Reliability and validity for measurement of body composition: A field method

Measurement of body composition via a field method has the most popular instruments which are used to estimate the percentage of body fat. Among the instruments used are the Body Mass Index, Bio Impedance Analysis and Skinfold Test. All three of these instruments do not involve high costs, do not require high technical skills, mobile, save time, and are suitable for use in large populations. Because all three instruments can estimate the percentage of body fat, but it is important to identify the most appropriate instruments and have high reliability. Hence, this study was conducted to determine the reliability and convergent validity of the instruments. A total of 40 students, males and females aged between 13 and 14 years participated in this study. The study found that the test retest and Pearson correlation coefficient of reliability for the three instruments is very high, r = .99. While the inter class reliability also are at high level with r = .99 for Body Mass Index and Bio Impedance Analysis, r = .96 for Skinfold test. Intra class reliability coefficient for these three instruments is too high for Body Mass Index r = .99, Bio Impedance Analysis r = .97, and Skinfold Test r = .90. However, Standard Error of Measurement value for all three instruments indicates the Body Mass Index is the most appropriate instrument with a mean value of .000672 compared with other instruments. The findings show that the Body Mass Index is an instrument which is the most accurate and reliable in estimating body fat percentage for the population studied.Keywords: Reliability, Validity, Body Mass Index, Bio Impedance Analysis and Skinfold Test

Pulmonary function changes in asymptomatic smokers - a community survey in Udupi, Karnataka, India

Background: Smoking has been labeled the most important preventable cause of a respiratory disease and its effects in a smoker are well established. A better understanding on the pulmonary function impairments in an asymptomatic smoker is the need of the hour. Objective: To study the pulmonary function changes in asymptomatic smokers and non- smokers and to establish the dose -effect relationship amongst asymptomatic smokers.Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted in Udupi district of Karnataka, India. 140 men aged between 20 to 45 years with a BMI ranging from 18.5 to 29.9 Kg2 /m was enrolled in to the study. 70 subjects were asymptomatic smokers and the other 70 were non-smokers. Outcomes measured were standard spirometric measures for pulmonary function and symptoms like breathlessness, cough and sputum using a Breathlessness Cough Sputum scale.Results: The mean age (mean ± SD) of non-smokers and asymptomatic smokers enrolled was 34.7±5 and 33.8±5 years respectively. The mean smoking dose amongst the asymptomatic smokers was 15.74±5.5 pack years. FEV1 amongst the asymptomatic smokers showed a negative correlation with smoking dose (p<0.05) and there was a significant difference in FEV1, FVC, PEFR, MVV and FEF 25- 75 % (p<0.001) amongst the asymptomatic smokers and non-smokers.Conclusions: Asymptomatic smokers showed low values of pulmonary function parameters compared to those in non-smokers

Probiotic administration in congenital heart disease: a pilot study.

ObjectiveTo investigate the impact of probiotic Bifidobacterium longum ssp. infantis on the fecal microbiota and plasma cytokines in neonates with congenital heart disease.Study designSixteen infants with congenital heart disease were randomly assigned to receive either B. infantis (4.2 × 10(9) colony-forming units two times daily) or placebo for 8 weeks. Stool specimens from enrolled infants and from six term infants without heart disease were analyzed for microbial composition. Plasma cytokines were analyzed weekly in the infants with heart disease.ResultsHealthy control infants had increased total bacteria, total Bacteroidetes and total bifidobacteria compared to the infants with heart disease, but there were no significant differences between the placebo and probiotic groups. Plasma interleukin (IL)10, interferon (IFN)γ and IL1β levels were transiently higher in the probiotic group.ConclusionCongenital heart disease in infants is associated with dysbiosis. Probiotic B. infantis did not significantly alter the fecal microbiota. Alterations in plasma cytokines were found to be inconsistent

A Neural Radiance Field-Based Architecture for Intelligent Multilayered View Synthesis

A mobile ad hoc network is made up of a number of wireless portable nodes that spontaneously come together en route for establish a transitory network with no need for any central management. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is made up of a sizable and reasonably dense community of mobile nodes that travel across any terrain and rely solely on wireless interfaces for communication, not on any well before centralized management. Furthermore, routing be supposed to offer a method for instantly delivering data across a network between any two nodes. Finding the best packet routing from across infrastructure is the major issue, though. The proposed protocol's major goal is to identify the least-expensive nominal capacity acquisition that assures the transportation of realistic transport that ensures its durability in the event of any node failure. This study suggests the Optimized Route Selection via Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA) Strategy as a way to improve on-demand source routing systems. Predicting Route Failure and energy Utilization is used to pick the path during the routing phase. Proposed work assess the results of the comparisons based on performance parameters like as energy usage, packet delivery rate (PDR), and end-to-end (E2E) delay. The outcome demonstrates that the proposed strategy is preferable and increases network lifetime while lowering node energy consumption and typical E2E delay under the majority of network performance measures and factors

Body fat and risk of cardiovascular diseases among the Tamil school teachers in Kuala Selangor, Selangor

This quantitative survey aims to measure the overall body fat, BMI, abdominal fat and the risk of cardiovascular diseases among 60 Tamil school teachers from Kuala Selangor District, Selangor. The subjects voluntarily participated in this study. The total body fat, Body Mass Index (BMI) and abdominal fat were measured using Omron Karada Scanner, meanwhile PACER test was used to measure cardiovascular endurance. The descriptive analysis showed, 71.67% Tamil school teachers from Kuala Selangor were found to be in the category of excessive body fat and obese. BMI levels, showed that 26.68% were overweight, 48.33% teachers were in level pre-obese till to obese stage III. Abdominal fat levels showed that 70% teachers were at risk. While only 20% of them having good cardiovascular fitness. The inferential analysis showed that there were significant differences in overall body fat and cardiovascular endurance between male and female subjects but BMI and abdominal fat levels showed no significant difference between male and female subjects. The findings indicated that most of the Tamil school teachers in Kuala Selangor District having high risk of cardiovascular diseases. They should do regular physical activity and consume balanced diet to reduce the risk of body fat and obesity which cause the cardiovascular diseases.Keywords: Obesity, abdominal fat, total body fat, cardiovascular endurance &amp; physical activit

An Experimental Study on Performance of Bacillus pumilus KC845305 and Bacillus flexus KC845306 in Bacterial Concrete

In recent years, concrete has become an important versatile construction material. This paper evaluates the strength obtained by concrete with the influence of bacteria. The bacterial strains were isolated from calcareous sludge and urea ware house. The bacterial strains were identified through 16srRNA gene sequencing as Bacillus pumilus and Bacillus flexus. Using these strains, an experiment on cylinder and prisms cast was performed. Compressive strength, split tensile and flexural tests were conducted at the age of 7, 28 and 56 days with ultrasonic pulse velocity and rebound hammer. The results were compared with Bacillus cohnii MTCC 3616 obtained from microbial type culture collection and gene bank, Chandigarh, India. Based on the experimental results, the improvement in the mechanical strength is due to the deposition of calcite crystals on the bacterial cell surfaces within the pores which enhanced the strength of concrete and reduced porosity and permeability

Electrospinning research and products: The road and the way forward

Electrospinning is one of the most accessed nanofabrication techniques during the last three decades, attributed to its viability for the mass production of continuous nanofibers with superior properties from a variety of polymers and polymeric composites. Large investments from various sectors have pushed the development of electrospinning industrial setups capable of producing nanofibers in millions of kilograms per year for several practical applications. Herein, the lessons learned over three decades of research, innovations, and designs on electrospinning products are discussed in detail. The historical developments, engineering, and future opportunities of electrospun nanofibers (ESNFs) are critically addressed. The laboratory-to-industry transition gaps for electrospinning technology and ESNFs products, the potential of electrospun nanostructured materials for various applications, and academia-industry comparison are comprehensively analyzed. The current challenges and future trends regarding the use of this technology to fabricate promising nano/macro-products are critically demonstrated. We show that future research on electrospinning should focus on theoretical and technological developments to achieve better maneuverability during large-scale fiber formation, redesigning the electrospinning process around decarbonizing the materials processing to align with the sustainability agenda and the integration of electrospinning technology with the tools of intelligent manufacturing and IR 4.0

Fine mapping and sequence analysis reveal a promising candidate gene encoding a novel NB-ARC domain derived from wild rice (Oryza officinalis) that confers bacterial blight resistance

Bacterial blight disease of rice caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is one of the most serious constraints in rice production. The most sustainable strategy to combat the disease is the deployment of host plant resistance. Earlier, we identified an introgression line, IR 75084-15-3-B-B, derived from Oryza officinalis possessing broad-spectrum resistance against Xoo. In order to understand the inheritance of resistance in the O. officinalis accession and identify genomic region(s) associated with resistance, a recombinant inbred line (RIL) mapping population was developed from the cross Samba Mahsuri (susceptible to bacterial blight) × IR 75084-15-3-B-B (resistant to bacterial blight). The F2 population derived from the cross segregated in a phenotypic ratio of 3: 1 (resistant susceptible) implying that resistance in IR 75084-15-3-B-B is controlled by a single dominant gene/quantitative trait locus (QTL). In the F7 generation, a set of 47 homozygous resistant lines and 47 homozygous susceptible lines was used to study the association between phenotypic data obtained through screening with Xoo and genotypic data obtained through analysis of 7K rice single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip. Through composite interval mapping, a major locus was detected in the midst of two flanking SNP markers, viz., Chr11.27817978 and Chr11.27994133, on chromosome 11L with a logarithm of the odds (LOD) score of 10.21 and 35.93% of phenotypic variation, and the locus has been named Xa48t. In silico search in the genomic region between the two markers flanking Xa48t identified 10 putatively expressed genes located in the region of interest. The quantitative expression and DNA sequence analysis of these genes from contrasting parents identified the Os11g0687900 encoding an NB-ARC domain-containing protein as the most promising gene associated with resistance. Interestingly, a 16-bp insertion was noticed in the untranslated region (UTR) of the gene in the resistant parent, IR 75084-15-3-B-B, which was absent in Samba Mahsuri. The association of Os11g0687900 with resistance phenotype was further established by sequence-based DNA marker analysis in the RIL population. A co-segregating PCR-based INDEL marker, Marker_Xa48, has been developed for use in the marker-assisted breeding of Xa48t