#pharmacology made easy

[studentbyday]

30 days of intentionality

starting this challenge with the goal of taking it one day at a time. i have a hard time doing that these days. i spend more time ruminating on the past or worrying about the future than staying in the present, even if that's when i'm most content. not sure how i'll format my posts and most likely, i'll only do weekly updates bc daily ones are too overwhelming. i'll just go with the flow, trying to trust that everything will end up as it's meant to be and maybe i'll be more productive as focusing primarily on the present moment becomes a habit.

---

1. suo gân (arr. john williams for the ambrosian junior choir): i believe that if everyone lived by the idea of global citizenship and so saw the humanity in every individual from every background, there would be no war. reading the news fills me with fear, sorrow, and anxiety, but i also feel the responsibility to stay informed. did some studying today, more than yesterday, but it was kind of uncomfortable with the state of global politics lurking in the back of my mind. i'm still a little behind on school.

2. souvenir de paganini (chopin): today is not so bad. i'm making progress academically, but i do need to make time for social activities soon or i will get lonely and lose what little motivation i have very quickly.

3. once upon a december (arr. emile pandolfi): sometimes in the face of events and issues much bigger than myself that i have no control over, i feel like my dreams are pointless bc i think there's no way achieving them or trying to achieve them could possibly empower me to make real and important change that can truly benefit many. who knows if the future would even allow me to get that far. there are many things that could change the course of our lives that we don't have control over. but if others in worse situations than me and others much better informed than me can still have hope, then so can i. i didn't do much other than pharmacology and a little bit of philosophy today. i made more progress in pharmacology than expected, but that's only bc i didn't do any psych work. i also earned a few more mastery points on khan academy's integrated math 1 (not a priority, i know, but i wanted an easy win) and started lab tasks. i'm far from done with that, i need to do a little every day... i don't want to let them down! 🥺 (note to self: lying in bed is maybe NOT a good study break activity bc that just makes me not wanna do anything else after that and it's very very very hard to get out of that procrastination rut once i let myself fall into it.) 4. let's stay together (al green): everything should be going well, except i'm easily overwhelmed, and this time, it wasn't in an openly frazzled way, it was in a tired and slightly defeated "what's the point?" way, so i didn't realize it as quickly as i usually do. after some bed rest, cuddles 🧸, listening to steve jobs' commencement speech, and a little yoga, i felt better. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." was something i didn't know i needed to hear today. i modified my to-do list and found that the list of things i "must do" was nearly as long as the list of things i "want to do" 😅

5. kreutzer sonata, movt. 1 (beethoven): pretty sure i've mentioned some of these songs before but...they really fit the mood! sometimes i feel things so strongly that i develop a tightening in my chest that can only be relieved in a scream... since i can't actually scream and i don't actually really like the physical feeling of it, i scream through exercise and music 😅 beethoven is very nice for when i'm feeling very annoyed or angry, especially if it's an anxious kind of angry or if it's anger at injustice/inequality. i can't find a piano solo version that does the fiery spirit of the violin justice. so in the vague future when i actually play this, either i try (and perhaps fail) to replicate that on the piano, or i find a violinist friend who would want to play with me 😅 right now though, imagining how i would physically create that sound on the piano will have to be enough. the prevailing thought/feeling of the day: sometimes i just really wanna believe in the good in people and believe that i can trust (some of) them. i long for that feeling of safety in a broader irl community that i actually belong in. i'm surprised by how often i long for it. but then my negativity is reinforced by news and people's opinions on it.

6. violin sonata no. 1 in g minor, bwv 1001 (j.s. bach): stuff was done. i felt calm/chill throughout the day, but even tho i feel good whenever that happens, it usually means i don't get an extraordinary amount of things done that day (lol since when do i ever). i'm not sure if it's enough, as there is still lots to do and i'm pretty sure that it's just wishful thinking that i'll achieve all my goals for this week by its end. i need to cut down my goals list to the realistic rather than idealistic version as always (school, lab, and basic self-maintenance tasks) 😅 gaawwwdd i hope i can do this...good night.

7. waltz in a minor, b. 150 (chopin): today and yesterday i have been able to keep my phone time under an hour. the days are blissful (if not at least calmer) and focused. 📚

8. only mine (laufey): cuddles in bed while listening to laufey is so soothing 🧸 takes me back to my childhood listening to lullabies in the dark 🥺 motivation to study is hard to find today. i just want to relax 🥺 i'll just do one tiny thing and see where i wanna go from there...

[just-horrible-things]

On The Amnestic Issue

The issue of strong amnestic drugs is not a highly publicized one. It is not a polarizing topic of debate like immigration, reproductive rights, or the human pet industry. Most people do not even have a strong opinion on amnestics. They are not front and center in the public view. The pharmaceutical industry and its supporters have done an excellent job of suppressing debate.

This is not an issue to take up lightly as a bit of collegiate activism to soothe the soul. Even to write about the topic is to invite lawsuit, defamation, and harassment. You probably haven’t heard much about anti-amnestic activists, not because we don’t exist but because that is how effectively we are silenced. I have friends who have been jailed for speaking out, and many more who have been publicly targeted, harassed, accused, and made into laughing stocks.

This is not an issue to take up unless you truly feel passionately about it.

But I am passionate, and I think you should be too. I think we all should be. 

Detractors will attempt to paint anti-amnestic discourse as radical left wing pet-lib propaganda. They will attempt to paint us as far right anti-vaxxer paranoids lashing out against the medical industry. But the amnestic issue ought to concern you regardless of your political alignment.#

Whatever your stance on the human pet industry, whatever your stance on pharmacological reform, the amnestic issue goes far further than either of those. This is not about criminals or contractees, although they form part of the picture. This is primarily about the effects of strong amnestic drugs in the general population, the failure of our government and regulators to protect us from unregulated use, and the complete lack of unbiased, verifiable information about amnestic safety even in a medical context.

Use of prescription amnestics has more than doubled in just the last three years, despite the complete lack of any independent studies demonstrating benefits in the vast majority of use cases. Un-monitored, un-reported “home use” is estimated at anywhere between half as many people again, and three times as many, and in many cases these unprescribed drugs are being used to “medicate” entirely non-medical issues such as domestic quarrels.

Crime involving the forced administration of strong amnestics to unconsenting victims is estimated to have increased twenty-fold since these substances were first approved for prescription. The volume of illegal amnestics circulating in the black market is completely unknown, and the lack of separation between the markets for aggressive criminal use and for unregulated “self-medication” is bringing naive would-be patients into contact with hardened drug dealers and organized crime.

In the context of our progressively failing criminal justice system, some victims are even administering the “cover up pills” to themselves rather than face the traumatic experience of trying to push a report through to court. In a recent survey, 20% of university students said that if they were victims of “date rape” they would rather take a pill and forget, than take the issue to the police. Cited reasons included shame, fear of stigmatization, fear that the police would do nothing, and, conversely, fear that the police would respond with excessive force.

Perhaps most troubling of all, the second most popular reason given was simply that taking an amnestic would be “less effort”. The same attitude is reflected in a growing media trend towards portraying drug-induced forgetting as the “easy option” : a quick, effortless, and effective solution to any and all of life’s problems. 

Needless to say there is no evidence to support the idea that amnestic abuse actually improves happiness, health, or any other measure of wellbeing. And it should be beyond obvious that choosing to forget certain problems such as unpaid bills, unsettled debts, or an angry spouse will not actually cause these problems to go away.

Even industry giants such as Santex Pharma and WRU have recently put out statements advising against unregulated, unsupervised home use. These statements describe the medical applications and the use in the pet industry (respectively) as highly controlled, carefully monitored use cases and not comparable to the growing trend of unlicensed use. Santex state, both in their recent statement and elsewhere, that every approved use of their strong amnestics has been rigorously safety tested and found both safe and effective. They cite a number of published studies, in addition to an undisclosed quantity of private, internal investigation.

Every single published study involving strong amnestics was either conducted or funded by a manufacturer of strong amnestics, a business that uses strong amnestics as a core part of their business model (i.e. the human pet industry), or a subsidiary of one of these businesses.

There are no published independent studies. All attempts at independent studies have been heavily suppressed by the above industries, or else taken over by these business interests long before completion. It has long been well known – if rarely successfully prosecuted – that pharmaceutical companies regularly misuse statistics, massage data, and even outright fabricate results to produce conclusions that are favorable to their bottom line.

Even those few independent investigators who have resisted the pressure exerted by the industry have found that no reputable publication – scientific or otherwise – will take on the risk of publishing their results if they fail to corroborate the claims of safety. When such studies are made publically available on the internet they are invariably taken down within weeks or even days, and the authors – if remotely identifiable – can expect a slew of life-ruining lawsuits. In many cases even criminal charges have been leveled against such investigators.

Consequently it is extremely difficult to form an accurate picture of the extent and form of the risks posed by the use of strong amnestics. However, certain themes come up over and over in these vanished studies. The use of strong amnestics, especially but not exclusively long term or at high doses, has been associated with any or all of the following:

cognitive decline or impairment

anterograde amnesia (loss of the ability to reliably form new long term memories)

anxiety and depression

emotional instability and dysregulation

intrusive thoughts

increased rates of suicide

increased mortality (all causes)

false recall (remembering fictive events as if they were real, or events that happened to other people as if they happened to oneself)

nightmares, night terrors, insomnia and other sleep disturbances

migraines, cluster headaches, and other forms of headache

increased impulsivity

increases vulnerability to addiction

impaired executive function (difficulty making and adhering to plans, reduced decision-making ability)

While none of the above symptoms have been conclusively linked to amnestics on account of the industry stranglehold on data, it is worth noting that the incidence of all of the above problems in the general population has increased sharply over the last few years, with no other obvious explanation for the increase.

Some of the most striking evidence has come from the study of parents who made the choice to forget a child when that child entered into the human pet industry. The fact that WRU discontinued this as an official service after only a year and a half speaks volumes. But small numbers of parents (and an unknown number of other friends and relatives of new human pets) continue to seek out this option either under the supervision of a medical professional or independently “at home” with illicitly procured amnestics.

While the desire to forget is perhaps an understandable response to the loss of a child or loved one, the outcomes of such a choice are rarely happy. Suicide rates in this group are extremely high, as are rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. 

Testimonials can be found on parenting boards across the web urging other parents not to make the same decision. They describe intense feelings of guilt, crushing anxiety, dread and/or a sense of “impending doom”, and a constant, gnawing awareness of the period of “lost time”. Feelings of hopelessness, futility and lack of purpose or fulfillment are extremely common.

One mother described the feeling as not only having lost her now-unremembered child, but also having lost herself.

The wider societal impact of amnestic abuse is also making itself felt as the prevalence rises year on year. Courts have already agreed that forgetting a crime or other offense does not absolve the perpetrator of any guilt or responsibility, but how exactly to handle such cases is far from settled. 

Detractors of pharmacological reform are quick to point out the double standard here. Amnesia can be enforced by the state in the name of correcting entrenched behavioral patterns and preventing reoffense, but those who have already self-administered this treatment are still considered just as guilty and just as likely to reoffend as if they had not forgotten.

Neither is it clear how to help or compensate victims of amnestic-related crimes. The use of amnestics to cover up crimes – most commonly date rape – is nothing new. Even prior to the invention of the modern drug class, weak amnestics such as alcohol and benzodiazepines have long been used for this purpose. However, the rise of the strong amnestic has both expanded the criminal’s toolkit for cover-ups and opened entire new spheres of crime.

Every month it seems that allegations of a new kind of crime hit the courts, from corporate espionage cases in which corporate agents are accused of using amnestics to wipe ideas, trade secrets, or experience in the field from their competitors, to domestic abuse allegations involving the long term use of amnestics to keep the victim ignorant of their own abuse. While some of these cases are clearly less plausible than others, there can be no doubt that criminal elements are hard at work finding new ways to abuse these substances.

If you follow the mainstream news cycle, you are also doubtless already aware of the rise of “perpetual amnesiacs” – a small but highly visible minority of amnestic “addicts” who take the drugs repeatedly in high doses to forget practically everything. 

(While strong amnestics are not physiologically addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine, phenomena such as gambling addiction and pornography addiction have long taught us that people can become addicted to all manner of things that are not physiologically addictive drugs.)

These “perpetual amnesiacs” usually have substantial problems before the amnestic abuse. They may be homeless, in debt, stuck in abusive relationships, or addicted to other substances. They begin taking the amnestics to forget their very real troubles. What separates the addict from other “home users” is the very high doses involved, and the taking of additional doses as soon as further difficulties arise. 

These afflicted individuals become increasingly disengaged from life, drifting from one short term pleasure (often other substances of abuse) to another, and taking additional amnestics whenever consequences threaten to disrupt their existence in the moment.

Most become homeless if they were not already, and over time almost all develop severe symptoms from the list above. Reporting has focused particularly on impulsivity, cognitive decline, and anterograde amnesia. We hear of the violent deaths of addicts killed attempting the wildly ill-conceived crimes that their impulsivity leads them into.

Eventually the “perpetual amnesiac” needs no further doses of the amnestics, because their ability to form new memories has been completely destroyed. 

Despite industry insistence that these sobering results are only a result of the extremely high doses taken by the addicts, the recent news coverage has awoken public fears regarding the safety of strong amnestics. 

However, reporting of these concerns has been notably muted and seems to have almost ceased as I write these words. All major news agencies seem to now prefer to parrot the company line that it is the quantity and the frequency that is the problem, not the drugs themselves. One can only imagine that money or favors have changed hands to facilitate this shift in focus.

One can only hope that the public will remember nonetheless, and that the plight of these most severely affected “perpetual amnesiacs” will prompt at least a few to look into the effect that amnestic drugs are having on us as individuals and as a society, and that we might start to look beyond the horizon of the company line.

-- A. Correspondent

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

Diabolik Lovers — A systematic review (sort of) of all the times the Diaboys cried in HDB, MB, DF, LE and CL

So, this (long) post is exactly what it says — it’s a count of all the times the Diabolik Lovers characters cry. Except Yui because she’s in every route and that would’ve made this a lot harder. It is excluding VC and LP as they are not story games and I don’t think they’d be crying over anything worth noting down.

I came up with this idea when I started my third year pharmacology dissertation which is a systematic review. The data extraction for this involves screening large numbers of papers for certain data, and I came up with the idea of doing this for the DL games and how many times the characters cry, since I was interested to see who cries the most (besides Kanato, obviously. I knew he’d come out on top by a long way before I even started.)

In order to do this properly, I needed an inclusion and exclusion criteria. Things to exclude are times other characters cried in the individual routes. I identified crying moments by Ctrl+F “cry” / “tears” / “cried” / “sob” / “snif” so there’s a chance something will be missed, especially since some CGs which show crying don't describe the crying in the text. Sometimes it wasn’t clear if they were crying or if it was just implied, in which cases I checked the walkthrough if there was one to try and hear it and it was only included if I could hear something like crying. I also recorded a brief reason for why they were crying. It took a while at first but once I got into it, it was easy.

This list will contain mentions of all canon themes + spoilers. Thank you to all the translators who contributed to the game translations on Tumblr. Any excluded routes/parts due to lack of TL are listed. Here is the masterlist I used.

Here is a link to a Google docs file containing all the times they cried. And now I’m going to talk about what this data represents and the best way to interpret it!

So, we could take these numbers at face value. Below is the breakdown of the raw data (data before any analysis).

There’s obviously some bigger criers than others and to very little surprise Kanato is top. So let’s simplify this data and rank it.

Now, we could take this as the final rankings and I guess if you were counting who cries the most times overall, that’s your ranking. However, is this really a reliable way of ranking them?

It’s not, because each character is in a different number of games each. The Sakamaki’s are in 5 games, the Mukami’s are in 4, the Tsukinami’s are in 3, and Kino is only in two. So is it fair to compare say, Shin’s 1 cry in 3 games to Subaru’s 2 cries in 5 games? How do we know Shin wouldn’t have had a couple more cries if he’d been in more games?

On top of that, because of people’s routes not being translated fully, I may not have included some cries. For example, only 1/6 of Yuma’s LE is translated, so Yuma’s cry count is across 3.15 games, whereas Ruki for example has complete translations and therefore we’ve searched through all routes.

So let’s average that, and get “average cries per game”

In the real world of statistics, this data is pretty useless because each character cries different amounts of times. And I can’t really work any more averages such as which game includes the most cries per character because the data range is so large. Kanato skews the data massively, especially when Kanato and Subaru are both Sakamaki’s and Kanato has 31 cries (probably more, actually. I definitely missed some of them with the search terms) and Subaru only has 2.

But, here’s the new order.

In general, this order is best for comparing each character since it takes into account the different amount of content for each character. So, this is order is what I’ll be using to talk about it.

Again, Kanato having the most cries is really not surprising here. 6 cries per game is roughly one cry every 5 stories – with that said, excluding CL which he goes a bit loopy in (and it doesn’t help that he loses his memories), Kanato’s cries do go down from 8 per game in HDB to 4 in DF and LE each. So, does he get his shit together a bit? Maybe!

Now, Laito did surprise me with how many cries he had actually. He’s a bit of a cry baby, huh? With that said, it’s interesting how averaging out the games puts Azusa in our number 2 spot. I want to hug Azusa, a lot of his cries were really sad ;;

Kou doesn’t surprise me a lot either because he’s pretty unstable. But it did surprise me when I averaged out the games and Ruki kicked Shu out of the number 5 spot? Ruki comes off a lot as much more composed so it’s surprising to know he’s actually a bit of a softie when it comes to showing his feelings.

Shu has on average 1 cry per game which is pretty decent — actually listening to a lot of Shu’s cries are pretty gut wrenching because when he does cry, it’s for about 5 minutes straight.

After that, everyone has less than 1 cry per game. Reiji and Ayato seem to be pretty tough when it comes to crying, although the CGs where they do cry make me really sad.

Subaru having such a low cry count actually makes me pretty damn sad? There’s so many moments with Subaru where he so very close to crying and a couple of times I think it’s implied that he was or is going to be crying alone. But I wish he cried more y’know? He’s hurting a ton in a lot of these games and he should let it out ;;

Honestly what shocked me the most was that Shin actually cries once? Because holy shit, I was not expecting that to be honest. And with Carla and Kino… well, I’m not surprised at all.

That’s pretty much all I have to say here. I wrote this out instead of revising for my actual statistics exam on Tuesday. Don’t take this too seriously - I explained it's limitations and such in my discussion - and feel free to ask any questions <3

To top it all off, have some CGs of everyone crying.

And some Yui cries :) 

[madamemachikonew]

More thoughts on Baizhu's story quest #4 - the poison is the cure

My other Baizhu story quest thoughts:

1 - Changsheng the Corruptor

2 - Baizhu's Lack of Self

3 - The Adepti

↓ ↓ Story quest spoilers below↓ ↓ 

I thought some of you might be interested in the perspective of A Sick Person (which of course is only my own - I don't speak for all...).

One of the things that really resonated with me was the age-old pharmacological principle that potentially anything is poison in the wrong quantity. But equally, some things which are technically toxic can in fact bring you a cure.

It is a principle with which I am intimately familiar. And Jialiang's dilemma was very easy for me to understand and empathise with. I have been going through cycles of chemotherapy to stabilise my multiple sclerosis. I played Baizhu's quest while recovering from being infused with highly toxic drugs normally used for leukaemia patients. They help MS by killing my immune cells en masse in the hope that they will repopulate as healthy cells instead of faulty ones that attack my brain and spine. However, the treatment was not an easy one to choose. The list of side effects is long and terrifying, not just immediate side effects during the infusion period itself, but long lasting ones; I am at risk of acquiring a whole plethora of new, additional and incurable health conditions. I had to do a balancing exercise when choosing my treatment. Was I prepared to trade my thyroid for a few more years of getting to use my hands and legs and being able to live independently? If not, I'd have to opt for one of the less effective treatments.

I'm getting to how this relates to Baizhu, I promise.

I don't even know if the gamble will pay off. While I have high hopes it will succeed, and has stabilised things so far, it is not guaranteed. This treatment is not 100% effective and fails for many people, even after a few years of their symptoms having been stabilised. And similarly, a day may come several years in the future when it is time for me to pay the piper and hand over an organ or two; thyroidectomies are extremely common. I'll also be immunocompromised for around a year or so, which comes with its own risks.

I don't raise any of this for sympathy - it simply got me thinking about the green man, in that we've both made a similar decision and almost embrace the opportunity to poison ourselves as a strange sort of gift (fun fact: the German word for poison is 'gift').

In a perverse way, I understand Baizhu's choice under the contract. For me, destroying my body is literally what will give me a second chance at life. Baizhu too chooses to barter away and destroy parts of his body and acquire new illnesses for what he classifies as a greater overall benefit - except in his case it's scientific discovery and the altruistic potential to save more lives rather than improving or maintaining his own quality of life. He has a weird solidarity with his patients in this regard; while he's confident he will succeed in his endeavour to achieve immortality, it is not guaranteed, and may one day bring a devil's price with it. What sets him apart, however, is that - unlike his patients - his choice is voluntary. It is the voluntary aspect that breaks my mind a little bit. I genuinely needed this treatment and even I was hesitant. Jialiang's choice was no choice at all. He wanted to cling to as many good days as possible, because the alternative was death. Yet Baizhu just takes on the mantle without any reservation. This feeds back in to how he conceives his sense of self. Such acts run so contrary to natural instinct that it takes great fortitude of spirit and intellect to overcome our hard-wired self-preservation mechanism. His sacrifice is ironically the greatest assertion of self. One of my friends is a long-standing blood and bone marrow donor. He was also a volunteer for the covid vaccination trials. Some people are just like that.

I had to consider which illnesses I was prepared to accept in the future as a consequence of my treatment, which made me wonder whether Baizhu has a line that he draws in terms of which illnesses or toxins he's prepared to absorb. I would like to understand how he calculates risk -v- reward. Presumably he does not take on anything that will be terminal. Nothing that can't be managed or put into remission through medication (or is at least tolerable and non-fatal without it). Nothing that would wreck his immune system too much. Nothing neurologically degenerative that would cause his intellect or limbs to irreparably deteriorate or fail, as that would impair his ability to conduct research. I imagine he'd also have to consider potential interactions, given the cocktail of medications he is on - some remedies will undermine others and he may have to abstain or moderate them. And some remedies will cause additional side effects or health conditions in their own right after prolonged use.

My treatment also made me wonder how much toxicity Baizhu himself potentially leeches out to the people around him. My chemo drug literally seeps out of my pores, salivary glands, tear ducts and so on for a week or two. I have to use a separate toilet/bathroom and any clothes or bedsheets have to be washed separately. I can't be intimate with anyone for a while because my bodily fluids are literally toxic. It made me wonder if Baizhu avoids intimate emotional or physical attachments not just because of the emotional damage to someone who'd fall in love with him and because he will always put his duties as a healer first (I think he'd care less about his own pain of foregoing a chance at love given his sacrificial nature), but because he might be physically toxic to be intimate with on account of the poisons, illnesses and medications he had in his system. He jokes with Traveller in his voicelines that he can test strong concoctions on them. But I think he's deflecting here; presumably he will take a liberty to dose himself more strongly than he might a patient if there is a potential research benefit behind it, such as learning how to dose properly and potential side effects. Or simply, to manage his condition with a harsher regime because he knows he's prepared to tolerate it.

[danisakay]

The iPad Kid In Question

In today's generation, the concept of "iPad kids" has gained popularity as a meme and cultural reference. It represents a generation of youngsters who have grown up surrounded by technology, specifically tablets like the iPad. It was an ongoing meme that can be coined as an insult that led me to deny that I am not an iPad kid. However, with how I deal with everyday life, I’ve realized that I cannot live without it. The iPad has played an important role in my life, especially in my academics and leisure activities.

Do I need my traditional nursing books? No, I have already downloaded them to my note-taking app (Goodnotes). I do not need to bring my thick nursing books to school because I have everything downloaded on my iPad. Do I need to bring tons of notebooks or pad paper when note-taking during lectures? No, I do not need to because I have a handy dandy iPad with me when I go to school.

One of the most significant advantages of utilizing an iPad for taking notes is its portability. iPads are lightweight and compact, allowing me to easily carry them wherever I go. Whether in a classroom, group meeting, or coffee shop, the iPad offers a convenient device for taking notes on the go without the need for heavy notebooks or stacks of paper. iPads also save notes digitally, removing the need for physical storage and minimizing clutter. I do not need to be stressed whenever I cannot find a certain reviewer of mine that I need to use to study for a quiz the next day. Moreover, I can organize my notes into folders, categories, or tags, making it simple to find specific information quickly and therefore saving me time and effort.

Aside from note-taking and storing my books, I can access a lot more websites and apps that are needed for my academic requirements. Apps like Quizlet and Anki, which I use for reviewing, especially for active recall and spaced repetitions, allow me to create custom flashcards using text, graphics, music, and even mathematical equations that fit my learning style. They include multimedia features to improve my retention. These kinds of apps are really helpful for me since nursing is a course that demands a lot of memorization of different concepts. They are my lifesaver when memorizing key terms, medical terminology, anatomy, pharmacology, and other nursing concepts.

Canva is also an app that helps me survive school, and without it, my non-creative self cannot live in the academic realm wherein creativity is a required skill in creating and finishing schoolwork. The ready-made presentations, infographics, posters, and other forms of media help me meet school deadlines. I still tweak its design, but the fact that there is a template that I can use as a guide makes me more productive. Regardless of background or expertise, a person can create graphic designs using the straightforward drag-and-drop interface and pre-designed templates of Canva.

Another app that is helpful in terms of video editing because of how accessible it is and easy to navigate is Capcut. It is an app that both my iPad and phone can access, making video editing for school tasks easier than before. The interface is well-organized, with tools and features that are easy to access and use, allowing me to efficiently edit videos without being overwhelmed by complex settings. CapCut provides a comprehensive range of editing tools and features that allow me to modify and enhance videos based on my preferences and the requirements of my subjects. When I was in high school, I needed to borrow my mother’s laptop to edit in a built-in video editing app that was hard to navigate because of its technicality and complicated interface. But with this particular app, I can finish my work within a small amount of time, which I can say is perfect for a student who crams video-type projects.

Google apps like Google Meet, Google Slides, Sheets, Drawings, and most especially Google Docs, have made my life easier. With just having a Gmail account, I can access my documents on all of my devices. If I forget to add something to my document and I already closed my laptop, I can use my iPad or phone to add more information to my paper without the need to assemble my laptop, especially when I’m already lying down in bed ready to sleep. If there is an urgent need to revise my work but I’m out of the house and do not have my laptop with me, I can use my iPad or even my phone and edit it through the Google apps. With an Internet connection, these apps or websites bring convenience and accessibility wherever I go or whatever circumstances I have.

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides also allow multiple users to work on the same document at once. This real-time collaboration function is especially useful for group projects, team meetings, and collaborative writing assignments. I can monitor changes and updates in real-time, thereby facilitating seamless communication and workflow efficiency. I also consider this a lifesaver to pinpoint my groupmates who have been neglecting group tasks and monitoring their contributions.

Moreover, the nerve-wracking experience of accidentally deleting one’s document is devastating and something I do not like to experience again. Google Apps are a lifesaver again in this aspect because they automatically save versions of documents, allowing me to track changes, return to previous versions, and discover who made specific modifications.

Last but not least, my favorite feature of the iPad is its size and how I can watch series and movies on a larger screen. I do not like the hassle of turning on my TV or my laptop, both of which I cannot bring to my bed whenever I need to rest. With the iPad, there is unlimited access to watching shows while lying comfortably in my bed. I have access to a vast library of movies, TV shows, documentaries, and original content, allowing me to explore a world of entertainment possibilities at any time and from any location. On top of that, I find it difficult to refrain from eating without watching something on my iPad. This behavior perfectly aligns with the concept of an 'iPad kid,' someone who eats while using their iPad. It is essential for me when I eat since if I do not distract myself through watching videos, I tend to eat too fast, therefore not being able to chew my food well.

Besides what I've mentioned above, the iPad's multitasking capabilities also enable me to view videos while also browsing the web, reading emails, or taking notes. Picture-in-Picture mode allows me to minimize the video player and continue watching content while using other programs, thereby increasing my productivity and multitasking effectiveness. I particularly enjoy this feature when I just need white noise or background noise whenever I need to finish something that does not require too much work or concentration. In addition, this feature is also useful whenever I need to write down notes during my online classes.

"my lifesaver"

My phone and laptop have features and strengths that I use depending on what I need, but my iPad is a mixture of them. With the help of my Apple Pencil, offers versatile features that make my life more productive. The iPad's combination of features and characteristics provides versatility and adaptation to various demands and preferences. Whether I use it for work, play, education, or creativity, the iPad is a versatile platform that adapts to my changing needs and lifestyle. At this point, I can say that I’ve already achieved a return on investment, or ROI, with my iPad.

A phrase that can describe the technology, in general, is ‘my lifesaver’. Throughout my narrative, I cannot count how many times I mentioned that phrase because indeed, these smart devices, digital services, and software applications offer convenience and accessibility that make life easier. They provide unprecedented convenience and accessibility in our daily lives. Whether it's ordering food online, booking transportation, or operating smart home gadgets with voice commands, technology makes tasks and routines easier, saving time and effort. As we manage the complicated aspects of modern life, technology is our constant friend, allowing us to prosper in an ever-changing digital landscape.

[onecornerface]

Widespread addiction is not a good explanation (by itself) for widespread overdose

One thing that pisses me off is when people describe the drug death crisis as if it were either [A] *equivalent* to the addiction crisis, or [B] primarily *caused* by the addiction crisis.

Individually and collectively, overdose is neither equivalent to addiction, nor straightforwardly caused by addiction. (For a note on the terms "addiction" and "overdose," see bottom of the post)

Addicted drug users are very likely at higher risk of overdose overall, compared to casual drug users—but many addicted users don’t overdose, and many casual drug users do overdose. Conflating overdose with addiction is an egregious and widespread mistake. It is a mistake that mystifies the causal mechanisms of how exactly people are dying, and thus makes it impossible to recognize how to save more lives.

Conflating addiction with overdose is a mystification that rhetorically benefits drug prohibitionists and supporters of forced addiction treatment, and rigs the public debate against harm reduction and safe supply.

In the US and Canada, overdose rates have skyrocketed vastly, vastly more than addiction rates. I still can’t figure out how much addiction rates have increased-- but it is definitely vastly less than how the overdose rates have increased. The skyrocketing overdose rates have overwhelmingly happened due to changes in the illicit drug supply—namely the drastic increase in the presence of highly potent drugs in highly inconsistent and unmeasurable amounts. Fentanyl is the most salient of these potent drugs, but far from the only one.

Moreover, the problem is not so much that people are using fentanyl, but that they are using large and inconsistent amounts of it. These changes were only made possible by drug prohibition, and can only be prevented by legal regulation. Drug prohibition incentivizes the manufacture and trafficking of highly potent drugs which are easy to smuggle, and unregulated cross-contamination of different potent drugs. Moreover, many non-addicted drug users (even if fewer) are also dying of overdose for the same reason.

People with addictions are not really dying randomly. Nor is anyone being killed by addiction itself, strictly speaking. Rather, people who use drugs are dying from specific pharmacological mechanisms, mostly resulting from using hazardous-but-unknown amounts of drugs in hazardous-but-unknown mixtures. For most of these people, the most effective and ethical way to get them to drastically reduce their risks is not to persuade or force them to stop using drugs, but rather to persuade them to use drugs in a better way—by making a safer supply of drugs available to them, drugs whose exact contents and doses are known and reliable.

The notion that addiction is the cause of (or somehow equivalent to) the overdose crisis tends to go together with the notion that addiction treatment is the main solution. More addiction treatment is also urgently needed—but, as a purported solution to the overdose crisis, it is extremely limited. Moreover, much of the political focus on addiction treatment is disingenuous.

The main anti-harm-reductionists only promote “treatment” as a way to distract from harm reduction, but are not serious about actually improving the quality or capacity of addiction treatment, or addressing known crises of pseudoscience, corruption, and abuse within the treatment system. Most addicted drug users will not go to treatment anytime soon, and it would be both unethical and logistically infeasible & ineffective to attempt to force vast numbers of them to go to treatment. Some of them could likely be persuaded to attend treatment voluntarily by visibly & greatly improving the quality & capacity of treatment and eliminating the abuse and pseudoscience (which urgently needs to be done anyway), but most would probably still not do so anytime soon. This is simply a fact, regardless of whether they should go to treatment or not.

I suspect that many addicted drug users are making a reasonable decision in not going to treatment, especially under the current circumstances. But even if they should all go to treatment, the fact that most of them won’t do it is a fact which imposes constraints on realistic policy proposals. Simply on logistical grounds if nothing else (ignoring the myriad blatant ethical problems), there are severe limits on how many people can be forced into addiction treatment, and severe limits on how effective any such approach can be. Moreover, addiction treatment is clearly irrelevant to non-addicted drug users.

In short, “more addiction treatment,” whether coerced or voluntary, is not a realistic way to drastically and quickly reduce overdoses. The drastic scaling up of safe supply to make it accessible to vast numbers of drug users is much more likely to succeed—and the main obstacle to its feasibility is sheer political opposition, overwhelmingly from irrational opponents who commit severe factual errors and do not even try to make coherent arguments against it. (I have actually thought of some potentially interesting arguments against safe supply, but its real-world opponents usually make much worse arguments instead.)

Wide-scale safe supply is the only solution that takes realistic account of the actual causes of death, and realistically responds to the motivations of people who use drugs. People are not killed by addiction or by just any drug use. They are killed mostly by certain patterns of highly inconsistent drug use, an inconsistency created by the lack of regulation in the drug supply. Safe supply creates the option to use known amounts of known drugs. Some people would probably still die, but drastically fewer—perhaps akin to the overdose rates of the pre-fentanyl era (though that was also probably mostly due to drug interactions, such as opioids + alcohol—still more specific than addiction per se).

Safe supply creates a framework in which people can move from unknown risks to known risks, and more knowledge can be developed about how to reduce risks further going forward. Drug prohibition maintains an environment in which risks are perpetually unknowable and new understanding cannot be gained.

Safe supply is also often portrayed by opponents as perpetuating or enabling addiction, by giving people the drugs to which they are addicted. If addiction causes overdose, and if safe supply perpetuates addiction, then it is easy to portray safe supply as exacerbating the overdose crisis. In this way, the addiction-overdose conflation encourages people to ignore the facts that (1) plausible real-world mechanisms have NOT been proposed for how safe supply would increase overdoses, whereas (2) plausible real-world mechanisms HAVE been proposed for how safe supply would decrease overdoses.

(The claim that safe supply perpetuates or enables addiction has other problems as well, meriting its own lengthy analysis, but this is part of it.)

In these ways, and in yet more ways, the conflation of “addiction” and “overdose” is a fundamental conceptual distortion that makes it harder to understand the causes of death, and illegitimately rigs the debate against the case for safe supply by discouraging critical thinking. The addiction-overdose conflation is a rhetorical mystification that distracts from actual scientific causal mechanisms of what increases or decreases the numbers of people dying.

Note: Some scholars, such as T. Virgil Murthy, would defend the explanation of overdose in terms of addiction-- but for different and more complicated reasons which merit a separate response. Views such as Murthy's are nuanced and reasonable, and not really part of what I'm targeting with this post.

Terminological note: Even the concepts of “addiction” and “overdose” are arguably flawed concepts, which deepens the issue still further. Many safe supply advocates in fact reject both concepts in favor of potentially more nuanced conceptual frameworks. But even when we take these concepts themselves for granted, we must recognize they cannot realistically be considered the same thing, nor can overdose be straightforwardly explained as caused by addiction.

[kamyru]

Could you do something for ukyo and kunihiro?

Hi, anon! Thank you for your ask. I hope you'll like what "something" I have written. Enjoy! ❤️

P.S. You won't believe me, but I started to answer my asks. I have no idea how long I'll last, but wish me good luck. (Wish me good luck on my exams too, because 26, 31, 3, 7, and 11 will be the death of me. Especially the first two: physiopathology and pharmacology.)

Cute moments they have with their wives in the office that are too wholesome to be interrupted (Ukyo Senkawa x MC; Kunihiro Kasai x MC)(Shorts)

Word counting: 355 + 500

Ukyo Senkawa

MC was on could seven when she found out that the next project wasn't only a big one but also a possibility to work with the famous Ukyo Senkawa aka her husband, again. It meant more time spent together and the opportunity to learn more from him.

So, on her way to the meeting room, MC wasn't walking - she was flying. Her mood got even better when she entered the room and saw Ukyo in there. The smile on her face reached its maximum broadness. She chose the sit near him and looked at him with big, expecting eyes. For a second, a tint of red appeared on Ukyo's face. He mirrored her smile and ruffled her hair. Of course, he was happy to work with his wife again.

"Are you excited?" Ukyo asked, already knowing the answer.

MC couldn't stop herself from showing him how happy she was. She nodded and clapped her hands a few times. This time, Ukyo chuckled, putting his hands over his wife's and calming her hyperactivity. But the smile on her husband's face made MC a little bit worried. His hands left his wife's, and he clapped them, repeating her move from earlier.

"Do you know it, the clapping game?" Ukyo asked, waiting to clap his hands with MC.

"Which one?" the woman asked, yet clapped her hands with his husband.

"The simple one, when you go faster and faster. Don't worry. I won't go hard on you."

MC rolled her eyes, knowing that Ukyo's obsession with games would stop him from playing the easy version. However, enjoyment started to run through her veins in seconds. The room got filled with claps, and contrary to MC's expectations, Ukyo gradually increased his speed, letting her adapt. When one of them missed the clap, someone from the direction of the door said:

"Who won? I couldn't quite see it."

"Friendship," Ukyo said and ruffled his wife's hair. "And Kuranosuke, don't make this face. We both know that you are jealous."

Kunihiro Kasai

With a coffee in his hands, Kasai passed by the office his wife was in, working hard on a new project while running on a four-hour-long sleep she had the night prior. She prompted her head on her hand. It was a comfortable position for her exhausted body, yet it wasn't for her eyes because the hair kept getting in her face, even if she tried her best to put it back.

Kasai displayed the biggest smile he could, even if MC was too busy to turn and watch him. She understood that he was there only after he put his cup at the edge of her desk. Cautiously, Mrs. Kasai moved it more to the middle so it wouldn't accidentally spill. Before she could turn back, MC felt her husband's soft fingers on her hair.

"I love your new shampoo. Your hair is so soft and smells so good that it made me give up on my plans and come see you," the executive said while hugging MC by her shoulders and resting his chin on her head. He looked through the plan she had on her screen and hummed in approval.

"Hiro, you're heavy," MC whispered, trying to change her position to get rid of the burden on top of her. Kunihiro kissed the top of her head and left his spot. However, a second later, MC felt his fingers in her hair. At first, she had no idea what he was doing, but then, by his moves, she understood that he was trying to braid her hair. He was sloppy and let go of the strands a few times, but the softness of his moves made shivers of pleasure run down her spine.

"To give you a tie?" MC asked when she felt him going down enough to reach the ends of her hair.

Kunihiro shook his head and let out a chuckle.

"Do you think that I got married to someone with long hair and didn't get a pack of ties?" with one hand on the end of her braid, to prevent it from loosening, he reached in his inner pocked for the secret hair tie he put in there every morning. The man admired his art, kissed his wife again, and let her continue her work.

MC didn't have enough time to thank him, but she touched the braid to understand what Kunihiro had done. At least it wasn't getting on her eyes.

"It looks awful," a husky voice said from her behind before she could fully concentrate on her work.

"I don't think I asked for your opinion," MC found herself defending her husband.

"Can you repeat yourself? I think I didn't hear you."

Only after the polite comeback MC understood whom she dissed. She turned to Togo to apologize before it escalated. However, instead of a grumpy face, she saw a nearly visible smile on his face. He shrugged his shoulders and left her, finally giving her the possibility to return to work.

[buyresearchchemicalsus]

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[curiousquill1]

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Why Plethysmometry Remains Essential in Modern Studies

Before further details of characteristic features, we shall first consider why plethysmography remains an important tool for research studies. This is because plethysmography measures, by being noninvasive, changes in tissue volume; thus, it is quite significant in the identification of inflammation, edema, and a host of other pathological conditions. Whether you are undertaking pharmaceutical studies, examining inflammatory responses, or researching therapeutic interventions, valid plethysmographic measurements are the cornerstone of successful research data.

Characteristics of the VJ Instruments Plethysmometer

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The core of the VJ Instruments Plethysmometer is its high digital measurement system. Compared to the older analog types, this system measures volume changes with much accuracy down to 0.01 mL. Researchers specifically like that their model has no meniscus-reading errors, which are common problems with older types. The display clearly gives unbiased readings, thus saving more time for conducting measurements while improving the reliability of the data.

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One of the most time consuming task in a laboratory is equipment calibration. VJ Instruments has made this task simple by providing an automated calibration system. This feature performs checks and calibrations before every session, ensuring consistent measurements. A single feature like this saves hours of laboratory time, all while maintaining measurement accuracy.

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Environmental factors can seriously affect plethysmometric readings. The VJ model is designed with advanced temperature compensation algorithms to negate any temperature fluctuations. This ensures that even if there's a change in ambient temperature, your measurements remain accurate. Such precision is crucial for long-term studies.

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Physically, the ergonomic design of the plethysmometer ensures comfort for long hours of research. It features well-mounted controls, an adjustable viewing angle, and a spill-resistant design. Accessing the measurement chamber for sample changes is easy, increasing throughput during multiple measurements.

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Different research protocols require varying measurement parameters. The VJ Instruments Plethysmometer allows researchers to create and save their own measurement protocols, including sampling intervals, measurement duration, and data-processing parameters. Once set, these protocols ensure consistency across several sessions and between different operators.

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Take your research to the next level. Contact VJ Instruments today for a demonstration or consultation on how the plethysmometer can enhance your research applications. Your future discoveries may depend on the precision and reliability this instrument brings to your laboratory.

[dhaexam254]

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[rehabilitation-and-nursing]

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[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

You made me Like Kou as a addict. I have the song pink cocaine by scene queen in my playlist of Kou now

anon you've made my DAY. in the past i made a long post about this here explaining why i headcanon kou as a drug addict, evidence from the series itself, along with links to my fics where kou is an addict so i'm not going to repeat all that here. in this post however, i did say i could talk more about the specific drugs kou would do so thank you for giving me the perfect opportunity to do that! i could do this for all my favs btw. it's a talent and a curse.

putting it under the cut because it'll be long, and tw for discussions of drug use, comedown, addiction etc. you'll see i know a lot about this.

well the first drug i put kou on has always been cocaine. it's the stereotypical famous, rich person, celebrity party drug. in my laito addict fic, it was kou who first gave laito cocaine. i strongly believe kou could get through 2 bags of coke in a night if he wanted to. personally i've never done coke but i know it makes someone very euphoric and confident and i do feel like kou would absolutely love the feeling of that, especially in a party situation where he's potentially feeling uncomfortable/imposter syndrome.

however, cocaine is quite psychologically addictive. i explained before why i think he'd get addicted and in general, i like to headcanon kou as using uppers. so i'll talk about uppers first. to clarify: "uppers" are drugs which make someone feel very upbeat, energetic etc, whereas "downers" are drugs which make one feel relaxed, calm etc. alcohol is an example of both.

alcoholic kou? yeah, count me the fuck in too! drinking is a great socially acceptable drug to abuse! he could potentially hide drinking from his brothers a bit better until he loses control and doesn't realise how drunk he's getting on a daily basis. drinking is relatively easy to get into a routine of abuse with and again, partying leads to hangovers and that leads to day drinking!

now i've talked a lot about kou using cocaine and drinking in the past, so let's talk about some other drugs! i've written drugs in fanfics for over 5 years now and, well, i have a lil experience myself, ehehe. i am also in my third year of a degree in pharmacology. so, drugs really are my speciality knowledge.

the other main party drug that comes to mind when i think of clubbing and uppers is, of course, ecstasy, aka MDMA. ecstasy itself is a tablet you swallow but you can also get powder MDMA to snort. snorting MDMA tends to make the high come on faster, more intensely, but shorter lasting. in my prison fanfic, kou was an MDMA abuser before going to prison.

MDMA as a drug isn't physically addictive and it has less addictive potential than cocaine but that doesn't mean it's impossible. one of the things that might make kou attracted to MDMA is the fact it makes you feel very connected and affectionate to other people. MDMA is one of the drugs i have done a handful of times, it's my go-to club drug, i much prefer it to alcohol. i often find myself telling people how much i love them etc. it's kinda funny to imagine kou going home, pupils so wide you could land a plane on them, and telling all his brothers how much he loves them.

while 100% MDMA has a slight afterglow and the only negative effect the following day is jaw grinding and tiredness, most MDMA tends to be cut with other substances which can make the comedown unpleasant, and i guess that's where abuse potential comes in. that or kou would use other drugs to avert the comedown. but recreationally, i think kou would like MDMA.

hm, other uppers, i guess we're thinking of amphetamines next - speed, meth, mainly. meth tends to increase alertness, again causes euphoria. i've never used amphetamines of any kind but i know they have a higher addictive potential albeit not physically. it's a bit like coke but lasts longer supposedly. i'm ngl meth is one of the drugs i don't know AS much about. but like cocaine, if kou is chasing that high and feel-good feeling he's been missing his whole life, he's very at-risk once he discovers the meth high.

the other "upper" is nicotine mainly, but nicotine addict kou is a completely different story altogether. i talk about it more here.

so, downers. the first downer i’ll talk about is weed because it’s quick i guess. to be honest i can’t imagine kou using downers as much as uppers because of how he’s probably seeking a more euphoric high - i just think of him as a kid saying how he’s going to fly high in the sky. i have a headcanon where kou, yuma and azusa all smoke weed together, so, yeah. 

next downer to come to mind is ketamine - i guess ketamine is more of a dissociative than a downer. i’ve found a lot of people don’t know what ketamine is; no, it’s not “horse tranquilizer” - it’s used in humans as an anaesthetic more than in veterinary practice, and it’s currently being trialled as a rapid-acting antidepressant! 

that said, when ketamine is used recreationally (and it’s very common over here in the UK) it causes feelings of dissociation. i’ve done ket, i think it’s a bit overrated, it’s just a short-lived out-of-body experience. maybe kou would use it if he’s having sleep issues or is feeling really depressed. some people mix cocaine and ketamine (called “Calvin Klein” or CK) so maybe he’d try that. 

aaaand now we come to opiates or, most probably, heroin. i wrote kou as a heroin addict in my prison fic and i’d say it’s the only downer i can see him using. opiates are just... chill. you feel warm, relaxed, calm. the world is beautiful, it sounds strange but i can imagine kou describing heroin as his blue sky if he got REALLY balls deep in addiction. he used it as stress relief, to feel normal or like himself. just to feel “happy” and escape from any bad feelings. 

problem is, heroin is really addictive and i think he’d fall fast. i think his brothers would notice too, to be honest. he’d be hard to stage an intervention with too, because he’s stubborn. heroin is hard to stop and hard to want to recover from. i can imagine it becoming a major source of conflict in the mukami household if it were to happen. and because of the physical withdrawal, kou isn’t going to want to stop even when it stops being a high and starts just feeling like “normal” 

last category of drugs is psychedelics. psychedelics aren’t really abusable drugs because of how your brain reaches a threshold with their effects and they’re not really party drugs either. i can’t picture kou using them regularly or liking them much. 

to be honest, i would picture kou as having maybe one drug he's using regularly and then using other drugs on top. mixing drugs without thinking, large scale drug abuse i guess. he's got a lot of trauma and he's been wanting to feel good in himself since he was a kid. a very large proportion of drug users do not become addicted but kou? kou's walking a tightrope when it comes to this stuff.

thank you for reading this really stupidly long post. i can and will happily answer any questions about the DL characters and drugs - or drugs in general, if you have any questions about that! doesn't have to be DL related, i'm happy to educate! :)

[imar09]

Top 10 Biotechnology College in Delhi NCR

 Top Biotechnology College in Delhi NCR College Students studying IAMR gain from a dynamic curriculum that blends theory and hands-on training. Students in the Delhi, NCR D. Pharma program are mentored by faculty members with vast backgrounds in pharmacology, pharmaceutical chemistry, and drug formulations. Additionally, IAMR College makes sure that students are ready for the demands of the industry by giving them plenty of chances to gain practical experience through laboratory courses and industry internships. The prime location of IAMR College in Delhi, NCR, has many benefits, such as easy access to business partnerships, internship possibilities, and a flourishing pharmaceutical sector. Please get in touch with us if you would like more details about our Top Biotechnology College in Delhi NCR.

The faculty at  IAMR is made up of eminent academics, scientists, and business professionals who mentor students. Modern labs and research facilities at the university give students practical experience, encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

Furthermore, Top Biotechnology College  advantageous location in Delhi NCR expands its industry exposure and internship opportunities, which helps students integrate easily into the biotechnology industry.

Please get in touch with us right now if you would like more information about our Top Biotechnology College in Delhi NCR and how they may benefit your work. Our staff is always available to assist and identify the finest options for your unique requirements 

Visit Us:  https://www.iamr.ac.in/program/msc-biotechnology

Address: 9th Km Stone, NH-58, Delhi-Meerut Road, Ghaziabad (U.P) – 201206

The faculty at  IAMR is made up of eminent academics, scientists, and business professionals who mentor students. Modern labs and research facilities at the university give students practical experience, encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

Furthermore, Top Biotechnology College  advantageous location in Delhi NCR expands its industry exposure and internship opportunities, which helps students integrate easily into the biotechnology industry. 

Visit Us: https://www.iamr.ac.in/program/msc-biotechnology

Address: 9th Km Stone, NH-58, Delhi-Meerut Road, Ghaziabad (U.P) – 201206

[beneathashadytree]

My finals are done and this semester officially ended. I'm an incoming 5th year Dentistry Student now, and about to have patients and comprehensive cases. Periodontics exams were relatively easy, surprisingly. Anesthesiology exams fucked my brain up because my professor literally mixed everything up about the injection techniques about their areas of insertion, the path of insertion, landmarks, and such, and we have to match them up. That was hell. It was confusing.

Endodontics practical exams was time pressured since we were tasked to obturate a root canal in an hour, plus you can't talk with anyone during exams, or glance their way or you'll get deduction. Prosthodontics was fun, setting up the complete denture artificial teeth and festooning, though, it was also stressful since it was time pressured (in their defense, they said it was a practice for board exams).

I'm practically geeking out because it's a bit rare to see someone taking up Dentistry as well. I hope your exams are doing well, and I hope you're doing well, as well.

Have a great day, Maya.🩵

(I'm not sure if you already have the 🌊 anon, but if you don't, then I'll be it.)

- 🌊

Oh nonnie, geek out as much as you want!! The dentistry student experience is… definitely something (beating the college board up with a stick in my head rn🙏🏽)

Our curricula are divided a little differently I see. We start working on patients during our 3rd/4th year onwards, since we’ve got one of the biggest dental hospitals in the entire region. It’s almost-free healthcare, so I’m honestly happy to be doing something for the community.

I’m so happy that your Perio exam was all good!! Compared to Endo (which has an INSANE time limit, considering that we have to obturate RCs in less than 25 minutes), it’s honestly a whole lot better in my opinion. And GOD, how I LOATHE matching exams, they’re too confusing and the answers are always too similar. We don’t get to take anesthesiology as a separate subject, but we take it scattered all over different subjects (like head & neck anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology) and then we’re good to go.

I actually really liked that Prosthodontics exam you mentioned!! Setting up teeth’s my favorite part cause it turns out SO aesthetically pleasing in the end. We did both arches within 1 hr 30 min, which was actually quite a lot of time, considering that they normally used to give 45 min-1hr long exams.

I’m just happy to hear that you’re done with all those and can finally rest up. It’s pretty exhausting, having to juggle both theoretical and practical exams, but you’ve already made it!! I’m proud of you🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

I’m currently studying for my upcoming Conservative exam, and it’s HELL… because why the fuck do I have to study 500 pages of material…? I’m drained from just staring at the pages all day long😭😭😭

Anyways, thank you for sharing your experiences with me!! And of course, you can take that emoji as yours now!!

[discoverybody]

Understanding Stage 2 Hypertension Made Easy

Stage 2 hypertension, often known as high blood pressure, is a severe type of the disease marked by continuously higher readings above 140/90 mmHg. It could have serious consequences for your health and should not be overlooked. Lifestyle factors such as poor eating habits, inactivity, excessive alcohol consumption, and smoking can all contribute to the development of stage 2 hypertension. Additionally, genetics, age, and underlying medical disorders like as renal disease and diabetes can all raise the risk.

One of the most difficult elements of stage 2 hypertension is that it frequently produces no visible symptoms, particularly in its early stages. However, when the disease worsens, people may have severe headaches, shortness of breath, chest pain, exhaustion, and weakness. If left untreated, stage 2 hypertension can result in major complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney damage, and visual issues.

To accurately diagnose stage 2 hypertension, see a healthcare expert who will conduct a complete evaluation. This often includes taking your blood pressure using a cuff and stethoscope or an automated machine, reviewing your medical history and lifestyle choices, and performing other tests as needed.

Managing stage 2 hypertension entails a combination of lifestyle adjustments and pharmacological therapies. These may include eating a nutritious diet, exercising regularly, lowering stress, stopping smoking, limiting alcohol use, taking prescribed medications, and seeing your doctor on a regular basis.

[timeclonemike]

Alchemy in the Wikke Archipelago

As Above, So Below: Like all magical practices in the islands, Alchemy is based around the study and use of cycles of energy and activity, specifically cycles that correspond with the passage of astral bodies through the sky. Nobody can argue that the activity of the sun has a defining influence on life, and the passage of the moon marks the tides; so it is also with the other planets even if their influence is more subtle in comparison. Rationalists are still attempting to isolate the exact mechanism by which astral bodies exert their influence on the world and everything in it, usually by reverse engineering the processes by which Elixirs and other Alchemical substances are made; light is obviously part of it, but there is definitely something else in play. (Great Works are accomplished less often, and with greater effort, meaning opportunities to study the involved processes are similarly scarce and difficult.)

Light, Sound, And Substance: Alchemical manuscripts often speak of attributes such as Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt, that do not necessarily correspond to the chemical substances of the same name. This has resulted in more than a few self taught or apprentice alchemists poisoning themselves, and the linguistic confusion alone has driven a wedge been Alchemists and non-magical chemists. Alchemists that have the benefit of an entire Society to maintain continuity of knowledge (and set proper safety standards for apprenticeships) understand that these terms are archaic definitions from proto-alchemy and proto-chemistry that stand for whole classes of properties instead; Salt represents the solidity of physical mass, Mercury stands for physical motion or mechanically measured energy, and Sulfur for heat, light, and electromagnetic energy. Learning how and under what conditions these properties can become interchangeable is the stereotypical pursuit of alchemists, but in practice learning the ins and outs of transmutation is only the first step in a long journey - and it involves so much mathematical calculation that the less devoted apprentices who want to make gold as a get rich quick scheme are filtered out very early.

Water Treatment: The body is between two thirds and three quarters water, depending on what medical authority is being used as a reference, and maintaining this balance is vital for all known vital processes. Water is also a relatively abundant substance in and around the islands (if not always fresh and drinkable) meaning it is and has been cheap and easy to experiment with magically. It has been argued that Alchemy originally started as a practice when water was discovered to be such a potent reservoir for magical energy; others argue that true Alchemy didn't begin until it was merged with Astronomy and the study of the heavens, but however it started, Alchemy boils down (pun intended) to collecting energy in water so that whoever or whatever drinks it gains the benefits (or drawbacks) of said energy. This was done earliest with plant life and herbs, harnessing existing cycles in plant growth throughout the seasons, though purely medical herbalism evolved independently of Alchemy and eventually lead to non-magical pharmacology. Later refinements involved complicated chemical processes done under auspicious astrological events, which were both more effective and more dangerous due to the risk of heavy metal poisoning.

Star Power: The most recent development in Alchemy involved the creation of the Alchemical Orrery, a miniaturized model of the solar system that replaced the planets with a set of mirrors made of their corresponding astrological and alchemical materials; gold, silver, tin, etc. Not every material is easily rendered reflective, and mercury being a liquid must be suspended in a carefully created hollow glass lens in order to maintain the proper shape, but the end result exploits the principle of As Above, So Below by recreating the same astrological influences on a smaller scale. The practical upside is that the Alchemical Society in particular, who could afford to build many such mechanisms and had the people to operate them around the clock, has become quite economically powerful; Elixirs and other substances that once took weeks or months to prepare in small batches can now be cranked out in bulk on a daily basis.

Skilled Trades: While the Orreries have drastically reduced the time scale needed for many things created with alchemy, this does come at a price. Part of that price is reduced efficacy; the mirrors capture less sunlight / moonlight / starlight compared to exposure to the actual Astral bodies they represent, and while the optics have been refined over many years and experiments the mass produced stuff still isn't as potent as the bespoke stuff. The other drawback is that operating an Orrery correctly requires the same knowledge of interacting forces that more traditional alchemy does, with the added burden of being able to make very precise calculations and adjustments to the mirrors and lenses, otherwise the astral influence will be dissipated or diffracted rather than concentrated. So the modern Alchemist has to be an accomplished herbalist, chemist, metallurgist, mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer like their predecessor, while also adding mechanic and precision tool-making machinist to the mix.

The Great Work: For the particularly visionary, stubborn, inspired, and insane Alchemist, there is also the ever-present temptation of the Great Work. This multi-stage process gradually transforms the body of the Alchemist into an idealized state, banishing weakness and illness and leaving only strength and grace and clarity. Like so many things in life, it is easier said than done, as the ritual preparations for each stage are increasingly complex and demanding, and the margin of error for failure shrinks dramatically the closer an Alchemist gets to perfection. (Which makes sense if you think about it.) The process depends on the body being present at certain locations where astral energy is exceptionally potent, during planetary conjunctions that either amplify or diminish a given astral influence. There are many different ways to pursue the Great Work, but importantly, they are mutually exclusive; an alchemist can start with any number of conjunctions or eclipses or alignments but each one is only compatible with certain combinations of events going forward, and each of THOSE available events leads to a smaller number of future events. Trying to use an incompatible time or place to progress the work invariably leaves the Alchemist with too much of one influence, not enough of another, or some combination of mutually antagonist forces in their body with no mitigating third element. None of these outcomes are pleasant or healthy, with the exact degree of each depending on how far the Great Work has progressed.

Quitting While You're Ahead: For those unable or unwilling to attempt the full Great Work, there are various points to stop along the way, known appropriately enough as Lesser Works. These enhance the body, senses, and mind, push back the aging process a fair bit, and also add a fair amount of social standing too. The established theory states that the third step of the Great Work is the last step before the point of no return; beyond that point, the simple passage of the seasons and the planets in their courses can incapacitate or kill an Alchemist as their body still tries to reconcile all of the different forces running around inside it. By way of comparison, missing a conjunction for a stage two ritual progression will leave the Alchemist moody and irritable and in ill health for a few days to a week surrounding it, while missing the stage three ritual can leave an Alchemist bedridden for a day or two, and it only gets worse from there. Nobody knows for sure what happens if somebody misses the final stage ritual, but fragmentary texts (as in, the texts were blown up into fragments) point to widespread destruction of some form or another.