Potentially toxic metals contamination, health risk, and source apportionment in the agricultural soils around industrial areas, Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, India: a multivariate statistical approach.

Potentially toxic metals (PTMs) contamination in the soil poses a serious danger to people's health by direct or indirect exposure, and generally it occurs by consuming food grown in these soils. The present study assessed the pollution levels and risk to human health upon sustained exposure to PTM concentrations in the area's centuries-old glass industry clusters of the city of Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Soil sampling (0-15 cm) was done in farmers' fields within a 1 km radius of six industrial clusters. Various environmental (geo-accumulation index, contamination factor, pollution load index, enrichment factor, and ecological risk index) and health risk indices (hazard quotient, carcinogenic risk) were computed to assess the extent of damage caused to the environment and the threat to human health. Results show that the mean concentrations of Cu (33 mg kg-1), Zn (82.5 mg kg-1), and Cr (15.3 mg kg-1) were at safe levels, whereas the levels of Pb, Ni, and Cd exceeded their respective threshold limits. A majority of samples (88%) showed considerable ecological risk due to the co-contamination of these six PTMs. Health risk assessment indicated tolerable cancer and non-cancer risk in both adults and children for all PTMs, except Ni, where adults were exposed to potential threat of cancer. Pearson's correlation study revealed a significant positive correlation between all six metal pairs and conducting principal component analysis (PCA) confirmed the common source of metal pollution. The PC score ranked different sites from highest to lowest according to PTM loads that help to establish the location of the source. Hierarchical cluster analysis grouped different sites into the same cluster based on similarity in PTMs load, i.e., low, medium, and high.

Research Trends in Green Product for Environment: A Bibliometric Perspective.

The term "green products" is used commonly to describe the products that seek to protect or enhance the environment during production, use, or disposal by conserving resources and minimizing the use of toxic agents, pollution, and waste. Hence, green products offer potential benefits to the environment and human health. Therefore, environmentally conscious consumers have shown an enhanced inclination for them. Consumer preferences, environmental activism, and stringent regulations have forced sustainability-oriented firms to shift their focus to producing green products. The present study uses bibliometric tools and various indicators to discern research progress in the field of green products over the period 1964-2019. Further, VOSviewer software is applied to map the main trends. A total of 1619 publications during the study period were extracted from the SCOPUS database using different keywords related to the green products. The data analysis indicates that the field of green products has experienced significant growth since 1964, especially in the last 14 years. In terms of publications and citations, the United States is the leading country. The field of research concerning green products has evolved from the early debates on sustainable design, green marketing, sustainable development, and sustainability. The topic seems to be advancing into a variety of green themes related to consumer trust and purchase intentions, branding and loyalty, and environmental and health consciousness.

"Carpal tunnel syndrome:" A bibliometric study of 35 years of research.

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a disease caused by compression of the median nerve passing through the wrist. Patients suffer from severe pain and paresthesis in the median nerve. Compression of the median nerve occurs, with prolonged working on keyboards (computer or laptop or music players) being one of the reasons along with others such as diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis. CTS research holds great promise for the patients as well as doctors for better medical treatment. The study has been carried out with an objective to analyze research progress based on the literature published on CTS during the last 35 years. The retrospective study has been carried out from the data indexed in SCOPUS multidisciplinary database from 1983 to 2017 (35 years). The study involves analysis of publication trends in terms of total articles, productive countries, institutions, journals, productive authors, most cited articles along with impact in terms of citation and h-Index. The SCOPUS database yielded 13187 articles during the study period. These articles were analyzed further for interpreting results. In the last 35 years, the number of scientific publications on CTS has been increasing with an annual growth rate of 9.86% per year. USA has been the most productive country. Literature pertaining to females is more than clinical studies involving males.

Effect of Magnetized Water on Urea-Loading Efficiency of Mesoporous Nano-Silica: A Seed Germination Study on Wheat Crop.

Efficiently-loaded, controlled-release nanofertilizer systems improve fertilizer use efficiency, germination percentage, root and shoot length, seedling growth, and can overcome the problem of the ever-increasing cost of agrochemicals and their inherent post-application losses, which lead to severe soil, water, and eatable commodity pollution. In this study, magnetized distilled waters (MDWs) with various physicochemical characteristics have been used to enhance the urea loading efficiency into mesoporous nano silica (mNS). The mNS was in-house synthesized by a sol-gel method and characterized by UV-visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffractometer (XRD), and thermogravimetric (TGA)/differential thermal analyzer (DTA) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). We then compared the effects of magnetized and normal water, mNS, urea-loaded mNS, and bare urea on the germination of wheat seeds under laboratory conditions. Comparing to mNS in DW, we detected an increase in root (4-fold) and shoot (1.85-fold) lengths when using mNS in MDW. The root and shoot length in case of urea loaded mNS in normal DW and MDW were 2.05 and 1.77 times more, respectively. The germination percentage and root and shoot length increased significantly in accordance to the exposure to 0.5% (w/v) mNS in magnetized water (mNS-MDW) and urea loaded mNS in magnetized water (mNSU-MDW) as compared to same treatment with mNS in distilled water (mNS-DW). Our findings show that the unfavorable effects of urea fertilizer on seed germination, seedling growth, and early plant growth on paper towels can be ameliorated, at least partially, by supplementation with mNSU-MDW. We conclude that mNS-MDW and mNSU-MDW might be effective alternatives for sustained and effective means of fertilizer use efficiency during wheat seed germination.

Global muscular dystrophy research: A 25-year bibliometric perspective.

Muscular dystrophy is a genetic disorder leading to progressive weakness of muscles caused due to dysfunction in or lack of protein in muscle cells. The prevalence of muscular dystrophy has been observed globally and is becoming a critical area of study for better health services. The purpose of the study is to analyze the research strength of muscular dystrophy using bibliographic literature. A quantitative literature analysis was carried out on muscular dystrophy from 1991 to 2015 for assessing the global research trends. This literature-based study was conducted using the documents retrieved from the Science Citation Index using the keywords: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD), Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (CMD), Myotonic Dystrophy, Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy, Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy, Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy, and Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. Analysis was done for annual productivity of publication, authorship, collaboration, country performance, citation frequency, characteristics of most cited document, journal productivity, etc.

A Bibliometric Assessment of Global Ice Bucket Challenge (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) Research.

BACKGROUND: This study is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the global research trends on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (popularly known as Ice Bucket Challenge), through related literatures retrieved from SCOPUS multidisciplinary database for the period 1974-2013. PURPOSE: This study is aimed at analyzing the literature on ALS in terms of document type, language, annual growth, productive country, journal, authors, subject, and most cited articles. METHODS: The bibliographic data for this study was retrieved from the SCOPUS database using keywords 'amyotrophic lateral sclerosis', 'motor neurone disease', 'Charcot disease', 'Lou Gehrig's disease', 'Ice Bucket Challenge' available in title, abstract, and keyword fields of Scopus database from 1974 to 2013. RESULTS: The literature analysis included 21,750 articles during the period from 1974 to 2013 in different areas of ALS. USA was the most productive country in terms of literature produced, while Neurology was the most productive journal. CONCLUSION: An intensive awareness created by 'Ice Bucket Challenge' has attracted masses, and an intensive growth of literature is pertinent on ALS. The results of this study are expressed in terms of growth of literature, output of individual countries, and authors, and will be helpful in collaborative research in future.

A bibliometric profile of lymphatic filariasis research in India.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Tropical and vector borne diseases have always been a challenge for the medical science and society and exerted high impact on society in terms of financial, economical and psychological relevance. Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is one of the tropical diseases which is prevalent in under developing and developed countries. The objective of this study is to analyze the literature published in the area of filariasis research. The focus is to see the Indian contribution and its impact in terms of global publication and share, citation analysis and its impact, productive Indian institutions engaged in filariasis research and their impact, international collaborative research, productive journals, and highly cited papers published by Indian authors. METHODS: The data for this study was obtained from Scopus, a multidisciplinary database, for the period of forty years (1973-2012) using key words lymphatic filariasis, elephantiasis, Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi and Brugia timori available in the title, abstract and key words fields. The citation count has been taken as the number of citations scored by the papers since their publication. The international collaboration by Indian authors in filariasis research has been manually analyzed through author's affiliation field. RESULTS: The search strategy using key words yielded 13,598 articles on different aspects of filariasis published during the forty years period. Indian authors have published 1970 articles which is 14.49% of global share, making it second highest productive country on filariasis research. United States holds first rank with 2956 articles (21.74% share). In terms of citation count, Indian research have quite good impact and has been ranked third; and in terms of average citation per paper it is far behind, while Ghana and Nigeria holds top two ranks. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: There have been continued efforts in providing better facilities for research, though Indian filariasis research has to go long way in order to remove the incidence of the disease from Indian population and the results presented through this study shall be helpful for stakeholders in framing policies in this direction.

India's contribution on "Guillain-Barre syndrome": mapping of 40 years research.

OBJECTIVE: Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is an acute inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy causing limb weaknesses. The mortality is around 8%, with about 20% of patients remaining disabled. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of Indian Medical Scientists in the area of GBS over a period of 40 years. India's contribution to GBS has been examined based on the global publication output and share, growth rate, citation impact, publication share in various field, highly cited papers and their impact, most productive authors and their citation impact and collaboration of research on GBS with the international community. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data for this study has been taken from Scopus, a multidisciplinary database using keywords GBS and Miller Fisher Syndrome. The contribution of India on GBS has been compared with different countries for its publication and citation count during a period of 40 years (1973-2012). RESULTS: It is found that there were 10,633 publications available from global medical research covering the various aspects of GBS. India's share is 2.92% of global output and holds 10 th rank in overall publication output on GBS, whereas United States topped the rank with the highest number of publications. Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate Institute of Medical Research, Lucknow is the most productive institutions while Tally AB from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore is the most productive author who has contributed the highest number of papers on GBS. CONCLUSION: India is far behind in GBS research as compared to other countries like USA, as there might be a low case report of GBS in Indian population. Still the research focusing this disease is quite prominent and needs a careful medical attention through research capacity building in order to look for better treatment of the disease in Indian cases. This study shall be helpful in enhancing the awareness of the GBS by Indian scientists.