Effectiveness of child to parent educational package in terms of knowledge among adolescents and practice among their parents regarding household waste disposal methods

Background: The clean environment not only promotes good health but also enhances the quality of life. Waste management is one of the most concerning issues among developing countries like India. Poor waste management is harmful not only for our environment but it also affects human health. For many infectious diseases like diarrhea, dengue, flu, cholera, etc. The main cause is improper waste management. The largest part of municipal waste is household/ domestic waste hence, it is important to manage waste at a primary source that it household waste.Methods: A quasi-experimental design with quantitative approach was undertaken for the study. Total 103 adolescents who was studying in 6-12th standard in Government Inter College Badowala, Doiwala Block (Dehradun) and their parents were selected as study participants by using a systematic random sampling technique. For data collection Demographic tools, structured knowledge questionnaire and self-reported practice checklist were administered. Data was collected from 17 December to 30 December, 2019. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.Results: The present study revealed that 90.2% of adolescents had average knowledge but it was surprising to note that very less (32%) parents had good practice regarding household waste management. After providing education to adolescents regarding household waste disposal methods there was a significant increase in mean posttest knowledge score (20.84) than the mean pretest knowledge score (13.55) of adolescents. The mean posttest practice score-II (9.17) was higher than mean post-test practice score -I (7.55) after children were educating their parents. There was a significant association of pretest knowledge with the type of house and number of people live in house of adolescents.Conclusions: The study concluded that child to parent educational package is an effective intervention to improve the knowledge of adolescents and the practice of their parents regarding household waste disposal methods. 

Insightful Advancement and Opportunities for Microbial Bioplastic Production

Impetuous urbanization and population growth are driving increased demand for plastics to formulate impeccable industrial and biomedical commodities. The everlasting nature and excruciating waste management of petroleum-based plastics have catered to numerous challenges for the environment. However, just implementing various end-of-life management techniques for assimilation and recycling plastics is not a comprehensive remedy; instead, the extensive reliance on finite resources needs to be reduced for sustainable production and plastic product utilization. Microorganisms, such as bacteria and algae, are explored substantially for their bioplastic production repertoire, thus replacing fossil-based plastics sooner or later. Nevertheless, the utilization of pure microbial cultures has led to various operational and economical complications, opening the ventures for the usage of mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) consisting of bacteria and algae for sustainable production of bioplastic. The current review is primarily focuses on elaborating the bioplastic production capabilities of different bacterial and algal strains, followed by discussing the quintessence of MMCs. The present state-of-the-art of bioplastic, different types of bacterial bioplastic, microalgal biocomposites, operational factors influencing the quality and quantity of bioplastic precursors, embracing the potential of bacteria-algae consortia, and the current global status quo of bioplastic production has been summarized extensively. Copyright © 2022 Samadhiya, Sangtani, Nogueira and Bala

Electrochemical Reactions at Sacrificial Electrodes: Electrochemical Synthesis of Aluminium(III) Alkoxides and their Coordination Compounds

Electrochemical   reactions of methanol, ethanol, propan-l-ol, butan-1-ol, pentan-1-ol, hexan-1-ol, heptan-1-ol, octan-1-ol, nonan-1-ol and decan-1-ol (ROH) at sacrificial aluminium anode and inert platinum cathode in the presence of tetrabutylammonium chloride as a conductive additive and acetonitrile as solvent yield aluminium(III) alkoxides. On refluxing with ligand (L) {where L = 2,2’-bipyridyl and 1,10-phenanthroline} these alkoxides don’t form coordination compounds. However, the coordination compounds have been prepared by electrolyzing the solution of above alcohols in the presence of ligand (L) at aluminium anode. These products have been characterized by microanalysis, physical measurements and IR spectral studies.General formula conform to M(OR)3 and M(OR)3.L.{where M- Aluminium and L- ligand}.All these reactions proceed with high current efficiencies

Effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge about postnatal care among mothers

Background: Mothers and new-borns are vulnerable to illness and deaths during the postnatal period. Care during postnatal period is the important part of maternal health care as the serious and life-threatening complications can occur in postnatal period.Methods: A Quantitative approach with pre- experimental design was used to study the effectiveness of STP on postnatal care. Sixty postnatal mothers were selected from tertiary care hospital. The Purposive sampling techniques was used to select the study subjects. Data was collected by using Structured Knowledge questionnaire.Results: The results show that the overall mean pre-test knowledge score of postnatal mothers was 19.8±2.98 and mean post-test knowledge score of postnatal mothers was 26.28±1.89 and the mean difference was 6.48. This revealed that the STP was an effective method in improving mother’s knowledge on postnatal care. There was no significant association found between pre-test knowledge score with their demographic variables except occupation.Conclusions: The findings of the study revealed that STP was effective in enhancing the knowledge of postnatal mothers on postnatal care

correction copper and cobalt nanoparticles embedded in naturally derived graphite electrodes for the sensing of the neurotransmitter epinephrine

Correction for 'Copper and cobalt nanoparticles embedded in naturally derived graphite electrodes for the sensing of the neurotransmitter epinephrine' by Kanchan Bala et al., New J. Chem., 2018, DOI: 10.1039/c8nj00881g

A cross-sectional study to evaluate the effect of subjective sleep quality on autonomic functions in different age groups of adults

Background: Poor sleep quality adversely affects the person’s homeostasis via combination of impairments to multiple physiological-mechanisms. Autonomic functions are important for different aspects of health and disease. Objective of study was to analyze the impact of subjective sleep quality on autonomic functions in different age groups of adults.Methods: A total of 375 apparently healthy adults from community were randomly selected for this cross-sectional observational study. They were divided into three groups based on the age distributions: Group 1: 18-30 years (n = 146); Group 2: 31-45 years (n = 112); and Group 3: 46-60 years (n = 117). Following assessments were done in all the participants in three groups: Anthropometric measurements, Pittsburgh Sleep-quality Index (PSQI), Electrocardiography (ECG), Autonomic functions based on frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV).  Two-way analysis of variance followed by post hoc analysis was done for intergroup comparisons of all assessment characteristics. Spearman’s correlation was done to find the correlation coefficients between PSQI scoring and all other parameters mentioned above.Results: BMI, GPSQIS, SSQS, SDS and SMS were observed more in group2 and 3 as compared to group1, whereas SD and SE were more in group1 as compared to group 2 and 3. HF, Total Power and RR were more in group 1 as compared to group 3, whereas VLF and HR were less in group 1 as compared to group 3. LF/HF ratio and HR were more in group 3 as compared to group 2, whereas HF was more in group 2 as compared to group 3. There was statistically significant negative correlation between GPSQI and Total power, SMS and HF, SIT and HF, SD and LF/HF ratio, whereas statistically significant positive correlation between SMS and LF, SMS and LF/HF ratio, SIT and LF, SIT and LF/HF ratio, SD and total power as well as SE and total power.Conclusions: Ageing in adults affects the sleep-quality, reduces the sleep duration and decreases the sleep efficiency; these contribute to autonomic dysfunction as increased sympathetic activity and decreased parasympathetic activity in older adults as compared to younger adults

Magnetoelectric Properties Of (Pb0.60Sr0.40)TiO3-CFO Composite Thin Film Synthesized By Metallo-Organic Decomposition

(Pb0.60Sr0.40)TiO3-CFO composite thin films were grown on Pt/TiO2/Si substrate by novel metallo-Organic process using spin coating technique. The structural, surface morphology and micro structural properties were confirmed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscope (AFM) and TEM respectively. The lattice constant of the composite thin film crystallized in the pervoskite and spinel phase was 3.9531 and 8.571 angstrom. Excellent ferroelectric behavior at 10V was observed, a room temperature magnetic hysteresis shows good results. The saturation magnetization value of the bilayer thin film is lower than that of the pure CFO film which is may be attributed to presence of non ferromagnetic PST layer A high initial behavior of dynamic ME response coefficient for the film was observed. The ME effect of the film strongly depends on the magnetic bias

Multiferroic Properties of Pb0.90Sr0.10TiO3-CoFe2O4 Nanostructured Bilayered Thin Film

Pb0.90Sr0.10TiO3-CoFe2O4(PST10-CFO) nanostructured bilayered thin film were grown on Si (100) substrate by using metallo-organic decomposition chemical route and spin coating technique. Results show that PST (pervoskite structure) and CFO (spinel) phase coexist in the bilayered thin films, annealed at 650 degrees C for 2hr and no obvious impurity phase can be detected. The structural, surface morphology and micro structural properties were confirmed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM) respectively. Excellent ferroelectric behavior at different voltage was observed, with two platinum electrodes only at surface of the bilayer thin film. A room temperature ferromagnetic behavior was observed in the bilayered Pb0.90Sr0.10TiO3-CoFe2O4 nanostructured thin film. The saturation magnetization and variation in coercivity value of the bilayer thin film is lower than that of the pure CFO film in the presence of non ferromagnetic PST layer which is the attributed that the significant coupling between the two phases

Transcriptional Repressor HIC1 Contributes to Suppressive Function of Human Induced Regulatory T Cells

Regulatory T (Treg) cells are critical in regulating the immune response. In vitro induced Treg (iTreg) cells have significant potential in clinical medicine. However, applying iTreg cells as therapeutics is complicated by the poor stability of human iTreg cells and their variable suppressive activity. Therefore, it is important to understand the molecular mechanisms of human iTreg cell specification. We identified hypermethylated in cancer 1 (HIC1) as a transcription factor upregulated early during the differentiation of human iTreg cells. Although FOXP3 expression was unaffected, HIC1 deficiency led to a considerable loss of suppression by iTreg cells with a concomitant increase in the expression of effector T cell associated genes. SNPs linked to several immune-mediated disorders were enriched around HIC1 binding sites, and in vitro binding assays indicated that these SNPs may alter the binding of HIC1. Our results suggest that HIC1 is an important contributor to iTreg cell development and function

Global, regional, and national sex-specific burden and control of the HIV epidemic, 1990-2019, for 204 countries and territories: the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2019

Background: The sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Understanding the current state of the HIV epidemic and its change over time is essential to this effort. This study assesses the current sex-specific HIV burden in 204 countries and territories and measures progress in the control of the epidemic. Methods: To estimate age-specific and sex-specific trends in 48 of 204 countries, we extended the Estimation and Projection Package Age-Sex Model to also implement the spectrum paediatric model. We used this model in cases where age and sex specific HIV-seroprevalence surveys and antenatal care-clinic sentinel surveillance data were available. For the remaining 156 of 204 locations, we developed a cohort-incidence bias adjustment to derive incidence as a function of cause-of-death data from vital registration systems. The incidence was input to a custom Spectrum model. To assess progress, we measured the percentage change in incident cases and deaths between 2010 and 2019 (threshold >75% decline), the ratio of incident cases to number of people living with HIV (incidence-to-prevalence ratio threshold <0·03), and the ratio of incident cases to deaths (incidence-to-mortality ratio threshold <1·0). Findings: In 2019, there were 36·8 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 35·1–38·9) people living with HIV worldwide. There were 0·84 males (95% UI 0·78–0·91) per female living with HIV in 2019, 0·99 male infections (0·91–1·10) for every female infection, and 1·02 male deaths (0·95–1·10) per female death. Global progress in incident cases and deaths between 2010 and 2019 was driven by sub-Saharan Africa (with a 28·52% decrease in incident cases, 95% UI 19·58–35·43, and a 39·66% decrease in deaths, 36·49–42·36). Elsewhere, the incidence remained stable or increased, whereas deaths generally decreased. In 2019, the global incidence-to-prevalence ratio was 0·05 (95% UI 0·05–0·06) and the global incidence-to-mortality ratio was 1·94 (1·76–2·12). No regions met suggested thresholds for progress. Interpretation: Sub-Saharan Africa had both the highest HIV burden and the greatest progress between 1990 and 2019. The number of incident cases and deaths in males and females approached parity in 2019, although there remained more females with HIV than males with HIV. Globally, the HIV epidemic is far from the UNAIDS benchmarks on progress metrics. Funding: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Institute on Aging of the NIH