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Abstract Reportedly, 300 million people worldwide are affected by the consumption of arsenic contaminated groundwater. India prominently figures amongst them and the state of Bihar has shown an upsurge in cases affected by arsenic poisoning. Escalated arsenic content in blood, leaves 1 in every 100 human being highly vulnerable to being affected by the disease. Uncontrolled intake may lead to skin, kidney, liver, bladder, or lung related cancer but even indirect forms of cancer are showing up on a regular basis with abnormal arsenic levels as the probable cause. But despite the apparent relation, the etiology has not been understood clearly. Blood samples of 2000 confirmed cancer patients were collected from pathology department of our institute. For cross-sectional design, 200 blood samples of subjects free from cancer from arsenic free pockets of Patna urban agglomeration, were collected. Blood arsenic levels in carcinoma patients as compared to sarcomas, lymphomas and leukemia were found to be higher. The geospatial map correlates the blood arsenic with cancer types and the demographic area of Gangetic plains. Most of the cancer patients with high blood arsenic concentration were from the districts near the river Ganges. The raised blood arsenic concentration in the 2000 cancer patients strongly correlates the relationship of arsenic with cancer especially the carcinoma type which is more vulnerable. The average arsenic concentration in blood of the cancer patients in the Gangetic plains denotes the significant role of arsenic which is present in endemic proportions. Thus, the study significantly correlates and advocates a strong relation of the deleterious element with the disease. It also underlines the need to address the problem by deciphering the root cause of the elevated cancer incidences in the Gangetic basin of Bihar and its association with arsenic poisoning.

Breast cancer has been one of the most common form of malignancy globally among women, for more than a decade. Despite various preventive and treatment measures, it remains associated with high incidence and mortality rate. Pterocarpus santalinus Linn. f. has been extensively used in Indian medicine system Ayurveda , due to its various medicinal properties. However, despite various research works on the anticancer activity of P santalinus , no studies have been reported on animal model. Therefore, this study was aimed to decipher the antitumour activity of ethanolic seeds extract of P santalinus on DMBA (7,12-dimethylbenz(a)-anthracene)-induced breast cancer in rats. Fifty-five-days-old weighed (150 ± 10 g) female Charles Foster rats (12 females) were used for the study. The rats were divided into 3 groups of 4 rats each. 7,12-Dimethylbenz(a)-anthracene (single dose of 20 mg/mL dissolved in olive oil) was induced orally, to develop breast tumour. After the development of breast tumours (about 0.5 cm), the rats were treated with P santalinus ethanolic seeds extract (300 mg/kg body weight/day) orally for 5 weeks and then volume of tumour was measured. Oral administration of P santalinus extract resulted in about 49.5% tumour growth inhibition in the final week of treatment in DMBA + P santalinus group as compared with the DMBA group. Pterocarpus santalinus administration also significantly reduced ( P

Introduction: In order to enhance the existing body of research regarding the prevalence of violations committed by pedestrians and bicyclists, this observational study utilized personal-specific, train-specific, operational, and behavioral data extracted from recorded videos at seven railroad grade crossings (RRGCs)., Method: A total of 7,332 pedestrians and 1,684 bicyclist crossing events were observed during 279 gate operation phases at seven study locations. First, two separate violation models (binary logit) for pedestrians and bicyclists were developed to determine the influence of personal-specific characteristics and other behavioral traits on probability of pedestrians' and bicyclists' violation. Later, the impact of various geometrical (railway track, distance between gates, distance between gate and nearest track, and road width) and operational (train vehicle unit) parameters on the factors that caused non-motorist violations was examined by developing distinctbinary logit models., Results: The probability of pedestrians'and bicyclists' violationwas found to be significantly influenced by train characteristics (train speed and train occupancy time), gate operational attributes (warning time and gate blockage duration), and personal-specificcharacteristics (gender, age, crossing speed, and looking both side). Furthermore, geometrical attributes along with train vehicle unit were observed to have impact over various factors that significantly influenced the behavior of pedestrians and bicyclists to violate., Practical Applications: The findings of this research provide essential information that could be applied in the initiatives of user awareness and enforcement program, emphasis on situational awareness and design of operational and geometricalelementsto significantlylimitthe effects of risky walking andbicycling behavior at RRGCs., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Railroad grade crossings (RRGCs) have emerged as critical transportation infrastructures from the point of safety and operational aspects because two modes of transportation intermingle at the intersecting zone; the understanding of safety and traffic operation at RRGC is of prime concern while planning and designing this transportation facility., Method: In this context, this work tries to comprehend RRGC performance-related parameters from published literature and figure out critical gaps. An international synthesis on the identified potential parameters influencing the RRGC performance (i.e., safety, driver behavior, and operational impact) was carried out by critically reviewing the articles published worldwide. Furthermore, key findings, used variables, analysis methods, research gaps, and recommendations were studied., Results: The review revealed that many researchers had explored the driver behavior and safety aspect based on past crash data and violations prevailing at RRGC. However, little research has been done to evaluate the effect of highways' operational characteristics on the performance of RRGC. Moreover, limited investigation has been carried out to understand the dilemma of drivers and the proactive safety evaluation of pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles at RRGC. A total of seven critical research gaps concerning parameters are recognized, facilitating a clear agenda for further research pertaining to RRGC performance., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.