Tobacco Turmoil in Teens and Preparedness of Pediatric Dentists: A Global Survey.

Background: Tobacco use amongst adolescents causes significant health problems affecting almost all organs and has a significant effect on normal growth and development. Smoker adolescents are also more prone to oral health problems than nonsmokers. Pediatric dentists can play a significant role in providing tobacco cessation counseling to adolescents.

Effect of rainfall variability on tree phenology in moist tropical deciduous forests.

Plants in their life cycle go through a series of life processes. These phenological changes are influenced by different climatic conditions. Abiotic factors like temperature, precipitation, and photoperiodism affect the onset and offset of particular phenophase in the plant periodic cycle.

Advances in nanomaterial-based electrochemical biosensors for the detection of microbial toxins, pathogenic bacteria in food matrices.

There is a growing demand to protect food products against the hazard of microbes and their toxins. To satisfy such goals, it is important to develop highly sensitive, reliable, sophisticated, rapid, and cost-effective sensing techniques such as electrochemical sensors/biosensors. Although diverse forms of nanomaterials (NMs)-based electrochemical sensing methods have been introduced in markets, the reliability of commercial products is yet insufficient to meet the practical goal.

Exceptionally Plastic/Elastic Organic Crystals of a Naphthalidenimine-Boron Complex Show Flexible Optical Waveguide Properties.

The design of molecular compounds that exhibit flexibility is an emerging area of research. Although a fair amount of success has been achieved in the design of plastic or elastic crystals, realizing multidimensional plastic and elastic bending remains challenging. We report herein a naphthalidenimine-boron complex that showed size-dependent dual mechanical bending behavior whereas its parent Schiff base was brittle.

All together to Fight COVID-19.

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), named a pandemic by the WHO, is the current global health crisis. National and international collaboration are indispensable for combating COVID-19 and other similar potential outbreaks. International efforts to tackle this complex problem have led to remarkable scientific advances.

Potential of agro-waste sugarcane bagasse ash for the removal of ammoniacal nitrogen from landfill leachate.

Ammoniacal nitrogen is considered as one of the major pollutants of the leachate generated from the landfill site and has the potential to deteriorate the environment as well as health. Considering this, locally available agricultural waste, i.e.

Detection and identification of dust mite allergens in the air conditioning filters in Chandigarh, India.

Modern lifestyle with the increasing use of air conditioner (AC) has been linked with breathing difficulties, irritation, dryness, and other symptoms. Hence, dust mites were isolated from AC filters, which causes allergic diseases. A total of 95 dust samples were collected from AC filters from hospitals, guest house, office, school, and homes in Chandigarh, India.

Rapid monitoring and evaluation of a community-led total sanitation program using smartphones.

India accounts for around 50% of the world's open defecation, and under a World Bank initiative, a rural district was selected to be the first open defecation-free (ODF) district in Punjab. Considering this, the current study aims to evaluate the application and impact of a smartphone-based instant messaging app (IMA) on the process of making Fatehgarh Sahib an ODF district. The District Administration involved the Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Non-government Organizations, and volunteers to promote the process of a community-led total sanitation.

Chemosensors for biogenic amines and biothiols.

There is burgeoning interest among supramolecular chemists to develop novel molecular systems to detect biogenic amines and bio-thiols in aqueous and non-aqueous media due to their potential role in biological processes. Biogenic amines are biologically important targets because of their involvement in the energy metabolism of human biological systems and their requirement is met through food and nutrition. However, the increasing instances of serious health problems due to food toxicity have raised the quality of food nowadays.

Assessment of GHG mitigation and CDM technology in urban transport sector of Chandigarh, India.

The increase in number of vehicles in metropolitan cities has resulted in increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in urban environment. In this study, emission load of GHGs (CO, NO, CO) from Chandigarh road transport sector has been estimated using Vehicular Air Pollution Inventory (VAPI) model, which uses emission factors prevalent in Indian cities. Contribution of 2-wheelers (2-w), 3-wheelers (3-w), cars, buses, and heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs) to CO, NO, CO, and total GHG emissions was calculated.

Household air pollution from various types of rural kitchens and its exposure assessment.

Exposure to household air pollutants has become a leading environmental health risk in developing countries. Considering this, real-time temporal variation in fine particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations were measured in various types of rural household kitchens. Observed average concentrations of PM, CO, percent relative humidity (%RH) and temperature (T) in five different kitchen types were 549.

Risk factors and prevalence of dental fluorosis and dental caries in school children of North India.

The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of dental fluorosis, dental caries, and associated risk factors in the school children of district Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab, India, using a cross-sectional study design. Oral health status of children aged between 8 and 15 years was assessed using World Health Organization (WHO) 2013 criteria. Dental fluorosis was assessed using Dean's index, and dental caries were recorded using decayed, missing, filled/decayed, extracted, filled (DMF/def) indices.

Occupational exposure to the municipal solid waste workers in Chandigarh, India.

Manual handling of municipal solid waste is of serious concern owing to emerging occupational risks. Considering this, health risks of municipal solid waste workers involved in street sweeping, waste collection, waste processing and rag picking were assessed in Chandigarh, India, using an interview schedule as a study tool. Result shows that the waste worker profession is mainly dominated by males, except in rag pickers, and with a lower literacy rate.

Removal of chemical oxygen demand from landfill leachate using cow-dung ash as a low-cost adsorbent.

The application of cow dung ash was assessed for the removal of organic contamination from the wastewater using landfill leachate of known Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentration in batch mode. The effect of various parameters like adsorbents dose, time, pH and temperature was investigated. Results indicate that upto 79% removal of COD could be achieved using activated cow dung ash (ACA) at optimum temperature of 30 °C at pH 6.

Heavy metal content in various types of candies and their daily dietary intake by children.

Children are vulnerable to heavy metal contamination through consumption of candies and chocolates. Considering this representative samples (69) of candies and chocolates based on cocoa, milk and sugar were analyzed for selected heavy metals by means of flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The average concentration of Zn, Pb, Ni, and Cd was found to be 2.

Polymorphisms of MTHFR and MTR genes are not related to susceptibility to childhood ALL in North India.

Background: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most worldwide common type of childhood cancer. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) and 5-methyltetrahydrofolate-homocysteine methyltransferase (MTR) participate in folate pathways and are known as critical factors for DNA integrity as well as DNA hypomethylation. The aim of this work is to investigate frequency of MTHFR (677C→T and 1298A→C) and MTR (2756A→G) polymorphisms and their interaction with respect to possible effect on risk of childhood ALL among North Indian population.