Browsing by Author "P. Das"

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A rapid assessment of stubble burning and air pollutants from satellite observations
(Springer, 2024) P. Das; M.D. Behera; P.C. Abhilash
For the last several years, the air quality of India’s capital Delhi and surrounding region (NCR) has been degrading to a very poor and severe category during the autumn season. In addition to the various sources of air pollutants within the NCR region, the stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana states contributes to the poor air quality in this region. The current study employs the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) active fire products and TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) products on carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations for spatio-temporal assessment of stubble burning and associated emissions. The analysis performed in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform indicated a nearly threefold rise in crop residue burning in November than in October, with 92.58% and 7.42% reported from Punjab and the Haryana states in November, respectively. The study highlights the availability of near-real-time remote sensing observations and the utility of the GEE platform for rapid assessment of stubble burning and emissions thereof, having the potential for developing mitigation strategies. © International Society for Tropical Ecology 2023.
Analogues of P and Z as Efficient Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System
(American Chemical Society, 2018) N.R. Jena; P. Das; B. Behera; P.C. Mishra
To artificially expand the genetic information system and to realize artificial life, it is necessary to discover new functional DNA bases that can form stable duplex DNA and participate in error-free replication. It is recently proposed that the 2-Amino-imidazo[1,2-A]-1,3,5-Triazin-4(8H)one (P) and 6-Amino-5-nitro-2(1H)-pyridone (Z) would form a base pair complex, which is more stable than that of the normal G-C base pair and would produce an unperturbed duplex DNA. Here, by using quantum chemical calculations in aqueous medium, it is shown that the P and Z molecules can be modified with the help of electron-withdrawing and-donating substituents mainly found in B-DNA to generate new bases that can produce even more stable base pairs. Among the various bases studied, P3, P4, Z3, and Z5 are found to produce base pairs, which are about 2-15 kcal/mol more stable than the P-Z base pair. It is further shown that these base pairs can be stacked onto the G-C and A-T base pairs to produce stable dimers. The consecutive stacking of these base pairs is found to yield even more stable dimers. The influence of charge penetration effects and backbone atoms in stabilizing these dimers are also discussed. It is thus proposed that the P3, P4, Z3, and Z5 would form promiscuous artificial genetic information system and can be used for different biological applications. However, the evaluations of the dynamical effects of these bases in DNA-containing several nucleotides and the efficacy of DNA polymerases to replicate these bases would provide more insights. © 2018 American Chemical Society.
Human ENPP1 gene polymorphism in DKD patients: a hospital-based case control study
(Springer, 2021) S. Chandra; A.K. Singh; M. Singh; P. Pandey; C.S. Azad; S. Singh; P. Das; R.G. Singh
Aim: The aim of present study was to investigate the association of the ENPP1 (K121Q) gene polymorphism with DKD in eastern Uttar Pradesh population. Methods: A total of 162 DKD and 155 apparently healthy controls were enrolled and K121Q polymorphism was determined by PCR-RFLP followed by sequencing. Results: It was observed that genotype KQ was more frequent in patients than controls and allelic frequencies of Q allele were higher in DKD (Q 21.3%) than control (Q 15.81%). It depicted that Q allele may be associated with DKD patient and has more risk in eastern UP population. Conclusion: The study indicated a significant association of KQ polymorphism of the ENPP1 gene with DKD in the eastern Uttar Pradesh population. © 2020, Research Society for Study of Diabetes in India.
Human resource assessment for scaling up VL active case detection in Bangladesh, India and Nepal
(2013) E. Naznin; A. Kroeger; N.A. Siddiqui; S. Sundar; P. Malaviya; D. Mondal; M.M. Huda; P. Das; P. Karki; M.R. Banjara; N. Dreesch; G. Gedik
Objectives: To determine whether medical staff at PHC level would have the time to take up additional activities such as 1-day fever camps for active VL case detection. Methods: This article assessed the workload of health staff of different professional categories working at health facilities in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Data were collected from different sites in high endemic VL areas. The study population was the health staff of government health facilities at all levels. Workload indicators of staffing need (WISN) software were adopted to carry out the analysis of staff workload and their availability in the selected health facility. The WISN difference and WISN ratio for a particular health facility were calculated from actual staffing available and calculated staffing requirement. Results: The results showed a mixed picture of the availability of health workers. In most settings of Bangladesh and India, physicians with or without laboratory technicians would have time for active case detection. In Nepal, this would be performed by trained nurses and paramedical personnel. Conclusion: If all vacant posts were filled, active case detection could be performed more easily. The elimination programme can be scaled up with the current staffing levels in the endemic areas with some short training if and when necessary. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Oral miltefosine for Indian post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis: A randomised trial
(2013) Shyam Sundar; Prabat Sinha; T.K. Jha; Jaya Chakravarty; Madhukar Rai; Nawin Kumar; Krishna Pandey; M.K. Narain; N. Verma; V.N.R. Das; P. Das; Jonathan Berman; Byron Arana
Objective: Standard treatment of Indian post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) is unsatisfactory because to achieve therapeutic effectiveness, heroic courses of parenteral and toxic agents have to be administered. Our objective was to evaluate oral miltefosine for its potential to provide effective as well as tolerable treatment for this disease. Method: Open-label, randomised, parallel-group multicentric trial. Miltefosine, 100 mg/day to all but one patient, was administered for 12 weeks or 8 weeks, with a target of 18 patients in each treatment group. Key endpoints were tolerance during treatment and efficacy at 12 months of follow-up. Results: The ITT and per-protocol cure rates after 12 months of follow-up for patients receiving 12 weeks of therapy were 78% (14 of 18 patients: 95% CI = 61-88%) and 93% (14 of 15 patients: 95% CI = 71-95%), respectively, after 12 months of follow-up. The ITT and per-protocol cure rates for patients receiving 8 weeks of therapy were 76% (13 of 17 patients: 95% CI = 53-90%) and 81% (13 of 16 patients: 95% CI = 57-93%), respectively. Gastrointestinal and other adverse events were rare. Conclusions: This study suggests that oral miltefosine for 2-3 months can be considered a treatment of choice for Indian PKDL. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Use of Logistic Regression in Land-Cover Classification with Moderate-Resolution Multispectral Data
(Springer, 2019) P. Das; V. Pandey
The current study highlights the use of binary logistic regression for land-use land-cover (LULC) classification. The moderate-resolution Sentinel-2 multispectral data was used for LULC map generation for the post-monsoon season. The main focus of this study is to present a simple and precise approach for image classification using binary logistic regression (BLR) technique. The study was carried out in cropland, fallow land, forest and water body dominated subtropical region of India located in the eastern coastal region. The cropland and fallow lands are mostly dependent on the monsoon and reciprocal land covers. A large number of training and testing data points were collected viewing the image in a standard false-color composite. ArcGIS, Microsoft Office Excel and R software were used for classification. In addition to BLR, the training and testing data points were also used to perform the classification with ‘random forest’ classifier in R. We observed higher classification accuracy for spectrally pure classes and pixels and lower for closely associated mix-pixels. Lower user’s and producer’s accuracies (< 90%) were observed for fallow land, water body and grassland class during training and model building and for fallow land and forest during accuracy assessment, whereas the accuracies were more than 90% for the rest of classes during both training and testing. Misclassifications were mostly observed between forest, fallow land, grassland and water body during training, which were forest and fallow land in testing, due to their lower spectral difference with reference to classified classes. However, the overall accuracy and kappa value during training and testing were more than 94% and 0.98, respectively. Similar accuracies and misclassification were also obtained with the results of random forest model, validating the adopted methodology. Regardless of the seasonal variations in cropland and fallow land, the field observations (52 locations) also corroborated the estimated classification accuracy. The easy implementation and comparatively higher classification accuracy with the binary logistic technique are believed to increase its intense use in land-cover classification. © 2019, Indian Society of Remote Sensing.