A study of menstrual hygiene practices and associated environmental & social factors among adolescent girls in rural Puducherry

Introduction. Adolescent females were prevented from receiving the appropriate knowledge due to social restrictions and traditional beliefs, which in turn led to poor hygiene habits. Material and methods. A community-based descriptive cross-sectional study employing a semi-structured questionnaire was carried out in the rural field practice region of MGMCRI, Puducherry, between the 15th of March 2019 and the 31st of April 2021. The study was done in Puducherry. The comprehensive enumeration yielded a total of 528 countable teenage females. Results. The vast majority of the teenage females (89.2%) reported using sanitary pads, whereas just 6.6% and 4.2%, respectively, reported using fresh or reused towels. 65.3% of the girls changed their wet absorbent between two and five times during the day. The vast majority of the girls, or 60.8% of them, disposed of their spent absorbent by either burying it or burning it. 67.9% of the girls were cleansing their genitalia when they were urinating. 54.4% of people cleaned their hands using soap and water, whereas 1.4% utilized ash soil, muddy dirt, or other types of soil. There was a statistically significant correlation between the style of housing and the availability of sanitary latrines (p<0.005) in relation to menstrual hygiene behaviors. Conclusions. This research also highlighted the absence of sanitary toilet facilities in the majority of residences, which negatively impacted the girls' ability to maintain their privacy and led to bad practices around menstruation hygiene

Customer Acquisition and Retention System Using Mobile and Social Media

In a modern world, growing number of people is getting connected through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In other side, more and more people have started using mobile phones to find, view and share information about products and services of businesses. This brings the unique opportunity for business owners to establish new customer channels and engage existing customers on their brand by using social media and mobile technologies. Despite business owners understand this opportunity, their lack of technological know-how and fragmented mobile and social media platforms makes the social media marketing harder. The proposed solution attempts to eliminate this problem by providing an easy to use online service with a set of tools and methods for business owners to create, manage and measure the social media campaigns in an easy and cost effective way. The proposed solution also eases the end customer participation to social media campaigns by using a QR code based instant scan technique. The overall effectiveness of this solution has been measured in terms of benefits received by businesses, for instance brand awareness created, new customers acquired, brand reach ability and customer engagement happened through social media campaigns. In addition, the practical viability of the proposed solution as a growth business has been evaluated by using Business Model Canvas tool. The internal and external forces which can affect this solution as a growth business has been evaluated by using the SWOT analysis technique

Not Available

Not AvailableA field experiment was conducted to investigate the soil microbial growth and enzymatic activity of Treated Distillery Effluent (TDE) and Bio-compost (BC) applied in sandy loam soils grown with Maize crop (Zea mays). Under split plot design with five main plots with addition of organics viz., No organics; application of TDE @ 0.5 lakh litres ha-1; TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1; Bio compost @ 5 t ha-1 and FYM @ 12.5 t ha-1 + biofertilizers. In addition, five subplot treatments viz., addition of inorganic fertilizers at different levels of recommended dose of NP fertilizers (0 %, 50 %, 75 % and 100 %) compared with 100 per cent recommended dose of NPK @ 150 :75: 75 of kg N, P2O5 and K2O ha-1. Application of TDE 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 resulted higher bacterial, fungal and actinomycetes population over control at all stages of crop growth. Indeed, the soil bacterial population recorded the highest value of 20.1 and 19.3 x106 CFU g-1 of soil with the application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 compared to control at post-harvest stage. There was an increase in the soil fungal population to the tune of 30.3 per cent over control at post-harvest stage. Furthermore, application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 recorded the highest soil actinomycetes population at all stages of crop growth. The soil enzyme activities as phosphatase, dehydrogenase and urease recorded the highest values of 12.8 μg p-nitrophenol g-1 soil hr-1; 2.96 μg TPF g-1 soil hr-1 and 5.16 μg NH4-N g-1 soil hr-1 respectively with the application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1. The soil microbial population and enzyme activities increased with the application of distillery effluent over control. Hence, it was observed that, Soil microbial activity had a direct impact on the plant nutrient availability as well as other favorable properties associated with soil productivityNot Availabl

Legacy of draught cattle breeds of South India: Insights into population structure, genetic admixture and maternal origin.

The present study is the first comprehensive report on diversity, population structure, genetic admixture and mitochondrial DNA variation in South Indian draught type zebu cattle. The diversity of South Indian cattle was moderately high. A significantly strong negative correlation coefficient of -0.674 (P6.25%) was observed in Punganur, Vechur, Umblachery and Pulikulam cattle breeds. Two major maternal haplogroups, I1 and I2, typical of zebu cattle were observed, with the former being predominant than the later. The pairwise differences among the I2 haplotypes of South Indian cattle were relatively higher than West Indian (Indus valley site) zebu cattle. The results indicated the need for additional sampling and comprehensive analysis of mtDNA control region variations to unravel the probable location of origin and domestication of I2 zebu lineage. The present study also revealed major concerns on South Indian zebu cattle (i) risk of endangerment due to small effective population size and high rate of inbreeding (ii) lack of sufficient purebred zebu bulls for breeding and (iii) increasing level of taurine admixture in zebu cattle. Availability of purebred semen for artificial insemination, incorporation of genomic/molecular information to identify purebred animals and increased awareness among farmers will help to maintain breed purity, conserve and improve these important draught cattle germplasms of South India

Not Available

Not AvailableA field experiment was conducted to investigate the soil microbial growth and enzymatic activity of Treated Distillery Effluent (TDE) and Bio-compost (BC) applied in sandy loam soils grown with Maize crop (Zeamays). Under split plot design with five main plots with addition of organics viz., No organics; application of TDE @ 0.5 lakh litres ha-1TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha; Bio compost @ 5 t ha-1 and FYM @ 12.5 t ha +biofertilizers. In addition, five subplot treatments viz., addition of inorganic fertilizers atdifferent levels of recommended dose of NP fertilizers (0 %, 50 %, 75 % and 100 %) compared with 100 per cent recommended dose of NPK @ 150 :75: 75 of kg N, P andK2O ha-1. Application of TDE 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 resulted higher bacterial, fungal and actinomycetes population over control at all stages of crop growth. Indeed, the soil bacterial population recorded the highest value of 20.1 and 19.3 x106 of soilwith the application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 compared to control at post-harvest stage. There was an increase in the soil fungal population to the tune of 30.3 per cent over control at post-harvest stage. Furthermore, application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha-1 recorded the highest soil actinomycetes population at all stages of crop growth. The soil enzyme activities as phosphatase, dehydrogenase and urease recorded the highest values of12.8 µg p-nitrophenol g-1 soil hr-1; 2.96 µg TPF g-1 soil hr -1 and 5.16 µg NH4-N g -1 respectively with the application of TDE @ 1.0 lakh litres ha -1 . The soil microbial population and enzyme activities increased with the application of distillery effluent over control. Hence, it was observed that, Soil microbial activity had a direct impact on the plant nutrient availability as well as other favorable properties associated with soil productivity.Not Availabl

Anticancer Potential of L-Histidine-Capped Silver Nanoparticles against Human Cervical Cancer Cells (SiHA)

This study reports the synthesis of silver nanoparticles using amino acid L-histidine as a reducing and capping agent as an eco-friendly approach. Fabricated L-histidine-capped silver nanoparticles (L-HAgNPs) were characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic studies. Spherical shaped L-HAgNPs were synthesized with a particle size of 47.43 &plusmn; 19.83 nm and zeta potential of &minus;20.5 &plusmn; 0.95 mV. Results of the anticancer potential of L-HAgNPs showed antiproliferative effect against SiHa cells in a dose-dependent manner with an IC50 value of 18.25 &plusmn; 0.36 &micro;g/mL. Fluorescent microscopic analysis revealed L-HAgNPs induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediated mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to activation of apoptotic pathway and DNA damage eventually causing cell death. To conclude, L-HAgNPs can act as promising candidates for cervical cancer therapy