Recent advances in pesticide formulations for eco-friendly and sustainable vegetable pest management: A review

In order to reduce the loss and maintain the quality of vegetables harvest, pesticides are used together with other pest management techniques during cropping to destroy pests and prevent diseases. However, the use of pesticides during production often leads to the presence of pesticide residues in vegetables after harvest. Higher doses and repeated applications of conventional formulations lead to accumulate pesticide residues in vegetable commodities along with environmental pollution. With the increasing awareness of toxic effects of conventional formulations, there is a significant trend towards switching over from such pesticide formulations using petroleum and organic solvent based constituents to user and environment friendly water based pesticide formulations. The developed world has progressed substantially in this regard to develop eco-friendly formulations which are safer to vegetable and the environment. These formulations would not only replace toxic, non-degradable ingredients/adjuvants of the conventional formulations but also increase the bio-efficacy of the products through incorporating latest technologies including size reduction (Wettable Powder to Suspension Concentrate, Soluble Concentrate to Microemulsion), increased coverage of applied surface area (EC to ME/Nano-formulations), reduced wastage (Dust/WP to Controlled Release Formulations) and dose rates of applied same pesticides to improve food quality with minimum pesticide residues

Case Report: “Spina Ventosa” Tuberculous Dactylitis in a 2 Year Old Boy - A Very Rare Disease

Tuberculous infection of metacarpals, metatarsals and phalanges is known as tuberculous dactylitis. There is a spindle shaped expansion of the short tubular bones due to tuberculous granuloma. Hence it is also known as spina ventosa. In our case, a two year old boy with a swelling in the metacarpal was provisionally diagnosed as enchondromata while the possibility of spina ventosa was kept in mind. He was posted for excision of the metacarpal followed by bone grafting. Histopathological examination report confirmed it as spina ventosa

Restoring Degraded Landscapes through An Integrated Approach Using Geospatial Technologies in the Context of the Humanitarian Crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

The influx of nearly a million refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine state to Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, in August 2017 put significant pressure on the regional landscape leading to land degradation due to biomass removal to provide shelter and fuel energy and posed critical challenges for both host and displaced population. This article emphasizes geospatial applications at different stages of addressing land degradation in Cox’s Bazar. A wide range of data and methods were used to delineate land tenure, estimate wood fuel demand and supply, assess land degradation, evaluate land restoration suitability, and monitor restoration activities. The quantitative and spatially explicit information from these geospatial assessments integrated with the technical guidelines for sustainable land management and an adaptive management strategy was critical in enabling a collaborative, multi-disciplinary and evidence-based approach to successfully restoring degraded landscapes in a displacement setting

Chemical and environmental vector control as a contribution to the elimination of visceral leishmaniasis on the Indian subcontinent: cluster randomized controlled trials in Bangladesh, India and Nepal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bangladesh, India and Nepal are working towards the elimination of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) by 2015. In 2005 the World Health Organization/Training in Tropical Diseases launched an implementation research programme to support integrated vector management for the elimination of VL from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. The programme is conducted in different phases, from proof-of-concept to scaling up intervention. This study was designed in order to evaluate the efficacy of the three different interventions for VL vector management: indoor residual spraying (IRS); long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLIN); and environmental modification (EVM) through plastering of walls with lime or mud.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using a cluster randomized controlled trial we compared three vector control interventions with a control arm in 96 clusters (hamlets or neighbourhoods) in each of the 4 study sites: Bangladesh (one), India (one) and Nepal (two). In each site four villages with high reported VL incidences were included. In each village six clusters and in each cluster five households were randomly selected for sand fly collection on two consecutive nights. Control and intervention clusters were matched with average pre-intervention vector densities.</p> <p>In each site six clusters were randomly assigned to each of the following interventions: indoor residual spraying (IRS); long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLIN); environmental management (EVM) or control. All the houses (50-100) in each intervention cluster underwent the intervention measures. A reduction of intra-domestic sand fly densities measured in the study households by overnight US Centres for Disease Prevention and Control light trap captures (that is the number of sand flies per trap per night) was the main outcome measure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>IRS, and to a lesser extent EVM and LLINs, significantly reduced sand fly densities for at least 5 months in the study households irrespective of type of walls or whether or not people shared their house with cattle. IRS was effective in all sites but LLINs were only effective in Bangladesh and India. Mud plastering did not reduce sand fly density (Bangladesh study); lime plastering in India and one Nepali site, resulted in a significant reduction of sand fly density but not in the second Nepali site.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Sand fly control can contribute to the regional VL elimination programme; IRS should be strengthened in India and Nepal but in Bangladesh, where vector control has largely been abandoned during the last decades, the insecticide treatment of existing bed nets (coverage above 90% in VL endemic districts) could bring about an immediate reduction of vector populations; operational research to inform policy makers about the efficacious options for VL vector control and programme performance should be strengthened in the three countries.</p

An exploratory study on allelic diversity among rice and its wild species as well as relatives with simple sequence repeat and inter simple sequence repeat markers

357-362Genomic information of crop plants is a pre-requisite for the enrichment and management of the crop&rsquo;s genetic resources. Rice has a number of wild species and wild relatives, which harbour a good number of agronomically important genes that can be incorporated into the cultivated rice. In the present work, a wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff.) and a wild rice relative, Porteresia coarctata (Roxb.) Tateoka (syn. O. coarctata Roxb.), were genotyped with trait (osmotic stress tolerance) linked 29 SSR and 22 ISSR markers, distributed throughout the rice genome. For exploring the comparative allelic diversity (in the form of difference in mol wt of amplified products for a particular SSR or ISSR locus), two marker based panels were constructed considering cultivated rice (O. sativa L.) as the reference genotype. Among the studied SSR markers, the maximum allelic variation was found with RM10773, which showed the maximum difference (370.25 bp) between O. sativa and O. rufipogon, and also with RM10864 that showed a difference of 194.47 bp between O. sativa and P. coarctata. For ISSR loci, the maximum difference (300.73 bp) between O. sativa and O. rufipogon was shown by PR36, and the maximum difference (451.66 bp) between O. sativa and P. coartata was shown by PR29. The genotypic profiles prepared in the present investigation may be used for identification of the corresponding genotypes and in marker assisted hybridization programmes

Visceral leishmaniasis-associated mortality in Bangladesh: a retrospective cross-sectional study

Objective: To investigate visceral leishmaniasis (VL) deaths and risk factors in two VL endemic areas of Bangladesh. Design: Retrospective cross-sectional. Setting: Two geographically and culturally different VL endemic subdistricts, Godagari in the district of Rajshahi and Trishal in the district of Mymensingh in Bangladesh, August 2009-December 2011. Participants: 51 094 inhabitants from randomly selected Unions in the two subdistricts. Main outcome measures: VL deaths, confirmed independently by qualified physicians using the verbal autopsy procedure ICD10 guideline. Results: The total number of people screened for VL deaths was 51 094 from 12 032 households from Godagari and Trishal subdistricts. About 16% of the people from Godagari were Tribals. The average age of the study population was 25.6 years (SD 18.4) and 49.7% were females. The VL case fatality rate averaged 6.12% (12/196) including 2/137 in Trishal and 10/59 in Godagari. Most of the VL deaths (9/12, 75%) occurred at home and the rest in tertiary hospitals. None of these deaths had been reported in the national VL surveillance system. The VL case fatality rate in the Tribal ethnic (22.2%) population was about 17 times higher than that in the Bangali ethnic (1.3%) population (

Field-controlled ultrafast magnetization dynamics in two-dimensional nanoscale ferromagnetic antidot arrays

Ferromagnetic antidot arrays have emerged as a system of tremendous interest due to their interesting spin configuration and dynamics as well as their potential applications in magnetic storage, memory, logic, communications and sensing devices. Here, we report experimental and numerical investigation of ultrafast magnetization dynamics in a new type of antidot lattice in the form of triangular-shaped Ni80Fe20 antidots arranged in a hexagonal array. Time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect and micromagnetic simulations have been exploited to study the magnetization precession and spin-wave modes of the antidot lattice with varying lattice constant and in-plane orientation of the bias-magnetic field. A remarkable variation in the spin-wave modes with the orientation of in-plane bias magnetic field is found to be associated with the conversion of extended spin-wave modes to quantized ones and vice versa. The lattice constant also influences this variation in spin-wave spectra and spin-wave mode profiles. These observations are important for potential applications of the antidot lattices with triangular holes in future magnonic and spintronic devices

Share of current unmet need for modern contraceptive methods attributed to past users of these methods in India

Despite persistent efforts, unmet need for contraceptives in India has declined only slightly from 14% to 13% between 2005–06 and 2015–16. Many women using a family planning method discontinue it without switching to another method and continue to have unmet need. This study quantified the share of current unmet need for modern contraceptive methods attributed to past users of these methods in India. Data were drawn from two rounds of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005–06 and 2015–16. Using information on women with current unmet need, and whether they used any modern method in the past, the share of past users with current unmet need for modern methods was calculated. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed. Among 46 million women with unmet need, 11 million were past users of modern methods in 2015–16. The share of current unmet need attributed to past users of modern contraceptive methods declined from 27% in 2005–06 to 24% in 2015–16. Share of current unmet need attributed to past users was associated with reversible method use. This share rose with increased use of modern reversible methods. With the Indian family planning programme’s focus on increasing modern reversible method use, the share of unmet need attributed to past users of modern methods is likely to increase in the future. The programme’s emphasis on continuation of contraceptive use, along with bringing in new users, could be one of the key strategies for India to achieve the FP2020 goals

Toolkit for monitoring and evaluation of indoor residual spraying for visceral leishmaniasis control in the Indian subcontinent: application and results.

Background. We field tested and validated a newly developed monitoring and evaluation (M&E) toolkit for indoor residual spraying to be used by the supervisors at different levels of the national kala-azar elimination programs in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Methods. Methods included document analysis, in-depth interviews, direct observation of spraying squads, and entomological-chemical assessments (bioassay, susceptibility test, chemical analysis of insecticide residues on sprayed surfaces, vector density measurements at baseline, and three follow-up surveys). Results. We found that the documentation at district offices was fairly complete; important shortcomings included insufficient training of spraying squads and supervisors, deficient spray equipment, poor spraying performance, lack of protective clothing, limited coverage of houses resulting in low bioavailability of the insecticide on sprayed surfaces, and reduced vector susceptibility to DDT in India, which limited the impact on vector densities. Conclusion. The M&E toolkit is a useful instrument for detecting constraints in IRS operations and to trigger timely response

Efficacy, safety and cost of insecticide treated wall lining, insecticide treated bed nets and indoor wall wash with lime for visceral leishmaniasis vector control in the Indian sub-continent: a multi-country cluster randomized controlled trial

Background: We investigated the efficacy, safety and cost of lime wash of household walls plus treatment of sand fly breeding places with bleach (i.e. environmental management or EM), insecticide impregnated durable wall lining (DWL), and bed net impregnation with slow release insecticide (ITN) for sand fly control in the Indian sub-continent. Methods: This multi-country cluster randomized controlled trial had 24 clusters in each three sites with eight clusters per high, medium or low sand fly density stratum. Every cluster included 45–50 households. Five households from each cluster were randomly selected for entomological measurements including sand fly density and mortality at one, three, nine and twelve months post intervention. Household interviews were conducted for socioeconomic information and intervention acceptability assessment. Cost for each intervention was calculated. There was a control group without intervention. Findings: Sand fly mortality [mean and 95%CI] ranged from 84% (81%-87%) at one month to 74% (71%-78%) at 12 months for DWL, 75% (71%-79%) at one month to 49% (43%-55%) at twelve months for ITN, and 44% (34%-53%) at one month to 22% (14%-29%) at twelve months for EM. Adjusted intervention effect on sand fly density measured by incidence rate ratio ranged from 0.28 (0.23–0.34) at one month to 0.62 (0.51–0.75) at 12 months for DWL; 0.72 (0.62–0.85) at one month to 1.02 (0.86–1.22) at 12 months for ITN; and 0.89 (0.76–1.03) at one months to 1.49 (1.26–1.74) at 12 months for EM. Household acceptance of EM was 74% compared to 94% for both DWL and ITN. Operational cost per household in USD was about 5, 8, and 2 for EM, DWL and ITN, respectively. Minimal adverse reactions were reported for EM and ITN while 36% of households with DWL reported transient itching. Interpretation: DWL is the most effective, durable and acceptable control method followed by ITN. The Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) Elimination Program in the Indian sub-continent should consider DWL and ITN for sand fly control in addition to IRS