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Umme Laila Urmi,1 Shamsun Nahar,1 Masud Rana,1 Fahmida Sultana,1 Nusrat Jahan,1 Billal Hossain,1 Mohammed Shah Alam,2 Abu Syed Md Mosaddek,3 Judy McKimm,4 Nor Azlina A Rahman,5 Salequl Islam,1 Mainul Haque6 1Department of Microbiology, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka 1342, Bangladesh; 2Department of Microbiology, Gono Bishwabidyalay, Savar, Dhaka 1342, Bangladesh; 3Department of Pharmacology, Uttara Adhunik Medical College, Uttara, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 4Medical Education, Strategic Educational Development, Leadership for the Health Professions, Swansea University Medical School, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales SA2 8PP, UK; 5Department of Physical Rehabilitation Sciences, Kulliyyah of Allied Health Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan 25200, Malaysia; 6Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (National Defence University of Malaysia), Kuala Lumpur 57000, MalaysiaCorrespondence: Salequl IslamDepartment of Microbiology, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka 1342, BangladeshTel +880-1715029136Fax +880-2-7791052. Email salequl@juniv.eduMainul HaqueFaculty of Medicine and Defence Health, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (National Defence University of Malaysia), Kem Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur 57000, MalaysiaTel +60 10 926 5543Email runurono@gmail.comIntroduction: Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) belongs to the Group-A β-lactamases that incorporate serine at their active site and hydrolyze various penicillins, cephalosporins, and carbapenems. Metallo-beta-lactamases (MBLs) are group-B enzymes that contain one or two essential zinc ions in the active sites and hydrolyze almost all clinically available β-lactam antibiotics. Klebsiella pneumoniae remains the pathogen with the most antimicrobial resistance to KPC and MBLs.Methods: This research investigated the blaKPC, and MBL genes, namely, blaIMP, blaVIM, and blaNDM-1 and their phenotypic resistance to K. pneumoniae isolated from urinary tract infections (UTI) in Bangladesh. Isolated UTI K. pneumoniae were identified by API-20E and 16s rDNA gene analysis. Their phenotypic antimicrobial resistance was examined by the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method, followed by minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination. blaKPC, blaIMP, blaNDM-1, and blaVIM genes were evaluated by polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and confirmed by sequencing.Results: Fifty-eight K. pneumoniae were identified from 142 acute UTI cases. Their phenotypic resistance to amoxycillin-clavulanic acid, cephalexin, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, and imipenem were 98.3%, 100%, 96.5%, 91.4%, 75.1%, respectively. Over half (31/58) of the isolates contained either blaKPC or one of the MBL genes. Individual prevalence of blaKPC, blaIMP, blaNDM-1, and blaVIM were 15.5% (9), 10.3% (6), 22.4% (13), and 19% (11), respectively. Of these, eight isolates (25.8%, 8/31) were found to have two genes in four different combinations. The co-existence of the ESBL genes generated more resistance than each one individually. Some isolates appeared phenotypically susceptible to imipenem in the presence of blaKPC, blaIMP, blaVIM, and blaNDM-1 genes, singly or in combination.Conclusion: The discrepancy of genotype and phenotype resistance has significant consequences for clinical bacteriology, precision in diagnosis, the prudent selection of antimicrobials, and rational prescribing. Heterogeneous phenotypes of antimicrobial susceptibility testing should be taken seriously to avoid inappropriate diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.Keywords: Klebsiella pneumoniae, blaKPC, blaIMP, blaNDM-1, blaVIM, co-resistance, heteroresistance, urinary tract infections, Bangladesh

Abstract Examining the condition of groundwater resources and the impact of droughts is valuable for effective water resources management. Today, machine learning (ML) models are recognized as one of the useful tools in time series predictions. In this study, the groundwater condition of one of the most important aquifers in northwest Iran was investigated using MODFLOW, followed by estimating the groundwater resource index (GRI) utilizing the multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) and least squares support vector regression (LSSVR) for a period between 2001 and 2019. Meteorological and hydrological drought indicators along with precipitation and flow rate were used as input variables for prediction. The simulation results revealed a groundwater level decrease since the aquifer withdrawal amount is more than the recharge amount. Besides, results showed that there is a limited interaction between surface water and groundwater resources, mainly caused by the decrease in the river flow and aquifer groundwater level drop. Both ML models performed well in GRI estimation, using groundwater flow, streamflow drought index, standardized precipitation index, and runoff as input variables. The performance of the MARS model with RMSE, MAE, and NSE error evaluation criteria of 0.37, − 0.19, and 0.83, respectively, exerted slightly better results than LSSVR with RMSE, MAE, and NSE of 0.48, − 0.06, and 0.80, respectively. The findings reveal the appropriate performance of both models in forecasting drought indicators, highlighting the necessity of using ML models in hydrology and drought prediction problems.

Today, in many countries of the world, including Iran, defense industries are facing the challenge of financing, and on the other hand, these industries have many capacities that non-defense sectors can benefit from. Based on this, both defense and non-defense industries and the national innovation ecosystem in general benefit from the commercialization and transfer of defense technologies. The main goal of this article is to identify the most important challenges, requirements and methods of commercialization of defense technologies, meanwhile, political approaches and factors affecting the commercialization of these technologies are also mentioned.In order to achieve this goal, a systematic review approach was used to integrate previous research, and after the necessary screenings, 24 articles were selected for analysis according to their purpose and topic. By comparing and categorizing the extracted codes, it is concluded that in order to develop the commercialization of defense technologies, the challenges of this field such as legal barriers and low agility of the defense industries must be solved first, then by committing to certain requirements Because the non-linear view of commercialization and attention to the complexities of the process, the attention to the dissemination of military technologies and the dual-purpose approach, the allocation of subsidies and the incentives that stimulate the dissemination in defense organizations, increasing flexibility, helping to Creation of intermediary institutions, development of dual-purpose infrastructure, creation of ecosystem and parallel commercialization structures, a suitable commercialization method among methods such as dual-purpose, licensing, strategic partnership, company He chose reproductive and mediating technologies.

An experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Field Laboratory of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, during January to June 2019 to find out the effect of rice straw mulch and organic amendments on yield and yield attributes of Boro rice under dry direct seeded system. The experiment comprised two sets of treatments viz., (a) Mulch: (i) Rice straw mulch (M1) and (ii) no mulch (M2) and (b) organic amendments: (i) Control (Recommended Doses of Fertilizers, RDF) (T1), (ii) RDF + Farm Yard Manure, FYM (T2); (iii) RDF + Mustard Oil Cake, MOC (T3); (iv) RDF + FYM + Trico-compost (T4); (v) RDF + Trico-compost + MOC (T5); (vi) RDF + FYM + MOC (T6) and (vii) RDF + Trico-compost (T7) in a splitplot design with three replications. The results showed that rice straw mulch did not have significant effect on yield and yield attributes of rice. The interaction between rice straw mulch and organic amendment was not significant for grain yield and any other characters. Based on the study results it is concluded that maximum yield of BRRI dhan28 in Boro season under dry direct seeded system could be achieved through organic amendment with Mustard Oil Cake @ 0.5 tha-1 or Farm Yard Manure @ 5 tha-1 + Trico-compost @ 3 tha-1 or Trico-compost (TC) @ 3 tha-1 in addition to the application of recommended doses of fertilizers (RDF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: All over the world pressure ulcer is a significant health care problem due to high morbidity and mortality rates and also high health care cost. This study was carried out with the objectives to identify the characteristics and associated factors of pressure ulcer among the critically ill patients admitted in a tertiary military hospital. Few studies have been conducted on pressure ulcer in Bangladesh and very few in military hospitals. Methodology: This was a cross sectional study conducted among purposively selected 53 critically ill admitted pressure ulcer patients in CMH Dhaka from 01 July 2018 to 31 December 2018 and data were collected by face to face interview and checklist. Results: Among the study population half (50.9%) were aged between 61-80 years with the mean age 69.13 years. The most common anatomical site of pressure ulcer were buttock (51.9%) followed by sacrum (38.5%) and 30.2% had multiple pressure ulcer. Among the critically ill patients, 81.1% had developed pressure ulcer after admission into hospital. The most common place of pressure ulcer was geriatric HDU (30.2%) and officers ward (18.9%). Among the pressure ulcer patients 79.2% were male. Most common stage of pressure ulcer were stage II (66.0%) followed by stage I (18.9%), stage III (13.2%) and stage IV (1.9%). All of them were bedridden and half (50.9%) were completely immobile. According to Braden Scale, about half (50.9%) had high risk for development of pressure ulcer followed by moderate risk (26.4%) and there were none beyond risk. About three fourth (73.6%) of pressure ulcer patients had hypertension & cerebrovascular diseases. Age group of 60-90 years, SSC & above educational group, male sex, immobility, low Braden score group patients are statistically significant (p < 0.05), and hypertensive and cerebrovascular diseased patients are not statically significant (p > 0.05) but having clear trends to be associate factors of pressure ulcer. Conclusion: The number of pressure ulcer were increasing with the increase of age. The higher age, male sex, immobilization, low Braden score, hypertension, and cerebrovascular diseased patients were more prone for development of pressure ulcer among the critically ill patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionGlobal climate change, which is characterized by climate warming, has become one of the most prominent risk problems in society at present. Climate migration brings many accompanying problems to the environment, economy, politics, society, and culture. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the internal relationship between climate change and population migration.MethodsThe data were extracted from the Web of Science core collection database (WOS) and China Knowledge Network database (CNKI). A total of 785 documents and 157 documents in the field of climate migration from 2008 to 2021 were selected as analysis samples. Word frequency analysis, clustering analysis, sudden word detection analysis, and other methods were extensively used to build the evolution trend map of climate migration using CiteSpace visual bibliometric software.ResultsIt is concluded that climate migration research has experienced three stages of development: initial exploration stage (2008-2011), development enrichment stage (2012-2017), and system deepening stage (2018).The hot topics of climate migration include: (1) different types of climate migration research; (2) Quantitative model research on climate migration; (3) Climate justice research. Different types of climate migration include 7 main types: (1) migration caused by sea level rise; (2) Resettlement caused by flood disaster; (3) Migration due to worsening drought; (4) Migration caused by extreme climate events; (5) Voluntary migration due to climate change discomfort; (6) Project resettlement caused by climate change response engineering measures; (7) Migrants whose livelihoods are broken due to climate change.DiscussionThe study points out that climate migration research is an interdisciplinary research field, which needs joint research by scholars from different academic backgrounds. In the future climate migration research, 1) strengthen the prediction ability of climate change population migration model; 2) Make use of China’s beneficial exploration in the migration fields such as engineering resettlement, ecological resettlement and poverty alleviation resettlement to formulate climate migration policies, regulations and strategic planning; 3) Establish a database cloud platform related to climate change and population migration; 4) Strengthen the exchange and cooperation between Chinese researchers in the field of climate migration and international scientific research institutions.

Under the changing climate documentation of soil carbon and nutrients is indispensable for sustainable crop production which is scarce in the agro-ecological zone (AEZ) of Northern and Eastern Piedmont Plains in Bangladesh. Therefore, the study was conducted collecting and analyzing a total of 240 soil samples considering 0-20 cm soil depth from two upazilas viz. Purbadhola and Akhaura under the mentioned AEZ to quantity carbon stock and nutrient contents of soils. Organic carbon stocks in soils of Purbadhola and Akhaura upazila were 45.97 and 97.04 Gg, respectively, while in the Northern and Eastern Piedmont Plains was 8.56 Tg. The soil pH was very strongly acidic to slightly acidic (4.4-5.8), organic carbon contents (0.53-1.31%) were very low to medium, while the overall soil fertility rated as very low to medium. Balanced fertilization using organic and inorganic sources in general and liming for upland crops might improve fertility and productive capacity of soils in the study area. The study opens up avenues to find out means and ways of increasing carbon contents in soils of Northern and Eastern Piedmont Plains and might help the policy makers to debate on future global carbon trading issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose was to reduce the evacuation of aquifers in the Qazvin plain and then to compensate for the deficit of the cumulative reservoir and remove the annual reservoir deficit, no reduction in the revenue of farmers, and similarly to prevent the reduction of crop production. The model was developed and calibrated. In the following, the desired scenarios were implemented by the model. After providing the raw output of the model, these outputs were processed and prioritized based on the results extracted from the desired scenarios. This study applied objected-oriented modeling and Matlab software, which had a high potential in working with large amounts of data. Based on the model, output, and analysis of the results, the best scenario in the first stage was removing the unauthorized wells and preventing the excessive withdrawal of authorize wells. But, as these measures would be countered with farmers’ resistance, there should be other measures such as increasing the guaranteed purchase price of products and increasing irrigation efficiency in order to prevent a sharp decline in their revenue and consequently to achieve a result.

Introduction: microRNAs (miRNAs) are highly conserved, noncoding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression on the post-transcriptional level. Some evidence indicates that microRNAs dysfunction plays a crucial role in human disease development. The role of microRNAs in cardiac growth, hypertrophy, heart failure, cardiovascular complications in diabetes and many other hearth conditions are demonstrated. In this study we aimed to evaluate the expression of six microRNAs (mir-100, mir-126, mir-127, mir-133a, mir-133b and mir-145) that have been shown to overexpress in aortic and carotid plaques. Methods: Thirty Coronary Artery Disease patients who underwent elective coronary artery bypass graft surgery were enrolled in the study. The expression patterns of six miRNAs (mir-100, mir-126, mir-127, mir-133a, mir-133b, and mir-145) were examined in 30 patients of whom we obtained aorta and saphenous vein samples. Results: In three miRNAs, mir-100, mir-127 and mir-133b, we did not obtain expression data from real-time experiments. We found that the expression level of mir-126, mir-133a and mir145 were lower in aorta in comparison with saphenous vein. Mir-126 was highly expressed in saphenous vein samples (13.8±1.1) when compared with aorta samples (20.2±1.1), although mir133a was highly expressed in saphenous vein samples (16.1±0.5) when compared with the aorta (17.9±1.5). Expression of mir-145 saphenous vein samples was also dramatically higher than aorta (7.2±0.5 versus 10.8±0.6) that was statistically significant (P

Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) is a major cause of acute kidney injury. Several studies have shown that renin angiotensin (Ang) system and activation of Ang II type 1 receptor (AT1) are involved in various forms of kidney diseases. Likewise, Ang 1-7 as a physiologic antagonist of AT1 and losartan could possibly protect the kidney against I/R damage. Therefore, we investigated renal injury by administering the drugs before and after I/R. Fifty-four male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to five groups as follows. 1, Sham operated; 2, saline group (as a control group); 3, losartan group; 4, Ang 1-7group; and 5, Ang 1-7 + losartan simultaneously. It should be noted that groups 2-5 consisted of two separate I/R-induced subgroups both receiving medication where the first groups received the treatment 15 min before induction of I/R while the medications were given to the second groups immediately after induction of I/R. Twenty four h after I/R, blood samples were collected, and then levels of serum urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (Cr), nitrite, malondialdehyde (MDA), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were measured. Likewise, nitrite, MDA and TAC were measured in the homogenized kidney tissues. After the induction of I/R, the BUN, Cr, LDH, and kidney tissue damage score increased. Administration of Ang 1-7 alone or simultaneously with losartan decreased the levels of aforementioned factors. Also, kidney MDA and nitrate levels significantly increased after I/R induction (P < 0.05). According to the results of this study, it can be claimed that the effect of losartan in the presence of Mas receptor is statistically significant and kidney damage dramatically decreases.

'Transition' is a short hydraulic structure used to change the cross-sectional shape or flow shape. Transitions are commonly used both in the open-channels and natural waterways. The task of a transition is to connect a narrow channel at the upstream to a wider downstream channel or vice-versa. This, creates a disturbance region of turbulent flow causing energy losses. In general, the structure of a transition prevents the formation of wave and other turbulencies. In this case, the energy loss, due to the change in the amount of the momentum, will be minimized.

When water resources are limited, the type of plant, growth stage and soil type should be considered for optimal water consumption. Also, it is necessary to calculate the reliable values ​​of soil moisture content, moisture stress and yield function in order to apply deficit irrigation. Management of water consumption in agricultural sector, regardless of water, soil and plant relationships, requires time and cost. Therefore, models of water, soil and plant relationships have been developed due to the limitations of these experiments regarding farm conditions, the short duration of the experiment and the limited number of scenarios examined in the experiment. Optimal irrigation planning is one of the main factors in promoting water productivity and yield. Models such as the AquaCrop which simulate the effects of water levels on yield are useful tools for on-farm water use optimization. Alizadeh et al. (2010), with irrigation on wheat in Karaj on five treatments with 100, 80, 60, 40 and 20% water requirement as well as a single-irrigation treatment and evaluation of the Aquacrop model for these treatments, concluded that the model was efficient for predicting the amount of seed yield, plant evapotranspiration and water use for 7-day irrigation intervals. The model was, however, less efficient for 14-day irrigation intervals. Babazadeh and Saraei Tabrizi (2012) in their research on soybean plant in Karaj showed that this model had a good performance in simulating product yield, evapotranspiration and water productivity, and that it could simulate the amount of evapotranspiration with an error of less than 4%. Although some studies have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the model in simulating the effects of irrigation on different products since the development of Version 4 of the Aquacrop model, there have been no comprehensive studies on how the model reacts to water stress in different growth stages. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to calibrate and evaluate the Aquacrop model in simulating the response of wheat under deficit irrigation conditions in different periods of plant growth in Shahrekord climate by comparing the results of field experiments to verify its accuracy in predicting different parameters such as grain yield and total dry matter in wheat.

Abstract Background: Injuries have always been among the main factors threatening human life and health, and Children are one of the vulnerable population groups in this field. The purpose of this study is to survey incident and examine the distribution of injuries in children 0 to 59 months old in Kermanshah Province in 2015. Material and Methods: This survey is a cross-sectional study, gathering its data from Health Vice-presidency of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. It covers all the injured whose reason of injury was referring to private and public hospitals under the supervision of Health Vice-presidency of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, during 2015. Data was collected from the injury software package of Ministry of Health. All registered individuals in this software were included in the study. Also, all the injuries, including electric shock, road traffic accidents, animal attacks, violence, fall, burn, hit, scorpion and snake sting, drowning, poisoning were entered in our research. Results: The number of injuries in children was 3499 cases: 2216 (63.3%) boys and 1283 (36.7%) girls. Incidence of injuries was 23.3 cases per 1000 children aged 0-59 months old. The highest frequency of injuries was in children aged 0 to 11 months (42%) and majority of them occurred at home (58.5%). Most incidents was in summer (especially in September). The most common causes of injuries included fall (52.7%), road traffic injuries (29.6%), and poisoning (14.1%). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, most of injuries occur in the home, it is recommended that certain instructions be given to parents about child developmental stages to enable them to make the home a safe environment for children, as children less than 5 years old spend most of their time there.

Introduction: Considering importance of fatty acids in developing coronary artery disease (CAD) and lack of information about saphenous vein which is commonly used as coronary arterial bypass, in this study we investigated differences in fatty acids composition between saphenous vein and aorta tissues in patients with CAD. Methods: Biopsy samples of aortic tissues and saphenous veins as well as blood samples were obtained form 42 patients with CAD. Fatty acids composition of the tissues was determined using gas chromatography and also serum lipid profile was evaluated by commercial kits. Results: Levels of palmitic acid (16:0) were significantly higher in aorta in compared with saphenous (P

Objective(s): Mindium laevigatum is an endemic plant of Iran and Turkey and is widely used as blood purifier, antiasthma and antidyspnea in traditional medicine. Chemical composition of volatile materials of the plant and its antioxidant, antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities were reported in this study. Materials and Methods: Simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) and GC-Mass-FID analysis were used for the plant volatile materials chemical composition identification and quantification. Several antioxidant tests including DPPH radical scavenging, hydrogen peroxide scavenging, reducing power determination, β-carotene-linoleic acid and total phenolic content tests were used for antioxidant activity evaluation. Antimicrobial and anticancer activities were also estimated using microbial strains, cancer cell lines and brine shrimp larva. Results: GC-Mass-FID analysis of volatile samples showed a total of 74 compounds of which palmitic acid (7.4-33.7%), linoleic acid (6.6-18.6%), heneicosane (1.3-9.6%) and myristic acid (1.4-6.0%) were detected as main volatile components. Moderate to good results were recorded for the plant in β-carotene-linoleic acid test. Total phenolic content of the extracts as gallic acid equivalents were estimated in the range of 15.7 to 79.6 μg/mg. Some microbial strains showed moderate sensitivities to plant extracts. Brine shrimp lethality test and cytotoxic cancer cell line assays showed mild cytotoxic activities for the plant. Conclusion: Moderate to good antioxidant activities in β-carotene-linoleic acid test and presence of considerable amounts of unsaturated hydrocarbons may explain the plant traditional use in asthma and dyspnea. These findings also candidate it as a good choice for investigating its possible modern medical applications.

Objective: Antioxidants are considered as the main factors in the inhibition of unwanted oxidation reactions. Materials and Methods: In this research the antioxidant potential of the fresh fruits of 4 cultivars (A to D) of Malus domestica (M. domestica) cultivated in the Kashan, Qamsar area was evaluated. The antioxidant activity of the samples were evaluated using two complementary antioxidant assays: 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene/linoleic acid tests and the results were compared with the synthetic standard antioxidant butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Results: Total phenolic contents of the samples are also estimated by Folin-Ciocalteu's phenol test. In both DPPH β-carotene/linoleic acid tests in the concentration of 2 mg/ml, only samples from cultivar A showed moderate antioxidant activity with 63.92±0.42 and 6.02±0.03 inhibition percentages, respectively and other samples were weakly active. Conclusion: The Folin-Ciocalteu's phenol test was also showed very little phenolic compounds for the fruits. In conclusion, weak antioxidant activity was estimated for the studied apple cultivars.

Background: Adiponectin, also called GBP-28, apM1, Adipo Q and Acrp30, is a novel adipose tissue-specific protein. A reduction in adiponectin expression is associated with insulin resistance in some animal models. This study was performed to determine the relationship between adiponectin with blood lipids and body mass index (BMI) in diabetic and healthy women. Methods: We examined serum levels of adiponectin, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglyceride and cholesterol in diabetic women (n=28) and healthy women (n=42). Adiponectin was measured by ELISA. We used Spearman coefficient to determine correlation between adiponectin with blood lipids and BMI in two studied groups. Results: We found that there was lower concentration of adiponectin in diabetic women (7.29±1.42 µg/ml) than healthy women (10.29 ± 1.93 µg/ml) (P

Numerous children experience vulnerability due to their families' profound economic and socio-economic hardships. Among this demographic, females face heightened susceptibility, particularly those engaged in child labor. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, hosts a substantial population of female child laborers, compounding their precarious circumstances. Hence this study utilizes a qualitative phenomenological approach to investigate the vulnerabilities affecting these female child laborers thoroughly. A total of 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with female child laborers in Dhaka city, following a semi-structured format. NVivo 14 software was instrumental in the systematic coding and analysis of the extensive text data, enhancing the reliability and validity of the findings. This study, therefore, explores various vulnerabilities faced by female child laborers in Dhaka city, including risky health behavior, abusive behavior, sexual harassment, school dropout, unhygienic dietary habits, hazardous work conditions, and substandard living environments. Their socio-economic conditions make them susceptible to physical and mental setbacks, exploitation, and loss of dignity. The study emphasizes the necessity for comprehensive support and breaking the cycle through educational, health, and social initiatives. It offers a detailed portrayal of the living conditions of female child laborers in Dhaka city, providing valuable insights and evidence-based policy prescriptions for policymakers and Non-Government Organizations to formulate effective policies and measures to safeguard this vulnerable community., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Background: In Bangladesh, remittances constitute a substantial portion of the country's foreign exchange earnings and serve as a primary source of income. However, a considerable number of Bangladeshi citizens reside overseas without proper documentation, exposing them to significant challenges such as limited access to healthcare and socioeconomic opportunities. Moreover, their irregular migration status often results in engaging in risky health behaviors that further exacerbate their vulnerability. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the risky health behavior and HIV/STI susceptibility of Bangladeshi irregular international migrants residing across the globe with undocumented status., Methods: Using a qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Approach (IPA), 25 illegal migrants were interviewed who are currently living illegally or returned to their home country. The author used a thematic approach to code and analyze the data, combining an integrated data-driven inductive approach with a deductive approach. Concurrent processing and coding were facilitated by employing the Granheim model in data analysis., Results: The study identified four risky health behaviors among irregular Bangladeshi migrants: hazardous living conditions, risky jobs, suicidal ideation, and tobacco consumption. Additionally, the authors found some HIV/STI risk behavior among them including engaging in unprotected sex, consuming alcohol and drugs during sexual activity, and having limited access to medical facilities., Conclusions: The findings of this study can be used by health professional, governments, policymakers, NGOs, and concerned agencies to develop welfare strategies and initiatives for vulnerable undocumented migrant workers., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The conventional definition of multimorbidity may not address the complex treatment needs resulting from interactions between multiple conditions, impacting self-rated health (SRH). In India, there is limited research on healthcare use and SRH considering diverse disease combinations in individuals with multimorbidity. This study aims to identify multimorbidity clusters related to healthcare use and determine if it improves the self-rated health of individuals in different clusters. This study extracted information from cross-sectional data of the first wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), conducted in 2017-18. The study participants were 31,373 people aged ≥ 60 years. A total of nineteen chronic diseases were incorporated to identify the multimorbidity clusters using latent class analysis (LCA) in the study. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the association between identified clusters and healthcare use. A propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was utilised to further examine the health benefit (i.e., SRH) of using healthcare in each identified cluster. LCA analysis identified five different multimorbidity clusters: relatively healthy' (68.72%), 'metabolic disorder (16.26%), 'hypertension-gastrointestinal-musculoskeletal' (9.02%), 'hypertension-gastrointestinal' (4.07%), 'complex multimorbidity' (1.92%). Older people belonging to the complex multimorbidity [aOR:7.03, 95% CI: 3.54-13.96] and hypertension-gastrointestinal-musculoskeletal [aOR:3.27, 95% CI: 2.74-3.91] clusters were more likely to use healthcare. Using the nearest neighbor matching method, results from PSM analysis demonstrated that healthcare use was significantly associated with a decline in SRH across all multimorbidity clusters. Findings from this study highlight the importance of understanding multimorbidity clusters and their implications for healthcare utilization and patient well-being. Our findings support the creation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) focusing on a patient-centric approach to optimize multimorbidity management in older people. Additionally, finding suggest the urgency of inclusion of counseling and therapies for addressing well-being when treating patients with multimorbidity., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Ansari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: The overall prognosis of glioblastoma (GBM) remains dismal, particularly for patients with unmethylated O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase ( MGMT ) promoter. In this phase II trial, we tested the combination of the antiangiogenic agent sunitinib with radiotherapy and temozolomide (TMZ) for newly diagnosed unmethylated MGMT GBM patients., Methods: We enrolled 37 patients with unmethylated MGMT promoter GBM, age 18-70, and KPS ≥70. Patients received 12.5 mg of daily sunitinib for 7 days, followed by concurrent chemoradiation plus 12.5 mg sunitinib, then adjuvant TMZ. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS), and secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), safety, and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) biomarker., Results: At a median follow-up time of 15.3 months (range: 3.1-71.3 months), the median PFS was 7.15 months (95% CI: 5.4-10.5) and the 6-month PFS was 54.0%. Median OS was 15.0 months (95% CI: 13.8-19.4) and 2-year OS rate was 17.1%. Patients receiving >3 cycles of adjuvant TMZ, undergoing surgery at progression, and presenting a post-concurrent NLR ≤6 experienced a significant improved OS with hazard ratios of 0.197 ( P  = .001), 0.46 ( P  = .049), and 0.38 ( P  = .021), respectively, on multivariable analysis. Age >65 years predicted for worse OS with hazard ratio of 3.92 ( P  = .037). Grade ≥3 thrombocytopenia occurred in 22.9%, grade ≥3 neutropenia in 20%, and grade ≥3 thromboembolic events in 14.3% of patients. There were no grade 5 events., Conclusion: Our findings suggest a potential benefit of combining sunitinib with chemoradiation in newly diagnosed GBM patients with unmethylated MGMT status and provide a strong rationale to test this combination in future studies., Competing Interests: None declared. Pfizer provided funding but was not involved in the design, recruitment, and analysis of data in this clinical trial., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press, the Society for Neuro-Oncology and the European Association of Neuro-Oncology.)

Background: Bangladesh is one of the countries at risk of natural disasters due to climate change. In particular, inhabitants of its riverine islands (char) confront ongoing climatic events that heighten their vulnerability. This study aims to assess social vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation strategies to climate change in the riverine island areas of Bangladesh., Methods: A mixed-method approach incorporating qualitative and quantitative procedures was used on data collected from 180 households of riverine islands in Gaibandha, Bangladesh. The social vulnerability of riverine island communities was assessed based on their adaptation capacity, sensitivity, and exposure to climatic stressors., Results: The findings show that char dwellers' vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation capability to climate change vary significantly depending on their proximity to the mainland. Social vulnerability factors such as geographical location, fragile and low-grade housing conditions, illiteracy and displacement, climate-sensitive occupation and low-income level, and so on caused to the in-height vulnerability level of these particular areas. This study also displays that climate change and its associated hazards cause severe life and livelihood concerns for almost all households. In this case, the riverine dwellers employed several adaptation strategies to enhance their way of life to the disaster brought on changing climate. However, low education facilities, deficiency of useful information on climate change, poor infrastructure, and shortage of money are still the supreme hindrance to the sustainability of adaptation., Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of evaluating the susceptibility of local areas to climate change and emphasize the need for tailored local initiatives and policies to reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptability in communities residing in char households., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.)

The forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals (FDMNs) known as Rohingya refugees are the largest group of stateless individuals globally. According to the emergencies humanitarian actors at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the worldwide refugee crisis involving FDMNs is intensifying at the fastest rate in history. Growing public health demands are being exacerbated by current difficulties in addressing poor access to health services, severe food shortages, and a lack of adequate housing. Infectious diseases constitute a major public health emergency in this vulnerable population. A study was carried out in FDMN children to investigate common soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection at the time of enrollment and prospectively followed-up to 12 months after 2 doses albendazole treatment. At baseline, the prevalence of STH infection with at least one species was found to be 91.7% and 87.3% for Kato-Katz (KK) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods, respectively. Similarly, for follow-up children, the overall infection rate was 95.3% and 91.5%, respectively. Trichuris trichiura was the most predominant STH infection by both KK (baseline 87%, follow-up 89.1%) and qPCR (baseline 77.5%, follow-up 82.9%). The overall prevalence of stunting in the children was 37.8% at baseline and rose to 51.3% at 12 months. Alpha-1 antitrypsin (r = 0.13, P = 0.01) and myeloperoxidase (r = 0.12, P = 0.01) levels showed a positive correlation with Aascaris lumbricoides egg count per gram at baseline. An in-depth investigation is urgently needed to identify the underlying protective measures and the root cause of STH infections to improve the health of FDMN children.

Background: Due to changes in demographic and epidemiological scenarios, and the gradual increase in the older population, India is yet to prepare for rising nutrition and health-related issues among older adults in the coming decades. While the process of ageing and its associated aspect has been found to have an urban-rural divide. Thus, this study examines rural/urban differences in unmet needs for food and healthcare among Indian older adults., Methods: A sample of 31,464 older adults aged 60 years and above were considered in the study from the Longitudinal and Ageing Survey of India (LASI). The bivariate analysis was done using the sampling weights. Logistic regression and decomposition analysis was used to explain the rural-urban gap in the unmet needs for food and healthcare among Indian older adults., Results: Rural older adults were more vulnerable to meeting the need for health and food than their urban counterparts. While factors that contributed majorly to the difference in unmet need for food between urban and rural were education (34.98%), social group (6.58%), living arrangements (3.34%) and monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) (2.84%). Similarly, for the unmet need for health, the factors that contributed the most to the rural-urban gap are education (28.2%), household size (2.32%), and MPCE (1.27%)., Conclusion: The study indicates more vulnerability among rural older adults than compared to urban older individuals. The targeted policy-level efforts should be initiated considering the economic and residential vulnerability identified in the study. There is a need for primary care services that can provide targeted help to older adults in rural communities., (© 2023. The Author(s).)