Meteorological gaps in audits of pedestrian environments: a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Weather and season are determinants of physical activity. Therefore, it is important to ensure built environments are designed to mitigate negative impacts of weather and season on pedestrians to prevent these losses. This scoping review aims to identify built environment audits of pedestrian environments developed for use during a specific weather condition or season. Secondly, this review aims to investigate gaps in the inclusion of relevant weather mitigating built environment features in pedestrian environment audit tools. METHODS: Following a standard protocol, a systematic search was executed in CINAHL, Medline and Web of Science to identify built environment audit tools of pedestrian spaces. These databases were chosen since they are well-known to comprehensively cover health as well as multi-disciplinary research publications relevant to health. Studies were screened, and data were extracted from selected documents by two independent reviewers (e.g., psychometric properties and audit items included). Audit items were screened for the inclusion of weather mitigating built environment features, and the tool's capacity to measure temperature, precipitation, seasonal and sustainability impacts on pedestrians was calculated. RESULTS: The search returned 2823 documents. After screening and full text review, 27 articles were included. No tool was found that was developed specifically for use during a specific weather condition or season. Additionally, gaps in the inclusion of weather mitigating items were found for all review dimensions (thermal comfort, precipitation, seasonal, and sustainability items). Poorly covered items were: (1) thermal comfort related (arctic entry presence, materials, textures, and colours of buildings, roads, sidewalk and furniture, and green design features); (2) precipitation related (drain presence, ditch presence, hazards, and snow removal features); (3) seasonal features (amenities, pedestrian scale lighting, and winter destinations and aesthetics); and (4) sustainability features (electric vehicle charging stations, renewable energy, car share, and bike share facilities). CONCLUSIONS: Current built environment audit tools do not adequately include weather / season mitigating items. This is a limitation as it is important to investigate if the inclusion of these items in pedestrian spaces can promote physical activity during adverse weather conditions. Because climate change is causing increased extreme weather events, a need exists for the development of a new built environment audit tool that includes relevant weather mitigating features.

Prevalence and characterization of Trypanosoma species from livestock of Cholistan desert of Pakistan.

Trypanosomiasis is one of the most pathogenic infection of livestock caused by several Trypanosoma species. The current study aims to determine the current prevalence of trypanosomiasis in livestock of Cholistan desert, Pakistan by molecular characterization. A total 272 animals, 61 camels, 59 cattle, 50 goats, 50 sheep and 52 donkeys that were bled and processed for thin smear microscopy, packed cell volume (PCV), DNA extraction, PCR, formol gel test and for cryo preservation. For diagnosis and molecular characterization, three sets of primers including TBR, RoTat 1.2, TRYP4 were used which detect their targets including repeated satellite DNA region, variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) gene and the ITS ribosomal DNA sequence of microbe. According to results, 6.2% animals were positive by microscopy, 51.1% by formol gel, 54.7% by PCV and 36.7% by PCR. The results of this study support the idea that PCR is a sensitive, robustic and reliable technique to diagnose trypanosomiasis and it should be added in conventional setup along with microscopy to avoid false negative and positive results. The PCR based order of prevalence of trypanosomiasis in Cholistani livestock was sheeps>camels>donkeys>goats>cattle. Similary, on the basis of thin smear microscopy the prevalence of trypanosomiasis was donkeys>camels>sheep>goats>cattle. It was observed that Trypanosoma evansi is the most prevalent specie involved in trypanosomiasis in Cholistani livestock.

Cloning and sequencing of M. tb gene Rv0378 for making subunit based DNA vaccine.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis has infected one third of the world's population and 1.5 million people die each year due to tuberculosis. The research was conducted to make clones of M. tb gene Rv0378 during January-November, 2015. Gene Rv0378 has a gene length 222bp and was amplified using proper sequence specific primers. The size and quality of DNA fragments were determined by agarose gel electrophoresis. PCR product was then ligated in Vector PtZ57R/T (T/A vector) in order to be transformed into competent alpha-DH5 (E. coli) cells. Ampicillin positive clones were selected from the plates, introduced in the autoclaved test tubes with 2 to 3 ml. SOB broth was then placed in a shaker incubator for overnight at 37ºC. Next day turbidity was clearly observed in the test tubes indicating the culture was ready to use for plasmid extraction. DNA was extracted by using Genejet Plasmid extraction miniprep Kit by Thermo scientific. Size of the extracted construct was about >3000bp (other impurities of proteins and salts are washed away in EZ-Spin columns). In next step it will be cloned into pND14 (A mammalian expression vector) to make candidate vaccine and will be tested for its efficacy against M. tb.

Effects of chromium(VI) on some ion-dependent ATPases in gills, kidney and intestine of a coastal teleost Periophthalmus dipes.

The coastal teleost species, Periophthalmus dipes, commonly known as the mudskipper, was exposed to three sublethal concentrations (5, 10 and 15 mg/l) of potassium chromate for three exposure durations (2, 4 and 6 days). The study compares the dose- and duration-dependent effects of Cr(VI), as potassium chromate, on the ATPase systems in various organs of this fish species. In this study, effects of Cr(VI) stress on total ATPase, (Na+,K+)-ATPase, (Ca+2)-ATPase, (Mg+2)-ATPase, (Ca+2, HCO3-)-ATPase and (Mg+2,HCO3-)-ATPase in gills, kidney and intestine were estimated. A general dose- and duration-dependent inhibitory trend was observed. However, it is evident that exposure duration is more important then dose in the inhibition of the activity of the enzymes. At some concentrations, initial stimulation of the activity of some enzymes were also noticed. However, maximum inhibition was observed in higher Cr(VI) concentrations exposed for the longest time. It is possible that this inhibition of the ATPases by Cr(VI) blocked the active transport system of the gill epithelial as well as chloride cells, glomerular and epithelial cells of the tubules and thus altered the osmoregulatory mechanism of the fish. It appears that this heavy metal ion alters the membrane permeability of the intestinal epithelial cells and other layer of cells by altering the activity of ATPases, resulting in a breakdown of the active transport mechanism needed for the absorption of nutrients, ions and metabolites.