Health Employment, Medical Spending, and Long Term Health Reform

This paper explores the relationships between the growth in the medical workforce in an aging society and employment in other sectors of the economy, based on data from the United States since 1985. Employment in medical services grew, but did not displace employment in other sectors uniformly. Instead, regression analysis shows that medical workforce growth produced contemporaneous reductions in relative employment in the manufacturing, construction, and information sectors, while being associated with growth in other services and public administration. Import penetration and productivity growth mattered, but much of the displacement remains even after controlling for these factors.

Nutritional Status in Rural Adolescent Girls Residing at Hills of Garhwal in India (2009)

Nutritional inadequacy leads to health problems, especially during theperiod of increased demand. Adolescents are a potential group in view of rapid growth and maturation which demands extra nutrients. With the multitude of social customs and beliefs cited against adolescents especially adolescent girls it is no wonder that they form the vulnerable group of under nutrition. With poor socio economic status, hostile livingconditions and food influenced by vagaries of nature, adolescents living at hills form the distinct group to be studied. This cross-sectional prevalence study included 45 adolescent girls of age group 12-19 years residing in hills of Garhwal. The outcome measures for nutritional status were stunting, thinness and proportion of underweight/under nutrition. Inthis study 34.61% of adolescents’ girls were found to be stunted. The stunting was more (33.33%) in 16 to 19 years of age group. The overall prevalence of thinness was 43.47%. However percentage of thinness was higher (56.25%) in the lower age group (12-15 years). Under nutrition was prevalent in similar proportions in both the age groups with > 50% ofthe rural adolescent girls having less than 3rd percentile of weight for age by NCHS standards. The prevalence of stunting, thinness and underweight was high among adolescent girls living at high altitudes. In this regard special attention should be paid to the girls of hills and specific strategies should be formulated for meeting their nutritional demands

UV Laser Fluorosensor for Remote Sensing

Several substances both organic and inorganic, when excited by alow wavelength radiation, fluoresce; the fluorescence in the longer wavelength region is generally characteristic of the substances so irradiated and to some extent of the wavelength of the exciting radiation. Thus, the spectral analysis of this fluorescence can be used to detect, monitor and even quantify the presence of matter on which the exciting radiations impinge. The rate of decay of the fluorescence alongwith a spectral and temporal return signals, such as from oil spills, have been described in this paper as also the functioning of an airborne laser fluorosensor using a 1 MW pulsed nitiogcn laser