Iodine status and its determinants in subpopulation of pregnant women in rural Central India

Background: There is an increased demand for iodine and thyroid hormones, in pregnancy starting from the early weeks of pregnancy suggesting that there may be a need for additional supplements of iodine in high risk population to prevent iodine deficiency and its associated disorders. Hence this study was undertaken to determine the iodine status and its determinants in a subpopulation of pregnant women from a rural area of Central India.Methods: A hospital based, cross-sectional, observational study was carried out among pregnant women seeking antenatal care at Kasturba Hospital of MGIMS, Sewagram, a rural tertiary care institute in central India. Information was collected about demographic variables, use of iodized salt, iodine rich food and goitrogens as part of diet and other determinants. Spot urine samples were obtained, and assessment of urine iodine concentration was done by using Sandell-Kolthoff reaction.Results: Among 250 pregnant women of first trimester, iodine deficiency (ID) was present in 11.8 %, of which 59.25% had mild deficiency, 33.33% moderate deficiency and 7.4% severe deficiency. More women with iodine deficiency were of higher age, had less formal education and belonged to lower middle and lower economic class. Higher number of women with iodine deficiency had family history of thyroid disorders compared to iodine sufficient (18.51% versus 5.58%), more iodine deficient commonly had goitrogens (cabbage, cauliflower, radish, sweet potato, soya etc) as part of their meals (77.77% versus 68.60%), lesser women with ID ate iodine rich food (fish, milk yoghurt, bread) (18.51% versus 68.60%) and fewer of them used iodized salt during food preparation (25.92% versus 69.95%) compared to iodine sufficient, with a significant difference.Conclusions: Iodine deficiency is prevalent in pregnant women in this geographic region of central India. Age, low socioeconomic status, lack of education, family history, low intake of iodized salt and iodine rich food and more consumption of goitrogenic food as part of diet are risk factors. Appropriate health education, promoting use of iodized salt, quality assurance of universal salt iodization by household survey and screening in high risk group is suggested

Sexual Violence among Married Women: Burden and Action Taken

Background: Sexual violence (SV) is a public health concern world‑wide. The present study used World Health Organization definition “SV is serious public health human rights problem with short‑ and long‑term consequences on women’s physical, mental, sexual, reproductive health. Whether SV occurs in context of intimate partnership, within larger family or community structure, or during times of conflict, it is deeply violating painful experience for survivor.” Aim: The present study was aimed to look into magnitude of SV among married women. Subjects and Methods: It was cross‑sectional study conducted in Rural Institution of Central India. The study subjects were married women, who reported to gynecological out‑patient for some ailments or friends or relatives of patients, mostly from villages. They were interviewed in an area with privacy with pre‑designed questionnaire in local language by social worker and their answers were recorded. Informed consent was obtained and confidentiality was assured. Results: Of 2000 interviewed, 675 (34.7%) had suffered SV. One hundred thirty six (7% interviewed, 20.2% sufferers), reported they were forced to have sex with person other than husbands. Eighteen (1.4%) reported sexual advances made toward them at work places. Thirty‑four (5% of 675) had been forced by their own husbands and/or family members to have sex with other persons, 4 (0.6%) forced to have sex with husbands against their wishes, 373 (55.3%) were subjected to hurting sex, 232 (34.4%) to unusual sex, 26 (3.9%) others were dissatisfied for other reasons. Of all sufferers, 5.3% had reported to police, 451 (61.5%) not spoken to anyone. Most had not sought medical services. Consumption of alcohol/drugs, poverty were reported risk factors. Conclusion: Women continue to suffer SV irrespective of economic class, education. For prevention, broader coalition between communities health services is needed by integration into reproductive health services. Providers need to be trained to support sufferer, women need to be aware of services.Keywords: Health services, sexual violence, wome

Modeling of secondary organic aerosol yields from laboratory chamber data

Laboratory chamber data serve as the basis for constraining models of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Current models fall into three categories: empirical two-product (Odum), product-specific, and volatility basis set. The product-specific and volatility basis set models are applied here to represent laboratory data on the ozonolysis of α-pinene under dry, dark, and low-NOx conditions in the presence of ammonium sulfate seed aerosol. Using five major identified products, the model is fit to the chamber data. From the optimal fitting, SOA oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) and hydrogen-to-carbon (H/C) ratios are modeled. The discrepancy between measured H/C ratios and those based on the oxidation products used in the model fitting suggests the potential importance of particle-phase reactions. Data fitting is also carried out using the volatility basis set, wherein oxidation products are parsed into volatility bins. The product-specific model is most likely hindered by lack of explicit inclusion of particle-phase accretion compounds. While prospects for identification of the majority of SOA products for major volatile organic compounds (VOCs) classes remain promising, for the near future empirical product or volatility basis set models remain the approaches of choice

Secondary organic aerosol formation from m-xylene, toluene, and benzene

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the photooxidation of m-xylene, toluene, and benzene is investigated in the Caltech environmental chambers. Experiments are performed under two limiting NOx conditions; under high-NOx conditions the peroxy radicals (RO2) react only with NO, while under low-NOx conditions they react only with HO2. For all three aromatics studied (m-xylene, toluene, and benzene), the SOA yields (defined as the ratio of the mass of organic aerosol formed to the mass of parent hydrocarbon reacted) under low-NOx conditions substantially exceed those under high-NOx conditions, suggesting the importance of peroxy radical chemistry in SOA formation. Under low-NOx conditions, the SOA yields for m-xylene, toluene, and benzene are constant (36%, 30%, and 37%, respectively), indicating that the SOA formed is effectively nonvolatile under the range of Mo(>10 μg m−3) studied. Under high-NOx conditions, aerosol growth occurs essentially immediately, even when NO concentration is high. The SOA yield curves exhibit behavior similar to that observed by Odum et al. (1996, 1997a, b), although the values are somewhat higher than in the earlier study. The yields measured under high-NOx conditions are higher than previous measurements, suggesting a "rate effect" in SOA formation, in which SOA yields are higher when the oxidation rate is faster. Experiments carried out in the presence of acidic seed aerosol reveal no change of SOA yields from the aromatics as compared with those using neutral seed aerosol

Surface Passivation of Mercury-Cadmium-Telluride Infrared Detectors

The theoretical considerations and practical aspects of passivating insulator films, in the context of their use on high-performance mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) infrared detectors are reviewed. The methods of growth, the interface properties and the applications of both native and deposited passivant films have been discussed. Native films include anodic, chemical, photochemical, and plasma oxides as well as anodic sulphides and fluoro-oxides. Deposited films include ZnS, photo-CVD-grown SiO2, CDTe, and SiN/sub x/. The properties of all these passivant films on MCT have been summarized

Multifractal Scaling, Geometrical Diversity, and Hierarchical Structure in the Cool Interstellar Medium

Multifractal scaling (MFS) refers to structures that can be described as a collection of interwoven fractal subsets which exhibit power-law spatial scaling behavior with a range of scaling exponents (concentration, or singularity, strengths) and dimensions. The existence of MFS implies an underlying multiplicative (or hierarchical, or cascade) process. Panoramic column density images of several nearby star- forming cloud complexes, constructed from IRAS data and justified in an appendix, are shown to exhibit such multifractal scaling, which we interpret as indirect but quantitative evidence for nested hierarchical structure. The relation between the dimensions of the subsets and their concentration strengths (the "multifractal spectrum'') appears to satisfactorily order the observed regions in terms of the mixture of geometries present: strong point-like concentrations, line- like filaments or fronts, and space-filling diffuse structures. This multifractal spectrum is a global property of the regions studied, and does not rely on any operational definition of "clouds.'' The range of forms of the multifractal spectrum among the regions studied implies that the column density structures do not form a universality class, in contrast to indications for velocity and passive scalar fields in incompressible turbulence, providing another indication that the physics of highly compressible interstellar gas dynamics differs fundamentally from incompressible turbulence. (Abstract truncated)Comment: 27 pages, (LaTeX), 13 figures, 1 table, submitted to Astrophysical Journa

Analysis of photochemical and dark glyoxal uptake: Implications for SOA formation

The dependence of glyoxal uptake onto deliquesced ammonium sulfate seed aerosol was studied under photochemical (light + hydroxyl radical (OH)) and dark conditions. In this study, the chemical composition of aerosol formed from glyoxal is identical in the presence or absence of OH. In addition, there was no observed OH dependence on either glyoxal uptake or glyoxal-driven aerosol growth for this study. These findings demonstrate that, for the system used here, glyoxal uptake is not affected by the presence of OH. In combination with previous studies, this shows that the exact nature of the type of seed aerosol, in particular the presence of a coating, has a large influence on fast photochemical uptake of glyoxal. Due to the challenge of relating this seed aerosol dependence to ambient conditions, this work highlights the resulting difficulty in quantitatively including SOA formation from glyoxal in models

Gaussian phase autocorrelation as an accurate compensator for FFT-based atmospheric phase screen simulations

Accurately simulating the atmospheric turbulence behaviour is always challenging. The well-known FFT based method falls short in correctly predicting both the low and high frequency behaviours. Sub-harmonic compensation aids in low-frequency correction but does not solve the problem for all screen size to outer scale parameter ratios (G/L₀). FFT-based simulation gives accurate result only for relatively large screen size to outer scale parameter ratio (G/L₀). In this work, we have introduced a Gaussian phase autocorrelation matrix to compensate for any sort of residual errors after applying for a modified subharmonics compensation. With this, we have solved problems such as under sampling at the high-frequency range, unequal sampling/weights for subharmonics addition at low-frequency range and the patch normalization factor. Our approach reduces the maximum error in phase structure-function in the simulation with respect to theoretical prediction to within 1.8%, G/L₀ = 1/1000