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BackgroundQuality and essential health information is considered one of the most cost-effective interventions to improve health for a developing country. Healthcare portals have revolutionalized access to health information and knowledge using the Internet and related technologies, but their usage is far from satisfactory in India. This article describes a health portal developed in India aimed at providing one-stop access to efficiently search, organize and share maternal child health information relevant from public health perspective in the country.MethodsThe portal ‘Repository on Maternal Child Health’ was developed using an open source content management system and standardized processes were followed for collection, selection, categorization and presentation of resource materials. Its usage is evaluated using key performance indicators obtained from Google Analytics, and quality assessed using a standardized checklist of knowledge management. The results are discussed in relation to improving quality and access to health information.ResultsThe portal was launched in July 2010 and provides free access to full-text of 900 resource materials categorized under specific topics and themes. During the subsequent 18 months, 52,798 visits were registered from 174 countries across the world, and more than three-fourth visits were from India alone. Nearly 44,000 unique visitors visited the website and spent an average time of 4 minutes 26 seconds. The overall bounce rate was 27.6%. An increase in the number of unique visitors was found to be significantly associated with an increase in the average time on site (p-value 0.01), increase in the web traffic through search engines (p-value 0.00), and decrease in the bounce rate (p-value 0.03). There was a high degree of agreement between the two experts regarding quality assessment carried out under the three domains of knowledge access, knowledge creation and knowledge transfer (Kappa statistic 0.72).ConclusionsEfficient management of health information is imperative for informed decision making, and digital repositories have now-a-days become the preferred source of information management. The growing popularity of the portal indicates the potential of such initiatives in improving access to quality and essential health information in India. There is a need to develop similar mechanisms for other health domains and interlink them to facilitate access to a variety of health information from a single platform.

The impact of the variation in compaction condition on the swelling and shrinkage behavior of three soils has been examined. Two natural soils, namely red soil and black cotton soil, and one artificially mixed soil sample of commercial bentonite with well-graded sand, were studied. Compaction curve for Standard Proctor conditions were plotted and four compaction conditions were selected. Experimental results showed that clay mineralogy dominates over compaction conditions in influencing the swelling and shrinkage behavior of the tested soils. Monitoring of void ratio (e)-water content (w) relations during shrinkage showed that soil specimens generally shrunk in three distinct linear stages. A small reduction in void ratio occurred on reduction in water content during the first shrinkage stage and was termed as initial shrinkage. In second stage, void ratio decreased rapidly with reduction in water content and was termed as primary shrinkage. In third and final stage, reduction in water content is accompanied by a marginal change in void ratio and it's called residual shrinkage. Irrespective of initial compaction conditions studied, the transition from primary to residual shrinkage for all the specimens occurred within a narrow range of water content (10-15%).

Background: Fear of falling in elderly is a major cause of loss of independence, which has an effect on the physical function in elderly individuals. Depression is another important public health problem for older adults, because late life depression might have devastating consequences, such as an increase in mortality. QOL of older adults has become an important issue, because of demographic changes resulting from the ageing of the population. The goal of the study was to assess the depression and fear of fall which will provide further insights into the relationship between QOL, depression and fear of fall among elderly individuals in India.Methods: The sample consisted of 62 elderly people of age between 65 years to 75 years (mean=71.96, SD±5.92) were taken in the study. Depression was assessed using the 30-item geriatric depression scale (GDS), fear of falling was measured using falls efficacy scale (FES), QOL was assessed using the 26-item, World Health Organization Quality of Life, brief version (WHOQOL-BREF).Results: The data was analysed using Pearson co-efficient of correlation to examine the relationship between GDS, FES, and WHOQOL-BREF. The correlation co-efficient between GDS and FES was 0.5257 (p<0.05) and correlation coefficient between GDS and WHOQOL was 0.4372 (p<0.05).Conclusions: This study concluded that there was a significant association between the depression, fall efficacy, and QOL in the elderly people. This relationship has an important implication for the development of the rehabilitation programs that aim to improve the balance confidence and motivation will diminish its impact on QOL in elderly people.

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Abstract:Stream-flow recessions are commonly characterized by the exponential equation or in the alternative power form equation of a single linear reservoir. The most common measure of recession is the recession constant K, which relates to the power function form of the recession equation for a linear reservoir. However, in reality it can be seen that the groundwater dynamics of even the simplest of aquifers may behave in a non-linear fashion. In this study three different storage-outflow algorithms; single linear, non-linear and multiple linear reservoir were considered to model the stream-flow recession of the upper Blue Nile. The recession parameters for the linear and non-linear models were derived by the use of least-squares regression procedures. Whereas, for the multiple linear reservoir model, a second-order autoregressive AR (2) model was applied first in order to determine the parameters by the least-squares method. The modelling of the upper Blue Nile recession flow performed shortly after the wet season, when interflow and bank storage may be contributing considerably to the river flow, showed that the non-linear reservoir model simulates well with the observed counterparts. The variation related to preceding flow on a recession parameter of the non-linear reservoir remains significant, which was obtained by stratification of the recession curves. Although a similar stratification did not show any systematic variation on the recession parameters for the linear and multiple linear reservoir models.

The present investigation envisaged to assess genetic variability in immunocompetence and performance traits in three pure strains of Rhode Island Red (RIR) chicken, viz. RIR S , RIR C & RIR W , and its two crosses, viz. CARI-Sonali and CARI-Debendra. A total of 3232, 1263, 346, 1278 and 1258 eggs of RIR S , RIR C , RIR W , CARI-Sonali and CARI-Debendra, were set in three hatches for performance evaluation. Single hatched out 74, 74, 72, 82 and 81 chicks of corresponding genotypes were investigated for immunocompetence status assessed through haemagglutination (HA) test, Lysoplate Assay and Single Radial Immunodiffusion assay. The data on various immunocompetence and performance traits was recorded and analyzed by least squares analysis of variance. The investigation summarized that pure strains demonstrated better immunocompetence than crosses. RIR W demonstrated highest percent fertility followed by RIR C , RIR S , CARI-Sonali and CARI-Debendra. Highest percent hatchability on total egg set basis was observed in RIR C , whereas CARI-Debendra demonstrated highest percent hatchability on fertile egg set basis. CARI-Debendra demonstrated higher body weights than CARI-Sonali followed by RIR S , RIR W and RIR C strains. CARI-Sonali pullets demonstrated (p<0.05) least AFE than RIR S preceded by RIR W , CARI-Debendra and RIR C . Pullets of crosses had (p<0.05) higher EW28 and EW40 than pure strains. CARI-Sonali pullets had (p<0.05) higher EP40 than RIR S >RIR W =CARI-Debendra>RIR C . There had been significant genotype×sex interaction effect on body weights at 2 nd , 8 th week and onwards. At 2 nd week of age, CARI-Debendra-female showed highest body weight but subsequently CARI-Debendra-males were the heaviest. Effects of hatch, sex and chick weightregression on growth traits as well as of hatch and housing weight-regression on layer production traits were significant. Crosses demonstrated least percent mortality than pure strains during brooding but reverse in laying stage.