Seasonal and gender impacts on fecal exposure trends in an urban slum.

Seasonal and gender impacts have not been well considered in fecal exposure assessment, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This study examined the seasonal and gender impacts on fecal exposure trends in children through daily living activities in an urban slum in Bangladesh. We determined Escherichia coli concentrations in seven types of environmental samples (n = 232) and the activity data of children via diary recording, questionnaires, and interview surveys. Daily and monthly exposures were stochastically estimated for drinking, eating, pond bathing, well bathing, and hand-to-mouth contact. Of the five pathways, pond bathing and drinking contributed a large part of the daily and monthly exposure. Significant seasonal differences were observed in daily exposures for bathing, which were higher in the rainy season (2.59 × 102 CFU/day for boys and 6.19 × 10-1 CFU/day for girls) than in the dry season (1.69 × 102; 4.30 × 10-2), because of longer pond bathing time and more contaminated bathing water in the rainy season. In contrast, eating had significantly higher exposure in the dry season (3.71 × 10; 3.22 × 10) than the rainy season (1.50 × 10; 1.24 × 10) due to the higher dish contamination. Significantly higher daily exposure was observed in the bathing for boys than girls, as boys spent longer time for bathing at a heavily contaminated pond.

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms.) as an alternative raw material for the production of bio-compost and handmade paper.

Water hyacinth (WH) is considered as the worst aquatic weed in the world because of its rapid growth and fast spread into new areas of fresh water bodies. We investigated the potentiality of using WH as a raw material for production of handmade paper and compost in Bangladesh. Potash pulping was done using potassium hydroxide (KOH) at different alkali concentrations (8-12%) with a liquor to solid ratio of 7:1 at 145 °C for 2 h. The pulp was bleached using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and pulp properties (brightness, tear index and tensile index) of bleached and unbleached pulps were analyzed following the respective TAPPI standards. The produced black liquor was mixed with WH along with kitchen bio-wastes to produce compost. The properties of the compost were tested following the published protocols, i.e., wet digestion, Kjeldahl, vanadomolybdophosphoric acid, and Flame Spectrophotometry methods. Brightness, tensile index and tear index of bleached hand sheets were found to be 37.2%, 49.2 N m/g and 6.79 m.Nm2/g, respectively suggesting significant contribution of bleaching on WH paper quality. Addition of black liquor significantly increased the nitrogen and potassium content of bio-waste compost. Thus, WH can be used as a raw material for making handmade paper while the process by-product can be supplemented to improve the nutritional quality of compost. Such cottage-industry fabrication of WH green products could be developed to control the infestation of WH in water bodies, and this technology may provide for new possible sustainable livelihood option.

The great Indian demonetization and gender gap in health outcomes: Evidence from two Indian states.

We utilize the timing of India's 2016 demonetization policy to examine whether a negative macroeconomic shock disproportionately affects women's health outcomes relative to men's. Our empirical framework considers women as the treated group and men as the comparison group. Using data from the National Family Health Survey-4 and a household fixed effects model, we find that the induced income shock leads to a 4% decline in hemoglobin for women as compared to the pre-demonetization level. This corresponds to a 21% increase in the gender gap in hemoglobin. The result is further validated with an event study and a variety of robustness checks. An examination of food consumption suggests that this pattern is possibly driven by a widening male-female gap in the consumption of iron-rich foods.

Alternative measures of body composition and wage premium: New evidence from Indonesia.

This paper examines the relationship between body composition and earnings in a developing country setting. We use body mass index, waist circumference and hip circumference. Exploiting the panel structure of our longitudinal survey, we find that along with BMI, waist circumference is related to higher earnings in Indonesia.

CYR61 is a novel gene associated with temperature-dependent changes in fish metabolism as revealed by cDNA microarray analysis on a medaka Oryzias latipes cell line.

A microarray comprising 3,514 cDNAs was constructed from a medaka EST library to elucidate the transcriptional responses associated with temperature shift from 25 to 15 degrees C in a medaka cell line. Microarray analysis revealed that the mRNA levels of 313 clones were significantly different in at least one combination of different incubation periods up to 7 days at a given incubation temperature or between 25 and 15 degrees C at a given incubation period (P < 0.05). These genes are known to be associated with various biological processes including morphogenesis, cell proliferation and response to stress. A number of genes encoding proteins which localize in extracellular areas were apparently up-regulated at 15 degrees C, whereas those localizing in intracellular areas were down-regulated at this temperature. In addition, while a number of genes represented long-term expression changes, only a few responded to short-term inductions. A typical example was CYR61, a multifunctional matricellular signaling modulator, the mRNA levels of which increased after temperature shift from 25 to 15 degrees C in 3 h, and then decreased rapidly to near the original level within 12 h. Another series of analyses by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR revealed that the mRNA levels of CYR61 at 5 degrees C were significantly higher even at 24 h after temperature shift compared to those of the cells successively maintained at 25 degrees C. These analyses suggest that remodeling and reorganizing of extracellular structure of cells are important to offset the low temperature effect and CYR61 is considered to be a novel gene associated with temperature response in poikilotherms.

Parental human capital and child health at birth in India.

Health at birth shapes an individual's well-being over her life cycle. We categorize the Indian states into high and low infant mortality regions to capture the diverse disease environment and analyze the nature of the association between parental human capital and child survival and nutrition measures at birth. We restrict our analysis only to firstborns to avoid confounding from a number of factors including sex-selective abortions in the higher birth orders. We broadly find that parental human capital, especially maternal health, is a strong and significant predictor of a child's birth outcomes under adverse disease environment. In the rural areas of the high infant mortality states, a 10-centimeter increase in maternal height is associated with 1.7% lower probability of a child dying as a neonate and 5% increase in birth weight around the mean. These estimates suggest that an investment in human capital of the mothers from this region could accompany large gains in survival and nutrition outcomes of their children.

Molecular cloning and functional characterization of crustapain: a distinct cysteine proteinase with unique substrate specificity from northern shrimp Pandalus borealis.

A cDNA clone encoding a cysteine proteinase of the papain superfamily has been isolated from the hepatopancreas of northern shrimp Pandalus borealis (NsCys). NsCys shares the highest identity of 64% with a cathepsin L-like cysteine proteinase from lobster, and its identity to the well-characterized mammalian cathepsins S, L, and K falls within a narrow range of 54-59%. However, it differs from each of these cathepsins in certain key residues including, for example, the unique occurrence of tryptophan and cysteine residues at the structurally important S2 subsite. Consequently, NsCys produced in Pichia pastoris appears to be distinct in various physicokinetic properties. The recombinant enzyme is active and stable over a wide range of pH values, and its substrate specificity is unusual, as demonstrated by its poor affinity for phenylalanine residues. Instead, it shows the highest specificity for proline residues, a property similar to cathepsin K. Unlike cathepsin K, however, NsCys cleaves valine residues more efficiently than leucine. Similar results were obtained with the natural peptide substrate glucagon. The shrimp proteinase is further distinguished by its potent collagenolytic activity, resulting in a cleavage pattern reminiscent of bacterial collagenase. To distinguish such unique structural and enzymatic properties, we propose the trivial name "crustapain" for the shrimp proteinase, indicating that it is a papain-like cysteine proteinase from a crustacean species.

Purification and characterization of collagenolytic proteases from the hepatopancreas of northern shrimp (Pandalus eous).

Three gelatinolytic proteases (A1, A2, and B) were purified using a synthetic substrate, DNP-Pro-Gln-Gly-Ile-Ala-Gly-Gln-d-Arg, from the hepatopancreas of Northern shrimp (Pandalus eous) by several chromatographic steps involving hydroxyapatite column chromatography, gel filtration on Superdex75, and ion-exchange chromatography on a MonoQ column. Collagenolytic proteases A2 and B, but not protease A1, were demonstrated to digest native porcine type I collagen at 25 degrees C and pH 7.5. Further characterizations of these two collagenolytic proteases showed that the pH optimum of enzyme A2 against DNP-peptide was found to be 11, whereas that of enzyme B was 8.5. The optimum temperature ranged between 40 and 45 degrees C for both enzymes, although enzyme B appeared to be thermally more stable than enzyme A2 at pH 7.5. Both enzymes were strongly inhibited by PMSF and antipain, which suggests that they belong to collagenolytic serine proteases.

Molecular cloning and characterization of cathepsin B from the hepatopancreas of northern shrimp Pandalus borealis.

We cloned a cDNA encoding cathepsin B from the hepatopancreas of northern shrimp Pandalus borealis (NsCtB). Nucleotide sequence of the isolated clone encoded a preproenzyme of 328 amino acids, comprising a 15-residue putative signal peptide, a 60-residue propeptide and the 253-residue mature enzyme. The mature NsCtB was 53% identical to human cathepsin B and conserved all the structural features characteristic of cysteine protease. The presence of an occluding loop in the mature region, a unique feature of cathepsin B, suggested the shrimp protein to be cathepsin B. Northern blot analysis revealed expression of NsCtB transcripts exclusively in the hepatopancreas tissues, suggesting a possible digestive role of this enzyme. An interesting feature of NsCtB was its remarkably high negative charge in comparison with other cysteine proteases, which was predicted to effectively locate and guide the positively charged residues of a substrate into the binding cleft. We also observed a repertoire of cysteine protease activities in the acidic milieu of shrimp hepatopancreas using synthetic substrates specific to various cathepsins. The activity profile revealed cathepsin B as the single most dominant enzyme with a specific activity comparable to that attributable to combined activities of other cathepsins. This activity could be blocked by E-64, a cysteine protease inhibitor, but not by Z-Phe-Tyr (t-Bu)-CHN(2), a specific inhibitor of cathepsin L.

Characterization of cDNA clones encoding two distinct cathepsins with restricted expression pattern in a marine pelagic fish.

Cathepsin L (EC 3.4.22.15) from aquatic animals are quite stable and active at neutral or alkaline pH values while their mammalian equivalents work at an acidic environment of the lysosomes. To understand the molecular properties at the gene level we employed a PCR-based strategy using degenerate oligonucleotide primers to isolate cathepsin L-like genes from anchovy Engraulis japonicus. As a result, we obtained two closely related genes encoding cathepsins (aCat1 and aCat2) similar to both cathepsins L and S from other organisms. The predicted precursor protein of 324 amino acid residues for genes differed in six residues and contained conserved residues characteristic of cathepsin L-like cysteine proteases. Phylogenetic analyses failed to produce any precise relationships of aCat1 and aCat2 with other cysteine proteases. However, with a bootstrap value less than 50, these two fish cathepsins formed a separate group to that bearing cathepsins L and S of various organisms. Interestingly, unlike mammalian cathepsin L transcripts of aCat1 and aCat2 were almost exclusively detected in the stomach suggesting that the fish homologues are non-lysosomal secretory enzymes present in the extracellular acidic environment of the stomach and that marine teleosts developed digestive cysteine proteases as a result of evolutionary pressure in response to varying dietary conditions.