Clean Energy Access : Gender Disparity, Health, and Labor Supply

Women are known to bear the largest share of health, time and labor supply burden associated with a lack of modern energy. In this paper, we study the impact of clean energy access on adult health and labor supply outcomes by exploiting a nationwide rollout of clean cooking fuel program in Indonesia. This program led to a large-scale fuel switching, from kerosene, a dirty fuel, to liquid petroleum gas, a significantly cleaner and efficient cooking fuel than kerosene. Using rich longitudinal survey data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey and the staggered structure of the program roll-out, we find that access to clean cooking fuel led to a significant improvement in women's health, particularly among those who spend most of their time indoors doing housework. We also find an increase in the labor supplied by these women on both intensive and extensive margins. This suggests that having clean and efficient cooking fuel may not only improve women's health but also improve their productivity, subsequently allowing them to supply more market labor. For men, we find an increase in the labor supplied only along the intensive margin, with a higher increase among men in households where women accrued the largest health and labor benefits from the program. These results highlight the role of clean energy in reducing gender-disparity in health and labor participation and point to the existence of positive externality from improved health and productivity of women on other members of the household.Imelda gratefully acknowledges support from European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (772331

Modularity for Mathematica

Morphological integration is correlation of parts, the integration of morphological traits or features that must function, grow, or be passed to offspring on as working units. Individual integrated units are modules, a group of traits that are highly correlated among themselves but only loosely correlated with traits in other modules. The study of integration and modularity was first developed by Olson and Miller (1958) and expanded on by Cheverud (1982), Zelditch (1988), Wagner (1995), Raff (1996), Klingenberg (2000), Mitteroecker (2007) and many others. The basic component of studying modularity and integration is identifying packages of intercorrelated traits that behave independently of other such packages, whether through ontogeny, across individuals within a population, or during the course of evolution. This package performs a simple analysis of modularity on geometric morphometric landmark data. This package accompanies the review by Goswami and Polly (2010). Users are referred to that paper for a discussion of the methods embedded in this package, including their strengths and weaknesses, and for elaboration of other methods that address broader problems

A REVIEW ON THE ANTI-DIABETIC (PRAMEHAHARA) ACTION OF AN AYURVEDIC POLYHERBAL FORMULATION -NISAKATAKADI KWATHA

Type 2 Diabetes mellitus is one of the major diseases affecting the population world wide. India is no exception with its 69. 1 million people affected as per current statistics. So in the current scenario, search for effective anti diabetic drugs are on the rise. The management of diabetes with modern system of medicine, inspite of many advances still remains unsatisfactory. This led to the search of safe, effective and cheaper herbal remedies. Such remedies can be explored from the huge wealth of Ayurveda which has been practice in India since centuries. One such effective anti diabetic Ayurvedic formulation that has been in use in Kerala by traditional vaidyas since long ago is Nisakatakadi kwatha. It is mentioned in one of the traditional Malayalam text, Sahasrayoga. It is a formulation consisting of 8 drugs viz. Nisa, Kataka, Amalaki, Paranthi, Lodhra, Bhadrika, Saptachakra and Ushira. In this review an attempt has been made to analyse the anti diabetic (pramehahara) action of this formulation by reviewing the pharmacological properties and the recent research updates on each of these 8 drugs by reviewing textbooks of Ayurveda and journal articles. This review also aims to familiarize this effective formulation to the Ayurvedic fraternity and to the general public

Microwave Combustion Synthesis of Silver Doped Lanthanum Ferrite Magnetic Nanoparticles

Lanthanum ferrite (LaFeO3) and silver doped LaFeO3 powders were synthesized by a single step microwave combustion route using nitrates as precursors and glycine as a fuel. XRD analysis indicated the formation of cubic phase with the dopant peaks at 2θ values of 38.3°, 44.1° and 64.4° apart from the peaks corresponding to LaFeO3. As observed from the transmission electron micrographs, LaFeO3 exhibits particles with a larger size (mean size ~57 nm), significant decrease in particle size is observed for silver doped samples. The magnetic measurements reveal weak ferromagnetic nature of LaFeO3, while silver doped samples are ferromagnetic in nature. Lanthanum silver ferrite (x=0.25, A site) shows maximum coercivity (Hci=480.96G) with hysteresis loop at room temperature which is a clear sign of ferromagnetic ordering. The S shape of the curve implies the presence of domain wall movements in nanoparticles. Thermogravimetric analysis of the samples show stable behavior of the products.Defence Science Journal, 2013, 63(3), pp.285-291, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.63.238

Phenotypic characterization and susceptibility of gram negative bacteria from surgical site infections in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Gram negative bacteria are the common isolates among the cases of Surgical Site Infections (SSI). Resistant and specially Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) Gram negative isolates are a serious challenge for the treatment to clinicians. Present study was undertaken for phenotypic characterization and susceptibility pattern of Gram negative bacterial isolates from cases of surgical site infections in a tertiary care institute.Methods: This descriptive cross sectional hospital based study was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital over a period of one and half year from January 2012 to June 2013. Centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) SSI case definitions were used to label a case as SSI. Only culture proven cases, out of clinically suspected was included in the study for evaluation.Results: During the study period a total of 5949 patients were operated and screened for SSI in the wards under surveillance. Out of which 556 were clinically suspected as a case of SSI. With 408 culture proven cases of SSI the rate of SSI in present study was (6.86%). Rates of SSI were more in dirty (22.54%) and contaminated (13.78%) type of wounds. Among Gram negative bacterial isolates (n=343) from SSI, E. coli (45.18%) was the commonest followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (16.03%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (13.42%). Unpleasant trend in antimicrobial resistance observed during study is a serious concern.Conclusions: The data presented in this study clearly indicate the continuous need of surveillance of SSI. This will clearly help health care personnel in curtailing down the incidences of SSI

Effects of Viscous and Joules Dissipation on MHD Flow, Heat and Mass Transfer past a Stretching Porous Surface Embedded in a Porous Medium

This paper investigates the influence of both viscous and joules dissipation on the problem of magnetohydrodynamic flow past a stretching porous surface embedded in a porous medium. Analytic solutions of the resulting nonlinear non-homogeneous boundary value problem in the case when the plate stretches with a velocity varying linearly with distance, expressed in terms of confluent hypergeometric functions, are presented for the case of prescribed surface temperature. Numerical calculations have been carried out for various values of suction parameter, magnetic field, Prandtl number, Eckert number and Schmidt number. The results show that increases in magnetic parameter decrease both the dimensionless transverse velocity, longitudinal velocity and also the skin friction coefficient. Also, formation of thin boundary layer is observed for higher value of magnetic parameter

Fixed drug eruption due to paracetamol

Fixed drug eruption is a common type of drug eruption seen in dermatology OPD’s. Usually it is seen with sulphonamides, salicylates, tetracyclines, oxyphenbutazones, dapsone, barbiturates, phenolphthalein, morphine, codeine, quinine, phenacetin, erythromycin, griseofulvin, mebendazole etc. We hereby report a case of fixed drug eruption due to single dose of oral paracetamol in an otherwise healthy male after one hour of consuming it. A provisional diagnosis of Paracetamol induced fixed drug eruption was made. Paracetamol was stopped and patient advised never to take Paracetamol in future. Patient was managed with prednisolone 10mg /day, cetirizine 10 mg/day, and amoxicillin 500 mg twice a day and mometasone + fusidic acid cream to be applied over the lesions

On hydromagnetic flow due to a rotating disk with radiation effects

The effect of thermal radiation on the steady laminar convective hydromagnetic flow of a viscous and electrically conducting fluid due to a rotating disk of infinite extend is studied. The fluid is subjected to an external uniform magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the disk. The governing Navier–Stokes and Maxwell equations of the hydromagnetic fluid, together with the energy equation, are transformed into nonlinear ordinary differential equations by using the von Karman similarity transformations. The resulting nonlinear ordinary differential equations are then solved numerically subject to the transformed boundary conditions by Runge–Kutta based shooting method. Comparisons with previously published works are performed and the results are found to be in excellent agreement. Numerical and graphical results for the velocity and temperature profiles as well as the skin friction and Nusselt number are presented and discussed for various parametric conditions