Depression now hits kids below 3

Depression in children as young as 3 real and not just a passing grumpy mood, according to provocative new research. The study is builled as the first to show major depression can be chronic even in very young children, contraty to the stereotype of the happy-go-lucky preschooler. Until fairly recently, “people really haven’t paid much attention to depressive disorders in children under the age of 6,” said lead author Dr.joan luby, a psychiatrist at Washington university in St. Louis “ they didn’t think it could happen because children under 6 were too emotionally immature to experience it”.

Previous research suggested that depression affects about 2 percent of US preschoolers, or roughly 1,60,000 youngsters, at one time or another. But it was unclear whether depression in preschoolers could be “they didn’t think it could happen because children under 6 were too emotionally immature to experience it”.

Chronic, as it can be in older children and adults. Lusby’s research team followed more than 200 preschoolers, ages 3 to 6, for up to two years, including 75 diagnosed with major depression. The children had up to four mental health exams during the study. Among initially depressed children, 64 percent were still depressed or had a recurrent episode of depression six month later, and 40 percent still had problems after two years. Overall, nearly 20 percent had persistent or recurrent depression at all four exams.

www.rajagiriworld.com

[IMG]http://www.rajagiriworld.com/happy.gif[/IMG]

Village has 200 sets of twins

Walk around kodinji village in rural India and you’d be forgiven for thinking you have double vision as this community is known as “twin village”. The remote village is home to more than 204 sets of twins but doctors are baffled over why this community of 2000 families has had so many multiple births as they have no unique diet, are not exposed to any chemicals, and don’t take fertility drugs.

In fact with about 45 twins per 1000 live births, this village in north kerala has six times more twins than the global average and women from kodinju married off to far away places are also known to give birth to twins.

The latest official estimates by the Kodinji’s Twins and Kins Association (TAKA), which conducted door-to-door surveys at the start of the year, found that there were 204 sets of Twins. But that number has risen since the survey was conducted and is set to rise this year with five more women in the village currently pregnant with twins.

“it’s an amazing phenomenon to see a medical marvel occurring in such a localized place where the people are not exposed to any kinds of harmful drugs or harmful chemicals,” said local doctor Dr.Krishnan Sribiju, a doctor at the Tirurangadi Taluk hospital just outside the village, said the number of twins begin born every year was actually on the rise. Last year 15 pairs of twins were born in the village out of 300 healthy deliveries and the number this year is expected to top that.

www.rajagiriworld.com

[IMG]http://www.rajagiriworld.com/happy.gif[/IMG]

Creating a base for development

What’s the link between ethnographic women’s studies and macro-econometric modeling? Sound like a joke? It’s not. The answer is development studies, a subject in which interest is soaring as numerous opportunities rapidly open up infrastructure development, NGO-related work, media and public policy.

In India, a macroeconomic theme that will remain a policy priority for years to come is infrastructure development. It has witnessed an unprecedented boom since 2003 and even received a shot in the arm in this year’s union budget.

The opportunities, for students of development studies, development economics and related disciplines are immense, according to K. Rajivan, a World Bank development economist, based in India.

Dr. Rajivan explains that “managerial positions at international financial institution (IFIs) such as the World Bank usually require a Ph.D. or a master’s degree from abroad. However, given the investment boom in areas such as infrastructure finance, urban development, and small and medium enterprises, a range of new jobs is becoming available.

These projects, often run with IFI participation as public-private partnerships, are based on public leverage and deployment of private capital on a large scale. They require people qualified in areas such as public finance, cost-benefits analysis, environmental, regulatory and competition economics, contract law and also ‘soft skills’ like negotiation and stakeholder consultations”.

New vistas

Another macro area in which new vistas have opened to development studies graduates is public policy. “Many of our graduates are manning key positions in major public policy institutions such as the RBI and planning commission,” says Professor Narayanan Nair of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Thiruvananthapuram.

In the wake of the global recession and financial crisis, it is widely expected that regulatory functions and economic planning will be prioritised. Consequently, institutions such as the RBI and planning commission will be on the lookout for qualified candidates.

For those who delve deeply into the subject to the doctoral level, it becomes possible to straddle multiple roles within the broad ambit of development. For example, Prof. Nair points out that graduates of CDS such as Tirthankar Roy, C.R.Rammanohar Reddy, Narendra Pani and Ashoka Mody work alternatively in academia, media, IFIs and policy making.

Development journalism

Journalism can be a rewarding line of work for those with strong writing skills. P.Sainath, an award-winning journalist covering issues relating to rural poverty, argues that “development is ultimately about people and their rights, how these are articulated and conflicts resolved”.

He teaches a course on ‘covering deprivation’ at the Asian college of journalism, and cautions that an excessive focus on “managing development” or on “technical knowledge” detracts from the more people-centric and politics-centric understanding of development, say in terms of caste issues and land distribution in a particular Indian village.

As these examples, suggest, development studies education and career paths can be widely varied. There is a choice to be made between quantitative and qualitative skills, between research and practical experience and from among the bewilderingly large number of sub-disciplines under the umbrella of development studies.

Charting a course that most closely matches your strongest abilities and interests is the most important step you could take as you contemplate entering this exciting area.

www.rajagiriworld.com

[IMG]http://www.rajagiriworld.com/happy.gif[/IMG]

New HIV strain discovered in a woman from Cameroon

A new strain of the virus that causes Aids has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon.

It differs from the three strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday’s edition of the journal nature medicine.

The finding “highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in Western central Africa,” said the researchers, led by jean-Christophe Plantier of the university of Rouen, france.

The three previously known HIV strains are related to the simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.

Likely explanation

The most likely explanation for the new find is gorilla-to-human transmission, plantier’s team said. But they added they cannot rule out the possibility that the new strain started in chimpanzees and moved into gorillas and then humans, or moved directly from chimpanzees to both gorillas and humans.

The 62-year-old patient tested positive for HIV in 2004, shortly after moving to Paris from Cameroon, according to the researchers, she had lived near Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, but said she had no contact with apes or bush meat, a name often given to meat from wild animals in tropical countries.

The woman currently shows no signs of AIDS and remains untreated, through she still carriers the virus, the researchers said.

How widespread this strain is remains to be determined. Researchers said it could be circulating unnoticed in the Cameroon or elsewhere. The virus’ rapid replication indicates that it is adapted human cells, the researchers reported.

Herpes factor

A separate paper, also in Nature Medicine, reports that people with genital herpes remain at increased risk of HIV infection even after the herpes sores have healed and the skin appears normal.

The researchers found that long after the areas where the herpes sores existed seem to be clear, they still have immune-cell activity that can encourage HIV infection.

Herpes is marked by recurring outbreaks and has been associated with higher rates of infection with HIV. It had been thought that the breaks in the skin were the reason for higher HIV rates, but a study last year found that treatment of herpes with drugs did not reduce the HIV risk.

Sore location

The researchers tested the skin of herpes patients for several weeks after their sores had healed and found that, compared with other genital skin, from twice to 37 times more immune cells remained at the locations where the sores had been.

“Under standing that even treated (herpes) infections provide a cellular environment conducive to HIV infection suggests new directions for HIV prevention research,” commented Dr. Anthony S.Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

www.rajagiriworld.com

[IMG]http://www.rajagiriworld.com/happy.gif[/IMG]

Nurture goals handle them with care to keep up motivation levels

No matter how talented you are, if you do not possess the will to motivate yourself to excel, you will never reach beyond the realms of mediocrity. True motivation is almost always self motivation. Self motivation is what helps confront your fears, overcome your failures and lift yourself from apathy and inaction to positive action. Sustaining motivation over a period of time is not easy. This is perhaps the reason why many of the endeavors that people start with earnest internet seem to fizzle out along the way. There are a number of reasons why people tend to get de-motivated along the way.

One of the primary reasons we lose motivation is a lack of confidence. We may start out with exciting plans, but lose confidence as soon as we encounter road blocks or failures. Positive thinking is the best way to keep up confidence and motivation when you are going through a bad phase. It is but natural that when you allow your mind to focus on negative thoughts like past failures, setbacks, and personal weaknesses, you quickly lose confidence and your motivation levels. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and present advantages. If you are overcome by a setback, look for practical ways to set things right with a proper plan of action.

Another reason is a lack of clear goals and direction if you are not clear about what you hope to achieve, how can you work towards it? Unless a person has a detailed, focused picture of an end result that creates enthusiasm and a plan for achieving those goals, motivation will not endure. When you have clear goals and a plan in mind, it is much easier to rekindle your enthusiasm and drive through a failure or lull in progress.

The third most common reason for falling motivation levels is a lack of commitment. Inject passion into your goals. If you don’t want a goal badly enough you may be tempted to drop it like a hot potato when the going gets tough. You wouldn’t do the same thing to your baby, would you? Treat your goals in the same way. Nurture your goals, handle them with care and nurse them through setbacks just as you would do for your child.

One way to keep your passion to your goals intact is to maintain a dairy of your goals and aspirations. Put down in to words the emotions you associate with your goals and what they mean to you.

When ever you feel de-motivated or lose faith in your ability to reach your goals, read through your dairy. You will come back with renewed energy and enthusiasm for your goals.

Follow your own pace. Everyone has a different style of working and forcing yourself to keep pace with someone else will only wear you out. Don’t let that happen to you.

The only one you need to better is yourself. Ask yourself, have you reached your fullest potential? That is the only thing that matters in the end. Create positive self-rein-forcing habits. To begin with, try initiating and sustaining one positive habit that will help you achieve your goals. Positive thoughts lead to positive actions, positive action lead to positive feelings about yourself, and positive feelings lead to more positive thoughts and action. This will create a self affirming virtuous cycle of positivism that will help you sustain your interest and motivation levels.

When things get difficult, don’t worry about how you are going to achieve those lofty goals you have set for yourself.

Simply focus on the next one positive step that you can take, and remember what Winston Churchill famously said, “success is not final, and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts!”

By following the simple, positive steps you can motivate yourself and sustain enthusiasm, energy and unwavering focus for your goals through the ups and downs that you encounter in the path to success.

www.rajagiriworld.com

[IMG]http://www.rajagiriworld.com/happy.gif[/IMG]