Feature Article

Bed sediment samples were collected along the 9.5 km long inlet channel of Chilika lagoon, east coast of India during low freshwater discharge and low rainfall condition. Distributions of bed sediment along with its texture were studied in detail. Bivariate plots between mean, sorting, skewness and kurtosis of sediments revealed definite grouping pattern. The study, through C-M plot, indicates that the prime factors for transportation of sediment within inlet channel of Chilika lagoon are rolling and bottom suspension during period of low discharge and low rainfall (November-June).

The seas surrounding India, namely Arabian Sea (AS) and Bay of Bengal (BoB) with their associated coastal embayments form one of the highly productive areas and biodiversity hotspots in the tropics contributing profusely to the socio-economic front of the region. Therefore, acquiring knowledge on the climate change scenario of this region and its impacts on marine ecosystems in general and planktons, in particular, is considered crucial for better resilience.

The study of frequency analysis is important to find the most suitable model that could anticipate extreme events of certain natural phenomena e.g., rainfall, floods, etc. The goal of this study is to determine the best-fit probability distributions in the case of maximum monthly rainfall using 30 years of data (1984–2013) from 35 locations in Bangladesh by using different statistical analysis and distribution types.

Original Source

In order to make a scientific emergency strategic decision after an earthquake, casualties need to be estimated rapidly. Asia is the most earthquake-prone continent in the world. In this paper, by spatial statistic and regressive analysis of historical Asian earthquake data from 1990 to 2012, vulnerability curves portraying the empirical relationship between the magnitude of an earthquake event and the casualty rate caused by it were created for countries of six-groups and the Quick Assessment Model of Earthquake Casualties for Asia (QAMECA) was developed.

In 2015, the second cycle of the CONCORD programme established global surveillance of cancer survival as a metric of the effectiveness of health systems and to inform global policy on cancer control. CONCORD-3 updates the worldwide surveillance of cancer survival to 2014.

Original Source

The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) period saw dramatic gains in health goals MDG 4 and MDG 5 for improving child and maternal health. However, many Muslim countries in the south Asian, Middle Eastern, and African regions lagged behind. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the status of, progress in, and key determinants of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health in Muslim majority countries (MMCs).

E-cigarette smoke (ECS) delivers nicotine through aerosols without burning tobacco. ECS is promoted as noncarcinogenic. We found that ECS induces DNA damage in mouse lung, bladder, and heart and reduces DNA-repair functions and proteins in lung. Nicotine and its nitrosation product 4-(methylnitrosamine)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone can cause the same effects as ECS and enhance mutations and tumorigenic cell transformation in cultured human lung and bladder cells.

Plastic waste can promote microbial colonization by pathogens implicated in outbreaks of disease in the ocean. We assessed the influence of plastic waste on disease risk in 124,000 reef-building corals from 159 reefs in the Asia-Pacific region. The likelihood of disease increases from 4% to 89% when corals are in contact with plastic. Structurally complex corals are eight times more likely to be affected by plastic, suggesting that microhabitats for reef-associated organisms and valuable fisheries will be disproportionately affected.

Timely access to emergency care can substantially reduce mortality. International benchmarks for access to emergency hospital care have been established to guide ambitions for universal health care by 2030. However, no Pan-African database of where hospitals are located exists; therefore, we aimed to complete a geocoded inventory of hospital services in Africa in relation to how populations might access these services in 2015, with focus on women of child bearing age.

Fault behavior during an earthquake is controlled by the state of stress on the fault. Complex coseismic fault slip on large earthquake faults has recently been observed by dense seismic networks, which complicates strong motion evaluations for potential faults. Here we show the three-dimensional prestress field related to the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake.