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This study reports an innovative approach for producing nanoplastics (NP) from various types of domestic waste plastics without the use of chemicals. The plastic materials used included water bottles, styrofoam plates, milk bottles, centrifuge tubes, to-go food boxes, and plastic bags, comprising polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and Poly (Ethylene-co-Methacrylic Acid) (PEMA). The chemical composition of these plastics was confirmed using Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, and they were found to have irregular shapes. The resulting NP particles ranged from 50 to 400 nm in size and demonstrated relative stability when suspended in water. To assess their impact, the study investigated the effects of these NP particulates on cell viability and the expression of genes involved in inflammation and oxidative stress using a macrophage cell line. The findings revealed that all types of NP reduced cell viability in a concentration-dependent manner. Notably, PS, HDPE, and PP induced significant reductions in cell viability at lower concentrations, compared to PEMA and PET. Moreover, exposure to NP led to differential alterations in the expression of inflammatory genes in the macrophage cell line. Overall, this study presents a viable method for producing NP from waste materials that closely resemble real-world NP. Furthermore, the toxicity studies demonstrated distinct cellular responses based on the composition of the NP, shedding light on the potential environmental and health impacts of these particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Although disease patterns change constantly, communicable diseases remain the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in least and less developed countries. Despite decades of economic growth and development in [...], This article looks at the current burden of communicable diseases in the South- East Asia Region of the World Health Organization and analyses whether the current levels and trends in funding are adequate to meet the needs of Control, prevention and treatment. Our analysis considers the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health and indicators of economic progress in each country, as well as the impact of the global financial crisis on progress towards MDGs for communicable diseases in the region. The analysis indicates that the current focus of funding may need to be expanded to include less-discussed but high-burden diseases often related to inadequacies in the health sector and the particular development paths that countries pursue. Scarce funding during times of global economic recession could be used more effectively if informed by a careful analysis of the complex set of factors, including behavioural, environmental and health systems factors, that determine the burden of communicable diseases. Significant gaps in funding as well as varying regional needs warrant a more diverse set of national and international aid measures. Although regional and global collaboration is critical, the effectiveness of future policies to deal with the burden of communicable diseases in the region will only be assured if these policies are based on evidence and developed by policy-makers familiar with each country's needs and priorities. Le present article evalue la charge actuelle de maladies transmissibles dans la Region de l'Asie du Sud-est de l'Organisation mondiale de la Sante et examine si les niveaux et les tendances actuel des moyens de financement sont suffisants pour repondre aux besoins en matiere de lutte, de prevention et de traitement. Notre analyse examine les Objectifs du Millenaire pour le developpement (OMD) et les indicateurs de progres economique dans chaque pays, ainsi que l'impact de la crise financiere mondiale sur les progres vers les OMD relatifs aux maladies transmissibles dans la region. D'apres cette analyse, l'affectation actuelle des fonds peut devoir etre elargie pour couvrir des maladies moins souvent evoquees, mais a forte charge de morbidite, associees frequemment a des inadequations entre le secteur de la sante et les voies de developpement particulieres suivies par les pays. En periode de recession economique, l'utilisation de fonds limites peut etre plus efficace si elle se fonde sur l'analyse soigneuse d'une serie complexe de parametres, incluant des facteurs comportementaux, environnementaux et relatifs au systeme de sante, qui determinent la charge de maladies transmissibles. L'existence de lacunes importantes en matiere de financement, ainsi que la variabilite des besoins regionaux, justifient une diversification des mesures d'aide nationales et internationales. Si la collaboration au niveau regional et mondial est essentielle, il faut, pour que les politiques futures repondant a la charge de maladies transmissibles dans la region soient efficaces, que ces politiques reposent sur des elements factuels et soient developpees par des decideurs familiarises avec les besoins et les priorites de chaque pays. En este articule se examina la carga de enfermedades transmisibles que sufre actualmente la Region de Asia Sudoriental de la Organizacion Mundial de la Salud y se determina si el nivel y las tendencias actuales de la financiacion son adecuados para atender las necesidades de control, prevencion y tratamiento. Se consideran los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM) relacionados con la salud y los indicadores de progreso economico de cada pais, asi corne el impacto de la crisis financiera mundial en los progresos hacia los ODM en Io que atafie a las enfermedades transmisibles en la region. Se desprende del analisis realizado que tal vez deberian ampliarse las actuales prioridades de la financiacion para abarcar enfermedades que son objeto de un menor interes pero conllevan una alta carga, a menudo en relacion con las insuficiencias del sector de la salud y con las vias particulares de desarrollo seguidas por los parses. La escasa financiacion conseguida en los periodos de recesion economica mundial podria ser mas eficaz si se viera fundamentada por un analisis meticuloso del complejo conjunto de factores -en particular comportamentales, ambientales y de los sistemas salud- que determinan la carga de enfermedades transmisibles. Las importantes deficits de financiacion, asi como las diferentes necesidades regionales, justifican una mayor diversidad de medidas nacionales e internacionales de ayuda. Aunque la colaboracion regional y mundial es fundamental, para que sean efectivas, las futuras politicas contra la carga de enfermedades transmisibles que sufre la region deberan estar basadas en la evidencia y ser desarrolladas por instancias normativas familiarizadas con las necesidades y prioridades de cada pais.

The promise of high scalability and availability has prompted many companies to replace traditional relational database management systems (RDBMS) with NoSQL key-value stores. This comes at the cost of relaxed consistency guarantees: key-value stores only guarantee eventual consistency in principle. In practice, however, many key-value stores seem to offer stronger consistency. Quantifying how well consistency properties are met is a non-trivial problem. We address this problem by formally modeling key-value stores as probabilistic systems and quantitatively analyzing their consistency properties by both statistical model checking and implementation evaluation. We present for the first time a formal probabilistic model of Apache Cassandra, a popular NoSQL key-value store, and quantify how much Cassandra achieves various consistency guarantees under various conditions. To validate our model, we evaluate multiple consistency properties using two methods and compare them against each other. The two methods are: (1) an implementation-based evaluation of the source code; and (2) a statistical model checking analysis of our probabilistic model.