Food security, food price and income trends in Dhanusha district, Nepal between 2005 and 2011

Household food security is determined by availability, access and utilisation of food. Although the Terai is Nepal’s ‘bread basket’, the poor lack access to foods. Hence, in Dhanusha district, MIRA/UCL monitored food security and related factors between 2005‐6 and 2011 as part of prospective surveillance of households with recently delivered women

[Accepted Manuscript] Smartphone tool to collect repeated 24 h dietary recall data in Nepal.

To outline the development of a smartphone-based tool to collect thrice-repeated 24 h dietary recall data in rural Nepal, and to describe energy intakes, common errors and researchers' experiences using the tool. We designed a novel tool to collect multi-pass 24 h dietary recalls in rural Nepal by combining the use of a CommCare questionnaire on smartphones, a paper form, a QR (quick response)-coded list of foods and a photographic atlas of portion sizes. Twenty interviewers collected dietary data on three non-consecutive days per respondent, with three respondents per household. Intakes were converted into nutrients using databases on nutritional composition of foods, recipes and portion sizes. Dhanusha and Mahottari districts, Nepal. Pregnant women, their mothers-in-law and male household heads. Energy intakes assessed in 150 households; data corrections and our experiences reported from 805 households and 6765 individual recalls. Dietary intake estimates gave plausible values, with male household heads appearing to have higher energy intakes (median (25th-75th centile): 12 079 (9293-14 108) kJ/d) than female members (8979 (7234-11 042) kJ/d for pregnant women). Manual editing of data was required when interviewers mistook portions for food codes and for coding items not on the food list. Smartphones enabled quick monitoring of data and interviewer performance, but we initially faced technical challenges with CommCare forms crashing. With sufficient time dedicated to development and pre-testing, this novel smartphone-based tool provides a useful method to collect data. Future work is needed to further validate this tool and adapt it for other contexts

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Research on the Breaking and Tearing Strengths and Elongation of Automobile Seat Cover Fabrics

WOS: 000262383200006The automotive industry is a major customer of the technical textiles market. In this industry, seat covers are the most important application area of technical textiles. As the customer demands increase and competition among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) becomes more intense, the test standards for technical textiles are gradually being raised and becoming more thorough. Higher breaking and tearing strengths and breaking elongation are specifications required for advanced seat covers. It is a fact that deficiencies in these specifications have some effect on field returns (the return of failed cars to field service), raising costs and loss of confidence in the product and the producer. This paper investigates breaking and tearing strengths, and breaking elongation performances of the technical textiles used for automobile seat covers. The fabrics used in this research were supplied from seat cover fabric manufacturers who produce these fabrics for multinational automotive companies. The data obtained from the tests are evaluated statistically. The results indicate that flat woven and woven velour seat cover fabrics are the best in terms of breaking and tearing strength performances. Circular knitted automobile seat cover fabrics give the greatest elongation measures.Dokuz Eylul University Scientific Research CenterDokuz Eylul UniversityThis study is supported by Dokuz Eylul University Scientific Research Center. The test applications were done at Dokuz Eylul University Textile Engineering Laboratories. The authors wish to thank to these companies for their valuable assistance