Vulnerability and risk perception in the management of HIV/AIDS: Public priorities in a global pandemic

Understanding the way perception of risk is shaped and constructed is crucial in understanding why it has been so difficult to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS. This paper uses the Pressure and Release (PAR) model, used to predict the onset of natural disasters as the conceptual framework. It substitutes vulnerability and risk perception as the trigger factors in the model, in making the case that HIV/AIDS can be characterized as a slow onset disaster. The implications are that vulnerability must be managed and reduced by addressing root causes, dynamic pressures, and unsafe conditions that contribute to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV/AIDS programs must be culturally appropriate and work toward influencing risk perception, while addressing social norms and values that negatively impact vulnerable populations. By impacting cultural and social expectations, individuals will be able to more readily adopt safer sex behaviors. The development of policies and programs addressing the issues in context, as opposed to individual behaviors alone, allows for effective public health intervention. This may have implications for public health measures implemented for combating the spread of HIV/AIDS

Flood Risk Mapping for the City of Toronto

AbstractThe city of Toronto has experienced many major floods over the past century: the flood following hurricane Hazel in October 15, 1954, the August 27, 1976 floods, the August 19, 2005, and the flooding of July 8, 2013. During the latest flooding, some parts of the City of Toronto received over 120mm of rain, while the monthly average for Toronto is 74.4mm. The impact was felt as 300,000 residents were affected by power outages. Other serious disruptions included flight cancellations, subway and other transportation closures. It was the most expensive disaster for the province of Ontario. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the damage of the insured properties exceeded $850 million. This event renewed a debate on a number of issues, such as decaying infrastructure, insufficient flood management, and inadequate standards. Don River, the main river crossing the city, is wide but not deep enough, which together with sedimentation contributes to frequent flooding of surrounding areas. In addition, natural creeks have been buried in sewer pipes, thus losing the natural waterways towards the lake Ontario and forcing existing rivers and creeks to overflow their banks. While floodplain maps are generally available, the estimation of flood risk maps based on population, economic development, and critical infrastructure will enhance city's flood mitigation and preparedness planning. In this paper, we present an approach for determining spatial flood risk index map based on population vulnerabilities and terrain morphological characteristics using a geographic information system

REPEATED ACUTE STRESS INDUCED ALTERATIONS IN CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM IN RAT

Acute stress induced alterations in the activity levels of rate limiting enzymes and concentration of intermediates of different pathways of carbohydrate metabolism have been studied. Adult male Wistar rats were restrained (RS) for 1 h and after an interval of 4 h they were subjected to forced swimming (FS) exercise and appropriate controls were maintained. Five rats were killed before the commencement of the experiment (initial controls), 5 control and equal number of stressed rats were killed 2 h after RS and remaining 5 rats in each group were killed 4 h after FS. There was a significant increase in the adrenal 3β- hydroxy steroid dehydrogenase activity following RS, which showed further increase after FS compared to controls and thereby indicated stress response of rats. There was a significant increase in the blood glucose levels following RS which showed further increase and reached hyperglycemic condition after FS. The hyperglycemic condition due to stress was accompanied by significant increases in the activities of glutamate- pyruvate transaminase, glutamate- oxaloacetate transaminase, glucose -6- phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase and significant decrease in the glucose -6- phosphate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase activities, whereas pyruvate kinase activity did not show any alteration compared to controls. Further, the glycogen and total protein contents of the liver were decreased whereas those of pyruvate and lactate showed significant increase compared to controls after RS as well as FS.The results put together indicate that acute stress induced hyperglycemia results due to increased gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis without alteration in glycolysis. The study first time reveals that after first acute stress exposure, the subsequent stressful experience augments metabolic stress response leading to hyperglycemia. The results have relevance to human health as human beings are exposed to several stressors in a day and such an experience might lead to insulin resistance because prolonged hyperglycemic condition is known to cause insulin resistance

CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PACIFIC, ATLANTIC AND ARCTIC TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEMS FOR CANADA

Canada has coastlines on three of the four oceans on the globe, namely, the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans are connected to the Arctic Ocean in the north, but still they are three distinct oceans, and need three individual tsunami warning systems. Tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are not as well documented as in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. From what is known, tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are rare and probably are small in amplitude. Because of very low population density, around the Canadian Arctic, at present, there is no priority for a tsunami warning system for Arctic Canada. For the Pacific Ocean, a tsunami warning system is in existence since 1948. In at least one sense, the warning aspects of the tsunami warning system for the Pacific coast of Canada, is relatively simple and straight forward, because it involves only the federal government (PSEPC) and the provincial government of British Columbia (PEP). For the Atlantic Ocean, A tsunami warning system is now being established. The warning aspects will be some what more complex for eastern Canada, since it not only involves the federal government, but also five provinces, namely, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The Alaska tsunami warning center (ATWC) in Palmer, Alaska, provides tsunami warnings for both Pacific and Atlantic Canada

PERSISTENT HIGH WATER LEVELS AROUND ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS FOLLOWING THE 26 DECEMBER 2004 TSUNAMI

During the tsunami of 26th December 2004 in the Indian Ocean, media reports suggested that high water levels persisted around the Andaman & Nicobar Islands for several days. These persistent high water levels can be explained by invoking the existence of trapped and partially leaky modes on the shelves surrounding these islands. It has been known in the studies of tides in the global oceans, that there are two distinct types of oscillations, separated in their frequencies by the period of the pendulum day. One species are the gravity waves, and the others are the rotational waves, associated with earth's rotation. Both these species can be found in tidal records around islands as well as near coastlines. Essentially these are either trapped or partly leaky modes, partly trapped on the continental shelves. These two types of modes are usually found in the tsunami records on tide gauges. The tide gauge records as well as visual descriptions of the water levels during and after the occurrence of a tsunami clearly show the presence of these oscillations

A POSSIBLE TSUNAMI IN THE LABRADOR SEA RELATED TO THE DRAINAGE OF GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ ~8400 YEARS B.P.

For thousands of years, the thick Laurentide Ice Sheet covered a large part of northern North America, damming northward-draining rivers. As this ice retreated, large lakes formed along its margin. Glacial Lake Agassiz was the largest of these ice-marginal lakes, covering an area of >800,000 km2 (more than twice the size of the largest lake in the modern world, the Caspian Sea) before it drained catastrophically into the Labrador Sea. Even before that, Lake Agassiz had periodically released large volumes of water into the ocean via the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and the Athabasca-Mackenzie River systems. The last and largest of these outbursts released >150,000 km3 through Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait in 6-12 months; the average flux over that period was ~5 Sv (1 Sv = 1×106 m3s-1).When a volume of water this large is discharged into a coastal sea like the Labrador Sea, it may generate a surface flood wave or a tsunami if the water mass is large enough and introduced in a short time. To our knowledge no previous calculations have been made to estimate the potential impact of a flood burst on the generation of solitary waves. Using analogies of tsunamis generated by submarine landslides and ocean earthquakes, the amplitude of a Lake Agassiz generated tsunami is estimated to have been at least 2 m. Directionality considerations, as well as the effect of the Coriolis Force in the Northern Hemisphere, suggest that the resulting tsunami probably traveled 50-100 km along the west coast of the Labrador Sea, south of Hudson Strait where the outburst entered the ocean, before being dissipated. The erosional and depositional affects of historic and prehistoric tsunamis are present in the geological record, and provide guidance in seeking evidence for the Lake Agassiz flood burst and subsequent tsunami. This record may be found along the western coast of the Labrador Sea as well as along the shores of Hudson Strait

Isolation and Purification of C-phycocyanin From Nostoc Muscorum (Cyanophyceae and Cyanobacteria) Exhibits Antimalarial Activity in Vitro

The phycobilin pigments are intensively fluorescent and water soluble. They are categorized into three types, such as pigments containing high, intermediate and low energies are phycoerythrins (phycoerythrocyanins), phycocyanins and allophycocyanins, respectively. Besides light harvesting, the phycobiliproteins have shown industrial and biomedical importance. Among them, C-phycocyanin (C-PC) has been considered to be the most preferred one. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the antimalarial activity of C-PC isolated from a nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium and Nostoc muscorum. C-PC was extracted and purified by acetone extraction and ammonium sulfate precipitation and dialysis followed by amicon filtration. It was isolated as a~124 kDa water soluble protein molecule. It showed antimalarial activity in vitro against chloroquine sensitive and resistant Plasmodium falciparum strains. Inhibitory concentrations at 50%, 90% and 95% were determined as 10.27±2.79, 53.53±6.26 and 73.78±6.92 µg/ml against the chloroquine-sensitive strains; 10.37±1.43, 56.99±11.07 and 72.79±8.59 µg/ml against chloroquine resistant of Plasmodium falciparum strains. C-PC was found to have antimalarial activity even at a concentration of 3.0µg/ml. The possible mechanism might be relied on the destruction of polymerization of haemozoin by binding of C-PC with ferriprotoporphyrin-IX at the water surface of the plasma membrane

Isolation and Purification of C-phycocyanin From Nostoc Muscorum (Cyanophyceae and Cyanobacteria) Exhibits Antimalarial Activity in Vitro

The phycobilin pigments are intensively fluorescent and water soluble. They are categorized into three types, such as pigments containing high, intermediate and low energies are phycoerythrins (phycoerythrocyanins), phycocyanins and allophycocyanins, respectively. Besides light harvesting, the phycobiliproteins have shown industrial and biomedical importance. Among them, C-phycocyanin (C-PC) has been considered to be the most preferred one. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the antimalarial activity of C-PC isolated from a nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium and Nostoc muscorum. C-PC was extracted and purified by acetone extraction and ammonium sulfate precipitation and dialysis followed by amicon filtration. It was isolated as a~124 kDa water soluble protein molecule. It showed antimalarial activity in vitro against chloroquine sensitive and resistant Plasmodium falciparum strains. Inhibitory concentrations at 50%, 90% and 95% were determined as 10.27±2.79, 53.53±6.26 and 73.78±6.92 µg/ml against the chloroquine-sensitive strains; 10.37±1.43, 56.99±11.07 and 72.79±8.59 µg/ml against chloroquine resistant of Plasmodium falciparum strains. C-PC was found to have antimalarial activity even at a concentration of 3.0µg/ml. The possible mechanism might be relied on the destruction of polymerization of haemozoin by binding of C-PC with ferriprotoporphyrin-IX at the water surface of the plasma membrane

THE PHARMACOECONOMIC IMPACT OF GASTRO-PROTECTIVE AGENTS AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate the pharmacoeconomic impact of gastro-protective agents (GPA) by carrying out cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and cost-effective analysis (CEA). Methods: This prospective observational study was carried out by simple randomization technique at Karnataka Institute of Medical Science, Hubballi. Data used were socio-economic details based on modified B. G Prasad scale. Current Index of Medical Specialists updated version March 2021 was used for CBA and CEA. Regression analysis was the statistical tool used in the study. Results: A total of 120 participants were included in the study. 57.5% were male and 42.5% were female. 3.33% were pediatrics, 32.5% were young adults, 37.5% were elder adults and 26.67% were geriatrics. Out of 120 samples, 94 participants were prescribed with pantoprazole, other drugs prescribed include domperidone and pantoprazole, rabeprazole, and ranitidine. The CBA revealed ratio of benefits over costs for pantoprazole was 3.86, ranitidine was 9.31, pantoprazole and domperidone was 0.84 and rabeprazole was 0.84. Additional cost of 138.30 Indian Rupee must be spent on pantoprazole over ranitidine to get cost-effective treatment without disease for one whole year. Conclusion: The CBA revealed that maximum patients received benefits for pantoprazole. CEA gives an idea on best effective treatment over two drugs of different class. Our study concludes that pantoprazole is deemed to be superior over other drugs of GPA prescribed among study participants

Quantifying gene network connectivity in silico: Scalability and accuracy of a modular approach

Large, complex data sets that are generated from microarray experiments, create a need for systematic analysis techniques to unravel the underlying connectivity of gene regulatory networks. A modular approach, previously proposed by Kholodenko and co-workers, helps to scale down the network complexity into more computationally manageable entities called modules. A functional module includes a gene\u27s mRNA, promoter and resulting products, thus encompassing a large set of interacting states. The essential elements of this approach are described in detail for a three-gene model network and later extended to a ten-gene model network, demonstrating scalability. The network architecture is identified by analysing in silico steady-state changes in the activities of only the module outputs, communicating intermediates, that result from specific perturbations applied to the network modules one at a time. These steady-state changes form the system response matrix, which is used to compute the network connectivity or network interaction map. By employing a known biochemical network, the accuracy of the modular approach and its sensitivity to key assumptions are evaluated