IMPACT OF PESTICIDE REGULATORY POLICIES ON U.S. RICE PRODUCTION

This paper examines the costs and benefits of pesticide regulations on US rice production. Benefit - cost analysis of FIFRA (The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) has been done taking into consideration the externality costs associated with the Endangered Species Act and the Worker Protection Standard, for which compliance under FIFRA has become mandatory since 1990.Pesticide regulation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

A study to assess the effectiveness of effleurage massage in reduction of labour pain during first stage of labour among primigravida mothers at IOG, Egmore, Chennai

The researcher had developed a conceptual framework based on the modified wiedenbach's helping art of clinical nursing theory.The research approach adopted for the study was quasi experimental,non-equivalent –posttest control group design, sample size was 60 primigravida mothers in IOG Hospital, Egmore, Chennai. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling technique. To collect the data an interview schedule used, comprised of selected variables and numerical pain scale used to measure the level of labour pain. It was validated by four experts.Inter-rater method was used to find the reliability of the tool.The reliability of the tool in this study was r=0.87. the reliability coefficient was found to be high. Findings of the study revealed that there was a significant reduction in the intensity of the labour pain after administering the effleurage massage among the primigravida mothers.(p<0.05) The result showed that there was no significance association in relation to selected variables and labour pain.The conclusion of the study was that, primigravida mothers had a reduction in the labour pain as evidenced by the result shown in numerical pain scale.Hence effleurage massage was found to be a cost effective procedure in reducing labour pain among primigravida mothers

Infant feeding practices in an urban tertiary care hospital: A descriptive longitudinal study

Background: Infant and young child feeding are the corner stone for child development. More than a third of the world’s&nbsp;undernourished children reside in India. Inadequate infant and young child feeding practices with inadequate care and management&nbsp;of common illnesses contributes to malnutrition. Objective: To study the prevailing infant feeding practices and determine influence&nbsp;of factors on infant feeding in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: A descriptive longitudinal follow-up study was&nbsp;conducted in a tertiary care hospital between November 2010 and April 2012. Maternal and baby’s profiles were obtained using&nbsp;oral questionnaire after birth by personal one-to-one interview. These cases were followed up for their infant feeding practices till&nbsp;1 year of age in outpatient department and also by telephonic conversation. Continous variables were analysed by mean and SD. For&nbsp;categorical variable frequency and percentage were determined. Results: 61.25% mothers had initiated breastfeeding within 1 h.&nbsp;Prelacteal feed was given to 28.6% babies. 61.5% had initiated complementary feed at 6 months. Bottle feeding was preferred mode&nbsp;of feeding. There was a statistically significant association between initiation of breastfeeding and parity (p=0.022) and type ofdelivery (p&lt;0.0001), religion and complementary feeding introduction (p&lt;0.001), religion and duration of exclusive breastfeeding&nbsp;(EBF) (p=0.003), occupation and EBF duration (p=0.005), education (p=0.015), and religion (p=0.001) were associated with&nbsp;prelacteal feeds. Conclusions: Infant feeding practices observed from the study include early initiation of breastfeeding, appropriate&nbsp;duration of EBF, and timely introduction of complementary feed. Practice of prelacteal and bottle feeding was seen. Infant feeding&nbsp;practices are found to be influenced by several socio-demographic factors

Quasi-Fuchsian correspondences.

M.PhilWe consider the action of holomorphic correspondences or equally algebraic functions acting on the Riemann sphere C and their limit sets: a holomorphic correspondence is a polynomial relation, P(z;w) = 0 in z and w: A holomorphic correspondence P(z;w) = 0 is said to be an (n : m) correspondence if the degrees of z and w in P are n and m respectively. We identify a class of (2 : 2) holomorphic correspondences whose limit set is a topological circle where on a component of the complement of the limit set, the action of the correspondence is conjugate to the action of the Modular group PSL(2; Z) on the upper half plane. Further, we generalise these results to a class of (3 : 3) holomorphic correspondences with analogous properties

Enjoying physics undergraduate labs in a pandemic

It has been well documented (Rice et al., 2009) that student engagement when learning physics and science is most powerful when experimenting in laboratory classes. With the forced shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of weeks, making online laboratory activities ‘hands-on’ to the same extent of in-person experiments was difficult. In the rush to convert to online delivery, much of the ‘fun’ element of the exercises had been left out – designing the experiment, working with equipment, being in a team. By the second semester into the pandemic, we were able to reflect on students’ experiences and engagement and design a new set of experiments based on ‘emerging good practices’ for online learning (Olympiou &amp; Zacharia, 2012) that incorporated choice, experimental design using simple, everyday equipment and data collection, including simulations and activities – the fun element, while still restricted by lockdowns and quarantines. A survey to measure student engagement during this time (Kota et al., 2021) explores student enjoyment in physics undergraduate online laboratory classes through an open-ended question. We discuss the qualitative results of the survey and how the implementation of the ‘emerging good practices’ led to improved student enjoyment and engagement in an online environment. REFERENCES Rice, J. W., Thomas, S. M., O'Toole, P., &amp; Pannizon, D. (2009). Tertiary science education in the 21st century. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Council of Deans of Science. Olympiou, G. &amp; Zacharia, Z.C. (2012). Blending physical and virtual manipulatives: An effort to improve students' conceptual understanding through science laboratory experimentation. Science Education, 96, 21-47. Kota, S. D., den Besten, J. L., Lazendic-Galloway, J., &amp; Sharma, M. D. (2021). Snapshot on student voices in COVID-19 physics labs. Proceedings from WCPE III, Hanoi, 2021.

SCREENING OF PHYTO-CHEMICALS, TLC PROFILING, TOTAL FLAVONOID AND PHENOLICS CONTENT, ANTI-OXIDANT ACTIVITY AND ANTI-MICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF FICUS BENGHALENSIS LINN AND FICUS RELIGIOSA LINN LATEX

Objective: Screening for the presence of phyto-chemicals present in the plant extracts by qualitative assay along with Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) investigation followed by determining the total flavonoids and phenolics content, anti-oxidant and anti-microbial effect.Methods: Qualitative phyto-chemical analysis of the active plant extracts, TLC profiling, evaluating the total flavonoids and phenolics content along with in-vitro antioxidant activities like free radical scavenging effect, reducing power and phospho-molybdenum assay by standard protocols and evaluation of anti-microbial effectiveness against five different bacteria and a fungi by agar-well diffusion method. The micro-broth dilution method was used to assess minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC).Results: The solvent fractions of both the plants were examined for qualitative phytochemical analysis had shown the presence proteins, alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, glycosides, phenolics compounds, tannins, and terpenoids, confirmed by TLC profiling. The antioxidant activity was high in methanol extract (lower Inhibitory Concentration, IC50 values) of both plants which were in accordance with the total phenolics and total flavonoids content showing that they were responsible for antioxidant activity. Microbial strains used in the study were exposed to various concentrations of four solvent plant extracts. The largest zone of inhibition was obtained with ethanol extract against E. coli (19 mm) when compared with standard antibiotic streptomycin (10 µg/ml) for bacteria and nystatin (10 µg/ml) for fungi and Dimethyl Sulfoxide-DMSO (negative control). The MIC and MBC values done in triplicates were in accordance with antimicrobial activity. The antimicrobial effect was in accordance with the presence of flavonoids which is responsible for inhibition of growth of pathogenic micro organisms.Conclusion: The results suggested that the extract can be used as an effective and safe antioxidant source, as ethno-medicine on the commercial basis of drug development for the well being of human kind.Â

Eight-year retrospective study of young adults in a diabetes transition clinic

The transition of people from paediatric to adult diabetes services is associated with worsening glycaemia and increased diabetes-related hospitalisation. This study compared the clinical characteristics of those with and without mental health conditions among attenders at a diabetes young adult clinic diabetes before and after changes in service delivery. Retrospective audit of 200 people with diabetes attending a Sydney public hospital over eight years corresponding to the period before (2012–2016) and after (2017–2018) restructuring of a clinic for young adults aged 16–25 years. Characteristics of those with and without mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, diabetes related distress, eating disorders), were compared. Among clinic attenders (type 1 diabetes n = 184, 83.2%), 40.5% (n = 89) had a mental health condition particularly, depression (n = 57, 64%), which was higher among Indigenous than non-Indigenous people (5.6% vs. 0.8%, p = 0.031) but similar between diabetes type. Over eight years, those with, compared with those without a mental health condition had higher haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) at the last visit (9.4% (79 mmol/mol) vs. 8.7% (71 mmol/mol), p = 0.027), the proportion with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA 60.7% vs. 42.7%, p = 0.009), smoking (38.4 vs. 13.6%, p = 0.009), retinopathy (9.0 vs. 2.3%, p = 0.025), multiple DKAs (28.4 vs. 16.0%, p = 0.031) were significantly higher. Having a mental health condition was associated with 2.02 (95% confidence intervals 1.1–3.7) fold increased risk of HbA1c ≥9.0% (75 mmol/mol). Changes to the clinic were not associated with improvements in mental health condition (39.0% vs. 32.4%, p = 0.096). In conclusion, we found that mental health conditions, particularly depression, are common in this population and are associated with diabetes complications. Diabetes type and clinic changes did not affect the reported mental health conditions. Additional strategies including having an in-house psychologist are required to reduce complication risks among those with mental health conditions