Principle of CBDR-RC: Its Interpretation and Implementation Through NDCS in the Context of Sustainable Development

For the international community, 2015 was a momentous year in terms of transformative legal developments. Climate change response culminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which heralded a new era in the international community’s pursuit of sustainability. Both of these developments are complementary; the climate change legal framework acknowledges sustainable development, and SDGs explicitly recognize the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement presented to the global community an objective to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, through sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty and a goal to restrict the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and a desirable goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. The failure to achieve this target would seriously jeopardize States and individuals and challenge the success of sustainable development and SDGs. The Paris Agreement states not only that the achievement of the goal is essential, but the agreement must be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC), in light of different national circumstances. This paper argues that the adoption of SDGs premised on the idea of leaving no one behind provides an impetus for the re-evaluation of the principle of CBDR-RC under the Paris Agreement. The paper explores the possibility of a wider interpretation of CBDR-RC through the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to help the international community pursue SDGs

Principle of CBDR-RC: Its Interpretation and Implementation Through NDCS in the Context of Sustainable Development

For the international community, 2015 was a momentous year in terms of transformative legal developments. Climate change response culminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which heralded a new era in the international community’s pursuit of sustainability. Both of these developments are complementary; the climate change legal framework acknowledges sustainable development, and SDGs explicitly recognize the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement presented to the global community an objective to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, through sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty and a goal to restrict the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and a desirable goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. The failure to achieve this target would seriously jeopardize States and individuals and challenge the success of sustainable development and SDGs. The Paris Agreement states not only that the achievement of the goal is essential, but the agreement must be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC), in light of different national circumstances. This paper argues that the adoption of SDGs premised on the idea of leaving no one behind provides an impetus for the re-evaluation of the principle of CBDR-RC under the Paris Agreement. The paper explores the possibility of a wider interpretation of CBDR-RC through the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to help the international community pursue SDGs

Indiscapes: Instance Segmentation Networks for Layout Parsing of Historical Indic Manuscripts

Historical palm-leaf manuscript and early paper documents from Indian subcontinent form an important part of the world's literary and cultural heritage. Despite their importance, large-scale annotated Indic manuscript image datasets do not exist. To address this deficiency, we introduce Indiscapes, the first ever dataset with multi-regional layout annotations for historical Indic manuscripts. To address the challenge of large diversity in scripts and presence of dense, irregular layout elements (e.g. text lines, pictures, multiple documents per image), we adapt a Fully Convolutional Deep Neural Network architecture for fully automatic, instance-level spatial layout parsing of manuscript images. We demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed architecture on images from the Indiscapes dataset. For annotation flexibility and keeping the non-technical nature of domain experts in mind, we also contribute a custom, web-based GUI annotation tool and a dashboard-style analytics portal. Overall, our contributions set the stage for enabling downstream applications such as OCR and word-spotting in historical Indic manuscripts at scale.Comment: Oral presentation at International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR) - 2019. For dataset, pre-trained networks and additional details, visit project page at http://ihdia.iiit.ac.in

Evaluation of standardisation parameters and antioxidant activity of Bergenia ligulata

Berginia ligulata is one of the prominent ayurvedic herb for acute and chronic urinary tract infection [UTI].The present study highlighted the botanical as well as phytochemical studies including parameters such as macroscopic, physiochemical, evaluation and preliminary phytochemical studies of roots. On physiochemical analysis it was found that the powder was soluble in methanol, ethanol and water. It was insoluble in petroleum ether. On phytochemical analysis of aqueous and chloroform extract, it contains alkaloids, Saponin and Flavonoid

Homicidal ideation and psychiatric comorbidities in the inpatient adolescents aged 12–17

Objectives: Adolescents with a homicidal tendency is a growing concern in the United States. Studies in the past have showcased the relationship between homicidal ideation (HI) and psychiatric illnesses, but very limited information is available on the adolescent and inpatient population. We aim to evaluate the prevalence of demographic characteristics and psychiatric disorders in adolescents with and without HI. Materials and methods: Adolescent (age 12–17) population admitted to the hospital with the diagnosis of homicidal ideation was identified from the 2016–2018 National Inpatient Sample Dataset (NISD). Patients without HI were defined as the control group. The prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities between the groups was compared by applying the Rao-Scott adjusted chi-square test. We used multivariable logistic regression to generate odds ratio (OR) of homicidal ideation as an outcome; we adjusted age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, substance use disorders, alcohol use disorders, and psychiatric comorbidities. Results: A total of 18,935 patients (mean age: 14.5) with HI diagnosis were identified in this study. Majority of the patients were male subjects in the HI group compared to the control group (58.7 vs. 41.2%, p \u3c 0.001). Racially, HI was more prevalent in white race (56.0 vs. 52.6%, p \u3c 0.001) and black race (22.3 vs. 17.8%, p \u3c 0.001), compared to Hispanic race (14.9 vs. 21.3%, p \u3c 0.001). Major depression (Odds ratio [OR]: 2.66, p \u3c 0.001), bipolar disorder (OR: 3.52, p \u3c 0.001), anxiety disorder (OR: 1.85, p \u3c 0.001), ADHD, and other conduct disorders (OR: 4.01, p \u3c 0.001), schizophrenia (OR: 4.35, p \u3c 0.001) are strong predictors of HI. Suicidality was prevalent in 66.9% of patients with HI. Conclusion: We found a higher prevalence of psychiatric illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder in adolescents with homicidal ideation in the inpatient setting. White and black races were more prevalent in patients with homicidal ideation. Further large-scale longitudinal research studies are warranted to establish the correlation between psychiatric disorders and homicidal ideation among adolescents

Filling an empty lattice by local injection of quantum particles

We study the quantum dynamics of filling an empty lattice of size $L$, by connecting it locally with an equilibrium thermal bath that injects non-interacting bosons or fermions. We adopt four different approaches, namely (i) direct exact numerics, (ii) Redfield equation, (iii) Lindblad equation, and (iv) quantum Langevin equation -- which are unique in their ways for solving the time dynamics and the steady-state. Our setup offers a simplistic platform to understand fundamental aspects of dynamics and approach to thermalization. The quantities of interest that we consider are the spatial density profile and the total number of bosons/fermions in the lattice. The spatial spread is ballistic in nature and the local occupation eventually settles down owing to equilibration. The ballistic spread of local density admits a universal scaling form. We show that this universality is only seen when the condition of detailed balance is satisfied by the baths. The difference between bosons and fermions shows up in the early time growth rate and the saturation values of the profile. The techniques developed here are applicable to systems in arbitrary dimensions and for arbitrary geometries.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Toxicological manifestations in gills, liver, kidney and muscles of Channa punctatus exposed to mercuric chloride

Aquatic regimes are exposed to a variety of pollutants that are mainly released by anthropogenic activities. Mercuric chloride (HgCl2) pose serious hazards to freshwater fish resource for its toxicity and long persistence. It is also a threat to humans who consume fish as a food resource. This study aimed to determine the consequences of acute exposure to HgCl2 in the freshwater food fish Channa punctatus (Bloch, 1973). The acute study of 96 hours was composed of three groups (in triplicates), having ten fish in each group which includes group I (control), group II (0.112 mg/l of HgCl2) and group III (0.224 mg/l of HgCl2). Results showed induction in reactive oxygen species (ROS) level in erythrocytes of group III (22159 ± 258.036). The biomarkers of oxidative stress, glutathione reduced (GSH) and lipid peroxidase (LPO) showed significant (p < 0.05) decrement and increment in their activity, respectively, in gills, liver, kidney and muscle tissues of the fish treated with HgCl2. Further, micronuclei (MN) and nuclear abnormalities (NAs) were formed in the erythrocytes of the fish of groups II and III, revealing DNA damage, hence showing genotoxicity. Histopathological studies in sample tissues of HgCl2 treated group demonstrated irreversible tissue injuries and anomalies. Thus, the findings from the study demonstrate that biological stress is induced in fish because of acute exposure to HgCl2, leading to health impairmen

The role of metformin in treatment of weight gain associated with atypical antipsychotic treatment in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Introduction: Second-generation antipsychotics are associated with significant weight gain. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the efficacy and safety of metformin for the treatment of weight gain in children and young adults treated with second-generation antipsychotics. Methods: We followed PRISMA guidelines to evaluated studies published before March 2020 in Medline, Google Scholar, PubMed, Cochrane library database, annual scientific sessions of the American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent, Psychiatry, and American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology. Studies included compared metformin with the placebo for management of weight gain in children and adolescents taking atypical antipsychotics. Non-randomized studies, animal experiment studies, editorials, and review studies were excluded. Multiple parameters, including change in anthropometric-biochemical parameters, drug discontinuation rate, and side effects among the groups were assessed. The random-effects method was used for meta-analysis. Results: Four studies with were included in the final analysis (213 patients; metformin: 106; control: 107). After pooled analysis, 12–16 weeks of metformin therapy was associated with a significant reduction in weight [(mean difference (MD): −4.53 lbs, confidence interval (CI): −6.19 to −2.87, p-value \u3c 0.001)], and BMI z score [MD, −0.09, CI: −0.16, −0.03, p-value: 0.004] compared to control. Metformin was also associated with a significant reduction in insulin resistance [MD: −1.38, CI: −2.26 to −0.51, p-value: 0.002]. There were higher odds of nausea-vomiting [OR: 4.07, CI: 1.32–12.54, p-value: 0.02] and diarrhea [OR: 2.93, CI: 1.50–5.71, p-value: 0.002] in the metformin group. However, there was no difference in drug discontinuation rate [OR: 1.45, CI: 0.41–5.06, p-value: 0.56]. Conclusion: Metformin may prove beneficial in the treatment of weight gain in children treated with second-generation antipsychotics. The pooled treatment effect showed a significant reduction in BMI Z-score and weight in just 12–16 weeks. The limitations include small sample size, variation in metformin dose, and duration of treatment. This meta-analysis should be interpreted as promising, and further larger studies are warranted before drawing a conclusion

Evaluation of standardization parameter of polyherbal digestive “churna”

The development in these traditional systems of medicine leads to maintain proper quality of the product. India is rich in its flora and fauna. These plants are being used for curing many diseases as such in raw condition rather the being prepared as formulation. Churana is defined as a fine powder of drug or drugs in Ayurvedic system of medicine. Drugs mentioned in patha, are cleaned properly, dried thoroughly, pulverised and then sieved. The churana is free flowing and retains its potency for one year, if preserved in air tight containers. Churna formulations are similar to powder formulations in Allopathic system of medicine. In recent days churna is formulated into tablets in order to fix the dose easily. The churana was evaluated depending on various evaluation parameters and from the results obtained it was found to be within the standards. These preliminary tests can be prescribed as standards to fix the quality control test the churana and can be used in routine analysis of the same. The can also be used to perform quality control and quality assurance in the laboratory

An adaptive mesh refinement technique for dynamics of solids

Simulation of dynamics problems generally is heavily dependent on mesh size for convergence and accuracy. In many cases, the requirement of mesh size reaches to such proportions that the problem becomes unsolvable for the available computational resources. We perceive that such problems can be solved by refining and unrefining mesh adaptively during time stepping. Adaptive mesh refinement techniques available in popular literature are marred by various limitations, such as element-specific techniques, algorithm-specific techniques, etc. We utilize Conforming Hierarchical Refinement Methods (CHARMS) [32] for our purpose since it relies on the refinement of finite element basis instead of geometric sub-division of elements. Refinement in this fashion produces conforming meshes during adaptive mesh refinement for a wide range of elements. We improve CHARMS to incorporate time stepping problems. In order to show the effectiveness of such an algorithm, we modify an explicit Newmark solver to incorporate it within the adaptive mesh refinement framework. We perform the analysis of conservation properties of the modified algorithm to understand its limitations. Later, we demonstrate application of such development with a very practical example, simulation of an NDE experiment using ultrasonic guided waves. Details presented in [76] has shown that such a simulation would otherwise not have been possible. We further study the guided wave experiment and optimize various parameters of the algorithm to validate experimental result