An overview of the genus Anemone L. (Ranunculaceae) in India

The present paper documents the genus Anemone L. (Ranunculaceae) from India. A total of 26 taxa (which includes 24 species, one subspecies and one variety) has been recorded from Indo Himalayas. Western Himalaya is endowed with 9 taxa, Eastern Himalaya with 8 taxa, while 9 are common to both the flanks. Three species are present in Northeast India which are common to IHR and one species has also been reported from Western Ghats. This genus constitutes flowering plants of high altitude and maximum diversity has been observed between 2000–3000 m asl. The genus possesses high medicinal potential and needs urgent assessment of taxonomic and conservation status for its sustainable utilization

Assessment of phthalate esters (PAEs) contamination in Urtica dioica L.

Phthalate esters are a group of chemical compounds of ubiquitous nature which nowadays have become a colossal threat to the environment, human-animal and plant health, because of its higher potential of accumulation in soil and aquatic habitat leading to environmental contamination due to its widespread industrial and agricultural usage. The present research aims to analyze the phthalate esters accumulation in Urtica dioica L. For this study, the Urtica dioica is tested for the presence of phthalates by using Gas Chromatography-Mass spectrometry. The Gas Chromatography-Mass spectrometry observations show the presence of 11 phthalate esters, among which diethyl phthalate (DEP) and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (BEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), and diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP) were found to be in significantly higher amount. The sum concentrations of the phthalate ester in different extracts of plant range from 16.25% to 84.07%. The % composition of diethyl phthalate is found to be comparatively higher than other phthalate esters in methanolic extract of Urtica dioica while diisobutyl phthalate and bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate accumulation is found relatively higher in the ethyl acetate and diethyl ether fractions. The observations show the contamination of the Urtica dioica plant with phthalate esters and also indicate the phthalate accumulating potential of the plant

Study of primary caesarean section in multigravida patients

Background: Caesarean section is the most commonly performed major surgery among women. The aims and objective of this study was to know the incidence of primary Caesarean section in multigravidas, its indications and to know the maternal and foetal outcome among these patients.Methods: It was a prospective study of primary caesarean section in multigravida admitted at Kamla Raja Hospital, G.R. Medical College and J. A. Group of Hospitals, Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh, India) during the period of 1 year from September 2014 to August 2015. Multigravida with pregnancy of >28 weeks gestation (gravida 2 and above), each of whom has had a previous vaginal delivery of > 20 weeks gestation were included. Women with previous abortions and previous section and Pregnancy with medical disorders were excluded.Results: During the study period of one year, total 8185 deliveries occurred, out of which 3061 (37.39%) underwent caesarean section and 386 (12.61%) were primary caesarean section in multigravida. Out of these multigravida patients who underwent primary caesarean section- most of the patients were unbooked (77.72%). Majority of the cases were direct admission in the hospital (61.13%). Maximum number of the patients were in the age group of 25-30 years (55.95%). Two third of the patients were literate (69.44%) Maximum number of patients were Gravida 2 (49.72%). Almost all of them (95.85%) underwent emergency caesarean section. The most common indication for primary LSCS in multigravida patients was Malpresentation 115 (29.79%) followed by Fetal distress in 71 (18.39%) patients, APH in 71 (18.39%), Obstructed labour in 33 (8.55%), Severe preeclampsia and Antepartum eclampsia in 39 (10.1%), Twin pregnancy in 21 (5.44%). Most common maternal complication was pyrexia 40 (10.36%). Postoperative morbidity was 21.24% among unbooked, 14.25% in Referred, 23.58% in those operated as an emergency, 12.43% in patients belonging to of low socioeconomic status and 3.88%, in patients with moderate to severe anemia. Birth asphyxia was found in 6.21% of neonates. Neonatal mortality was 2.33%. Neonatal mortality is more in Unbooked cases (90.47%).Conclusions: Many unforeseen complications occur in women who previously had a normal vaginal delivery. It is recommended that all antenatal patients must be booked and receive proper and regular antenatal care. Also 100% deliveries in multigravida should be institutional deliveries in order to reduce maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality

Robust Linear Hybrid Beamforming Designs Relying on Imperfect CSI in mmWave MIMO IoT Networks

Linear hybrid beamformer designs are conceived for the decentralized estimation of a vector parameter in a millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Internet of Things network (IoTNe). The proposed designs incorporate both total IoTNe and individual IoTNo power constraints, while also eliminating the need for a baseband receiver combiner at the fusion center (FC). To circumvent the non-convexity of the hybrid beamformer design problem, the proposed approach initially determines the minimum mean square error (MMSE) digital transmit precoder (TPC) weights followed by a simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit (SOMP)-based framework for obtaining the analog RF and digital baseband TPCs. Robust hybrid beamformers are also derived for the realistic imperfect channel state information (CSI) scenario, utilizing both the stochastic and norm-ball CSI uncertainty frameworks. The centralized MMSE bound derived in this work serves as a lower bound for the estimation performance of the proposed hybrid TPC designs. Finally, our simulation results quantify the benefits of the various designs developed.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Feasibility of breast crawl in a tertiary care teaching institute

Background: Early initiation of breastfeeding has many beneficial effects for both the mother and the baby. The breast crawl has been established as the ideal method for promoting early skin-to-skin contact and early initiation of breastfeeding. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the feasibility of breast crawl in a busy tertiary care institute. Materials and Methods: An observational study was performed including 50 mother-baby pairs, admitted to the labor room of Sassoon General Hospital, Pune, from January2018 for 6 months. Observations were made on patient and nurse attitude and behavior and were further analyzed. Results: Of the total subjects, 23 (46%) mothers had not received any counseling about breastfeeding during the antenatal period and none of them were familiar with the idea of breast crawl from the antenatal period. Of the 50 mothers, 27 mothers (54%) were concerned about privacy, 8 (16%) were concerned about environmental cold, 6 (12%) were worried about exposure, and 9 mothers (18%) were concerned about the baby, whereas 6 mothers (12%) had no concerns and 6 mothers had more than one concern. The attitude of the nursing staff was favorable (enthusiastic) 19 times, indifferent 23 times, reluctant 6 times, and unfavorable (uncooperative) 2 times. Conclusion: While it is highly desirable to implement breast crawl as a routine practice, there are several roadblocks such as lack of antenatal counseling, lack of awareness and motivation, lack of specific guidelines and instructions, skewed staff-to-patient and bed-to-patient ratio, and lack of privacy

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation