Salinity is a major threat to agriculture, plants exhibits a variety of responses to salt stress that enable them to tolerate and survive in such conditions. Salinity affects physiological and biochemical processes in plants. A short term salt stress induced physiological and biochemical response were observed in P. glaucum. The experiment was conducted to understand the influence of salinity on seed germination, proline and free amino acid accumulation in P. glaucum. It was observed that as the salt concentration increased the germination percentage decreased as compared to control as well as the root/shoot length also decreased. This suggests that salinity greatly influences the germination as well as the plant growth. The levels ofbiochemical components proline and free amino acid were measured during the salt stressed condition. The 14 days old seedlings were subjected to 4 salt treatments (50, 100, 150 and 200 mM NaCI), free proline and free amino acids was calculated at 0, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96th hour. Proline and free amino acid content in the salt stressed tissues increased with increase in salt concentration as well as with duration of salt stress. This result suggests that proline and free amino acid acids acts as compatible solutes in P. glaucum to protect the cellular macromolecules, maintain the osmotic balance and also scavenge the free radicals under salt stressed condition.

Health care-associated infection (HCAI) is an infection that a person acquires in hospital after 24 hours of his/her admission. A health care worker (HCW) does not have any right to provide another infection to in-patients. While caring the patients, HCW innocently or otherwise can transmit various pathogens to the patient. It is both ethically and legally wrong and HCW is answerable for it. The current study was conducted with the objectives to find out the rate of presence of pathogens at the patient care equipments & supplies, to identify the most common pathogens present at the patient care equipments & supplies and to identify such equipments & supplies that are at high risk of contamination. Investigator collected 1,145 samples of different equipments & supplies used for patient care from operation theaters, labour room & medical wards of a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi. The sample was collected from April 2012 to April 2013 by random sampling. Out of 1,145 samples, 112 were positive or contaminated with certain kind of pathogen. The finding revealed that the contamination rate of patient care equipments & supplies is 9.78 percent. The most common and frequent pathogen present at the equipments & supplies is Pseudomonas (39.29%) and water of oxygen humidifier is most commonly and frequently infected (47.32%). Nurses as the backbone of hospital should strictly adhere to the policies and protocols of the institution. She/he must update the knowledge of infection control practices and various methods of controlling HCAI including hand hygiene, disinfection of patient care equipments & supplies and cleanliness of environment. A Nurse should also transmit this knowledge to other team members so as to minimise the health care-associated infection rate.