A study to assess awareness regarding eye donation among post graduate medical students admitted through NEET pre PG 2014 of Gajra Raja medical college Gwalior, M.P., India

Background: According to WHO estimates India has 10 million blind populations. Corneal problems cause a significant proportion of blindness in India. Although effective strategies to prevent corneal blindness are likely to be more cost effective, visual rehabilitation by corneal transplantation remains the major treatment for restoring sight in those who already have corneal blindness. The requirement of donor corneas per year is at least 20 times the current procurement. Objective: To assess the knowledge and attitude of post graduate medical students regarding eye donation and their willingness to pledge eyes for donation.Methods: The present study was a cross sectional study conducted using a pretested questionnaire on 116 Post graduate Medical Students but only 106 actually participated in the study.Results: A total of 106 students actually participated in the study. Among them 63 (59.43%) were males and 43 (40.57%) were females. The maximum percentages of the students were of age group 26-29 years. All the students were aware regarding eye donation but still they felt it was necessary to obtain consent from family members.Conclusion: These data showed that although the awareness is good but still there is imperative need to emphasize to evade myths concerning eye donation to promote eye donation.

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

Comparison of non-axisymmetric dynamic response of imperfectly bonded buried orthotropic thick and thin cylindrical empty shell due to incident shear wave (SH Wave) / Rakesh Singh Rajput … [et al.]

This paper deals with the non-axisymmetric dynamic response of imperfectly bonded buried orthotropic thick and thin empty pipelines subjected to incident shear wave (SH-wave). In the thin shell theory, the effect of shear deformation and rotary inertia is not considered. The pipeline has been modeled as an infinite cylindrical shell imperfectly bonded to surrounding. A thin layer, acting as an imperfect bond, is assumed between the shell and the surrounding medium (soil). The degree of imperfection of the bond is varied by changing the stiffness and the damping parameters of this layer. Although a general formulation has been presented, numerical results are given only for the case of incident SH-waves. When system is excited by incident seismic-wave, there are two types of soil movements take place. One is vertical movement (up and down) of the soil and due to this movement the shear wave (S-V and S-H) is developed on the surface of the pipe and other is horizontal movement (compressive or extend) of the soil due to this the longitudinal wave or pressure wave. In this paper, the results concerning only the shear waves (SH Wave) are presented. The radial displacement of the thin shell first decreases then increases with increasing wave number and for thick shell the radial displacement decreases continuously with increasing wave number

Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Improve Salt Tolerance in Rice Seedlings by Improving Physiological and Biochemical Indices

Understanding the salinity stress mechanisms is essential for crop improvement and sustainable agriculture. Salinity is prepotent abiotic stress compared with other abiotic stresses that decrease crop growth and development, reducing crop production and creating food security-related threats. Therefore, the input of metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) such as zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) can improve salt tolerance in crop plants, especially in the early stage of growth. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate the impact of ZnO-NPs on inducing salt tolerance in two rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes of seedlings. An undocumented rice landrace (Kargi) and salinity tolerance basmati rice (CSR 30) seeds were grown in a hydroponic system for two weeks with and without 50 mg/L concentrations of ZnO-NPs in various doses of NaCl (0, 60, 80, and 100 mM). Both Kargi (15.95–42.49%) and CSR 30 (15.34–33.12%) genotypes showed a reduction in plant height and photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a and b, carotenoids, and total chlorophyll), Zn content, and K+ uptake under stress condition, compared with control seedlings. On the other hand, stress upregulated proline, malondialdehyde (MDA), Na+ content, and antioxidant enzyme activities—namely, those of superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), and glutathione reductase (GR)—in both O. sativa genotypes over the control. However, ZnO-NP-treated genotypes (Kargi and CSR 30) restored the photosynthetic pigment accumulation and K+ level, reforming the stomata and trichome morphology, and also increased antioxidant enzymes SOD, APX, CAT, and GR activity, which alleviated the oxidative stress, while reducing the level of MDA, proline, and H2O2 under stress condition. The present findings suggest that adding ZnO-NPs could mitigate the salinity stress in O. sativa by upregulating the antioxidative system and enhancing the cultivation of undocumented landrace (Kargi) and basmati (CSR 30) genotypes of O. sativa in salinity-affected areas

Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Improve Salt Tolerance in Rice Seedlings by Improving Physiological and Biochemical Indices

Understanding the salinity stress mechanisms is essential for crop improvement and sustainable agriculture. Salinity is prepotent abiotic stress compared with other abiotic stresses that decrease crop growth and development, reducing crop production and creating food security-related threats. Therefore, the input of metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) such as zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) can improve salt tolerance in crop plants, especially in the early stage of growth. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate the impact of ZnO-NPs on inducing salt tolerance in two rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes of seedlings. An undocumented rice landrace (Kargi) and salinity tolerance basmati rice (CSR 30) seeds were grown in a hydroponic system for two weeks with and without 50 mg/L concentrations of ZnO-NPs in various doses of NaCl (0, 60, 80, and 100 mM). Both Kargi (15.95–42.49%) and CSR 30 (15.34–33.12%) genotypes showed a reduction in plant height and photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a and b, carotenoids, and total chlorophyll), Zn content, and K+ uptake under stress condition, compared with control seedlings. On the other hand, stress upregulated proline, malondialdehyde (MDA), Na+ content, and antioxidant enzyme activities—namely, those of superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), and glutathione reductase (GR)—in both O. sativa genotypes over the control. However, ZnO-NP-treated genotypes (Kargi and CSR 30) restored the photosynthetic pigment accumulation and K+ level, reforming the stomata and trichome morphology, and also increased antioxidant enzymes SOD, APX, CAT, and GR activity, which alleviated the oxidative stress, while reducing the level of MDA, proline, and H2O2 under stress condition. The present findings suggest that adding ZnO-NPs could mitigate the salinity stress in O. sativa by upregulating the antioxidative system and enhancing the cultivation of undocumented landrace (Kargi) and basmati (CSR 30) genotypes of O. sativa in salinity-affected areas

Calibration and evaluation of pedotransfer functions to estimate available water capacity of seasonally impounded shrink-swell soils of central India

Not AvailablePedotransfer functions (PTF) to estimate available water capacity of seasonally impounded shrink-swell soils of central India are presented. Performance of the calibrated PTFs is compared with that of ‘Rosetta’ a widely used general PTF. Available information on soil properties contained nine point soil water retention data for 175 samples measured at varied potentials, textural composition, bulk density and organic carbon content. Nine widely used water retention functions proposed by different researchers were fitted to the measured data and evaluated for efficacy to describe water retention characteristics (WRC). Of the nine functions evaluated, Brooks-Corey, van Genuchten, and Campbell functions were recommended for describing WRC of these soils. We present point PTFs to estimate available water capacity (AWC) using two approaches-regression and artificial neural networks (ANN). Point estimation PTFs were calibrated for water contents at 733 and 71500 kPa and consequently AWC. Performance evaluation with root mean square error (RMSE) criteria suggested that ANN based PTFs were better than regression PTFs. Performance evaluation of ‘Rosetta’ suggested its limited applicability for the study area. Region-specific PTFs to predict AWC were recommended. Increasing the number of predictor variables improved performance of neural PTFs and ‘Rosetta’

Prominent Effects of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on Roots of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Grown under Salinity Stress

The morphological plasticity of plant roots is a key factor in their ability to tolerate a wide range of edaphic stresses. There are many unanswered questions relating to nanotechnology and its potential uses for sustainable agriculture. The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of salinity-induced morphogenic responses and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) on root characteristics, growth, MDA content, antioxidant enzymatic activity, and root ion accumulation in rice (Oryza sativa L.). The experiment was conducted in a hydroponic culture containing 50 mg/L of ZnO-NPs and different concentrations (60, 80, and 100 mM) of NaCl for 14 days. The results indicated a decrease in rice root growth due to exposure to salinity (length, fresh, and root dry weight). The results showed that salinity caused a reduction in rice root growth (length, fresh, and root dry weight). Higher root sodium (Na+) accumulation, MDA content, and potassium level decreased with increasing salinity. Root length, root fresh weight, root dry weight, root K+ content, and root antioxidant enzymatic activity were all enhanced by applying 50 mg/L ZnO-NPs often in salinity. SEM analysis revealed that ZnO-NPs treatments significantly improved root morphology. There was a notable decrease in root Na+ content as a result, which improved the K+/Na+ ratio in the rice’s root system. These findings suggest that O. sativa, when treated with ZnO-NPs, can thrive under salt-stress conditions, opening up the possibility of cultivating the plant in extreme climates

Anti-leishmanial activity of Ni(ii), Pd(ii) and Pt(ii) β-oxodithioester complexes

New functionalized planar β-oxodithioester cis-chelate complexes, [M(L)2] (L = L1, methyl-3-hydroxy-3-(p-bromophenyl)-2-propenedithioate, M = Ni 1, Pd 5, Pt 9; L2, methyl-3-hydroxy-3-(p-fluorophenyl)-2-propenedithioate, Ni 2, Pd 6, Pt 10; L3, methyl-3-hydroxy-3-(naphthyl)-2-propenedithioate, Ni 3, Pd 7, Pt 11; methyl-3-hydroxy-3-(p-methoxyphenyl)-2-propenedithioate, Ni 4, Pd 8, Pt 12), have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, IR, UV-Vis, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy; the structures of 2–4, 8 and 11 have been elucidated by X-ray crystallography. In all crystal structures, the metal has four-coordinate slightly distorted square planar geometry with a cis-configuration of the ligands. These complexes have been assessed for their use as anti-leishmanial agents; 7 and 9 showed impressive anti-promastigote and anti-amastigote efficacy with IC50 values of 0.59 ± 0.10 μg mL−1, 0.56 ± 0.10 μg mL−1 and IC50 0.85 ± 0.27, 1.99 ± 0.08 μg mL−1, respectively. Cytotoxicity assays on both compounds displayed toxicity on the promastigotes but less toxicity against RAW 264.7 cell lines at different concentrations. The Pd and Pt complexes exhibit luminescent characteristics in solution, originating from the intraligand charge transfer state

Impact of Salinity Stress and Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on Macro and Micronutrient Assimilation: Unraveling the Link between Environmental Factors and Nutrient Uptake

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effects of salinity (NaCl) on the mineral composition and macro- and micronutrient contents of rice plants. The experiment was conducted at the Department of Biotechnology's experimental area in SVPUAT Meerut. Various salinity treatments were applied, including T0 (Control), T1 (60 mM NaCl), T2 (80 mM NaCl), T3 (100 mM NaCl), T4 (ZnO NPs 50 mg/L + 60 mM NaCl), T5 (ZnO NPs 50 mg/L + 80 mM NaCl), and T6 (ZnO NPs 50 mg/L + 100 mM NaCl). The results analysis revealed that the micro- and micronutrients in rice genotypes decreased compared to the control treatment. However, when 50 mg/L of ZnO-NPs were applied, the concentrations of both macro- and micronutrient contents in rice plants were found to increase. This is the most significant finding of this researc