Integrated multisectoral strategy to improve girls' and women's nutrition before conception, during pregnancy and after birth in India (Swabhimaan): protocol for a prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation

INTRODUCTION: Swabhimaan is a community-based programme to improve adolescent girls’ and women’s nutrition in the rural areas of three Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha with high prevalence of undernutrition. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Swabhimaan has a nested prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation. Since 2017, five intervention sites receive community-led interventions through national government’s livelihood mission supported women’s self-help group federations and five control sites will initiate these activities 36 months later, in 2020. Community-led activities aim to improve coverage of 18 interventions including adequacy of food consumed, prevention of micronutrient deficiencies, access to basic health services and special care of nutritionally ‘at risk’ girls and women, improving hygiene and access to water and sanitation services and access to family planning services. The evaluation includes baseline (2016–2017), midline (2018–2019) and endline (2020–2021) surveys covering 6638 adolescent girls, 2992 pregnant women and 8755 mothers of children under 2. The final impact analysis will be by intention to treat, comparing primary and secondary outcomes in five intervention areas and five control areas. The primary outcomes are: (1) a 15% reduction in the proportion of adolescent girls with a body mass index (BMI) <18.5 kg/m2; (2) a 15% reduction in the proportion of mothers of children under two with a BMI <18.5 kg/m2 and (3) and a 0.4 cm improvement in mean mid-upper arm circumference among pregnant women. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: All procedures involving human subjects were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha and in compliance with guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki. Evidence will inform maternal and preconception nutrition policy at national and state level. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: 58261b2f46876 and CTRI/2016/11/007482; Pre-results

EnzyMiner: automatic identification of protein level mutations and their impact on target enzymes from PubMed abstracts

BACKGROUND: A better understanding of the mechanisms of an enzyme's functionality and stability, as well as knowledge and impact of mutations is crucial for researchers working with enzymes. Though, several of the enzymes' databases are currently available, scientific literature still remains at large for up-to-date source of learning the effects of a mutation on an enzyme. However, going through vast amounts of scientific documents to extract the information on desired mutation has always been a time consuming process. In this paper, therefore, we describe an unique method, termed as EnzyMiner, which automatically identifies the PubMed abstracts that contain information on the impact of a protein level mutation on the stability and/or the activity of a given enzyme. RESULTS: We present an automated system which identifies the abstracts that contain an amino-acid-level mutation and then classifies them according to the mutation's effect on the enzyme. In the case of mutation identification, MuGeX, an automated mutation-gene extraction system has an accuracy of 93.1% with a 91.5 F-measure. For impact analysis, document classification is performed to identify the abstracts that contain a change in enzyme's stability or activity resulting from the mutation. The system was trained on lipases and tested on amylases with an accuracy of 85%. CONCLUSION: EnzyMiner identifies the abstracts that contain a protein mutation for a given enzyme and checks whether the abstract is related to a disease with the help of information extraction and machine learning techniques. For disease related abstracts, the mutation list and direct links to the abstracts are retrieved from the system and displayed on the Web. For those abstracts that are related to non-diseases, in addition to having the mutation list, the abstracts are also categorized into two groups. These two groups determine whether the mutation has an effect on the enzyme's stability or functionality followed by displaying these on the web

Aqueous extract of Terminalia arjuna prevents carbon tetrachloride induced hepatic and renal disorders

BACKGROUND: Carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)) is a well-known hepatotoxin and exposure to this chemical is known to induce oxidative stress and causes liver injury by the formation of free radicals. Acute and chronic renal damage are also very common pathophysiologic disturbances caused by CCl(4). The present study has been conducted to evaluate the protective role of the aqueous extract of the bark of Termnalia arjuna (TA), an important Indian medicinal plant widely used in the preparation of ayurvedic formulations, on CCl(4 )induced oxidative stress and resultant dysfunction in the livers and kidneys of mice. METHODS: Animals were pretreated with the aqueous extract of TA (50 mg/kg body weight) for one week and then challenged with CCl(4 )(1 ml/kg body weight) in liquid paraffin (1:1, v/v) for 2 days. Serum marker enzymes, namely, glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were estimated in the sera of all study groups. Antioxidant status in both the liver and kidney tissues were estimated by determining the activities of the antioxidative enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST); as well as by determining the levels of thiobarbutaric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and reduced glutathione (GSH). In addition, free radical scavenging activity of the extract was determined from its DPPH radical quenching ability. RESULTS: Results showed that CCl(4 )caused a marked rise in serum levels of GPT and ALP. TBARS level was also increased significantly whereas GSH, SOD, CAT and GST levels were decreased in the liver and kidney tissue homogenates of CCl(4 )treated mice. Aqueous extract of TA successfully prevented the alterations of these effects in the experimental animals. Data also showed that the extract possessed strong free radical scavenging activity comparable to that of vitamin C. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that the aqueous extract of the bark of TA could protect the liver and kidney tissues against CCl(4)-induced oxidative stress probably by increasing antioxidative defense activities

Workflow in Clinical Trial Sites & Its Association with Near Miss Events for Data Quality: Ethnographic, Workflow & Systems Simulation

10.1371/journal.pone.0039671PLoS ONE76

FT-IRRS, UV-Vis-NIR absorption and green upconversion in Er3+ doped lead silicate glass

Fourier transform infrared reflection spectroscopic (FT-IRRS), ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-Vis-NIR) absorption and green upconversion fluorescence properties of an Er3+ ion doped high PbO (72.5 wt.%) content lead silicate glass have been studied at room temperature. FT-IRRS and UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectral band positions have been discussed quantitatively with theoretical calculation and covalent bonding characteristics of the glass respectively. NIR radiation upconversion into green fluorescence has been investigated by exciting at 979 nm. Two green upconverted bands with doublet characteristics originating from S-4(3/2) —> I-4(15/2) and H-2(11/2) —> I-4(15/2) transitions have been found to be centered at 550 (strong) and 530 (weak) nm respectively. These bands have been justified from the evaluation of the absorption, normal (down conversion) fluorescence and excitation spectra. The upconversion processes have been explained by the excited state absorption (ESA) and energy transfer (ET) mechanisms involving population of energy levels by multiphonon deexcitation and thermal effects. It is evident from IRRS studies that the upconversion phenomenon is expedited by the low multiphonon relaxation rate in lead silicate glass owing to its low phonon energy (990 cm(-1)) compared to that in silica glass (1122 cm(-1)). (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Spectral properties of Eu3+ : ZnO-B2O3-SiO2 glasses

Studies on the vibronic spectral analysis of Eu3+ ions doped in zinc borosilicate glass have been performed in order to correlate them with the local environment of the dopant ion in this host matrix on the basis of the Fourier Transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. It is noticed that the Eu3+ ions are bonded to the bridging and non-bridging oxygens of BO3, BO4 and SiO4 Structural units. The Stark splittings exhibited especially by the emission transitions: D-0 -> F-7(1), D-5(0) -> F-7(2) and their intensity ratio (EMIR) could indicate that the Eu3+ ions are taking the sites, which lack inversion symmetry. Judd-Ofelt intensity (12, angstrom = 2, 4, 6) parameters have been obtained from the measured absorption spectra of Eu3+: Zinc borosilicate glass and these intensity defining factors are used in the computation of the emission transition probabilities, radiative rates, braching ratios and radiative lifetimes of the fluorescence transitions. Decay curves of the emission transitions ((5)Do -> F-7(0,1,2,3,4)) were measured and their lifetimes have been estimated. Besides this, Optical band gap energies (E-Opt) have also been evaluated from the base glass absorption spectrum and the values are found to be 4.82 and 4.60 eV for direct and indirect band gaps, respectively. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved