Prevalence and Determinants of Food Insecurity and Association with Malnutrition of under Five Children in Aligarh

Background: Food security has always been a major determinant behind development of malnutrition among the under 5 children of India. Even after sustained efforts to alleviate this problem, we are still way behind in achieving our targets. Aims and Objectives: To assess the prevalence and determinants of food security, and find association of food security with stunting and wasting of children less than five years of age. Materials and Methods: This study among under five children was conducted in field practice areas of Department of Community Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. Food security was assessed through Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) while stunting and wasting were assessed by parameters defined by World Health Organization. Statistical Analysis: Done using IBM SPSS 20.0 version. Results: 41.1% children were found to have low food security and among these 1.8% children have very low food security. Overall, statistically significant association was found between food security and malnutrition among the children (p<0.05). Significant association was also found between place of residence, caste, type of family, father’s education, father’s occupation and mother’s education. Conclusion: New health policies should be introduced, and already existing programs need to reinforce to curb this menace

Agricultural adaptation and climate change policy for crop production in Africa

Africa is considered among the most highly vulnerable regions to climate change because of extremes of drought, flooding, inappropriate land tenure systems, overdependence on rainfed agriculture, and widespread poverty. The impact of climate change is moderated by several factors such as access to land, inputs, credit, and markets. Thus, there is a critical need for decision makers at different levels in Africa to develop matching response strategies and policies to reduce vulnerability and foster resilient livelihood systems on a sustainable basis. The smallholder farming communities are inherently the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, and are always away from the advantage of any emerging opportunities due to resource constraints. About 65 % of national agricultural earnings in this continent is derived from the crop production of staple cereals, particularly maize. Due to shrinkage in cultivated area, production is also about 5–25 %, and the region’s need is more chronic for food and feed. The climate change challenge is aggravated by diminishing soil productivity and the decline in natural resources has affected the livelihood of rural and peri-urban communities. The communities have drawn on their indigenous knowledge systems with the support of local institutions and traditional social safety nets to adopt the various multiple stress factors related to climate change and variability. However, there is still limited empirical evidence on the robustness of these systems in support of social collaborations and resolving conflicts arising from the resource scarcity in the wake of climate change. Comprehensive policy frameworks are therefore required to expand the climate change adaptation horizons beyond the boundaries of current farming systems. For instance, the risk of crop-based enterprises has increased by deteriorating climatic conditions. There is much evidence of multiple stresses characterising the existing poverty traps for the predominantly rural communities, and challenges of chronic food insecurity, but no evidence on how current agriculture and climate change policy frameworks are able to address these multiple stress factors against the increasing risk and uncertainty of agriculture as a source of climate change adaptation. Currently, the majority of the farmers lives beyond the reach of markets, yet agricultural development policies are hinged on the principles of market participation. Transformation of these subsistence farms into commercially oriented and market-driven production systems will effectively call for structural and process changes in knowledge systems, technology development and delivery, institutions, and policies. The empirical research shows evidence of current and future impacts of climate change and variability on agricultural production systems, and their implications on the resilience of smallholder farming systems currently supporting the poorer and more vulnerable communities. Over the past decade, there has been a remarkable increase in awareness about climate change issues with diverse stakeholders, including policy makers. The lack of knowledge on the nature, magnitude, and direction of impacts at the indigenous community and national scales will likely continue to haunt decision-making processes regarding the development of robust strategies and policies to support adaptation. However, the regional agricultural sector has to undergo major transformation processes in order to meet emerging demands for adaptation. This may entail changes in the types and forms of information, knowledge, technologies, resource regimes, and institutions driving current production systems. There are still major knowledge gaps across disciplines on how local-level changes in climatic factors influence the socioecological processes that underpin agricultural production systems across spatial and temporal scales. Thus, it has been concluded that the policy making on climate change in Africa is not necessarily constrained by the lack of empirical evidence, but instead by the failure of policy makers to use available empirical evidence. The current failures in linking research to policy could be a major barrier to further research and development innovations for climate change adaptation. Evidence from limited climate change adaptation studies conducted with communities in the region revealed the importance of policy dialogue platforms as an integral part of research and development initiatives

The Impact of Changing Climate on the Cambial Activity during Radial Growth in Some <em>Citrus</em> Species

This study on radial growth in the stem of Citrus was carried out with an aim to notice the behavior of vascular cambium with respect to climatic and age effects. The fusiform initials vary in length from 137 to 363 μm in C. limon, 100 to 463 μm in C. paradisi, 137 to 413 μm in C. reticulata var. kinnow, and 137 to 375 μm in C. sinensis. The length rises with age, followed by decline and then again increase in C. limon. In C. paradisi, there is increase up to maximum and after decline is soon followed by constancy. In C. reticulata var. kinnow, increase in length from top to base in C. sinensis, increase up to maximum followed by a decline. Swelling of cambial cells occurs in the third week of March in C. limon, last week of March in C. paradisi, third week of April in C. reticulata var. kinnow, and second week of April in C. sinensis. The cambium turns dormant in early October in C. limon, late December in C. paradisi, early December in C. reticulata var. kinnow, and early November in C. sinensis. Thus, the cambium remains active for about 6 months in C. limon and C. sinensis, 9 months in C. paradisi, and 7 months in C. reticulata var. kinnow

A study to evaluate antioxidant and hepatoprotective activity of aqueous extract of roots of Valeriana wallichii in CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity in rats

Background: Drugs for liver ailments have been important in research, but still the number of drugs acting on various hepatic diseases is very limited. This study, for the first time, evaluates the hepatoprotective activity of aqueous extract of the roots of Valeriana Wallichii in albino rats.Methods: The hepatotoxicity was induced by CCl4. Animals were divided into 5 groups of 6 animals each. Group I (Normal control) was given only distilled water. Group II (Negative control)was administered CCl4 for 7 days while Group III (Positive control) was given silymarin and CCl4 for 7 days. The test groups (Group IV & V) were given an aqueous extract of roots of V. Wallichii in a dose of 300 mg and 500 mg/kg, respectively. The animals were sacrificed on 8 days and blood was collected for biochemical analysis (aspartate aminotransferase [AST], alanine transaminase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase). Liver tissue was extracted for histopathological examination and in vivo antioxidant tests Catalase [CAT], glutathione and malondialdehyde. The extract was also subjected to in vitro antioxidant tests (Total reducing power and total phenolic content).Results: The test extracts in the dose of 500 mg/kg were shown a significant decrease in the levels of AST and ALT (p>0.05) and CAT activity. 300 mg/kg dose of extract showed minimal hepatoprotection. The findings were confirmatory to histopathology. Conclusion: The aqueous extract of roots of V. Wallichii in a dose of 500 mg/kg offers partial protection against hepatotoxicity produced by CCl4 in albino rats

Implicit Summation Formula for 2-Variable Laguerre-Based Poly-Genocchi Polynomials

The main object of this paper is to introduce a new class of Laguerre-based poly-Genocchi polynomials and investigate some properties for these polynomials and related to the Stirling numbers of the second kind. We derive summation formulae and general symmetry identities by using different analytical means and applying generating functions

Fluorescence microscopy on the biocompatibility of gentamicin-coated hydroxyapatite (HA) material on osteoblast

This study was carried out to observe the biocompatibility of gentamicin-coated hydroxyapatite (HA) on osteoblast using fluorescence microscopy. The specific objective was to observe the viability of the osteoblast on the gentamicin-coated hydroxyapatite (HA) and to determine the effect of the biomaterial coated with gentamicin on the osteoblast. Osteoblast cell lines were cultured and maintained in complete medium, 1:1 HAM's F12 Medium Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium without phenol red (DMEM) and incubated at 37°C in a 5% CO 2. The cell lines were treated with different concentration of gentamicin-coated hydroxyapatite and the interactions of the antibiotic beads against osteoblast were tested using the 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The MTT assay results indicated that varying concentrations of gentamicin coated HA from 0.1 mg/ml to 10 mg/ml did not significantly affect viability of osteoblast. By employing fluorescence microscopy, the morphology of osteoblast observed appeared red in color which indicated that the osteoblast was viable on biomaterial. The pore size of hydroxyapatite is between 150 to 350 nm. This preliminary result suggested that the gentamicin-coated HA had a good biocompatibility towards osteoblast

ITS2-rDNA fragments of Leishmania species isolated from the great gerbil in Iran, 2021

Background: The great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), is widely distributed in Asia and is a natural reservoir for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in many endemic areas, as well as Iran. Materials and Methods: In this study, infection to Leishmania species was investigated by two methods, parasitological and molecular survey, in the small number of R. opimus collected from Jovain, a Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (ZCL) focus located in North East of Iran. Results: Parasitological observation showed infection in only one of five rodents. But, ITS2-Nested-PCR revealed Leishmania infection in three out of 5 gerbils, including the parasitological positive one. Based on the PCR amplified size, two cases of infections were Leishmania major and one Leishmania turanica, their sequences are accessible in GenBank. The results of sequence analysis were consistent with the results obtained based on the size of the PCR. Conclusion: These findings re-confirm the important role of R. opimus in the natural circulation of Leishmania spp and indicate the need to be concerned about the disease in the study area