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Smart food packaging systems are essential to food quality management systems through tracking changes in physicochemical quality attributes with special attention placed on changes in pH level, because these are important for signifying spoilage. Alizarin, a natural pigment identified generally from Rubia cordifolia L., exhibits remarkable colour change properties with respect to pH change, making it an ideal colour indicator for use in smart packaging. The overall aim of the review was to capture current developments in alizarin-based bio-based films and nano-fibers with respect to the different fabrication states (i.e. solvent casting or electrospinning) that were employed. Alizarin derived films were reported to have improved mechanical, thermal, barrier, and antimicrobial properties as well as serve as a real-time sensor for meat quality that provided meat freshness. Although natural dye-based indicators have aroused interest in the literature, no systematic review of alizarin’s multi-functional in smart meat packaging systems had been accomplished. The review provided some assessment of the progress in the alizarin bio-based film literature, as well as an examination of the fabrication strategies (i.e. solvent casting or electrospinning), functional benefits (e.g. mechanical, thermal, barrier, and antimicrobial), and end-use (e.g. meat freshness) of alizarin-based materials. The review summarizes current knowledge with the intention of providing pathways for future development in sustainable, active, and intelligent technologies for meat packaging.

Background Dillenia indica fruit is known for its numerous health benefits in folk medicine including its use to cure kidney diseases. The present study was designed to investigate the protective effect of D. indica fruit extracts on cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity. Methods A nephrotoxic dose of cisplatin (3 mg/kg b.w./day, i.p) was administered every fifth day to the animals receiving vehicle or fruit extracts (methanol, ethyl acetate, and petroleum ether) daily for 25 days. Rats were sacrificed on the 25th day, and the effect of extracts was assessed by determining the alterations in various serum and urine parameters, membrane-bound enzyme, and antioxidant defense system in kidney tissue. Results Increase in serum urea, uric acid, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, phospholipid, and cholesterol and a decrease in urine urea, uric acid, creatinine, and creatinine clearance rate were reported in the cisplatin control group. Cisplatin alters electrolyte balance, brush border membrane marker enzyme (i.e., alkaline phosphatase, γ-glutamyl transferase, leucine aminopeptidase) activity, and redox balance significantly. Methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of D. indica fruit produced beneficial effect and ameliorated serum and urine parameter to normal. Extract administration increases Na + /K + -ATPase activity and different enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants positively, whereas lipid peroxidation reduced significantly. Extracts exhibited a potent in vitro antioxidant activity. Conclusion Taking into account these results, it can be assumed that D. indica fruit could be the future key candidate which may maximize the clinical use of cisplatin in the treatment of different cancer without nephrotoxicity.

Enzymes are essential biocatalysts involved in all biochemical and metabolic reactions, widely used across industries, especially in food processing. Historically utilized to enhance food production, these enzymes aid in breaking down food for better digestion while improving taste, texture, and aroma. They are derived from animals, plants, or microorganisms, with microbial sources being the most preferred due to their cost-effectiveness, stability, ease of cultivation, and potential for large-scale production. Advances in biotechnology, molecular biology, and enzyme engineering have significantly deepened our understanding of microbial enzymes and enhanced their applications in the food industry. The integration of recombinant DNA technology and process engineering has further optimized enzyme-producing microbes for industrial use. However, continued research is essential to address challenges and fully harness their potential. This review focuses on microbial enzyme sources, production techniques, strain improvement methods, and their diverse applications in food processing. Graphical Abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis B is the most prevalent virus that causes severe liver infection worldwide. According to the current guidelines, the HBV viral load and other factors can help in treatment decisions. Therefore, the present study explores the relationship between the HBV viral load and blood-based laboratory parameters. Methods: The HBV viral load was evaluated in blood samples from 159 HBsAg-positive patients (ICT-positive). The viral load was categorized as high (above 200,000 IU/mL), moderate (between 2000 and 200,000 IU/mL), or low (below 2000 IU/mL). The viral load was then compared with laboratory parameters. Results: A significant association was observed between the Hepatitis B viral load and the patient’s age (p < 0.01). The males showed a substantially higher viral load, with 29.2% of the male patients exhibiting elevated levels, compared to 11% of the females. A statistically significant correlation was found between the viral load and liver enzymes, specifically AST (p < 0.005) and ALT (p < 0.04), as well as calcium (p < 0.01). Notably, the elevated ALT and AST levels were more pronounced in the patients with moderate and high viral loads, suggesting a potential link to liver dysfunction. A remarkable insight uncovered in our study revolves around the notable increase in the serum calcium levels (p < 0.01). Conclusions: The AST, ALT, and serum calcium levels were the most altered parameters with high HBV viral load. Though limited reports are available on altered serum calcium levels, they could serve as potential laboratory markers for assessing disease progression in HBV infection. Moreover, focusing on potential therapies to normalize the AST, ALT, and serum calcium levels could offer promising avenues for combating HBV infection.

Evaluate the impact of a World Health Organization Safe Childbirth Checklist coaching-based intervention (BetterBirth Program) on availability and procurement of essential childbirth-related supplies. Matched pair, cluster-randomized controlled trial. Uttar Pradesh, India. 120 government-sector health facilities (60 interventions, 60 controls). Supply-availability surveys were conducted quarterly in all sites. Coaches collected supply procurement sources from intervention sites. Coaching targeting implementation of Checklist with data feedback and action planning. Mean supply availability by study arm; change in procurement sources for intervention sites. At baseline, 6 and 12 months, the intervention sites had a mean of 20.9 (95% confidence interval (CI): 20.2-21.5); 22.4 (95% CI: 21.8-22.9) and 22.1 (95% CI:21.4-22.8) items, respectively. Control sites had 20.8 (95% CI: 20.3-21.3); 20.9 (95% CI: 20.3-21.5) and 21.7 (95% CI: 20.8-22.6) items at the same time-points. There was a small but statistically significant higher availability in intervention sites at 6 months (difference-in-difference (DID) = 1.43, P < 0.001), which was not seen by 12 months (DID = 0.37, P = 0.53). Greater difference between intervention and control sites starting in the bottom quartile of supply availability was seen at 6 months (DID = 4.0, P = 0.0002), with no significant difference by 12 months (DID = 1.5, P = 0.154). No change was seen in procurement sources with ~5% procured by patients with some rates as high as 29% (oxytocin). Implementation of the BetterBirth Program, incorporating supply availability, resulted in modest improvements with catch-up by control facilities by 12 months. Supply-chain coaching may be most beneficial in sites starting with lower supply availability. Efforts are needed to reduce reliance on patient-funding for some critical medications. ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT02148952; Universal Trial Number: U1111-1131-5647.

Background: Dental caries is a multifactorial disease, causes of which are mostly understood nowadays. This disease is not only treatable but also preventable, if detected in its initial stage. In a developing country like India, facility of dental treatment is available mostly for urban population, whereas a very common approach of dental disease treatment is still traditional for the rural people. Objective: The objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of dental caries, teeth cleaning methods, and sweet and soft drink-taking frequency among boys and girls of Guwahati City and its nearby semi-urban and rural areas. Materials and Methods: Cross sectional study was carried out among school going boys and girls of 3-17 years group, using the modified WHO oral health survey form. The number of population was 2396 from urban locality, 2370 from semi-urban, and 2467 from rural. Results: Caries prevalence is much higher in urban (62.77%), contrary to rural where 76% of the sample is caries free. Those who take sweet occasionally suffered less or almost caries free (7.93% in urban and 0% in rural) than among those who consume it more than five times a day (90.75% in urban, 100% in semi-urban, and 99.33% in rural). Discussion and Conclusion: Urban localities are two times and semi-urban areas are 1.64 times more at risk of dental caries than rural areas. The odds ratio for cleaning frequency shows that the effect of cleaning by brush on caries is less (78%, not significant) than chewing stick while the risk associated with finger and charcoal use is about 19.63 times and 7.11 times, respectively.

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).

This study reports on vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in dengue patients with neurological manifestations. Their bleeding diathesis, hypotension, edema, flushing, and hepatosplenomegaly were noted. Complete blood counts, serum chemistry, coagulation profile, liver and kidney function tests, creatine kinase (CK), and MRI in encephalopathic patients were carried out. Serum VEGF was estimated by ELISA in 21 dengue patients and 14 controls. Twelve patients had dengue fever (DF), eight dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), and one dengue shock syndrome (DSS). Fifteen patients had neurological manifestation, 12 had muscle involvement (raised CK with or without weakness), and 3 had encephalopathy. The VEGF level in dengue patients was 50.0 ± 56.1 pg/mL and in the controls, 60.6 ± 20.3 pg/mL. The VEGF level neither correlated with the severity nor with the neurological involvement. Thrombocytopenia, however, correlated with the severity of dengue and neurological manifestations. The VEGF level is not related to the severity of dengue and neurological syndrome.

This study explores the potential of Rhythm Formant Analysis (RFA) to capture long-term temporal modulations in dementia speech. Specifically, we introduce RFA-derived rhythm spectrograms as novel features for dementia classification and regression tasks. We propose two methodologies: (1) handcrafted features derived from rhythm spectrograms, and (2) a data-driven fusion approach, integrating proposed RFA-derived rhythm spectrograms with vision transformer (ViT) for acoustic representations along with BERT-based linguistic embeddings. We compare these with existing features. Notably, our handcrafted features outperform eGeMAPs with a relative improvement of \\(14.2\\%\\) in classification accuracy and comparable performance in the regression task. The fusion approach also shows improvement, with RFA spectrograms surpassing Mel spectrograms in classification by around a relative improvement of \\(13.1\\%\\) and a comparable regression score with the baselines.