Slums: Affects on environment

Urban living is the keystone of modern human ecology. Cities have increased and expanded rapidly worldwide over the past centuries. Cities are sources of employment and education, and they are the engines for economic growth. However, they are also sources of poverty, inequality, and health hazards from the environment. Environmental decay in a city is essentially caused by rapid urbanization and the mismatch in the provision and maintenance of housing and infrastructure. These include exposure to lead, air pollution, traffic hazards, and the "urban heat island" amplification of heat waves. As the number of urban consumers and their material expectations rise and as the use of fossil fuels increases, cities contribute to the large-scale pressures on the biosphere including climate change. In this paper, environmental problems of slum and informal settlements in India, will be introduced and analysed

Effecting Carrying Capacity of Parks in Korba City: Using Cifuentes Method

  In the process of rapid urbanization, the need for green open spaces is increasing, predominantly that of parks. Parks play a vital role in the social, economic, and physical well-being of city dwellers. Park visitors often prefer to visit parks, which have good potential to accommodate the optimal number of visitors without compromising the quality of experience. Due to the lack of understanding of parks and visitors’ requirements, parks are either under-utilised or over-utilized. The optimal visitors carrying capacity is an important parameter to assess the optimal number of visitors an Urban park can accommodate in a given time. This study presents a method to calculate the optimal carrying capacity of visitors. For this purpose, a conventional three-level procedure of visitor carrying capacity for parks was considered in Korba City. In this regard, the physical, real and effective carrying capacity was estimated using “the Cifuentes method”. For this study, three parks from Korba City (C.G., India) were selected that are Silver jubilee park, Smriti nagar park and Vivekanand Udyan. The finding of research indicates that the mentioned three parks were working below the limit of carrying capacity, which means the facilities are underutilised. The outcome signifies may serve as a tool for the future planning of parks as well as other type of ecological environment such as national parks and zoo used for recreational activities. Hence, landscape architects, city planners and policymakers can work in the direction to derive significant information about the parks and park visitors for the optimal utilisation of the par

Evaluation of micronucleus frequency in oral exfoliated buccal mucosa cells of smokers and tobacco chewers: a comparative study

Background: Oral cancer is one of the tenth most common cancers in the world and constitutes the third most important group of malignancies in India. Majority of these cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage resulting in poor prognosis and survival rates among patients. Hence early diagnosis of oral cancers seems to be the need of the hour. Analysis of exfoliated buccal cell micronuclei (MN) is a sensitive method of monitoring genetic damage. The present study aims to compare the frequency of micronucleus in tobacco chewers and smokers and thus evaluate the genotoxic potential of these habits.Methods: The study was conducted on 60 subjects, divided into 3 groups each of 20 subjects. Group 1: with history of chewing tobacco, group 2: with history of chewing tobacco and smoking, group 3: healthy subjects without any habits as controls. Oral exfoliated cells were obtained from buccal mucosa of the subjects, 2 slides were prepared from each subject stained with Giemsa and H&E stain respectively. Atleast 1000 cells were examined for each subject and micronuclei frequency was scored according to criteria of Tolbert et al.Results: The mean number of micronuclei was 18.5±9.5 in tobacco chewers, 19.1±9.2 in chewers with smoking habit and 8.2±5.6 in controls. Bonferroni multiple comparisons amongst these three groups showed the mean difference of micronuclei to be highly significant when chewers and chewers with smoking habit were compared to controls. Similarly based on the duration of addiction, a highly significant difference was noted in no. of micronucleated cells in subjects addicted to tobacco for more than 15 years.Conclusions: Tobacco can cause and increase the rate of nuclear anomalies in both smoking and smokeless forms. Thus oral mucosal micronuclei frequency can be used as a marker of epithelial carcinogenic progression.

A Strategic Approach To Correction Factor Determination Through Ipa Analysis

The presence of recreational open spaces in urban areas is of paramount importance when it comes to promoting physical activity and improving one’s overall health and wellness. To perform these activities, the public tends to visit public urban parks. These public urban parks are a combination of six different attributes: amenities/facilities, connectivity, physical features, visual attributes, surveillance, and management. These attributes are qualitative, but to understand these attributes, quantitative measures should be done. Therefore, this study focused on quantitative attributes analysis using the Likert scale as a tool. This study assessed the importance and performance of each park based on twenty-four different factors using the Importance-performance analysis (IPA) method. A study was conducted on six selected parks in Korba city to determine the importance of each factor that attracts visitors. The study also aimed to identify gaps in these factors that need improvement to enhance the quality of the park. The findings of this study provide a methodology for local officials with guidance on how to design and manage public parks that encourage the public to visit the parks. Furthermore, it creates a standard for other cities with similar population densities to measure their park qualities and take necessary measures. This approach can be used in recreational space to evaluate the current situation

Advances in Natural Polymeric Nanoparticles for the Drug Delivery

Natural and biodegradable polymers have been the key area for utilizing their advantages which make them a possible option for development of various drug delivery systems. The complexity of diseases and the intrinsic drug toxicity and side effects has led to an interest for development and optimization of drug delivery systems. The advancements in nanotechnology have favored the development of novel formulations which can modulate the biopharmaceutical properties of bioactives and thus improves the pharmacological and therapeutic action. The shape, size, and charge nanoscale delivery system, such as nanoparticles (NPs) are required to be investigated and changed in order to promote and optimize the formulations. The various natural polymeric NPs (PNPs) have been found to be key tool to enhance bioavailability or specific delivery to certain site of action. In this chapter, the uses of various polymeric materials for the development of NPs as drug delivery systems for various ailments have been described. The entrapment of bioactive compounds in PNPs systems is a hopeful move toward improvement of efficacy of drug toward the treatments of various diseases

Recent trends in seroprevalence of syphilis in different patient groups attending a regional centre for sexually transmitted infections in central India

Background: Easy access to Suraksha clinics for sexually transmitted infections calls for a review of seroprevalence of syphilis. Methods: Serum samples from attendees of sexually transmitted infections (STI)/ reproductive tract infections (RTI) clinic/antenatal clinic, and samples of high-risk group (HRG: female sex workers and men having sex with men) brought by non-government organizations from 2017-22 were screened for syphilis by Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) and Treponema pallidum hemagglutination (TPHA) tests. Samples positive by both tests were considered seropositive for syphilis. Statistical methods used for analysis were chi square test for linear trends and Kruskal Wallis test. Results: In STI clinic percentage positivity for syphilis has shown a statistically significant decline from 2017-22. In RTI clinic the decline was significant from 2017-19 but not significant in the years 2019-22. In antenatal clinic and in HRGs the change in seroprevalence was not significant from 2017-22 and 2017-20 respectively. However, the HRGs showed a significantly increasing trend in syphilis seropositivity from 2020-22. Conclusions: There is a significantly declining trend in the seroprevalence of syphilis in patients attending the STI/RTI clinic from 2017-22 and in HRGs from 2017-20. However, a significant increase in trend in HRG from 2020-22 may have been due to behavioural changes during the lockdown for covid 19 pandemic. A significant decline in syphilis in patients attending the STI and RTI clinic and in HRGs attending the regional centre indicates the effectiveness of consistent detection, treatment and counselling efforts of the national control program on STI in the region

The Current States, Challenges, Ongoing Efforts, and Future Perspectives of Pharmaceutical Excipients in Pediatric Patients in Each Country and Region

A major hurdle in pediatric formulation development is the lack of safety and toxicity data on some of the commonly used excipients. While the maximum oral safe dose for several kinds of excipients is known in the adult population, the doses in pediatric patients, including preterm neonates, are not established yet due to the lack of evidence-based data. This paper consists of four parts: (1) country-specific perspectives in different parts of the world (current state, challenges in excipients, and ongoing efforts) for ensuring the use of safe excipients, (2) comparing and contrasting the country-specific perspectives, (3) past and ongoing collaborative efforts, and (4) future perspectives on excipients for pediatric formulation. The regulatory process for pharmaceutical excipients has been developed. However, there are gaps between each region where a lack of information and an insufficient regulation process was found. Ongoing efforts include raising issues on excipient exposure, building a region-specific database, and improving excipient regulation; however, there is a lack of evidence-based information on safety for the pediatric population. More progress on clear safety limits, quantitative information on excipients of concern in the pediatric population, and international harmonization of excipients’ regulatory processes for the pediatric population are required

‘It Takes Two Hands to Clap’: How Gaddi Shepherds in the Indian Himalayas Negotiate Access to Grazing

This article examines the effects of state intervention on the workings of informal institutions that coordinate the communal use and management of natural resources. Specifically it focuses on the case of the nomadic Gaddi shepherds and official attempts to regulate their access to grazing pastures in the Indian Himalayas. It is often predicted that the increased presence of the modern state critically undermines locally appropriate and community-based resource management arrangements. Drawing on the work of Pauline Peters and Francis Cleaver, I identify key instances of socially embedded ‘common’ management institutions and explain the evolution of these arrangements through dynamic interactions between individuals, communities and the agents of the state. Through describing the ‘living space’ of Gaddi shepherds across the annual cycle of nomadic migration with their flocks I explore the ways in which they have been able to creatively reinterpret external interventions, and suggest how contemporary arrangements for accessing pasture at different moments of the annual cycle involve complex combinations of the formal and the informal, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’

Leiomodin-3 dysfunction results in thin filament disorganization and nemaline myopathy

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