Effects of B vitamins on protein utilization from rice-legume dietaries by the growing rat

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Geomorphology and surficial geology of the Western continental shelf and upper slope of India: a review

The geomorphology and geology of the western con­tinental margin of India have become better known only after the International Indian Ocean Expedition (1962-1965). The continental shelf of western India is wide off the river mouths, becoming narrower south-eastwards and narrowest on the SW margin. Shelf break occurs at depths between 60 and 150 m. The Fifty Fathom Flat is a prominent feature on the outer shelf. Submarine terraces at depths between 35 and 170 m and shelf edge reefs are also present along the margin. Coastal geology and geomorphology of the area and nearshore currents played a significant role in the distribution of placer minerals off Kerala and Maharashtra. Transport and sedimentation of fine­ grained materials at places on the shelf are influ­enced by high-energy conditions. Clay minerals de­ rived from the Indus, Deccan Trap basalt and Gneissic provinces are distinct along the inner shelf, but bypassed the outer shelf and got deposited on the continental slope. Relict biogenic carbonates com­ prising Halimeda litho-facies, rhodalgal-coral facies and molechfer facies, occur in the northern, central and southwestern shelf, respectively. Terrestrial limestones described as palaeo-shoreline indicators occur at mid-shelf. Several evidences exist in favour of Late Quaternary neotectonic activity and subsidence. Phosphorites and phosphatized limestones occur on the shelf and slope and phosphatization seems to be a short event in the Early Holocene. Verdine and Glau­cony facies occur on the shelf and slope of the central and southwestern margin of India. Systematic sampling/radiocarbon dating is lacking on many geomorphic features. Some coastal bays in Maharashtra are least explored for heavy minerals. Phosphorites at places could prove economic, if de­tailed exploration is done. Several gaps exist in the data on sea level changes during the Late Quater­nary. Shelf edge exchange processes are to be studied in understanding the organic carbon distribution. Attention should be directed in solving the problems highlighted

Working practices and incomes of health workers : evidence from an evaluation of a delivery fee exemption scheme in Ghana

Background: This article describes a survey of health workers and traditional birth attendants (TBAs) which was carried out in 2005 in two regions of Ghana. The objective of the survey was to ascertain the impact of the introduction of a delivery fee exemption scheme on both health workers and those providers who were excluded from the scheme (TBAs). This formed part of an overall evaluation of the delivery fee exemption scheme. The results shed light not only on the scheme itself but also on the general productivity of a range of health workers in Ghana. Methods: A structured questionnaire was developed, covering individual and household characteristics, working hours and practices, sources of income, and views of the exemptions scheme and general motivation. After field testing, this was administered to 374 respondents in 12 districts of Central and Volta regions. The respondents included doctors, medical assistants (MAs), public and private midwives, nurses, community health nurses (CHNs), and traditional birth attendants, both trained and untrained. Results: Health workers were well informed about the delivery fee exemptions scheme and their responses on its impact suggest a realistic view that it was a good scheme, but one that faces serious challenges regarding financial sustainability. Concerning its impact on their morale and working conditions, the responses were broadly neutral. Most public sector workers have seen an increased workload, but counterbalanced by increased pay. TBAs have suffered, in terms of client numbers and income, while the picture for private midwives is mixed. The survey also sheds light on pay and productivity. The respondents report long working hours, with a mean of 54 hours per week for community nurses and up to 129 hours per week for MAs. Weekly reported client loads in the public sector range from a mean of 86 for nurses to 269 for doctors. Over the past two years, reported working hours have been increasing, but so have pay and allowances (for doctors, allowances now make up 66% of their total pay). The lowest paid public health worker now earns almost ten times the average gross national income (GNI) per capita, while the doctors earn 38.5 times GNI per capita. This compares well with average government pay of four times GNI per capita. Comparing pay with outputs, the relatively high number of clients reported by doctors reduces their pay differential, so that the cost per client – $1.09 – is similar to a nurse's (and lower than a private midwife's). Conclusion: These findings show that a scheme which increases demand for public health services while also sustaining health worker income and morale, is workable, if well managed, even within the relatively constrained human resources environment of countries like Ghana. This may be linked to the fact that internal comparisons reveal Ghana's health workers to be well paid from public sector sources.This work was undertaken as part of an international research programme – IMMPACT (Initiative for Maternal Mortality Programme Assessment) – funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department for International Development, the European Commission and USAID

Implementing Eccentric Resistance Training—Part 1: A Brief Review of Existing Methods

The purpose of this review was to provide a physiological rationale for the use of eccentric resistance training and to provide an overview of the most commonly prescribed eccentric training methods. Based on the existing literature, there is a strong physiological rationale for the incorporation of eccentric training into a training program for an individual seeking to maximize muscle size, strength, and power. Specific adaptations may include an increase in muscle cross-sectional area, force output, and fiber shortening velocities, all of which have the potential to benefit power production characteristics. Tempo eccentric training, flywheel inertial training, accentuated eccentric loading, and plyometric training are commonly implemented in applied contexts. These methods tend to involve different force absorption characteristics and thus, overload the muscle or musculotendinous unit in different ways during lengthening actions. For this reason, they may produce different magnitudes of improvement in hypertrophy, strength, and power. The constraints to which they are implemented can have a marked effect on the characteristics of force absorption and therefore, could affect the nature of the adaptive response. However, the versatility of the constraints when prescribing these methods mean that they can be effectively implemented to induce these adaptations within a variety of populations

Implementing eccentric resistance training—part 1: A brief review of existing methods

The purpose of this review was to provide a physiological rationale for the use of eccentric resistance training and to provide an overview of the most commonly prescribed eccentric training methods. Based on the existing literature, there is a strong physiological rationale for the incorporation of eccentric training into a training program for an individual seeking to maximize muscle size, strength, and power. Specific adaptations may include an increase in muscle cross-sectional area, force output, and fiber shortening velocities, all of which have the potential to benefit power production characteristics. Tempo eccentric training, flywheel inertial training, accentuated eccentric loading, and plyometric training are commonly implemented in applied contexts. These methods tend to involve different force absorption characteristics and thus, overload the muscle or musculotendinous unit in different ways during lengthening actions. For this reason, they may produce different magnitudes of improvement in hypertrophy, strength, and power. The constraints to which they are implemented can have a marked effect on the characteristics of force absorption and therefore, could affect the nature of the adaptive response. However, the versatility of the constraints when prescribing these methods mean that they can be effectively implemented to induce these adaptations within a variety of populations

Implementing Eccentric Resistance Training—Part 1: A Brief Review of Existing Methods

The purpose of this review was to provide a physiological rationale for the use of eccentric resistance training and to provide an overview of the most commonly prescribed eccentric training methods. Based on the existing literature, there is a strong physiological rationale for the incorporation of eccentric training into a training program for an individual seeking to maximize muscle size, strength, and power. Specific adaptations may include an increase in muscle cross-sectional area, force output, and fiber shortening velocities, all of which have the potential to benefit power production characteristics. Tempo eccentric training, flywheel inertial training, accentuated eccentric loading, and plyometric training are commonly implemented in applied contexts. These methods tend to involve different force absorption characteristics and thus, overload the muscle or musculotendinous unit in different ways during lengthening actions. For this reason, they may produce different magnitudes of improvement in hypertrophy, strength, and power. The constraints to which they are implemented can have a marked effect on the characteristics of force absorption and therefore, could affect the nature of the adaptive response. However, the versatility of the constraints when prescribing these methods mean that they can be effectively implemented to induce these adaptations within a variety of populations

Exploration of mycorrhizal fungi as potential biofertilizer in the management of plant biotic and abiotic stresses

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are fungi found in the soil and it can significantly enhance plant nutrient uptake and increase resistance to various environmental stresses. Arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis is the most common non-pathogenic symbiosis in the soil and is found in 80% of vascular plant roots. Most of AM fungi species belong to the sub-phylum Glomeromycotina within the phylum Mucoromycota. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi not only enhance the phosphorus supply to plants but also boost the absorption of zinc, copper, nitrogen and iron. AM fungi limit the uptake of Na and Cl. AM fungal hyphae make significant contributions in enhancing soil structure and its ability to retain water. Additionally, these fungi demonstrate resilience against certain root diseases and display a tolerance to drought conditions. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi serve as crucial endosymbionts, playing a significant role in enhancing plant productivity and contributing to the overall functioning of ecosystems. Their importance is paramount in the context of sustainable crop enhancement

Building user-defined runtime adaptation routines for stream processing applications

Stream processing applications are deployed as continuous queries that run from the time of their submission until their cancellation. This deployment mode limits developers who need their applications to perform runtime adaptation, such as algorithmic adjustments, incremental job deployment, and application-specific failure recovery. Currently, developers do runtime adaptation by using external scripts and/or by inserting operators into the stream processing graph that are unrelated to the data processing logic. In this paper, we describe a component called orchestrator that allows users to write routines for automatically adapting the application to runtime conditions. Developers build an orchestrator by registering and handling events as well as specifying actuations. Events can be generated due to changes in the system state (e.g., application component failures), built-in system metrics (e.g., throughput of a connection), or custom application metrics (e.g., quality score). Once the orchestrator receives an event, users can take adaptation actions by using the orchestrator actuation APIs. We demonstrate the use of the orchestrator in IBM's System S in the context of three different applications, illustrating application adaptation to changes on the incoming data distribution, to application failures, and on-demand dynamic composition. © 2012 VLDB Endowment

Anxiety and depression among people living in quarantine centers during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed method study from western Nepal

Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, incoming travelers were quarantined at specific centers in Nepal and major checkpoints in Nepal-India border. Nepal adopted a generic public health approaches to control and quarantine returnee migrants, with little attention towards the quality of quarantine facilities and its aftermath, such as the poor mental health of the returnee migrants. The main objective of this study was to explore the status of anxiety and depression, and factors affecting them among returnee migrants living in institutional quarantine centers of western Nepal. Methods A mixed method approach in this study included a quantitative survey and in-depth interviews (IDIs) among respondents in quarantine centers of Karnali province between 21st April and 15th May 2020. Survey questionnaire utilized Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) tools, which were administered among 441 quarantined returnee migrants. IDIs were conducted among 12 participants which included a mix of six quarantined migrants and healthcare workers each from the quarantine centres. Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted on quantitative data; and thematic analysis was utilized for qualitative data. Results Mild depression (9.1%; 40/441) and anxiety (16.1%; 71/441) was common among respondents followed by moderate depression and anxiety {depression (3.4%; 15/441), anxiety (4.1%; 18/441)} and severe depression and anxiety {depression (1.1%; 5/441), anxiety (0.7%; 3/441)}. Anxiety and depression were independent of their socio-demographic characteristics. Perceived fear of contracting COVID-19, severity and death were prominent among the respondents. Respondents experienced stigma and discrimination in addition to being at the risk of disease and possible loss of employment and financial responsibilities. In addition, poor (quality and access to) health services, and poor living condition at the quarantine centres adversely affected respondents’ mental health. Conclusion Depression and anxiety were high among quarantined population and warrants more research. Institutional quarantine centers of Karnali province of Nepal were in poor conditions which adversely impacted mental health of the respondents. Poor resource allocation for health, hygiene and living conditions can be counterproductive to the population quarantined

Comparison of the Relationship between Lying and Standing Ultrasonography Measures of Muscle Morphology with Isometric and Dynamic Force Production Capabilities

The purpose of the current study was (1) to examine the differences between standing and lying measures of vastus lateralis (VL), muscle thickness (MT), pennation angle (PA), and cross-sectional area (CSA) using ultrasonography; and (2) to explore the relationships between lying and standing measures with isometric and dynamic assessments of force production—specifically peak force, rate of force development (RFD), impulse, and one-repetition maximum back squat. Fourteen resistance-trained subjects (age = 26.8 ± 4.0 years, height = 181.4 ± 6.0 cm, body mass = 89.8 ± 10.7 kg, back squat to body mass ratio = 1.84 ± 0.34) agreed to participate. Lying and standing ultrasonography images of the right VL were collected following 48 hours of rest. Isometric squat assessments followed ultrasonography, and were performed on force platforms with data used to determine isometric peak force (IPF), as well as RFD and impulse at various time points. Forty-eight hours later, one-repetition maximum back squats were performed by each subject. Paired-samples t-tests revealed statistically significant differences between standing and lying measurements of MT (p \u3c 0.001), PA (p \u3c 0.001), and CSA (p ≤ 0.05), with standing values larger in all cases. Further, standing measures were correlated more strongly and abundantly to isometric and dynamic performance. These results suggest that if practitioners intend to gain insight into strength-power potential based on ultrasonography measurements, performing the measurement collection with the athlete in a standing posture may be preferred