Secondhand Tobacco Smoke Exposure in Homes and Vehicles in Youth: Disparities Among Racial, and Sexual and Gender Minorities

BACKGROUND: Secondhand smoke exposure (SHSe) among youth is a serious public health concern, leading to an increased risk of conditions such as asthma and respiratory infections. However, there is little research on SHSe among vulnerable populations, such as racial and sexual minorities. Understanding the factors associated with youth SHSe in homes and vehicles is crucial to developing better protective policies. METHODS: This study utilized 2020 data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, a representative sample of middle- and high-school students in the US. The primary outcomes were youth SHSe at home and while riding in a vehicle. Multinomial regression models were used to assess factors associated with SHSe. RESULTS: The data included 9,912 students enrolled in grades 6 through 12 in the United States who reported never using any form of tobacco. Non-Hispanic Black students living with someone who does not use any form of tobacco products were significantly more likely to experience moderate [OR = 2.1 (1.1-3.9), CONCLUSION: Significant efforts are needed to develop targeted interventions to reduce SHSe in homes and vehicles, particularly in these vulnerable populations

Modelling the impact of social protection on tuberculosis: the S-PROTECT project.

BACKGROUND: Tackling the social determinants of Tuberculosis (TB) through social protection is a key element of the post-2015 End TB Strategy. However, evidence informing policies are still scarce. Mathematical modelling has the potential to contribute to fill this knowledge gap, but existing models are inadequate. The S-PROTECT consortium aimed to develop an innovative mathematical modelling approach to better understand the role of social protection to improve TB care, prevention and control. METHODS: S-PROTECT used a three-steps approach: 1) the development of a conceptual framework; 2) the extraction from this framework of three high-priority mechanistic pathways amenable for modelling; 3) the development of a revised version of a standard TB transmission model able to capture the structure of these pathways. As a test case we used the Bolsa Familia Programme (BFP), the Brazilian conditional cash transfer scheme. RESULTS: Assessing one of these pathways, we estimated that BFP can reduce TB prevalence by 4% by improving households income and thus their nutritional status. When looking at the direct impact via malnutrition (not income mediated) the impact was 33%. This variation was due to limited data availability, uncertainties on data transformation and the pathway approach taken. These results are preliminary and only aim to serve as illustrative example of the methodological challenges encountered in this first modelling attempt, nonetheless they suggest the potential added value of integrating TB standard of care with social protection strategies. CONCLUSIONS: Results are to be confirmed with further analysis. However, by developing a generalizable modelling framework, S-PROTECT proved that the modelling of social protection is complex, but doable and allowed to draw the research road map for the future in this field

A cross sectional study to estimate prevalence of obesity and its risk factors in adolescent school children in Western Maharashtra, India

Background: There is an increase in prevalence of childhood obesity and its chronic health effects especially in developing countries like India in last 2-3 decades. This study is small effort to know prevalence and risk factors causing obesity. Aim of the study was to estimate prevalence of obesity and its risk factors in school students of age group 11 to 16 years.Methods: About 207 adolescent school children from selected school were enrolled in the study. Research tool comprised of questions about demographic characteristics, daily physical activity, frequency of having junk food intake etc. Height and weight were measured on calibrated scales. For statistical analysis MS Excel and SPSS 16 were used.Results: Among participants 58.9% were boys. 66.7% students were in the 13 to 14 years of age group. As per body mass index, 46.9% children were underweight and 8.7% were obese. 77.3% participants were eating junk food more than once in a week.Conclusions: Health education on dietary habits and physical activity is needed for adolescent children to prevent development of obesity and complications related to it

Detection of Topic Trend and Removal of Vulgar Words from User Data Streams

Nowadays, social media is becoming very much popular. More than 170 million people are using it to being connected to the world. Trend detection is nothing but to summarize the event which the world is discussing about. This paper explains about the system of detecting current events from user stream. Here, implemented the hybrid algorithm which will extract the subset of current event. The system will tell us which or about whom the crowd is discussing. Natural language processing is used for preprocessing and filtering. And bisect K-means is used for clustering. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15074

Study of Factors Affecting Productivity of Pumped Concrete for Multistory Buildings

A study is made to find factors affecting the efficiency and productivity of the pumped concrete and utilization of pumping equipment resources in the cast in situ concreting of buildings. The study involved elaborating general information about pumped concrete, factors affecting productivity of concreting in high rise building, equipments and machineries required for pumping and requirements of pumped concrete. Other factors affection the placing rates have also been studied. Other factors affection the placing rates have also been studied. A relation between height of building and speed of concrete placing is derived using the observation, during the project the methodology adopted was to visit site and collect data and further analyze it to draw conclusion. The study is similar to project carried out in Hong Kong, Japan , with some addition about factors that cause loss of productivity of concrete pumping and the information about the pumping equipments . In Hong Kong, project the speed of placing of pumped concrete was found out

A critical review on usage of Ghrita in Pandu

According to Ayurveda, human body is made up from Saptdhatu, Tridosha and Trimal. These are the main functional unit which maintains equilibrium in body. Agni plays most important role in metabolism of body. With the help of Agni, food is converted into absorbable form and also it forms and nourishes Saptdhatu in progressive manner continuously. Any type of disequilibrium in the process, gives rise to diseases like Pandu, Grahani, Kushtha etc. Pandu Roga is disease entity described in Ayurvedic literature which is characterized as pallor complexion of the skin of the diseased person. Pandu is widely described in various Ayurvedic texts as an independent disease and also as associated symptom in many other diseases. The general treatment of Pandu is Snehana, Shodhana, Shamana with herbo-mineral combinations along with dietary modifications. There is specific mention of internal oleation before Shodhana Chikitsa is advised which marks its importance in treatment. Ghritpan is considered best for ignition of Jatharagni as well as Dhatvagni and it also has properties like Jivaniya, Rasayana etc. Ghritapan opposes the etiology of Pandu at level of constitution and diet. In Pandu Chikitsa Adhyay, various medicated Ghrita are described. This present study critically reviews role of Ghritapan in Pandu and different combination of medicated Ghrita described in Pandu Chikitsa Adhyay by Acharya Charaka along with its specific indications

Energy Monitoring System

In new era, effective utilization of electrical energy is a major task for the power engineers. Energy Monitoring Systems such as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, Distributed Controlled System (DCS) etc may serve the purpose of monitoring the electrical energy generated and its availability for use to the consumers. Many power engineers proposed that, if 1 watt of energy saved at the consumer end is equal to 2 watts of energy available at the generation side. Energy monitoring typically involves- data collection and review, plant surveys and system measurements, observation and review of operating practices, data analysis. This research helps to study the run-time analysis of both renewable and non-renewable sources of electrical energy with the help of Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) which controls the load in industry. The overall automation of the industry is monitored by SCADA software after interfacing with the PLC

Longer telomere length in peripheral white blood cells is associated with risk of lung cancer and the rs2736100 (CLPTM1L-TERT) polymorphism in a prospective cohort study among women in China.

A recent genome-wide association study of lung cancer among never-smoking females in Asia demonstrated that the rs2736100 polymorphism in the TERT-CLPTM1L locus on chromosome 5p15.33 was strongly and significantly associated with risk of adenocarcinoma of the lung. The telomerase gene TERT is a reverse transcriptase that is critical for telomere replication and stabilization by controlling telomere length. We previously found that longer telomere length measured in peripheral white blood cell DNA was associated with increased risk of lung cancer in a prospective cohort study of smoking males in Finland. To follow up on this finding, we carried out a nested case-control study of 215 female lung cancer cases and 215 female controls, 94% of whom were never-smokers, in the prospective Shanghai Women's Health Study cohort. There was a dose-response relationship between tertiles of telomere length and risk of lung cancer (odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.0, 1.4 [0.8-2.5], and 2.2 [1.2-4.0], respectively; P trend = 0.003). Further, the association was unchanged by the length of time from blood collection to case diagnosis. In addition, the rs2736100 G allele, which we previously have shown to be associated with risk of lung cancer in this cohort, was significantly associated with longer telomere length in these same study subjects (P trend = 0.030). Our findings suggest that individuals with longer telomere length in peripheral white blood cells may have an increased risk of lung cancer, but require replication in additional prospective cohorts and populations

ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND ANTIBACTERIAL SCREENING OF TUBERS OF AMORPHOPHALLUS KONKANENSIS AND AMORPHOPHALLUS BULBIFER (ARACEAE)

Objective: Antioxidant activity (AOA) and antibacterial screening of tubers of unexplored Amorphophallus konkanensis Hett., Yadav & Patil (AKT) and Amorphophallus bulbifer (Roxb.) Bl. (ABT). Methods: Antioxidant activity was evaluated by using ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 1 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, hydroxyl (OH•) radical, nitric oxide (NO∙) radical scavenging activities. Phenolics were determined by total phenolic content (TPC) assay. Antibacterial screening of different solvent extracts of tubers was tested against Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains by using the agar diffusion method. HPLC analysis was carried out for active phenolic compounds. Results: Tubers were extracted with three different solvents (ethanol, acetone and water). Acetone extracts of AKT and ABT exhibited the highest phenolic content 29.37±0.83 and 20.62±1.04 mg GAE/g. The AKT and ABT acetone extracts possesses highest free radical scavenging activity towards FRAP (0.632 & 0.586 O. D), DPPH (85.78% & 82.68%), hydroxyl (OH∙) radical (82.43% & 80.26%), nitric oxide (NO∙) radical (81.34% & 80.8%). The phenolic compounds tannic acid, gallic acid, quercetin, p-coumaric acid, catechin were identified by the HPLC method in acetone extracts. Among the different extracts, acetone extract of both the species of Amorphophallus showed significant antibacterial activity against all Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains tested. Conclusion: The results indicated that AKT and ABT can be considered as good sources of natural antioxidant for medicinal, commercial, nutraceutical and functional food applications. Antibacterial efficacy shown by these plants provides a scientific basis for their traditional uses in remedies