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Navin Kaushal,1,2 Francis Langlois,3 Laurence Desjardins-Crépeau,1,2,4 Martin S Hagger,5,6 Louis Bherer1,2,4 1Department of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 2Research Center, Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 3CIUSSS de l’Estrie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 4Research Center, Geriatrics Institute, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; 5School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia; 6Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Background: Older adults are at risk of multiple chronic diseases, most of which could be prevented by engaging in regular physical activity. Frailty is a state of increased vulnerability to diseases. Worsening symptoms of frailty, such as decrease in physical functionality, can compromise health-related quality of life (HR-QOL). Previous findings suggest that frailty moderates the relationship between physical activity and HR-QOL, yet intervention findings are limited, particularly in dose–response analyses. Hence, this study was conducted to test if lower-dose physical activity (120 minutes/week) would provide the same benefits in health outcomes (physical functionality and HR-QOL) as higher-dose physical activity (180 minutes/week).Methods: Participants (n=110) were older adults comprising higher-dose, lower-dose, and control groups who were combined from recent randomized controlled trials. Experimental groups participated in a multimodal exercise program in a supervised laboratory setting for 12 weeks.Results: The higher-dose group showed a significant improvement in physical functionality (β=0.23, P=0.03) and in overall HR-QOL (β=0.44, P=0.001) including its subcategories over the control group. A group × frailty interaction revealed that frail individuals significantly improved in capacity HR-QOL when they exercised at a higher dose (F (1, 49)=4.57, P=0.038).Conclusion: This study identifies a positive, predictive relationship between exercise duration and health outcomes (HR-QOL dimensions and frailty) among older adults. Frail individuals in the higher-dose group demonstrated significant recovery of capacity HR-QOL, thus reflecting improvement in their daily activities. Keywords: physical activity, aging, multimodal exercise, frailty

Neelam Kaushal,1 Divya Vohora,1 Rajinder K Jalali,2 Sujeet Jha3 1Pharmaceutical Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, 2Medical Affairs and Clinical Research, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, Gurgaon, 3Institute of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Max Healthcare Inst. Ltd, New Delhi, India Purpose: Oxidative stress has been implicated as a fundamental mechanism in the decline of bone mass. Reactive oxygen species are reported to suppress osteoblast generation and differentiation and enhance osteoclast development and activity. Increasing evidence suggests favorable effect of serum uric acid (UA) on bone metabolism due to its antioxidant properties. Therefore, we investigated the association between serum UA levels and bone mineral density (BMD) in healthy adult Indian subjects.Materials and methods: We reviewed the medical records of 524 subjects who had undergone preventive health check-ups in a tertiary care hospital that included UA and BMD measurements at femur neck, total femur, and lumbar spine. Subjects concomitantly taking drugs or having a medical condition that would affect the bone metabolism or UA levels were excluded.Results: The final analysis included 310 subjects (mean age: 47.2±12.2 years; females: 43.5%; males: 56.5%). Study population was categorized into two groups based on the group median value for UA (ie, 5.4 mg/dL). BMD was significantly higher at all skeletal sites in subjects with UA >5.4 mg/dL compared to subjects with UA ≤5.4 mg/dL (p

Introduction: An outbreak of acute gastroenteritis had occurred in Rajpara village of Bhavnagar district. The objective of this study was to find out the socio-demographic, epidemiological and environmental determinants of this outbreak. Methods: A case-control study was conducted in Rajpara village among 238 cases of acute gastroenteritis and an equal number of controls in January 2015. Multiple logistic regression was used for identifying the variables independently predicting acute gastroenteritis. Results: Upper socio-economic status, occupation requiring travel outside village, source of drinking water from well of ‘new’ Rajpara village, change in taste of water, use of chlorine tablets, travel outside village in last week, another family member affected with acute gastroenteritis, using common utensil for hand washing, hand washing before eating, ate food from outside in last week, having sanitary latrine at house, waste disposal in a common dump (instead of at house), waste accumulation around house and flies inside house were significantly associated with occurrence of acute gastroenteritis. On multiple logistic regression, change in taste of water (P

Characterizing the temporal uncertainty in palaeoclimate records is crucial for analysing past climate change, correlating climate events between records, assessing climate periodicities, identifying potential triggers and evaluating climate model simulations. The first global compilation of speleothem isotope records by the SISAL (Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and Analysis) working group showed that age model uncertainties are not systematically reported in the published literature, and these are only available for a limited number of records (ca. 15 %, n = 107/691). To improve the usefulness of the SISAL database, we have (i) improved the database's spatio-temporal coverage and (ii) created new chronologies using seven different approaches for age- depth modelling. We have applied these alternative chronologies to the records from the first version of the SISAL database (SISALv1) and to new records compiled since the release of SISALv1. This paper documents the necessary changes in the structure of the SISAL database to accommodate the inclusion of the new age models and their uncertainties as well as the expansion of the database to include new records and the qualitycontrol measures applied. This paper also documents the age-depth model approaches used to calculate the new chronologies. The updated version of the SISAL database (SISALv2) contains isotopic data from 691 speleothem records from 294 cave sites and new age-depth models, including age-depth temporal uncertainties for 512 speleothems.

India boasts of a vast freshwater resource network (rivers, wetlands, and groundwater), which has unique ecological, social and economic values associated with it. Despite their importance for both people and biodiversity, its freshwater ecosystems (FWEs) are heavily impacted through multiple factors such as pollution, overexploitation, habitat loss/modification and climate change. India is also among the hotspots of water resource overuse that has caused a serious decline in freshwater availability.Given that healthy FWEs lie at the centre for supporting the country's ecology, health, economy, livelihoods and ultimately achieving multiple policy goals, it is crucial that holistic and focused efforts are made to protect, conserve, and restore all types of FWEs.We call for an urgent and a greater focus on implementing conservation actions for FWEs in India and suggest the following strategy to enhance focus on their conservation: (1) establishing a shared freshwater conservation vision at a national scale, (2) developing and including national freshwater conservation goals within global efforts, (3) conducting simultaneous conservation action planning at regional scales and (4) bridge planning to implementation gap by strengthening key enabling conditions: i) mainstream FWE conservation within key existing governance instruments, ii) secure sustainable conservation funding, iii) improve data access and knowledge translation; iv) create national awareness around importance of FWEs; v) facilitate collaboration among key actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, 1,4-benzothiazine-based bisamide derivatives, a new class of antibacterial agents targeting bacterial peptide deformylase (PDF), were designed and synthesized to combat Staphylococcus aureus infection. Molecular modeling of the designed molecules showed better docking scores compared to the natural product actinonin. Bioactivity assessment identified two derivatives with promising antibacterial activity in vitro. The stability of the most active molecule, 8bE, was assessed using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Significantly, compound 8bE could also inhibit the S. aureus biofilm at low concentrations. Furthermore, the capability of the synthesized molecule to inhibit S. aureus biofilm formation on medical devices like urinary catheters is also demonstrated.

Linearity and intermodulation distortion are very crucial parameters for RFICs design. Therefore, in this work, a detailed comparative analysis on linearity and intermodulation distortion of single metal (SMG) and double metal (DMG) double gate junction less transistor (JLT) is done using TCAD silvaco suite. Furthermore, the effects of temperature fluctuation, gate length variation, and gate material engineering on the linearity performance of both devices are also studied. A few significant figures of merit, including Voltage Intercept Point 2 (VIP2), Voltage Intercept Point 3 (VIP3), Third Order Intercept Power (IIP3), 1 dB Compression Point (P1dB), Third Order Intermodulation Distortion (IMD3), and the transconductance derivative parameters First Order Transconductance (gm1), Second Order Transconductance (gm2), and Third Order Transconductance (gm3) are used to assess the device linearity and intermodulation distortion of SMG and DMG JLT's. The findings show that higher VIP2, VIP3, IIP3, 1-dB compression point and lower gm3, IMD3 values are obtained for the SMG JLT device when compared to its counterpart DMG JLT. SMG JLT, which assures strong linearity and low distortion.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2007.01.006 Byline: N. Kaushal Keywords: Obesity; Food stamps; Immigrants Abstract: I use changes in immigrant eligibility for food stamps under the 1996 federal law and heterogeneous state responses to set up a natural experiment research design to study the effect of food stamps on Body Mass Index (BMI) of adults in immigrant families. I find that in the post-1996 period food stamps use by foreign-born unmarried mothers with a high school or lower education was 10 percentage points higher in states with substitute programs than in states that implemented the federal ban. However, this increase in FSP participation was not associated with any statistically significant difference in BMI. I find that FSP participation was associated a statistically insignificant 0.3% increase in BMI among low-educated unmarried mothers. Author Affiliation: Columbia University, School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, United States Article History: Received 5 March 2006; Revised 16 November 2006; Accepted 23 January 2007

Abstract Dengue virus (DENV) infection has increased worldwide, with over 400 million infections annually, and has become a serious public health concern. Several drug candidates, new and repurposed, have failed to meet the primary efficacy endpoints. We have recently shown that Aqueous Extract of the stem of Cocculus hirsutus (AQCH) was effective in vitro and in vivo against DENV and was safe in humans. We now report that an active ingredient of AQCH, Sinococuline, protects against the antibody-mediated secondary-DENV infection in the AG129 mouse model. DENV infection markers were assessed, viz. serum viremia and vital organs pathologies-viral load, proinflammatory cytokines and intestinal vascular leakage. The treatment with Sinococuline at 2.0 mg/kg/day; BID (twice a day), was the most effective in protecting the severely DENV-infected AG129 mice. Also, this dose effectively reduced serum viremia and tissue-viral load and inhibited the elevated expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-6) in several vital organs. Based on these findings, it could be explored further for pre-clinical and clinical developments for the treatment of dengue.

This study is the first attempt to determine global investment patterns for research and innovation in agriculture systems for the Global South, and specifically for innovation funding targeted at sustainable agricultural intensification. We analyzed and modeled patterns of funding from governments in the Global South, development partners, private companies, and private equity and venture capital funds, using primary and secondary sources of data spanning 2010 to 2019. We ascertain the key providers and recipients of innovation funding and how it is shared out between different topics and value chains. Results showed that about $60 billion of funding (ranging from $50 to $70 billion) goes toward agricultural innovation for the Global South each year, with 60–70% of it coming from these countries' own governments (and the government of China accounting for as much as all others combined). This $60 billion investment represents just 4.5% of Global South agricultural output. Furthermore,

Technological advancement, on the one hand, leads to the enhanced quality of the final product but on the other hand, generates a good quantity of effluent. The wastewater containing dyes which emanates from the textile industry is a cause of worry. Hence, this paper focuses on the treatment of dyeing wastewater using the foam separation process as it offers several advantages over other traditional methods. Methylene blue (MB), owing to its ill effects on the entire ecosystem, has been considered as a model dye in this research work. The objective of this work is to remove MB from wastewater and at the same time, its recovery in the foam phase. The ability of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) to perform separation of MB was compared. The following operating parameters were identified: contact time, initial pH of a feed solution, surfactant dose, volumetric flow rate of air, volume of liquid in the column, and concentration of dye; which greatly influence the separation parameters (% removal and enrichment ratio). Keeping in mind the importance of recovering MB from dilute solutions, the method to enhance foam drainage was devised by inserting an inverted funnel in the foam phase. In the presence of inverted funnel, the concentration of MB in the foamate doubled in comparison to the conventional column (without an inverted funnel). The comparison between SDS and SDBS divulged SDBS as a better surfactant to get concentrated solution of MB in the foamate, but the quantity of SDBS required was more. The optimization of operating variables was also done by using the Taguchi method and Grey relational analysis. Finally, the concentration of MB was discovered to be the most responsive operating parameter for both separation parameters.

In this work, the entropy generation analysis is extended to the multi-phase fluid flow within a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) framework. The selected study case consists of a generic selective catalytic reduction (SCR) configuration in which the water/AdBlue is injected into a cross-flow of the internal combustion (IC) engine exhaust gas. The adopted numerical modules are first assessed by comparing with experimental data for film thickness in the case of AdBlue injection and then with H2O mass fraction and temperature for water injection case. Subsequently, the impact of heat transfer, fluid flow, phase change, mixing and chemical reaction due to AdBlue injection on the entropy generation is assessed. Hence, the individual contributions of viscous and heat dissipation together with the species mixing, chemical reaction during the thermal decomposition of urea into NH3 and dispersed phase are especially evaluated and analysed. In comparison to the shares of the viscous and mixing processes, the entropy generation is predominated by the heat, chemical and dispersed phase contributions. The influence of the operating parameters such as exhaust gas temperature, flow rate and AdBlue injection on entropy generation is discussed in details. Using a suitable measures, the irreversibility map and some necessary inferences are also provided.

Abstract Background The palmaris longus muscle is considered one of the most anatomically variable muscles in the human body. Localized swelling of the forearm due to hypertrophy of the palmaris longus muscle is rare. Case presentation Here, we report a rare case of a 24-year-old Arab man who presented with a painful mass on his forearm with symptoms of median nerve compression. A full radiological assessment was performed, and he was treated conservatively. Conclusion This case confirmed that a hypertrophied palmaris longus muscle can be the cause of swelling on the forearm and should always be considered in the differential diagnosis. With this report, we aimed to increase awareness regarding the unusual variations of palmaris longus muscle and the importance of using radiological investigations to establish a diagnosis.

Dengue is a serious public health concern worldwide, with ∼3 billion people at risk of contracting dengue virus (DENV) infections, with some suffering severe consequences of disease and leading to death. Currently, there is no broad use vaccine or drug available for the prevention or treatment of dengue, which leaves only anti-mosquito strategies to combat the dengue menace. The present study is an extension of our earlier study aimed at determining the in vitro and in vivo protective effects of a plant-derived phytopharmaceutical drug for the treatment of dengue. In our previous report, we had identified a methanolic extract of aerial parts of Cissampelos pareira to exhibit in vitro and in vivo anti-dengue activity against all the four DENV serotypes. The dried aerial parts of C. pareira supplied by local vendors were often found to be mixed with aerial parts of another plant of the same Menispermaceae family, Cocculus hirsutus, which shares common homology with C. pareira. In the current study, we have found C. hirsutus to have more potent anti-dengue activity as compared with C. pareira. The stem part of C. hirsutus was found to be more potent (∼25 times) than the aerial part (stem and leaf) irrespective of the extraction solvent used, viz., denatured spirit, hydro-alcohol (50:50), and aqueous. Moreover, the anti-dengue activity of stem extract in all the solvents was comparable. Hence, an aqueous extract of the stem of C. hirsutus (AQCH) was selected due to greater regulatory compliance. Five chemical markers, viz., Sinococuline, 20-Hydroxyecdysone, Makisterone-A, Magnoflorine, and Coniferyl alcohol, were identified in fingerprinting analysis. In a test of primary dengue infection in the AG129 mice model, AQCH extract at 25 mg/kg body weight exhibited protection when administered four and three times a day. The AQCH was also protective in the secondary DENV-infected AG129 mice model at 25 mg/kg/dose when administered four and three times a day. Additionally, the AQCH extract reduced serum viremia and small intestinal pathologies, viz., viral load, pro-inflammatory cytokines, and vascular leakage. Based on these findings, we have undertaken the potential preclinical development of C. hirsutus-based phytopharmaceutical, which could be studied further for its clinical development for treating dengue.