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The IBSA forum is an important collaboration of India-Brazil-South Africa to address the social developmental challenges of developing countries through South-South Cooperation. All three countries share same colonial history and at present have developing economies and struggling to provide best public services to their citizens through the appropriate policy planning and introduction of welfare schemes. In the field of education, all these countries are facing problem in the expansion of access of education for all due to the challenges such as high number of out of school children, high drop-out rate, high repetition rates etc. To tackle these problems, appropriate education policies on free and compulsory education have been implemented in these countries. Besides these education policies, these countries have started many compensatory programmes to address the major challenges in the goal of universal elementary education. One of the most important compensatory programmes in these countries is school meal programme. In all the three countries, school meal programmes have been started with dual purpose of keeping the children in the school and improving their nutritional status. This paper is an attempt to review the school meal programmes of IBSA countries to highlight their impact on the health and educational attainment of children especially children from the disadvantaged sections of the society.

Due to the characteristics of vehicular ad hoc networks, the increased mobility of nodes and the inconsistency of wireless communication connections pose significant challenges for routing. As a result, researchers find it to be a fascinating topic to study. Furthermore, since these networks are vulnerable to various assaults, providing an authentication method between the source and destination nodes is crucial. How to route in such networks more efficiently, taking into account node mobility characteristics and accompanying massive historical data, is still a matter of discussion. Fuzzy logic‐based Trusted Routing Protocol for vehicular cloud networks (FTRP) is proposed in this study that determines the secure path for data dissemination. Fuzzy Logic determines the node candidacy value and selects or rejects a path accordingly. The cloud assigns a confidence score to each vehicle based on the data it collects from nodes after each interaction. Our study identifies the secure path on the basis of trust along with factors such as speed, closeness to other nodes, signal strength and distance from the neighbouring nodes. Simulations of the novel protocol demonstrate that it can keep the packet delivery ratio high with little overhead and low delay. FTRP has significant implications for deploying Vehicular Cloud Networks using electric vehicle technologies in smart cities. The routing data is collected with the help of Internet of Technology (IOT) sensors. The information is transmitted between vehicles using IOT gateways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About 200 cases of blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome (BRBNS) have been reported in the literature. The disorder affects both sexes equally and the occurrence is mostly sporadic except for a few reports of cases with autosomal dominant inheritance pattern. Herein we report an 11-year-old girl with progressive BRBNS and onset at 5 years of age.

The stem borer Chilo partellus (Swinhoe) is the most devastating pest that causes huge losses to agricultural productivity. Being a herbivorous insect, the starch degrading enzyme, salivary amylase, plays a crucial role in its digestive system. The characterization of salivary amylase and targeting it with potent inhibitors could help in managing the pest by hindering its normal digestive process. Therefore, we have made an attempt to characterize the enzyme and analyze its nature of interaction with organic acids and inorganic salts. The salivary amylase was purified by G-100 column chromatography to 16.02 folds and biochemically characterized. The purified fraction consisted of a-amylase activity with a single isoform of 59.26 kDa. It showed an optimum pH between 6.0 and 7.0. Its optimum temperature was 40 °C and was thermally stable up to 70 °C. Starch was the preferred substrate of salivary amylase. By critical analysis of Lineweaver-Burk, Eadie-Hofstee and Hanes plots, the Km and Vmax values of salivary amylase for starch were confirmed to be 0.49 mg/mL and 1.67 nmoles of reducing sugars formed/min/mL, respectively. Zinc chloride, calcium nitrate, salicylic acid, citric acid and oxalic acid were found to be potent inhibitors of salivary a-amylase activity. From Lineweaver-Burk, fractional velocity and combination plots, it was inferred that citric acid was a pure non-competitive inhibitor of salivary a-amylase while salicylic acid, oxalic acid and zinc chloride caused complete mixed non-competitive-competitive inhibitions. The inhibition of salivary a-amylase with calcium nitrate was of complete mixed non-competitive-uncompetitive type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the ways in which the shifting ethical perspectives of money-orientated learned individuals influence their approach towards family, career and societal bounds. For the purpose of this study, a descriptive study of 100 college students was undertaken at a leading university in north-western India by using self-administered questionnaires with stratified random sampling procedures. A principal component (factor) analysis using varimax rotation and K-means clustering were conducted. The findings indicated that consumption communicative senior poor students and lifestyle communicative young poor students have no materialistic career goals. A high prospect for integrated career and social development is a common expectation, providing the need to assess other variables affecting integrated career and social development. Ethnicity, academic discipline and gender are factors of perspective, incitement and prospects towards ethics, materialism and career and social goals. Social interaction in consumption or lifestyle also has a significant impact on materialistic career goals and integrated career and social development. By increasing communicativeness, the probability of having low materialistic career goals also increases. Materialistic career goals of students substantially influence their integrated career and social development. Social groupings and institutional gatherings may devise new ways to inculcate social and academic ethics among their affiliates. Institutional change in instilling values in staff behaviour can result in positive outcomes and a social lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The biomaterials are natural or synthetic materials used to improve quality of life either by replacing tissue/organ or assisting their function in medical field. The purpose of the study is to analyze the hydroxyapatite (HAP), HAP-TiO2 (25 percent) composite coatings deposited on 316 LSS by High Velocity Flame Spray (HVFS) technique.Design/methodology/approach The coatings exhibit almost uniform and dense microstructure with porosity (HAP = 0.153 and HAP-TiO2 composite = 0.138). Electrochemical corrosion testing was done on the uncoated and coated specimens in Ringer solution (SBF). As-sprayed coatings were characterized by XRD, SEM/EDS and cross-sectional X-ray mapping techniques before and after dipping in Ringer solution. Microhardness of composite coating (568.8 MPa) was found to be higher than HAP coating (353 MPa).Findings During investigations, it was observed that the corrosion resistance of steel was found to have increased after the deposition of HAP and HAP-TiO2 composite coatings. Thus, coatings serve as an effective diffusion barrier to prohibit the diffusion of ions from the SBF into the substrate. Composite coatings have been found to be more corrosion resistant as compared to HAP coating in the simulated body fluid.Research limitations/implications It has been concluded that corrosion resistance of HAP as well as composite coating is because of the desirable microstructural changes such as low porosity high microhardness and flat splat structures in coatings as compared to bare specimen.Practical implications This study is useful in the selection of biomedical implants.Social implications This study is useful in the field of biomaterials.Originality/value No reported literature on corrosion behavior of HAP+ 25%- TiO2 has been noted till now using flame spray technique. The main focus of the study is to investigate the HAP as well as composite coatings for biomedical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, hydroxyapatite (HAP) coating along with HAP/TiO2 coating has been deposited by high-velocity flame spray (HVFS) technique onto 316LSS. Titania was used as a bond coat and HAP as top coat in HAP/TiO2 coating. The main aim of the study is to investigate the corrosion behavior of thermal spray coating of HAP and HAP/TiO2 on steel. Electrochemical corrosion testing was carried out using potentiodynamic polarization test. The corrosion behavior of bare and as-sprayed specimens was analyzed in simulated body fluid known as Hank's solution. As-sprayed specimens along with corroded specimens were further characterized by XRD, SEM/EDS, and x-ray mapping analysis. It was observed that the HAP/TiO2 coating possessed higher microhardness (280 Hv) as compared to HAP coating (254 Hv). Surface roughness also got enhanced in case of HAP/TiO2 coating (9.35 μm) as compared to pure HAP coating (7.37 μm). The porosity of the HAP coating was found to be higher than the bond coating. It was observed that the Ca/P ratio almost resembled that of the natural bone composition. The corrosion resistance of steel increased after the deposition of HAP and HAP/TiO2 coatings. The maximum corrosion resistance was exhibited by HAP/TiO2 coating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]