Economic crisis management in construction projects - A Review

You Many of the construction industries have accepted increasing importance of economic crisis management to control risks. Economic crisis and their management have been critical issues which are related with projects, the construction company and their customers are related with higher chances of risk. The reason for their higher risk is their construction process and activities, their background and their organization. This study is related to economic crisis which immediately taken part in the construction project. The risk in the construction projects is usually identified as an event that highlights objectives of manpower, material and money. The ideas at various levels of construction industries have been collected through literature survey and their results have been analyzed in this paper. From this literature study, the situations influencing economic crisis were studied and recommendation has been expressed to devastate those economic crisis situations

Influence of zinc on yield and quality profile of ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.)

Field experiments were conducted for three consecutive years (2008–09. 2009–10, 2010–11) in a Zn deficient soil to study the variation in quality and oil composition of ginger due to incorporation of Zn in the fertilizer schedule. The treatments consisted of recommended package of practice (POP) without zinc, POP + 5 kg Zn ha-1, POP + 10 kg Zn ha-1 as zinc sulphate. The results showed that application of Zn increased the fresh yield of ginger from 7.72 to 9.57 kg 3m-2 indicating an increase of 23%. Zinc application also increased the oil, oleoresin, β-sesquiphellandrene, farnesene, camphene and Z-citral contents of ginger oil. Contrarily, Zn application decreased zingiberene, α-pinene, α-curcumene and 1, 8 cineol contents of ginger oil. The quality components such as fiber content varied from 3.05% to 3.43%, oil content from 1.33% to 1.73%, oleoresin from 3.35% to 5.41%, zingiberene from 13.1% to 21.8%, α- pinene from 0.67% to 2.23%, β-sesquiphellandrene from 5.92% to 10.20%, farnesene from 5.58% to 11.1%, camphene from 3.06% to 5.36%, Z-citral from 3.73% to 6.54%, α-curcumene from 5.32% to 7.70%, 1,8 cineol from 2.70% to 5.29%, β-phellandrene from 1.87% to 4.18% and citral contents from 5.03% to 6.54%. &nbsp

Esculentin-2CHa-Related Peptides Modulate Islet Cell Function and Improve Glucose Tolerance in Mice with Diet-Induced Obesity and Insulin Resistance

The frog skin host-defense peptide esculentin-2CHa (GFSSIFRGVA10KFASKGLGK D20LAKLGVDLVA30CKISKQC) displays antimicrobial, antitumor, and immunomodulatory properties. This study investigated the antidiabetic actions of the peptide and selected analogues. Esculentin-2CHa stimulated insulin secretion from rat BRIN-BD11 clonal pancreatic β-cells at concentrations greater than 0.3 nM without cytotoxicity by a mechanism involving membrane depolarization and increase of intracellular Ca2+. Insulinotropic activity was attenuated by activation of KATP channels, inhibition of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels and chelation of extracellular Ca2+. The [L21K], [L24K], [D20K, D27K] and [C31S,C37S] analogues were more potent but less effective than esculentin-2CHa whereas the [L28K] and [C31K] analogues were both more potent and produced a significantly (P < 0.001) greater maximum response. Acute administration of [L28K]esculentin-2CHa (75 nmol/kg body weight) to high fat fed mice with obesity and insulin resistance enhanced glucose tolerance and insulin secretion. Twice-daily administration of this dose of [L28K]esculentin- 2CHa for 28 days had no significant effect on body weight, food intake, indirect calorimetry or body composition. However, mice exhibited decreased non-fasting plasma glucose (P < 0.05), increased non-fasting plasma insulin (P < 0.05) as well as improved glucose tolerance and insulin secretion (P < 0.01) following both oral and intraperitoneal glucose loads. Impaired responses of isolated islets from high fat fed mice to established insulin secretagogues were restored by [L28K]esculentin-2CHa treatment. Peptide treatment was accompanied by significantly lower plasma and pancreatic glucagon levels and normalization of α-cell mass. Circulating triglyceride concentrations were decreased but plasma cholesterol and LDL concentrations were not significantly affected. The data encourage further investigation of the potential of esculentin-2CHa related peptides for treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes

Evidence-based national vaccine policy

India has over a century old tradition of development and production of vaccines. The Government rightly adopted self-sufficiency in vaccine production and self-reliance in vaccine technology as its policy objectives in 1986. However, in the absence of a full-fledged vaccine policy, there have been concerns related to demand and supply, manufacture vs. import, role of public and private sectors, choice of vaccines, new and combination vaccines, universal vs. selective vaccination, routine immunization vs. special drives, cost-benefit aspects, regulatory issues, logistics etc. The need for a comprehensive and evidence based vaccine policy that enables informed decisions on all these aspects from the public health point of view brought together doctors, scientists, policy analysts, lawyers and civil society representatives to formulate this policy paper for the consideration of the Government. This paper evolved out of the first ever ICMR-NISTADS national brainstorming workshop on vaccine policy held during 4-5 June, 2009 in New Delhi, and subsequent discussions over email for several weeks, before being adopted unanimously in the present form

In vitro and in vivo insulinotropic properties of the multifunctional frog skin peptide hymenochirin-1B: a structure–activity study

Hymenochirin-1b (Hym-1B; IKLSPETKDNLKKVLKGAIKGAIAVAKMV.NH2) is a cationic, α-helical amphibian host-defense peptide with antimicrobial, anticancer, and immunomodulatory properties. This study investigates the abilities of the peptide and nine analogues containing substitutions of Pro5, Glu6, and Asp9 by either l-lysine or d-lysine to stimulate insulin release in vitro using BRIN-BD11 clonal β cells or isolated mouse islets and in vivo using mice fed a high-fat diet to produce obesity and insulin resistance. Hym-1B produced a significant and concentration-dependent increase in the rate of insulin release from BRIN-BD11 cells without cytotoxicity at concentrations up to 1 µM with a threshold concentration of 1 nM. The threshold concentrations for the analogues were: [P5K], [E6K], [D9K], [P5K, E6K] and [E6K, D9k] 0.003 nM, [E6K, D9K] and [D9k] 0.01 nM, [P5K, D9K] 0.1 nM and [E6k] 0.3 nM. All peptides displayed cytotoxicity at concentrations ≥1 µM except the [P5K] and [D9k] analogues which were non-toxic at 3 µM. The potency and maximum rate of insulin release from mouse islets produced by the [P5K] peptide were significantly greater than produced by Hym-1B. Neither Hym-1B nor the [P5K] analogue at 1 µM concentration had an effect on membrane depolarization or intracellular Ca2+. The [P5K] analogue (1 µM) produced a significant increase in cAMP concentration in BRIN-BD11 cells and stimulated GLP-1 secretion from GLUTag cells. Down-regulation of the protein kinase A pathway by overnight incubation with forskolin completely abolished the insulin-releasing effects of [P5K]hym-1B. Intraperitoneal administration of the [P5K] and [D9k] analogues (75 nmol/kg body weight) to high-fat-fed mice with insulin resistance significantly enhanced glucose tolerance with a concomitant increase in insulin secretion. We conclude that [P5K]hym-1B and [D9k]hym-1B show potential for development into anti-diabetic agents

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Economic crisis management in construction projects - A Review

You Many of the construction industries have accepted increasing importance of economic crisis management to control risks. Economic crisis and their management have been critical issues which are related with projects, the construction company and their customers are related with higher chances of risk. The reason for their higher risk is their construction process and activities, their background and their organization. This study is related to economic crisis which immediately taken part in the construction project. The risk in the construction projects is usually identified as an event that highlights objectives of manpower, material and money. The ideas at various levels of construction industries have been collected through literature survey and their results have been analyzed in this paper. From this literature study, the situations influencing economic crisis were studied and recommendation has been expressed to devastate those economic crisis situations

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Not AvailableIndia, as a traditional producer, consumer and exporter of spices in the world holds a major stake in the global spices market with an estimated production of 8202 thousand tons of spices during 2016-17 from 3705 thousand ha. There is great scope to improve the productivity of major spices by adopting technologies that will help to bridge the gap between potential yields realized in the research stations/progressive farmers’ plots. ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) and All India Coordinated Research Project on Spices (AICRPS) are working together on mandated spice crops production and productivity enhancement and its utilization through research advancements in developing new varieties, plant health management technologies and value addition.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableField experiments were conducted for three consecutive years (2008–09. 2009–10, 2010–11) in a Zn deficient soil to study the variation in quality and oil composition of ginger due to incorporation of Zn in the fertilizer schedule. The treatments consisted of recommended package of practice (POP) without zinc, POP + 5 kg Zn ha-1, POP + 10 kg Zn ha-1 as zinc sulphate. The results showed that application of Zn increased the fresh yield of ginger from 7.72 to 9.57 kg 3m-2 indicating an increase of 23%. Zinc application also increased the oil, oleoresin, β-sesquiphellandrene, farnesene, camphene and Z-citral contents of ginger oil. Contrarily, Zn application decreased zingiberene, α-pinene, α-curcumene and 1, 8 cineol contents of ginger oil. The quality components such as fiber content varied from 3.05% to 3.43%, oil content from 1.33% to 1.73%, oleoresin from 3.35% to 5.41%, zingiberene from 13.1% to 21.8%, α- pinene from 0.67% to 2.23%, β-sesquiphellandrene from 5.92% to 10.20%, farnesene from 5.58% to 11.1%, camphene from 3.06% to 5.36%, Z-citral from 3.73% to 6.54%, α-curcumene from 5.32% to 7.70%, 1,8 cineol from 2.70% to 5.29%, β-phellandrene from 1.87% to 4.18% and citral contents from 5.03% to 6.54%.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableAgricultural Chemistry, ANGRAU, Hyderabad, India during 2013−14 with 12 treatments including control to study the mineralization pattern and timely release of nutrients (N, P, K and soil enzymes) to plant from different sources and periods. Mineralization of nitrogen (NH4 +-N and NO3 --N), phosphorus (P2O5) potassium (K2O) and soil enzymes (urease, acid and alkaline phosphatase and dehydrogenase) activities from different treatments were evaluated. During initial period 7 to 21 days after incubation (DAI), the recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) had maximum release of NH4 +-N and NO3 --N and later on decreased in the succeeding days but manures combination treatment has taken lead to release the N from 1 DAI to 70 DAI than control. Similar trends were followed in available P2O5 and K2O. The maximum quantity of urease and DHA were reached 203 to 227 μg NH4 +-N g-1 soil h-1 and 10.6 to12.4 μg TPF g-1 soil h-1 from combination of poultry manure and neem cake at 70 DAI, respectively. Maximum released of acid and alkaline phosphatase were observed in 21 DAI and 35 DAI in RDF respectively. Among the manures treatment, PM+NC had superior in releasing of alkaline phosphatase over other, followed by poultry manure and FYM+PM. Correlation study between nutrients (N, P and K) and enzymes activity showed that a significant (p<0.05) positive relationship with each othersNot Availabl