Pulmonary tuberculosis among tribals in India: A systematic review & meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES There has been limited investigation on the prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) in tribal communities in India, a vulnerable section of Indian society. The lack of a population-based estimate prompted us to conduct a meta-analysis of existing studies to provide a single, population-based estimate of the TB prevalence for tribals. METHODS Literature search was conducted in PubMed using the keywords - "tuberculosis", "tribals", "India", "prevalence", and "survey". References cited in the articles retrieved were also reviewed, and those found relevant were selected. TB prevalence rates estimated by the studies were used for our calculation of a pooled-estimate. RESULTS The pooled estimate, based on the random effects model, was 703 per 100,000 population with a 95 % CI of 386-1011. The associated heterogeneity measures in terms of Cochran's Q was significant ( p=0 0.08 <0.1) and I [2] was moderate at 48 per cent. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS The meta-analysis demonstrated a large variability in pulmonary TB prevalence estimates among the different studies with poor representation of the various tribal groups. The moderate level of heterogeneity found across the studies suggests that the pooled-estimate needs to be treated with caution. Our findings also highlight the need to assess the pulmonary TB burden in India

A long view of liberal peace and its crisis

The ‘crisis’ of liberal peace has generated considerable debate in International Relations. However, analysis is inhibited by a shared set of spatial, cultural and temporal assumptions that rest on and reproduce a problematic separation between self-evident ‘liberal’ and ‘non-liberal’ worlds, and locates the crisis in presentist terms of the latter’s resistance to the former’s expansion. By contrast, this article argues that efforts to advance liberal rule have always been interwoven with processes of alternative order-making, and in this way are actively integral, not external, to the generation of the subjectivities, contestations, violence and rival social orders that are then apprehended as self-evident obstacles and threats to liberal peace and as characteristic of its periphery. Making visible these intimate relations of co-constitution elided by representations of liberal peace and its crisis requires a long view and an analytical frame that encompasses both liberalism and its others in the world. The argument is developed using a Foucauldian governmentality framework and illustrated with reference to Sri Lanka

M6 Membrane Protein Plays an Essential Role in Drosophila Oogenesis

We had previously shown that the transmembrane glycoprotein M6a, a member of the proteolipid protein (PLP) family, regulates neurite/filopodium outgrowth, hence, M6a might be involved in neuronal remodeling and differentiation. In this work we focused on M6, the only PLP family member present in Drosophila, and ortholog to M6a. Unexpectedly, we found that decreased expression of M6 leads to female sterility. M6 is expressed in the membrane of the follicular epithelium in ovarioles throughout oogenesis. Phenotypes triggered by M6 downregulation in hypomorphic mutants included egg collapse and egg permeability, thus suggesting M6 involvement in eggshell biosynthesis. In addition, RNAi-mediated M6 knockdown targeted specifically to follicle cells induced an arrest of egg chamber development, revealing that M6 is essential in oogenesis. Interestingly, M6-associated phenotypes evidenced abnormal changes of the follicle cell shape and disrupted follicular epithelium in mid- and late-stage egg chambers. Therefore, we propose that M6 plays a role in follicular epithelium maintenance involving membrane cell remodeling during oogenesis in Drosophila

A Novel Color Analysis Technique for Differentiation of Mix Grass Cover under Shade and without Shade in Green Infrastructures

Color analysis was found to be a low-cost and noninvasive technique to distinguish plant and soil, crop and weed, living and dead plant, diseased and healthy leaves, and human and plant in field and automatic seedling transplantation systems. However, color analysis was rarely utilized to differentiate various types of shade by grass cover. The main objective of this study was to quantify and differentiate mix grass cover under shade and light in a green infrastructure. The spatial heterogeneity of mix grass species in the selected site was categorized into three different portions, i.e., (1) mix grass cover under tree shade (MUT); (2) mix grass cover under self-shade (MUS); and (3) mix grass cover without shade (MWS). Field monitoring was conducted for about six months to validate the color analysis technique. A java-based image analysis tool, ImageJ, was used for color analysis. Lab color space was adopted for the present study, which identifies the spatial heterogeneity of mix grass cover based on lightness variation of green color. L describes lightness, and a and b represent the color opponents green–red and blue–yellow. ImageJ categorizes L, a, and b using 256 segments on a scale varying between 0 and 255. The range of L values for MUT, MUS, and MWS were found to lie within 20–91, 92–162, and 162–233, respectively. Ranges of a and b values were found to be 0–134 and 154–255, respectively, for the three categories of mix grass. Proportions of MUT, MUS, and MWS were found to vary within 0.2–3.0 %, 0–53 %, and 12–49 %, respectively. Variation in MUT and MWS proportions was found to be consistent with change in rainfall depth during the dry period. However, MUT and MWS were found to change with respect to shoot growth rate during the wet period. The MUS proportion variation trend was not found to be consistent with rainfall depth or shoot growth during the wet period