Determinants of neonatal mortality in rural India, 2007-2008.

Background. Despite the growing share of neonatal mortality in under-5 mortality in the recent decades in India, most studies have focused on infant and child mortality putting neonatal mortality on the back seat. The development of focused and evidence-based health interventions to reduce neonatal mortality warrants an examination of factors affecting it. Therefore, this study attempt to examine individual, household, and community level factors affecting neonatal mortality in rural India.Data and methods. We analysed information on 171,529 singleton live births using the data from the most recent round of the District Level Household Survey conducted in 2007–08. Principal component analysis was used to create an asset index. Two-level logistic regression was performed to analyse the factors associated with neonatal deaths in rural India.Results. The odds of neonatal death were lower for neonates born to mothers with secondary level education (O R = 0.60, p = 0.01) compared to those born to illiterate mothers. A progressive reduction in the odds occurred as the level of fathers’ education increased. The odds of neonatal death were lower for infants born to unemployed mothers (O R = 0.89, p = 0.00) compared to those who worked as agricultural worker/farmer/laborer. The odds decreased if neonates belonged to Scheduled Tribes (O R = 0.72, p = 0.00) or ‘Others’ caste group (O R = 0.87, p = 0.04) and to the households with access to improved sanitation (O R = 0.87, p = 0.02), pucca house (O R = 0.87, p = 0.03) and electricity (O R = 0.84, p = 0.00). The odds were higher for male infants (O R = 1.21, p = 0.00) and whose mother experienced delivery complications (O R = 1.20, p = 0.00). Infants whose mothers received two tetanus toxoid injections (O R = 0.65, p = 0.00) were less likely to die in the neonatal period. Children of higher birth order were less likely to die compared to first birth order.Conclusion. Ensuring the consumption of an adequate quantity of Tetanus Toxoid (TT) injections by pregnant mothers, targeting vulnerable groups like young, first time and Scheduled Caste mothers, and improving overall household environment by increasing access to improved toilets, electricity, and pucca houses could also contribute to further reductions in neonatal mortality in rural India. Any public health interventions aimed at reducing neonatal death in rural India should consider these factors

Decomposing the gap in childhood undernutrition between poor and non–poor in urban India, 2005–06

Despite the growing evidence from other developing countries, intra-urban inequality in childhood undernutrition is poorly researched in India. Additionally, the factors contributing to the poor/non-poor gap in childhood undernutrition have not been explored. This study aims to quantify the contribution of factors that explain the poor/non-poor gap in underweight, stunting, and wasting among children aged less than five years in urban India.We used cross-sectional data from the third round of the National Family Health Survey conducted during 2005-06. Descriptive statistics were used to understand the gap in childhood undernutrition between the urban poor and non-poor, and across the selected covariates. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique was used to explain the factors contributing to the average gap in undernutrition between poor and non-poor children in urban India.Considerable proportions of urban children were found to be underweight (33%), stunted (40%), and wasted (17%) in 2005-06. The undernutrition gap between the poor and non-poor was stark in urban India. For all the three indicators, the main contributing factors were underutilization of health care services, poor body mass index of the mothers, and lower level of parental education among those living in poverty.The findings indicate that children belonging to poor households are undernourished due to limited use of health care services, poor health of mothers, and poor educational status of their parents. Based on the findings the study suggests that improving the public services such as basic health care and the education level of the mothers among urban poor can ameliorate the negative impact of poverty on childhood undernutrition

Blood pressure response to Cold Pressor Test in the children of hypertensives

Two hundred student volunteers of 16-24 yrs were divided into two groups of 100 each, as children of hypertensive and children of normotensive parents. It was observed that there was no difference in resting SBP and DBP in both groups before CPT. After CPT, significant higher values of SBP after immersion, DBP after immersion, difference of SBP and difference of DBP were observed in children of hypertensive parents as compared to children of normotensive parents. This study can be used as a predictor of future development of hypertension for which early preventive measures can be taken to reduce the morbidity and mortality due to hypertensive complications

Hypergroup Deformations of Semigroups

We view the well-known example of the dual of a countable compact hypergroup, motivated by the orbit space of p-adic integers by Dunkl and Ramirez (1975), as hypergroup deformation of the max semigroup structure on the linearly ordered set $\mathbb{Z}_+$ of the non-negative integers along the diagonal. This works as motivation for us to study hypergroups or semi convolution spaces arising from "max" semigroups or general commutative semigroups via hypergroup deformation on idempotents.Comment: 28 pages, 1 Table, This version is a truncated version with fourth section deleted from version 3, which is being developed into a separate paper. The title and abstract have been changed accordingl

Spin-charge and spin-orbital coupling effects on spin dynamics in ferromagnetic manganites

Correlation-induced spin-charge and spin-orbital coupling effects on spin dynamics in ferromagnetic manganites are calculated with realistic parameters in order to provide a quantitative comparison with experimental results for spin stiffness, magnon dispersion, magnon damping, anomalous zone-boundary magnon softening, and Curie temperature. The role of orbital degeneracy, orbital ordering, and orbital correlations on spin dynamics in different doping regimes is highlighted.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Correlations and Event-by-Event Fluctuations in High Multiplicity Events Produced in 208^{208}Pb-208^{208}Pb Collisions

Analysis of high multiplicity events produced in 158A GeV/c $^{208}$Pb-$^{208}$Pb collisions is carried out to study the event-by-event fluctuations. The findings reveal that the method of scaled factorial moments can be used to identify the events having densely populated narrow phase space bins. A few events sorted out adopting this approach are individually analyzed. It is observed that these events do exhibit large fluctuations in their pseudorapidity, $\eta$ and azimuthal angle, $\phi$ distributions arising out due to some dynamical reasons. Two particle $\Delta\eta$-$\Delta\phi$ correlation study applied to these events too indicates that some complex two-dimensional structure of significantly high magnitude are present in these events which might have some dynamical origin. The findings reveal that the method of scaled factorial moments may be used as an effective triggering for events with large dynamical fluctuations.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures (Accepted for publication in Advances in High Energy Physics

Inheritance pattern of genes for morpho-physiological and yield traits in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

In order to study the inheritance pattern of morpho-physiological traits in bread wheat, a 10×10 diallel cross, excluding reciprocals was made and grown in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Observations were recorded on Days to 75% flowering (DF), Days to maturity (DM), Duration of reproductive phase (DRP), Plant height (cm) (PH), Effective tiller/plant (TLS), No. of spikelets per spike (SLS), No. of grains per spike (GS), Grain weight per spike (g) (GW), Spike length (cm) (SL), Biological yield per plant (g) (BY), Harvest index (%) (HI), 1000-Grain weight (g) (TGW), Spike density (SD), Canopy temperature depression (°C) (CTD), Chlorophyll intensity (%) (CI), Chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv/Fm) (CF), Protein content (%) (PC), Grain yield per plant (g) (GY). Highly significant differences were observed among the genotypes for all traits. The resulted 45 F1s and their F2s used for study the nature of gene for grain yield and its contributing traits in bread wheat. The result indicated that considerable gene action and average degree of dominance respond to achieving significant result for grain yield and its component traits. In both the generations F1s and F2s, grain yield per plant (g) was governed by non-additive gene action based on combining ability analysis, (σ2 g/σ2 s)0.5 [GCA and SCA variance ratio] and (H1/D)0.5 [Degree of dominance] were exhibited over dominance type average degree of dominance for grain yield and its component traits in both generations. Genetic analyses of the traits confirm the involvement of both additive and non-additive gene effects in governing the inheritance