A novel organic-inorganic matrix nanofiltration membrane for remediating copper with enhanced thermal stability and mechanical strength.

Membrane separation technology in the last 40 years has experienced impressive growth, displacing conventional separation processes due to inherent advantages such as less capital investment, and energy efficiency and the devices were simple, compact, and modular. In the current work, we aimed to synthesize a thin-sheet nanofiltration membrane using chitosan (CS), poly(vinyl) alcohol (PVA), and montmorillonite nanoclay (MMT) for copper removal from aqueous solution. Thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry were employed to evaluate the thermal stability of a novel organic-inorganic hybrid membrane. The tensile strength was measured over a wide range of temperatures and pressure to determine its stability. The surface and cross-section morphology of the membrane were studied through scanning electron microscopy. The prepared membrane was then tested for filtration efficiency by adjusting parameters such as pH, pressure, metal ion concentration, and membrane thickness. A mechanism was proposed to explain the hooking of copper ions with the as-prepared membrane after spectral images, such as EDAX and FT-IR, were compared both before and after filtration.

The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries.

Dairy products have an exceptionally rich nutrient profile and have long been promoted in high income countries to redress child malnutrition. But given all this potential, and the high burden of undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), why isn't dairy consumption more actively promoted in the developing world? In this review we focus on a broadly defined concept of "dairy development" to include production, trade, marketing, regulation, and demand stimulation. We address three key questions. First, how strong is the evidence on the importance of dairy production and consumption for improving nutrition among young children in LMICs? Second, which regions have the lowest consumption of dairy products? Third, what are the supply- and demand-side challenges that prevent LMICs from expanding dairy consumption? We argue that although more nutrition- and consumer-oriented dairy development interventions have tremendous potential to redress undernutrition in LMICs, the pathways for achieving this development are highly context-specific: LMICs with significant agroecological potential for dairy production primarily require institutional solutions for the complex marketing challenges in perishable milk value chains; lower potential LMICs require consumer-oriented trade and industrial approaches to the sector's development. And all dairy strategies require a stronger focus on cross-cutting issues of nutrition education and demand creation, food safety and quality, gender and inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability and resilience. We conclude our review by emphasizing important areas for research and policy expansion.

A simplified measure of nutritional empowerment: Using machine learning to abbreviate the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI).

Measuring empowerment is both complicated and time consuming. A number of recent efforts have focused on how to better measure this complex multidimensional concept such that it is easy to implement. In this paper, we use machine learning techniques, specifically LASSO, using survey data from five Indian states to abbreviate a recently developed measure of nutritional empowerment, the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI) that has 33 distinct indicators. Our preferred Abridged Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (A-WENI) consists of 20 indicators. We validate the A-WENI via a field survey from a new context, the western Indian state of Maharashtra. We find that the 20-indicator A-WENI is both capable of reproducing well the empowerment scores and status generated by the 33-indicator WENI and predicting nutritional outcomes such as BMI and dietary diversity. Using this index, we find that in our Maharashtra sample, on average, only 35.9% of mothers of children under the age of 5 years are nutritionally empowered, whereas 77.2% of their spouses are nutritionally empowered. We also find that only 14.6% of the elderly women are nutritionally empowered. These estimates are broadly consistent with those based on the 33-indicator WENI. The A-WENI will reduce the time burden on respondents and can be incorporated in any general purpose survey conducted in rural contexts. Many of the indicators in A-WENI are often collected routinely in contemporary household surveys. Hence, capturing nutritional empowerment does not entail significant additional burden. Developing A-WENI can thus aid in an expansion of efforts to measure nutritional empowerment; this is key to understanding better the barriers and challenges women face and help identify ways in which women can improve their nutritional well-being in meaningful ways.

Last and least: Findings on intrahousehold undernutrition from participatory research in South Asia.

We analyze intrahousehold mechanisms that rural South Asian women themselves identify as contributing to their inabilities to achieve adequate nutrition. The majority of our female respondents explain that, within their families, they are most likely to eat least and last and to seek lower quality healthcare later, both of which can lead to undernutrition. We analyze the explanations that women provide for why they do so. In addition to norm abidance, we highlight two social factors: a partner's heavy alcohol use and intimate partner violence. Women report that these factors adversely impact their own health and food security status and potentially contribute to differential nutritional outcomes within the same household. The emic perspectives presented here show us: (1) many rural South Asian women report shouldering a relatively greater share of food and nutrition insecurity within their households, and (2) taking their perspectives seriously assists in identifying the underlying contributors to intrahousehold differences. These findings indicate the value a gendered perspective on both the drivers of and measurement of undernutrition. Attending to these intrahousehold factors in future research may yield important insights for understanding drivers of nutritional outcomes.