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Decline in the use of public transit by commuters have increased the use of private vehicles, causing higher levels of traffic congestion, accidents, etc. The present study aims to identify major latent attributes influencing the behaviour of government employees working in the study area by using an integrated mode choice model. The unobservable attributes that influence mode selection decisions were analysed using the semantic differential technique and a five-point bipolar adjective scale. Conventional mode choice models and latent variable integrated mode choice models were developed for four different modes. Sensitivity analysis was carried out to assess the impact of significant variables which has revealed that 15% decrease in travel time on public transport could lead to a 17% increase in ridership. This study also identified significant variables that influence mode selection decisions and formulated policies to increase the use of public transport in medium-sized cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use/land-cover (LU/LC) change is an important component of global environmental change. The need to understand LU/LC change is essential for regional development and land use management towards sustainable development. To understand LU/LC change, the different LU/LC categories and their spatial as well as temporal variability in Tiruchirappalli city has been studied over a period of eight years (1998–2006), using the analysis of Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) images. In this, an attempt was made to adopt Markov model for obtaining and understanding LU/LC dynamics. Model performance was evaluated between the empirical LU/LC map extracted from CARTOSAT-1 PAN image and the simulated LU/LC map obtained from the Markov model. The future landscape distribution in the year 2014 and 2022 was derived using a Markov model. This result shows that Markov model and geospatial technology together are able to effectively capture the spatio-temporal trend in the landscape pattern associated with urbanization in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Groundwater has been treated as an important source of water supply due to its relatively low vulnerability to pollution in comparison to surface water, and its huge storage capacity. Because of the known health and economic impacts associated with groundwater contamination, steps to measure the vulnerability of groundwater must be taken for sustainable groundwater protection and management planning. Susceptibility of groundwater refers to the intrinsic characteristics that determine the sensitivity of the water to being adversely affected by an imposed contaminant load. The SINTACS model is the most extensively used method for identifying the areas where groundwater supplies are most vulnerable to contamination. The SINTACS model uses seven environmental parameters (water table depth, effective infiltration, unsaturated conditions, soil media, aquifer hydrogeologic characteristics, hydraulic conductivity and topographic slope) to characterize the hydrogeological setting and evaluate aquifer vulnerability. In this paper, the SINTACS model is applied for a part of Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu, India to generate a small-scale map of groundwater vulnerability to contamination. The whole area is classified as very low, low, moderate and high susceptibility to pollution. The model is validated with ground water quality data and results have shown strong relationship between SINTACS specific vulnerability index and nitrate-as-nitrogen concentrations. The ground water vulnerability map is developed by using the SINTACS model in a computer-based geographic information system (GIS). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Trichomoniasis is a common sexually transmitted infection among both men and women, worldwide. The prevalence of trichomoniasis among married women in the remote Indian population is more important, yet they rarely sought treatment. This was the first-ever study conducted on the prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A cross-sectional study was undertaken among married women in the Andaman Islands, India from August 2020 to July 2022. Samples were collected from the suspected women attending community health centres after obtaining informed consent. PCR assay for TV was performed using specific primers and conditions. Further, sequencing was carried out and pair-wise genetic analysis was done using MEGA version 11 to find the TV strain. Overall, 0.9% (nine out of 1000) TV cases were reported. The majority of infected population was below high school degrees (5/9) and was unemployed (7/9). Infected individuals never had a history of a sexually transmitted illness. Two of the ladies reported dyspareunia, and one of them had persistent pelvic pain. Of these, most of them had pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and abnormal vaginal discharge. The pair-wise genetic distance analysis found the strain found on this island was TV G3. From our knowledge, this surveillance study was conducted first time in the Andaman and Nicobar Island. The detection of the TV G3 strain may be essential for understanding the prevalence of TV infection and their associated risk factors. More research is needed to understand the TV-associated risk factors among suspected patients in hospital settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]