechanisms of LHWs to deal with work stress Methods: Mixed method cross sectional study conducted in Jacobabad (Taluka Jacobabad, Garhi Khairo and Thul) District among Lady Health Workers during 05 months (Nov 2016-March 2017). Sample size was 78. SRQ-20, a WHO inventory was used. The data was analyzed in SPSS IBM 21.0 and 3 Focus Group Discussions were conducted for quantitative assessment. Qualitative component was recorded and themes were generated by inductive content analysis method Results: Response rate was 96%. Mean age, monthly income, and job experience were calculated as 35.59+7.995 years with 20500 PKR and 4.87+3.599 years of experience. The association in between age and subjective perception, education and physiological alteration and job experience with subjective perception were found significant as p=0.000, p=0.45 and p=0.11. The responses of FGDs were mixed of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with job experience. Conclusion: Job description of Lady health workers is not too much as they are being worked but coping mechanism made it facilitate to work smoothly.

The Variation induction of Glycine max through low dose gamma irradiation produces genetic and physiological alteration as source of tolerant variants in waterlogging conditions

Saputro TB, Muslihatin W, Wahyuni DK, Nurhidayati T, Wardhani FO, Rosalia E. 2019. Variation induction of Glycine max through low dose gamma irradiation produces genetic and physiological alteration as source of tolerant variants in waterlogging conditions. Biodiversitas 20: 3299-3308. Soybean (Glycine max L.) is the main food commodity that contains high proteins, oils, and carbohydrates. Waterlogging is considered as the dominant factor and major constraint responsible for the decrements of soybean production in Indonesia. The development of promising G.max that tolerates waterlogging is essentially needed. In this study, induction of variation was conducted by gamma rays irradiation with doses of 25Gy, 50Gy, 75Gy, and 100Gy. The mutant or variants lines were then selected under waterlogging conditions with 100%, 150%, 200%, and 250% of field capacity. The results showed that, in 250% waterlogging condition, plants irradiated with 25Gy shows the best performance in amount of roots, adventitious roots and number of pods parameters, while plants irradiated with 50Gy have the highest growth indicated by amount of root nodules, plant heights, dry weights, leaf area, and chlorophyll contents. The genotypes then were assayed by the Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) to confirm that the mutants differ compared to its wild type. Out of 10 ISSR primers, seven primers showed polymorphic patterns. The best primer to differentiate the mutant lines and its wild type is primer ISSR1 [ (AC)8G] that able to generate the highest level of polymorphism with 44.0%. The comparison of protein profiles among the mutant lines showed that proteins with molecular weight 53,78 KDa; 43,12 KDa; and 20,62 Kda are all overexpressed for plants irradiated at 25Gy and treated with 250% waterlogging stress. All those three proteins are predicted as 1-amino cyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase (ACS), Alcohol-dehydrogenase (ADH), and Superoxide dismutase (SOD) respectively.