Journal of the Indian Institute of Science最新文献

Given the specified importance of dietary diversity in reducing the burden of malnutrition, our study explores the reasons for the high rate of malnutrition in India through assessment of a comprehensive range of ecosystem factors leading to poor nutrients intake. The study uses the Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) to investigate preschoolers, through differences in wealth, gender, and health. Demographic and Health Survey (2015–16) data of 1,40,470 preschool children between the ages of 2–5 years, is investigated using the Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. Multiple linear regression models developed to investigate the association between variables, depict the importance of vaccination (p-value < 0.01, 95% CI 0.02–0.06) as positively impacting the outcome measures. Interestingly, overall wealth index does not impact the dietary diversity of the child. The lower wealth index, however, significantly impacts the DDS of the female child as compared to the male child (p-value < 0.1, 95% CI − 0.03 to 0.02), indicating that the lower wealth index plays a role in developing the non-egalitarian gender attitudes for female children. Policy implications involve adapting biofortified foods with higher density of nutrients with major focus on female children to minimize the gender gap and leveraging the digital technology such as telemedicine, and advanced techniques such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data to offer real-time surveillance to address the healthcare needs in the ongoing immunization programs.

About a decade ago Bertolini–Darmon–Prasanna proved a p-adic Waldspurger formula, which expresses values of an anticyclotomic p-adic L-function associated to an elliptic curve (E_{/{mathbb {Q}}}) outside its defining range of interpolation in terms of the p-adic logarithm of Heegner points on E. In the ensuing decade an insight of Skinner based on the p-adic Waldspurger formula has initiated a progress towards the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for elliptic curves over ({mathbb {Q}}), especially rank one aspects. In this note we outline some of this recent progress.

This paper provides background to articles in the special issue. It is aimed at readers who are not experts in statistics and may not be familiar with sequence of developments in topics covered. Reader will find very non-technical material about the role of statistics in genetics, health, evolution, survival analysis, etc.

The article has been organized along three general themes: health and the wider ecological systems, diet and finally, and crucially, the role of the physician. It weaves the related discussions from both of us: Each theme begins with some reflections of Dr. Rao's over the past few decades and then introduces some critical concepts and evidence pertaining to planetary health, defined as the health of human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends. Our objectives are that by reading this article, you should be able to: 1. Reflect on how the clinical presentation of the patient who seeks your consultation is a result of not just biology and psychology but also a function of his or her social, ecological (or environmental), economic-political context and the state and design of the health care delivery system. 2. Incorporate practical steps on a daily basis to reconcile the complexities of context and the more immediate needs of patient care by the following: a. Cultivate curiosity b. Find time for reflective practice, practice-based research, writing, teaching and mentoring c. Engage with the world beyond medicine and transactional networks d. Be mindful of your food and where your food comes from e. Spend time working with the community f. Engage and encourage engagement with nature 3. As a physician, embrace your role as an influencer and catalyst within society with the ability and opportunity to promote not just individual health but also social and planetary well-being.

Permutation symmetric multiqubit quantum states draw attention due to their experimental feasibility and for the mathematical elegance offered by them. This class of states belong to the (d=2j+1=N+1) dimensional subspace of the (2^{N}) dimensional Hilbert space of N qubits, which corresponds to the maximum value (j=N/2) of the angular momentum of N constituent spin-(frac{1}{2}) (qubit) systems. In this article, we review quantum correlations in permutation symmetric multiqubit states via (i) local unitary invariants, pairwise entanglement and spin squeezing (ii) entanglement characterization using covariance matrix (iii) local sum uncertainty relations (LSUR) for symmetric multiqubit systems (iv) Majorana geometric representation of pure symmetric multiqubit states (v) canonical forms of pure symmetric states under stochastic local operations and classical communications (SLOCC).

In the century following its discovery, applications for quantum physics are opening a new world of technological possibilities. With the current decade witnessing quantum supremacy, quantum technologies are already starting to change the ways information is generated, transmitted, stored and processed. The next major milestone in quantum technology is already rapidly emerging—the quantum internet. Since light is the most logical candidate for quantum communication, quantum photonics is a critical enabling technology. This paper reviews the hardware aspects of the quantum internet, mainly from a photonics perspective. Though a plethora of quantum technologies and devices have emerged in recent years, we are more focused on devices or components that may enable the quantum internet. Our approach is primarily qualitative, providing a broad overview of the necessary technologies for a large-scale quantum internet.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the inadequacies of our current health systems and rekindled the debate around universal health care, the Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System was launched in late 2020. As a part of the commission, we articulated how technology can enable universal health care. We begin by stating the foundational values—a set of normative statements—that should underpin the use of technology in our health systems. Then, after summarising the paradigm shifts necessary to achieve citizen-centred universal health care, we articulate five ‘technology levers’ to enable those shifts. Finally, we describe the intersections and synergies between technology and the other pillars of health systems, namely, human resources, financing, governance and citizens’ engagement.

The current pandemic caused by the SARS CoV-2, tracing back its origin possibly to a coronavirus associated with bats, has ignited renewed interest in understanding zoonotic spillovers across the globe. While research is more directed towards solving the problem at hand by finding therapeutic strategies and novel vaccine techniques, it is important to address the environmental drivers of pathogen spillover and the complex biotic and abiotic drivers of zoonoses. The availability of cutting-edge genomic technologies has contributed enormously to preempt viral emergence from wildlife. However, there is still a dearth of studies from species-rich South Asian countries, especially from India. In this review, we outline the importance of studying disease dynamics through environmental sampling from wildlife in India and how ecological parameters of both the virus and the host community may play a role in mediating cross-species spillovers. Non-invasive sampling using feces, urine, shed hair, saliva, shed skin, and feathers has been instrumental in providing genetic information for both the host and their associated pathogens. Here, we discuss the advances made in environmental sampling protocols and strategies to generate genetic data from such samples towards the surveillance and characterization of potentially zoonotic pathogens. We primarily focus on bat-borne or small mammal-borne zoonoses and propose a conceptual framework for non-invasive strategies to tackle the threat of emerging zoonotic infections.

The quantum computing devices of today have tens to hundreds of qubits that are highly susceptible to noise due to unwanted interactions with their environment. The theory of quantum error correction provides a scheme by which the effects of such noise on quantum states can be mitigated, paving the way for realising robust, scalable quantum computers. In this article we survey the current landscape of quantum error correcting (QEC) codes, focusing on recent theoretical advances in the domain of noise-adapted QEC, and highlighting some key open questions. We also discuss the interesting connections that have emerged between such adaptive QEC techniques and fundamental physics, especially in the areas of many-body physics and cosmology. We conclude with a brief review of the theory of quantum fault tolerance which gives a quantitative estimate of the physical noise threshold below which error-resilient quantum computation is possible.