The number of reported cases of iatrogenic demyelination of the central nervous system (CNS) is on the rise. This is, in part, related to the recent expansion in the use of biologics. Review of ...literature from the past decade suggests that in addition to vaccines, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha inhibitors and checkpoint inhibitors are the most frequently cited inducers of central inflammation. About one-third of demyelinating cases in the setting of TNF-alpha inhibitors evolve into full-blown multiple sclerosis. In addition to demyelination, checkpoint inhibitors may also cause accelerated paraneoplastic encephalitis and other antibody-mediated conditions. Luckily, the overall prognosis of iatrogenic central inflammation is favorable, with most cases having partial or complete response to steroids and discontinuation of the offending agent. Long-term monitoring and initiation of maintenance immune-modulating therapy may be necessary in some patients. In this article, we provide an updated review of biologic-induced inflammation of the CNS.
In this article we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather‐index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the ...determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1,400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopian Rural household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, wealthier individuals are more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion is associated with low insurance take‐up suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and found that basis risk reduces demand for insurance particularly when the price of the contract is high, and that provision of insurance through groups is preferred by female headed households and individuals with lower levels of education.
Heterocyclic systems are now considered to be an integral part of material chemistry. Thiophene, selenophene, furan, pyrrole, carbazole, triazine and others are some such examples worth mentioning. ...2,4,6‐Tri(thiophen‐2‐yl)‐1,3,5‐triazine is a C3h‐symmetric system with thiophene as the donor unit and s‐triazine as the acceptor unit. This review gives an insight into the advances made in the thienyl‐triazine chemistry over the past two to three decades. The synthetic pathways for arriving at this system and all its important derivatives are provided. The major focus is on the materials synthesized using the thienyl‐triazine system, including star molecules, linear and hyperbranched polymers, porous materials and their diverse applications. This review will play a catalytic role for new dimensions to be explored in thienyl‐triazine chemistry.
2,4,6‐tri(thiophen‐2‐yl)‐1,3,5‐triazine is a C3h‐symmetric system consisting of a donor‐acceptor (D–A) unit and its unique properties allow fine tuning of resulting systems. The s‐triazine core enhances the supramolecular interaction between different units. It is now being explored for the synthesis of a wide class of star molecules, linear polymers and porous materials that display interesting properties.
This study assesses both the demand for and effectiveness of an index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage crop production risk during the monsoon season. ...Villages were randomized into either an insurance treatment or a comparison group, and discounts and rebates were randomly allocated across treatment villages to encourage insurance take-up and to allow for the estimation of the price-elasticity of insurance demand. Among those offered insurance, we find demand to be fairly price elastic, with discounts significantly more successful in stimulating demand than rebates. Purchasing insurance yields both ex ante risk management effects as well as ex post income effects on agricultural production practices. The risk management effects lead to an expansion of cultivated area with concomitant increases in agricultural input expenditures during the monsoon season. The income effects lead to more intensive rice production during the subsequent dry season, with more intensive use of both irrigation and fertilizers, resulting in higher yields and higher total rice production.
•We evaluate a hybrid index insurance product in northwestern Bangladesh.•Impacts include both ex ante risk mitigation effects and ex post income effects.•Risk mitigation effects: expanded, diverse production; higher investments in inputs.•Income effects: expanded rice production during the dry season.•Income effects: intensified use of fertilizers; higher yields.
Covid-19 and the unprecedented surge in financial technology contributed to unexpected financial challenges, affecting the relevance of financial decision making and perceived financial well-being. ...This paper examines the mediating effects of digital financial literacy, financial autonomy, financial capability, and impulsivity on financial decision making and perceived financial well-being. The data come from 512 respondents in Delhi/NCR (National Capital Region), India, using a snowball-sampling technique and partial least squares structural equation modeling to test 13 structural hypotheses with SmartPLS3.3. Partial least squares (PLS) prediction is employed to estimate the out-of-sample predictive power of the proposed model. Our findings reveal that skills directly affect financial decision making and perceived financial well-being, and digital financial literacy emerges as a direct and mediating predictor of financial decision making. The dominance of financial capability and financial autonomy as mediators in financial decision making and financial well-being become more evident, and impulsivity fails to have mediating effects on financial decision making. The results have academic, regulatory, and managerial implications, all of which calls for more concerted efforts at recognizing the unique interaction among skills—financial decision making—perceived financial well-being, the cumulative effect of which enhances the critical ability to deal with environmental challenges, manage socioeconomic pressures in a sustainable manner, and translate the benefits into prudent gender-specific policy decisions and practices.
•The paper identifies determinants to enhance financial decision making and perceived financial wellbeing of an individual.•This study highlights the relevance of skills along with digital financial literacy on financial decision making.•Financial acumen and analytical skills in an Individual leads to better digital financial literacy.•Skilled individuals with greater financial autonomy make less impulsive decisions.•Digital financial literacy improves financial capability thereby enhancing perceived well being and financial decision making.
Biofortification is a promising strategy to combat micronutrient malnutrition by promoting the adoption of staple food crops bred to be dense sources of specific micronutrients. Research on ...biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) has shown that the crop improves the vitamin A status of children who consume as little as 100 grams per day, and intensive promotion strategies improve dietary intakes of vitamin A in field experiments. However, little is known about OFSP adoption behavior, or about the role that nutrition information plays in promoting adoption and changing diet. We report evidence from similar randomized field experiments conducted in Mozambique and Uganda to promote OFSP. We further use causal mediation analysis to study impact pathways for adoption and dietary intakes. Despite different agronomic conditions and sweet potato cropping patterns across the two countries, the project had similar impacts, leading to adoption by 61% to 68% of farmers exposed to the project, and doubling vitamin A intakes in children. In both countries, two intervention models that differed in training intensity and cost had comparable impacts relative to the control group. The project increased the knowledge of key nutrition messages; however, added knowledge of nutrition messages appears to have minimally affected adoption, conditional on assumptions required for causal mediation analysis. Increased vitamin A intakes were largely explained by adoption and not by nutrition knowledge gained, though in Uganda a large share of impacts on vitamin A intakes cannot be explained by mediating variables. Similar impacts could likely have been achieved by reducing the scope of nutrition trainings.
Common mental disorders (CMD) among mothers cause disability, negatively affect child development, and have high long-term economic costs. Little is known about how factors across multiple life ...dimensions, modeled together, are differentially related to maternal mental health in high poverty contexts. Further, there is limited evidence on determinants of CMD in areas where self-help groups (SHGs) exist to promote women's wellbeing. Filling this evidence gap is important given the high prevalence of CMD and the rapid expansion of SHGs in rural India. Cross-sectional data were collected from 1644 mother-infant pairs living in disadvantaged rural villages across five Indian states-Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh-surveyed in the Women Improving Nutrition through Group-based Strategies study. CMD were assessed using the 20-item Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ). We examined 31 factors across four life dimensions: work (work type, time spent in labor, domestic and caretaking activities), agency (SHG membership, decision-making, gender attitudes), health/nutrition (underweight, fertility, diet diversity, child illness), and household/environment (dependency ratio, wealth, food security, shocks, water, sanitation). Survey-adjusted multivariate logistic and ordinary least squares regression models were fit to examine predictors of CMD or SRQ score. On average, mothers were 26 (range 18-46) years old and their children were 15 (range 6-24) months old. CMD defined as ≥ 8 positive SRQ responses were reported by 262 women (16%). Protective factors included being engaged in agricultural labor as a main occupation relative to being a housewife (AOR 0.18, 95% CI 0.10-0.32), more time working (0.85, 0.77-0.93), higher decision-making (0.33, 0.16-0.69), SHG membership (0.73, 0.56-0.96), and having an improved toilet (0.49, 0.33-0.72). Risk factors included food insecurity (1.13, 1.07-1.20) and shocks to non-farm livelihoods (2.04, 1.10-3.78). Practitioners and policymakers should aim to improve food security, economic wellbeing and social capital, such as that created through SHG membership, to improve maternal mental health. Future research should aim to understand why working outside the home, albeit in agricultural work, appears to protect maternal mental health in this context.
Identifying relationships between depression severity and clinical factors may help with appropriate recognition and management of neuropsychiatric conditions in persons with epilepsy (PWE). ...Demographic characteristics, epilepsy variables, and medical and psychiatric comorbidities were examined from a baseline randomized controlled trial sample of 120 PWE. Among demographic characteristics, only inability to work was significantly associated with depression severity (p = 0.05). Higher 30-day seizure frequency (p < 0.01) and lower quality of life (p < 0.0001) were associated with greater depression severity. Comorbid bipolar disorder (p = 0.02), panic disorder (p < 0.01), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (p < 0.01) were correlated with worse depression severity. The literature supports our findings of correlations between worse depression, seizure frequency, and lower quality of life. Less well studied is our finding of greater depression severity and selected psychiatric comorbidities in PWE.
Thienyltriazine (TT) is a C3h symmetric system consisting of an acceptor core and donor arms. Here we report the design, synthesis and characterization of a series of aryl (naphthalene, NP; ...benzodithiophene, BDTP; BODIPY, BDPY; hexyl thiophene, HT; imidazole, IMZ; indole, IN) functionalized thienyltriazine containing star molecules (TTNP, TTBDTP, TTBDPY, TTHT, TTIMZ and TTIN). The electronic properties of these compounds in the solution were studied by ultraviolet‐visible absorption and emission spectroscopies, and cyclic voltammetric studies. The star molecule (SM) consisting of thienyltriazine and BDPY unit (TTBDPY) shows the most red‐shifted absorption and emission wavelength indicative of its most extended conjugation. The results of the experimental observations reveal that changing the nature of the peripheral aryl unit helps to efficiently tune the optical properties of the resulting system.
A series of star molecules comprising of C3h symmetric thienyltriazine as the core and various peripheral arms such as naphthalene, benzodithiophene, BODIPY, hexyl thiophene, imidazole and indole have been synthesized and a structure‐property relationship has been established.
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