| 1. |
- Glasbey, JC, et al.
(författare)
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- 2021
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swepub:Mat__t
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Shukla, S., et al.
(författare)
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Appraisal of groundwater chemistry, its suitability for crop productivity in Sonipat district and human health risk evaluation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Human and Ecological Risk Assessment. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1080-7039 .- 1549-7860. ; 29:2, s. 507-528
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study was taken with a primary objective to estimate the groundwater quality and its suitability toward sustainable crop productivity in an agriculturally dominant semi-urban area. Elevated levels of nitrate have severe health impacts and affect the human health. Hence, health risks associated with the consumption of nitrate contaminated water were estimated for adults and children in Sonipat district, Haryana. In general, the groundwater was found to be slightly alkaline and moderately hard. The anionic abundance was verified as F– < NO3– < HCO3– < SO42– < Cl–, whereas, the cationic abundance was verified as Ca2+ < Mg2+ < K+ < Na+. Concentration of nitrate varied from 1.34 mg/L to 565 mg/L, with an average value of 47.6 mg/L, and 46% of the groundwater samples had nitrate concentration of more than 45 mg/L. As per the results of Wilcox plot, only 34% of samples were suitable for crop productivity, whereas 23% of the samples fell in category-II of the permeability index. The non-carcinogenic health risk assessment further suggested that hazard quotient values for nitrate reached as high as 18.35 (children), and 13.57 (adult male), suggesting that health risk degree of children has greater health risk than adults in the study region. Overall results suggest an urgent need for intervention to adopt suitable health risk measures to reduce exposure toward nitrate contaminated drinking water. Moreover, agricultural practices must be improved to increase the crop productivity in the affected areas.
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| 4. |
- Viswan, S. P., et al.
(författare)
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Sexual autonomy and contraceptive use among women in Nigeria: findings from the Demographic and Health Survey data
- 2017
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Ingår i: International Journal of Womens Health. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1179-1411. ; 9, s. 581-590
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: The persistent low contraceptive use and high fertility in Nigeria despite improvements in educational achievements calls for an examination of the role of factors, which may moderate the use of modern contraception. This article explores the influence of sexual autonomy on the use of modern contraceptive methods among women and its relative importance compared with other, more traditional, indicators of women's autonomy such as education and occupation. Data and methods: Data from two Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), 2008 and 2013, were used in this study. An index of sexual autonomy was constructed by combining related DHS variables, and its association with current use of modern contraception was examined at each time point as well as over time using multivariate regression analysis. Results: The observed prevalence for use of modern contraception was 2.8 and 2.6 times higher among women who had high sexual autonomy in 2008 and 2013, respectively. The corresponding figures for women with secondary or higher education were 8.2 and 11.8 times higher, respectively, compared with women with no education. But after controlling for wealth index, religion, place of residence, autonomy and experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), the likelihood of use of modern contraception was lowered to about 2.5 (from 8.2) and 2.8 (from 11.8) times during 2008 and 2013, respectively, among women with secondary or higher education. The likelihood of use of modern contraception lowered only to 1.6 (from 2.8) and 1.8 (from 2.6) times among women with high sexual autonomy after controlling for other covariates, respectively, during the same period. Conclusion: Sexual autonomy seems to play an important role in women's use of modern contraceptive methods independent of education and a number of other factors related to women's status. Sexual autonomy needs to be simultaneously promoted alongside increasing educational opportunities to enhance women's ability to use modern contraception.
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| 5. |
- Daivadanam, Meena, et al.
(författare)
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Design and methodology of a community-based cluster-randomized controlled trial for dietary behaviour change in rural Kerala.
- 2013
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Ingår i: Global Health Action. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1654-9716 .- 1654-9880. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Interventions targeting lifestyle-related risk factors and non-communicable diseases have contributed to the mainstream knowledge necessary for action. However, there are gaps in how this knowledge can be translated for practical day-to-day use in complex multicultural settings like that in India. Here, we describe the design of the Behavioural Intervention for Diet study, which was developed as a community-based intervention to change dietary behaviour among middle-income households in rural Kerala.METHODS: This was a cluster-randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a sequential stage-matched intervention to bring about dietary behaviour change by targeting the procurement and consumption of five dietary components: fruits, vegetables, salt, sugar, and oil. Following a step-wise process of pairing and exclusion of outliers, six out of 22 administrative units in the northern part of Trivandrum district, Kerala state were randomly selected and allocated to intervention or control arms. Trained community volunteers carried out the data collection and intervention delivery. An innovative tool was developed to assess household readiness-to-change, and a household measurement kit and easy formulas were introduced to facilitate the practical side of behaviour change. The 1-year intervention included a household component with sequential stage-matched intervention strategies at 0, 6, and 12 months along with counselling sessions, telephonic reminders, and home visits and a community component with general awareness sessions in the intervention arm. Households in the control arm received information on recommended levels of intake of the five dietary components and general dietary information leaflets.DISCUSSION: Formative research provided the knowledge to contextualise the design of the study in accordance with socio-cultural aspects, felt needs of the community, and the ground realities associated with existing dietary procurement, preparation, and consumption patterns. The study also addressed two key issues, namely the central role of the household as the decision unit and the long-term sustainability through the use of existing local and administrative networks and community volunteers.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Arkin, Esther M., et al.
(författare)
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Fair subgraph selection for contagion containment
- 2023
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Ingår i: XII LATIN-AMERICAN ALGORITHMS, GRAPHS AND OPTIMIZATION SYMPOSIUM, LAGOS 2023. - : ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV. ; , s. 370-372
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a new class of problems where the goal is to select a fair subgraph H of a given graph G = (V,E), such that H decomposes into many small components. A subgraph H subset of G is (P,d) fair if every vertex v is an element of P has the same degree d in H, where P subset of V and d > 0 are input parameters. These problems arise when the goal is to allow individuals to equally participate in activities in such a way that the connected components within an interaction graph, which models potential interactions among people, are of the smallest possible size, so that the spread of the contagion, and the difficulty of contact tracing in case of infection, is minimized. Within a preference graph that models the set of preferred choices for each individual when selecting among available options of where to conduct any particular type of activity (e.g., which gym to attend), we seek to compute the fair subgraph of assignments of individuals to these options, so that the number of people in each connected component (interaction community) of the resulting subgraph is minimized, and everyone is given the same number of options for every activity. We show that the fair subgraph selection problem is NP-hard, even for very restricted versions. We then formulate the problem as an integer program, and give a polynomial time computable lower bound on the optimal solution. (C) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Bos, Johannes M., et al.
(författare)
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Early childhood human capital formation at scale
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Public Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0047-2727 .- 1879-2316. ; 231
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Can governments leverage existing service -delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) interventions? We experimentally study a large-scale, low-cost home -visiting intervention - providing materials and counseling - integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substitute away from nutritional to ECD counseling. Intent -to -treat estimates show positive impacts on child's cognition (0.17 SD), language (0.23 SD), and socio-emotional scores (0.12-0.14 SD). Wasting and underweight rates decline. Older siblings' primary school attendance increases as well. Improved maternal agency, complementary parental investments, and higher take-up of the pre-existing nutrition program are important mechanisms. We estimate a sizeable internal rate -of -return of 18.9%.
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| 10. |
- Daivadanam, Meena, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Changing household dietary behaviours through community-based networks : A pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial in rural Kerala, India
- 2018
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 13:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Trial design: With the rise in prevalence of non-communicable diseases in India and Kerala in particular, efforts to develop lifestyle interventions have increased. However, contextualised interventions are limited. We developed and implemented contextualised behavioural intervention strategies focusing on household dietary behaviours in selected rural areas in Kerala and conducted a community-based pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial to assess its effectiveness to increase the intake of fruits and vegetables at individual level, and the procurement of fruits and vegetables at the household level and reduce the consumption of salt, sugar and oil at the household level.Methods: Six out of 22 administrative units in the northern part of Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala state were selected as geographic boundaries and randomized to either intervention or control arms. Stratified sampling was carried out and 30 clusters comprising 6-11 households were selected in each arm. A cluster was defined as a neighbourhood group functioning in rural areas under a state-sponsored community-based network (Kudumbasree). We screened 1237 households and recruited 479 (intervention: 240; control: 239) households and individuals (male or female aged 25-45 years) across the 60 clusters. 471 households and individuals completed the intervention and end-line survey and one was excluded due to pregnancy. Interventions were delivered for a period of one-year at household level at 0, 6, and 12 months, including counselling sessions, telephonic reminders, home visits and general awareness sessions through the respective neighbourhood groups in the intervention arm. Households in the control arm received general dietary information leaflets. Data from 478 households (239 in each arm) were included in the intention-to-treat analysis, with the household as the unit of analysis.Results: There was significant, modest increase in fruit intake from baseline in the intervention arm (12.5%); but no significant impact of the intervention on vegetable intake over the control arm. There was a significant increase in vegetable procurement in the intervention arm compared to the control arm with the actual effect size showing an overall increase by 19%; 34% of all households in the intervention arm had increased their procurement by at least 20%, compared to 17% in the control arm. Monthly household consumption of salt, sugar and oil was greatly reduced in the intervention arm compared to the control arm with the actual effect sizes showing an overall reduction by 45%, 40% and 48% respectively.Conclusions: The intervention enabled significant reduction in salt, sugar and oil consumption and improvement in fruit and vegetable procurement at the household level in the intervention arm. However, there was a disconnect between the demonstrated increase in FV procurement and the lack of increase in FV intake. We need to explore fruit and vegetable intake behaviour further to identify strategies or components that would have made a difference. We can take forward the lessons learned from this study to improve our understanding of human dietary behaviour and how that can be changed to improve health within this context.
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| 11. |
- Daivadanam, Meena, et al.
(författare)
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Development of a Tool to Stage Households' Readiness to Change Dietary Behaviours in Kerala, India
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dietary interventions and existing health behaviour theories are centred on individuals; therefore, none of the available tools are applicable to households for changing dietary behaviour. The objective of this pilot study was to develop a practical tool that could be administered by community volunteers to stage households in rural Kerala based on readiness to change dietary behaviour. Such a staging tool, comprising a questionnaire and its algorithm, focusing five dietary components (fruits, vegetables, salt, sugar and oil) and households (rather than individuals), was finalised through three consecutive pilot validation sessions, conducted over a four-month period. Each revised version was tested with a total of 80 households (n = 30, 35 and 15 respectively in the three sessions). The tool and its comparator, Motivational Interviewing (MI), assessed the stage-of-change for a household pertaining to their: 1) fruit and vegetable consumption behaviour; 2) salt, sugar and oil consumption behaviour; 3) overall readiness to change. The level of agreement between the two was tested using Kappa statistics to assess concurrent validity. A value of 0.7 or above was considered as good agreement. The final version was found to have good face and content validity, and also a high level of agreement with MI (87%; weighted kappa statistic: 0.85). Internal consistency testing was performed using Cronbach's Alpha, with a value between 0.80 and 0.90 considered to be good. The instrument had good correlation between the items in each section (Cronbach's Alpha: 0.84 (fruit and vegetables), 0.85 (salt, sugar and oil) and 0.83 (Overall)). Pre-contemplation was the most difficult stage to identify; for which efficacy and perceived cooperation at the household level were important. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first staging tool for households. This tool represents a new concept in community-based dietary interventions. The tool can be easily administered by lay community workers and can therefore be used in large population-based studies. A more robust validation process with a larger sample is needed before it can be widely used.
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Meenakshi, S, et al.
(författare)
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High-pressure studies on YNi2B2C at room temperature
- 1998
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Ingår i: PHYSICAL REVIEW B-CONDENSED MATTER. - : AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOC. - 0163-1829. ; 58:6, s. 3377-3380
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The electronic and lattice structure, and equation of state behavior of YNi2B2C has been investigated by electrical resistivity, thermoelectric power, and angle-dispersive x-ray-diffraction measurements. The electrical resistance under pressure has also b
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| 14. |
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| 15. |
- Ravindran, A., et al.
(författare)
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A differential CMOS current-mode variable gain amplifier with digital dB-linear gain control
- 2004
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Ingår i: Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing. - 0925-1030 .- 1573-1979. ; 38:03-feb, s. 161-174
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A novel CMOS variable gain amplifier operating on current signals with a dB-linear gain control is presented. The gain control is achieved by multiplying a digitally synthesized exponentially varying control current signal by a differential input signal in the current domain. A current amplifier at the output sets the gain to the desired level. Current-mode operation allows for a reduced supply voltage by minimizing the voltage swing at the low impedance nodes of the circuit. Multiple circuit realizations for various blocks are presented allowing for designs meeting different constraints. Experimental realization of the variable gain amplifier shows the validity of the presented approach.
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| 16. |
- Ravindran, Avinash, et al.
(författare)
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An Optimized Protocol for the Isolation and Functional Analysis of Human Lung Mast Cells
- 2018
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Immunology. - : FRONTIERS MEDIA SA. - 1664-3224. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Mast cells are tissue-resident inflammatory cells defined by their high granularity and surface expression of the high-affinity IgE receptor, Fc + RI, and CD117/KIT, the receptor for stem cell factor (SCF). There is a considerable heterogeneity among mast cells, both phenotypically and functionally. Human mast cells are generally divided into two main subtypes based on their protease content; the mucosa-associated MCT (tryptase positive and chymase negative mast cell) and the connective tissue associated-residing MCTC (tryptase and chymase positive mast cell). Human lung mast cells exhibit heterogeneity in terms of cellular size, expression of cell surface receptors, and secreted mediators. However, knowledge about human lung mast cell heterogeneity is restricted to studies using immunohistochemistry or purified mast cells. Whereas the former is limited by the number of cellular markers that can be analyzed simultaneously, the latter suffers from issues related to cell yield.Aim: To develop a protocol that enables isolation of human lung mast cells at high yields for analysis of functional properties and detailed analysis using single-cell based analyses of protein (flow cytometry) or RNA (RNA-sequencing) expression.Methods: Mast cells were isolated from human lung tissue by a sequential combination of washing, enzymatic digestion, mechanical disruption, and density centrifugation using Percoll (WEMP). As a comparison, we also isolated mast cells using a conventional enzyme-based protocol. The isolated cells were analyzed by flow cytometry.Results: We observed a significant increase in the yield of total human lung CD45(+) immune cells and an even more pronounced increase in the yield of CD117(+) mast cells with the WEMP protocol in comparison to the conventional protocols. In contrast, the frequency of the rare lymphocyte subset innate lymphoid cells group 2 (ILC2) did not differ between the two methods.Conclusion: The described WEMP protocol results in a significant increase in the yield of human lung mast cells compared to a conventional protocol. Additionally, the WEMP protocol enables simultaneous isolation of different immune cell populations such as lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes while retaining their surface marker expression that can be used for advanced single-cell analyses including multi-color flow cytometry and RNA-sequencing.
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| 17. |
- Ravindran, Arathy, et al.
(författare)
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Initial 87Sr/86Sr as a sensitive tracer of Archaean crust-mantle evolution: Constraints from igneous and sedimentary rocks in the western Dharwar Craton, India
- 2020
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Ingår i: Precambrian Research. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 0301-9268 .- 1872-7433. ; 337, s. 1-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Among the rocky planets of the solar system only the Earth has “granitic” continental crust. The timing and processes involved in the formation of Earth’s first extensive crust is still enigmatic. The chemical and isotope compositions of ancient crustal rocks preserve a record of their genesis. The Rb-Sr system proves to be an efficient proxy for the reconstruction of crust-mantle evolution since it can bring together information from seawater as preserved in chemical sedimentary rocks and information from magmatic rocks that can trace the time and extent of crust formation and concomitant mantle depletion during the Archaean eon. The Dharwar Craton in India preserves a suite of metamorphosed igneous and sedimentary rocks that record its early crustal evolution. To overcome the susceptibility for resetting and the difficulty in determining initial 87Sr/86Sr, the minerals barite and apatite are used to obtain precise and accurate 87Sr/86Sr, because these minerals preferentially incorporate Sr and exclude Rb and preserve the initial Sr isotope compositions at the time of their formation. Initial 87Sr/86Sr of apatite were obtained in situ using Laser Ablation Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. The robustness and only minor dispersion of the isotope ratios demonstratethe capability of matrix apatites in preserving initial Sr ratios. The least radiogenic value is used as the best estimate for the initial 87Sr/86Sr. The 87Sr/86Sr ratios of apatite from igneous rocks that formed from 3.5 Ga to 2.6 Ga constrain the Rb/Sr of the source over the whole time-span. A comparison of the Sr isotopes between seawater-derived barite and initial Sr isotope ratios in apatite from igneous rocks reveals that significant mafic to intermediate crust had formed by 3.2 Ga. Studying the entire Archaean time window, a dominantly mafic crust was the main source for the granitoid rocks in the Dharwar Craton from 3.5 to 3.1 Ga, whereas the rocks from 2.9t o 2.7 Ga were extracted dominantly from the depleted mantle.
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| 18. |
- Ravindran, P, et al.
(författare)
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Optical properties of monoclinic SnI2 from relativistic first-principles theory
- 1997
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Ingår i: PHYSICAL REVIEW B-CONDENSED MATTER. - : AMER INST PHYSICS. - 0163-1829. ; 56:11, s. 6851-6861
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Within the local-density approximation, using the relativistic full-potential linear muffin-tin orbital method, the electronic structure is calculated for the anisotropic, layered material SnI2. The direct interband transitions are calculated using the fu
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| 19. |
- Ronnberg, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Analysis of human lung mast cells by single cell RNA sequencing
- 2023
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Immunology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-3224. ; 14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mast cells are tissue-resident cells playing major roles in homeostasis and disease conditions. Lung mast cells are particularly important in airway inflammatory diseases such as asthma. Human mast cells are classically divided into the subsets MCT and MCTC, where MCT express the mast cell protease tryptase and MCTC in addition express chymase, carboxypeptidase A3 (CPA3) and cathepsin G. Apart from the disctintion of the MCT and MCTC subsets, little is known about the heterogeniety of human lung mast cells and a deep analysis of their heterogeniety has previously not been performed. We therefore performed single cell RNA sequencing on sorted human lung mast cells using SmartSeq2. The mast cells showed high expression of classical mast cell markers. The expression of several individual genes varied considerably among the cells, however, no subpopulations were detected by unbiased clustering. Variable genes included the protease-encoding transcripts CMA1 (chymase) and CTSG (cathepsin G). Human lung mast cells are predominantly of the MCT subset and consistent with this, the expression of CMA1 was only detectable in a small proportion of the cells, and correlated moderately to CTSG. However, in contrast to established data for the protein, CPA3 mRNA was high in all cells and the correlation of CPA3 to CMA1 was weak.
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| 20. |
- Ronnberg, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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Immunoprofiling Reveals Novel Mast Cell Receptors and the Continuous Nature of Human Lung Mast Cell Heterogeneity
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Immunology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-3224. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Immunohistochemical analysis of granule-associated proteases has revealed that human lung mast cells constitute a heterogeneous population of cells, with distinct subpopulations identified. However, a systematic and comprehensive analysis of cell-surface markers to study human lung mast cell heterogeneity has yet to be performed.Methods: Human lung mast cells were obtained from lung lobectomies, and the expression of 332 cell-surface markers was analyzed using flow cytometry and the LEGENDScreen (TM) kit. Markers that exhibited high variance were selected for additional analyses to reveal whether they were correlated and whether discrete mast cell subpopulations were discernable.Results: We identified the expression of 102 surface markers on human lung mast cells, 23 previously not described on mast cells, of which several showed high continuous variation in their expression. Six of these markers were correlated: SUSD2, CD49a, CD326, CD34, CD66 and HLA-DR. The expression of these markers was also correlated with the size and granularity of mast cells. However, no marker produced an expression profile consistent with a bi- or multimodal distribution.Conclusions: LEGENDScreen analysis identified more than 100 cell-surface markers on mast cells, including 23 that, to the best of our knowledge, have not been previously described on human mast cells. The comprehensive expression profiling of the 332 surface markers did not identify distinct mast cell subpopulations. Instead, we demonstrate the continuous nature of human lung mast cell heterogeneity.
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| 21. |
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