Earticle

There is debate regarding the effect of laser acupuncture on static balance in healthy elderly women, and, research conducted to date has not shown evidence of benefit. The present study was designed to determine whether laser acupuncture has an immediate effect on improving balance in healthy elderly women. Twenty five subjects who were screened at the welfare center participated in the immediate laser acupuncture treatment. They were treated using laser acupuncture stimulation of balance area acupuncture points on scalp. Needles were contacted at a 90-degree angle, and participants wore a hair net band. Laser acupuncture was applied for 20 min with participants sitting with eyes closed. The Good Balance System was used to assess static balance before and after the intervention. After the intervention, postural sway increased, but it was not statistically significantly different compared to pre-test values. Only anterioposterior postural sway was significantly increased (p<0.05). In healthy elderly women, scalp laser acupuncture does not affect static balance. This study provides a plan for future research.

Most of the bacterial and other simple non glycosylated recombinant proteins were conventionally produced from IPTG inducible Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). Considering the factors like cost and toxic nature of IPTG, as an alternative, salt inducible Escherichia coli GJ1158 was used in this study for the over production of staphylokinase variant (sak – hirulog) using fed batch fermentation, cost effectively. Optimization of physico chemical factors viz., dissolved oxygen (DO), carbon, nitrogen and phosphate sources on bacterial growth for the production of recombinant sak – hirulog using batch and fed batch fermentation was studied. In batch culture, increased DO at more than 30 % did not influence the enhanced expression of sak – hirulog, but significant improvement was observed in fed batch cultivation. Supplementation of production medium with different nutrient sources like dextrose, yeast extract and dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4) enhanced the sak – hirulog expression in fed batch fermentation process even without disturbing the cell growth by providing 50 % DO. Approximately 1178 mg/L of specific protein was obtained using cost effective modified glucose yeast exgtract (GYE) media devoid of sodium chloride. This study also reports the highest concentration of recombinant protein from salt inducible expression host till to date, which manages to satisfy the production of bifunctional staphaphylokinase variant using economically feasible bacterial expression host Escherichia coli GJ1158.

This study used descriptive correlation to examine factors affecting empathy in nurses, specifically, how empathy relates to adult attachment, self-esteem, and communication self-efficacy. Data were collected from March 16until March 27, 2015. A survey was administered to 100 nurses working in two university hospitals located in D city and K province. All data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20.0; general characteristics and variables were tested using descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages. At-test and one-way ANOVA were used to test empathy according to general characteristics; Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to test empathy’s correlation with each variable. Factors affecting empathy were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression. The results are as follows: No differences in participants’ general characteristics were found. Participants exhibiting higher attachment avoidance exhibited lower empathy; higher attachment anxiety and communication self-efficacy were correlated with higher empathy. Self-esteem was not significantly correlated with empathy. Attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and communication self-efficacy were found to affect empathy, with 13.1% total explanatory power. This study is significant as it identifies factors affecting empathy in nurses; this basic information may be used to structure intervention studies on empathy enhancement.