Antenatal care is associated with adherence to iron supplementation among pregnant women in selected low-middle-income-countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America & the Caribbean regions: Insights from Demographic and Health Surveys.

Anaemia is a global public health problem affecting 800 million women and children globally. Anaemia is associated with perinatal mortality, child morbidity and mortality, mental development, immune competence, susceptibility to lead poisoning and performance at work. The objective of this article is to identify whether antenatal care-seeking was associated with the uptake of iron supplementation among pregnant women, adjusting for a range of covariates. This article used data from the cross-sectional recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 12 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean regions. The individual-level data from 273,144 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) were analysed from multi-country DHS. Multiple Logistic regression analyses were conducted using Predictive Analytics Software for Windows (PASW), Release 18.0. Receiving at least four antenatal care visits was significantly associated with the consumption of 90 or more iron-containing supplements in 12 low and middle income countries across three regions after adjusting for different household and respondent characteristics, while mass media exposure was found to be a significant predictor in India and Indonesia. Antenatal care seems to be the most important predictor of adherence to iron intake in the selected countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Caribbean regions.

Rapid synthesis of silver nanoparticles using dried medicinal plant of basil.

Plants respond to heavy metal stress by metal complexation process like production of phytochelations or by other metal chelating peptides. In this paper we report the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from the room dried stem and root of Ocimum sanctum. The broth of the plant is used as a reducing agent for the synthesis of Ag nanoparticles at room temperature. The reaction process was simple and was monitored by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis). There was formation of highly stable silver nanoparticles in the solution. The morphology and crystalline phase of the NPs were determined from transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra. Transmission Electron Microscopy studies showed that the silver nanoparticles obtained from roots and stem were of sizes 10+/-2 and 5+/-1.5 nm, respectively. The various phytochemicals present within the ocimum plant result in effective reduction of silver salts to nanoparticles but their chemical framework is also effective at wrapping around the nanoparticles to provide excellent robustness against agglomeration.

Unusual secondary electron emission behavior in carbon nanotube forests.

Electron yield was measured from patterned carbon nanotube forests for a wide range of primary beam energies (400-20,000 eV). It was observed that secondary and backscattered electron emission behaviors in these forests are quite different than in bulk materials. This seems to be primarily because of the increased range of electrons due to the porous nature of the forests and dependent on their structural parameters, namely nanotube length, diameter and inter-nanotube spacing. In addition to providing insight into the electron microscopy of nanotubes, these results have interesting implications on designing novel secondary electron emitters based on the structural degrees of freedom of nanomaterials.