Child's gender and household food insecurity are associated with stunting among young Pakistani children residing in urban squatter settlements

BACKGROUND: The nutritional status of children is a good indicator of the overall well-being of a society and reflects food security as well as existing health-care and environmental conditions. In Pakistan, it is estimated that nearly 40% to 50% of children under the age of five are stunted. Due to greater economic opportunities available to the urban population as compared to the rural, it was believed that economic resources existed in poor urban Pakistani households but that the households lacked the skills and knowledge to translate their resources into good care and feeding practices. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed 1) to assess the prevalent care and feeding practices among children aged 6 to 18 months residing in the squatter settlements of Karachi and 2) to identify care and feeding practices, as well as any other underlying factors, associated with stunting. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in eight settlements between October and December 2000. A total of 433 mothers of eligible children were interviewed with the use of structured questionnaires. Final analysis using multiple logistic regression was conducted on 399 mother-child pairs. RESULTS: Female children were nearly three times more likely to be stunted than male children. Households that were food insecure with hunger were also three times more likely than other households to have a stunted child. Lack of maternal formal schooling (adjusted prevalence odds ratio, 2.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.4 to 3.8) and large household size (adjusted prevalence odds ratio, 1.7; 95% confidence interval, 1.0 to 3.8) were also associated with stunting. Even though certain care and feeding practices were significant at the univariate level, they were not significant in the final multivariate analysis and so were excluded from the final model. CONCLUSIONS: In households where food insecurity exists, knowledge of care practices may not be sufficient, and interventions such as food subsidies must precede or accompany educational efforts. Further follow-up is required to explore the effect of gender differences on child care.     

Correction to a novel framework for rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 on computed tomography scans

Pattern Analysis and Applications - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-021-00969-x     

A novel solution of deep learning for sleep apnea detection: enhancement of SC and elimination of GVICS

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Convolutional neural network (CNN) classification has not achieved a medically-satisfied level of accuracy in sleep apnea detection due to the negative effect of...     

Antimicrobial silicone rubbers based on photocatalytically active additives

The modification of plastics to generate germ-reducing surface materials is a promising strategy to decrease nosocomial infections in hygiene-sensitive areas. In this paper, photocatalytically active nanoparticles were incorporated as additives, not as a coating, into silicone rubber matrix material to produce elastic antibacterial bulk materials. Samples with 5 wt% and 10 wt% of two different types of TiO₂ and ZnO were prepared and investigated. The thermal analysis of the developed materials showed a complete vulcanization of the developed materials and slight modifications of mechanical properties were found. Investigations of the surface of the materials indicated no changes in the wettability of the surfaces or in their fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) spectra, suggesting no degradation of the developed material. The photocatalytic activity on the surface of the test samples was investigated by microbial tests with Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Depending on the additive type and the test germs, the samples showed different intensities of a germ-reducing effect (up to >99,999%).     

Emerging Immunotherapies against Novel Molecular Targets in Breast Cancer

Immunotherapy is a highly emerging form of breast cancer therapy that enables clinicians to target cancers with specific receptor expression profiles. Two popular immunotherapeutic approaches involve chimeric antigen receptor-T cells (CAR-T) and bispecific antibodies (BsAb). Briefly mentioned in this review as well is the mRNA vaccine technology recently popularized by the COVID-19 vaccine. These forms of immunotherapy can highly select for the tumor target of interest to generate specific tumor lysis. Along with improvements in CAR-T, bispecific antibody engineering, and therapeutic administration, much research has been done on novel molecular targets that can especially be useful for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) immunotherapy. Combining emerging immunotherapeutics with tumor marker discovery sets the stage for highly targeted immunotherapy to be the future of cancer treatments. This review highlights the principles of CAR-T and BsAb therapy, improvements in CAR and BsAb engineering, and recently identified human breast cancer markers in the context of in vitro or in vivo CAR-T or BsAb treatment.     

Titration of Apparent In-Cellula Affinities of Protein-Protein Interactions**

A genetic assay permits simultaneous quantification of two interacting proteins and their bound fraction at the single-cell level using flow cytometry. Apparent in-cellula affinities of protein-protein interactions can be extracted from the acquired data through a titration-like analysis. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated on a diverse set of interactions with proteins from different families and organisms and with in-vitro dissociation constants ranging from picomolar to micromolar.     

Energetic performances of a refrigerating loop using ice slurry

The consideration of environmental constraints in production, transport and distribution of cold energy resulted in reconsidering the practices of installations dimensioning in particular. Their containment led to the development of secondary refrigerants such as ice slurries to store, transport and distribute the cold energy. These heat transfer fluids should have good thermophysical properties, giving high transport capability, high heat transfer ability as well as low pressure drops. The use of ice slurries can lead to lower flow rates and smaller pumping power compared to single phase fluid. The purpose of the presented work is to study the distribution network of indirect cold systems thanks to a model allowing the evaluation of the influence of various parameters on the operating behaviour of the installation. The available domain for the use of secondary heat transfer fluid (whether in their single phase or two phase form) is determined considering the best design from an energetic point of view. Because of the essential role of the fluid distribution between the production site and consumers, we focus our study on pressure drops and pumping power due to the fluid flow in cooling loops. For each investigated case, the minimum consumption power is obtained with the two phases (solid–liquid) heat transfer fluid (ice slurry).     

Prandtl number effect on cooling performance of a heated cylinder in an enclosure filled with nanofluid

Natural convection heat transfer from a heated cylinder contained in a square enclosure filled with water–Cu nanofluid is investigated numerically. The main objective of this study is to explore the influence of pertinent parameters such as Prandtl number (Pr) and diameter (D) of the heated body on the flow and heat transfer performance of nanofluids while Rayleigh number (Ra) and the solid particle volume fraction (?) of nanoparticle are considered fixed. The results obtained from finite element method clearly indicate that heat transfer augmentation is possible using highly viscous nanofluid resulting in the compactness of many industrial devices.