Social gradients in self-reported health and well-being among adults aged 50 and over in Pune District, India

Background: India’s older population is projected to increase up to 96 million by 2011 with older people accounting for 18% of its population by 2051. The Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health aims to improve empirical understanding of health and well-being of older adults in developing countries. Objectives: To examine age and socio-economic changes on a range of key domains in self-reported health and well-being amongst older adults. Design: A cross-sectional survey of 5,430 adults aged 50 and over using a shortened version of the SAGE questionnaire to assess self-reported assessments (scales of 1–5) of performance, function, disability, quality of life and well-being. Self-reported responses were calibrated using anchoring vignettes in eight key domains of mobility, self-care, pain, cognition, interpersonal relationships, sleep/energy, affect, and vision. WHO Disability Assessment Schedule Index and WHO health scores were calculated to examine for associations with socio-demographic variables. Results: Disability in all domains increased with increasing age and decreasing levels of education. Females and the oldest old without a living spouse reported poorer health status and greater disability across all domains. Performance and functionality self-reports were similar across all SES quintiles. Self-reports on quality of life were not significantly influenced by socio-demographic variables. Discussion: The study provides standardised and comparable self-rated health data using anchoring vignettes in an older population. Though expectations of good health, function and performance decrease with age, self-reports of disability severity significantly increased with age, more so if female, if uneducated and living without a spouse. However, the presence or absence of spouse did not significantly alter quality of life self-reports, suggesting a possible protective effect provided by traditional joint family structures in India, where older people are social if not financial assets for their children

Genetic, environmental and stochastic factors in monozygotic twin discordance with a focus on epigenetic differences

PMCID: PMC3566971This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Atomistic characterization of the active-site solvation dynamics of a model photocatalyst

The interactions between the reactive excited state of molecular photocatalysts and surrounding solvent dictate reaction mechanisms and pathways, but are not readily accessible to conventional optical spectroscopic techniques. Here we report an investigation of the structural and solvation dynamics following excitation of a model photocatalytic molecular system [Ir-2(dimen)(4)](2+), where dimen is para-diisocyanomenthane. The time-dependent structural changes in this model photocatalyst, as well as the changes in the solvation shell structure, have been measured with ultrafast diffuse X-ray scattering and simulated with Born-Oppenheimer Molecular Dynamics. Both methods provide direct access to the solute-solvent pair distribution function, enabling the solvation dynamics around the catalytically active iridium sites to be robustly characterized. Our results provide evidence for the coordination of the iridium atoms by the acetonitrile solvent and demonstrate the viability of using diffuse X-ray scattering at free-electron laser sources for studying the dynamics of photocatalysis.1

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Not AvailableRice grain quality is the most important factor for evaluation of a variety as well as millers, consumers and farmer's point of view. It includes physico-chemical, nutritional and sensory qualities. The consumers of India and other south east Asian countries prefer medium to high amylose content (AC) rice due to their nonstickiness properties of boiled rice but in many Asian countries, waxy rice (having low AC) mainly preferred. The colour of rice grain may be white, purple, red and black; which are mainly associated with pericarp or bran layers of the whole grain. The bran contains most of the phytochemicals like oils, antioxidants, minerals, proteins, vitamins and crude fibers in higher concentration than white endosperm. Pigmented rice is generally rich in nutritional compounds as compared to white one but those are unpopular among the farmers because of many undesirable physiological and agronomic characteristics. Sensory qualities like colour, texture, pasting properties, aroma are essential for consumers as per their preference and acceptance. As rice grain is mainly composed by starch, hydrolyzed by digestive enzymes and converted into glucose which is the major energy source for various metabolic functions. After fulfilling the body energy requirement, extra calories from starch are stored as fats or glycogen for later use. Therefore, overeating food containing rice with sedentary lifestyle potentially leads to some health issues, such as type-II diabetes, obesity and colon diseases in long term particularly in Asian countries. Various biochemical factors affect the starch digestibility and Glycemic index (GI) of a food or its products. These factors are resistant starch, AC and phytic acid which lowers the starch digestibility by various ways and have been negatively correlated with GI value. Now-a-days quality assessment of rice grain in terms of its nutritional as well as physico-chemical parameters is gaining prime importance gradually.Not Availabl

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