290 research outputs found
Meeting the targets of a healthier future: vision for tobacco endgame
No full textEditorialMonika Aror, Amit Yadav, Manjusha Chatterjee, Abhinav Bassi, Ankur Singh, Radhika Shrivastav, Manu Raj Mathur, K. Srinath Redd
Addressing inequalities in oral health in India: need for skill mix in the dental workforce
No full textDentistry has always been an under‑resourced profession. There are three main issues that dentistry is facing in the modern era. Firstly, how to rectify the widely acknowledged geographical imbalance in the demand and supply of dental personnel, secondly, how to provide access to primary dental care to maximum number of people, and thirdly, how to achieve both of these aims within the financial restraints imposed by the central and state governments. The trends of oral diseases have changed significantly in the last 20 years. The two of the most common oral diseases that affect a majority of the population worldwide, namely dental caries and periodontitis, have been proved to be entirely preventable. Even for life‑threatening oral diseases like oral cancer, the best possible available treatment is prevention. There is a growing consensus that appropriate skill mix can prove very beneficial in providing these preventive dental care services to the public and aid in achieving the goal of universal oral health coverage. Professions complementary to dentistry (PCD) have been found to be effective in reducing inequalities in oral health, improving access and spreading the messages of health promotion across entire spectrum of socio‑economic hierarchy in various studies conducted globally. This commentary provides a review of the effectiveness of skill mix in dentistry and a reflection on how this can be beneficial in achieving universal oral health care in India.Manu Raj Mathur, Ankur Singh, Richard Wat
FINANCING COMMUNITY FACILITIES: A CASE STUDY OF THE PARKS AND RECREATIONAL GENERAL OBLIGATION BOND MEASURE OF SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
No full textThis study of the City of San Jose’s Parks and Recreation General Obligation (GO) Bond Measure seeks to identify the politics-, management-, and planning-related lessons learned by the City as it developed its community facilities using the GO bonds proceeds. The study finds that these lessons include: be conservative in what you promise the residents; be prepared for changes in economic environment by identifying supplementary funding sources should the primary source not yield adequate funds; make sure that the jurisdiction is organizationally capable of handling the increased workload; and prepare detailed project plans prior to the bond issuance.Community Infrastructure and Services; Municipal Bonds; Public Finance
Socioeconomic gradients in different types of tobacco use in India: evidence from Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2009-10
No full textSocioeconomic differences in tobacco use have been reported, but there is a lack of evidence on how they vary according to types of tobacco use. This study explored socioeconomic differences associated with cigarette, bidi, smokeless tobacco (SLT), and dual use (smoking and smokeless tobacco use) in India and tested whether these differences vary by gender and residential area. Secondary analysis of Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) 2009-10 (69,296) was conducted. The primary outcomes were self-reported cigarette, bidi smoking, SLT, and dual use. The main explanatory variables were wealth, education, and occupation. Associations were assessed using multinomial logistic regressions. 69,030 adults participated in the study. Positive association was observed between wealth and prevalence of cigarette smoking while inverse associations were observed for bidi smoking, SLT, and dual use after adjustment for potential confounders. Inverse associations with education were observed for all four types after adjusting for confounders. Significant interactions were observed for gender and area in the association between cigarette, bidi, and smokeless tobacco use with wealth and education. The probability of cigarette smoking was higher for wealthier individuals while the probability of bidi smoking, smokeless tobacco use, and dual use was higher for those with lesser wealth and education.Ankur Singh, Monika Arora, Dallas R. English and Manu R. Mathu
The effect of lime juice on Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enterica inactivation during the preparation of raw fish dish ceviche
No full textCeviche is a Peruvian raw fish dish. It is extremely popular in the South American countries and has recently gained prominence in USA. It can be made with many types of seafood but is most commonly in USA with tilapia. The most characteristic feature of ceviche is the use of lime juice for marinating the raw fish. No ingredient of the dish is cooked in the conventional sense of applying heat. There have been confirmed cases of cholera in Peru, New Jersey and Florida, associated with ceviche. Since lime juice is sole means of controlling risk in ceviche recipes across the world, it is important to study its anti-bacterial effects. Even though the literature is very rich in the use of organic acids as anti-bacterial agents, little data exists for their effect in seafood systems. The objective of the study was to study the anti-bacterial effects of lime juice marination in ceviche as it would be prepared in restaurants or homes. Target pathogens were Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enetrica. Samples were incubated at room temperature (25°C) and refrigeration temperature (4°C) for time intervals up to 150 minutes. In experiments with Salmonella at room temperature, a mean log reduction of 0.8 was observed while at refrigeration temperature a mean log reduction of 2.1 was observed. Reduction in Vibrio parahaemolyticus could only be estimated based on starting levels and detection limits as the plate counts were always below the detection limit for all the times studied (10-150 minutes), both at room and refrigeration temperatures. In experiments at room temperature, log reductions varied from >4.5 to >5.2 while at refrigeration temperature, log reductions varied from >3.5 to >4.3. In experiments testing the inhibitory effect of lime juice, without the fish matrix, more than 5 log reductions in counts was observed on both bacteria. We conclude that preparing ceviche reduces Vibrio parahaemolyticus risk significantly but is less effective for control of Salmonella enetrica.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Prateek Mathu
Past, present and future of respiratory research: A survey of Canadian health care professionals
No full textKilling the straw man: Does BICEP prove inflation at the GUT scale?
No full textabstract: The surprisingly large value of r, the ratio of power in tensor to scalar density perturbations in the CMB reported by the BICEP2 Collaboration, if confirmed, provides strong evidence for Inflation at the GUT scale. While the Inflationary signal remains the best motivated source, a large value of r alone would still allow for the possibility that a comparable gravitational wave background might result from a self ordering scalar field (SOSF) transition that takes place later at somewhat lower energy. We find that even without detailed considerations of the predicted BICEP signature of such a transition, simple existing limits on the isocurvature contribution to CMB anisotropies would definitively rule out a contribution of more than 5% to r = 0.2. We also present a general relation for the allowed fractional SOSF contribution to r as a function of the ultimate measured value of r. These results point strongly not only to an inflationary origin of the BICEP2 signal, if confirmed, but also to the fact that if the GUT scale is of order 10[superscript 16] GeV then either the GUT transition happens before Inflation or the Inflationary transition and the GUT transition must be one and the same.The final version of this article, as published in Physics Letters B, can be viewed online at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269314005486?via%3Dihu
MICROWAVE SPECTRUM, STRUCTURE AND CONFORMATIONAL ANALYSIS OF CHLOROCYCLOPENTANE
No full text R. C. Loyd, S. N. Mathur, and M. D. Harmony, J. Mol. Spectrosc. 72, 359 (1978).Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, University of South CarolinaIn the microwave spectrum, of chlorocyclopentane, the ground state and a series of vibrationally excited states of the axial conformer have been assigned by Loyd We reinvestigated the spectrum and were able to assign the ground state (both Cl isotopes) and two excited states ( isotope only) of the equatorial conformation. Rotational constants ( for ground state ), centrifugal distortion constants, and quadrupole coupling constants were determined, as well as improved constants for the axial conformers. The experimental rotational constants have been used to derive plausible structures for both conformations
Bone Marrow Stem Cell Treatment for Ischemic Heart Disease in Patients with No Option of Revascularization: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
No full textPMCID: PMC3686792This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
The effect of intracoronary infusion of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells on all-cause mortality in acute myocardial infarction: the BAMI trial.
No full textThis is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in European Heart Journal, following peer review. The version of record: Anthony Mathur, Francisco Fernández-Avilés, Jozef Bartunek, Ann Belmans, Filippo Crea, Sheik Dowlut, Manuel Galiñanes, Marie-Claire Good, Juha Hartikainen, Christine Hauskeller, Stefan Janssens, Petr Kala, Jens Kastrup, John Martin, Philippe Menasché, Ricardo Sanz-Ruiz, Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, Andreas Zeiher, BAMI Group, The effect of intracoronary infusion of bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells on all-cause mortality in acute myocardial infarction: the BAMI trial, European Heart Journal, ehaa651, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa651 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa651AIMS : Bone marrow-derived mononuclear cell (BM-MNC) therapy may improve myocardial recovery in patients following acute myocardial infarction (AMI), though existing trial results are inconsistent. METHODS AND RESULTS : Originally an open-label, multicentre Phase III trial, BAMI was designed to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of intracoronary infusion of BM-MNCs in reducing the time to all-cause mortality in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF, ≤45%) after primary angioplasty (PPCI) for ST-elevation AMI. Unexpectedly low recruitment means the trial no longer qualifies as a hypothesis-testing trial, but is instead an observational study with no definitive conclusions possible from statistical analysis. In total, 375 patients were recruited: 185 patients were randomized to the treatment arm (intracoronary infusion of BM-MNCs 2-8 days after PPCI) and 190 patients to the control arm (optimal medical therapy). All-cause mortality at 2 years was 3.26% [6 deaths; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.48-7.12%] in the BM-MNC group and 3.82% (7 deaths; 95% CI: 1.84-7.84%) in the control group. Five patients (2.7%, 95% CI: 1.0-5.9%) in the BM-MNC group and 15 patients (8.1%, CI : 4.7-12.5%) in the control group were hospitalized for heart failure during 2 years of follow-up. Neither adverse events nor serious adverse events differed between the two groups. There were no patients hospitalized for stroke in the control group and 4 (2.2%) patients hospitalized for stroke in the BM-MNC group. CONCLUSIONS : Although BAMI is the largest trial of autologous cell-based therapy in the treatment of AMI, unexpectedly low recruitment and event rates preclude any meaningful group comparisons and interpretation of the observed results
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