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While studies to map the priorities of the autistic community have been undertaken in some high-income countries, there has been little or no such systematic assessment in the global south. India alone is home to an estimated >5 million autistic individuals. To address this gap in the literature, this study conducted a survey of the Indian autism community on their priorities for three areas: skills training, intervention and research. Individuals with a clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders and parents/guardians of autistic individuals were invited to take part in the study. Data from 280 respondents were collected online and followed up with interviews on a subset (n = 40) chosen through stratified random selection. Results highlighted a unanimous prioritisation for self-help skills as the most important area in skills training, as it was considered the foundation for acquiring all other skills. Speech and language therapy was identified as the most important intervention for autistic individuals. Within research, identifying the most effective ways for the community to support autistic people was given the topmost priority. Researchers, clinicians and policymakers may use these insights to develop services and shape future research that is more in accord with the community's needs.

A diagnosis of autism typically depends on clinical assessments by highly trained professionals. This high resource demand poses a challenge in low-resource settings. Digital assessment of neurodevelopmental symptoms by non-specialists provides a potential avenue to address this challenge. This cross-sectional case-control field study establishes proof of principle for such a digital assessment. We developed and tested an app, START, that can be administered by non-specialists to assess autism phenotypic domains (social, sensory, motor) through child performance and parent reports. N = 131 children (2-7 years old; 48 autistic, 43 intellectually disabled and 40 non-autistic typically developing) from low-resource settings in Delhi-NCR, India were assessed using START in home settings by non-specialist health workers. The two groups of children with neurodevelopmental disorders manifested lower social preference, greater sensory interest and lower fine-motor accuracy compared to their typically developing counterparts. Parent report further distinguished autistic from non-autistic children. Machine-learning analysis combining all START-derived measures demonstrated 78% classification accuracy for the three groups. Qualitative analysis of the interviews with health workers and families of the participants demonstrated high acceptability and feasibility of the app. These results provide feasibility, acceptability and proof of principle for START, and demonstrate the potential of a scalable, mobile tool for assessing neurodevelopmental conditions in low-resource settings.

Healthcare conflicts are complicated and often dysfunctional in nature. The Indian healthcare system, with its thinning workforce, finds it increasingly difficult to meet the demands and expectations of its healthcare service recipients. Healthcare service providers like physicians, nurses, technical and administrative personnel work in a dynamic and stressful environment with resource and manpower limitations. Healthcare service recipients like patients and their families often face challenges regarding access to care, associated costs, time issues and other situational dynamics. These underlying situations often result in different types of conflicts in the workplace. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand the factors that serve as primers for healthcare conflicts in the Indian scenario. Data were collected from hospital feedback forms for patients/patient families. The top 10 threads indicating the patient satisfaction factors and conflicting grounds were identified through content analysis, and that formed the basis of the semi-structured questionnaire schedules. Fifty semi-structured interviews were done with healthcare service recipients and healthcare service providers (25 in each set) in private clinical establishments of Kolkata, West Bengal. Four main themes and nine subthemes were identified that illustrated the grounds for healthcare conflicts in Indian settings. The identification of the causes of dissatisfaction and understanding their relationship with healthcare conflicts will go a long way in conflict management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology Enabled Learning is a cognitive, constructive, systematic, collaborative learning procedure, which transforms teaching-learning pedagogy where role of emotion is very often neglected. Emotion plays significant role in the cognitive process of human being, so the transformation is incomplete without capturing the learner's emotional state. This paper, proposes a new Affective Computing Module in E-Learning system that focuses on capturing of emotional aspects, managing learning activities, timing and their reflection on the overall learning process. Human Computer Interaction aims at recognizing the learner's emotional state in order to provide a horizontal interface between human and computer. We have adopted bio-physical (Heart Rate, Skin Conductance and Blood Volume Pressure) and facial expression methods, as these can be made both in-obtrusive and robust against number of environmental conditions, to extract affective state of the learner. This study explores how emotion evolves during the learning process and how emotion feedback is used to improve learning experiences. We propose a learner emotion detection and automated lesson selection model, where two emotion attributes have been fused and achieved an efficient model for "Affective E-Learning System," which obtained the sound classification rate. The system can select the learning pedagogy of the learner from detected emotion through neuro-fuzzy logic. Our research shows reasonable results in comparison with the existing systems. The result proves that the recognizer system is efficient.

The authors profile developments in the globalization of Indian higher education, with an emphasis on emerging globally compatible institutional infrastructures. In recent decades, there has been an enormous amount of brain drain: the exodus of the brightest professionals and students to other countries. The article argues that the implementation of robust student support and quality-assessment methodologies in Indian universities is essential if India is to become an attractor as well as a source for international student and faculty circulation. On-site research conducted with senior administrators and student body members in India indicates that the mounting pressure to develop such infrastructures is increasing the divergence between privately funded and traditional public schools in the Indian higher education landscape, as progressive private institutions position themselves to become competitive in burgeoning international partnerships. In particular, many new innovative private university programs and infrastructures have developed that address the demands of cross-circulation with Western academic programs. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 3 notes.)

The present study contributes to the understanding of the effectiveness of online discussion forum in student learning. A conceptual model based on "theory of online learning" and "media richness theory" was proposed and empirically tested. We extend the current understanding of media richness theory to suggest that use of multiple media can enrich the communication context and perceived learning. Hierarchical regression was applied to investigate the relationships between antecedent factors, interaction and perceived learning. The results show that the perceived richness of online discussion forum has significant positive effect on student participation and interaction, and learning, when used along with traditional classroom lecture. Implications of these findings are discussed as they provide important guidelines for management educators. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

While authoritarian states promoting neoliberal forms of governance have taken advantage of COVID-19 to weaken the foundations of civil society, there has also been a significant rise in contemporary struggles for a more democratic society during and around the pandemic. From December 2019 to November 2021, India has seen a significant number of protests. The timeline of collective resistance against the state and its divisive, violent and neoliberal agenda represents a critical juncture in Indian politics. This paper focuses on the farmers' protests that started from last November and recently ended in a stunning, hard-earned victory. In a sector that is overwhelmingly male-dominated and deeply patriarchal, women farmers have come out on the streets protesting the controversial Farm Laws hastily passed by the Indian government in September 2019 that threatened to corporatize farming and increase exploitation and marginalisation of small farmers. What is most interesting about the farmers' protests is large-scale participation of women across caste, class, occupational, and religious divide which has changed the composition and dynamics of collective resistance and demonstrate how organised and collective resistance can become symbols of solidarity and intersectional dissent. The paper will examine the role of gender and female agency in protests by female occupying bodies in physical spaces particularly when under the pretext of COVID -19 crisis management the state has severely pushed back against citizens right to dissent and fight for justice. The farmer's protest has brought to the fore women's role in mass mobilisations. Women's participation in the protest has tremendous significance for women's movement for justice, equality and rights and can pose a real challenge to the return of the 'Strong State'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the mobility of elements during extreme weathering of basalts, major and trace elements concentrations along with the mineralogical abundance of weathered products, are reported for lateritic profiles developed over the ~118.1 ± 0.3 Ma old Rajmahal Trap basalts in Eastern India. Special emphasis has been given to studying the re-distribution of rare earth elements during extreme chemical weathering of relatively less explored Rajmahal flood basalt, which results in the development of lateritic profiles. Here, we conduct a systematic attempt to decipher the alteration of the composition of laterite developed over the Rajmahal flood basalt. We demonstrate that the chemical index of alteration (CIA) and the mafic index of alteration (MIA) are less effective in deciphering extreme chemical weathering events, where desilication dominates the weathering process. In the weathered residues, the retention of REEs generally follows the trend of light rare earth elements (LREE) > middle rare earth elements (MREE) > heavy rare earth elements (HREE). Except for La and Ce, all other REEs show a depleting trend with reference to the parent rock composition. The ∑REE did not show any significant relationship with the commonly used weathering indices, which shows that the retention of REEs is not a function of the extent of weathering. The covariation of Ce anomaly with the Fe and Mn distribution in the samples reflects a redox-controlled mechanism. The negative correlation between the Eu anomaly and kaolinite abundance suggests that Eu mobilization from parent rock happens during initial weathering phases when plagioclase weathering dominates. The samples show an interesting positive Gd anomaly, which is explained by enhanced retention of Gd than neighboring Eu and Tb. During the chemical weathering of basalt, the retention of Ho was found to be greater than its geochemical twin Y. The results of this study show that significant differences exist between the REEs' distribution of parent basalt and that of the weathered residue, which has implications for the application of REEs as a provenance indicator and/or weathering proxy. The enrichment of Th and U in the weathered samples is explained through the addition of aeolian dust of upper continental crustal composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IL-6 receptor antagonist tocilizumab (TCZ) has been used in several reported studies in the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia and pieces of evidence are still emerging. All patients with COVID-19 pneumonia showing features of hyperinflammatory syndrome receiving TCZ at a tertiary care center in India were included in the study and a retrospective descriptive analysis was done. Between May 2020 to August 2020, 21 patients received TCZ out of which 13 survived and 8 died. All non-survivors had longer duration (median 12 days, minimum 9, maximum 15 days compared to median 6 days, minimum 3 and maximum 14 days in survivors) of symptoms and severe disease requiring mechanical ventilation at the time of TCZ administration. Among survivors, 8 patients had severe disease, 3 had moderate disease, and 2 patients had mild disease. Six out of 8 (75%) among non-survivors and 8 out of 13 (62%) among survivors had preexisting medical comorbidities. The non-survivors had higher baseline neutrophil-to-leukocyte ratio (10.5 vs 8.8), serum ferritin (960 ng/ml vs 611 ng/ml), lactate dehydrogenase (795 IU/L vs 954 IU/L), and D-dimer (5900 μg/ml vs 1485 mg/ml) levels. No drug-related serious adverse effect was noted among the patients. In a scenario of emerging evidence for the role of TCZ in the management of severe COVID-19, our study provides useful data on its use in the Indian scenario. Deliberate patient selection and timing initiation of TCZ at a crucial stage of the disease may be beneficial in COVID-19 pneumonia with good safety returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare establishments are unique and complex. The Indian healthcare system comprises of public and private healthcare establishments. Different challenges are encountered by the healthcare professionals in their daily operations. The sudden emergence of COVID-19 posed a new threat to the already burdened healthcare system. The pandemic changed the healthcare paradox with newer workplace and societal challenges faced by the healthcare personnel. The purpose of this study is to identify the antecedents of workplace and societal challenges faced by the healthcare personnel. Our study conducted in Kolkata and other adjoining areas of West Bengal included respondents who volunteered for individual in-depth interviews. The sample size was kept at n = 20 after due technical considerations. Freelisting and pile sorting was done to generate clusters. The qualitative study identified five constructs with 18 items under workplace challenges and three constructs with five items under societal/community challenges. Workplace challenges included resource availability, adequacy and allocation, financial issues, perceived managerial ineffectiveness, inconsistent guidelines and perceived occupational stress, while societal/community challenges included dread disease, social adaptiveness and challenges related to essential services. A salience threshold was established and the multidimensional scaling provided four major clusters: financial support and sustainability, adaptive resilience, infection risk mitigation and healthcare facility preparedness. Suggestive actions for the identified challenges were summed as enhanced production of diagnostic kits through public–private partnership models and industrial production reforms. Enhanced testing facility for COVID-19 will help to identify new cases. Financial stresses need long-term sustainable alternative that will avoid pay cuts and unemployment. Treatment regimen, diagnostic protocols, waste disposal guidelines should be worked upon and leading national agencies be consulted for technical support, research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scientometric study examines the publication outputs from six institutes of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in India as cited in the Scopus database over the past 24 years, 1996-2019. Research in biotechnology and other allied areas were analysed in terms of their chronological growth, activity index, collaborations, preferred journals for publication, country collaborators, popular keywords and scholarly impact. Scientists from the six institutes published 6, 076 journal articles representing 73.65 per cent of nationally collaborated articles and 25.03 per cent of internationally collaborated articles. Of the DBT institutes, the National Institute of Immunology (NII) published the highest number of articles and the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) shared most patents. Publication frequency was the highest for Plos One journal and the countries with which scientists collaborated included the United States, Germany, United Kingdom and France in that order. The publishing outputs of DBT institutes suggest a need for greater international collaborative research in order to gain scientific competency and increase the quality of research outputs. Also this study may be helpful to government officials and policy makers in determining allocation of resources to boost the scholarly outputs of DBT institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical indications have played a central role in the protection of handicrafts, and agricultural and manufactured goods in India. Numerous goods are already registered as geographical indications and many more are in the pipeline to be registered. This article analyses the products which have been registered so far and finds that there are certain issues raised by Indian GI protection, to which it puts forward various solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to continued energy in Indian villages especially in the northeastern region of India is still a challenge. Off-grid electrification utilizing small-scale photovoltaic applications such as a solar home system (SHS) offers opportunities to ensure access to electricity to the needed rural parts. However, such systems distributed under various government schemes are not been received well in the past by the intended rural user due to multiple challenges, including the lack of user and context-specific design. Thus, the need for a user-centric design becomes critical in developing solutions appropriate to the rural needs of the studied region and relevant. The present work, therefore, intends to investigate the issues with the existing/conventional SHSs. Portability, maintenance, functionality, affordability, and user satisfaction were the issues of paramount importance. The user needs have been mapped in accordance with the identified concerns to finally evolve a user and context-specific design for SHSs. The proposed design has also been investigated for the identified issues and a comparative assessment was made with the conventional SHSs. In order to better assess the conventional and proposed SHSs for usability, adoption, safety, and the musculoskeletal disorders system usability analysis (SUS), technology adoption model (TAM), perceived ergonomic analysis, and Ovako Work Posture Analysis System (OWAS) were also carried out. The superiority of the proposed user and context-specific designed SHS was revealed over the conventional SHSs. The study indicated that embracing a user-centric approach for the design-development of small-scale photovoltaic utilities may assist in the dissemination of such products to rural grassroots. • It intends to investigate the user and context-specific barriers associated with conventional solar home systems (SHSs) that will lead to a better comprehension of user preferences. • Proposal of a novel user-centric and context-specific design of solar home systems (SHSs) that overcomes the identified challenges associated with the existing SHSs. • Assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed and conventional SHSs in terms of user satisfaction and experience. • Comprehension and prediction of the technology adoption behaviors for both the proposed and conventional SHSs. • Analysis of the user's perception of safety and effort when interacting with the proposed and conventional SHSs and assessment of the working postures for both the proposed and conventional SHSs in order to analyze the risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mango ("Mangifera indica") is a popular fruit and an important cash crop of southeast Asia. The mango malformation disease has been responsible for the degraded yield of the crop now for a long time (Kumar and Chakrabarti, 1997). The disease is difficult to cure and often takes the shape of an epidemic. Though much study has been done for the integrated control of the disease, the field implementations of the necessary technologies are difficult. This article describes a computerized expert system developed by the authors to help the agriculturists and the field scientists tackle the menace of the mango malformation disease.

Quality healthcare and satisfaction are gradually emerging as important areas, which need much attention. The factors of patient satisfaction have been identified under varied conditions globally. In the Indian context, one key patient satisfaction factor has been attributed to waiting time. Long waiting time has been one of the major reasons of patient dissatisfaction and assumes significance when associated with paediatric events. The following study has successfully identified key attributes, which are associated with long waiting times within paediatric outpatient department (OPD) settings. The possible implications of the long waiting periods have been recorded through semi-structured interviews, and further in-depth analysis of individual factors were carried out to predict the probable outcomes. The qualitative exploratory study design has helped to understand the perception of parents/care givers (in case of neonates and toddlers) and adolescents, thereby successfully highlighting the need for further study in the patient satisfaction domain involving paediatric population. The various implications which the waiting time has on them have been taken into consideration. The inter-related themes have been identified after analyzing the interviews. These substantiate the fact that designing innovative mitigation strategies on proper and timely communication, updated technological know-how, improvising hospital protocols for better operational processes and coordination among the staff can go a long way in enhancing the patient/parent experience within OPD settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of pesticides in agricultural fields and public health care has led to transport and accumulation of pesticide residues in different environmental compartments including the water bodies like ponds, lakes, wetlands, rivers and estuaries are quite often found to be contaminated with pesticides as a result of run-off and discharges from different sources. Since pesticides are toxic chemicals, they adversely affect the non target organisms including fish, a common protein source to human. The present study was undertaken with the objective to find the extent and level of any persistent organochlorine pesticides (OCP) residue in edible fishes grown in waste waters, namely Mudiyali Fisheries Co-operative society and Rahara fish farm, West Bengal, India. The results revealed the presence of DDT and endosulfan in muscles and gills of Indian Major Carps (IMC) like Rohu (Labeo rohita), Catla (Catla catla) and Mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) reared in wastewater. However, the level of the pesticide residues found in IMCs were below the tolerance limits (TL) set by FSSAI which indicated that those fishes were safe for consumption. But, emphasis should be laid on continuous monitoring program from food safety point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduate civil engineering education is a professional education which demands its interaction with industry vis-a-vis the society. The present paper first presents a concise description of the history of development of the higher technical education in India mainly to highlight the different salient features in the context of the objective of the paper. It also gives a presentation of the existing scenario of the effective industry-interface system in the undergraduate civil engineering education in South Africa based on author's direct experience in order to emphasize the need and relevance of such a system in the context of the national development in the field of physical infrastructure etc. Finally, the author, in his concluding remark, proposes an industry-interface scheme for adoption and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study hereby is an attempt to evaluate the process of landfill mining as a remediation technique for Municipal Solid Waste dumpsites, which are an inherent feature of each city of note, in the developing countries. These dump sites, more often than not, nothing more than a piece of land where all of the city's refuse is collected, are threats to the environment and consume valuable land, which could otherwise be converted into a revenue generating asset. Many cities are extremely short on land and some are also facing the negative impacts of these dumps in terms of water contamination, air pollution and land degradation to name a few. Encouraged by the positive outcomes of studies carried out earlier, this study was aimed at applying the idea on a broader scale in terms of encompassing a number of cities across the country. The solid waste characterization for the cities taken into the study was obtained and the amount of solid waste deposited in the landfills of these cities was estimated. Based on these, various revenue generating fractions were identified. From the current market cost of the land used as dumpsite and the material salvaged by the landfill mining operation, the benefit-cost scenario was judged. It was found that for most of the scenarios the overall operation of mining the landfills was economical in terms of cost, but the intangible benefits, which cannot be monetized, are expected to be far greater than the rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the river as a site of urban modernity in India. At the heart of this article is the colonial project of purifying the water of the river Hooghly for the domestic supply of Calcutta. The British built the first water purification system for the city around the middle of the nineteenth century at Pulta. Around this theme, the article explores the various discourses and practices of pollution, purity and purification taking place at the time. The debates were not just about whether the river was polluted or suitable for the supply of water to the city but also about whether piped water itself was pure. At one level, the science of purity confronted Hindu ritualistic ideas of purity. At another level, the very idea of purity itself was on trial. One of the main sites of examination for this article is, thus, the various notions of purity at play in Calcutta at this time, within both western science and Hindu scriptural deliberations. These were accentuated by the fact that in Calcutta and several other colonial cities, water was conceptualized through multiple semantic and spatial tropes. The article situates the project of purification at the heart of this entangled reality and discourse of purity of water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: The bacterial community structure of a municipal landfill in Chandigarh, India was analysed by culture-dependent as well as culture-independent molecular approaches, and archaeal structure by the latter method. Samples were collected in two phases from the surface and a depth of 0.91m in June, 2004 and from 0.91m, 1.52m and 1.68m in May, 2005. After serial dilutions, samples were plated onto tryptic soy agar (TSA), plate count agar (PCA), tryptic soy broth agar (TSBA) and TSBA100 (TSBA diluted 100 times and solidified with agarose), and incubated aerobically at 30°C. The number of bacteria (CFU) on different media ranged between 9.4×105 g−1 (on PCA) and 1.9×107 g−1 (on TSA) (wet weight). The numbers of bacteria enumerated from plates incubated anaerobically (anaerobic agar and reinforced clostridial agar) were 2.1×107 and 1.7×106 g−1, respectively. Of the 468 isolated and purified bacteria (183 in the first phase and 285 in the second phase), 135 were characterised using phenotypic characteristics as well as 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. It was found that members of the phylum Firmicutes were overwhelmingly predominant (86.6%) in the landfill, followed by Actinobacteria (9.6%) and Proteobacteria (3.7%). Among the Firmicutes, at least 17 species from the single genus Bacillus were the most abundant inhabitants of the landfill. Detailed polyphasic characterisation of many of these isolates led to the discovery of a novel genus Paenisporosarcina (and the species P. quisquiliarum), a novel species of Microbacterium, M. immunditiarum, and reclassification of Sporosarcina macmurdoensis, Pelagibacillus goriensis, Bacillus silvestris, Bacillus insolitus, Bacillus psychrotolerans and Bacillus psychrodurans. Culture-independent analysis of two 16S rRNA gene libraries also revealed that the phylum Firmicutes was the predominant group in this community. The diversity of Archaea was found to be limited mainly to members of two orders: Methanosarcinales and Methanomicrobiales of the phylum Euryarchaeota. When these results were compared to those reported earlier on similar studies, it was found that irrespective of differences in composition of municipal solid waste (especially compostable organic matter and paper) and climate, the members of bacterial and archaeal communities in landfills of many countries remained broadly similar. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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Copyright of UNISCI Discussion Papers is the property of Unidad de Investigaciones Sobre Seguridad y Cooperacion International (UNISCI) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Socialinių Mokslų Studijos is the property of Mykolas Romeris University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: Only 20–30% of patients requiring a blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) have a matched family donor. For the rest, alternative sources of graft are necessary to provide this curative procedure. Over the past 25 years, BMT from volunteer unrelated donors has undergone immense developments to be at par with matched family donor transplants. Similar developments have been witnessed in the field of unrelated cord blood transplantation. Thus, 90% of patients requiring a BMT in the developed worlds receive one from either of the two alternative graft sources. However, >11 million volunteer unrelated donors and 25,000 cord blood units worldwide do not solve the problem for patients from developing countries, due to lack of compatible human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match and enormous financial burden. Thus, Asian countries such as China and Korea have developed Haploidentical or mismatched family donor transplantation for their population with great success. In the light of these developments, this article discusses the options and opportunities for alternative donor BMT in the Indian scenario. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With deregulation and open access of the electricity supply industry occurring internationally, there is an increasing need to develop power market oriented optimal power flow (OPF) algorithm for power systems of developing countries. A genetic algorithm based OPF is proposed for this purpose, which inherits both the real and reactive power constraints with loss expressions involving B-coefficients for active power and C-coefficients for reactive power. The significance of the paper is the development of a flexible OPF methodology using both real and reactive power constraints, which can address a very important issue like determination of the spot price for each participant generator in the economic operation of restructured power systems in the developing countries. The proposed methodology has been tested in a 203 buses 267 lines 23 machines real power system of eastern part of India and the simulation results have established that the proposed method is promising for large scale optimizations under deregulated environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death worldwide attributable to a single infectious disease agent. India has more new TB cases annually than any other country. In 2008, India accounted for a fifth of the estimated 9.4 million TB cases globally. There is an overwhelming need for improving TB diagnostics in India through the use of cost effective, patient-friendly methods appropriate to different tiers of the country health system. Substantial progress has been made in India in the field of TB diagnosis and serious efforts have been made to herald the development of diagnostic tests for pulmonary TB, extra pulmonary TB and MDR-TB. Diverse approaches have been attempted towards improving smear microscopy, rapid culture and for differentiation between the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and non-tuberculous mycobacteria. Several laboratories have developed in-house PCR assays for diagnosing TB with high accuracy. Approaches for distinguishing M. tuberculosis and/or Mycobacterium bovis infection and disseminated Mycobacterium avium complex infection in HIV-AIDS patients have also been described. Serological tests to detect antigens or antibodies to M. tuberculosis specific components by using cocktails of Excretory/Secretory protein antigens, Ag85 complex antigens, Hsp 65 antigen, RD1 antigens and Rapid Reverse Line Blot Hybridization assays to detect MDR-TB (mutations to rifampicin, isoniazid and streptomycin) have also been developed. Other methods like measurement of adenosine deaminase activity and use of luciferase reporter phages have also been explored for TB diagnosis. These advances in the Indian context are detailed in the present chapter. The validation and application of these methods in laboratory and public health settings is likely to result in improved TB diagnosis and contribute to effective disease management in India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper analyses the impacts of agrarian growth and land distribution and of corporate led or supported crop diversification on the rural non-farm sector, in particular, and the informal sector, in general. It shows that the informal sector benefits from agriculture if it is constituted mostly of marginal and small farmers, as they demand a majority of the primary equipments for farming and non-farm business. Moreover, the agricultural growth-induced expansion of the rural non-farm sector is conditional upon the size class of landholdings; it is the marginal holdings that have a prosperity-induced impact on the rural non-farm sector. Next, the paper proposes a distress-led eviction of the petty non-farm sector, which largely depends on traditional farming, as agriculture goes for corporate led or supported crop diversification towards high-value crops. An analysis of informal manufacturing units engaged in the processing of agricultural products reveals the dominance of labour-intensive coarse crops processing firms and thereby questions the view that high value crop cultivation would pave the way for non-farm employment generation in the processing sector. On the other hand, it has been found that the wholesale and retail trade of high-value crops is dotted with micro-entrepreneurs who may not be able to compete with the corporate-driven modern agricultural supply chain. Finally, it is argued that crop diversification may create problems of micro food security for the informal producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gram husk and groundnut shell are cheap and abundantly available agricultural waste materials in India. A systematic study on the adsorption of some model dyes from aqueous solution on these low-cost adsorbents has been attempted. Model dyes used were Methylene Blue, Rhodamine B, Congo Red, Eosine Y and Metanil Yellow. Equilibrium, kinetics and column experiments were performed. Effects of different process variables have been studied. Equilibrium data fitted well in Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm equations. A model using Freundlich equation has been developed for interpretation of kinetic data. Other models such as Lagergren equation and pseudo second order equation were also used. Of these models, pseudo second order equation was found to be the most satisfactory. Column experiments were carried out with gram-husk and Rhodamine B. The data could be correlated well with BDST model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt has been made in the study to deconstruct love language of the modern day young people by undertaking a content analysis of 318 SMS texts taken from a leading English daily of Calcutta, India on the Valentine Day of 2006. Five Key-words-In-Context, love, life, heart, world, and valentine have been identified as most frequently chosen words for V-Day SMS by using word concordance. A gender bias test (statistical t-Test) has identified male supremacy in conveying love messages. A pair wise Correlation coefficient study of the key words indicate that the word valentine is positively correlated with the words, love and heart, and negatively correlated with the words, life and world. A statistical regression analysis postulates a mathematical formulation for 100 valentine words, the possible numbers of the words, love, life, heart and world: 100Valentine = 237 + 1.love - 29 life + 24 heart -- 24 world. The study finally hints that lesbians and gays are 'quite in', in our society. The same sex SMS messages bear a strong testimony to the beginning of a 'gay-lesbian' era in Indian Society. The researchers may humbly claim this study to be a pioneering study on content analysis of SMS texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The minimum wage policy has remained in contention with economists and policymakers aligned on both sides of the debate. Increasingly, the state has been forced to formally retract these laws under the onslaught of the globalisation of capital. This has resulted in a precipitous drop in the wages of workers, especially in the so-called 'unorganised sector'. This paper is an attempt to capture the process and consequences of institutionalisation of payment of minimum wages in a public sector academic institution. The case study signifies that progressive labour policies are imperative to ensure fair wages to the contingent workforce. And yet, only having a formal policy is not enough under the auspices of the present neo-liberal order, given the political reality at the ground level. The civil society must also intervene at the grassroots level and be committed for a long haul. And even then, any tangible change will come only if action at the middle class level is combined with a vibrant working class movement. Only if economic struggles are combined with political movements will they reach anywhere, where they can potentially give meaning to a progressive policy framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data collected from 200 male injecting drug users in Kolkata, this study examines the inter-relationships between injecting drug users and some risk factors. The results of the survey reveals an interesting correlation between the injecting drug users and area of origin, literacy, economic status, peer group pressure, family background, personality structure, sense of alienation, and so on. Relationship exists between level of intensity of drug use and socio-psychological and economic-cultural factors. Some suggestions have been made for combating the growing menace of injecting drug users in Kolkata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a pilot study regarding the problem of drug addiction involving youth in Calcutta, India. The study aims to explore and examine factors that motivate the youth of Calcutta to become drug addicts and injecting drug users. Respondents of the study included 200 selected male youth with an average age of 29 from six different drug detoxification clinics. It was found that no single factor was responsible for driving a person towards drug addiction. Moreover, it was determined that many youth explore ways to vent their frustration since they are being disgusted with the condition of their current life and finding no hope for improving the quality of life.

The article presents a study which examined the judicial attitude of Apex Court in India towards the victims of crime and focused on the scope of restorative justice within the Indian Criminal Justice System. It states that the Apex Court in the recognition and introduction of compensatory and restorative justice ideas may be discussed by analysis of cases in Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, the Indian Constitution and the Indian Penal Code 1860. It concludes that the Apex Court in India has set a trend of Compensatory criminal justice jurisprudence which developed the ground towards developing restorative justice in the Indian criminal justice system.

At 300 million, the urban population of India is still less than one third of its total population. It is projected that by 2045 nearly 800 million Indians will be living in its cities - more than the total population of the whole of present-day Europe. Already, the infrastructures of all the six mega- and 40 million-plus cities of India are under very severe stress. The ground water is depleting rapidly, pollution is reaching crisis levels, the transportation system is in disarray, and sewerage and sanitation are in a shambles, all of which is affecting public health and hygiene. This explosive state of affairs has not been adequately appreciated at the national and international level. This paper analyses the programmes and policies adopted so far to correct the situation, identifies their shortcomings, and looks into the new initiatives that have been undertaken to make the cities self-sustainable units of governance and reliable service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculosis (TB) infections in India account for one-third of the global burden, making it important to develop speedy, cost-effective diagnostic tools. This study evaluated recombinant RD1-encoded antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as tools for serodiagnosis by determining the immunological reactivity of these proteins against sera from healthy, bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG)-vaccinated and TB-infected individuals from Kolkata. Rv3872, Rv3875 (ESAT-6) and Rv3878 were able to discriminate healthy BCG-vaccinated controls from TB patients. Rv3872 showed the highest level of antibody response in comparison with other antigens, and also showed statistically significant differences between pulmonary (p <0.0001) or extra-pulmonary (p <0.001) TB patients and healthy BCG-vaccinated individuals. The levels of antibody were measured using 20-mer overlapping peptides spanning the entire Rv3872 sequence. The immunological reactivity against a mixture of two peptides (P8 and P9) encompassing amino-acids 57–84 correlated well with that obtained using full-length Rv3872. This result was explained by the fact that two of the predicted regions of high antigenicity lie within amino-acid residues 57–85 of Rv3872. The high sensitivity and specificity of Rv3872, as well as the mixture of two synthetic overlapping peptides derived from Rv3872, highlight their potential and argue in favour of their use in serodiagnosis of both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moyna of Purba Medinipur district is widely known as an aquaculture hub of West Bengal, India. Though very good production is achievable from this fish culture system, management practices are inappropriate, which could create the sustainability problem of this culture system. The present study was thus undertaken for the estimation of plankton population, water quality, carbon footprint and carbon sequestration of this intensive aquaculture practices. Information on spawn to fry, fry to fingerlings and grow-out culture were collected through the structured questionnaire from the fish farmers. The plankton density, primary productivity, carbon footprint and carbon sequestration were analyzed using standard procedures. The phytoplankton, zooplankton and primary productivity were maximum at the stocking period and minimum during the middle of culture period. The lowest feed conversion ratio (FCR) was noticed with the minimum amount of feed applied in the pond. The CO 2 -e emission ranged from 0.56 to 4.89 kg CO 2 -e/kg fish (av. 2.13) for the production levels of 5.0 to 10.7 t/ha/yr. The pond water developed salinity and ammonium-N increased from 0.01 to 0.50 mg/l. The ponds with high feed loading (28 to 32 t/ha/yr) had the highest average sediment accumulation rate (11.0 ± 3.0 cm/yr) and carbon sequestration (704 ± 30 g C/m 2 /yr)., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose: The emergence of highly mutated and transmissible BA variants has caused an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 infections worldwide. Thorough analysis of its genome structure and phylogenomic evolutionary details will serve as scientific reference for future research., Method: Here, we have analyzed the BA variants from India using whole-genome sequencing, spike protein mutation study, spatio-temporal surveillance, phylogenomic assessment and epitope mapping., Results: The predominance of BA.2/BA.2-like was observed in India during COVID-19 third wave. Genome analysis and mutation study highlighted the existence of 2128 amino acid changes within BA as compared to NC&#95;045512.2. Presence of 23 unknown mutation sites (spanning region 61-831) were observed among the Indian BA variants as compared to the global BA strains. Unassigned probable Omicron showed the highest number of mutations (370) followed by BA.1 (104), BA.2.3 (56), and BA.2 (27). Presence of mutations 'Q493R ​+ ​Q498R ​+ ​N501Y', and 'K417 ​N ​+ ​E484A ​+ ​N501Y' remained exclusive to BA.2 as well as unassigned probable Omicron. The time-tree and phylogenomic network assessed the evolutionary relationship of the BA variants. Existence of 424 segregating sites and 113 parsimony informative sites within BA genomes were observed through haplotype network analysis. Epitope mapping depicted the presence of unique antigenic sites within the receptor binding domain of the BA variants that could be exploited for robust vaccine development., Conclusion: These findings provide important scientific insights about the nature, diversity, and evolution of Indian BA variants. The study further divulges in the avenues of therapeutic upgradation for better management and eventual eradication of COVID-19., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All the authors declare that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2022 Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Studies on Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) have revealed heterogeneous sub-populations in terms of underlying pathologies. However, the identification of sub-populations in epidemiological datasets remains unexplored. We here focus on the detection of T2DM clusters in epidemiological data, specifically analysing the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) dataset from India containing a wide spectrum of features, including medical history, dietary and addiction habits, socio-economic and lifestyle patterns of 10,125 T2DM patients., Methods: Epidemiological data provide challenges for analysis due to the diverse types of features in it. In this case, applying the state-of-the-art dimension reduction tool UMAP conventionally was found to be ineffective for the NFHS-4 dataset, which contains diverse feature types. We implemented a distributed clustering workflow combining different similarity measure settings of UMAP, for clustering continuous, ordinal and nominal features separately. We integrated the reduced dimensions from each feature-type-distributed clustering to obtain interpretable and unbiased clustering of the data., Results: Our analysis reveals four significant clusters, with two of them comprising mainly of non-obese T2DM patients. These non-obese clusters have lower mean age and majorly comprises of rural residents. Surprisingly, one of the obese clusters had 90% of the T2DM patients practising a non-vegetarian diet though they did not show an increased intake of plant-based protein-rich foods., Conclusions: From a methodological perspective, we show that for diverse data types, frequent in epidemiological datasets, feature-type-distributed clustering using UMAP is effective as opposed to the conventional use of the UMAP algorithm. The application of UMAP-based clustering workflow for this type of dataset is novel in itself. Our findings demonstrate the presence of heterogeneity among Indian T2DM patients with regard to socio-demography and dietary patterns. From our analysis, we conclude that the existence of significant non-obese T2DM sub-populations characterized by younger age groups and economic disadvantage raises the need for different screening criteria for T2DM among rural Indian residents., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Inadequate glycemic control among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) poses an enormous challenge. Whether this uncontrolled T2DM population is a heterogenous mix of disease subtypes remains unknown. Identification of these subtypes would result in a customized T2DM management protocol thereby paving the way toward personalized therapy., Research Design and Methods: Electronic health records of 339 patients with uncontrolled T2DM patients followed up for a median period of 14 months were analyzed using Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection followed by density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise. Baseline clinical features and final diagnoses with drug combinations were selected in the analysis. A 30 min oral glucose tolerance test was next performed for assessing the underlying insulin resistance and β cell dysfunction., Results: Three major clusters were identified. The first cluster characterized by recent onset T2DM had moderately preserved β cell function. The second cluster with a longer duration of T2DM and associated hypertension showed the best glycemic control with dual antidiabetic therapy. The third cluster with the longest history of T2DM and no history of hypertension had the worst glycemic control in spite of the highest percentage of patients on triple therapy (34.58%) and quadruple therapy (8.41%)., Conclusions: Uncontrolled T2DM comprises a heterogeneous population with respect to disease duration, presence of co-morbidities and β cell function without significant difference in insulin resistance. Stratifying them on the basis of pathoclinical features is the first step toward a personalized management in T2DM., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: Hemoglobin (Hb)-F inducers are known to improve Hb level and transfusion dependence in thalassemia. This pilot study was conducted to assess the efficacy and safety of Hb-F inducer thalidomide compared to hydroxyurea (HU) in Hb E-β thalassemia patients., Methods: This was a prospective interventional single-centre study with 45 Hb E-beta thalassemia patients equally divided into group-I (thalidomide+folic acid), group-II (HU + folic acid) and group-III (folic acid). Response was assessed at various time intervals with 12-months follow up period. Primary end points were increment in Hb, Hb-F level and improvement in transfusion requirement; secondary end point were tolerability and safety., Results: There was 100% responder (R: Hb-increment ≥1 g/dl) in group-I with 66.67% major responder (MaR: Hb-increment ≥2 g/dl), while there were 40% and 0% responder in group-II and III respectively. Hb-increment was significantly (p-value <0.0001) better in thalidomide arm compared to HU. The Hb-increment was attributable to both increase in Hb-F levels and reduction in ineffective erythropoiesis in thalidomide arm. Transfusion reduction was significantly better in group-I compared to group-II (100% vs 34%). No severe adverse effects was reported by patients of any group., Conclusion: Thalidomide showed a persistent significant Hb-increment and transfusion independence in Hb E-β thalassemia patients compared to HU., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

To understand the spread of SARS-CoV2, in August and September 2020, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India) conducted a serosurvey across its constituent laboratories and centers across India. Of 10,427 volunteers, 1058 (10.14%) tested positive for SARS-CoV2 anti-nucleocapsid (anti-NC) antibodies, 95% of which had surrogate neutralization activity. Three-fourth of these recalled no symptoms. Repeat serology tests at 3 (n = 607) and 6 (n = 175) months showed stable anti-NC antibodies but declining neutralization activity. Local seropositivity was higher in densely populated cities and was inversely correlated with a 30-day change in regional test positivity rates (TPRs). Regional seropositivity above 10% was associated with declining TPR. Personal factors associated with higher odds of seropositivity were high-exposure work (odds ratio, 95% confidence interval, p value: 2.23, 1.92-2.59, <0.0001), use of public transport (1.79, 1.43-2.24, <0.0001), not smoking (1.52, 1.16-1.99, 0.0257), non-vegetarian diet (1.67, 1.41-1.99, <0.0001), and B blood group (1.36, 1.15-1.61, 0.001)., Competing Interests: SN, VS, RU, NB, RK, AB, SP, SP, RK, BR, KT, MA, GC, AL, SK, SM, MM, MS, SK, AS, BT, MV, GV, SV, AA, DG, PH, MP, GS, RV, AP, VA, AM, RS, AR, SA, PK, SV, HS, AK, RJ, AT, DP, AS, JK, VK, AM, IG, GR, PS, RC, GC, PK, RY, SS, DS, SS, PB, SA, VS, SV, DS, SS, SV, ST, FF, AS, AS, BS, MS, YP, VH, VP, DS, NT, PC, SM, DG, JS, SR, BK, KK, SG, PJ, RC, VJ, NK, DG, GT, US, PS, SC, RK, PG, AT, DS, RR, AD, MK, DS, MD, SD, RJ, AP, SM, AK, VW, RY, AK, MB, AC, SK, KK, SP, JK, NS, TP, PM, WR, PB, DO, RS, EB, RS, AN, PV, AP, AV, KC, SD, YM, VA, SD, AA, DD, SS No competing interests declared, (© 2021, Naushin et al.)