Knowledge, attitude, and perception of adolescents regarding reproductive health and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in Rajasthan

Background: The studies are required to better understand the needs of adolescents and to help policy makers to develop appropriateneed-based adolescent reproductive health programs. Objectives: The objective was to assess the awareness among adolescentsregarding various reproductive health issues and to assess their attitude and perceptions regarding reproductive health and humanimmunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Design: Community-based cross-sectional descriptivestudy. Participants: 423 adolescents of 11-19 years age group in two rural (219 students) and two urban (204 students) schools.Methodology: The survey used was a 4-part, 52-item self-administered questionnaire eliciting information on knowledge regardingreproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Result: Awareness of all reproductive health matters was suboptimum. Awareness was more inurban adolescents than in rural and in late teens than earlier teens. Overall, majority were aware of legal age of marriage (79%), twochild family norm (90%), and birth spacing, disadvantages of early marriage, disfavor female feticide, and felt need for sex education(91%). Condoms were the most commonly known method of contraception among boys (80.15%) and oral pills among girls (60.24%).AIDS was the most well-known sexually transmitted disease (93.38%). Conclusion: Lacunae in awareness of all reproductive healthmatters suggests that young people’s sexual and reproductive health issues need to be further addressed and explored in order to promotesafer and responsible sexual behavior

1-d gravity in infinite point distributions

The dynamics of infinite, asymptotically uniform, distributions of self-gravitating particles in one spatial dimension provides a simple toy model for the analogous three dimensional problem. We focus here on a limitation of such models as treated so far in the literature: the force, as it has been specified, is well defined in infinite point distributions only if there is a centre of symmetry (i.e. the definition requires explicitly the breaking of statistical translational invariance). The problem arises because naive background subtraction (due to expansion, or by "Jeans' swindle" for the static case), applied as in three dimensions, leaves an unregulated contribution to the force due to surface mass fluctuations. Following a discussion by Kiessling, we show that the problem may be resolved by defining the force in infinite point distributions as the limit of an exponentially screened pair interaction. We show that this prescription gives a well defined (finite) force acting on particles in a class of perturbed infinite lattices, which are the point processes relevant to cosmological N-body simulations. For identical particles the dynamics of the simplest toy model is equivalent to that of an infinite set of points with inverted harmonic oscillator potentials which bounce elastically when they collide. We discuss previous results in the literature, and present new results for the specific case of this simplest (static) model starting from "shuffled lattice" initial conditions. These show qualitative properties (notably its "self-similarity") of the evolution very similar to those in the analogous simulations in three dimensions, which in turn resemble those in the expanding universe.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, small changes (section II shortened, added discussion in section IV), matches final version to appear in PR

Observational constraints on low redshift evolution of dark energy: How consistent are different observations?

The dark energy component of the universe is often interpreted either in terms of a cosmological constant or as a scalar field. A generic feature of the scalar field models is that the equation of state parameter w= P/rho for the dark energy need not satisfy w=-1 and, in general, it can be a function of time. Using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method we perform a critical analysis of the cosmological parameter space, allowing for a varying w. We use constraints on w(z) from the observations of high redshift supernovae (SN), the WMAP observations of CMB anisotropies and abundance of rich clusters of galaxies. For models with a constant w, the LCDM model is allowed with a probability of about 6% by the SN observations while it is allowed with a probability of 98.9% by WMAP observations. The LCDM model is allowed even within the context of models with variable w: WMAP observations allow it with a probability of 99.1% whereas SN data allows it with 23% probability. The SN data, on its own, favors phantom like equation of state (w<-1) and high values for Omega_NR. It does not distinguish between constant w (with w<-1) models and those with varying w(z) in a statistically significant manner. The SN data allows a very wide range for variation of dark energy density, e.g., a variation by factor ten in the dark energy density between z=0 and z=1 is allowed at 95% confidence level. WMAP observations provide a better constraint and the corresponding allowed variation is less than a factor of three. Allowing for variation in w has an impact on the values for other cosmological parameters in that the allowed range often becomes larger. (Abridged)Comment: 21 pages, PRD format (Revtex 4), postscript figures. minor corrections to improve clarity; references, acknowledgement adde

Liver function profile in thalassemic children receiving multiple blood transfusions

Background: Hepatic dysfunction is a frequent manifestation in thalassemic patients receiving multiple blood transfusions (BTs) as a part of treatment. Objective: The objective of the study was to study the liver function profile in thalassemic children and its correlation with the age of initiation of transfusion therapy. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done among 32 thalassemic patients in the age group of 1–18 years visiting a tertiary care hospital regularly for BTs at the Department of Pediatrics at the tertiary hospital of North India. Liver function tests (LFTs) were done in all thalassemic patients included total bilirubin, liver enzymes (serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase [SGOT], serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase [SGPT], and alkaline phosphatase [ALP]), total protein, serum albumin, serum ferritin, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), and anti-hepatitis C virus. The age of initiation of BT was also recorded. Derangement in LFTs and correlation between the age of initiation of transfusion therapy and derangement of liver function were studied. Results: Out of 32 patients, only 7 (21.87%) had normal LFT values. A total of 17 (53.12%) had increased SGOT, 15 (46.87%) had increased SGPT, and 25 (78.12%) had increased bilirubin levels. Total protein and serum albumin were below normal in 5 (15.65%) and 3 (9.3%) patients, respectively. ALP was increased in 24 (75%) patients. Majority of the patients (43.75%) had serum ferritin between 2000 and 2999 ng/ml. Only two patients had significantly deranged LFTs. No patient was positive for HBsAg. However, we did not find a significant correlation between age of initiation of transfusion therapy and derangement of liver enzymes in these patients. Conclusion: If thalassemic patients are given properly tested blood and regular chelation therapy, liver function remains normal. Immunization against hepatitis B and testing of blood bags is recommended. It is also recommended that LFT should be done regularly at 3 months interval to detect any abnormality

Hydrogen Clouds before Reionization: a Lognormal Model Approach

We study the baryonic gas clouds (the IGM) in the universe before the reionization with the lognormal model which is shown to be dynamcially legitimate in describing the fluctuation evolution in quasilinear as well as nonlinear regimes in recent years. The probability distribution function of the mass field in the LN model is long tailed and so plays an important role in rare events, such as the formation of the first generation of baryonic objects. We calculate density and velocity distributions of the IGM at very high spatial resolutions, and simulate the distributions at resolution of 0.15 kpc from z=7 to 15 in the LCDM cosmological model. We performed a statistics of the hydrogen clouds including column densities, clumping factors, sizes, masses, and spatial number density etc. One of our goals is to identify which hydrogen clouds are going to collapse. By inspecting the mass density profile and the velocity profile of clouds, we found that the velocity outflow significantly postpones the collapsing process in less massive clouds, in spite of their masses are larger than the Jeans mass. Consequently, only massive (> 10^5 M_sun) clouds can form objects at higher redshift, and less massive (10^4-10^5) collapsed objects are formed later. For example, although the mass fraction in clouds with sizes larger than the Jeans length is already larger than 1 at z=15, there is only a tiny fraction of mass (10^{-8}) in the clouds which are collapsed at that time. If all the ionizing photons, and the 10^{-2} metallicity observed at low redshift are produced by the first 1% mass of collapsed baryonic clouds, the majority of those first generation objects would not happen until z=10.Comment: Paper in AAStex, 12 figure

Correlation between blood pressure and body mass index in 5–12-year-old children of insured population

Background: Childhood hypertension is an increasing problem all over the world; especially, in developing countries, as it has now been shown to be a precursor of adult hypertension. Objective: The objective of this study was to screen the patients presenting in the outpatient department (OPD) with minor illness for the presence of hypertension and its correlation with body mass index (BMI). Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, observational study in which 105 children between 5 and 12 years of age, who presented in pediatrics OPD of a tertiary care hospital, were screened for blood pressure (BP), height, weight, and BMI. A pro forma was designed to include parental BP, diet details, physical activity, and average daily screen time. Their demographic details including BP of parents were recorded in OPD, and lifestyle of the child reflecting on screen time, physical activity, and food habits were recorded in pro forma. The children were later categorized according to their BMI and BP centiles. Results: BP &gt;90th centile was found in 8 (7.6%) of the screened children and BP &gt;90th centile was present in 5.55% of girls and 8.6% of the boys. 27 (25.7%) children had BMI &gt;85th centile; 5 (4.7%) children had both BMI &gt;85th centile and BP &gt;90th centile; of them, three were boys and two were girls. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of routine measurements of the BP in all children presenting in OPD to screen them for hypertension

Can hyperbolic phase of Brans-Dicke field account for Dark Matter?

We show that the introduction of a hyperbolic phase for Brans-Dicke (BD) field results in a flat vacuum cosmological solution of Hubble parameter H and fractional rate of change of BD scalar field, F which asymptotically approach constant values. At late stages, hyperbolic phase of BD field behaves like dark matter

TreePM Method for Two-Dimensional Cosmological Simulations

We describe the two-dimensional TreePM method in this paper. The 2d TreePM code is an accurate and efficient technique to carry out large two-dimensional N-body simulations in cosmology. This hybrid code combines the 2d Barnes and Hut Tree method and the 2d Particle-Mesh method. We describe the splitting of force between the PM and the Tree parts. We also estimate error in force for a realistic configuration. Finally, we discuss some tests of the code.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, uses jaa.sty. To be submitted to JA