Assessment of Water Quality Around Mine Sites

One of the major impacts of mining processes is the contamination of water bodies through mine water drainage, leakage of water exposed to minerals, water from soil heaps, acid mine drainage and mine water rebound. Water is the most important element of eco-system and it is thus imperative to determine and mitigate the effects of mining operation on the same. Also, contaminated water has adverse physiological effects on human being and other animals. For this, it is important to identify the critical parameters in the water sample which is the scope of the study. Sampling, Water quality parameters and their tests: Samples were collected from different mines including both coal and metal mines spread over northern and western Odisha such as samples from Ib Valley coal mines of MCL, discharge of iron mines from Chhattisgarh and Koira region and were analysed through a series of experiments following standard procedure. The concentration of various physical, chemical, metallic and organic parameters were found which included determination of turbidity, conductivity, solids, iron, chromium content, pH, hardness, ammonia, nitrate, sulphate, phenol, fluoride, phosphate and organic parameters of importance such as Dissolved oxygen, Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand. Results and Discussions: The results indicated that discharge of iron mine, Chhattisgarh, exceeds the contamination limits for physical and metal parameters but is within limits for others. Samples from the coal mining areas are having elevated concentrations of physical, chemical and organic parameters, such as solid content, turbidity and dissolved oxygen. Samples from metal mining region of Koira showed higher iron content and other nutrients. The results were quantified to determine the degree of contamination. The values of degree of contamination (Cd) are given in the table-1. The Cd values indicate that the water samples from coal mines, iron mines of Chhattisgarh, Barsuan and Bandhal from Koira region are heavily polluted. Sl no Sample Id Degree of Contamination 1 Coal mine main sump discharge, MCL, Ib Valley 39.76 2 Iron mines, Chhattisgarh 93.4 3 Coal mine, MCL, North Central Ib Valley 4.85 4 Nallah nearby Iron mines, Barsuan area 6.253 5 Nallah in between two iron mines -4.766 6 Origin of a nallah near iron mine -4.1726 7 Nallah Adjacent to Manganese and Iron Mines 38.84 8 Post mine stream (Mn and Fe mines) of nallah -1.784 9 Nallah, 100 mtrs from the Iron Mine -2.7 10 Nallah flowing downhill from a Fe Mine -2.3

A rare case of broad ligament pregnancy diagnosed at 36 weeks of gestation incidentally during laparotomy

Pregnancy in the broad ligament is a rare form of ectopic abdominal pregnancy with a high risk of maternal mortality. Ultrasound examination may help in the early diagnosis but mostly the diagnosis is established during surgery. We are reporting a case of broad ligament pregnancy diagnosed incidentally during laparotomy. She had uneventful postoperative recovery.

THE EFFECT OF LEAD TOXICITY ON GROWTH AND ANTIOXIDANT ENZYME EXPRESSION OF ABUTILON INDICUM L

Objective: The focus of the present study was to analyse the oxidative effects of lead nitrate on biosynthesis of antioxidant enzyme activities (superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX)) in Abutilon indicum. Methods: Seedlings of A. indicum were grown with supplementation of different concentrations (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 μM) of lead nitrate for 15 and 30 days. The various growth parameters like shoot length, size and total number of leaves per plant were recorded. Extraction, assay and expression of super oxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) were carried out with control (without metal salt) and lead nitrate treated plants.Results: The growth parameters exhibited a declining trend in the metal treated plants in a dose dependant manner. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of leaf and root protein extracts exhibited the appearance of some new proteins due to metal stress. At lower concentrations of the metal, antioxidant enzyme activity was enhanced with a gradual declination of higher concentration (75 and 100 μM). The enzyme activity reflects the deleterious impact of lead on the plants. Isoforms of SOD and GPX were separated using non-denaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and new isoforms were noticed in the stressed plants rather than the control during the investigation.Conclusion: Isoforms of the antioxidant enzymes synthesized due to Pb stress may be used as biomarkers for analysing the impact of heavy metals on other medicinal plants under metal stress condition.Â

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Rational Design of Dynamic Bimetallic NiCoSe₂/2D Ti₃C₂T<i>_x</i> MXene Hybrids for a High-Performance Flexible Supercapacitor and Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Herein, intelligent construction of an NiCoSe2/Ti3C2Tx hybrid heterostructure with unique morphologies was performed using a hydrothermal protocol. The coexistence of the dual metal core in Ni–Co selenides and Ti3C2Tx MXene helps in realizing outclassing physicochemical properties. The two-dimensional (2D) heterostructure provides an admirably smaller Tafel slope of 86 mV/dec, indicating the faster H2 evolution rate (Pt/C: 82 mV/dec) and overpotential of 62 mV at 10 mA/cm2 (Pt/C: 52 mV/dec). Our heterostructure devices demonstrate a specific energy density of 32.05 Wh kg–1 coupled with a power density of 0.2 kW kg–1 and maintain 15.39 Wh kg–1 coupled with a power density of 0.92 kW kg–1. The experimental results underpin new profitable opportunities and scale up deployment of the bifunctional electrodes. Further, the experimental findings were supported through density functional theory (DFT) simulations in terms of a lower overpotential and higher quantum capacitance for the heterostructure NiCoSe2/MXene compared to pristine NiCoSe2. There is charge transfer from MXene Ti3C2Tx to NiCoSe2 leading to enhanced electronic states near the Fermi level responsible for enhanced catalytic activities and charge storage performance

Supercapacitors based on patronite-reduced graphene oxide hybrids: experimental and theoretical insights

Here we report the hydrothermal synthesis and detailed study on supercapacitor applications of a patronite hybrid, VS4/reduced graphene oxide, which showed an enhanced specific capacitance of similar to 877 F g(-1) at a current density of 0.5 A g(-1). In comparison to bare vanadium sulfide and reduced graphene oxide, the hybrid showed similar to 6 times and similar to 5 times higher value of specific capacitance, respectively. The obtained energy density (117 W h kg(-1)) and power density (20.65 kW kg(-1)) are comparable to those of other reported transition metal sulfides and their graphene hybrids. Theoretical calculations using density functional theory confirm an enhanced quantum capacitance of VS4/graphene composite systems, owing primarily to the shifting of the graphene Dirac cone relative to the band gap of VS4. The results infer that the hybrid has the potential to be used as a high performance supercapacitor electrode3371887418881Department of Science & Technology (India); Science Engineering Research Board (SERB), India; DST-CNPq/India-Brazil bilateral Cooperation; Interconnect Focus Center (MARCO program); State of New York ; National Science Foundation (NSF); Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) through a joint INDO-US centre grant; Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), India through a center of excellence gran

Enhanced Pseudocapacitance of MoO₃‑Reduced Graphene Oxide Hybrids with Insight from Density Functional Theory Investigations

Hydrothermally obtained MoO₃/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) hybrid registered a specific capacitance of 724 F g^‑1 at 1 A g^‑1, superior to the supercapacitor performance obtained from similar hybrid structures. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations further corroborated our claim in terms of both enhanced quantum capacitance and relevant insight from the electronic density of states (DOS) for MoO₃/RGO. Maximum capacitance is achieved for 12 wt % of RGO and then it reduces as observed in the experiment. The appearance of additional density of states from the C p_<i>z</i> orbital in the band gap region near the Fermi level on introduction of RGO in MoO₃ is responsible for the enhanced capacitance in MoO₃/RGO