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Since Covid-19 or Corona Virus was first discovered, it exploded into a Pandemic -resulting in devastating effects on human lives and livelihood worldwide. The high costs of non-cooperation in responding to the virus and ultimately significant loss of lives have been seen. In spite of favourable demographic structures, climatic conditions and youngpopulations, South Asian countries like India are badly affected in both epidemiological andeconomic terms. South Asian Countries are trying their best to address the health concerns. Regional self- governments are also trying to manage the crisis by implementing day- to-day containment measures and ensuring health care and social services. In this situation, many Non-Governmental Initiatives and multilevel co-ordination mechanisms in regional levels have been developed tocombat the Pandemic. From detecting the disease, contact tracing, measurement of oxygenlevel, Doctors' advice, Medicine supply, oxygen cylinder supply, food supply, and evencremate the dead bodies of Covid patients, local cooperation is doing a commendable job. Iwant to focus in my paper on how regional collaborations take an important role toaddress COVID- 19 Pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-twentieth century, the East and Southern African regions have been mired in complex and overlapping security and development challenges, including ethnopolitical conflicts, terrorist insurgencies, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALWs), and overwhelming economic crisis. These challenges have had implications for human security, socio-economic development, territorial authority, sovereignty and the stability and legitimacy of political regimes in the affected states. The adequacy and relevance of the regional responses to these challenges is the subject of ongoing debate, to which this paper now adds. Among other factors, this paper identifies competition for regional dominance and institutional inadequacies as accounting for the inability of regional governance bodies to respond adequately to the challenges they face. Consequently, it recommends the expansion of the mandate of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) beyond regional economic integration to include peacebuilding and a deepening of the institutional efforts focused on security cooperation and conflict management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral responses of freshwater planarians have been studied for over a century. 1 In recent decades, behavior has been used as a readout to study planarian development and regeneration, 2–6 wound healing, 7,8 molecular evolution, 4,9,10 neurotoxicology, 11–13 and learning and memory. 14–17 The planarian nervous system is among the simplest of the bilaterally symmetric animals, 18 with an anterior brain attached to two ventral nerve cords interconnected by multiple commissures. We found that, in response to mechanical and near-UV stimulation, head stimulation produces turning, tail stimulation produces contraction, and trunk stimulation produces midbody elongation in the planarian Dugesia japonica. When cut into two or three pieces, the anterior end of each headless piece switched its behavior to turning instead of elongation; i.e., it responded as though it were the head. In addition, posterior ends of the head and midbody pieces sometimes produced contraction instead of elongation. Thus, each severed piece acts like an intact animal, with each midbody region having nearly complete behavioral capabilities. These observations show that each midbody region reads the global state of the organism and adapts its response to incoming signals from the remaining tissue. Selective lateral incisions showed that the changes in behavior are not due to nonselective pain responses and that the ventral nerve cords and cross-connectives are responsible for coordinating local behaviors. Our findings highlight a fast functional reorganization of the planarian nervous system that complements the slower repairs provided by regeneration. This reorganization provides needed behavioral responses for survival as regeneration proceeds. [Display omitted] • Touch and near-UV stimuli elicit three regionally different planarian responses • When cut into pieces, midbody and posterior fragments respond as intact animals • Turning behavior overrides elongation and contraction Le et al. show that localized stimuli to planarians elicit one of three responses—turning, elongation, and contraction—depending upon the location of the stimulus. Remarkably, the same three regionally different responses also occur in tissue fragments. Hence, the behavior elicited depends upon interactions among different nervous system regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional neurotransmitter changes after acute and chronic electroconvulsive shock (ECS) were studied using the technique of repeated microdialysis. Microdialysis was carried out on alternate sides of the brains of anaesthetised rats before and during the first and the eighth ECS or sham (control) treatments. Extracellular fluid release of monoamines and their metabolites was measured in the frontal cortex, striatum and nucleus accumbens using HPLC with electrochemical detection. The first ECS produced selective regional responses, shown by increased concentrations of noradrenaline (NA) and dopamine (DA) in frontal cortex, by unchanged DA content in striatum, and by a small rise in NA and a fall in DA concentrations in nucleus accumbens. Concentrations of metabolites increased after ECS in all regions studied, and for homovanillic acid and dihydroxyphenylacetic acid, the temporal pattern of these changes did not resemble that of DA. Comparison of neurotransmitter responses as per cent of baseline release after the first and eighth ECS treatments showed they were identical. Basal release of monoamines and metabolites before the first ECS or sham treatment was similar in all regions studied. Prior to the eighth treatment, basal release of NA in the frontal cortex and DA in the striatum was elevated in the ECS-treated animals, while basal release of NA in the nucleus accumbens was reduced in both ECS-and sham-treated animals. These data suggest that acute and chronic ECS have different and region-specific effects on neurotransmitter release, although the overall pattern of these responses is not changed by chronic treatment. The catecholamine-releasing actions of ECS, and the changes in basal release of neurotransmitters seen after chronic treatment may contribute to its therapeutic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]