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•Stimuli responsive peptides are excellent materials as drug delivery systems (DDS).•Their biomedical applications are due to adaptability and reliable practical ...utility.•Biocompatibility and biodegradability are their attractive features for use as DDS.•As enzymes, these DDS possess exceptional molecular recognition properties.•This review provides designing of peptides, their potential setbacks and opportunities.
Stimuli-responsive proteins have gained a wide spread interest as functional biomaterials in drug delivery area. However, particular attention has been diverted to peptide-based materials due to their adaptability and reliable practical utility in biomedical applications under a range of physiological situations. Peptides exhibit a high degree of chemical and biophysical versatility, biocompatibility, and biodegradability compared to other responsive systems. Several peptide motifs have been identified to undergo significant changes in conformation as a result of their response to both internal and external stimuli including light, pH, temperature, enzymes, ionic species and redox reactions. Understanding the structure and functions of peptides both at micro and macro levels is necessary before they can be used as nano devices, as biosensors, in regenerative tissue engineering and in drug delivery. The present review provides an overview of the peptide-based stimuli responsive materials, their design and discussion of their potential setbacks and opportunities for further exploration in drug delivery applications. The design of peptide-based materials of desired architectures, their properties and potential applications will be discussed covering the literature of the past decade, with a focus on their responsiveness to external and internal stimuli.
Ocean warming ‘hotspots’ are regions characterized by above‐average temperature increases over recent years, for which there are significant consequences for both living marine resources and the ...societies that depend on them. As such, they represent early warning systems for understanding the impacts of marine climate change, and test‐beds for developing adaptation options for coping with those impacts. Here, we examine five hotspots off the coasts of eastern Australia, South Africa, Madagascar, India and Brazil. These particular hotspots have underpinned a large international partnership that is working towards improving community adaptation by characterizing, assessing and projecting the likely future of coastal‐marine food resources through the provision and sharing of knowledge. To inform this effort, we employ a high‐resolution global ocean model forced by Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 and simulated to year 2099. In addition to the sea surface temperature, we analyse projected stratification, nutrient supply, primary production, anthropogenic CO2‐driven ocean acidification, deoxygenation and ocean circulation. Our simulation finds that the temperature‐defined hotspots studied here will continue to experience warming but, with the exception of eastern Australia, may not remain the fastest warming ocean areas over the next century as the strongest warming is projected to occur in the subpolar and polar areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, we find that recent rapid change in SST is not necessarily an indicator that these areas are also hotspots of the other climatic stressors examined. However, a consistent facet of the hotspots studied here is that they are all strongly influenced by ocean circulation, which has already shown changes in the recent past and is projected to undergo further strong change into the future. In addition to the fast warming, change in local ocean circulation represents a distinct feature of present and future climate change impacting marine ecosystems in these areas.
The present study taken up in two reservoirs in India namely Peechi and Pothundi reservoir assess the vulnerabilities and various management aspects adopted in two reservoirs. Peechi reservoir ...situated in Peechi-Vazhani wildlife sanctuary was prevented from all fishery enhancement programmes. Pothundi reservoir, a manmade tropical lake though encompassed in Western Ghats biosphere was regularly stocked with Indian Major Carps. Livelihood survey was carried out on the fishers of Peechi and Pothundi reservoirs with the help of a structured schedule. The survey encompassed demographic information, particulars on fisheries and details on economic and marketing aspects of respective reservoir fisheries. The marketing part of the schedule dealt with ranking of various problems faced by the fishermen in the reservoirs using Garrette ranking. Out of the various socio-ecological vulnerabilities of reservoir fisheries communities that was analysed in this study, varied stakeholder interest, human and wild life interference and irregular stocking of fish were identified as the major vulnerabilities faced by them. Relevance of various strategies suggested by fishers in Peechi and Pothundi reservoirs estimated using RFMI (Reservoir fisheries management index) concluded that regular and continuous fish stocking (technical driver) along with allowing gender equity in land based fish production centres (social driver) was suggested as the appropriate strategy to augment the fisher's income from Pothundi reservoir. The study suggested for a possible intervention by practicing fishing holidays in Peechi reservoir during lean months and substituting the lost income with alternative livelihood programmes. The RFMI values for Peechi and Pothundi reservoirs were 52.12 and 68.57 respectively. The study thus emphasized a bottom approach where in the importance of planning at primary stake holders level is ensured. The relevant research ensured adoption of these strategies in local scale along with policy window would definitely provide a better management of reservoir fisheries in tropical countries.
•Intersectionality framework was applied to understand responses to a fishing ban.•Locally relevant measures of power, class, and sex are operationalized.•Women were more likely than men to employ ...reactive coping strategies.•However, an individual’s power and class changes this relationship.•Power and class have different effects on men’s and women’s stress responses.
This study investigates how people respond to economic stresses incurred as a result of natural resource regulations. Previous research has demonstrated that in some cases, men and women adapt differently to livelihood stresses. We argue that looking only at an individual’s sex is insufficient for understanding why they adapt the way they do. Instead, using the framework of intersectionality, we examine individuals’ adaptation strategies and coping responses influenced not only by their sex but also their power and class. Using the case of a closed fishing season in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, India we employ interviews, seasonal activities calendars, and surveys to identify key variables that influence an individual’s likelihood of employing reactive strategies that may threaten their longer term livelihood sustainability. We show that if we categorize individuals only by sex, then women are more likely to resort to reactive coping than men. However, this sex divide in reactive coping is driven by particular subsets of people who also lack power and/or capital. Furthermore, we find that power and class lead to different outcomes for men and women, with networked power most helpful to women above a certain financial threshold. This study highlights the necessity of examining gender and livelihood adaptations beyond the male versus female dichotomy: considering intersecting and locally relevant measures of power, class, and sex are pivotal in understanding why people adapt and cope the way they do. This understanding of adaptation options may also have implications for resource management decisions that do not force individuals to choose between long-term livelihood resilience and response to immediate stresses.
One of the many repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic has been stress. The death toll from the pandemic, as well as sleep loss, have been noted to be the root causes of COVID-19 related stress and ...distress among students in the Arabian Gulf countries.
This study aimed to examine the relationship between self-reported sleeping problems and the socio-demographic, clinical and lifestyle factors among quarantined Omani students arriving from abroad
This was a cross-sectional analytical study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, from April 1-10 2020. The participants were all Omani students who had arrived from abroad during the pandemic. The outcome measures consisted of the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder -7 (GAD-7), as well as relevant socio-demographic, clinical, and lifestyle factors.
A total of 376 participants were included in this study with 49.5% (n = 186) noted to be suffering from insomnia. Multivariate logistic analysis suggested that female students were 2.4 times (odds ratio OR = 2.43; confidence interval CI: 1.50-3.93; P < .001) more likely to suffer from insomnia when compared to male students.
Almost half of the participants self-reported sleeping problems, with a higher prevalence among female students. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings
The UN Decade of Ocean Science (UNDOS) aims to: “Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions for equitable and sustainable development of the ocean economy under changing ...environmental, social and climate conditions.” Changing conditions affect certain groups more than others, depending on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Gendered differentiation has been studied in small scale coastal fisheries. However, this approach is often limited to male-female gender dichotomies. In contrast, the present analysis takes a more expansive approach centered around the concept of intersectionality, to demonstrate more nuanced differences in terms of individuals’ access to resources for adaptation. We build on multiple Earth System Governance contextual conditions and research lenses to demonstrate that an intersectional approach allows greater understanding of gendered adaptation options impacted by various other factors. This must include investigations beyond the traditional gender binary, which we have sought to achieve in this study by using broader local and individualistic context to observe different communities. We compare gender intersectionality in case studies from India and Tanzania. The evidence demonstrates that intersectional factors vary, impacting adaptiveness to changing Anthropocene conditions, depending upon cross-cutting context-specific systems of hierarchy and discrimination. However, despite variation, we demonstrate there are common factors to be investigated across all locations when identifying possible intersectional impacts of ocean policy interventions, particularly wealth, marriage and family roles, and social networks.
Women engage in a wide range of activities in the fisheries and in fishing communities which is vital to a community's well-being. They play a very crucial role in though their contribution is ...invisible and unacknowledged. In Kerala almost 50% of the posts harvesting activities of the marine fisheries are undertaken by them. The 26th December 2004 Tsunami significantly affected the coastal villages of Kerala. A vast majority of the coast dwelling people were affected by the huge and wide spread destruction of the tragedy. In order to provide relief and rehabilitation to the affected, Department of Fisheries, Kerala implemented multiple programs, which were christened under a common livelihood program named "Theeramythri" under the Society for Assistance to Fisherwomen (SAF). The SAF visions to initiate, encourage and strengthen locally organized activity groups among fisherwomen, thereby providing assistance for expertising their business development skill, resource utilization and management, performance improvement, networking and marketing. The Theeramythri programme facilitates and handholds fisherwomen to engage in gainful self-employment for their economic and social emancipation. Among the total 2500 microenterprise groups formed initially as part of various Tsunami rehabilitation programs, only 1500 are fully in operational at present. Mass closure of 500 groups happened over the years due to various unforeseen reasons. The present study gauges to provide a comprehensive picture about the reasons for the non performance of SAF groups in Kerala with special focus on its technical, economic, institutional and social impacts. The study identifies the attributes determining the non-performance and the role of different stake holders in the non-functioning of the micro enterprise units. The study also aims at developing coercive measures for revamping/strengthening/ reconstituting the group and also facilitating innovative ideas for overcoming the vulnerability of an activity group. Statistical and economic tools such as weighted average analysis, cluster analysis percentage analysis and Garrette ranking technique, and have been employed to analyze the data.
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