A Comparative Analysis on the Role and Market Linkages of Gold Backed Assets During COVID-19 Pandemic

Gold is a traditional favorite investment avenue for investors all over the globe, particularly during the crisis period. Irrespective of the nature of the crisis, investors are allocating their funds to different gold-backed assets. This paper uses various globally traded gold-backed assets to identify its role and market linkages during the Covid 19 pandemic. Daily prices of assets from March 2020 to January 2022 were employed. DCC GARCH model is used to ascertain time-varying correlations and quantile regression was employed to examine the relationship between assets in different quantiles. Based on the analysis, safe haven property of all the assets is revealed and it is associated with the severity of the stock market crash as specified by the quantiles. Moreover, double exposure of gold mining stock results in different flights to quality. Co-movement of gold bullion, gold futures, and gold volatility index is visible during this crisis. Gold Exchange Traded Funds and gold-backed cryptocurrency offer diversification by decoupling with gold bullion in the portfolio. The paper highlights the importance of the choice of gold-backed assets along with gold bullion in the investment portfolio based on its role and market linkages

DRUG UTILIZATION PATTERN OF ANTIHYPERTENSIVE MEDICATIONS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL, SOUTH INDIA

Objective: The objective of the study is to assess drug use pattern of antihypertensive medications in hypertensive patients. Methods: It is a prospective cross-sectional study conducted in the outpatient dispensary, Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram for the period of 6 months from January 2019 to June 2019. About 500 prescriptions of patients visiting outpatient dispensary with an antihypertensive prescription were enrolled for the study. Drug use patterns of different classes of antihypertensive medications were analyzed from individual prescriptions. Results: A total of 500 patients were included in this study, among which 281 were male (56.2%) and 219 (43.8%) were female. In 500 patients, 133 patients were treated with monotherapy. In that 42.1% of patients were treated with amlodipine, 28.57% of patients were treated with losartan. In combination therapy most commonly used was double therapy (42.8%) followed by triple therapy (24.2%). Calcium Channel Blockers (56.2%) was most prescribed class of drug followed by Angiotensin Receptor Blockers. Conclusion: This study reveals that calcium channel blockers as most prescribed class of antihypertensive and Amlodipine was the most prescribed antihypertensive. In our study, most of the patients were treated with combination therapy in that double drug therapy was most common. There is a chance of various medication errors, development of adverse drug reaction as majority (290) of patients belong to age above 60 and chances of getting error also increases as combination therapy is most used. Therefore close monitoring is required for such patients

Unleashing the Power of Deep Attention Networks: A Comprehensive Approach for Enhanced Artificial Intelligence

Deep learning has revolutionized the field of artificial intelligence by achieving state-of-the-art performance on a variety of complex tasks. Attention mechanisms have emerged as a powerful tool to enhance the capabilities of deep neural networks by enabling them to selectively focus on relevant information. In this article, we propose a novel artificial intelligence algorithm called Deep Attention Networks (DANs), which associate multiple attention mechanisms to improve performance on interesting tasks. We evaluate DANs on benchmark datasets in natural language processing, computer vision, and speech recognition and demonstrate superior results compared to existing state-of-the-art approaches. Our approach opens up new possibilities for advancing the field of artificial intelligence and holds promise for various real-world applications. Overall, our results demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of DANs for various AI applications, and highlight the power of combining deep neural networks with attention mechanisms

Influence of maternal and child factors on the dental service utilization among preschool children in Bangalore urban district: a cross-sectional study

Background: Dental visit is considered primary marker of oral care. Maternal characteristics, attitudes and psychosocial factors and the child’s oral health may influence dental visits of preschool children. This study aimed to determine the influence of maternal and child factors on dental services utilization among preschool children. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 600 preschool children and mothers visiting Anganwadis and Primary Health Centres in Bangalore Urban District. Mothers answered questions on socio-demographic characteristics and dental attendance. Maternal dental anxiety and child’s oral health-related quality of life were assessed using modified dental anxiety scale and early childhood oral health impact scale respectively. Oral health of children and mothers were assessed using WHO oral health assessment form 2013 for children and adults respectively. Descriptive statistics, Poisson’s regression with robust variance and mediation analysis were performed and p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: The proportion of dental visit among preschool children was 13.5%. Majority of the mothers had high dental anxiety (76.2%) and perceived their children’s oral health-related quality of life to be good (71.2%). The caries experience in mothers and children were 63.5% and 54.2% respectively. Mothers with higher education (PR=2.05, p=0.037), caries experience (PR=3.17, p<0.001) and poor perception of child’s oral health-related quality of life (PR=5.88, p<0.001), and children with pain experience (PR=1.62, p=0.003) and decayed teeth (PR=1.81, p=0.017) influenced children’s dental visit. Maternal perception on child’s oral health-related quality of life mediates the relationship between child’s oral health and dental visit. Conclusions: The utilization of dental services among preschool children was low. Maternal and child oral health factors influenced the child’s dental service utilization. Hence, oral health promotion approaches towards mothers and children is the need for the hour

IN VITRO EVALUATION OF GLYCOLIPOPROTEIN POWDER FROM EARTHWORM EUDRILUS EUGENIAE

Objective: The researchers are searching for innate bioactive compounds, competent of curing various diseases. In the present study, the cytotoxicity and the angiogenic nature of the glycolipoprotein powder from the earthworm were considered for its pharmaceutical and biological uses.Methods: The in vitro MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay of the glycolipoprotein powder (GLP) of the earthworm in the Murine embryonic fibroblast cell line (NIH 3T3) was performed. Further the haemolytic assay of the GLP was also tested. The angiogenic potential was also evaluated by the (in vitro) chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model in 9 days old fertilized chick eggs.Results: The MTT assay was performed wherein the cell response to extract was by dose-dependent manner and great cytotoxic effect was not shown for the tested concentrations. In the MTT assay increased cell viability (84%) was found at concentrations of 100 µg/ml. The hemolytic activity of the extract was also determined, wherein it showed insignificant lytic activity compared to the control. On performing the CAM assay, 500 μl extract (25 μg/ml) was found to increase the number of capillaries on the treated CAM surfaces after 72 hours of incubation.Conclusion: These findings suggested that the earthworm powder possesses the significant angiogenic potential, which may be beneficial in the treatment of wound healing.Â

RECOMBINANT EXPRESSION AND FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDE CRUSTIN FROM ARTEMIA SALINA

Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina. Escuela de Posgrado. Maestría en Ciencias AmbientalesSe estudiaron las características físicas de los residuos sólidos domiciliarios como la generación per cápita (GPC), densidad (kg/m3) y composición física, a nivel de 519 distritos pertenecientes a las 25 regiones del Perú, para determinar indicadores específicos para el Perú y su relación con factores socioeconómicos y geográficos. Las variables independientes fueron el gasto per cápita familiar (GsPC), índice de desarrollo humano (IDH), índice de pobreza total (IPT), necesidades básicas insatisfechas (NBI) y coeficiente de desigualdad (GINI); mientras que las variable dependientes fueron la GPC, densidad y composición física de los residuos sólidos domiciliarios. Se utilizaron datos provenientes de estudios de caracterización de residuos sólidos y la base de datos actualizada al 2014 del Sistema de Información para la Gestión de Residuos Sólidos del Ministerio del Ambiente (SIGERSOL). Los valores de la GPC fueron trabajados sin actualizar y actualizados al 2015, encontrándose que la GPC promedio ponderada nacional es de 0.577 kg/hab/día y la región natural selva es la que presenta mayores valores de GPC. A nivel espacial los valores de la GPC se agrupan en algunos casos siguiendo un patrón geográfico de región natural. Para el caso de la densidad de los residuos sólidos, esta fue mucho mayor en la región selva (233.985 kg/m3), que es la que además presenta la mayor cantidad de materia orgánica en sus residuos, diferenciándose significativamente de las otras dos regiones naturales. Con respecto a la relación entre la GPC y los factores socioeconómicos, se observó que existe una relación más marcada con el gasto per cápita familiar (GsPC), aunque estadísticamente los coeficientes de determinación y correlación no eran fuertes. Por último, la tasa de crecimiento de la GPC se encontró en el rango de 0.263 % a 14.741% dependiendo del crecimiento poblacional y el ingreso económico de los habitantes.Physical characteristics such as household solid waste generation per capita, density (kg/m3) and physical composition of 519 districts within 25 regions of Peru were studied to determine specific indicators for Peru and its relationship with socioeconomic and geographic factors. The independent variables were the household per capita expenditure, human development index, total poverty index, unsatisfied basic needs and coefficient of inequality; while the dependent variables were the household solid waste generation per capita, density and physical composition of solid household waste. Data from studies of characterization of solid waste and the database updated 2014 from Information System for Solid Waste Management of Ministry of Environment were used. Household solid waste generation per capita values were worked without updating and updated in 2015, finding that the per capita generation of solid waste is 0.577 kg/person/day and the jungle region has the higher value of per capita generation. Spatially, per capita generation values are grouped in some cases following a natural geographical pattern region. In the case of the density of solid waste, this was much higher in the jungle region (233.985 kg/m3), which is the one featuring the largest amount of organic matter in waste, significantly from the other two natural regions differing. Regarding the relationship between the per capita generation of solid waste and socioeconomic factors, it was observed that her is a stronger relationship with the family per capita spending, although statistically the coefficients of determination and correlation were not strong. Finally, the growth rate of per capita generation was found in the range of 0.263 % to 14.741 %, depending on the population growth and the income of the inhabitants.Tesi