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Three species viz., Cayratia maritima Jackes of family Vitaceae Juss., Leptadenia reticulata (Retz.) Wight & Arn. of Apocynaceae Juss. and Oberonia disticha (Lam.) Schltr. of Orchidaceae Juss. have been reported here for the first time from Sundarban Mangrove Forest of Bangladesh. The genus Leptadenia R.Br. is a new addition to the Angiosperms of Bangladesh. Taxonomic description, photographs and illustrations of these species have been provided.

The idea of using a lens to cover the cornea as such a refractive device was presented in the early 1800s. Glass scleral lenses were created and utilized for the repair of optical flaws and abnormalities by 1888. While contact lenses have been used to correct refractive defect, patients want comfort, clarity, and the ability to wear them for longer periods of time. Practitioners want their patients to be happy, but they also want their eyes to be free and happy of issues that might compromise their vision or health. Advances in contact lens materials' oxygen permeability, contact lens design and surface, and lens care solutions have decreased, but not eliminated, the concerns of infections, inflammation, as well as conjunctival papillary response, microbial keratitis linked with contact lens usage. Health education as well as practitioner engagement in the treatment of contact lens usage continue to be key elements for patients’ safety and quality of care in prolonged contact lens wear, according to previous and current history. This review focuses on various types of contact lens, their complications when wore for long and improvements to make them prolong wear safe.

A wide range of research has promised new tools for forecasting infectious disease dynamics, but little of that research is currently being applied in practice, because tools do not address key public health needs, do not produce probabilistic forecasts, have not been evaluated on external data, or do not provide sufficient forecast skill to be useful. We developed an open collaborative forecasting challenge to assess probabilistic forecasts for seasonal epidemics of dengue, a major global public health problem. Sixteen teams used a variety of methods and data to generate forecasts for 3 epidemiological targets (peak incidence, the week of the peak, and total incidence) over 8 dengue seasons in Iquitos, Peru and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Forecast skill was highly variable across teams and targets. While numerous forecasts showed high skill for midseason situational awareness, early season skill was low, and skill was generally lowest for high incidence seasons, those for which forecasts would be most valuable. A comparison of modeling approaches revealed that average forecast skill was lower for models including biologically meaningful data and mechanisms and that both multimodel and multiteam ensemble forecasts consistently outperformed individual model forecasts. Leveraging these insights, data, and the forecasting framework will be critical to improve forecast skill and the application of forecasts in real time for epidemic preparedness and response. Moreover, key components of this project—integration with public health needs, a common forecasting framework, shared and standardized data, and open participation—can help advance infectious disease forecasting beyond dengue.

Purpose of Review Diarrheal diseases remain a serious global public health threat, especially for those populations lacking access to safe water and sanitation infrastructure. Although association of several diarrheal diseases, e.g., cholera, shigellosis, etc., with climatic processes has been documented, the global human population remains at heightened risk of outbreak of diseases after natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, or droughts. In this review, cholera was selected as a signature diarrheal disease and the role of natural disasters in triggering and transmitting cholera was analyzed. Recent Findings Key observations include identification of an inherent feedback loop that includes societal structure, prevailing climatic processes, and spatio-temporal seasonal variability of natural disasters. Data obtained from satellite-based remote sensing are concluded to have application, although limited, in predicting risks of a cholera outbreak(s). Summary We argue that with the advent of new high spectral and spatial resolution data, earth observation systems should be seamlessly integrated in a decision support mechanism to be mobilize resources when a region suffers a natural disaster. A framework is proposed that can be used to assess the impact of natural disasters with response to outbreak of cholera, providing assessment of short- and long-term influence of climatic processes on disease outbreaks.

The most energy-intensive manufacturing industry in the US is the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) industry. This industry is responsible for 5-8% of global CO2 emissions caused by humans. The calcination of limestone to produce high lime calcium silicate and high manufacturing temperature (1450°C) are responsible for this significant amount of CO2 emissions. This CO2 footprint of the cement-based composites can be decreased by utilizing cementitious materials with low-lime calcium silicate. Low-lime calcium silicates are typically semi-hydraulic or non-hydraulic. As a result, it is necessary to activate those materials in order to increase their reactivity. Alkali activators, carbonation curing (CO2 curing), and other techniques have been shown in recent investigations to substantially increase the reactivity of those materials.Calcium silicate combines with CO2 in the presence of water to produce CaCO3 and calcium-modified silica gel during the carbonation curing procedure. As a result of this technique, low-lime calcium silicate can now be used as an OPC replacement.This study looked into the specifics of effective carbonation curing and reaction kinetics for hydraulic, semi-hydraulic, and non-hydraulic calcium silicate. The influences of minerals and biopolymers on the carbonation curing phase were also investigated in this study.In order to construct the new binder composition successfully, an in-depth investigation into the performance of the OPC-slag blended system due to carbonation curing was conducted. This detailed investigation revealed that slag might replace 65% of OPC without degrading compressive strength. Slag accelerates the carbonation process. Slag carbonation also improves the concrete's durability by reducing permeability. Silica gel polymerization was enhanced by increasing the amount of slag and the carbonation duration. This research also shows that pre-hydration curing prior to carbonation improves mechanical and microstructural properties.The impacts of biopolymers on carbonation-activated binders were investigated in this study. When biopolymers like dopamine hydrochloride come into contact with hydraulic/semi-hydraulic calcium silicate, they polymerize and produce polydopamine. Polydopamine has a greater affinity for Ca2+ and prevents amorphous CaCO3 from clustering together. As a result, when dopamine is incorporated into a carbonate matrix, more amorphous CaCO3 is produced than calcite. The effects of cellulose nanofibers were also studied. Cellulose nanofibers can significantly improve the early age strength gain and flexural strengths of carbonated composites.Finally, the impacts of MgO-based cementitious materials on carbonated semi-hydraulic and non-hydraulic systems were studied in this section. This extensive investigation discovered that MgO-based cement produced more hydro-magnesite when mixed with non-hydraulic calcium silicate during carbonation curing. It's worth noting that hydrated magnesium carbonate has a 600% higher solid volume than magnesium oxide. Because of the substantial volume increase, the microstructure has significantly densified, and the critical pore size distribution has changed. As a result, adding MgO improves mechanical performance substantially. It also helps to increase CO2 sequestration.

The global human population remains at heightened risk of diarrheal diseases after natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods or droughts. The uncertainties in timing and magnitude of natural disasters impact the hydroclimatic baseline, and/or access to safe drinking water and sanitation infrastructure (WASH). Also, data on disease prevalence and infectious pathogens is sparingly available in the region(s) where climatic variability and extreme natural events intersect with population vulnerability. Therefore, traditional time series modeling approach of calibration and validation of a model is inadequate and predictions of diarrheal infections remain a challenge. From this context, it is pivotal to understand the role of hydroclimatic processes in creating seasonality and inter-annual variability in environmental conditions favorable for exposure to pathogenic agents (e.g. bacteria) that lead to outbreaks of environmentally modulated water-related diseases. Here, using cholera as one of the signature diarrheal diseases, a framework is proposed that can be used to assess the impact of natural disasters with response to an outbreak of cholera, providing an assessment of short-term and long-term influence of climatic processes on disease outbreaks is human. Cholera, a deadly waterborne diarrheal disease is transmitted by drinking water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae, an autochthonous bacterium. Prediction of cholera, using earth observations, especially for regions where hydroclimatic and disease surveillance data are not routinely collected, is a critical tool to prioritize prevention and mitigation strategies, such as the distribution of oral rehydration solutions, strengthening WASH infrastructure, and increasing the availability of antibiotics and vaccines. A new algorithm was developed that integrates satellite derived data on several hydroclimatic and ecological processes into a framework that can determine high resolution cholera risk on global scales. Using satellite-derived hydroclimatic data and information on WASH, the algorithm tracks the changing environmental conditions conducive to the growth of pathogenic vibrios. The algorithm was applied following hurricane Matthew in 2016 in Haiti, two consecutive earthquakes in 2015 in Nepal and recent civil unrest in Yemen with realistic accuracy in forecasting the risk of a cholera outbreak in the human population. A software version (KJ Cholera Forecast, V 1.0) of the algorithm with a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) was also developed to generate near real time cholera forecast on a global scale. Also, the abundance, distribution and environmental linkages of vibrio species were explored and modeled to understand the potential risk of emergence in the coast. Prediction systems when incorporated with vaccine protocols and long term strategies for development of civil infrastructure, can provide the capacity needed to eradicate the burden of cholera in a human population, if not the disease itself.

The Indian diaspora is the largest diasporic movement from Asia, with the Indian community numbering over twenty-five million around the world.Its large scale encompasses a kaleidoscopic community from disparate regions, languages, cultural heritages, religions, and traditions within the subcontinent.

Household air pollution (HAP) from solid fuel use (SFU) for cooking is a major public health threat for women and children in low and middle-income countries. This study investigated the associations between HAP and neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality in Myanmar. The study consisted of 3249 sample of under-five children in the households from the first Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2016. Fuel types and levels of exposure to SFU (no, moderate and high) were proxies for HAP. We estimated covariate-adjusted relative risks (aRR) of neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality with 95% confidence intervals, accounting for the survey design. The prevalence of SFU was 79.0%. The neonatal, infant, and under-five child mortality rates were 26, 45, and 49 per 1000 live births, respectively. The risks of infant (aRR 2.02; 95% CI 1.01–4.05; p-value = 0.048) and under-five mortality (aRR 2.16; 95% CI 1.07–4.36; p-value = 0.031), but not neonatal mortality, were higher among children from households with SFU compared to children from households using clean fuel. Likewise, children highly exposed to HAP had higher risks of mortality than unexposed children. HAP increases the risks of infant and under-five child mortality in Myanmar, which could be reduced by increasing access to clean cookstoves and fuels.

Inspired by certain recent generalizations of the Bessel-Maitland function in this paper, we introduce a new extension of the Bessel-Maitland function associated with the beta function. Some of its characteristic properties including integral representation, recurrence relation and differentiation formula are investigated. Furthermore, we evaluated some integral transforms such as the Mellin transform, K- transform, Euler transform, Laplace transform and Whittaker transform. In addition, we investigated Riemann-Liouville fractional integrals for this Bessel-Maitland function. Keywords: Bessel--Maitland function, beta function, fractional derivative, Mellin transform, Laplace transform, Whittaker transform. AMS Subject Classification: 33B15, 33C10, 26A33, 35A22, 33C45, 33C15, 33C20.

The purpose of this study was to estimate the age‐standardised prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension and to identify their risk factors in Bangladeshi adults. Data from 12 904 adults aged 18–95 years, available from the most recent nationally representative 2017–2018 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey were used. Hypertension was defined as having systolic blood pressure ≥140 mmHg and/or a diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mmHg, and/or taking anti‐hypertensive drugs to control blood pressure. Age‐standardized prevalence of hypertension and management were estimated with direct standardisation. A multilevel mixed‐effects Poisson regression model with a robust variance was used to identify risk factors associated with hypertension and its awareness, treatment, and control. The overall age‐standardized prevalence of hypertension was 26.2% (95% CI, 25.5‐26.9); (men: 23.5%, women: 28.9%). Among those with hypertension (n = 3531), 36.7% were aware that they had the condition, and only 31.1% received anti‐hypertensive medication. The prevalence of controlled hypertension was 12.7% among those with hypertension and 43.6% among those treated for hypertension (n = 1306). Factors independently associated with hypertension were increasing age, higher body mass index, being women, having diabetes, and residing in selected administrative divisions. A declining trend of hypertension control was observed with increasing age and low education. Hypertension is highly prevalent (one in four) in Bangladeshi adults, while awareness, treatment, and control are low. Irrespective of the risks associated with hypertension and its management, programs to increase its awareness, treatment, and control should be given high priority in reducing hypertension prevalence and improving hypertension control in Bangladesh.