Chitosan and improved pigment ink jet printing on textiles

The purpose of this research was to explore two ways of the application of chitosan, a biopolymer, for ink jet printing of textiles. 1) To apply chitosan as a post-treatment on the fabric ink jet printed with pigment based inks for the fixation of pigments on the fabric. 2) To incorporate chitosan as a binder in pigment based ink jet ink formulations. The incorporation of chitosan was carried out in two ways. 1) Direct addition of chitosan into the ink formulations containing surface modified pigments. 2) Preparation of chitosan encapsulated pigment nanoparticles using complex coacervation technique and using these nanoparticles for the formulation of ink jet ink. The degree of deacetylation (DD) was determined using FTIR spectroscopy. Various protocols proposed by researchers were used to determine the DD of chitosan samples used in the present study. The protocol proposed by Raut was found to be fairly accurate in determining the DD of chitosan samples. The molecular weight of chitosan was estimated using dilute solution viscometry method. The characterisation of the film forming ability of chitosan was evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The colour strength (K/S), colour difference, colour characteristics and colour fastness to laundering and rubbing of ink jet printed fabrics post treated with chitosan were evaluated using standard methods. Post-treatment (pad-dry-cure method) of cotton fabric ink jet printed with pigment based inks revealed that chitosan could effectively fix the pigments on cotton compared to the commercial textile binders and the water-soluble derivative of chitosan. The chemical interaction between chitosan and cotton fabric was illustrated by FTIR-ATR analysis and through determination of carboxyl group content. The ink jet printed cotton fabric post treated with 3gpl chitosan (MW 156,156) maintained almost 86% of bacterial reduction against Klebsiella Pneumoniae even after 50 launderings. Inks containing chitosan were formulated and were found to be stable in terms of mean particle size and viscosity over a period of one month and for 4 freeze/thaw cycles. A magenta ink containing chitosan was selected for ink jet printing of cotton fabric. It was found that the DF was around 97% for magenta ink containing chitosan compared to around 53% fixation for magenta ink without chitosan on cotton fabric. Surface modified carbon black pigment with carboxylated (COO-) surface functionality was selected to prepare chitosan encapsulated pigment nanoparticles by complex coacervation technique. Chitosan encapsulated pigment nanoparticles with mean particle size diameter of 876 nm and 742 nm were formed when 5 ml of 0.1% w/v pigment was mixed with 2ml and 3ml of 0.1% w/v chitosan, respectively. However, no correlation was found between the particle size of the nanoparticles formed and the concentration of chitosan. The DF with ink containing chitosan encapsulated pigment nanoparticles was found to be around 98% while the blank ink with only surface modified carbon black pigment showed 44% fixation

Social media addiction and its impact among the school students during COVID-19 lockdown in an urban area of Western India: a cross-sectional study

Background: Reports indicate significant increase in number of social media users. Teenagers are among the most prolific users of social media. Subsequently, questions and controversies emerge about its positive and negative effects, including their safety, academics and inter-personal relationships. This study will help in identifying teenagers at risk and implications of social media addiction on students.Methods: A cross sectional study conducted among school students of randomly selected schools of Surat city. Social media addiction scale-student form was used for data collection. Data entry in Microsoft excel and analysis was done by Epi-info. Univariate analysis was done to calculate mean and standard deviation while bivariate analysis for chi square test.Results: With 434 students of grade 9-12, mean age was 15.70±1.20 years. The prevalence of social media addiction was 23.5%. Girls were significantly associated with social media addiction. Overall, 26% of the students agreed that they were eager to go on social media, 14% of the students agreed that a life without social media becomes meaningless for them and 14.3% of the students agreed that they were unhappy when they are not on social media. Overall, 21.5% agreed that their productivity has decreased due to social media use and 12% had physical problems because of social media use.Conclusions: Risk factors for addiction were younger age group (13-15 years), female gender and students of standard 9. The academics was hampered for all the students irrespective of their age. There was a negative effect on their inter-personal relationships, mental and physical health.

Effect of prepregnancy body mass index and gestational weight gain on birth weight

Objective: Nutritional status of women has been considered an important prognostic indicator of birth outcome. The study aims to show the effect of various prepregnancy Body Mass Index (BMI) categories and corresponding gestational weight gain on newborn birth weight.Methods: Two hundred women were included in the study. These women had regular antenatal visits and later delivered at The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) between the period January 1, 1996 to December 31, 1997.Results: For women with prepregnancy BMI \u3c 19., mean birth weight of newborns was lower for those gaining \u3c 12.5 kg than those gaining \u3e 12.5 kg (P \u3c 0.001). Women who started their pregnancy with BMI 19.8-26 and gained weight above expected range gave birth to high birth weight babies (P = 0.009). Gestational weight gain did not have a significant association with birth weight for women having prepregnancy BMI \u3e 26.Conclusion: Efforts should be made to attain adequate prepregnancy weight to reduce the likelihood of low birth weight babies. Hence, special attention should be paid to women with low prepregnancy BMI

The shape of equality: discourses around the Section 28 repeal in Scotland

This article focuses on conceptualizations of equality in the discourses deployed in the campaign to repeal Section 28 in Scotland. I use the parliamentary debates and two newspapers: the Daily Record, which supported the campaign to Keep the Clause, and The Guardian, which supported repeal, to exemplify the different discursive articulations around equality and citizenship. I suggest that the Scottish example provides further evidence of the ways in which liberalism naturalizes heterosexuality as the standard for citizenship and thus bequeaths a hierarchy of 'equality' and citizenship in the realm of sexuality, wherein lesbian and gay citizenship is either rendered invalid or characterized as 'special rights'. However, within the narrow confines of the parliamentary debates, more expansive and differentiated notions of citizenship and equality are evident. Whilst I conclude that the 'shape' of equality achieved through the repeal has been moulded to support institutionalized heterosexuality - with Section 28 replaced by statutory guidelines on sex education which advocate marriage - I also suggest equality is contested, both through the recognition of transformations in heterosexual family forms and the appeal to non-discrimination as a democratic principle. It is possible, therefore, that current destabilizations of the heterosexual social order simultaneously destabilize the precepts of liberal democracy

Seasonal intercomparison of observational rainfall datasets over India during the southwest monsoon season

The Indian monsoon is an important component of Earth's climate system, accurate forecasting of its mean rainfall being essential for regional food and water security. Accurate measurement of the rainfall is essential for various water-related applications, the evaluation of numerical models and detection and attribution of trends, but a variety of different gridded rainfall datasets are available for these purposes. In this study, six gridded rainfall datasets are compared against the India Meteorological Department (IMD) gridded rainfall dataset, chosen as the most representative of the observed system due to its high gauge density. The datasets comprise those based solely on rain gauge observations and those merging rain gauge data with satellite-derived products. Various skill scores and subjective comparisons are carried out for the Indian region during the south-west monsoon season (June to September). Relative biases and skill metrics are documented at all-India and sub-regional scales. In the gauge-based (land-only) category, Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of water resources (APHRODITE) and Global Precipitation Climatology Center (GPCC) datasets perform better relative to the others in terms of a variety of skill metrics. In the merged category, the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) dataset is shown to perform better than the Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) for the Indian monsoon in terms of various metrics, when compared with the IMD gridded data. Most of the datasets have difficulty in representing rainfall over orographic regions including the Western Ghats mountains, in north-east India and the Himalayan foothills. The wide range of skill scores seen among the datasets and even the change of sign of bias found in some years are causes of concern. This uncertainty between datasets is largest in north-east India. These results will help those studying the Indian monsoon region to select an appropriate dataset depending on their application and focus of research

What is the effect of riskshaw noise on its driver?

Objective: Occupational hearing loss is common in the industrialized world. Road noise is a major contributor to perceived environmental noise. The objective of this study was to assess hearing loss in rickshaw drivers due to rickshaw noise.Methods: Hearing loss in rickshaw drivers and taxi drivers of Karachi who were 50 years of age or younger was estimated, with a Smith Hearing Screening (SHS) questionnaire that was modified, translated into the national language, Urdu and field tested prior to administration.Results: Interviews for 91 rickshaw drivers and 94 taxi drivers were completed. All subjects were male; mean ages were 34 and 33 years for rickshaw and taxi drivers respectively. None of the rickshaws were fitted with silencers. Rickshaw drivers were about thrice as likely to be screened as hearing impaired by the SHS questionnaire (RR 2.9, 95% confidence interval 1.6, 5.0), twice as likely to report tinnitus (RR 2.2, 95% confidence interval, 1.1, 3.3) and two and a half times as likely to have difficulty in following telephonic conversations (RR 2.4, 95% confidence interval 1.2, 4.8).CONCLUSION: There is loss of hearing and tinnitus among rickshaw drivers that could be attributed to their trade. Use of silencers by rickshaw drivers could result in less hearing loss among rickshaw drivers and less noise in the environment for the other 11 million residents in the city

Global respiratory syncytial virus-related infant community deaths

Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of pediatric death, with \u3e99% of mortality occurring in low- and lower middle-income countries. At least half of RSV-related deaths are estimated to occur in the community, but clinical characteristics of this group of children remain poorly characterized.Methods: The RSV Global Online Mortality Database (RSV GOLD), a global registry of under-5 children who have died with RSV-related illness, describes clinical characteristics of children dying of RSV through global data sharing. RSV GOLD acts as a collaborative platform for global deaths, including community mortality studies described in this supplement. We aimed to compare the age distribution of infant deaths \u3c6 months occurring in the community with in-hospital.Results: We studied 829 RSV-related deaths \u3c1 year of age from 38 developing countries, including 166 community deaths from 12 countries. There were 629 deaths that occurred \u3c6 months, of which 156 (25%) occurred in the community. Among infants who died before 6 months of age, median age at death in the community (1.5 months; IQR: 0.8-3.3) was lower than in-hospital (2.4 months; IQR: 1.5-4.0; P \u3c .0001). The proportion of neonatal deaths was higher in the community (29%, 46/156) than in-hospital (12%, 57/473, P \u3c 0.0001).Conclusions: We observed that children in the community die at a younger age. We expect that maternal vaccination or immunoprophylaxis against RSV will have a larger impact on RSV-related mortality in the community than in-hospital. This case series of RSV-related community deaths, made possible through global data sharing, allowed us to assess the potential impact of future RSV vaccines

Pre-mRNA splicing repression triggers abiotic stress signaling in plants

[EN] Alternative splicing (AS) of precursor RNAs enhances transcriptome plasticity and proteome diversity in response to diverse growth and stress cues. Recent work has shown that AS is pervasive across plant species, with more than 60% of intron-containing genes producing different isoforms. Mammalian cell-based assays have discovered various inhibitors of AS. Here, we show that the macrolide pladienolide B (PB) inhibits constitutive splicing and AS in plants. Also, our RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data revealed that PB mimics abiotic stress signals including salt, drought and abscisic acid (ABA). PB activates the abiotic stress-and ABA-responsive reporters RD29A::LUC and MAPKKK18::uidA in Arabidopsis thaliana and mimics the effects of ABA on stomatal aperture. Genome-wide analysis of AS by RNA-seq revealed that PB perturbs the splicing machinery and leads to a striking increase in intron retention and a reduction in other forms of AS. Interestingly, PB treatment activates the ABA signaling pathway by inhibiting the splicing of clade A PP2C phosphatases while still maintaining to some extent the splicing of ABA-activated SnRK2 kinases. Taken together, our data establish PB as an inhibitor and modulator of splicing and a mimic of abiotic stress signals in plants. Thus, PB reveals the molecular underpinnings of the interplay between stress responses, ABA signaling and post-transcriptional regulation in plants.We wish to thank members of the Laboratory for Genome Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript. We wish to thank Moussa Benhamed for helpful discussions and suggestions and for providing key materials. We wish to thank Sean Cutler for providing Arabidopsis seeds of MAKPKKK18-uidA. This study was supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Work in PR's laboratory was funded by grant BIO2014-52537-R from MINECO. Work in PD's laboratory is funded by grant PTDC/BIA-PLA/1084/2014 from FCT. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.Ling, Y.; Alshareef, S.; Butt, H.; Lozano Juste, J.; Li, L.; Galal, AA.; Moustafa, A.... (2017). Pre-mRNA splicing repression triggers abiotic stress signaling in plants. The Plant Journal. 89(2):291-309. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.13383S29130989

Prostate-specific antigen and hormone receptor expression in male and female breast carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prostate carcinoma is among the most common solid tumors to secondarily involve the male breast. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) and prostate-specific acid phosphatase (PSAP) are expressed in benign and malignant prostatic tissue, and immunohistochemical staining for these markers is often used to confirm the prostatic origin of metastatic carcinoma. PSA expression has been reported in male and female breast carcinoma and in gynecomastia, raising concerns about the utility of PSA for differentiating prostate carcinoma metastasis to the male breast from primary breast carcinoma. This study examined the frequency of PSA, PSAP, and hormone receptor expression in male breast carcinoma (MBC), female breast carcinoma (FBC), and gynecomastia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Immunohistochemical staining for PSA, PSAP, AR, ER, and PR was performed on tissue microarrays representing six cases of gynecomastia, thirty MBC, and fifty-six FBC.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PSA was positive in two of fifty-six FBC (3.7%), focally positive in one of thirty MBC (3.3%), and negative in the five examined cases of gynecomastia. PSAP expression was absent in MBC, FBC, and gynecomastia. Hormone receptor expression was similar in males and females (AR 74.1% in MBC vs. 67.9% in FBC, p = 0.62; ER 85.2% vs. 68.5%, p = 0.18; and PR 51.9% vs. 48.2%, p = 0.82).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>PSA and PSAP are useful markers to distinguish primary breast carcinoma from prostate carcinoma metastatic to the male breast. Although PSA expression appeared to correlate with hormone receptor expression, the incidence of PSA expression in our population was too low to draw significant conclusions about an association between PSA expression and hormone receptor status in breast lesions.</p