Research priorities on ending child marriage and supporting married girls.

Over the past few years the issue of child marriage has received growing political and programmatic attention. In spite of some progress in a number of countries, global rates have not declined over the past decade. Knowledge gaps remain in understanding trends, drivers and approaches to ending child marriage, especially to understand what is needed to achieve results on a large scale. This commentary summarizes the outcomes of an Expert Group Meeting organized by World Health Organization to discuss research priorities on Ending Child Marriage and Supporting Married Girls. It presents research gaps and recommends priorities for research in five key areas; (i) prevalence and trends of child marriage; (ii) causes of child marriage (iii) consequences of child marriage; (iv) efforts to prevent child marriage; (v) efforts to support married girls

Wind Dependence of L-Band Radar Backscatter

Like other microwave frequency bands, L-band scattering coefficient (~`) measurements have shown a definite dependence on ocean surface wind speed (W).The relationship between the two depends on the observation angle of the radar.The satellite-borne L-band radars SEASAT-SAR and SIR-A made observations at fixed incidence angles, while the just completed SIR-B mission has made observations at multiple incidence angles. The present work uses the theory of scattering from a composite surface and generates an analytic function of ~" - W relationship for varying incidence angle at L-band by the method of empirical curve fitting

Case report of cyclopia baby - A rare lethal anomaly

Cyclopia is a rare and lethal human malformation, with a single eye in the center of the forehead. We report the case of a woman aged 23 years (second gravida) referred to us at 30 weeks of pregnancy and delivered a stillborn weighing 1.02 kg. The baby had a single central eye, low set ears, omphalocele, and single umbilical artery. With advances in fetal imaging and availability of high-resolution ultrasound machines, it is surprising that such lethal malformations are still presenting after the period of viability. To reduce such incidences, more awareness and emphasis must be made out on early ultrasound diagnosis of fetal anomalies and regular antenatal visits

Liquid-mesophase-solid transitions: systematics of a density-wave theory

The density-wave theory of Ramakrishnan and Yussouff is used to study phase transitions between liquid, liquid-crystalline, and crystalline phases. The different phases considered are liquid, nematic, smectic, discotic, bcc plastic crystal, orientationally ordered bcc, and a new incommensurate bcc crystal with orientational order. The direct correlation function, required as an input for the theory, is expressed approximately in terms of five generalized Fourier coefficients. The theory is then used to obtain sections through the phase diagram in the five-dimensional space of these coefficients. Simple approximations for the direct correlation function of hard ellipsoids of revolution are used to compare these phase diagrams with those obtained from experiments and numerical simulations. Molecular-field theories of smectic and discotic ordering are reexamined, and, given the potentials they use, it is shown that an orientationally ordered bcc crystal has a lower free energy than either the smectic or the discotic phase. The conditions required to stabilize smectic and discotic phases are examined

Thanatophoric dysplasia: A case report with probable recurrence

Thanatophoric dysplasia (TD) is a congenital, sporadic, and the most lethal skeletal dysplasia caused by new mutation in the fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 gene. At birth, it is characterized by shortening of the limbs (micromelia), small conical thorax, platyspondyly (flat vertebral bodies), and macrocephaly. TD is divided into two clinically defined subtypes: Type I and II which can be differentiated by the skull shape and femur morphology. Ultrasound examination in the second trimester is often straight forward in diagnosing the congenital anomaly. We report a case of preterm stillborn female baby with dysmorphic facies, macrocephaly, micromelia with short stubby fingers and deep skin creases, short limbs, narrow thorax, and protuberant abdomen delivered at our hospital to a 24-year-old multigravida mother with the previous history of first-trimester abortion. The antenatal ultrasound examination showed shortening of long bones with femur-shaped like a telephone receiver. Dysmorphic facial feature, skeletal abnormalities, and histopathological examination lead us to make the diagnosis of TD Type I. We report this case of TD in view of recurrence risk of around 1%, occurring mostly through autosomal dominant mode of inheritance, which may be the possibility in this case

AMLODIPINE BESYLATE LOADED POLYMERIC NANOPARTICLES: PREPARATION AND IN VITRO CHARACTERISATION

Objective: The present investigation aims to formulate the ideal drug formulation using different surfactants and optimize the amlodipine-loaded polymeric nanoparticles. Methods: The present work was to formulate the drug-loaded polymeric nanoparticles to enhance the dissolution rate of a poorly water-soluble drug, amlodipine besylate, using the anti-solvent precipitation method. The Characterisation studies include particle size (nm), Zeta potential (mV), polydispersity index, Drug entrapment efficiency (%), in vitro release drug release, and surface morphological studies like SEM and XRD. Results: The drug-loaded Polymeric nanoparticles of F3 containing PLGA and PVA shows the desired smaller particle size is 198.8±5.25, maximum zeta potential is-24.76±2.54 mv and the stable polydispersity index of 0.957±0.45. The drug entrapment efficiency is 93%, and the controlled dissolution of the ideal formulation pattern is about 94.88±2.45 in 24h. Conclusion: The release pattern observed that PNs significantly improved the dissolution character of amlodipine besylate. PNs have a controlled drug release pattern and can be used as a suitable drug delivery carrier for low solubility and poorly bioavailable drugs like amlodipine to improve its dissolution rate

PUB: A Pragmatics Understanding Benchmark for Assessing LLMs' Pragmatics Capabilities

LLMs have demonstrated remarkable capability for understanding semantics, but they often struggle with understanding pragmatics. To demonstrate this fact, we release a Pragmatics Understanding Benchmark (PUB) dataset consisting of fourteen tasks in four pragmatics phenomena, namely, Implicature, Presupposition, Reference, and Deixis. We curated high-quality test sets for each task, consisting of Multiple Choice Question Answers (MCQA). PUB includes a total of 28k data points, 6.1k of which have been created by us, and the rest are adapted from existing datasets. We evaluated nine models varying in the number of parameters and type of training. Our study indicates that fine-tuning for instruction-following and chat significantly enhances the pragmatics capabilities of smaller language models. However, for larger models, the base versions perform comparably with their chat-adapted counterparts. Additionally, there is a noticeable performance gap between human capabilities and model capabilities. Furthermore, unlike the consistent performance of humans across various tasks, the models demonstrate variability in their proficiency, with performance levels fluctuating due to different hints and the complexities of tasks within the same dataset. Overall, the benchmark aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of LLM's ability to handle real-world language tasks that require pragmatic reasoning

Chemical constituents of Clausena lansium: Part III - Structure of Lansamide-3 and 4

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COMPARATIVE EFFICACY OF CLOVE OIL AND 2-PHENOXY ETHANOL ON SERUM BIOCHEMICAL CHANGES AND HISTOLOGICAL STUDIES IN CHANNAPUNCTATUS

The aim of the present study was to investigate thecomparison of effect of clove oil and 2-phenoxy ethanol for Channapunctatus and using values of serum biochemical profile and histological tissue studies ,to assess the effects of fish exposure to that anaesthetic:A total of 60 C.punctatus of 60.23±5.02g were divided in to five groups (12 fish per each):1st treatment as control (no anaesthetic),2nd 0.2ml/1 2-phenoxy ethanol ,3rd 0.3ml/1 2-phenoxy ethanol ,4th 30mg/1 clove oil and 5th 40mg/1 clove oil.Biochemical blood profile of C.puntatus were taken 15 min and 24 hrs. After Anaesthesia induction ,the factors used to evaluate the serum biochemical profile included the glucose (GLU), total protein (TP), albumin (ALB),total globulin (GLOP), alkaline phosphatase (ALP),serum Glutamic oxaloacetic Transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT), histological tissue examination of tissue like gills ,ten minutes exposure to 2-phenoxy ethanol and clove oilcaused an increase in concentration of glucose and alkaline phosphatase 15 min after Anaesthesiainduction.Histological examination showed.Capillary ectasia of gill filaments immediately after clove oil and 2-phenoxy ethanol,showed  swelling of primary and secondary lamella .Twenty –four hours after anaesthesia ,no ectasia was observed .No histopathological changes were demonstrated in gills:Our result showed that The 2-phenoxy ethanol at 0.20ml/1and clove oil at 30mg/1 concentration may be used as an efficient and safe anaesthetic for Channapunctatus. Key words: Clove oil, 2-Phenoxy ethanol,Channapunctaus,Serum biochemical profile, histological examination of tissues