Long-Term Trend in Infant Mortality in India: A Joinpoint Regression Analysis for 1971–2018

Infant mortality rate (IMR) in India remains high by international standards. India accounts for the largest number of global infant deaths. This study analyses the trend in IMR in India over almost four decades beginning 1971 through 2018. The analysis is based on annual estimates of IMR available through India’s official sample registration system and follows the joinpoint regression analysis approach. The analysis reveals that the trend in IMR in India changed three times during 1971–2018 and the pace of decrease has been different in different sub-periods with a considerable deceleration in the decrease during 1992–2006. It is only after the launch of National Rural Health Mission in 2005 that the decrease in IMR in India and selected states accelerated to more than 4 per cent per year.

Pre-Concentration and Analysis of Mycotoxins in Food Samples by Capillary Electrophoresis

Mycotoxins are considered one of the most dangerous agricultural and food contaminants. They are toxic and the development of rapid and sensitive analytical methods to detect and quantify them is a very important issue in the context of food safety and animal/human health. The need to detect mycotoxins at trace levels and to simultaneously analyze many different mycotoxin types became mandatory to protect public health. In fact, European Commission regulations specified both their limits in foodstuffs and official sample preparation protocols in addition to analytical methods to verify their presence. Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) includes different separation modes, allowing many versatile applications in food analysis and safety. In the context of mycotoxins, recent advances to improve CE sensitivity, particularly pre-concentration techniques or miniaturized systems, deserve remarkable attention, as they provide an interesting approach in the analysis of such contaminants in complex food matrices. This review summarizes the applications of CE combined with different pre-concentration approaches, which have been proposed in the literature (mainly) in the last ten years. A section is also dedicated to recent microchip–CE devices since they represent the most promising CE mode for this application.

Sample Collection and Sample Preparation Techniques for Aflatoxin Determination in Whole Cottonseed

The present paper describes a comparative study between sampling devices used In the official sampling plan for Arizona cottonseed and a device that provides a smaller sampling size. The official sample must be greater than 30 lbs from at least ten 3 lb probes/cottonseed lot, not exceeding 100 tons. This Is accomplished using a Probe-A-Vac pneumatic or corkscrew sampler with a 3 in. diameter X 50 In. probe. The alternative sampling device evaluated In this study uses a modified shop-vac wet-dry vacuum with a 0.75 in. diameter X 100 in. probe. Ten 1 lb probes were taken for a total sample size of 10 lbs. Aflatoxin concentrations in cottonseed samples taken using both sampling probes at adjacent points throughout the lot were determined with an AOAC thin-layer chromatographic method (26.052-26.059, 14th Ed., 980.20AH, 15th Ed.). Mean total aflatoxin concentrations for Probe-AVac vs shop-vac samples from 39 lots (1987-1988 crop year) and 21 lots (1988-1989 crop year) were 76.6 vs 68.5 and 39.5 vs 30.7 µg/kg, respectively. Long staple cottonseed was sampled using a long staple trier (LS Trier), an alternative for which may be the shop-vac system. Mean total aflatoxin concentrations for LS Trier vs shop-vac for 7 lots (1988-1989 crop year) were 9.4 vs 5.1, µg/kg respectively. Also, an ultracentrlfugal mill has proven to be highly versatile for both denuding and grinding cottonseed to be tested under both laboratory and nonlaboratory situations.