Performance, Emissions, and Combustion Evaluations of a Diesel Engine Fuelled with Biodiesel Produced from High FFA Crude Mahua (<em>Madhuca longifolia</em>) Oil

Biodiesel is one of the environment-friendly alternative fuels need to be developed in order to meet the increasing demand for mineral fuels for transportation. In this study, nonedible crude Mahua oil has been used to extract biodiesel. Performance, emission and combustion characteristics of Mahua oil biodiesel blends with conventional diesel are compared on a single cylinder, natural aspirated, water-cooled direct injection (DI) diesel engine. Brake thermal efficiency of an engine fuelled with Mahua biodiesel blend B30 has been shown nearly same or insignificant lower compare to mineral diesel. The optimum engine operating condition based on lower brake specific fuel consumption and higher brake thermal efficiency was observed at 60% load for blend B30 of crude Mahua oil biodiesel. From an emissions point of view blend, B30 was found to be the best fuel as it showed lesser exhaust emission such as CO, HC, CO2, and NOx. Heat and pressure curve with respect to crank angle showed the details of combustion characteristics and revealed that combustion starts earlier for higher biodiesel blends. Results show that biodiesel obtained from nonedible Mahua oil gave better results and can be used as an excellent substitute for fossil fuels

Open reduction and internal fixation of fracture femur in a patient with severe ankylosing spondylitis utilizing continuous caudal epidural anaesthesia

We describe a patient with severe ankylosing spondylitis scheduled to undergo open reduction and internal fixation. We emphasise on alternative anaesthetic management in view of non-availability of fiberoptic bronchoscope and unwillingness of patient to go to higher centre. Regional (continuous caudal epidural) anesthesia has been used as technique of choice

Awareness about cervical cancers among health workers in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh, India

Background: Cervical cancer, although largely preventable, remains the most common cause of cancer mortality among women in low-resource countries. Aim of this study was to assess knowledge and awareness of cervical cancer prevention among health workers in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among multipurpose health care workers (both males and females) in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh. A self-administered close ended questionnaire was used. The questionnaire, consisted of two parts. The first part comprised of questions relating to demographic data and the second part had questions on knowledge about cervical cancers. The data was analyzed using the statistical analysis program SPSS version 16.0.  Tests used were Chi square, t test and ANOVA. A p-values <0.05 were considered  statistically significant.Results: Out of 122 subjects, there were 45 (36.9%) males and 77 (63.1%) females. The mean knowledge percent of the population was 55.9+16.4. Among the age groups it was highest for the age group of 21-30 years (62.5+23.6) and lowest for the age group of 51-60 years (53.6+16.4). Knowledge about risk factors was correctly reported by 44.3% of population. Who should be screened for cervical cancers was reported correctly by 29.5% and at what interval screening should be done was reported by 14.8%.Conclusions: Half of the population had moderate overall knowledge about cervical cancers, but the knowledge about risk factors and screening eligibility and screening interval was inadequate. So, education programs should be arranged for the health workers in order to prevent cervical cancers

Internet addiction, behavioural aspects, and health related problems associated with it: a cross sectional study among engineering students of Jabalpur district

Background: With the rise of new generation gadgets, the risk of “internet addiction” is emerging as a significant behavioral addiction pandemic to be tackled worldwide. Internet addiction can be defined as an impulse disorder. Objective of the study was to determines the level of Internet addiction in Students. To identify the behavioural and any health-related problems associated with internet addiction among students.Methods: This study was a cross sectional study carried out in 7 different engineering colleges of Jabalpur city during the period of 1st July 2016 to 30th September 2016.Results: In present study the prevalence of internet addiction was found to be 74 %. 26 % of the participants were found with no internet addictions whereas 55 % and 17.67 % of the participants were found to be mild and moderate addicted whereas only 1.33 % of the participants were severely addicted to internet addiction. Participant who has internet addiction has 84.8 % of yelling and annoying behavior while 86.5 % participants with internet addiction have secretive and defensive behavior. Association was found to be highly significant (p = <0.001). Ill effects like problem related to eye have significant effect on the participants with internet addiction i.e. 66.17 %. Association of problem related to eye problems with internet addiction was significant with the p = 0.02.Conclusions: The problem is alarming and progressing to an addictive state in the near future Interventions like setting boundaries and detecting early warning signs of underlying psychopathology at the earliest are require

An Extension of “Can fMRI discriminate between deception and false memory? A meta-analytic comparison between deception and false memory studies”

fMRI has the potential of being able to differentiate between false memory and deception, but to apply this ability to real life situations, such as court cases or in neurodegenerative studies involving the brain's ability to recognize memory, it is vital that fMRI can detect the differences between general memory1 and deception, as false memory is often mixed in with true memory during recollection. To determine whether fMRI can do this, the prior study, “Can fMRI discriminate between deception and false memory? A meta-analytic comparison between deception and false memory studies” (Yu et al., 2019) [18] was extended. Yu et al., 2019 found that true memory and false memory, independently, could be distinguished from deception. This extension aims to determine if brain activity resulting from deception can be distinguished from activity caused by general memory as opposed to false memory. Given the broader scope of general memory compared to false memory, the prediction is put forth that general memory recollection will not be distinguishable from deception due to broader regions of activation in the brain. Appropriate meta-analyses for deception and general memory recollection were selected and used to determine z-scores and voxel coordinates of activity in different regions of the brain. The brain structures with the highest z-scores during general memory analysis were the caudate, the medial frontal gyrus, and the insula. The brain structures with the highest z-scores during deception analysis were the inferior frontal gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus, and the insula. After further analysis, it was determined that activation for general memory vs deception can be distinguished by looking at the activation of the cingulate gyrus and the precuneus

Phytochemical investigations, in-vitro antioxidant, antimicrobial potential, and in-silico computational docking analysis of Euphorbia milii Des Moul

Euphorbia milii Des Moul is a deciduous bush indigenous to Madagascar. The present study aims to investigate the presence of the phytochemical, in-vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial potency, and in-silico computational analysis of ethanolic and aqueous preparations of E. milii leaves and flowers. The ethanolic and aqueous extracts were tested for in-vitro antioxidant activity by DPPH, H2O2, TAC, and FRAP assay. In addition, antimicrobial potentials were assayed by agar well diffusion technique against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans for various clinical isolates. The qualitative phytochemical analysis results confirmed the existence of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolics, and tannins. The quantitative analysis elicits the availability of a magnificent number of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolics, flavonols, and tannins. Among all the extracts, aqueous extracts of leaves exhibited potent antioxidant activity in DPPH, FRAP, and H2O2 assay with the IC50 value of 30.70, 60.05, and 82.92µg/mL, respectively. In agar well diffusion assay, all extracts displayed zone of inhibition varies from 2-24mm at different concentrations ranging from 10-320 mg/mL, whereas no activity was observed against Candida albicans. Furthermore, docking-based computational analysis has revealed that beta-sitosterol and taraxerol are the plant's active constituents responsible for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Research findings suggest that the E. milii plant has an excellent prospect for further study for its extended antioxidative and antimicrobial potential. It could be a natural source of various ailments and can be utilized to develop new drugs

Transport injuries and deaths in the Eastern Mediterranean Region : findings from the Global Burden of Disease 2015 Study

Transport injuries (TI) are ranked as one of the leading causes of death, disability, and property loss worldwide. This paper provides an overview of the burden of TI in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) by age and sex from 1990 to 2015. Transport injuries mortality in the EMR was estimated using the Global Burden of Disease mortality database, with corrections for ill-defined causes of death, using the cause of death ensemble modeling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on inpatient and outpatient datasets, 26 cause-of-injury and 47 nature-of-injury categories. In 2015, 152,855 (95% uncertainty interval: 137,900-168,100) people died from TI in the EMR countries. Between 1990 and 2015, the years of life lost (YLL) rate per 100,000 due to TI decreased by 15.5%, while the years lived with disability (YLD) rate decreased by 10%, and the age-standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) rate decreased by 16%. Although the burden of TI mortality and morbidity decreased over the last two decades, there is still a considerable burden that needs to be addressed by increasing awareness, enforcing laws, and improving road conditions.Peer reviewe

Prevalence and attributable health burden of chronic respiratory diseases, 1990–2017: A systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2017

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license Background: Previous attempts to characterise the burden of chronic respiratory diseases have focused only on specific disease conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma. In this study, we aimed to characterise the burden of chronic respiratory diseases globally, providing a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis on geographical and time trends from 1990 to 2017. Methods: Using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017, we estimated the prevalence, morbidity, and mortality attributable to chronic respiratory diseases through an analysis of deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and years of life lost (YLL) by GBD super-region, from 1990 to 2017, stratified by age and sex. Specific diseases analysed included asthma, COPD, interstitial lung disease and pulmonary sarcoidosis, pneumoconiosis, and other chronic respiratory diseases. We also assessed the contribution of risk factors (smoking, second-hand smoke, ambient particulate matter and ozone pollution, household air pollution from solid fuels, and occupational risks) to chronic respiratory disease-attributable DALYs. Findings: In 2017, 544·9 million people (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 506·9–584·8) worldwide had a chronic respiratory disease, representing an increase of 39·8% compared with 1990. Chronic respiratory disease prevalence showed wide variability across GBD super-regions, with the highest prevalence among both males and females in high-income regions, and the lowest prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. The age-sex-specific prevalence of each chronic respiratory disease in 2017 was also highly variable geographically. Chronic respiratory diseases were the third leading cause of death in 2017 (7·0% [95% UI 6·8–7·2] of all deaths), behind cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms. Deaths due to chronic respiratory diseases numbered 3 914 196 (95% UI 3 790 578–4 044 819) in 2017, an increase of 18·0% since 1990, while total DALYs increased by 13·3%. However, when accounting for ageing and population growth, declines were observed in age-standardised prevalence (14·3% decrease), age-standardised death rates (42·6%), and age-standardised DALY rates (38·2%). In males and females, most chronic respiratory disease-attributable deaths and DALYs were due to COPD. In regional analyses, mortality rates from chronic respiratory diseases were greatest in south Asia and lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, also across both sexes. Notably, although absolute prevalence was lower in south Asia than in most other super-regions, YLLs due to chronic respiratory diseases across the subcontinent were the highest in the world. Death rates due to interstitial lung disease and pulmonary sarcoidosis were greater than those due to pneumoconiosis in all super-regions. Smoking was the leading risk factor for chronic respiratory disease-related disability across all regions for men. Among women, household air pollution from solid fuels was the predominant risk factor for chronic respiratory diseases in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, while ambient particulate matter represented the leading risk factor in southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania, and in the Middle East and north Africa super-region. Interpretation: Our study shows that chronic respiratory diseases remain a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, with growth in absolute numbers but sharp declines in several age-standardised estimators since 1990. Premature mortality from chronic respiratory diseases seems to be highest in regions with less-resourced health systems on a per-capita basis. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Burden of injury along the development spectrum : associations between the Socio-demographic Index and disability-adjusted life year estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background The epidemiological transition of non-communicable diseases replacing infectious diseases as the main contributors to disease burden has been well documented in global health literature. Less focus, however, has been given to the relationship between sociodemographic changes and injury. The aim of this study was to examine the association between disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from injury for 195 countries and territories at different levels along the development spectrum between 1990 and 2017 based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 estimates. Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the GBD mortality database, corrections for garbage coding and CODEm-the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on surveys and inpatient and outpatient data sets for 30 cause-of-injury with 47 nature-of-injury categories each. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) is a composite indicator that includes lagged income per capita, average educational attainment over age 15 years and total fertility rate. Results For many causes of injury, age-standardised DALY rates declined with increasing SDI, although road injury, interpersonal violence and self-harm did not follow this pattern. Particularly for self-harm opposing patterns were observed in regions with similar SDI levels. For road injuries, this effect was less pronounced. Conclusions The overall global pattern is that of declining injury burden with increasing SDI. However, not all injuries follow this pattern, which suggests multiple underlying mechanisms influencing injury DALYs. There is a need for a detailed understanding of these patterns to help to inform national and global efforts to address injury-related health outcomes across the development spectrum.Peer reviewe

Measuring progress and projecting attainment on the basis of past trends of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are grounded in the global ambition of “leaving no one behind”. Understanding today’s gains and gaps for the health-related SDGs is essential for decision makers as they aim to improve the health of populations. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016), we measured 37 of the 50 health-related SDG indicators over the period 1990–2016 for 188 countries, and then on the basis of these past trends, we projected indicators to 2030