Prevalence of smart phone addiction, sleep quality and associated behaviour problems in adolescents

Background: World is ever changing due to advancement in realm of science and technology, one such advancement is in field of smart phones. The ubiquity of smart phone technology raises concern for its addiction among adolescents and its relationship with quality of sleep, mental and physical health problems. Objective of the study was to investigate magnitude of smart phone addiction and evaluate the impact of smart phone addiction on their mental health and sleep quality.Methods: A cross‑sectional study was conducted on sample comprising of 587 students of repudiated school. Students were assessed with a specially designed proforma and Smart phone addiction scale (SAS) which was self‑administered by the students. Subjects were classified into smartphone non-user group, a low smartphone user group and a high smartphone user group. Subsequently depression anxiety and stress sub scores (DASS-21) scale were administered to asses associated behaviour problems, investigate sleep quality Pittsburgh sleep quality inventory was administered (PSQI).Results: Out of 587 subjects who completed the questionnaires 12.9% (n=76) were not using smart phones, (n=315) 53.62% were low users and (n=196) 33.3% were high users of Smart phone as estimated by Smart Phone addiction scale. Those who used smart phone excessively had high Global PSQI scores and DASS-21scores in terms of depression, anxiety and stress.Conclusions: With increasing popularity of smart phones, youths spend significant time on smart phone thereby developing addictive tendencies. This study concludes that youths are not only addicted but are also developing significant sleep and behaviour problems owing to excessive smart phone usage

The Potentiality of Selected Strain of PGPR: Azotobacter, for Sustainable Agriculture in India

In modern agriculture, large numbers of pesticides are being used to inhibit pests to get maximum crop production .The rapidly growing industrialization along with an increasing population has resulted in the accumulation of a wide variety of chemicals. One promising treatment method is to exploit the ability of microorganisms to remove pollutants from contaminated sites. Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are a group of free-living bacteria that can be found in the rhizosphere and contribute to enhance the growth and yield of crop plants. In the last few decades, many microorganisms show positive effect on plant development. Azotobacter has been used as a potential nitrogenous fertilizer to increase crop growth. Azotobacter has the capacity of fixing atmospheric nitrogen, it include the production of plant hormones like auxins, gibberellins and cytokinins, nitrogen fixation, These qualities makes Azotobacter the most successful and widespread group among the PGPR, as well as they produce substances that change the plant growth and morphology. Co-inoculants of Azotobacter with Rhizobium has been reduced water stress and  dual inoculation of Azospirillium and Azotobacter significantly increased the concentrations of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), Potassium, Megnisium, Nitrogen and total soluble sugars (TSS). Azotobacter increases the tolerance capacity of plants. Azotobacter inoculum with high yielding EPS (exopolysaccharides) and high nitrogen fixing ability can be utilized to satisfy the future demand of augmented crop production attributed to increase plant growth promoting agents

PREVALENCE OF COMMON MENTAL DISORDERS AND ASSOCIATED COMORBID CONDITIONS IN AN URBAN SLUM OF INDORE, M.P – A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Introduction: Epidemiology plays an important role in providing interpretation of disease occurrence in populations, change of disease rate, and the associated factors related to occurrence. Physical health problems not only coexist with mental disorders such as depression, but can also predict the onset and persistence of depression. A study of a nationally representative sample of the United States showed 79% of all ill people were comorbid. Aims and Objectives: The aims of this study were to study the comorbid condition in subjects with common mental disorders (CMD). Methods: It was a community-based and cross-sectional study carried out in an urban Slum. Slum was divided into four quadrants and 10% of the population was taken. A total of 150 houses were visited by random sampling and the sample size was calculated to be 294. The study was recorded in a pilot tested pre-designed validated semi-structured questionnaire. Four hundred and twenty-three out of 467 people were included in the study which was conducted in two phases. First phase was the screening phase which included history, general examination, and demographic profile along with self-reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20) to measure the presence of mental illness. Socioeconomic status of family and quality of life was evaluated using Kuppuswami socioeconomic status scale. Subjects scored 7 and above selected for the study and further evaluated using mini international neuropsychiatric interview plus in the second phase. Results: In the present study, highest percentage of CMD was 26.47%, belonging to 16–25 age group and distress was found in 16.07% and severe distress in 7.80% with SRQ-20 scoring between 7 and 13 and >14, respectively, with higher proportion of females. The prevalence of CMD was 238.77/1000 and 11.88% and 8.91% subjects were found hypertensive and diabetic respectively. Conclusion: There is need to consider the impact of common psychological health problems that urban slum communities are facing today and CMD can be a major contributor to slum’s overall burden of functional impairment

Use of fish scales as a tool for research - A Review

Various kinds of scales are found in fishes which are derived from the connective tissue of the dermis and form the exoskeleton. Scales of the fishes had been used as tool for experimental justifications. Structurally they are composed of circuli, radii, focal region and chromatophores region. Scales of fish are used for classification, identification and growth studies of different fishes, pollution indicators etc

Study of Public Perception about Health Hazards and Risks by Electromagnetic Emission from Cell Phones and Base Stations in India

Telecom wireless communication is changing from slow to fast, voice to data centric changing technologies earlier we already have 2G, 3G, & now 4G & future is about 5G. With this tele-density is increasing & user’s demand of higher bandwidth has become need of the hour, whether it is transactions, education, social networking etc. All this need network expansion to share the load to accommodate newer technologies. Hence need for more mobile towers, more micro sites, here comes the role of public perception how they look at these new technologies & hyped health hazards by media/ activists associated with EMF used in mobile communication. If the perception is negative, there would be protest by public in installing near towers as well as removing existing ones. It is therefore vital to understand the gap between scientific assessment of emission from tower & phone instrument & public perception. How this gap can be narrowed? What policy should be adopted by Govt.? Whether precautionary steps are helpful? Role of media are to be examined by way of primary data collected & secondary data taken DOT, TRAI, WHO etc. With the help of primary data collected from the four largest states (area wise Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh(MP), Uttar Pradesh (UP), Maharashtra)with the help of 30 questions, this article seeks to explore the public perception about health hazards, Fischhoff

Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) and provide a reference forecast (the most likely future), and alternative scenarios assessing disease burden trajectories if selected sets of risk factors were eliminated from current levels by 2050. Methods: Using forecasts of major drivers of health such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI; a composite measure of lag-distributed income per capita, mean years of education, and total fertility under 25 years of age) and the full set of risk factor exposures captured by GBD, we provide cause-specific forecasts of mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by age and sex from 2022 to 2050 for 204 countries and territories, 21 GBD regions, seven super-regions, and the world. All analyses were done at the cause-specific level so that only risk factors deemed causal by the GBD comparative risk assessment influenced future trajectories of mortality for each disease. Cause-specific mortality was modelled using mixed-effects models with SDI and time as the main covariates, and the combined impact of causal risk factors as an offset in the model. At the all-cause mortality level, we captured unexplained variation by modelling residuals with an autoregressive integrated moving average model with drift attenuation. These all-cause forecasts constrained the cause-specific forecasts at successively deeper levels of the GBD cause hierarchy using cascading mortality models, thus ensuring a robust estimate of cause-specific mortality. For non-fatal measures (eg, low back pain), incidence and prevalence were forecasted from mixed-effects models with SDI as the main covariate, and YLDs were computed from the resulting prevalence forecasts and average disability weights from GBD. Alternative future scenarios were constructed by replacing appropriate reference trajectories for risk factors with hypothetical trajectories of gradual elimination of risk factor exposure from current levels to 2050. The scenarios were constructed from various sets of risk factors: environmental risks (Safer Environment scenario), risks associated with communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs; Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination scenario), risks associated with major non-communicable diseases (NCDs; Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario), and the combined effects of these three scenarios. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways climate scenarios SSP2-4.5 as reference and SSP1-1.9 as an optimistic alternative in the Safer Environment scenario, we accounted for climate change impact on health by using the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change temperature forecasts and published trajectories of ambient air pollution for the same two scenarios. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were computed using standard methods. The forecasting framework includes computing the age-sex-specific future population for each location and separately for each scenario. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for each individual future estimate were derived from the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles of distributions generated from propagating 500 draws through the multistage computational pipeline. Findings: In the reference scenario forecast, global and super-regional life expectancy increased from 2022 to 2050, but improvement was at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in 2020). Gains in future life expectancy were forecasted to be greatest in super-regions with comparatively low life expectancies (such as sub-Saharan Africa) compared with super-regions with higher life expectancies (such as the high-income super-region), leading to a trend towards convergence in life expectancy across locations between now and 2050. At the super-region level, forecasted healthy life expectancy patterns were similar to those of life expectancies. Forecasts for the reference scenario found that health will improve in the coming decades, with all-cause age-standardised DALY rates decreasing in every GBD super-region. The total DALY burden measured in counts, however, will increase in every super-region, largely a function of population ageing and growth. We also forecasted that both DALY counts and age-standardised DALY rates will continue to shift from CMNNs to NCDs, with the most pronounced shifts occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (60·1% [95% UI 56·8–63·1] of DALYs were from CMNNs in 2022 compared with 35·8% [31·0–45·0] in 2050) and south Asia (31·7% [29·2–34·1] to 15·5% [13·7–17·5]). This shift is reflected in the leading global causes of DALYs, with the top four causes in 2050 being ischaemic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 2022, with ischaemic heart disease, neonatal disorders, stroke, and lower respiratory infections at the top. The global proportion of DALYs due to YLDs likewise increased from 33·8% (27·4–40·3) to 41·1% (33·9–48·1) from 2022 to 2050, demonstrating an important shift in overall disease burden towards morbidity and away from premature death. The largest shift of this kind was forecasted for sub-Saharan Africa, from 20·1% (15·6–25·3) of DALYs due to YLDs in 2022 to 35·6% (26·5–43·0) in 2050. In the assessment of alternative future scenarios, the combined effects of the scenarios (Safer Environment, Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination, and Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenarios) demonstrated an important decrease in the global burden of DALYs in 2050 of 15·4% (13·5–17·5) compared with the reference scenario, with decreases across super-regions ranging from 10·4% (9·7–11·3) in the high-income super-region to 23·9% (20·7–27·3) in north Africa and the Middle East. The Safer Environment scenario had its largest decrease in sub-Saharan Africa (5·2% [3·5–6·8]), the Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario in north Africa and the Middle East (23·2% [20·2–26·5]), and the Improved Nutrition and Vaccination scenario in sub-Saharan Africa (2·0% [–0·6 to 3·6]). Interpretation: Globally, life expectancy and age-standardised disease burden were forecasted to improve between 2022 and 2050, with the majority of the burden continuing to shift from CMNNs to NCDs. That said, continued progress on reducing the CMNN disease burden will be dependent on maintaining investment in and policy emphasis on CMNN disease prevention and treatment. Mostly due to growth and ageing of populations, the number of deaths and DALYs due to all causes combined will generally increase. By constructing alternative future scenarios wherein certain risk exposures are eliminated by 2050, we have shown that opportunities exist to substantially improve health outcomes in the future through concerted efforts to prevent exposure to well established risk factors and to expand access to key health interventions

The performance analysis of Miniature finned tube J-T coolers

Joule –Thomson miniature coolers are widely known for his or her immediately cooling characteristics & dependable however simple operation. it has been skilled during the existing have a look at that the fine of the nitrogen gas for the cooler plays an essential position in offering requisite refrigeration within the stipulated time. Further higher ambient strain affects the refrigeration temperature. In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine those influences and feasible rationalization towards the determined performance variation due to those elements

Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio, Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio, and Routine Complete Blood Count Components in HELLP Syndrome: A Matched Case Control Study

Background and objective: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) are new readily available inflammatory markers that have been analyzed in pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorders such as preeclampsia. Studies on the NLR/PLR ratio in hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low-platelet count (HELLP) syndrome are limited in the current literature. We compared NLR/PLR and other complete blood count (CBC) components between women with HELLP syndrome and women with healthy pregnancies. Methods: We conducted a retrospective matched case–control study at a tertiary care hospital in NY (USA) in the time frame between January 2016 and December 2018. The study compared pregnant women with HELLP syndrome (cases) to women with healthy pregnancies in the third trimester (controls), matched by age, body mass index (BMI), parity, and race. Patient with preeclampsia, infection, and fever were excluded. Venous blood samples were obtained as part of the routine work-up at admission for delivery, which included a CBC. The main outcomes were NLR and PLR. The secondary outcomes were hemoglobin, red cell distribution width (RDW), platelet count, mean platelet volume (MPV), neutrophils, lymphocytes. Results: There were 14 patients in each group. They were matched by age, race, BMI, and parity. NLR (5.8 vs. 3.6, p-value = 0.002) and neutrophil count (10.7 vs. 6.8, p-value = 0.001) were higher in women with HELLP compared to controls. PLR (34 vs. 130.2, p-value < 0.001) and platelet count (71 vs. 223, p-value < 0.001) were lower in the study group compared to controls. Conclusions: NLR was higher, and PLR was lower in women with HELLP syndrome. These inflammatory markers can be incorporated into the diagnostic algorithm for HELLP syndrome. Future studies are needed to evaluate their ability to predict HELLP syndrome

Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio, Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Complete Blood Count Components in the First Trimester Do Not Predict HELLP Syndrome

Background and Objectives: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), mean platelet volume (MPV), and other components of the routine complete blood count (CBC) were found to be sensitive biomarkers of preeclampsia and other inflammatory obstetric conditions in previous studies, with conflicting results. We speculated that the same associations existed with hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelets (HELLP) syndrome in the first trimester of pregnancy. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective case−control study at a tertiary care hospital in NY (USA), in the time frame between January 2016 and December 2018. Our population consisted of pregnant women in the first trimester: We compared patients with HELLP syndrome (cases) with healthy patients (controls) matched by age, body mass index (BMI), parity, and race. Patients with preeclampsia, infection, and fever were excluded. Venous blood samples were obtained as part of the routine work-up during the first prenatal visit in the first trimester, which includes a CBC. The main outcomes were NLR and PLR, and the secondary outcomes were hemoglobin, RDW, platelet count, MPV, neutrophils, and lymphocytes. Results: There were 10 patients in each group. There were no differences in NLR and PLR levels and other CBC components between the two groups. Conclusions: In our study NLR, PLR, and other CBC components did not predict HELLP syndrome. We speculate that HELLP syndrome has a sudden increase of tissue inflammation in the third trimester that is not manifested during the early phases of placentation. Larger studies are needed to evaluate the true ability of NLR, PLR, and CBC components to predict HELLP syndrome in the first trimester

Predictive Value of Preoperative Complete Blood Count Components on the Occurrence of Surgical Site Infection After Elective Cesarean Section

BACKGROUND: To analyze the predictive value of the preoperative complete blood count components on the occurrence of surgical site infection (SSI) after elective cesarean section. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective case control study in a tertiary care hospital located in New York City during the period of November 1, 2018, to October 30, 2020. We included patients who developed SSI after elective cesarean section as cases and patients who did not develop SSI as controls. We tested the ability of neutrophil, lymphocyte, platelet, hemoglobin, hematocrit, total white blood cells, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, hemoglobin to platelet ratio, platelet to lymphocyte ratio, platelet to neutrophil ratio, platelet to hemoglobin ratio and neutrophil to hemoglobin ratio to identify the occurrence of SSI after cesarean section. RESULTS: We compared ten cases and 20 controls. The median lymphocyte and lymphocyte to hemoglobin ratio were statistically significantly higher in cases compared to controls (P=0.049 and P=0.04, respectively). A lymphocyte value higher than 1.5 x10/µL was the best cut-off to exclude the occurrence of SSI, with a sensitivity of 95%, a specificity of 50%, a positive predictive value of 5.5% and a negative predictive value of \u3e99%. A lymphocyte to hemoglobin ratio higher than 1.13 was the best cut off to exclude the occurrence of SSI, with a sensitivity of 95%, a specificity of 60%, a positive predictive value of 6.8% and a negative predictive value \u3e99%. CONCLUSIONS: The preoperative lymphocyte and lymphocyte to hemoglobin ratio should be incorporated into patient counseling and preoperative algorithms to identify patients who will develop SSI. The biological mechanisms involved remain to be investigated and our data should be confirmed by further and larger studies