Health improvement for disadvantaged people in Nepal – an evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An evaluation of progress with participatory approaches for improvement of health knowledge and health experiences of disadvantaged people in eight Districts of Eastern Nepal has been undertaken.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A random selection of Village Development Committees and households, within the eight Districts where participation and a Rights-based Approach had been promoted specifically by local NGOs were compared with similar villages and households in eight Districts where this approach had not been promoted. Information was sought by structured interview and observation by experienced enumerators from both groups of householders. Health knowledge and experiences were compared between the two sets of households. Adjustments were made for demographic confounders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Complete data sets were available for 628 of the 640 households. Health knowledge and experiences were low for both sets of households. However, health knowledge and experiences were greater in the participatory households compared with the non-participatory households. These differences remained after adjustment for confounders.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study was designed to evaluate progress with participatory processes delivered by non-governmental organisations over a five year period. Improvements in health knowledge and experiences of disadvantaged people were demonstrated in a consistent and robust manner where interventions had taken place.</p

Monitoring the Seed-Mediated Growth of Gold Nanoparticles Using in Situ Second Harmonic Generation and Extinction Spectroscopy

© 2018 American Chemical Society. In situ second harmonic generation (SHG) coupled with extinction spectroscopy is used for real-time monitoring of seed-mediated growth dynamics of colloidal citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles in water. The time-dependent in situ SHG results capture an early stage of the growth process where a large enhancement in the SHG signal is observed, which is attributed to the formation of plasmonic hot spots from a rough and uneven nanoparticle surface. The temporal peak in the SHG signal is followed by a decay that is fit to an exponential function to characterize the size-dependent nanoparticle growth lifetime, which varies from 0.45 to 1.7 min for final nanoparticle sizes of 66 and 94 nm, respectively. This early growth stage also corresponds to a broadening of the plasmon spectra, as monitored using time-dependent in situ extinction spectroscopy. Over the course of the seed-mediated growth reaction, the nanoparticle becomes more thermodynamically stable through surface reconstruction resulting in a smoother, more uniform surface, corresponding to lower, stable SHG signals and narrower plasmon spectra. With real-time monitoring of nanoparticle formation, in situ SHG spectroscopy combined with in situ extinction spectroscopy provides an important insight for controlling nanoparticle synthesis and surface morphology for potential nanoscale engineering of different colloidal nanomaterials

Complete Genome Sequences of Seven EA Cluster Microbacteriophages, Bustleton, MillyPhilly, Riyhil, Phriends, Pherbot, PrincePhergus, and TinSulphur

Seven EA cluster microbacteriophages were isolated from soil collected around Philadelphia, PA, using the bacterial host Microbacterium foliorum All of these phages have a highly conserved genome with regions of diversity localized to the 3' end. In phage Phriends (EA1 cluster), this region contains an orpham gene with no known function.</p

Health improvement for disadvantaged people in Nepal – an evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An evaluation of progress with participatory approaches for improvement of health knowledge and health experiences of disadvantaged people in eight Districts of Eastern Nepal has been undertaken.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A random selection of Village Development Committees and households, within the eight Districts where participation and a Rights-based Approach had been promoted specifically by local NGOs were compared with similar villages and households in eight Districts where this approach had not been promoted. Information was sought by structured interview and observation by experienced enumerators from both groups of householders. Health knowledge and experiences were compared between the two sets of households. Adjustments were made for demographic confounders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Complete data sets were available for 628 of the 640 households. Health knowledge and experiences were low for both sets of households. However, health knowledge and experiences were greater in the participatory households compared with the non-participatory households. These differences remained after adjustment for confounders.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study was designed to evaluate progress with participatory processes delivered by non-governmental organisations over a five year period. Improvements in health knowledge and experiences of disadvantaged people were demonstrated in a consistent and robust manner where interventions had taken place.</p

Bimetallic nanoparticles for biomedical applications: a review

Bimetallic nanoparticles, or BMNPs, are nanosized structures that are of growing interest in biomedical applications. Although their production shares aspects with physicochemical approaches for the synthesis of their monometallic counterparts, they can show a large variety of new properties and applications as a consequence of the synergetic effect between the two components. These applications can be as diverse as antibacterial treatments or anticancer or biological imaging approaches, as well as drug delivery. Nevertheless, utilization of BMNPs in such fields has received limited attention because of the severe lack of knowledge and concerns regarding the use of other nanomaterials, such as stability and biodegradability over time, tendency to form clusters, chemical reactivity, and biocompatibility. In this review, a close look at bimetallic systems is presented, focusing on their biomedical applications as antibacterial, anticancer, drug delivery, and imaging agents, showing significant enhancement of their features compared to their monometallic counterparts and other current used nanomaterials for biomedical applications.Peer reviewe