Research options for controlling Zoonotic disease in India, 2010-2015

BACKGROUND: Zoonotic infections pose a significant public health challenge for low- and middle-income countries and have traditionally been a neglected area of research. The Roadmap to Combat Zoonoses in India (RCZI) initiative conducted an exercise to systematically identify and prioritize research options needed to control zoonoses in India. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Priority setting methods developed by the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative were adapted for the diversity of sectors, disciplines, diseases and populations relevant for zoonoses in India. A multidisciplinary group of experts identified priority zoonotic diseases and knowledge gaps and proposed research options to address key knowledge gaps within the next five years. Each option was scored using predefined criteria by another group of experts. The scores were weighted using relative ranks among the criteria based upon the feedback of a larger reference group. We categorized each research option by type of research, disease targeted, factorials, and level of collaboration required. We analysed the research options by tabulating them along these categories. Seventeen experts generated four universal research themes and 103 specific research options, the majority of which required a high to medium level of collaboration across sectors. Research options designated as pertaining to 'social, political and economic' factorials predominated and scored higher than options focussing on ecological, genetic and biological, or environmental factors. Research options related to 'health policy and systems' scored highest while those related to 'research for development of new interventions' scored the lowest. CONCLUSIONS: We methodically identified research themes and specific research options incorporating perspectives of a diverse group of stakeholders. These outputs reflect the diverse nature of challenges posed by zoonoses and should be acceptable across diseases, disciplines, and sectors. The identified research options capture the need for 'actionable research' for advancing the prevention and control of zoonoses in India

Thymol in chloroform

None

Synthesis, Characterization and Biological Evaluation of Mononuclear Dichloro-bis[2-(2-chloro-6,7-substituted Quinolin-3-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazole]Co(II) Complexes

A series of Co(II) complexes 3¢a-g of 2-(2-chloro-6,7-substituted quinolin-3-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazole ligands 3a-g were prepared and characterized by various spectroscopic and physico-chemical methods viz. FT-IR, ESI mass, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and UV-Visible spectroscopy, Thermogravimetric analysis, Magnetic susceptibility, Molar conductance and Elemental analysis. The 2-(2-chloro-6,7-substituted quinolin-3-yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazole ligands 3a-g have been synthesized by cyclocondensation of benzene-1,2-diamine with 2-chloroquinoline-3-carbaldehydes by using ceric ammonium nitrate as a catalyst in presence of hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant. The structures of all ligands were confirmed by IR, Mass, UV-Visible, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopy. All ligands 3a-g and their Co(II) complexes 3¢a-g were screened for their in vitro antimicrobial activity using twofold serial dilution technique against standard MTCC strains of two Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes, two Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria and three Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus clavatus fungus in comparison with standard drugs. All ligands 3a-g and complexes 3¢a-g also evaluated for antimycobacterial activity against standard Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv strain. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v7i2.53

Development and validation of a pragmatic natural language processing approach to identifying falls in older adults in the emergency department

BACKGROUND: Falls among older adults are both a common reason for presentation to the emergency department, and a major source of morbidity and mortality. It is critical to identify fall patients quickly and reliably during, and immediately after, emergency department encounters in order to deliver appropriate care and referrals. Unfortunately, falls are difficult to identify without manual chart review, a time intensive process infeasible for many applications including surveillance and quality reporting. Here we describe a pragmatic NLP approach to automating fall identification. METHODS: In this single center retrospective review, 500 emergency department provider notes from older adult patients (age 65 and older) were randomly selected for analysis. A simple, rules-based NLP algorithm for fall identification was developed and evaluated on a development set of 1084 notes, then compared with identification by consensus of trained abstractors blinded to NLP results. RESULTS: The NLP pipeline demonstrated a recall (sensitivity) of 95.8%, specificity of 97.4%, precision of 92.0%, and F1 score of 0.939 for identifying fall events within emergency physician visit notes, as compared to gold standard manual abstraction by human coders. CONCLUSIONS: Our pragmatic NLP algorithm was able to identify falls in ED notes with excellent precision and recall, comparable to that of more labor-intensive manual abstraction. This finding offers promise not just for improving research methods, but as a potential for identifying patients for targeted interventions, quality measure development and epidemiologic surveillance

Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and computational study of bis(2-{[(2,6-dichlorobenzylidene)hydrazinylidene]methyl}phenolato)cobalt(II) and of the copper(II) analogue

The title homoleptic Schiff base complexes, [M(C14H9Cl2N2O)2], for M = CoII,(I), and CuII, (II), present distinct coordination geometries despite the Schiff base dianion coordinating via the phenolato-O and imine-N atoms in each case. For (I), the coordination geometry is based on a trigonal bipyramid whereas for (II), a square-planar geometry is found (Cu site symmetry 1). In the crystal of (I), discernible supramolecular layers in the ac plane are sustained by chlorobenzene-C—HO(coordinated), chlorobenzene-C—H(fusedbenzene ring) as well as (fused-benzene, chlorobenzene)–(chlorobenzene) interactions [inter-centroid separations = 3.6460 (17) and 3.6580 (16) A˚ , respectively]. The layers inter-digitate along the b-axis direction and are linked by dichlorobenzene-C—H(fused-benzene ring) and – interactions between fused-benzene rings and between chlorobenzene rings [inter-centroid separations = 3.6916 (16) and 3.7968 (19) A˚ , respectively] . Flat, supramolecular layers are also found in the crystal of (II), being stabilized by – interactions formed between fused-benzene rings and between chlorobenzene rings [intercentroid separations = 3.8889 (15) and 3.8889 (15) A˚ , respectively]; these stack parallel to [101] without directional interactions between them. The analysis of the respective calculated Hirshfeld surfaces indicate diminished roles for HH contacts [26.2% (I) and 30.5% (II)] owing to significant contributions by ClH/HCl contacts [25.8% (I) and 24.9% (II)]. Minor contributions by ClCl [2.2%] and CuCl [1.9%] contacts are indicated in the crystals of (I) and (II), respectively. The interaction energies largely arise from dispersion terms; the aforementioned CuCl contact in (II) gives rise to the most stabilizing interaction in the crystal of (II)

Acute encephalitis syndrome surveillance, Kushinagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2011-2012

In India, quality surveillance for acute encephalitis syndrome (AES), including laboratory testing, is necessary for understanding the epidemiology and etiology of AES, planning interventions, and developing policy. We reviewed AES surveillance data for January 2011-June 2012 from Kushinagar District, Uttar Pradesh, India. Data were cleaned, incidence was determined, and demographic characteristics of cases and data quality were analyzed. A total of 812 AES case records were identified, of which 23\% had illogical entries. AES incidence was highest among boys<6 years of age, and cases peaked during monsoon season. Records for laboratory results (available for Japanese encephalitis but not AES) and vaccination history were largely incomplete, so inferences about the epidemiology and etiology of AES could not be made. The low-quality AES/Japanese encephalitis surveillance data in this area provide little evidence to support development of prevention and control measures, estimate the effect of interventions, and avoid the waste of public health resources