Explore the vast range of titles available.

Fluoride contamination in water is a major problem across the globe, with health hazards such as dental and skeletal fluorosis. Most earlier studies are confined to local or regional scales. As the problem has serious socioeconomic implications, there is a need for a global perspective. Thus, here we review worldwide research for nearly a century on fluoride contamination in water. We investigated the distribution of fluoride contamination in water, its sources, mobilization and association. The major findings are: (1) Anomalous fluoride concentration in groundwater is mainly confined to arid and semiarid regions of Asia and North Africa. (2) The geogenic sources of fluoride in water are mainly fluorine-bearing minerals in rocks and sediments, whereas anthropogenic sources of fluoride in water are mainly pesticides and industrial waste. (3) Fluoride mobilization from geogenic sources is mainly controlled by alkalinity and temperature. (4) Fluoride occurrence in water is associated with ions such as sodium, arsenic chloride and bicarbonate. There are few associations of fluoride in water with calcium and magnesium.

BackgroundUltrasound examination has been a crucial part of the evaluation of fetal health during pregnancy. It has become more accurate over the past few decades as a result of advances in radiodiagnostic imaging. While obstetric ultrasonography in the first trimester has been utilized extensively for gestational age assessment and confirmation of fetal viability, the imaging technique has seen little exposure in predicting pregnancy outcomes. This study was thus undertaken to find out any possible association between one of the first trimester parameters, i.e. crown-rump length (CRL) noted at the beginning of a pregnancy, and the birth weight of the neonate.MethodsThis prospective cohort study conducted at a teaching hospital in India spanning over a period of eighteen months included women with a spontaneously conceived intrauterine pregnancy at six to ten weeks period of gestation as calculated from the last menstrual period. Transvaginal sonography was performed for all such women and the CRL was noted. These CRL values were then compared to a standard nomogram and assigned to either of three categories i.e. CRL <5th centile, 5th to 95th centile, or >95th centile. The women were then followed up at the hospital with standard care till the end of their pregnancy, and finally, the birth weights were noted. Data were recorded in an MS Excel spreadsheet program and analysis was performed with regard to CRL in the first trimester and birth weights using SPSS v23 (IBM Corp.).ResultsCrown-rump lengths and birth weights of 104 cases were evaluated. The mean age of the study population was 26.6 years and the mean period of gestation (weeks) was 8.28 ± 1.01. The incidence of low birth weight (LBW) in the study was 22.1%. The distribution of LBW was significantly different between the three CRL categories (χ2 = 15.868, p = <0.001), being considerably higher in the CRL <5th centile category. No embryos with CRL >95th centile had low birth weight.ConclusionsOur study suggested a congruence between the crown-rump length of an embryo noted in the first trimester and its weight at birth, with low birth weight being a fairly common occurrence in the deficient CRL category. This study highlights the role of a carefully performed first-trimester ultrasound examination in possibly predicting an adverse pregnancy outcome such as low birth weight and the probable inherent tendency of growth restriction in fetuses that are destined to develop the same.

Background and Aim: Carcinoma of the breast is the second most common cause of cancer death in women. Expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) in cancer cells plays an important role in tailored therapy. This can be evaluated by immunohistochemistry using a monoclonal PD-L1 antibody in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens. Our aim was to evaluate the expression of PD-L1 and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in invasive carcinoma of breast and their clinicopathological correlation. Materials and Methods: Immunohistochemical staining for PD-L1 and TILs was done in paraffin-embedded tissues of histologically diagnosed 50 cases of breast carcinoma. Statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 22 software. Results: Out of these 50 cases, PD-L1 and TIL expression were seen in 16 (32%) cases and 18 (36%) cases, respectively. PD-L1 positivity was seen in 33.33% cases of grade 1 breast carcinoma, 13.79% of cases of grade 2 breast carcinoma, and in 75% case of grade 3 breast carcinoma. TILs showed positivity in 6.9% cases of grade 1 breast carcinoma, 13.79% of cases of grade 2 breast carcinoma, and in 100% cases of grade 3 breast carcinoma. Proportion of patients having PD-L1 expression was higher in grade 3 carcinoma than in grade 1 or 2. The differences were statistically significant (Chi-square value = 13.417, degree of freedom = 1, P < 0.05). The Chi-square value for TILs was 28.07, degree of freedom was 1, and P value was <0.05, which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Both PD-L1 and TILs showed maximum positivity in grade 3 breast carcinoma.

Background: Leprosy is a disease having tremendous social implications due to ostracization. Despite continuous efforts made so far to eliminate leprosy, stigma/misbeliefs/adverse attitude toward leprosy still prevails among common people. Community perceptions and attitudes towards leprosy patients are critical and unique indicator of how society stereotypes leprosy. Aims: The qualitative study was conducted to explore the perceptions of leprosy patients towards leprosy. Materials and Methods: Two focused group discussions (FGDs) with 19 newly-diagnosed leprosy patients who can speak vernacular were conducted with help of a predetermined FGD-guide between April and June 2019 in the dermatology out-patient department of the tertiary-care center. Both FGD sessions were recorded, transcribed, and translated into English. These verbatims were thematically analyzed and emerging themes were identified with illustrative quotations. Free list and pile sort data obtained were analyzed by Visual Anthropac version 1.0 software for Smith's salience value Cognitive mapping with two-dimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results: Small size of wound, not giving importance, failure to realize, bad luck and scared of being isolated etc., were the most common reported perceptions. Overall, five themes emerged after pile sorting, namely ignorance about the disease, stigma and economic burden, positive perception after diagnosis, treatment-related suggestions, and myths and frequently asked questions. Conclusion: The study concludes that more IEC campaigns are required to abolish the stigma; and ASHA workers/front-line workers can play a pivotal role. The program (NLEP) can also utilize the role of satisfied cured-patient as peer-educator to improve the attitude of society towards this disease.

Background Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have enabled the collection and sharing of a massive amount of omics data, along with its associated metadata—descriptive information that contextualizes the data, including phenotypic traits and experimental design. Enhancing metadata availability is critical to ensure data reusability and reproducibility and to facilitate novel biomedical discoveries through effective data reuse. Yet, incomplete metadata accompanying public omics data may hinder reproducibility and reusability and limit secondary analyses. Results Our study assesses the completeness of metadata in over 253 scientific studies, covering more than 164,000 samples from both human and non-human mammalian studies. We find that over 25% of critical metadata are omitted, with only 74.8% of relevant phenotypes available in publications or public repositories. Notably, public repositories alone contain 62% of the phenotypes, surpassing the textual content of publications by 3.5%. Only 11.5% of studies completely shared all phenotypes, while 37.9% shared less than 40% of the phenotypes. Additionally, studies with non-human samples are more likely to include complete metadata compared to human studies. Similar trends are observed in an extended dataset comprising 61,000 studies and 2.1 million samples from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data repository. Conclusions These findings highlight significant gaps in metadata sharing, underscoring the need for standardized practices to improve metadata availability. Enhanced metadata reporting would foster data reusability, support better-informed decision-making, and promote reproducible research across the biomedical field.

Multiple myeloma(MM), an incurable plasma cell cancer, represents the second most prevalent hematological malignancy. Deregulated activity of the nuclear factor kappaB (NF-κB) family of transcription factors has been implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma. Tumor microenvironment-derived cytokines and cancer-associated genetic mutations signal through the canonical as well as the non-canonical arms to activate the NF-κB system in myeloma cells. In fact, frequent engagement of both the NF-κB pathways constitutes a distinguishing characteristic of myeloma. In turn, NF-κB signaling promotes proliferation, survival and drug-resistance of myeloma cells. In this review article, we catalog NF-κB activating genetic mutations and microenvironmental cues associated with multiple myeloma. We then describe how the individual canonical and non-canonical pathways transduce signals and contribute towards NF-κB -driven gene-expressions in healthy and malignant cells. Furthermore, we discuss signaling crosstalk between concomitantly triggered NF-κB pathways, and its plausible implication for anomalous NF-κB activation and NF-κB driven pro-survival gene-expressions in multiple myeloma. Finally, we propose that mechanistic understanding of NF-κB deregulations may provide for improved therapeutic and prognostic tools in multiple myeloma.

Background: Research on different measures of food security and their interrelation in order to identify vulnerable households are scarce in India. Objectives: The objective was to assess household food security (HHFS), nutrient adequacy, dietary diversity, and nutritional status of under-five children along with their interrelation in the slums of Bankura Municipality, West Bengal. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during 2016-2017 among 240 households using two-stage 30-cluster random sampling. Information regarding socioeconomic characteristics, availability, and utilization of different poverty alleviation schemes was collected. HHFS was assessed by a validated HHFS scale-short form in Bengali and nutrient adequacy with 24-h recall method. The eldest under-five child in the family was measured for anthropometry using standard procedure and for dietary diversity with the Individual Dietary Diversity Score. Results: Overall, 74 (29.1%) households had \"food security,\" whereas 102 (44.3%) and 64 (26.6%) had, respectively, low and very low food security. Among 190 under-five children, 63 (35.3%) had single and 50 (25.5%) had multiple anthropometric failures. Overall, 89 (36.1%) households were deficient for both energy and protein and 111 (47.6%) had deficiency of either of these two. Indicators on the utilization of different poverty alleviation schemes were associated with low/very low food security. A \"Composite Index of Food Scarcity\" comprising of HHFS, nutrient adequacy, and dietary diversity was proposed which was found to have dose-response relationship with grades of anthropometric failure of under-five children. Conclusions: An index comprising of three indicators might help identify the vulnerable households in relation to food security more effectively than a single indicator.

The Cu-Cr-Zr-Ti alloy was subjected to single-hit plane strain compression tests in the temperature range of 923 K to 1073 K (650 °C to 800 °C) and at two different strain rates of 0.1 and 1 s−1. These tests were performed to ascertain the kinetics of microstructural evolution resulting by dynamic recrystallization (DRX) in the alloy under hot deformation conditions. The differences in the extent of DRX under various deformation conditions were established by plotting fractional softening as a function of strain and time. Further, the Avrami exponent was found to decrease with increase in deformation temperature. This was attributed to early onset of recrystallization leading to subsequent work hardening of the recrystallized grains and grain growth at higher temperatures which results in the loss of nucleation sites due to reduced grain boundary area. Microstructural observations made using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) revealed nucleation to occur in the following steps: elongation of grains perpendicular to the compression direction, bulging of elongated grain boundaries due to strain-induced boundary migration (SIBM), and subsequent subgrain formation behind the bulged boundary due to strain-induced low-angle boundaries. Finally, the equation describing the DRX kinetics under plane strain conditions for the alloy was established as X=1-exp-0.455×ε-εc/εp2.84.

Background: Thalassemia is stress inducing, and the parents of the affected child develop a variety of coping strategies in response to that stress. Objective: The objective of this study was to find coping styles adopted by parents of thalassemic children and to identify factors associated with their coping. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2016-2017 involving 96 randomly selected parents of thalassemic children attending the Thalassemia Clinic of Bankura Sammilani Medical College and Hospital. Data were collected via interview using predesigned questionnaire and Brief-COPE inventory. Analyses were done estimating mean and proportion and using Pearson correlation coefficient (r), unpaired t-test, analysis of variance, and multiple linear regressions. Results: Two third of participants were mothers (66.7%) accompanying thalassemic children. Majority of them were aged within 21-30 years (55.2%), Hindu (84.4%), rural inhabitants (96.9%) and belonged to backward class (60.4%). Majority (72.9%) were from joint family of lower socioeconomic strata (94.8%). The age of thalassemic children was 80.47 ± 42.49 (mean±sd) months. Most of them were male (53.1%). Majority of thalassemic children was born in first birth order (63.0%) and diagnosed before attaining first birthday (71.0%). More than 60% of the participants were using acceptance coping \"a lot.\" The most commonly used coping strategies were active coping, acceptance, planning, and religion. In multivariable analyses, overall coping was found to increase by 0.331 on every unit decrease of age at diagnosis of thalassemia of children and to decrease by 0.116 unit on every unit increase of age of respondents. Conclusion: Acceptance coping was used effectively rather than behavioral disengagement, which suggests that a positive attitude toward stress is present but needs to be better handled. Counseling and psychotherapy for parents of thalassemic children can be provided through an intervention program.